The

numbers set within the text of this edition refer to the corresponding lines of the Greek text in the great modern

edition of Aristotle’s work published between 1831 and 1870 by the Berlin Academy. The pagination of the Berlin edition

has become the customary means by which to locate a passage of Aristotle. A reference to, say, Metaphysics xii. 10.

1075a25 would place the passage in question in Chapter 10 of Book 12 of the Metaphysics, on line 25 of the first column,

i. e., column a, of page 1075 of the Berlin edition.

Copyright © 1941 by Random House, Inc.

Biographical note copyright © 1947 by Random House, Inc.

Introduction copyright © 2001 by C.D.C. Reeve

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and

simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

MODERN LIBRARY and the TORCHBEARER Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Aristotle.
[Selections. English. 2001]

The basic works of Aristotle / edited by Richard McKeon; introduction by C.D.C. Reeve

p. cm.—(Modern Library classics)

Originally published: New York: Random House, © 1941. With new intro.

eISBN: 978-0-307-41752-7
1. Philosophy. I. McKeon, Richard Peter, 1900— II. Title. III. Series.

B407 .A2713 2001 185—dc21 2001030607

Modern Library website address: www.modernlibrary.com

v3.1_r1
 ARISTOTLE

Aristotle was born in 384/3 B.C. in the little town of Stagira on the
eastern coast of the peninsula of Chalcidice in Thrace. His father,
Nicomachus, was court physician and, according to tradition, friend of
Amyntas II, king of Macedon and father of Philip the Great. Nicomachus
died while Aristotle was still a child, and he was raised by Proxenus of
Atarneus, whose son Nicanor was later adopted, in turn, by Aristotle and
was married to Aristotle’s daughter. In 368/7, at the age of eighteen,
Aristotle was sent to Athens, where he remained in close association
with the Academy of Plato for twenty years, until the death of Plato in
348/7. After Plato’s death he left Athens and, together with Xenocrates,
visited the court of Hermias, a former member of the Academy who had
become tyrant of Assos and Atarneus in Mysia in Asia Minor. Aristotle
married Hermias’ niece Pythias, and he probably taught at a kind of
Academic center in Assos. Somewhat later he went to Mitylene in
Lesbos, where he doubtless engaged in biological research. In 343/2, on
the invitation of Philip of Macedon, he became tutor to Alexander. The
instruction probably extended only to 340, when Alexander was
appointed regent for his father, but his tutor did not return to Athens
until 335/4, a year after the death of Philip.
The next twelve years Aristotle devoted with extraordinary industry to
the establishment of a school, the Lyceum, to the institution and pursuit
of a program of investigation, speculation, and teaching in almost every
branch of knowledge, and to the composition of all, or most, or at least
the more scientific portions, of those of his writings which are now
extant. When Alexander died in 323, Aristotle’s Macedonian connections
brought him under suspicion and he fled Athens lest, as he is said to
have remarked, the Athenians sin twice against philosophy. An
accusation of impiety was brought against him, not unlike those which
had been brought against Anaxagoras and Protagoras or that on which
Socrates had been condemned. The specific charge was that he had
instituted a private cult in the memory of his friend Hermias, since he
had erected a statue to him at Delphi and had composed a poem, in
what was alleged to be the manner of a paean, in his honor. He took
refuge under the protection of Antipater, viceroy to Alexander, in
Chalcis in Euboea, where he died in 322 a short time before the death of
Demosthenes.
Most of the scant information that has come to us concerning the life
of Aristotle is suggestive, but there is little positive evidence, in his
works or in external sources, to support inferences concerning the
formative forces that influenced his work. Since his father was a
physician, he was a hereditary member of the guild of Asclepiads, and it
is tempting to speculate on the youthful beginnings of his interest in
biological investigations and his possible training in dissection,
pharmacology, and medicine; but his father died when he was young,
and there is no evidence in his works of an early training in medicine.
He spent twenty years in the Academy; that period has been used as
evidence of a close association with Plato which resulted in a deep
impress on his thought, but it has also been argued, by scholars like
Burnet and Taylor, that Plato was not in the Academy at the time of
Aristotle’s arrival, that he was away for repeated and lengthy periods
during Aristotle’s stay, and that Aristotle’s knowledge of Platonism was
acquired at secondhand and was never accurate. We do not know how
he spent his time at the Academy: there is an ancient tradition that he
undertook the teaching of rhetoric in opposition to the flourishing school
of Isocrates; it seems probable that he participated in the biological
research which was flourishing at the Academy; the fragments of his
early dialogues suggest that he wrote works intended to popularize
Platonism. His reasons for leaving Athens on the death of Plato can only
be conjectured: he may have been dissatisfied with the prospects of the
Academy under Plato’s nephew and successor Speusippus, who seemed
to Aristotle to have reduced metaphysics to mathematics, or Speusippus
may have charged Aristotle and Xenocrates to open a branch of the
Academy in Asia Minor. He probably taught in Assos; there is evidence
in his biological writings that he collected specimens of animals and fish
in Lesbos and in the waters adjacent to the island; he doubtless began
the composition of some of the works that have survived during his
travels.
In spite of the fact that the relation between Aristotle and Alexander
has been a tempting subject for speculation since Plutarch and that the
ambition to influence kings through philosophy was deeply implanted in
the Academy, there is no evidence that Aristotle had any influence on
the moral ideals or political ambitions of his royal pupil, and Aristotle in
turn seems to have taken no account of the effects of the ideal of world
empire on the forms of political association and on the possible survival
of the Greek city-state. There is good reason to doubt the accuracy of the
legend that Alexander sent records of astronomical observations and
biological specimens to his former master from the East. His writings
contain interesting sidelights on the methods and adjuncts of teaching in
the Lyceum, but the relation of his writings to the work of the Lyceum,
and even the order of their composition, are far from clear. Since they
are obviously not “published” works, it has been supposed that they are
“lecture-notes,” notes of students, or records of research and thought,
brought periodically up to date, for consultation by advanced students.
Since the structure of his doctrines is complex, and since he was long
associated with the Academy and later a persistent critic of the doctrines
of the Academy, his works have been chopped into pieces by critics
seeking an evolution in them from Platonic idealism to scientific
empiricism.
The period of Aristotle’s manhood coincided with the reduction of the
Greek city-states to the hegemony of Macedonia and the twelve or
thirteen years of his work in the Lyceum with the campaigns of
Alexander the Great. Hermias was doubtless a kind of advance-guard of
Philip’s projects against the Persians; Philip’s choice of Aristotle as tutor
to Alexander associated him closely with the political fortunes of
Macedonia; and Alexander doubtless suspected him of complicity in the
plot against his life for which Aristotle’s nephew Callisthenes was
executed; it is highly probable that the Lyceum received support and
endowments from Callisthenes, Antipater, or even Alexander. In an
important sense an epoch of Greek history was brought to a close when
Alexander, Aristotle, and Demosthenes all died within somewhat more
than a year.
The life of Aristotle was thus spent in a period which has seemed
confused and dim to historians who have learned from Demosthenes to
see it as the time of the loss of Greek liberties and the decline of Greek
ideals; it has seemed a period of stirring action which came close to the
fulfillment of an ambitious hope to those who see in the growth of
panhellenism preached by Isocrates the beginnings of more stable
political organizations and in the exploits of Alexander the spread of
Greek ideals. Aristotle spent a large part of his life as an alien in Athens,
and he seems to have been unsympathetic with, if not unmindful of, the
ambitions of Alexander. Contemporary political events and social
changes left few marks on his political and moral philosophy, and the
search for effects of social conditions in his metaphysics and in his
contributions to science has led only to speculative generalizations
concerning the influence of environment on thought: to the conclusion
that the existence of classes in society suggested hierarchies in his
conception of the universe, that slave labor led him to neglect the
mechanical arts and prefer the theoretic to the practical sciences, that
his theories were therefore verbal rather than based on the resources of
experience, and that his physical principles reflected his conception of
political rule. Apart from such speculations, it is clear that the peace
which was forced on Athens by Macedonian domination permitted
Aristotle to organize a course of studies and to initiate a vast scheme of
research into the history of political organizations, of science, and
philosophy—the study of constitutions of Greek states, of the history of
mathematics and medicine, and of the opinions of philosophers—as well
as into the natural history of minerals, plants, and animals, and to lay
the foundations thereby for one of the first attempts at an encyclopedic
organization of human knowledge.
Richard McKeon
 CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
How to Use Chapter and Footnote Links
PREFACE by Richard McKeon
INTRODUCTION by C.D.C. Reeve
ORGANON (The collection of Aristotle’s logical treatises)
CATEGORIAE (Categories) (complete)
DE INTERPRETATIONE (On Interpretation) (complete)
ANALYTICA PRIORA (Prior Analytics) (Book I, Chapters 1–7, 13, 23–31; Book II, Chapters
16–27)
ANALYTICA POSTERIORA (Posterior Analytics) (complete)
TOPICA (Topics) (Book I; Books II–VIII omitted)
DE SOPHISTICIS ELENCHIS (On Sophistical Refutations) (Chapters 1–3 and 34; [Chapters 4–
33 omitted])

PHYSICA (Physics) (complete)

DE CAELO (On the Heavens) (Books I, II [Chapters 13 and 14], III and
IV; [Chapters 1–12 of Book II omitted])
DE GENERATIONE ET CORRUPTIONE (On Generation and Corruption)
(complete)
DE ANIMA (On the Soul) (complete)
PARVA NATURALIA (The Short Physical Treatises)
DE MEMORIA ET REMINISCENTIA (On Memory and Reminiscence) (complete)
DE SOMNIIS (On Dreams) (complete)
DE DIVINATIONE PER SOMNUM (On Prophesying by Dreams) (complete)

HISTORIA ANIMALIUM (The History of Animals) (Book V, Chapter 1;

Book VIII, Chapter 1; Book IX, Chapter 1)
DE PARTIBUS ANIMALIUM (On the Parts of Animals) (Book I, Chapters
1–5; Book II, Chapter 1)
DE GENERATIONE ANIMALIUM (On the Generation of Animals) (Book
I, Chapters 1, 17–18, 20–23)
METAPHYSICA (Metaphysics) (complete)
ETHICA NICOMACHEA (Nicomachean Ethics) (complete)
POLITICA (Politics) (complete)
RHETORICA (Rhetoric) (Books I and II complete; Book III, Chapters 1,
13–19 [Chapters 2–12 omitted])
DE POETICA (Poetics) (complete)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

ARISTOTLE
 How to Use Chapter and Footnote Links

This eBook edition allows you to click to specific sections via the chapter
and footnote links included throughout the text.

At the beginning of each work, you can click on the individual chapter
numbers in the Contents listing to go to a specific section of that work.
Click the number at the start of that section to go back to the Contents
listing.

Within the works, you can click on footnotes to access explanatory notes
or references to other works. Click the number at the beginning of a
footnote to return to your place within the text.
 PREFACE

The study of an ancient writer might appropriately envisage one or

more of three objectives: the re-discovery and appreciation of past
accomplishments and thoughts, the assemblage for present employment
of odd, edifying, or useful items of information or knowledge, or the
inquiry into truths whose specifications do not change with time.
Although these three ends sometimes coincide in the reading of a
philosopher who has been studied for centuries, the usual fate of
philosophers, notwithstanding the concern for truth evinced in their
writings, is to suffer doctrinal dismemberment by later philosophers and
to undergo at the hands of historians and philologists reconstructions in
which doctrine is barely discernible. As a result of the possible
diversification of these ends, the influences that have been attributed to
the thoughts of philosophers are not always easily calculable from
examination of their own statements, yet the paradoxes, no less than the
cumulative lines of progress, in intellectual history suggest the three
ideals relevant to an introduction to the philosophy of Aristotle and
selections from his works.
An introduction to the works of a philosopher should, first, since it is
intended to supply aids to understanding the man and his thought, be
specific and clear in its authentication of the information it conveys. The
words of the philosopher himself are the best means by which to achieve
such authenticity, and therefore the works of Aristotle have been
reproduced intact and unabridged so far as the generous limits of space
in this large volume have made such reproduction practicable and,
where omissions have been unavoidable, the fact of the omission and the
character of the omitted portions have been indicated as explicitly as
possible. To select and rearrange small fragments of a philosopher’s
works is to recompose them and often to alter the doctrines they express.
Therefore instead of parcels and snatches selected and pieced together
with an eye to what seems more likely to catch the interest of the reader,
the entire texts of seven of the most important books are included, and
even when omissions have been made from the other seven works of
which parts are published in this edition, entire books or entire chapters
have been retained.
The vast labors which have been expended on the text of Aristotle
during the last century have greatly facilitated the study of his
philosophy. The monumental Oxford translation of his works into
English, completed in 1931, was made possible by antecedent scholarly
efforts, in which philologists have engaged at least since the publication
of the great modern edition of Aristotle’s works by the Berlin Academy
between 1831 and 1870, to determine and to clarify what Aristotle says.
That translation is readable and makes Aristotle’s philosophy available
to readers untrained in Greek as no previous English translation had. The
eleven volumes of the Oxford translation can be reduced to a single
volume, once the clearly inauthentic works have been excluded from
consideration, without too serious loss of portions that bear on problems
of general philosophic interest. The texts of seven works are complete:
the Physics, On generation and corruption, On the soul, the Metaphysics, the
Nicomachean ethics, the Politics, and the Poetics. For the most part
omissions are from the four biological works; several of the Short natural
treatises are omitted; of the physical works only the Meteorology and a
portion of one of the four books of On the heavens are omitted; similarly
three of the six books of the Organon and one of the three books of the
Rhetoric are in part omitted; the Constitution of Athens is not included. Of
the works which are commonly held to be authentic only three are not
reproduced even in partial selection—the Meteorology, On the progression
of animals, and the Constitution of Athens; or, if the tendency to accept On
the motion of animals and the Eudemian ethics as genuine is justified, the
number omitted is five, although it might be held, since three books of
the Nicomachean ethics appear without alteration in the Eudemian ethics,
that selections from the latter work may be found in the text of the
former.
Explanatory notes and cross references by which difficult passages and
interrelations have been elucidated by the translators have for the most
part been retained. Purely philological notes, on the other hand, have
been omitted, although major problems which have led to emendations,
interpolations, and transpositions are indicated. The pagination of the
Bekker edition of the Greek text of Aristotle, which is published in the
first two of the five volumes of the Berlin edition, has become the
customary means to locate a passage in Aristotle, and it has therefore
been reproduced within the text of the present edition. Thus, a reference
to, say, Metaphysics xiii. 4. 1078b27, would place the passage in question
in Chapter 4 of Book 13 (or Book M) of the Metaphysics, on line 27 of the
second column, i. e. column b, of page 1078 of the Berlin edition. Since
the two volumes are paged continuously, no special designation of the
volumes is needed; since the line references are to lines in the Greek
text, they are of course only approximate in the English translation.
To make a difficult writer like Aristotle available in translation
without, in the second place, supplying the dubious reader with more
specific and urgent motivation for study than the recommendation that
Aristotle is of the select group of timelessly great philosophers would
scarcely constitute adequate introduction to his philosophy. For good or
evil our interests and our erudition are grounded in the age in which we
live, and the justice of our view of the past is moderated by the
contemporary angle which can never be wholly removed from the
perspective in which we see it. The words, the aphorisms, the
distinctions, and even the ideas of Aristotle have in many instances
become commonplaces in our culture and in other instances have been
made the familiar whipping horses by which we castigate old errors and
so boast of our own advances. It is wise to profit by our limitations and
to make the familiar vestiges of a philosopher’s thoughts in present-day
inquiries and interests the beginning point of the study of his
philosophy. The ordered presentation of Aristotle’s doctrines in the
Introduction finds its emphases precisely in such vestigial remains
selected as points of interest for the reader who comes to Aristotle for
renewed acquaintance or for the first time.
An introduction to a philosopher which did no more than confirm the
student in established opinions, or an edition whose apparatus did no
more than supply the reader with instruments by which to find what he
had conceived to be useful prior to his reading of the philosopher and
prior to philosophic analysis of his standards of utility, would aid the
reader to find what he was looking for but at the expense of its subject,
for the philosophy would almost certainly not be understood, and
misconceived philosophic doctrines, however ingeniously contrived, are
of doubtful ultimate utility. The third objective of an introduction to the
works of a philosopher, to which the preceding two must be subordinate
since there is no adequate reason for reading the works of a philosopher
other than the philosophy they express, is more easily obscured than
achieved by aids to reading or to philosophy. Some aid is needed,
however, and therefore a method of reading Aristotle’s works is
suggested in the Introduction by a brief statement of the interrelations
and continuity of his doctrines. The reader is advised to treat this
interpretation skeptically until and unless he can find it confirmed in his
own reading of the text, for it is useful only as a device by which to
permit Aristotle to speak for himself. The achievement of Aristotle can
be discovered only by reading and rereading his works, and the
appreciation of that achievement depends quite as much on the
deepened sense of value and the precision of criteria which he inculcates
as on the materials he treats. The Middle Ages may seem to have
exaggerated in calling him the Philosopher, but the understanding of
what he said is still an unparalleled introduction to philosophy.
It is as difficult to reconstruct some notion of the appearance of
Aristotle as to determine the lineaments and characteristics of his
thought. The representation of him which was most familiar a
generation ago, the statue in the Palazzo Spada in Rome, is almost
certainly not a portrait of Aristotle. It was long supposed to be Aristotle
because of its fragmentary inscription which should in all probability be
restored more correctly as “Aristippos,” and in any case the head does
not belong to the statue. The portrait reproduced as the frontispiece, a
bust in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, has rather better claim
to rank as a genuine portrait of Aristotle, although the identification
rests on a tortuous argument. As proposed by Studniczka (Das Bildnis des
Aristoteles; Leipzig, 1908), the identification goes back to a bust which
was found in Rome about 1590 and which was bought by the learned
antiquary Fulvio Orsini. It was identified by an inscription on its base.
This bust is lost, but two drawings, one of them by Rubens, have
survived. A family of twelve busts, varying in quality, preservation, and
probable date, has been assembled, which seem, from their close
correspondence, not only to represent one man but to imitate one
original portrait, and which further, from their similarity to two
drawings of the lost bust, may be portraits of Aristotle. The identification
is plausible, though by no means certain. The style places the original
portrait approximately in the time of Aristotle, and of the twelve extant
busts the Vienna head probably gives the best idea of the original. The
nose is almost entirely modern, but there is little other restoration.
Several features ascribed to Aristotle by ancient tradition may be seen in
these portraits: small eyes, short beard, and thinning hair.
Grateful acknowledgment is hereby extended to the Oxford University
Press for permission to reprint the translation of the works of Aristotle
prepared under the editorship of W. D. Ross. The arduous task of reading
proof, checking quotations, and preparing the enormous materials of this
volume for publication was rendered manageable by the assistance of
Dr. Herbert Lamm and Dr. Meyer W. Isenberg, while the actual
consummation of the task was not only facilitated by the co-operation of
the staff of Random House, but is largely due to the jogging
encouragement and reproaches of Mr. Bennett A. Cerf and Mr. Saxe
Commins.
RICHARD MCKEON
 INTRODUCTION
C.D.C. Reeve

Aristotle’s Writings
A list of Aristotle’s papers, probably made in the third century B.C.,
seems to describe most of his extant writings, as well as a number of
works—some in dialogue form—that are now lost. When Sulla captured
Athens in 87 B.C., these papers were brought to Rome, where they were
edited, organized into different treatises, and arranged in a logical
sequence by Andronicus of Rhodes in around 30 B.C. Most of the writings
he thought to be genuinely Aristotelian have been transmitted to us via
manuscript copies produced between the ninth and the sixteenth
centuries.
These writings, of which the present volume include a rich selection,
may be classified as follows: logic, dialectic, metaphysics: Categories, On
Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Topics, On Sophistical Refutations,
Metaphysics; science and philosophy of science: Posterior Analytics,
Physics, On the Heavens, On Generation and Corruption, Meteorology,
History of Animals, On the Parts of Animals, On the Motion of Animals, On
the Progression of Animals, On the Generation of Animals; psychology and
philosophy of mind: On the Soul, Sense and Sensibilia, On Memory and
Reminiscence, On Sleep, On Dreams, On Prophesying by Dreams, On Length
and Shortness of Life, On Youth, Old Age, Life and Death, Respiration; ethics
and politics: Nicomachean Ethics, Magna Moralia, Eudemian Ethics, Politics,
Rhetoric, Constitution of Athens; aesthetics: Poetics.
The most credible view of these writings is that they are lecture notes
written or dictated by Aristotle himself and not intended for publication.
Their organization into treatises and the internal organization of the
treatises into books and chapters may, however, not be his. No doubt
this accounts for some, though not all, of their legendary and manifest
difficulty.
The Aristotelian World
Of the various things that exist in the world described in Aristotle’s
writings, “some exist by nature, some from other causes” (Physics 192b8–
9). Those that exist by nature have a nature of their own, an internal
source of movement, growth, and alteration (192b13–15). Thus, for
example, a feline embryo has within it a source that explains why it
grows into a cat, why that cat moves and alters in the ways it does, and
why it eventually decays and dies. A house or any other artifact, by
contrast, has no such source within it; instead, the source is “in
something else external to the thing,” namely, the craftsman who
manufactures it (Physics 192b30–31; also Metaphysics 1032a32–b10).
A thing’s nature is the same as its essence or function, which is the
same as its end, or that for the sake of which it exists. For its end just is
to actualize its nature by performing its function (Nicomachean Ethics
1168a6–9), and something that cannot perform its function ceases to be
what it is except in name (On the Parts of Animals 640b33–641a6, Politics
1253a23–25). Aristotle’s view of natural beings is therefore teleological:
He sees them as being defined by an end (telos) for which they are
striving, and as needing to have their behavior explained by reference to
it. It is this end, essence, or function that fixes what the good for that
being consists in, and what its virtues or excellences are (Nicomachean
Ethics 1098a7–20, Physics 195a23–25).
Most natural things, as well as the products of art or craft, are
hylomorphic compounds, compounds of matter (hulě) and form
(morphě). Statues are examples: Their matter is the stone or metal from
which they are made; their form is their shape. Human beings are also
examples: Their matter is (roughly speaking) their body; their soul is
their form. Thus a person’s soul is not something separable from his
body, but is more like the structural organization responsible for his
body’s being alive and functioning appropriately.
While the natures of such compounds owe something to their matter
and something to their form, what they owe to form is more important
(Metaphysics 1025b26–1026a6, Physics 193b6–7). For example, a human
being can survive through change in his matter (we are constantly
metabolizing), but if his form is changed, he ceases to exist (Politics
1276b1–13). That is why the sort of investigation into human beings we
find in De Anima and in ethical and political treatises focuses on souls
rather than bodies.
These souls consist of distinct, hierarchically organized constituents
(Nicomachean Ethics, bk. I, ch. 13). The lowest rung in the hierarchy is
the vegetative soul, which is responsible for nutrition and growth, and
which is also found in plants and other animals. At the next rung up, we
find appetitive soul, which is responsible for perception, imagination,
and movement, and so is present in other animals too, but not in plants.
This sort of soul lacks reason but, unlike the vegetative, can be
influenced by it. The third element in the human soul is reason. It is
divided into the scientific element, which enables us to contemplate or
engage in theoretical activity, and the calculative or deliberative
element, which enables us to engage in practical and political activity
(Nicomachean Ethics 1097b33–1098a8, 1139a3–b5).
Because the human soul contains these different elements, the human
good might be defined by properties exemplified by all three of them or
by properties exemplified by only some of them. In the famous function
argument from the Nicomachean Ethics, bk. I, ch. 7, Aristotle argues for
the latter alternative: The human good is happiness, which is “an active
life of the element that has a rational principle” (1098a3–4). The
problem is that the scientific and the deliberative element both fit this
description. Human happiness might, therefore, consist in practical
political activity, or in contemplative theorizing, or in a mixture of both.
Even a brief glance at Nicomachean Ethics, bk. X, chs. 6–8 will reveal
how hard it is to determine which of these Aristotle has in mind.

Aristotelian Sciences
The Aristotelian sciences provide us with knowledge of the world, how
to live successfully in it, and how to produce what we need to do so.
Hence they fall into three distinct types:
I. Theoretical sciences: theology, philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences.
II. Practical sciences: ethics, household management, statesmanship, which is divided into
legislation and politics, with politics being further divided into deliberative science and
judicial science (Nicomachean Ethics 1141b29–32).
III. Productive sciences (crafts, arts): medicine, building, etc.
 Of these, the theoretical ones are the Aristotelian paradigm, since they
provide us with knowledge of universal necessary truths. The extent to
which ethics or statesmanship fit the paradigm, however, is less clear.
One reason for this is that a huge part of these sciences has to do not
with universal principles of the sort one finds in physics, but with
particular cases, whose near infinite variety cannot easily be summed up
in a formula (Nicomachean Ethics 1109b21, Rhetoric 1374a18–b23). The
knowledge of what justice is may well be scientific knowledge, but to
know what justice requires in a particular case one also needs equity,
which is a combination of virtue and a trained eye (Nicomachean Ethics,
bk. V, ch. 10). Perhaps, then, we should think of practical sciences as
having something like a theoretically scientific core, but as not being
reducible to it.

Theoretical Science
Each Aristotelian theoretical science deals with a genus—a natural
class of beings that have forms or essences (Posterior Analytics 87a38–39,
Metaphysics 1003b19–21). When appropriately regimented, it may be set
out as a structure of demonstrations, the indemonstrable first principles
of which are definitions of those essences. More precisely, the first
principles special to biology, or to some other science that applies to
only a part of reality, are like this. Others that are common to all
sciences—such as the principle of non-contradiction and other logical
principles—have a somewhat different character. Since all these first
principles are necessary truths, and demonstration is a type of deductive
inference, scientific theorems are also necessary.
Though we cannot grasp a first principle by demonstrating it from yet
more primitive principles, it must—if we are to have any unqualified
scientific knowledge at all—be “better known” to us than any of the
science’s theorems (Nicomachean Ethics 1139b33–34). This better
knowledge is provided by intuition (nous), and the process by which
principles come within intuition’s ken is induction (1139b28–29,
1141a7–8).
Induction begins with perception of particulars, which gives rise to
retention of perceptual contents, or memories (Posterior Analytics 100a1–
3). From a unified set of such memories experience arises (100a3–6),
“when, from many notions gained by experience, one universal
supposition about similar objects is produced” (Metaphysics 981a1–7).
Getting from particulars to universals, therefore, is a largely
noninferential process. If we simply attend to particular cases—perhaps
to all, perhaps to just one—and have some acumen, we will get there
(Prior Analytics 68b15–29, Posterior Analytics 88a12–17, 89b10–13).
When these universals are appropriately analyzed into their “elements
(stoicheia) and first principles,” they become intrinsically clear and
unqualifiedly known (Physics 184a16–21).
A universal essence is something out there in the world. Its analogue
in a scientific theory, however, is a definition similar in structure to it
(Metaphysics 1034b20–22). That is why the first principles of the sciences
are not essences, but definitions of them.
The inductive path to first principles and scientific knowledge begins
with perception of particulars and of perceptually accessible, unanalyzed
universals, and leads eventually to analyzed universal essences (first
principles) and definitions of them. At this point, induction gives way to
deduction, as we descend from these essences to other principles.
Perception alone cannot reach the end of this journey, but without
perception it cannot so much as begin. Perception, elaborated in theory,
is the soul’s window on the Aristotelian world (Prior Analytics 46a17–18,
On the Soul 432a7–9).

Dialectic
The first principles proper to a science cannot be demonstrated within
that science. If they could, they would not be genuine first principles.
They can, however, be defended by dialectic. For, since it “examines,”
and does so by appeal not to scientific principles but to common or
generally accepted opinions (endoxa), “dialectic is a process of criticism
wherein lies the path to the [first] principles of all inquiries” (Topics
101a36–b4).
Now opinions are endoxa when they are accepted without demurral
“by every one or by the majority or by the wise, either by all of them, or
by most or by the most notable and illustrious of them” (Topics 100b21–
23), so that the majority do not disagree with the wise about them, nor
do either group disagree among themselves (104a8–11). Generally
accepted opinions, therefore, are beliefs to which there is simply no
worthwhile opposition. Apparent endoxa, by contrast, are beliefs that
mistakenly appear to have this uncontested status (100b23–25, 104a15–
33).
Defending first principles on the basis of endoxa is a matter of going
through the difficulties (aporiai) “on both sides of a subject” until they
are solved (Topics 101a35). Suppose, then, that the topic to be
dialectically investigated is this: Is being a single unchanging thing, or
not? A competent dialectician will, first, follow out the consequences of
each alternative to see what difficulties they face. Second, he will go
through the difficulties he has uncovered to determine which can be
solved and which cannot. As a result, he will be well placed to attack or
defend either alternative in the strongest possible way.
Aporematic, which is the part of philosophy that deals with such
difficulties, is like dialectic in its methods, but differs from it in
important respects. In a dialectical argument, for example, the opponent
may refuse to accept a proposition that a philosopher would accept:
“The premises of the philosopher’s deductions or those of the one
investigating by himself, though true and familiar, may be refused
by … [an opponent] because they lie too near to the original
proposition, and so he sees what will happen if he grants them. But the
philosopher is unconcerned about this. Indeed, he will presumably be
eager that his axioms should be as familiar and as near to the question at
hand as possible, since it is from premises of this sort that scientific
deductions proceed” (Topics 155b10–16). Since the truth may well hinge
on propositions whose status is just like these premises, there is no
guarantee that what a dialectician considers most defensible will be true.
Drawing on this new class of endoxa, then, the philosopher examines
both the claim that being is a single unchanging thing, and the claim
that it is not, in just the way that the dialectician does. As a result, he
determines, let us suppose, that the most defensible, or least
problematic, conclusion is that in some senses of the terms, being is one
and unchanging, in others, not. To reach this conclusion, however, he
will have to disambiguate and reformulate endoxa on both sides, partly
accepting and partly rejecting them. Others, he may well have to reject
outright, so that beliefs that initially seemed to be endoxa—that seemed
to be unproblematic—will have emerged as only apparently such (Topics
100b23–25). These he will have to explain away: “We should state not
only the truth, but also the cause of error—for this contributes towards
producing conviction, since when a reasonable explanation is given of
why the false view appears true, this tends to produce belief in the true
view” (Nicomachean Ethics 1154a22–25). If, at the end of this process,
the difficulties are solved and most of the most-authoritative endoxa are
left, that, Aristotle claims, will be a sufficient proof of the philosopher’s
conclusion (1145b6–7).
But in that claim lies a problem. For while dialectic treats things “only
with an eye to general opinion,” philosophy must treat them “according
to their truth” (Topics 105b30–31). Endoxa, however, are just generally
accepted and unobjectionable opinions. Since even such unopposed
opinions may nevertheless be false, how can an argument that relies on
them be guaranteed to reach the truth? The answer lies in aporematic
philosophy’s dialectical capacity to criticize or examine (101b3).
Because he is a generally educated person, an aporematic philosopher
knows what it takes to be a genuine science of whatever sort (On the
Parts of Animals 639a1–8). Hence he will know, for example, what level
of exactness a science should have, given its subject matter, and what we
should and should not seek to have demonstrated (Nicomachean Ethics
1094b23–27, Metaphysics 1006a5–11). Using his dialectical capacity to
examine, therefore, a philosopher can, for example, determine whether a
person, A, has any sort of mathematical knowledge, or is simply a
charlatan. If A passes the examination, the philosopher can use his own
knowledge of what a mathematical science must be like to determine
whether A’s mathematical knowledge is genuinely scientific. If he finds
that it is, he knows that the undemonstrated mathematical first
principles A accepts are true. If, in particular, A accepts that magnitudes
are divisible without limit, the philosopher knows that this is true.
When he uses his dialectical skill to draw out the consequences of this
principle and of its negation, however, he sees difficulties and
supporting arguments based on endoxa on both sides. Since he knows
the principle is true, however, his goal will be to resolve the difficulties
it faces and undo the arguments that seem to support its negation. If he
is successful, he will have refuted all the objections to it, and so will
have provided a negative demonstration, or demonstration by refutation,
of it (Metaphysics 1006a12). Such a demonstration is aporematic
philosophy’s way to a scientific first principle, and constitutes the
sufficient proof of it to which Aristotle refers.
In many texts, Aristotle characterizes problems as knots in our
understanding that dialectic enables us to untie, in others, he
characterizes dialectic itself as enabling us to make first principles clear.
What aporematic philosophy offers us in regard to the first principles of
the sciences, then, is no knots—no impediments to clear and exact
intuitive grasp. And with such clarity comes scientific knowledge of the
most excellent and unqualified sort—knowledge that manifests the
virtue of theoretical wisdom (Nicomachean Ethics 1141a16–17).

The marginal numbers accompanying the text correspond to the page

number, column (represented by the letters a and b), and line of the
edition of Aristotle’s works published in Berlin by Immanuel Bekker in
1831. Line numbers given in citations are those of the Greek text and
correspond only approximately to lines in translations.
Organon
 CATEGORIAE

Translated by E. M. Edghill

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
1. Homonyms, synonyms, and derivatives.
2. (1) Simple and composite expressions.
(2) Things (a) predicable of a subject, (b) present in a subject, (c) both predicable of,
and present in, a subject, (d) neither predicable of, nor present in, a subject.
3. (1) That which is predicable of the predicate is predicable of the subject.
(2) The differentiae of species in one genus are not the same as those in another, unless
one genus is included in the other.
4. The eight categories of the objects of thought.
5. Substance.
(1) Primary and secondary substance.
(2) Difference in the relation subsisting between essential and accidental attributes and
their subject.
(3) All that which is not primary substance is either an essential or an accidental
attribute of primary substance.
(4) Of secondary substances, species are more truly substance than genera.
(5) All species, which are not genera, are substance in the same degree, and all
primary substances are substance in the same degree.
(6) Nothing except species and genera is secondary substance.
(7) The relation of primary substance to secondary substance and to all other
predicates is the same as that of secondary substance to all other predicates.
(8) Substance is never an accidental attribute.
(9) The differentiae of species are not accidental attributes.
(10) Species, genus, and differentiae, as predicates, are ‘univocal’ with their subject.
(11) Primary substance is individual; secondary substance is the qualification of that
which is individual.
(12) No substance has a contrary.
 (13) No substance can be what it is in varying degrees.
(14) The particular mark of substance is that contrary qualities can be predicated of it.
(15) Contrary qualities cannot be predicated of anything other than substances, not
even of propositions and judgements.
6. Quantity.
(1) Discrete and continuous quantity.
(2) Division of quantities, i. e. number, the spoken word, the line, the surface, the
solid, time, place, into these two classes.
(3) The parts of some quantities have a relative position, those of others have not.
Division of quantities into these two classes.
(4) Quantitative terms are applied to things other than quantity, in view of their
relation to one of the aforesaid quantities.
(5) Quantities have no contraries.
(6) Terms such as ‘great’ and ‘small’ are relative, not quantitative, and moreover
cannot be contrary to each other.
(7) That which is most reasonably supposed to contain a contrary is space.
(8) No quantity can be what it is in varying degrees.
(9) The peculiar mark of quantity is that equality and inequality can be predicated of
it.
7. Relation.
(1) First definition of relatives.
(2) Some relatives have contraries.
(3) Some relatives are what they are in varying degrees.
(4) A relative term has always its correlative, and the two are interdependent.
(5) The correlative is only clear when the relative is given its proper name, and in
some cases words must be coined for this purpose.
(6) Most relatives come into existence simultaneously; but the objects of knowledge
and perception are prior to knowledge and perception.
(7) No primary substance or part of a primary substance is relative.
(8) Revised definition of relatives, excluding secondary substances.
(9) It is impossible to know that a thing is relative, unless we know that to which it is
relative.
8. Quality.
(1) Definition of qualities.
(2) Different kinds of quality:
(a) habits and dispositions;
(b) capacities;
 (c) affective qualities [Distinction between affective qualities and affections.]
(d) shape, &c. [Rarity, density, &c., are not qualities.]
(3) Adjectives are generally formed derivatively from the names of the corresponding
qualities.
(4) Most qualities have contraries.
(5) If of two contraries one is a quality, the other is also a quality.
(6) A quality can in most cases be what it is in varying degrees, and subjects can
possess most qualities in varying degrees. Qualities of shape are an exception to
this rule.
(7) The peculiar mark of quality is that likeness and unlikeness is predicable of things
in respect of it.
(8) Habits and dispositions as genera are relative; as individual, qualitative.
9. Action and affection and the other categories described.
10. Four classes of ‘opposites’.
(a) Correlatives.
(b) Contraries. [Some contraries have an intermediate, and some have not.]
(c) Positives and privatives.
The terms expressing possession and privation are not the positive and
privative, though the former are opposed each to each in the same sense as the
latter.
Similarly the facts which form the basis of an affirmation or a denial are
opposed each to each in the same sense as the affirmation and denial themselves.
Positives and privatives are not opposed in the sense in which correlatives are
opposed.
Positives and privatives are not opposed in the same sense in which contraries
are opposed.
For (i) they are not of the class which has no intermediate, nor of the class
which has intermediates.
(ii) There can be no change from one state (privation) to its opposite.
(d) Affirmation and negation. These are distinguished from other contraries by the
fact that one is always false and the other true. [Opposite affirmations seem to
possess this mark, but they do not.]
11. Contraries further discussed.
Evil is generally the contrary of good, but sometimes two evils are contrary.
When one contrary exists, the other need not exist.
Contrary attributes are applicable within the same species or genus.
 Contraries must themselves be within the same genus, or within opposite genera, or be
themselves genera.
12. The word ‘prior’ is applicable:
(a) to that which is previous in time;
(b) to that on which something else depends, but which is not itself dependent on
it;
(c) to that which is prior in arrangement;
(d) to that which is better or more honourable;
(e) to that one of two interdependent things which is the cause of the other.
13. The word ‘simultaneous’ is used:
(a) of those things which come into being at the same time;
(b) of those things which are interdependent, but neither of which is the cause of
the other.
(c) of the different species of the same genus.
14. Motion is of six kinds.
Alteration is distinct from other kinds of motion.
Definition of the contrary of motion and of the various kinds of motion.
15. The meanings of the term ‘to have’.
 CATEGORIAE

(Categories)

1 [1a] Things are said to be named ‘equivocally’ when, though they

have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name
differs for each. Thus, a real man and a figure in a picture can both lay
claim to the name ‘animal’; yet these are equivocally so named, for,
though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with
the name differs for each. For should any one define in what sense each
is an animal, his definition in the one case will be appropriate to that
case only. (5)
On the other hand, things are said to be named ‘univocally’ which
have both the name and the definition answering to the name in
common. A man and an ox are both ‘animal’, and these are univocally so
named, inasmuch as not only the name, but also the definition, is the
same in both cases: for if a man should state in what sense each is an
animal, (10) the statement in the one case would be identical with that in
the other.
Things are said to be named ‘derivatively’, which derive their name
from some other name, but differ from it in termination. Thus the
grammarian derives his name from the word ‘grammar’, (15) and the
courageous man from the word ‘courage’.

2 Forms of speech are either simple or composite. Examples of the

latter are such expressions as ‘the man runs’, ‘the man wins’; of the
former ‘man’, ‘ox’, ‘runs’, ‘wins’.
Of things themselves some are predicable of a subject, (20) and are
never present in a subject. Thus ‘man’ is predicable of the individual
man, and is never present in a subject.
By being ‘present in a subject’ I do not mean present as parts are
present in a whole, but being incapable of existence apart from the said
subject.
 Some things, again, are present in a subject, but are never predicable
of a subject. For instance, a certain point of grammatical knowledge is
present in the mind, (25) but is not predicable of any subject; or again, a
certain whiteness may be present in the body (for colour requires a
material basis), yet it is never predicable of anything.
Other things, again, are both predicable of a subject and present in a
subject. [1b] Thus while knowledge is present in the human mind, it is
predicable of grammar.
There is, lastly, a class of things which are neither present in a subject
nor predicable of a subject, such as the individual man or the individual
horse. (5) But, to speak more generally, that which is individual and has
the character of a unit is never predicable of a subject. Yet in some cases
there is nothing to prevent such being present in a subject. Thus a
certain point of grammatical knowledge is present in a subject.

3 When one thing is predicated of another, (10) all that which is

predicable of the predicate will be predicable also of the subject. Thus,
‘man’ is predicated of the individual man; but ‘animal’ is predicated of
‘man’; it will, therefore, be predicable of the individual man also: for the
individual man is both ‘man’ and ‘animal’. (15)
If genera are different and co-ordinate, their differentiae are
themselves different in kind. Take as an instance the genus ‘animal’ and
the genus ‘knowledge’. ‘With feet’, ‘two-footed’, ‘winged’, ‘aquatic’, are
differentiae of ‘animal’; the species of knowledge are not distinguished
by the same differentiae. One species of knowledge does not differ from
another in being ‘two-footed’.
But where one genus is subordinate to another, (20) there is nothing to
prevent their having the same differentiae: for the greater class is
predicated of the lesser, so that all the differentiae of the predicate will
be differentiae also of the subject.

4 Expressions which are in no way composite signify substance, (25)

quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, or
affection. To sketch my meaning roughly, examples of substance are
‘man’ or ‘the horse’, of quantity, such terms as ‘two cubits long’ or ‘three
cubits long’, of quality, such attributes as ‘white’, ‘grammatical’.
‘Double’, ‘half’, ‘greater’, fall under the category of relation; ‘in the
market place’, ‘in the Lyceum’, under that of place; ‘yesterday’, ‘last
year’, under that of time. [2a] ‘Lying’, ‘sitting’, are terms indicating
position; ‘shod’, ‘armed’, state; ‘to lance’, ‘to cauterize’, action; ‘to be
lanced’, ‘to be cauterized’, affection.
No one of these terms, in and by itself, involves an affirmation; it is by
the combination of such terms that positive or negative statements arise.
(5) For every assertion must, as is admitted, be either true or false,

whereas expressions which are not in any way composite, such as ‘man’,
(10) ‘white’, ‘runs’, ‘wins’, cannot be either true or false.

5 Substance, in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the
word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a
subject; for instance, the individual man or horse. But in a secondary
sense those things are called substances within which, (15) as species, the
primary substances are included; also those which, as genera, include
the species. For instance, the individual man is included in the species
‘man’, and the genus to which the species belongs is ‘animal’; these,
therefore—that is to say, the species ‘man’ and the genus ‘animal’—are
termed secondary substances.
It is plain from what has been said that both the name and the
definition of the predicate must be predicable of the subject.(20) For
instance, ‘man’ is predicated of the individual man. Now in this case the
name of the species ‘man’ is applied to the individual, for we use the
term ‘man’ in describing the individual; and the definition of ‘man’ will
also be predicated of the individual man, for the individual man is both
man and animal. Thus, both the name and the definition of the species
are predicable of the individual. (25)
With regard, on the other hand, to those things which are present in a
subject, it is generally the case that neither their name nor their
definition is predicable of that in which they are present. Though,
however, the definition is never predicable, (30) there is nothing in
certain cases to prevent the name being used. For instance, ‘white’ being
present in a body is predicated of that in which it is present, for a body
is called white: the definition, however, of the color ‘white’ is never
predicable of the body.
Everything except primary substances is either predicable of a primary
substance or present in a primary substance. This becomes evident by
reference to particular instances which occur. (35) ‘Animal’ is predicated
of the species ‘man’, therefore of the individual man, for if there were no
individual man of whom it could be predicated, it could not be
predicated of the species ‘man’ at all. [2b] Again, colour is present in
body, therefore in individual bodies, for if there were no individual body
in which it was present, it could not be present in body at all. Thus
everything except primary substances is either predicated of primary
substances, or is present in them, (5) and if these last did not exist, it
would be impossible for anything else to exist.
Of secondary substances, the species is more truly substance than the
genus, being more nearly related to primary substance. For if any one
should render an account of what a primary substance is, he would
render a more instructive account, and one more proper to the subject,
by stating the species than by stating the genus. (10) Thus, he would give
a more instructive account of an individual man by stating that he was
man than by stating that he was animal, for the former description is
peculiar to the individual in a greater degree, while the latter is too
general. Again, the man who gives an account of the nature of an
individual tree will give a more instructive account by mentioning the
species ‘tree’ than by mentioning the genus ‘plant’.
Moreover, primary substances are most properly called substances in
virtue of the fact that they are the entities which underlie everything
else, (15) and that everything else is either predicated of them or present
in them. Now the same relation which subsists between primary
substance and everything else subsists also between the species and the
genus: for the species is to the genus as subject is to predicate, (20) since
the genus is predicated of the species, whereas the species cannot be
predicated of the genus. Thus we have a second ground for asserting that
the species is more truly substance than the genus.
Of species themselves, except in the case of such as are genera, no one
is more truly substance than another. We should not give a more
appropriate account of the individual man by stating the species to
which he belonged, (25) than we should of an individual horse by
adopting the same method of definition. In the same way, of primary
substances, no one is more truly substance than another; an individual
man is not more truly substance than an individual ox.
It is, then, with good reason that of all that remains, when we exclude
primary substances, we concede to species and genera alone the name
‘secondary substance’, (30) for these alone of all the predicates convey a
knowledge of primary substance. For it is by stating the species or the
genus that we appropriately define any individual man; and we shall
make our definition more exact by stating the former than by stating the
latter. All other things that we state, such as that he is white, (35) that he
runs, and so on, are irrelevant to the definition. Thus it is just that these
alone, apart from primary substances, should be called substances.
Further, primary substances are most properly so called, because they
underlie and are the subjects of everything else. [3a] Now the same
relation that subsists between primary substance and everything else
subsists also between the species and the genus to which the primary
substance belongs, on the one hand, and every attribute which is not
included within these, on the other. For these are the subjects of all
such. If we call an individual man ‘skilled in grammar’, the predicate is
applicable also to the species and to the genus to which he belongs. (5)
This law holds good in all cases.
It is a common characteristic of all substance that it is never present in
a subject. For primary substance is neither present in a subject nor
predicated of a subject; while, with regard to secondary substances, it is
clear from the following arguments (apart from others) that they are not
present in a subject. For ‘man’ is predicated of the individual man, but is
not present in any subject: (10) for manhood is not present in the
individual man. In the same way, ‘animal’ is also predicated of the
individual man, but is not present in him. Again, when a thing is present
in a subject, though the name may quite well be applied to that in which
it is present, (15) the definition cannot be applied. Yet of secondary
substances, not only the name, but also the definition, applies to the
subject: we should use both the definition of the species and that of the
genus with reference to the individual man. (20) Thus substance cannot be
present in a subject.
Yet this is not peculiar to substance, for it is also the case that
differentiae cannot be present in subjects. The characteristics ‘terrestrial’
and ‘two-footed’ are predicated of the species ‘man’, but not present in
it. For they are not in man. Moreover, (25) the definition of the differentia
may be predicated of that of which the differentia itself is predicated.
For instance, if the characteristic ‘terrestrial’ is predicated of the species
‘man’, the definition also of that characteristic may be used to form the
predicate of the species ‘man’: for ‘man’ is terrestrial.
The fact that the parts of substances appear to be present in the whole,
as in a subject, should not make us apprehensive lest we should have to
admit that such parts are not substances: (30) for in explaining the phrase
‘being present in a subject’, we stated that we meant ‘otherwise than as
parts in a whole’.1
It is the mark of substances and of differentiae that, in all propositions
of which they form the predicate, they are predicated univocally. For all
such propositions have for their subject either the individual or the
species. It is true that, inasmuch as primary substance is not predicable
of anything, (35) it can never form the predicate of any proposition. But of
secondary substances, the species is predicated of the individual, the
genus both of the species and of the individual. Similarly the differentiae
are predicated of the species and of the individuals. [3b] Moreover, the
definition of the species and that of the genus are applicable to the
primary substance, and that of the genus to the species. For all that is
predicated of the predicate will be predicated also of the subject.
Similarly, (5) the definition of the differentiae will be applicable to the
species and to the individuals. But it was stated above that the word
‘univocal’ was applied to those things which had both name and
definition in common.2 It is, therefore, established that in every
proposition, of which either substance or a differentia forms the
predicate, these are predicated univocally.
All substance appears to signify that which is individual. (10) In the
case of primary substance this is indisputably true, for the thing is a unit.
In the case of secondary substances, when we speak, for instance, of
‘man’ or ‘animal’, our form of speech gives the impression that we are
here also indicating that which is individual, but the impression is not
strictly true; (15) for a secondary substance is not an individual, but a
class with a certain qualification; for it is not one and single as a primary
substance is; the words ‘man’, ‘animal’, are predicable of more than one
subject.
Yet species and genus do not merely indicate quality, like the term
‘white’; ‘white’ indicates quality and nothing further, but species and
genus determine the quality with reference to a substance: they signify
substance qualitatively differentiated. (20) The determinate qualification
covers a larger field in the case of the genus than in that of the species:
he who uses the word ‘animal’ is herein using a word of wider extension
than he who uses the word ‘man’.
Another mark of substance is that it has no contrary. What could be
the contrary of any primary substance, (25) such as the individual man or
animal? It has none. Nor can the species or the genus have a contrary.
Yet this characteristic is not peculiar to substance, but is true of many
other things, such as quantity. There is nothing that forms the contrary
of ‘two cubits long’ or of ‘three cubits long’, or of ‘ten’, or of any such
term. (30) A man may contend that ‘much’ is the contrary of ‘little’, or
‘great’ of ‘small’, but of definite quantitative terms no contrary exists.
Substance, again, does not appear to admit of variation of degree. I do
not mean by this that one substance cannot be more or less truly
substance than another, for it has already been stated3 that this is the
case; (35) but that no single substance admits of varying degrees within
itself. For instance, one particular substance, ‘man’, cannot be more or
less man either than himself at some other time or than some other man.
One man cannot be more man than another, as that which is white may
be more or less white than some other white object, or as that which is
beautiful may be more or less beautiful than some other beautiful object.
[4a] The same quality, moreover, is said to subsist in a thing in varying
degrees at different times. A body, being white, is said to be whiter at
one time than it was before, or, being warm, is said to be warmer or less
warm than at some other time. But substance is not said to be more or
less that which it is: (5) a man is not more truly a man at one time than
he was before, nor is anything, if it is substance, more or less what it is.
Substance, then, does not admit of variation of degree.
The most distinctive mark of substance appears to be that, (10) while
remaining numerically one and the same, it is capable of admitting
contrary qualities. From among things other than substance, we should
find ourselves unable to bring forward any which possessed this mark.
Thus, one and the same colour cannot be white and black. (15) Nor can
the same one action be good and bad: this law holds good with
everything that is not substance. But one and the self-same substance,
while retaining its identity, is yet capable of admitting contrary
qualities. The same individual person is at one time white, at another
black, at one time warm, at another cold, at one time good, (20) at
another bad. This capacity is found nowhere else, though it might be
maintained that a statement or opinion was an exception to the rule. The
same statement, it is agreed, can be both true and false. For if the
statement ‘he is sitting’ is true, yet, (25) when the person in question has
risen, the same statement will be false. The same applies to opinions. For
if any one thinks truly that a person is sitting, yet, when that person has
risen, this same opinion, if still held, will be false. Yet although this
exception may be allowed, there is, nevertheless, a difference in the
manner in which the thing takes place. It is by themselves changing that
substances admit contrary qualities. (30) It is thus that that which was hot
becomes cold, for it has entered into a different state. Similarly that
which was white becomes black, and that which was bad good, by a
process of change; and in the same way in all other cases it is by
changing that substances are capable of admitting contrary qualities. But
statements and opinions themselves remain unaltered in all respects: it is
by the alteration in the facts of the case that the contrary quality comes
to be theirs. (35) The statement ‘he is sitting’ remains unaltered, but it is
at one time true, at another false, according to circumstances. [4b]
What has been said of statements applies also to opinions. Thus, in
respect of the manner in which the thing takes place, it is the peculiar
mark of substance that it should be capable of admitting contrary
qualities; for it is by itself changing that it does so.
If, then, a man should make this exception and contend that
statements and opinions are capable of admitting contrary qualities, his
contention is unsound. For statements and opinions are said (5) to have
this capacity, not because they themselves undergo modification, but
because this modification occurs in the case of something else. The truth
or falsity of a statement depends on facts, and not on any power on the
part of the statement itself of admitting contrary qualities. (10) In short,
there is nothing which can alter the nature of statements and opinions.
As, then, no change takes place in themselves, these cannot be said to be
capable of admitting contrary qualities.
But it is by reason of the modification which takes place within the
substance itself that a substance is said to be capable of admitting
contrary qualities; for a substance admits within itself either disease or
health, (15) whiteness or blackness. It is in this sense that it is said to be
capable of admitting contrary qualities.
To sum up, it is a distinctive mark of substance, that, while remaining
numerically one and the same, it is capable of admitting contrary
qualities, the modification taking place through a change in the
substance itself.
Let these remarks suffice on the subject of substance.

6 Quantity is either discrete or continuous. (20) Moreover, some

quantities are such that each part of the whole has a relative position to
the other parts: others have within them no such relation of part to part.
Instances of discrete quantities are number and speech; of continuous,
lines, surfaces, solids, and, besides these, time and place.
In the case of the parts of a number, (25) there is no common boundary
at which they join. For example: two fives make ten, but the two fives
have no common boundary, but are separate; the parts three and seven
also do not join at any boundary. Nor, to generalize, would it ever be
possible in the case of number that there should be a common boundary
among the parts; (30) they are always separate. Number, therefore, is a
discrete quantity.
The same is true of speech. That speech is a quantity is evident: for it
is measured in long and short syllables. I mean here that speech which is
vocal. Moreover, it is a discrete quantity, for its parts have no common
boundary. (35) There is no common boundary at which the syllables join,
but each is separate and distinct from the rest.
[5a] A line, on the other hand, is a continuous quantity, for it is
possible to find a common boundary at which its parts join. In the case
of the line, this common boundary is the point; in the case of the plane,
it is the line: for the parts of the plane have also a common boundary.
Similarly you can find a common boundary in the case of the parts of a
solid, (5) namely either a line or a plane.
Space and time also belong to this class of quantities. Time, past,
present, and future, forms a continuous whole. Space, likewise, is a
continuous quantity: for the parts of a solid occupy a certain space, and
these have a common boundary; it follows that the parts of space also,
which are occupied by the parts of the solid, (10) have the same common
boundary as the parts of the solid. Thus, not only time, but space also, is
a continuous quantity, for its parts have a common boundary.
Quantities consist either of parts which bear a relative position each to
each, (15) or of parts which do not. The parts of a line bear a relative
position to each other, for each lies somewhere, and it would be possible
to distinguish each, and to state the position of each on the plane and to
explain to what sort of part among the rest each was contiguous.
Similarly the parts of a plane have position, (20) for it could similarly be
stated what was the position of each and what sort of parts were
contiguous. The same is true with regard to the solid and to space. But it
would be impossible to show that the parts of a number had a relative
position each to each, or a particular position, (25) or to state what parts
were contiguous. Nor could this be done in the case of time, for none of
the parts of time has an abiding existence, and that which does not abide
can hardly have position. It would be better to say that such parts had a
relative order, in virtue of one being prior to another. Similarly with
number: in counting, ‘one’ is prior to ‘two’, and ‘two’ to ‘three’, (30) and
thus the parts of number may be said to possess a relative order, though
it would be impossible to discover any distinct position for each. This
holds good also in the case of speech. None of its parts has an abiding
existence: when once a syllable is pronounced, it is not possible to retain
it, so that, naturally, as the parts do not abide, (35) they cannot have
position. Thus, some quantities consist of parts which have position, and
some of those which have not.
Strictly speaking, only the things which I have mentioned belong to
the category of quantity: everything else that is called quantitative is a
quantity in a secondary sense. It is because we have in mind some one of
these quantities, properly so called, that we apply quantitative terms to
other things. [5b] We speak of what is white as large, because the
surface over which the white extends is large; we speak of an action or a
process as lengthy, because the time covered is long; these things cannot
in their own right claim the quantitative epithet. For instance, should
any one explain how long an action was, his statement would be made
in terms of the time taken, (5) to the effect that it lasted a year, or
something of that sort. In the same way, he would explain the size of a
white object in terms of surface, for he would state the area which it
covered. Thus the things already mentioned, and these alone, are in their
intrinsic nature quantities; nothing else can claim the name in its own
right, (10) but, if at all, only in a secondary sense.
Quantities have no contraries. In the case of definite quantities this is
obvious; thus, there is nothing that is the contrary of ‘two cubits long’ or
of ‘three cubits long’, or of a surface, or of any such quantities. A man
might, indeed, argue that ‘much’ was the contrary of ‘little’, (15) and
‘great’ of ‘small’. But these are not quantitative, but relative; things are
not great or small absolutely, they are so called rather as the result of an
act of comparison. For instance, a mountain is called small, a grain large,
in virtue of the fact that the latter is greater than others of its kind, the
former less. (20) Thus there is a reference here to an external standard, for
if the terms ‘great’ and ‘small’ were used absolutely, a mountain would
never be called small or a grain large. Again, we say that there are many
people in a village, and few in Athens, although those in the city are
many times as numerous as those in the village: or we say that a house
has many in it, (25) and a theatre few, though those in the theatre far
outnumber those in the house. The terms ‘two cubits long’, ‘three cubits
long’, and so on indicate quantity, the terms ‘great’ and ‘small’ indicate
relation, for they have reference to an external standard. It is, therefore,
plain that these are to be classed as relative.
Again, (30) whether we define them as quantitative or not, they have
no contraries: for how can there be a contrary of an attribute which is
not to be apprehended in or by itself, but only by reference to something
external? Again, if ‘great’ and ‘small’ are contraries, it will come about
that the same subject can admit contrary qualities at one and the same
time, and that things will themselves be contrary to themselves. (35) For
it happens at times that the same thing is both small and great. For the
same thing may be small in comparison with one thing, and great in
comparison with another, so that the same thing comes to be both small
and great at one and the same time, and is of such a nature as to admit
contrary qualities at one and the same moment. Yet it was agreed, when
substance was being discussed, that nothing admits contrary qualities at
one and the same moment. [6a] For though substance is capable of
admitting contrary qualities, yet no one is at the same time both sick and
healthy, nothing is at the same time both white and black. Nor is there
anything which is qualified in contrary ways at one and the same time.
Moreover, if these were contraries, they would themselves be contrary
to themselves. For if ‘great’ is the contrary of ‘small’, (5) and the same
thing is both great and small at the same time, then ‘small’ or ‘great’ is
the contrary of itself. But this is impossible. The term ‘great’, therefore,
is not the contrary of the term ‘small’, nor ‘much’ of ‘little’. And even
though a man should call these terms not relative, but quantitative, they
would not have contraries. (10)
It is in the case of space that quantity most plausibly appears to admit
of a contrary. For men define the term ‘above’ as the contrary of ‘below’,
when it is the region at the centre they mean by ‘below’; and this is so,
because nothing is farther from the extremities of the universe than the
region at the centre. Indeed, (15) it seems that in defining contraries of
every kind men have recourse to a spatial metaphor, for they say that
those things are contraries which, within the same class, are separated
by the greatest possible distance.
Quantity does not, it appears, admit of variation of degree. One thing
cannot be two cubits long in a greater degree than another. (20) Similarly
with regard to number: what is ‘three’ is not more truly three than what
is ‘five’ is five; nor is one set of three more truly three than another set.
Again, one period of time is not said to be more truly time than another.
Nor is there any other kind of quantity, of all that have been mentioned,
with regard to which variation of degree can be predicated. The category
of quantity, therefore, (25) does not admit of variation of degree.
The most distinctive mark of quantity is that equality and inequality
are predicated of it. Each of the aforesaid quantities is said to be equal
or unequal. For instance, one solid is said to be equal or unequal to
another; number, too, and time can have these terms applied to them, as
indeed can all those kinds of quantity that have been mentioned. (30)
That which is not a quantity can by no means, it would seem, be
termed equal or unequal to anything else. One particular disposition or
one particular quality, such as whiteness, is by no means compared with
another in terms of equality and inequality but rather in terms of
similarity. Thus it is the distinctive mark of quantity that it can be called
equal and unequal. (35)

7 Those things are called relative, which, being either said to be of

something else or related to something else, are explained by reference to
that other thing. For instance, the word ‘superior’ is explained by
reference to something else, for it is superiority over something else that is
meant. Similarly, the expression ‘double’ has this external reference, for
it is the double of something else that is meant. [6b] So it is with
everything else of this kind. There are, moreover, other relatives, e. g.
habit, disposition, perception, knowledge, and attitude. The significance
of all these is explained by a reference to something else and in no other
way. Thus, a habit is a habit of something, (5) knowledge is knowledge of
something, attitude is the attitude of something. So it is with all other
relatives that have been mentioned. Those terms, then, are called
relative, the nature of which is explained by reference to something else,
the preposition ‘of’ or some other preposition being used to indicate the
relation. Thus, one mountain is called great in comparison with another;
for the mountain claims this attribute by comparison with something. (10)
Again, that which is called similar must be similar to something else, and
all other such attributes have this external reference. It is to be noted
that lying and standing and sitting are particular attitudes, but attitude is
itself a relative term. To lie, to stand, to be seated, are not themselves
attitudes, but take their name from the aforesaid attitudes.
It is possible for relatives to have contraries. (15) Thus virtue has a
contrary, vice, these both being relatives; knowledge, too, has a
contrary, ignorance. But this is not the mark of all relatives; ‘double’ and
‘triple’ have no contrary, nor indeed has any such term.
It also appears that relatives can admit of variation of degree. (20) For
‘like’ and ‘unlike’, ‘equal’ and ‘unequal’, have the modifications ‘more’
and ‘less’ applied to them, and each of these is relative in character: for
the terms ‘like’ and ‘unequal’ bear a reference to something external.
Yet, again, it is not every relative term that admits of variation of
degree. (25) No term such as ‘double’ admits of this modification. All
relatives have correlatives: by the term ‘slave’ we mean the slave of a
master; by the term ‘master’, the master of a slave; by ‘double’, (30) the
double of its half; by ‘half’, the half of its double; by ‘greater’, greater than
that which is less; by ‘less’, less than that which is greater.
So it is with every other relative term; but the case we use to express
the correlation differs in some instances. Thus, by knowledge we mean
knowledge of the knowable; by the knowable, that which is to be
apprehended by knowledge; by perception, (35) perception of the
perceptible; by the perceptible, that which is apprehended by perception.
Sometimes, however, reciprocity of correlation does not appear to
exist. This comes about when a blunder is made, and that to which the
relative is related is not accurately stated. If a man states that a wing is
necessarily relative to a bird, the connexion between these two will not
be reciprocal, for it will not be possible to say that a bird is a bird by
reason of its wings. The reason is that the original statement was
inaccurate, for the wing is not said to be relative to the bird qua bird,
since many creatures besides birds have wings, but qua winged creature.
[7a] If, then, the statement is made accurate, the connexion will be
reciprocal, for we can speak of a wing having reference necessarily to a
winged creature, and of a winged creature as being such because of its
wings.
Occasionally, perhaps, it is necessary to coin words, (5) if no word
exists by which a correlation can adequately be explained. If we define a
rudder as necessarily having reference to a boat, our definition will not
be appropriate, for the rudder does not have this reference to a boat qua
boat, as there are boats which have no rudders. (10) Thus we cannot use
the terms reciprocally, for the word ‘boat’ cannot be said to find its
explanation in the word ‘rudder’. As there is no existing word, our
definition would perhaps be more accurate if we coined some word like
‘ruddered’ as the correlative of ‘rudder’. If we express ourselves thus
accurately, at any rate the terms are reciprocally connected, for the
‘ruddered’ thing is ‘ruddered’ in virtue of its rudder. So it is in all other
cases. A head will be more accurately defined as the correlative of that
which is ‘headed’, (15) than as that of an animal, for the animal does not
have a head qua animal, since many animals have no head.
 Thus we may perhaps most easily comprehend that to which a thing is
related; when a name does not exist, if, from that which has a name, we
derive a new name, and apply it to that with which the first is
reciprocally connected, as in the aforesaid instances, (20) when we
derived the word ‘winged’ from ‘wing’ and ‘ruddered’ from ‘rudder’.
All relatives, then, if properly defined, have a correlative. I add this
condition because, if that to which they are related is stated at
haphazard and not accurately, the two are not found to be
interdependent. Let me state what I mean more clearly. (25) Even in the
case of acknowledged correlatives, and where names exist for each, there
will be no interdependence if one of the two is denoted, not by that
name which expresses the correlative notion, but by one of irrelevant
significance. The term ‘slave’, if defined as related, not to a master, but
to a man, or a biped, or anything of that sort, is not reciprocally
connected with that in relation to which it is defined, (30) for the
statement is not exact. Further, if one thing is said to be correlative with
another, and the terminology used is correct, then, though all irrelevant
attributes should be removed, and only that one attribute left in virtue of
which it was correctly stated to be correlative with that other, the stated
correlation will still exist. If the correlative of ‘the slave’ is said to be ‘the
master’, (35) then, though all irrelevant attributes of the said ‘master’,
such as ‘biped’, ‘receptive of knowledge’, ‘human’, should be removed,
and the attribute ‘master’ alone left, the stated correlation existing
between him and the slave will remain the same, for it is of a master that
a slave is said to be the slave. [7b] On the other hand, if, of two
correlatives, one is not correctly termed, then, when all other attributes
are removed and that alone is left in virtue of which it was stated to be
correlative, the stated correlation will be found to have disappeared.
For suppose the correlative of ‘the slave’ should be said to be ‘the
man’, or the correlative of ‘the wing’ ‘the bird’; if the attribute ‘master’
be withdrawn from ‘the man’, (5) the correlation between ‘the man’ and
‘the slave’ will cease to exist, for if the man is not a master, the slave is
not a slave. Similarly, if the attribute ‘winged’ be withdrawn from ‘the
bird’, ‘the wing’ will no longer be relative; for if the so-called correlative
is not winged, it follows that ‘the wing’ has no correlative.
Thus it is essential that the correlated terms should be exactly
designated; if there is a name existing, (10) the statement will be easy; if
not, it is doubtless our duty to construct names. When the terminology is
thus correct, it is evident that all correlatives are interdependent.
Correlatives are thought to come into existence simultaneously. (15)
This is for the most part true, as in the case of the double and the half.
The existence of the half necessitates the existence of that of which it is a
half. Similarly the existence of a master necessitates the existence of a
slave, and that of a slave implies that of a master; these are merely
instances of a general rule. Moreover, (20) they cancel one another; for if
there is no double it follows that there is no half, and vice versa; this
rule also applies to all such correlatives. Yet it does not appear to be true
in all cases that correlatives come into existence simultaneously. The
object of knowledge would appear to exist before knowledge itself, for it
is usually the case that we acquire knowledge of objects already existing;
it would be difficult, (25) if not impossible, to find a branch of knowledge
the beginning of the existence of which was contemporaneous with that
of its object.
Again, while the object of knowledge, if it ceases to exist, cancels at
the same time the knowledge which was its correlative, the converse of
this is not true. It is true that if the object of knowledge does not exist
there can be no knowledge: for there will no longer be anything to
know. Yet it is equally true that, (30) if the knowledge of a certain object
does not exist, the object may nevertheless quite well exist. Thus, in the
case of the squaring of the circle, if indeed that process is an object of
knowledge, though it itself exists as an object of knowledge, yet the
knowledge of it has not yet come into existence. Again, if all animals
ceased to exist, there would be no knowledge, but there might yet be
many objects of knowledge.
This is likewise the case with regard to perception: for the object of
perception is, (35) it appears, prior to the act of perception. If the
perceptible is annihilated, perception also will cease to exist; but the
annihilation of perception does not cancel the existence of the
perceptible. For perception implies a body perceived and a body in
which perception takes place. Now if that which is perceptible is
annihilated, it follows that the body is annihilated, for the body is a
perceptible thing; and if the body does not exist, it follows that
perception also ceases to exist. [8a] Thus the annihilation of the
perceptible involves that of perception.
But the annihilation of perception does not involve that of the
perceptible. For if the animal is annihilated, it follows that perception
also is annihilated, but perceptibles such as body, heat, sweetness, (5)
bitterness, and so on, will remain.
Again, perception is generated at the same time as the perceiving
subject, for it comes into existence at the same time as the animal. But
the perceptible surely exists before perception; for fire and water and
such elements, out of which the animal is itself composed, (10) exist
before the animal is an animal at all, and before perception. Thus it
would seem that the perceptible exists before perception.
It may be questioned whether it is true that no substance is relative, as
seems to be the case, or whether exception is to be made in the case of
certain secondary substances. With regard to primary substances, it is
quite true that there is no such possibility, (15) for neither wholes nor
parts of primary substances are relative. The individual man or ox is not
defined with reference to something external. Similarly with the parts: a
particular hand or head is not defined as a particular hand or head of a
particular person, (20) but as the hand or head of a particular person. It is
true also, for the most part at least, in the case of secondary substances;
the species ‘man’ and the species ‘ox’ are not defined with reference to
anything outside themselves. Wood, again, is only relative in so far as it
is some one’s property, not in so far as it is wood. It is plain, then, (25)
that in the cases mentioned substance is not relative. But with regard to
some secondary substances there is a difference of opinion; thus, such
terms as ‘head’ and ‘hand’ are defined with reference to that of which
the things indicated are a part, and so it comes about that these appear
to have a relative character. (30) Indeed, if our definition of that which is
relative was complete, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove that
no substance is relative. If, however, our definition was not complete, if
those things only are properly called relative in the case of which
relation to an external object is a necessary condition of existence,
perhaps some explanation of the dilemma may be found.
The former definition does indeed apply to all relatives, but the fact
that a thing is explained with reference to something else does not make
it essentially relative.
From this it is plain that, (35) if a man definitely apprehends a relative
thing, he will also definitely apprehend that to which it is relative.
Indeed this is self-evident: for if a man knows that some particular thing
is relative, assuming that we call that a relative in the case of which
relation to something is a necessary condition of existence, he knows
that also to which it is related. [8b] For if he does not know at all that
to which it is related, he will not know whether or not it is relative. This
is clear, moreover, in particular instances. (5) If a man knows definitely
that such and such a thing is ‘double’, he will also forthwith know
definitely that of which it is the double. For if there is nothing definite of
which he knows it to be the double, he does not know at all that it is
double. Again, if he knows that a thing is more beautiful, it follows
necessarily that he will forthwith definitely know that also than which it
is more beautiful. He will not merely know indefinitely that it is more
beautiful than something which is less beautiful, (10) for this would be
supposition, not knowledge. For if he does not know definitely that than
which it is more beautiful, he can no longer claim to know definitely
that it is more beautiful than something else which is less beautiful: for
it might be that nothing was less beautiful. It is, therefore, evident that if
a man apprehends some relative thing definitely, he necessarily knows
that also definitely to which it is related.
Now the head, (15) the hand, and such things are substances, and it is
possible to know their essential character definitely, but it does not
necessarily follow that we should know that to which they are related. It
is not possible to know forthwith whose head or hand is meant. Thus
these are not relatives, and, this being the case, (20) it would be true to
say that no substance is relative in character. It is perhaps a difficult
matter, in such cases, to make a positive statement without more
exhaustive examination, but to have raised questions with regard to
details is not without advantage.

8 By ‘quality’ I mean that in virtue of which people are said to be such

and such. (25)
Quality is a term that is used in many senses. One sort of quality let us
call ‘habit’ or ‘disposition’. Habit differs from disposition in being more
lasting and more firmly established. The various kinds of knowledge and
of virtue are habits, for knowledge, even when acquired only in a
moderate degree, is, it is agreed, (30) abiding in its character and difficult
to displace, unless some great mental upheaval takes place, through
disease or any such cause. The virtues, also, such as justice, self-restraint,
and so on, are not easily dislodged or dismissed, so as to give place to
vice.
By a disposition, on the other hand, we mean a condition that is easily
changed and quickly gives place to its opposite. (35) Thus, heat, cold,
disease, health, and so on are dispositions. For a man is disposed in one
way or another with reference to these, but quickly changes, becoming
cold instead of warm, ill instead of well. [9a] So it is with all other
dispositions also, unless through lapse of time a disposition has itself
become inveterate and almost impossible to dislodge: in which case we
should perhaps go so far as to call it a habit.
It is evident that men incline to call those conditions habits which are
of a more or less permanent type and difficult to displace; for those who
are not retentive of knowledge, but volatile, (5) are not said to have such
and such a ‘habit’ as regards knowledge, yet they are disposed, we may
say, either better or worse, towards knowledge. Thus habit differs from
disposition in this, that while the latter is ephemeral, the former is
permanent and difficult to alter.
Habits are at the same time dispositions, but dispositions are not
necessarily habits. (10) For those who have some specific habit may be
said also, in virtue of that habit, to be thus or thus disposed; but those
who are disposed in some specific way have not in all cases the
corresponding habit.
Another sort of quality is that in virtue of which, for example, we call
men good boxers or runners, or healthy or sickly: in fact it includes all
those terms which refer to inborn capacity or incapacity. (15) Such things
are not predicated of a person in virtue of his disposition, but in virtue of
his inborn capacity or incapacity to do something with ease or to avoid
defeat of any kind. Persons are called good boxers or good runners, not
in virtue of such and such a disposition, (20) but in virtue of an inborn
capacity to accomplish something with ease. Men are called healthy in
virtue of the inborn capacity of easy resistance to those unhealthy
influences that may ordinarily arise; unhealthy, in virtue of the lack of
this capacity. (25) Similarly with regard to softness and hardness.
Hardness is predicated of a thing because it has that capacity of
resistance which enables it to withstand disintegration; softness, again, is
predicated of a thing by reason of the lack of that capacity.
A third class within this category is that of affective qualities and
affections. Sweetness, bitterness, sourness, are examples of this sort of
quality, (30) together with all that is akin to these; heat, moreover, and
cold, whiteness, and blackness are affective qualities. It is evident that
these are qualities, for those things that possess them are themselves said
to be such and such by reason of their presence. Honey is called sweet
because it contains sweetness; the body is called white because it
contains whiteness; and so in all other cases.
The term ‘affective quality’ is not used as indicating that those things
which admit these qualities are affected in any way. (35) Honey is not
called sweet because it is affected in a specific way, nor is this what is
meant in any other instance. [9b] Similarly heat and cold are called
affective qualities, not because those things which admit them are
affected. (5) What is meant is that these said qualities are capable of
producing an ‘affection’ in the way of perception. For sweetness has the
power of affecting the sense of taste; heat, that of touch; and so it is with
the rest of these qualities.
Whiteness and blackness, however, and the other colours, (10) are not
said to be affective qualities in this sense, but because they themselves
are the results of an affection. It is plain that many changes of colour
take place because of affections. When a man is ashamed, he blushes;
when he is afraid, he becomes pale, and so on. So true is this, (15) that
when a man is by nature liable to such affections, arising from some
concomitance of elements in his constitution, it is a probable inference
that he has the corresponding complexion of skin. For the same
disposition of bodily elements, which in the former instance was
momentarily present in the case of an access of shame, might be a result
of a man’s natural temperament, so as to produce the corresponding
colouring also as a natural characteristic. All conditions, therefore, of
this kind, if caused by certain permanent and lasting affections, (20) are
called affective qualities. For pallor and duskiness of complexion are
called qualities, inasmuch as we are said to be such and such in virtue of
them, not only if they originate in natural constitution, but also if they
come about through long disease or sunburn, (25) and are difficult to
remove, or indeed remain throughout life. For in the same way we are
said to be such and such because of these.
Those conditions, however, which arise from causes which may easily
be rendered ineffective or speedily removed, are called, not qualities, but
affections: for we are not said to be such and such in virtue of them. The
man who blushes through shame is not said to be a constitutional
blusher, (30) nor is the man who becomes pale through fear said to be
constitutionally pale. He is said rather to have been affected. Thus such
conditions are called affections, not qualities.
In like manner there are affective qualities and affections of the soul.
(35) That temper with which a man is born and which has its origin in

certain deep-seated affections is called a quality. [10a] I mean such

conditions as insanity, irascibility, and so on: for people are said to be
mad or irascible in virtue of these. Similarly those abnormal psychic
states which are not inborn, but arise from the concomitance of certain
other elements, and are difficult to remove, or altogether permanent, are
called qualities, for in virtue of them men are said to be such and such.
(5)

Those, however, which arise from causes easily rendered ineffective

are called affections, not qualities. Suppose that a man is irritable when
vexed: he is not even spoken of as a bad-tempered man, when in such
circumstances he loses his temper somewhat, but rather is said to be
affected. Such conditions are therefore termed, not qualities, but
affections. (10)
The fourth sort of quality is figure and the shape that belongs to a
thing; and besides this, straightness and curvedness and any other
qualities of this type; each of these defines a thing as being such and
such. Because it is triangular or quadrangular a thing is said to have a
specific character, (15) or again because it is straight or curved; in fact a
thing’s shape in every case gives rise to a qualification of it.
Rarity and density, roughness and smoothness, seem to be terms
indicating quality: yet these, it would appear, really belong to a class
different from that of quality. For it is rather a certain relative position
of the parts composing the thing thus qualified which, it appears, is
indicated by each of these terms. A thing is dense, (20) owing to the fact
that its parts are closely combined with one another; rare, because there
are interstices between the parts; smooth, because its parts lie, so to
speak, evenly; rough, because some parts project beyond others.
There may be other sorts of quality, (25) but those that are most
properly so called have, we may safely say, been enumerated.
These, then, are qualities, and the things that take their name from
them as derivatives, or are in some other way dependent on them, are
said to be qualified in some specific way. In most, indeed in almost all
cases, the name of that which is qualified is derived from that of the
quality. (30) Thus the terms ‘whiteness’, ‘grammar’, ‘justice’, give us the
adjectives ‘white’, ‘grammatical’, ‘just’, and so on.
There are some cases, however, in which, as the quality under
consideration has no name, it is impossible that those possessed of it
should have a name that is derivative. For instance, (35) the name given
to the runner or boxer, who is so called in virtue of an inborn capacity,
is not derived from that of any quality; for those capacities have no
name assigned to them. [10b] In this, the inborn capacity is distinct
from the science, with reference to which men are called, e. g., boxers or
wrestlers. Such a science is classed as a disposition; it has a name, and is
called ‘boxing’ or ‘wrestling’ as the case may be, and the name given to
those disposed in this way is derived from that of the science.
Sometimes, (5) even though a name exists for the quality, that which
takes its character from the quality has a name that is not a derivative.
For instance, the upright man takes his character from the possession of
the quality of integrity, but the name given him is not derived from the
word ‘integrity’. Yet this does not occur often.
We may therefore state that those things are said to be possessed of
some specific quality which have a name derived from that of the
aforesaid quality, (10) or which are in some other way dependent on it.
One quality may be the contrary of another; thus justice is the
contrary of injustice, whiteness of blackness, and so on. The things, also,
which are said to be such and such in virtue of these qualities, may be
contrary the one to the other; for that which is unjust is contrary to that
which is just, (15) that which is white to that which is black. This,
however, is not always the case. Red, yellow, and such colours, though
qualities, have no contraries.
If one of two contraries is a quality, the other will also be a quality.
This will be evident from particular instances, if we apply the names
used to denote the other categories; for instance, (20) granted that justice
is the contrary of injustice and justice is a quality, injustice will also be a
quality: neither quantity, nor relation, nor place, nor indeed any other
category but that of quality, will be applicable properly to injustice. So it
is with all other contraries falling under the category of quality. (25)
Qualities admit of variation of degree. Whiteness is predicated of one
thing in a greater or less degree than of another. This is also the case
with reference to justice. Moreover, one and the same thing may exhibit
a quality in a greater degree than it did before: if a thing is white, it may
become whiter.
Though this is generally the case, there are exceptions. For if we
should say that justice admitted of variation of degree, (30) difficulties
might ensue, and this is true with regard to all those qualities which are
dispositions. There are some, indeed, who dispute the possibility of
variation here. They maintain that justice and health cannot very well
admit of variation of degree themselves, (35) but that people vary in the
degree in which they possess these qualities, and that this is the case
with grammatical learning and all those qualities which are classed as
dispositions. [11a] However that may be, it is an incontrovertible fact
that the things which in virtue of these qualities are said to be what they
are vary in the degree in which they possess them; for one man is said to
be better versed in grammar, or more healthy or just, than another, and
so on.
The qualities expressed by the terms ‘triangular’ and ‘quadrangular’ do
not appear to admit of variation of degree, (5) nor indeed do any that
have to do with figure. For those things to which the definition of the
triangle or circle is applicable are all equally triangular or circular.
Those, on the other hand, to which the same definition is not applicable,
cannot be said to differ from one another in degree; the square is no
more a circle than the rectangle, (10) for to neither is the definition of the
circle appropriate. In short, if the definition of the term proposed is not
applicable to both objects, they cannot be compared. Thus it is not all
qualities which admit of variation of degree.
Whereas none of the characteristics I have mentioned are peculiar to
quality, (15) the fact that likeness and unlikeness can be predicated with
reference to quality only, gives to that category its distinctive feature.
One thing is like another only with reference to that in virtue of which it
is such and such; thus this forms the peculiar mark of quality.
We must not be disturbed because it may be argued that, (20) though
proposing to discuss the category of quality, we have included in it many
relative terms. We did say that habits and dispositions were relative. In
practically all such cases the genus is relative, the individual not. Thus
knowledge, as a genus, is explained by reference to something else, (25)
for we mean a knowledge of something. But particular branches of
knowledge are not thus explained. The knowledge of grammar is not
relative to anything external, nor is the knowledge of music, but these, if
relative at all, (30) are relative only in virtue of their genera; thus
grammar is said to be the knowledge of something, not the grammar of
something; similarly music is the knowledge of something, not the music
of something.
Thus individual branches of knowledge are not relative. And it is
because we possess these individual branches of knowledge that we are
said to be such and such. It is these that we actually possess: we are
called experts because we possess knowledge in some particular branch.
(35) Those particular branches, therefore, of knowledge, in virtue of

which we are sometimes said to be such and such, are themselves

qualities, and are not relative. Further, if anything should happen to fall
within both the category of quality and that of relation, there would be
nothing extraordinary in classing it under both these heads.

9 [11b] Action and affection both admit of contraries and also of

variation of degree. Heating is the contrary of cooling, being heated of
being cooled, being glad of being vexed. Thus they admit of contraries.
(5) They also admit of variation of degree: for it is possible to heat in a

greater or less degree; also to be heated in a greater or less degree. Thus

action and affection also admit of variation of degree. So much, then, is
stated with regard to these categories.
We spoke, moreover, of the category of position when we were
dealing with that of relation, and stated that such terms derived their
names from those of the corresponding attitudes.
As for the rest, (10) time, place, state, since they are easily intelligible, I
say no more about them than was said at the beginning, that in the
category of state are included such states as ‘shod’, ‘armed’, in that of
place ‘in the Lyceum’ and so on, as was explained before.

10 The proposed categories have, (15) then, been adequately dealt

with.
We must next explain the various senses in which the term ‘opposite’
is used. Things are said to be opposed in four senses: (i) as correlatives
to one another, (ii) as contraries to one another, (iii) as privatives to
positives, (iv) as affirmatives to negatives.
Let me sketch my meaning in outline. An instance of the use of the
word ‘opposite’ with reference to correlatives is afforded by the
expressions ‘double’ and ‘half’; with reference to contraries by ‘bad’ and
‘good’. (20) Opposites in the sense of ‘privatives’ and ‘positives’ are
‘blindness’ and ‘sight’; in the sense of affirmatives and negatives, the
propositions ‘he sits’, ‘he does not sit’.
(i) Pairs of opposites which fall under the category of relation are
explained by a reference of the one to the other, the reference being
indicated by the preposition ‘of’ or by some other preposition. (25) Thus,
double is a relative term, for that which is double is explained as the
double of something. Knowledge, again, is the opposite of the thing
known, in the same sense; and the thing known also is explained by its
relation to its opposite, (30) knowledge. For the thing known is explained
as that which is known by something; that is, by knowledge. Such things,
then, as are opposite the one to the other in the sense of being
correlatives are explained by a reference of the one to the other.
(ii) Pairs of opposites which are contraries are not in any way
interdependent, but are contrary the one to the other. The good is not
spoken of as the good of the bad, but as the contrary of the bad, (35) nor is
white spoken of as the white of the black, but as the contrary of the black.
These two types of opposition are therefore distinct. [12a] Those
contraries which are such that the subjects in which they are naturally
present, or of which they are predicated, must necessarily contain either
the one or the other of them, have no intermediate, but those in the case
of which no such necessity obtains, always have an intermediate. Thus
disease and health are naturally present in the body of an animal, and it
is necessary that either the one or the other should be present in the
body of an animal. (5) Odd and even, again, are predicated of number,
and it is necessary that the one or the other should be present in
numbers. Now there is no intermediate between the terms of either of
these two pairs. On the other hand, in those contraries with regard to
which no such necessity obtains, we find an intermediate. (10) Blackness
and whiteness are naturally present in the body, but it is not necessary
that either the one or the other should be present in the body, inasmuch
as it is not true to say that everybody must be white or black. Badness
and goodness, again, are predicated of man, and of many other things,
(15) but it is not necessary that either the one quality or the other should

be present in that of which they are predicated: it is not true to say that
everything that may be good or bad must be either good or bad. These
pairs of contraries have intermediates: the intermediates between white
and black are grey, sallow, and all the other colours that come between;
the intermediate between good and bad is that which is neither the one
nor the other.
Some intermediate qualities have names, (20) such as grey and sallow
and all the other colours that come between white and black; in other
cases, however, it is not easy to name the intermediate, but we must
define it as that which is not either extreme, (25) as in the case of that
which is neither good nor bad, neither just nor unjust.
(iii) ‘Privatives’ and ‘positives’ have reference to the same subject.
Thus, sight and blindness have reference to the eye. It is a universal rule
that each of a pair of opposites of this type has reference to that to
which the particular ‘positive’ is natural. We say that that which is
capable of some particular faculty or possession has suffered privation
when the faculty or possession in question is in no way present in that in
which, (30) and at the time at which, it should naturally be present. We
do not call that toothless which has not teeth, or that blind which has
not sight, but rather that which has not teeth or sight at the time when
by nature it should. For there are some creatures which from birth are
without sight, or without teeth, but these are not called toothless or
blind.
To be without some faculty or to possess it is not the same as the
corresponding ‘privative’ or ‘positive’. (35) ‘Sight’ is a ‘positive’,
‘blindness’ a ‘privative’, but ‘to possess sight’ is not equivalent to ‘sight’,
‘to be blind’ is not equivalent to ‘blindness’. Blindness is a ‘privative’, to
be blind is to be in a state of privation, but is not a ‘privative’. Moreover,
if ‘blindness’ were equivalent to ‘being blind’, (40) both would be
predicated of the same subject; but though a man is said to be blind, he
is by no means said to be blindness.
[12b] To be in a state of ‘possession’ is, it appears, the opposite of
being in a state of ‘privation’, just as ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’
themselves are opposite. There is the same type of antithesis in both
cases; for just as blindness is opposed to sight, (5) so is being blind
opposed to having sight.
That which is affirmed or denied is not itself affirmation or denial. By
‘affirmation’ we mean an affirmative proposition, by ‘denial’ a negative.
Now, those facts which form the matter of the affirmation or denial are
not propositions; yet these two are said to be opposed in the same sense
as the affirmation and denial, (10) for in this case also the type of
antithesis is the same. For as the affirmation is opposed to the denial, as
in the two propositions ‘he sits’, ‘he does not sit’, so also the fact which
constitutes the matter of the proposition in one case is opposed to that in
the other, his sitting, that is to say, (15) to his not sitting.
It is evident that ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’ are not opposed each to
each in the same sense as relatives. The one is not explained by
reference to the other; sight is not sight of blindness, nor is any other
preposition used to indicate the relation. Similarly blindness is not said
to be blindness of sight, but rather, privation of sight. (20) Relatives,
moreover, reciprocate; if blindness, therefore, were a relative, there
would be a reciprocity of relation between it and that with which it was
correlative. But this is not the case. Sight is not called the sight of
blindness. (25)
That those terms which fall under the heads of ‘positives’ and
‘privatives’ are not opposed each to each as contraries, either, is plain
from the following facts: Of a pair of contraries such that they have no
intermediate, one or the other must needs be present in the subject in
which they naturally subsist, or of which they are predicated; for it is
those, (30) as we proved, in the case of which this necessity obtains, that
have no intermediate. Moreover, we cited health and disease, odd and
even, as instances. But those contraries which have an intermediate are
not subject to any such necessity. It is not necessary that every
substance, receptive of such qualities, should be either black or white,
cold or hot, for something intermediate between these contraries may
very well be present in the subject. (35) We proved, moreover, that those
contraries have an intermediate in the case of which the said necessity
does not obtain. Yet when one of the two contraries is a constitutive
property of the subject, as it is a constitutive property of fire to be hot,
of snow to be white, it is necessary determinately that one of the two
contraries, not one or the other, should be present in the subject; for fire
cannot be cold, (40) or snow black. Thus, it is not the case here that one
of the two must needs be present in every subject receptive of these
qualities, but only in that subject of which the one forms a constitutive
property. [13a] Moreover, in such cases it is one member of the pair
determinately, and not either the one or the other, which must be
present.
In the case of ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’, on the other hand, neither of
the aforesaid statements holds good. For it is not necessary that a subject
receptive of the qualities should always have either the one or the other;
that which has not yet advanced to the state when sight is natural is not
said either to be blind or to see. (5) Thus ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’ do
not belong to that class of contraries which consists of those which have
no intermediate. On the other hand, they do not belong either to that
class which consists of contraries which have an intermediate. For under
certain conditions it is necessary that either the one or the other should
form part of the constitution of every appropriate subject. For when a
thing has reached the stage when it is by nature capable of sight, (10) it
will be said either to see or to be blind, and that in an indeterminate
sense, signifying that the capacity may be either present or absent; for it
is not necessary either that it should see or that it should be blind, but
that it should be either in the one state or in the other. Yet in the case of
those contraries which have an intermediate we found that it was never
necessary that either the one or the other should be present in every
appropriate subject, but only that in certain subjects one of the pair
should be present, (15) and that in a determinate sense. It is, therefore,
plain that ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’ are not opposed each to each in
either of the senses in which contraries are opposed.
Again, in the case of contraries, it is possible that there should be
changes from either into the other, while the subject retains its identity,
unless indeed one of the contraries is a constitutive property of that
subject, (20) as heat is of fire. For it is possible that that which is healthy
should become diseased, that which is white, black, that which is cold,
hot, that which is good, bad, that which is bad, good. The bad man, if he
is being brought into a better way of life and thought, may make some
advance, however slight, and if he should once improve, (25) even ever so
little, it is plain that he might change completely, or at any rate make
very great progress; for a man becomes more and more easily moved to
virtue, however small the improvement was at first. It is, therefore,
natural to suppose that he will make yet greater progress than he has
made in the past; and as this process goes on, it will change him
completely and establish him in the contrary state, (30) provided he is not
hindered by lack of time. In the case of ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’,
however, change in both directions is impossible. There may be a change
from possession to privation, but not from privation to possession. (35)
The man who has become blind does not regain his sight; the man who
has become bald does not regain his hair; the man who has lost his teeth
does not grow a new set.
[13b] (iv) Statements opposed as affirmation and negation belong
manifestly to a class which is distinct, for in this case, and in this case
only, it is necessary for the one opposite to be true and the other false.
Neither in the case of contraries, nor in the case of correlatives, nor in
the case of ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’, is it necessary for one to be true
and the other false. Health and disease are contraries: neither of them is
true or false. ‘Double’ and ‘half’ are opposed to each other as
correlatives: neither of them is true or false. The case is the same, of
course, with regard to ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’ such as ‘sight’ and
‘blindness’. In short, where there is no sort of combination of words, (10)
truth and falsity have no place, and all the opposites we have mentioned
so far consist of simple words.
 At the same time, when the words which enter into opposed
statements are contraries, these, more than any other set of opposites,
would seem to claim this characteristic. ‘Socrates is ill’ is the contrary of
‘Socrates is well’, but not even of such composite expressions is it true to
say that one of the pair must always be true and the other false. (15) For if
Socrates exists, one will be true and the other false, but if he does not
exist, both will be false; for neither ‘Socrates is ill’ nor ‘Socrates is well’
is true, if Socrates does not exist at all.
In the case of ‘positives’ and ‘privatives’, if the subject does not exist at
all, (20) neither proposition is true, but even if the subject exists, it is not
always the fact that one is true and the other false. For ‘Socrates has
sight’ is the opposite of ‘Socrates is blind’ in the sense of the word
‘opposite’ which applies to possession and privation. Now if Socrates
exists, it is not necessary that one should be true and the other false, for
when he is not yet able to acquire the power of vision, both are false, as
also if Socrates is altogether non-existent. (25)
But in the case of affirmation and negation, whether the subject exists
or not, one is always false and the other true. For manifestly, if Socrates
exists, one of the two propositions ‘Socrates is ill’, ‘Socrates is not ill’, is
true, and the other false. (30) This is likewise the case if he does not exist;
for if he does not exist, to say that he is ill is false, to say that he is not
ill is true. Thus it is in the case of those opposites only, which are
opposite in the sense in which the term is used with reference to
affirmation and negation, that the rule holds good, that one of the pair
must be true and the other false. (35)

11 That the contrary of a good is an evil is shown by induction: the

contrary of health is disease, of courage, cowardice, and so on. But the
contrary of an evil is sometimes a good, sometimes an evil. [14a] For
defect, which is an evil, has excess for its contrary, this also being an
evil, and the mean, which is a good, is equally the contrary of the one
and of the other. It is only in a few cases, however, that we see instances
of this: in most, the contrary of an evil is a good. (5)
In the case of contraries, it is not always necessary that if one exists
the other should also exist: for if all become healthy there will be health
and no disease, and again, if everything turns white, (10) there will be
white, but no black. Again, since the fact that Socrates is ill is the
contrary of the fact that Socrates is well, and two contrary conditions
cannot both obtain in one and the same individual at the same time,
both these contraries could not exist at once: for if that Socrates was well
was a fact, then that Socrates was ill could not possibly be one.
It is plain that contrary attributes must needs be present in subjects
which belong to the same species or genus. (15) Disease and health
require as their subject the body of an animal; white and black require a
body, without further qualification; justice and injustice require as their
subject the human soul.
Moreover, it is necessary that pairs of contraries should in all cases
either belong to the same genus or belong to contrary genera or be
themselves genera. (20) White and black belong to the same genus,
colour; justice and injustice, to contrary genera, virtue and vice; while
good and evil do not belong to genera, but are themselves actual genera,
(25) with terms under them.

12 There are four senses in which one thing can be said to be ‘prior’
to another. Primarily and most properly the term has reference to time:
in this sense the word is used to indicate that one thing is older or more
ancient than another, for the expressions ‘older’ and ‘more ancient’
imply greater length of time.
Secondly, one thing is said to be ‘prior’ to another when the sequence
of their being cannot be reversed. (30) In this sense ‘one’ is ‘prior’ to ‘two’.
For if ‘two’ exists, it follows directly that ‘one’ must exist, but if ‘one’
exists, it does not follow necessarily that ‘two’ exists: thus the sequence
subsisting cannot be reversed. It is agreed, then, that when the sequence
of two things cannot be reversed, (35) then that one on which the other
depends is called ‘prior’ to that other.
In the third place, the term ‘prior’ is used with reference to any order,
as in the case of science and of oratory. For in sciences which use
demonstration there is that which is prior and that which is posterior in
order; in geometry, the elements are prior to the propositions; in reading
and writing, the letters of the alphabet are prior to the syllables. [14b]
Similarly, in the case of speeches, the exordium is prior in order to the
narrative.
 Besides these senses of the word, there is a fourth. That which is better
and more honourable is said to have a natural priority. (5) In common
parlance men speak of those whom they honour and love as ‘coming
first’ with them. This sense of the word is perhaps the most far-fetched.
Such, then, are the different senses in which the term ‘prior’ is used.
Yet it would seem that besides those mentioned there is yet another.
(10) For in those things, the being of each of which implies that of the

other, that which is in any way the cause may reasonably be said to be
by nature ‘prior’ to the effect. It is plain that there are instances of this.
The fact of the being of a man carries with it the truth of the proposition
that he is, and the implication is reciprocal: for if a man is, (15) the
proposition wherein we allege that he is is true, and conversely, if the
proposition wherein we allege that he is is true, then he is. The true
proposition, however, is in no way the cause of the being of the man, but
the fact of the man’s being does seem somehow to be the cause of the
truth of the proposition, (20) for the truth or falsity of the proposition
depends on the fact of the man’s being or not being.
Thus the word ‘prior’ may be used in five senses.

13 The term ‘simultaneous’ is primarily and most appropriately

applied to those things the genesis of the one of which is simultaneous
with that of the other; for in such cases neither is prior or posterior to
the other. (25) Such things are said to be simultaneous in point of time.
Those things, again, are ‘simultaneous’ in point of nature, the being of
each of which involves that of the other, while at the same time neither
is the cause of the other’s being. This is the case with regard to the
double and the half, for these are reciprocally dependent, since, if there
is a double, there is also a half, (30) and if there is a half, there is also a
double, while at the same time neither is the cause of the being of the
other.
Again, those species which are distinguished one from another and
opposed one to another within the same genus are said to be
‘simultaneous’ in nature. I mean those species which are distinguished
each from each by one and the same method of division. (35) Thus the
‘winged’ species is simultaneous with the ‘terrestrial’ and the ‘water’
species. These are distinguished within the same genus, and are opposed
each to each, for the genus ‘animal’ has the ‘winged’, the ‘terrestrial’,
and the ‘water’ species, and no one of these is prior or posterior to
another; on the contrary, all such things appear to be ‘simultaneous’ in
nature. [15a] Each of these also, the terrestrial, the winged, and the
water species, can be divided again into sub-species. Those species, then,
also will be ‘simultaneous’ in point of nature, which, belonging to the
same genus, are distinguished each from each by one and the same
method of differentiation.
But genera are prior to species, (5) for the sequence of their being
cannot be reversed. If there is the species ‘water-animal’, there will be
the genus ‘animal’, but granted the being of the genus ‘animal’, it does
not follow necessarily that there will be the species ‘water-animal’.
Those things, therefore, are said to be ‘simultaneous’ in nature, the
being of each of which involves that of the other, while at the same time
neither is in any way the cause of the other’s being; those species, (10)
also, which are distinguished each from each and opposed within the
same genus. Those things, moreover, are ‘simultaneous’ in the
unqualified sense of the word which come into being at the same time.

14 There are six sorts of movement: generation, destruction, increase,

diminution, alteration, and change of place.
It is evident in all but one case that all these sorts of movement are
distinct each from each. (15) Generation is distinct from destruction,
increase and change of place from diminution, and so on. But in the case
of alteration it may be argued that the process necessarily implies one or
other of the other five sorts of motion. (20) This is not true, for we may
say that all affections, or nearly all, produce in us an alteration which is
distinct from all other sorts of motion, for that which is affected need not
suffer either increase or diminution or any of the other sorts of motion.
Thus alteration is a distinct sort of motion; for, (25) if it were not, the
thing altered would not only be altered, but would forthwith necessarily
suffer increase or diminution or some one of the other sorts of motion in
addition; which as a matter of fact is not the case. Similarly that which
was undergoing the process of increase or was subject to some other sort
of motion would, if alteration were not a distinct form of motion,
necessarily be subject to alteration also. But there are some things which
undergo increase but yet not alteration. The square, (30) for instance, if a
gnomon is applied to it, undergoes increase but not alteration, and so it
is with all other figures of this sort. Alteration and increase, therefore,
are distinct.
[15b] Speaking generally, rest is the contrary of motion. But the
different forms of motion have their own contraries in other forms; thus
destruction is the contrary of generation, diminution of increase, rest in
a place, of change of place. As for this last, change in the reverse
direction would seem to be most truly its contrary; thus motion upwards
is the contrary of motion downwards and vice versa. (5)
In the case of that sort of motion which yet remains, of those that
have been enumerated, it is not easy to state what is its contrary. It
appears to have no contrary, unless one should define the contrary here
also either as ‘rest in its quality’ or as ‘change in the direction of the
contrary quality’, (10) just as we defined the contrary of change of place
either as rest in a place or as change in the reverse direction. For a thing
is altered when change of quality takes place; therefore either rest in its
quality or change in the direction of the contrary quality may be called
the contrary of this qualitative form of motion. In this way becoming
white is the contrary of becoming black; there is alteration in the
contrary direction, (15) since a change of a qualitative nature takes place.

15 The term ‘to have’ is used in various senses. In the first place it is
used with reference to habit or disposition or any other quality, for we
are said to ‘have’ a piece of knowledge or a virtue. Then, again, it has
reference to quantity, as, for instance, (20) in the case of a man’s height;
for he is said to ‘have’ a height of three cubits or four cubits. It is used,
moreover, with regard to apparel, a man being said to ‘have’ a coat or
tunic; or in respect of something which we have on a part of ourselves,
as a ring on the hand: or in respect of something which is a part of us, as
hand or foot. The term refers also to content, as in the case of a vessel
and wheat, or of a jar and wine; a jar is said to ‘have’ wine, and a corn-
measure wheat. (25) The expression in such cases has reference to
content. Or it refers to that which has been acquired; we are said to
‘have’ a house or a field. A man is also said to ‘have’ a wife, and a wife a
husband, and this appears to be the most remote meaning of the term,
for by the use of it we mean simply that the husband lives with the wife.
(30)

Other senses of the word might perhaps be found, but the most
ordinary ones have all been enumerated.

1 1a 24.

2 1a 6.

3 2a 11—b 22.
 DE INTERPRETATIONE

Translated by E. M. Edghill

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
1. (1) The spoken word is a symbol of thought.
(2) Isolated thoughts or expressions are neither true nor false.
(3) Truth and falsehood are only attributable to certain combinations of thoughts or of
words.
2. (1) Definition of a noun.
(2) Simple and composite nouns.
(3) Indefinite nouns.
(4) Cases of a noun.
3. (1) Definition of a verb.
(2) Indefinite verbs.
(3) Tenses of a verb.
(4) Verbal nouns and adjectives.
4. Definition of a sentence.
5. Simple and compound propositions.
6. Contradictory propositions.
7. (1) Universal, indefinite, and particular affirmations and denials.
(2) Contrary as opposed to contradictory propositions.
(3) In contrary propositions, of which the subject is universal or particular, the truth of
the one proposition implies the falsity of the other, but this is not the case in
indefinite propositions.
8. Definition of single propositions.
9. Propositions which refer to present or past time must be either true or false:
propositions which refer to future time must be either true or false, but it is not
determined which must be true and which false.
10. (1) Diagrammatic arrangement of pairs of affirmations and denials, (a) without the
complement of the verb ‘to be’, (b) with the complement of the verb ‘to be’, (c)
 with an indefinite noun for subject.
(2) The right position of the negative.
(3) Contraries can never both be true, but subcontraries may both be true.
(4) In particular propositions, if the affirmative is false, the contrary is true; in
universal propositions, if the affirmative is false, the contradictory is true.
(5) Propositions consisting of an indefinite noun and an indefinite verb are not denials.
(6) The relation to other propositions of those which have an indefinite noun as
subject.
(7) The transposition of nouns and verbs makes no difference to the sense of the
proposition.
11. (1) Some seemingly simple propositions are really compound.
(2) Similarly some dialectical questions are really compound.
(3) The nature of a dialectical question.
(4) When two simple propositions having the same subject are true, it is not
necessarily the case that the proposition resulting from the combination of the
predicates is true.
(5) A plurality of predicates which individually belong to the same subject can only be
combined to form a simple proposition when they are essentially predicable of the
subject, and when one is not implicit in another.
(6) A compound predicate cannot be resolved into simple predicates when the
compound predicate has within it a contradiction in terms, or when one of the
predicates is used in a secondary sense.
12. (1) Propositions concerning possibility, impossibility, contingency, and necessity.
(2) Determination of the proper contradictories of such propositions.
13. (1) Scheme to show the relation subsisting between such propositions.
(2) Illogical character of this scheme proved.
(3) Revised scheme.
(4) That which is said to be possible may be (a) always actual, (b) sometimes actual
and sometimes not, (c) never actual.
14. Discussion as to whether a contrary affirmation or a denial is the proper contrary of an
affirmation, either universal or particular.
 DE INTERPRETATIONE

(On Interpretation)

1 [16a] First we must define the terms ‘noun’ and ‘verb’, then the
terms ‘denial’ and ‘affirmation’, then ‘proposition’ and ‘sentence’.
Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words
are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same
writing, (5) so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental
experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also
are those things of which our experiences are the images. This matter
has, however, been discussed in my treatise about the soul, for it belongs
to an investigation distinct from that which lies before us.
As there are in the mind thoughts which do not involve truth or
falsity, (10) and also those which must be either true or false, so it is in
speech. For truth and falsity imply combination and separation. Nouns
and verbs, provided nothing is added, are like thoughts without
combination or separation; ‘man’ and ‘white’, (15) as isolated terms, are
not yet either true or false. In proof of this, consider the word ‘goat-stag’.
It has significance, but there is no truth or falsity about it, unless ‘is’ or
‘is not’ is added, either in the present or in some other tense.

2 By a noun we mean a sound significant by convention, (20) which has

no reference to time, and of which no part is significant apart from the
rest. In the noun ‘Fairsteed’, the part ‘steed’ has no significance in and by
itself, as in the phrase ‘fair steed’. Yet there is a difference between
simple and composite nouns; for in the former the part is in no way
significant, (25) in the latter it contributes to the meaning of the whole,
although it has not an independent meaning. Thus in the word ‘pirate-
boat’ the word ‘boat’ has no meaning except as part of the whole word.
The limitation ‘by convention’ was introduced because nothing is by
nature a noun or name—it is only so when it becomes a symbol;
inarticulate sounds, such as those which brutes produce, are significant,
yet none of these constitutes a noun.
The expression ‘not-man’ is not a noun. (30) There is indeed no
recognized term by which we may denote such an expression, for it is
not a sentence or a denial. Let it then be called an indefinite noun.
The expressions ‘of Philo’, ‘to Philo’, and so on, constitute not nouns,
but cases of a noun. [16b] The definition of these cases of a noun is in
other respects the same as that of the noun proper, but, when coupled
with ‘is’, ‘was’, or ‘will be’, they do not, as they are, form a proposition
either true or false, and this the noun proper always does, under these
conditions. Take the words ‘of Philo is’ or ‘of Philo is not’; these words
do not, as they stand, form either a true or a false proposition. (5)

3 A verb is that which, in addition to its proper meaning, carries with

it the notion of time. No part of it has any independent meaning, and it
is a sign of something said of something else.
I will explain what I mean by saying that it carries with it the notion
of time. ‘Health’ is a noun, but ‘is healthy’ is a verb; for besides its
proper meaning it indicates the present existence of the state in question.
Moreover, a verb is always a sign of something said of something else,
(10) i. e. of something either predicable of or present in some other thing.

Such expressions as ‘is not-healthy’, ‘is not-ill’, I do not describe as

verbs; for though they carry the additional note of time, and always
form a predicate, there is no specified name for this variety; but let them
be called indefinite verbs, (15) since they apply equally well to that which
exists and to that which does not.
Similarly ‘he was healthy’, ‘he will be healthy’, are not verbs, but
tenses of a verb; the difference lies in the fact that the verb indicates
present time, while the tenses of the verb indicate those times which lie
outside the present.
Verbs in and by themselves are substantial and have significance, for
he who uses such expressions arrests the hearer’s mind, (20) and fixes his
attention; but they do not, as they stand, express any judgement, either
positive or negative. For neither are ‘to be’ and ‘not to be’ and the
participle ‘being’ significant of any fact, unless something is added; for
they do not themselves indicate anything, but imply a copulation, of
which we cannot form a conception apart from the things coupled. (25)
4 A sentence is a significant portion of speech, some parts of which
have an independent meaning, that is to say, as an utterance, though not
as the expression of any positive judgement. Let me explain. The word
‘human’ has meaning, but does not constitute a proposition, either
positive or negative. It is only when other words are added that the
whole will form an affirmation or denial. (30) But if we separate one
syllable of the word ‘human’ from the other, it has no meaning; similarly
in the word ‘mouse’, the part ‘-ouse’ has no meaning in itself, but is
merely a sound. In composite words, indeed, the parts contribute to the
meaning of the whole; yet, as has been pointed out,1 they have not an
independent meaning.
[17a] Every sentence has meaning, not as being the natural means
by which a physical faculty is realized, but, as we have said, by
convention. Yet every sentence is not a proposition; only such are
propositions as have in them either truth or falsity. Thus a prayer is a
sentence, but is neither true nor false.
Let us therefore dismiss all other types of sentence but the proposition,
(5) for this last concerns our present inquiry, whereas the investigation of

the others belongs rather to the study of rhetoric or of poetry.2

5 The first class of simple propositions is the simple affirmation, the

next, the simple denial; all others are only one by conjunction.
Every proposition must contain a verb or the tense of a verb. (10) The
phrase which defines the species ‘man’, if no verb in present, past, or
future time be added, is not a proposition. It may be asked how the
expression ‘a footed animal with two feet’ can be called single; for it is
not the circumstance that the words follow in unbroken succession that
effects the unity. This inquiry, however, finds its place in an
investigation foreign to that before us.
We call those propositions single which indicate a single fact, (15) or
the conjunction of the parts of which results in unity: those propositions,
on the other hand, are separate and many in number, which indicate
many facts, or whose parts have no conjunction.
Let us, moreover, consent to call a noun or a verb an expression only,
and not a proposition, since it is not possible for a man to speak in this
way when he is expressing something, in such a way as to make a
statement, whether his utterance is an answer to a question or an act of
his own initiation.
To return: of propositions one kind is simple, (20) i. e. that which
asserts or denies something of something, the other composite, i. e. that
which is compounded of simple propositions. A simple proposition is a
statement, with meaning, as to the presence of something in a subject or
its absence, in the present, past, or future, according to the divisions of
time.

6 An affirmation is a positive assertion of something about something,

(25) a denial a negative assertion.

Now it is possible both to affirm and to deny the presence of

something which is present or of something which is not, and since these
same affirmations and denials are possible with reference to those times
which lie outside the present, it would be possible to contradict any
affirmation or denial. (30) Thus it is plain that every affirmation has an
opposite denial, and similarly every denial an opposite affirmation.
We will call such a pair of propositions a pair of contradictories. Those
positive and negative propositions are said to be contradictory which
have the same subject and predicate. (35) The identity of subject and of
predicate must not be ‘equivocal’. Indeed there are definitive
qualifications besides this, which we make to meet the casuistries of
sophists.

7 Some things are universal, others individual. By the term ‘universal’

I mean that which is of such a nature as to be predicated of many
subjects, by ‘individual’ that which is not thus predicated. Thus ‘man’ is
a universal, ‘Callias’ an individual. (40)
Our propositions necessarily sometimes concern a universal subject,
sometimes an individual. [17b]
If, then, a man states a positive and a negative proposition of universal
character with regard to a universal, these two propositions are
‘contrary’. By the expression ‘a proposition of universal character with
regard to a universal’, (5) such propositions as ‘every man is white’, ‘no
man is white’ are meant. When, on the other hand, the positive and
negative propositions, though they have regard to a universal, are yet
not of universal character, they will not be contrary, albeit the meaning
intended is sometimes contrary. As instances of propositions made with
regard to a universal, but not of universal character, we may take the
propositions ‘man is white’, ‘man is not white’. (10) ‘Man’ is a universal,
but the proposition is not made as of universal character; for the word
‘every’ does not make the subject a universal, but rather gives the
proposition a universal character. If, however, both predicate and
subject are distributed, the proposition thus constituted is contrary to
truth; no affirmation will, under such circumstances, be true. The
proposition ‘every man is every animal’ is an example of this type. (15)
An affirmation is opposed to a denial in the sense which I denote by
the term ‘contradictory’, when, while the subject remains the same, the
affirmation is of universal character and the denial is not. The
affirmation ‘every man is white’ is the contradictory of the denial ‘not
every man is white’, or again, the proposition ‘no man is white’ is the
contradictory of the proposition ‘some men are white’. (20) But
propositions are opposed as contraries when both the affirmation and the
denial are universal, as in the sentences ‘every man is white’, ‘no man is
white’, ‘every man is just’, ‘no man is just’.
We see that in a pair of this sort both propositions cannot be true, but
the contradictories of a pair of contraries can sometimes both be true
with reference to the same subject; for instance ‘not every man is white’
and ‘some men are white’ are both true. (25) Of such corresponding
positive and negative propositions as refer to universals and have a
universal character, one must be true and the other false. This is the case
also when the reference is to individuals, as in the propositions ‘Socrates
is white’, ‘Socrates is not white’.
When, on the other hand, the reference is to universals, but the
propositions are not universal, it is not always the case that one is true
and the other false, (30) for it is possible to state truly that man is white
and that man is not white and that man is beautiful and that man is not
beautiful; for if a man is deformed he is the reverse of beautiful, also if
he is progressing towards beauty he is not yet beautiful.
This statement might seem at first sight to carry with it a
contradiction, (35) owing to the fact that the proposition ‘man is not
white’ appears to be equivalent to the proposition ‘no man is white’.
This, however, is not the case, nor are they necessarily at the same time
true or false.
It is evident also that the denial corresponding to a single affirmation
is itself single; for the denial must deny just that which the affirmation
affirms concerning the same subject, and must correspond with the
affirmation both in the universal or particular character of the subject
and in the distributed or undistributed sense in which it is understood.
[18a]
For instance, the affirmation ‘Socrates is white’ has its proper denial in
the proposition ‘Socrates is not white’. If anything else be negatively
predicated of the subject or if anything else be the subject though the
predicate remain the same, the denial will not be the denial proper to
that affirmation, but one that is distinct.
The denial proper to the affirmation ‘every man is white’ is ‘not every
man is white’; that proper to the affirmation ‘some men are white’ is ‘no
man is white’, (5) while that proper to the affirmation ‘man is white’ is
‘man is not white’.
We have shown further that a single denial is contradictorily opposite
to a single affirmation and we have explained which these are; we have
also stated that contrary are distinct from contradictory propositions and
which the contrary are; also that with regard to a pair of opposite
propositions it is not always the case that one is true and the other false.
(10) We have pointed out, moreover, what the reason of this is and under

what circumstances the truth of the one involves the falsity of the other.

8 An affirmation or denial is single, if it indicates some one fact about

some one subject; it matters not whether the subject is universal and
whether the statement has a universal character, or whether this is not
so. Such single propositions are: ‘every man is white’, ‘not every man is
white’; ‘man is white’, ‘man is not white’; ‘no man is white’, (15) ‘some
men are white’; provided the word ‘white’ has one meaning. If, on the
other hand, one word has two meanings which do not combine to form
one, the affirmation is not single. For instance, if a man should establish
the symbol ‘garment’ as significant both of a horse and of a man, (20) the
proposition ‘garment is white’ would not be a single affirmation, nor its
opposite a single denial. For it is equivalent to the proposition ‘horse and
man are white’, which, again, is equivalent to the two propositions
‘horse is white’, ‘man is white’. If, then, these two propositions have
more than a single significance, and do not form a single proposition, it
is plain that the first proposition either has more than one significance
or else has none; for a particular man is not a horse. (25)
This, then, is another instance of those propositions of which both the
positive and the negative forms may be true or false simultaneously.

9 In the case of that which is or which has taken place, propositions,

whether positive or negative, must be true or false. Again, in the case of
a pair of contradictories, either when the subject is universal and the
propositions are of a universal character, or when it is individual, (30) as
has been said,3 one of the two must be true and the other false; whereas
when the subject is universal, but the propositions are not of a universal
character, there is no such necessity. We have discussed this type also in
a previous chapter.4
When the subject, however, is individual, and that which is predicated
of it relates to the future, the case is altered. For if all propositions
whether positive or negative are either true or false, (35) then any given
predicate must either belong to the subject or not, so that if one man
affirms that an event of a given character will take place and another
denies it, it is plain that the statement of the one will correspond with
reality and that of the other will not. For the predicate cannot both
belong and not belong to the subject at one and the same time with
regard to the future.
[18b] Thus, if it is true to say that a thing is white, it must
necessarily be white; if the reverse proposition is true, it will of necessity
not be white. Again, if it is white, the proposition stating that it is white
was true; if it is not white, the proposition to the opposite effect was
true. And if it is not white, the man who states that it is is making a false
statement; and if the man who states that it is white is making a false
statement, it follows that it is not white. It may therefore be argued that
it is necessary that affirmations or denials must be either true or false.
Now if this be so, (5) nothing is or takes place fortuitously, either in the
present or in the future, and there are no real alternatives; everything
takes place of necessity and is fixed. For either he that affirms that it will
take place or he that denies this is in correspondence with fact, whereas
if things did not take place of necessity, an event might just as easily not
happen as happen; for the meaning of the word ‘fortuitous’ with regard
to present or future events is that reality is so constituted that it may
issue in either of two opposite directions.
Again, (10) if a thing is white now, it was true before to say that it
would be white, so that of anything that has taken place it was always
true to say ‘it is’ or ‘it will be’. But if it was always true to say that a
thing is or will be, it is not possible that it should not be or not be about
to be, and when a thing cannot not come to be, it is impossible that it
should not come to be, and when it is impossible that it should not come
to be, it must come to be. (15) All, then, that is about to be must of
necessity take place. It results from this that nothing is uncertain or
fortuitous, for if it were fortuitous it would not be necessary.
Again, to say that neither the affirmation nor the denial is true,
maintaining, let us say, that an event neither will take place nor will not
take place, is to take up a position impossible to defend. In the first
place, though facts should prove the one proposition false, (20) the
opposite would still be untrue. Secondly, if it was true to say that a thing
was both white and large, both these qualities must necessarily belong to
it; and if they will belong to it the next day, they must necessarily belong
to it the next day. But if an event is neither to take place nor not to take
place the next day, the element of chance will be eliminated. For
example, it would be necessary that a sea-fight should neither take place
nor fail to take place on the next day. (25)
These awkward results and others of the same kind follow, if it is an
irrefragable law that of every pair of contradictory propositions, whether
they have regard to universals and are stated as universally applicable,
or whether they have regard to individuals, one must be true and the
other false, and that there are no real alternatives, (30) but that all that is
or takes place is the outcome of necessity. There would be no need to
deliberate or to take trouble, on the supposition that if we should adopt
a certain course, a certain result would follow, while, if we did not, the
result would not follow. For a man may predict an event ten thousand
years before-hand, and another may predict the reverse; that which was
truly predicted at the moment in the past will of necessity take place in
the fullness of time. (35)
Further, it makes no difference whether people have or have not
actually made the contradictory statements. For it is manifest that the
circumstances are not influenced by the fact of an affirmation or denial
on the part of anyone. For events will not take place or fail to take place
because it was stated that they would or would not take place, nor is this
any more the case if the prediction dates back ten thousand years or any
other space of time. [19a] Wherefore, if through all time the nature of
things was so constituted that a prediction about an event was true, then
through all time it was necessary that that prediction should find
fulfilment; and with regard to all events, circumstances have always
been such that their occurrence is a matter of necessity. For that of
which someone has said truly that it will be, cannot fail to take place;
and of that which takes place, (5) it was always true to say that it would
be.
Yet this view leads to an impossible conclusion; for we see that both
deliberation and action are causative with regard to the future, and that,
to speak more generally, in those things which are not continuously
actual there is a potentiality in either direction. Such things may either
be or not be; events also therefore may either take place or not take
place. (10) There are many obvious instances of this. It is possible that this
coat may be cut in half, and yet it may not be cut in half, but wear out
first. In the same way, it is possible that it should not be cut in half;
unless this were so, (15) it would not be possible that it should wear out
first. So it is therefore with all other events which possess this kind of
potentiality. It is therefore plain that it is not of necessity that everything
is or takes place; but in some instances there are real alternatives, in
which case the affirmation is no more true and no more false than the
denial; while some exhibit a predisposition and general tendency in one
direction or the other, (20) and yet can issue in the opposite direction by
exception.
Now that which is must needs be when it is, and that which is not
must needs not be when it is not. Yet it cannot be said without
qualification that all existence and non-existence is the outcome of
necessity. (25) For there is a difference between saying that that which is,
when it is, must needs be, and simply saying that all that is must needs
be, and similarly in the case of that which is not. In the case, also, of two
contradictory propositions this holds good. Everything must either be or
not be, whether in the present or in the future, but it is not always
possible to distinguish and state determinately which of these
alternatives must necessarily come about.
Let me illustrate. (30) A sea-fight must either take place to-morrow or
not, but it is not necessary that it should take place to-morrow, neither is
it necessary that it should not take place, yet it is necessary that it either
should or should not take place to-morrow. Since propositions
correspond with facts, it is evident that when in future events there is a
real alternative, and a potentiality in contrary directions, the
corresponding affirmation and denial have the same character.
This is the case with regard to that which is not always existent or not
always non-existent. (35) One of the two propositions in such instances
must be true and the other false, but we cannot say determinately that
this or that is false, but must leave the alternative undecided. One may
indeed be more likely to be true than the other, but it cannot be either
actually true or actually false. [19b] It is therefore plain that it is not
necessary that of an affirmation and a denial one should be true and the
other false. For in the case of that which exists potentially, but not
actually, the rule which applies to that which exists actually does not
hold good. The case is rather as we have indicated.

10 An affirmation is the statement of a fact with regard to a subject,

(5) and this subject is either a noun or that which has no name; the

subject and predicate in an affirmation must each denote a single thing. I

have already explained5 what is meant by a noun and by that which has
no name; for I stated that the expression ‘not-man’ was not a noun, in
the proper sense of the word, but an indefinite noun, denoting as it does
in a sense a single thing. Similarly the expression ‘does not enjoy health’
is not a verb proper, but an indefinite verb. Every affirmation, then, and
every denial, (10) will consist of a noun and a verb, either definite or
indefinite.
There can be no affirmation or denial without a verb; for the
expressions ‘is’, ‘will be’, ‘was’, ‘is coming to be’, and the like are verbs
according to our definition, since besides their specific meaning they
convey the notion of time.
Thus the primary affirmation and denial are as follows: ‘man is’, ‘man
is not’. Next to these, there are the propositions: ‘not-man is’, (15) ‘not-
man is not’. Again we have the propositions: ‘every man is’, ‘every man
is not’, ‘all that is not-man is’, ‘all that is not-man is not’. The same
classification holds good with regard to such periods of time as lie
outside the present.
When the verb ‘is’ is used as a third element in the sentence, there can
be positive and negative propositions of two sorts. Thus in the sentence
‘man is just’ the verb ‘is’ is used as a third element, (20) call it verb or
noun, which you will. Four propositions, therefore, instead of two can be
formed with these materials. Two of the four, as regards their
affirmation and denial, correspond in their logical sequence with the
propositions which deal with a condition of privation; the other two do
not correspond with these.
I mean that the verb ‘is’ is added either to the term ‘just’ or to the term
“not-just’, and two negative propositions are formed in the same way. (25)
Thus we have the four propositions. Reference to the sub-joined table
will make matters clear:

Here ‘is’ and ‘is not’ are added either to ‘just’ or to ‘not-just’. This then is
the proper scheme for these propositions, (30) as has been said in the
Analytics.6 The same rule holds good, if the subject is distributed. Thus
we have the table:
Yet here it is not possible, (35) in the same way as in the former case, that
the propositions joined in the table by a diagonal line should both be
true; though under certain circumstances this is the case.
We have thus set out two pairs of opposite propositions; there are
moreover two other pairs, if a term be conjoined with ‘not-man’, the
latter forming a kind of subject. Thus:

[20a] This is an exhaustive enumeration of all the pairs of opposite

propositions that can possibly be framed. This last group should remain
distinct from those which preceded it, since it employs as its subject the
expression ‘not-man’.
When the verb ‘is’ does not fit the structure of the sentence (for
instance, when the verbs ‘walks’, ‘enjoys health’ are used), that scheme
applies, which applied when the word ‘is’ was added.
Thus we have the propositions: ‘every man enjoys health’, (5) ‘every
man does-not-enjoy-health’, ‘all that is not-man enjoys health’, ‘all that is
not-man does-not-enjoy-health’.
We must not in these propositions use the expression ‘not every man’.
The negative must be attached to the word ‘man’, for the word ‘every’
does not give to the subject a universal significance, (10) but implies that,
as a subject, it is distributed. This is plain from the following pairs: ‘man
enjoys health’, ‘man does not enjoy health’; ‘not-man enjoys health’, ‘not-
man does not enjoy health’. These propositions differ from the former in
being indefinite and not universal in character. Thus the adjectives
‘every’ and ‘no’ have no additional significance except that the subject,
whether in a positive or in a negative sentence, is distributed. The rest of
the sentence, therefore, will in each case be the same. (15)
Since the contrary of the proposition ‘every animal is just’ is ‘no
animal is just’, it is plain that these two propositions will never both be
true at the same time or with reference to the same subject. Sometimes,
however, the contradictories of these contraries will both be true, as in
the instance before us: the propositions ‘not every animal is just’ and
‘some animals are just’ are both true.
Further, the proposition ‘no man is just’ follows from the proposition
‘every man is not-just’ and the proposition ‘not every man is not-just’, (20)
which is the opposite of ‘every man is not-just’, follows from the
proposition ‘some men are just’; for if this be true, there must be some
just men.
It is evident, also, that when the subject is individual, if a question is
asked and the negative answer is the true one, a certain positive
proposition is also true. Thus, if the question were asked ‘Is Socrates
wise?’ and the negative answer were the true one, (25) the positive
inference ‘Then Socrates is unwise’ is correct. But no such inference is
correct in the case of universals, but rather a negative proposition. For
instance, if to the question ‘Is every man wise?’ the answer is ‘no’, the
inference ‘Then every man is unwise’ is false. But under these
circumstances the inference ‘Not every man is wise’ is correct. (30) This
last is the contradictory, the former the contrary. Negative expressions,
which consist of an indefinite noun or predicate, such as ‘not-man’ or
‘not-just’, may seem to be denials containing neither noun nor verb in
the proper sense of the words. But they are not. For a denial must always
be either true or false, (35) and he that uses the expression ‘not-man’, if
nothing more be added, is not nearer but rather further from making a
true or a false statement than he who uses the expression ‘man’.
The propositions ‘everything that is not man is just’, and the
contradictory of this, are not equivalent to any of the other propositions;
on the other hand, the proposition ‘everything that is not man is not just’
is equivalent to the proposition ‘nothing that is not man is just’. (40)
The conversion of the position of subject and predicate in a sentence
involves no difference in its meaning. [20b] Thus we say ‘man is white’
and ‘white is man’. If these were not equivalent, there would be more
than one contradictory to the same proposition, whereas it has been
demonstrated7 that each proposition has one proper contradictory and
one only. For of the proposition ‘man is white’ the appropriate
contradictory is ‘man is not white’, (5) and of the proposition ‘white is
man’, if its meaning be different, the contradictory will either be ‘white
is not not-man’ or ‘white is not man’. Now the former of these is the
contradictory of the proposition ‘white is not-man’, and the latter of
these is the contradictory of the proposition ‘man is white’; thus there
will be two contradictories to one proposition.
It is evident, (10) therefore, that the inversion of the relative position of
subject and predicate does not affect the sense of affirmations and
denials.

11 There is no unity about an affirmation or denial which, either

positively or negatively, predicates one thing of many subjects, or many
things of the same subject, unless that which is indicated by the many is
really some one thing.
I do not apply this word ‘one’ to those things which, (15) though they
have a single recognized name, yet do not combine to form a unity.
Thus, man may be an animal, and biped, and domesticated, but these
three predicates combine to form a unity. On the other hand, the
predicates ‘white’, ‘man’, and ‘walking’ do not thus combine. Neither,
therefore, if these three form the subject of an affirmation, (20) nor if they
form its predicate, is there any unity about that affirmation. In both
cases the unity is linguistic, but not real.
If therefore the dialectical question is a request for an answer, i. e.
either for the admission of a premiss or for the admission of one of two
contradictories—and the premiss is itself always one of two
contradictories—the answer to such a question as contains the above
predicates cannot be a single proposition. (25) For as I have explained in
the Topics,8 the question is not a single one, even if the answer asked for
is true.
At the same time it is plain that a question of the form ‘what is it?’ is
not a dialectical question, for a dialectical questioner must by the form
of his question give his opponent the chance of announcing one of two
alternatives, whichever he wishes. (30) He must therefore put the question
into a more definite form, and inquire, e. g. whether man has such and
such a characteristic or not.
Some combinations of predicates are such that the separate predicates
unite to form a single predicate. Let us consider under what conditions
this is and is not possible. We may either state in two separate
propositions that man is an animal and that man is a biped, or we may
combine the two, and state that man is an animal with two feet.
Similarly we may use ‘man’ and ‘white’ as separate predicates, or unite
them into one. Yet if a man is a shoemaker and is also good, (35) we
cannot construct a composite proposition and say that he is a good
shoemaker. For if, whenever two separate predicates truly belong to a
subject, it follows that the predicate resulting from their combination
also truly belongs to the subject, many absurd results ensue. For
instance, a man is man and white. Therefore, if predicates may always
be combined, he is a white man. Again, if the predicate ‘white’ belongs
to him, then the combination of that predicate with the former
composite predicate will be permissible. Thus it will be right to say that
he is a white white man and so on indefinitely. (40) Or, again, we may
combine the predicates ‘musical’, ‘white’, and ‘walking’, and these may
be combined many times. [21a] Similarly we may say that Socrates is
Socrates and a man, and that therefore he is the man Socrates, or that
Socrates is a man and a biped, and that therefore he is a two-footed man.
Thus it is manifest that if a man states unconditionally that predicates
can always be combined, (5) many absurd consequences ensue.
We will now explain what ought to be laid down.
Those predicates, and terms forming the subject of predication, which
are accidental either to the same subject or to one another, do not
combine to form a unity. Take the proposition ‘man is white of
complexion and musical’. (10) Whiteness and being musical do not
coalesce to form a unity, for they belong only accidentally to the same
subject. Nor yet, if it were true to say that that which is white is musical,
would the terms ‘musical’ and ‘white’ form a unity, for it is only
incidentally that that which is musical is white; the combination of the
two will, therefore, not form a unity.
Thus, again, whereas, if a man is both good and a shoemaker, we
cannot combine the two propositions and say simply that he is a good
shoemaker, we are, at the same time, able to combine the predicates
‘animal’ and ‘biped’ and say that a man is an animal with two feet, (15)
for these predicates are not accidental.
Those predicates, again, cannot form a unity, of which the one is
implicit in the other: thus we cannot combine the predicate ‘white’ again
and again with that which already contains the notion ‘white’, nor is it
right to call a man an animal-man or a two-footed man; for the notions
‘animal’ and ‘biped’ are implicit in the word ‘man’. On the other hand, it
is possible to predicate a term simply of any one instance, and to say
that some one particular man is a man or that some one white man is a
white man. (20)
Yet this is not always possible: indeed, when in the adjunct there is
some opposite which involves a contradiction, the predication of the
simple term is impossible. Thus it is not right to call a dead man a man.
When, however, this is not the case, it is not impossible.
Yet the facts of the case might rather be stated thus: when some such
opposite elements are present, resolution is never possible, (25) but when
they are not present, resolution is nevertheless not always possible. Take
the proposition ‘Homer is so-and-so’, say ‘a poet’; does it follow that
Homer is, or does it not? The verb ‘is’ is here used of Homer only
incidentally, the proposition being that Homer is a poet, not that he is,
in the independent sense of the word.
Thus, in the case of those predications which have within them no
contradiction when the nouns are expanded into definitions, (30) and
wherein the predicates belong to the subject in their own proper sense
and not in any indirect way, the individual may be the subject of the
simple propositions as well as of the composite. But in the case of that
which is not, it is not true to say that because it is the object of opinion,
it is; for the opinion held about it is that it is not, not that it is.

12 As these distinctions have been made, (35) we must consider the

mutual relation of those affirmations and denials which assert or deny
possibility or contingency, impossibility or necessity: for the subject is
not without difficulty.
We admit that of composite expressions those are contradictory each
to each which have the verb ‘to be’ in its positive and negative form
respectively. Thus the contradictory of the proposition ‘man is’ is ‘man is
not’, not ‘not-man is’, and the contradictory of ‘man is white’ is ‘man is
not white’, not ‘man is not-white’. [21b] For otherwise, since either the
positive or the negative proposition is true of any subject, it will turn out
true to say that a piece of wood is a man that is not white.
Now if this is the case, (5) in those propositions which do not contain
the verb ‘to be’ the verb which takes its place will exercise the same
function. Thus the contradictory of ‘man walks’ is ‘man does not walk’,
not ‘not-man walks’; for to say ‘man walks’ is merely equivalent to
saying ‘man is walking’.
If then this rule is universal, (10) the contradictory of ‘it may be’ is ‘it
may not be’, not ‘it cannot be’.
Now it appears that the same thing both may and may not be; for
instance, everything that may be cut or may walk may also escape
cutting and refrain from walking; and the reason is that those things that
have potentiality in this sense are not always actual. In such cases, both
the positive and the negative propositions will be true; for that which is
capable of walking or of being seen has also a potentiality in the
opposite direction. (15)
But since it is impossible that contradictory propositions should both
be true of the same subject, it follows that ‘it may not be’ is not the
contradictory of ‘it may be’. For it is a logical consequence of what we
have said, either that the same predicate can be both applicable and
inapplicable to one and the same subject at the same time, (20) or that it
is not by the addition of the verbs ‘be’ and ‘not be’, respectively, that
positive and negative propositions are formed. If the former of these
alternatives must be rejected, we must choose the latter.
The contradictory, then, of ‘it may be’ is ‘it cannot be’. The same rule
applies to the proposition ‘it is contingent that it should be’; the
contradictory of this is ‘it is not contingent that it should be’. The similar
propositions, (25) such as ‘it is necessary’ and ‘it is impossible’, may be
dealt with in the same manner. For it comes about that just as in the
former instances the verbs ‘is’ and ‘is not’ were added to the subject-
matter of the sentence ‘white’ and ‘man’, so here ‘that it should be’ and
‘that it should not be’ are the subject-matter and ‘is possible’, ‘is
contingent’, are added. These indicate that a certain thing is or is not
possible, (30) just as in the former instances ‘is’ and ‘is not’ indicated that
certain things were or were not the case.
The contradictory, then, of ‘it may not be’ is not ‘it cannot be’, but ‘it
cannot not be’, and the contradictory of ‘it may be’ is not ‘it may not be’,
but ‘it cannot be’. Thus the propositions ‘it may be’ and ‘it may not be’
appear each to imply the other: for, (35) since these two propositions are
not contradictory, the same thing both may and may not be. But the
propositions ‘it may be’ and ‘it cannot be’ can never be true of the same
subject at the same time, for they are contradictory. Nor can the
propositions ‘it may not be’ and ‘it cannot not be’ be at once true of the
same subject. [22a]
The propositions which have to do with necessity are governed by the
same principle. The contradictory of ‘it is necessary that it should be’ is
not ‘it is necessary that it should not be’, but ‘it is not necessary that it
should be’, and the contradictory of ‘it is necessary that it should not be’
is ‘it is not necessary that it should not be’. (5)
Again, the contradictory of ‘it is impossible that it should be’ is not ‘it
is impossible that it should not be’ but ‘it is not impossible that it should
be’, and the contradictory of ‘it is impossible that it should not be’ is ‘it is
not impossible that it should not be’.
To generalize, we must, as has been stated, define the clauses ‘that it
should be’ and ‘that it should not be’ as the subject-matter of the
propositions, and in making these terms into affirmations and denials we
must combine them with ‘that it should be’ and ‘that it should not be’
respectively. (10)
We must consider the following pairs as contradictory propositions:
It may be. It cannot be.
It is contingent. It is not contingent.
It is impossible. It is not impossible.
It is necessary. It is not necessary.
It is true. It is not true.

13 Logical sequences follow in due course when we have arranged the

propositions thus. (15) From the proposition ‘it may be’ it follows that it is
contingent, and the relation is reciprocal. It follows also that it is not
impossible and not necessary.
From the proposition ‘it may not be’ or ‘it is contingent that it should
not be’ it follows that it is not necessary that it should not be and that it
is not impossible that it should not be. From the proposition ‘it cannot
be’ or ‘it is not contingent’ it follows that it is necessary that it should
not be and that it is impossible that it should be. (20) From the
proposition ‘it cannot not be’ or ‘it is not contingent that it should not
be’ it follows that it is necessary that it should be and that it is
impossible that it should not be.
Let us consider these statements by the help of a table: (25)
A. It may be. B. It cannot be.
It is contingent. It is not contingent.
It is not impossible that it should be. It is impossible that it should be.
It is not necessary that it should be. It is necessary that it should not be.
C. It may not be. D. It cannot not be.
It is contingent that it should not be. It is not contingent that it should not be.
It is not impossible that it should not be. It is impossible that it should not be.
It is not necessary that it should not be. It is necessary that it should be.

Now the propositions ‘it is impossible that it should be’ and ‘it is not
impossible that it should be’ are consequent upon the propositions ‘it
may be’, (30) ‘it is contingent’, and ‘it cannot be’, ‘it is not contingent’, the
contradictories upon the contradictories. But there is inversion. The
negative of the proposition ‘it is impossible’ is consequent upon the
proposition ‘it may be’ and the corresponding positive in the first case
upon the negative in the second. (35) For ‘it is impossible’ is a positive
proposition and ‘it is not impossible’ is negative.
We must investigate the relation subsisting between these propositions
and those which predicate necessity. That there is a distinction is clear.
In this case, contrary propositions follow respectively from contradictory
propositions, and the contradictory propositions belong to separate
sequences. For the proposition ‘it is not necessary that it should be’ is not
the negative of ‘it is necessary that it should not be’, for both these
propositions may be true of the same subject; for when it is necessary
that a thing should not be, it is not necessary that it should be. [22b]
The reason why the propositions predicating necessity do not follow in
the same kind of sequence as the rest, lies in the fact that the proposition
‘it is impossible’ is equivalent, when used with a contrary subject, to the
proposition ‘it is necessary’. For when it is impossible that a thing should
be, it is necessary, not that it should be, (5) but that it should not be, and
when it is impossible that a thing should not be, it is necessary that it
should be. Thus, if the propositions predicating impossibility or non-
impossibility follow without change of subject from those predicating
possibility or non-possibility, those predicating necessity must follow
with the contrary subject; for the propositions ‘it is impossible’ and ‘it is
necessary’ are not equivalent, but, as has been said, inversely connected.
Yet perhaps it is impossible that the contradictory propositions
predicating necessity should be thus arranged. (10) For when it is
necessary that a thing should be, it is possible that it should be. (For if
not, the opposite follows, since one or the other must follow; so, if it is
not possible, it is impossible, and it is thus impossible that a thing should
be, which must necessarily be; which is absurd.)
Yet from the proposition ‘it may be’ it follows that it is not impossible,
and from that it follows that it is not necessary; it comes about therefore
that the thing which must necessarily be need not be; which is absurd.
(15) But again, the proposition ‘it is necessary that it should be’ does not

follow from the proposition ‘it may be’, nor does the proposition ‘it is
necessary that it should not be’. For the proposition ‘it may be’ implies a
twofold possibility, while, if either of the two former propositions is
true, the twofold possibility vanishes. For if a thing may be, it may also
not be, but if it is necessary that it should be or that it should not be, (20)
one of the two alternatives will be excluded. It remains, therefore, that
the proposition ‘it is not necessary that it should not be’ follows from the
proposition ‘it may be’. For this is true also of that which must
necessarily be.
Moreover the proposition ‘it is not necessary that it should not be’ is
the contradictory of that which follows from the proposition ‘it cannot
be’; for ‘it cannot be’ is followed by ‘it is impossible that it should be’
and by ‘it is necessary that it should not be’, (25) and the contradictory of
this is the proposition ‘it is not necessary that it should not be’. Thus in
this case also contradictory propositions follow contradictory in the way
indicated, and no logical impossibilities occur when they are thus
arranged.
It may be questioned whether the proposition ‘it may be’ follows from
the proposition ‘it is necessary that it should be’. If not, (30) the
contradictory must follow, namely that it cannot be, or, if a man should
maintain that this is not the contradictory, then the proposition ‘it may
not be’.
Now both of these are false of that which necessarily is. At the same
time, it is thought that if a thing may be cut it may also not be cut, if a
thing may be it may also not be, and thus it would follow that a thing
which must necessarily be may possibly not be; which is false. (35) It is
evident, then, that it is not always the case that that which may be or
may walk possesses also a potentiality in the other direction. There are
exceptions. In the first place we must except those things which possess
a potentiality not in accordance with a rational principle, as fire
possesses the potentiality of giving out heat, that is, an irrational
capacity. Those potentialities which involve a rational principle are
potentialities of more than one result, that is, of contrary results; those
that are irrational are not always thus constituted. [23a] As I have said,
fire cannot both heat and not heat, neither has anything that is always
actual any twofold potentiality. Yet some even of those potentialities
which are irrational admit of opposite results. (5) However, thus much
has been said to emphasize the truth that it is not every potentiality
which admits of opposite results, even where the word is used always in
the same sense.
But in some cases the word is used equivocally. For the term ‘possible’
is ambiguous, being used in the one case with reference to facts, to that
which is actualized, as when a man is said to find walking possible
because he is actually walking, and generally when a capacity is
predicated because it is actually realized; in the other case, (10) with
reference to a state in which realization is conditionally practicable, as
when a man is said to find walking possible because under certain
conditions he would walk. This last sort of potentiality belongs only to
that which can be in motion, the former can exist also in the case of that
which has not this power. Both of that which is walking and is actual,
and of that which has the capacity though not necessarily realized, it is
true to say that it is not impossible that it should walk (or, in the other
case, that it should be), but while we cannot predicate this latter kind of
potentiality of that which is necessary in the unqualified sense of the
word, (15) we can predicate the former.
Our conclusion, then, is this: that since the universal is consequent
upon the particular, that which is necessary is also possible, though not
in every sense in which the word may be used.
We may perhaps state that necessity and its absence are the initial
principles of existence and non-existence, and that all else must be
regarded as posterior to these. (20)
It is plain from what has been said that that which is of necessity is
actual. Thus, if that which is eternal is prior, actuality also is prior to
potentiality. Some things are actualities without potentiality, namely,
the primary substances; a second class consists of those things which are
actual but also potential, whose actuality is in nature prior to their
potentiality, though posterior in time; a third class comprises those
things which are never actualized, (25) but are pure potentialities.

14 The question arises whether an affirmation finds its contrary in a

denial or in another affirmation; whether the proposition ‘every man is
just’ finds its contrary in the proposition ‘no man is just’, or in the
proposition ‘every man is unjust’. Take the propositions ‘Callias is just’,
‘Callias is not just’, ‘Callias is unjust’; we have to discover which of these
form contraries. (30)
Now if the spoken word corresponds with the judgement of the mind,
and if, in thought, that judgement is the contrary of another, which
pronounces a contrary fact, in the way, for instance, in which the
judgement ‘every man is just’ pronounces a contrary to that pronounced
by the judgement ‘every man is unjust’, the same must needs hold good
with regard to spoken affirmations. (35)
But if, in thought, it is not the judgement which pronounces a contrary
fact that is the contrary of another, then one affirmation will not find its
contrary in another, but rather in the corresponding denial. We must
therefore consider which true judgement is the contrary of the false, that
which forms the denial of the false judgement or that which affirms the
contrary fact.
Let me illustrate. There is a true judgement concerning that which is
good, (40) that it is good; another, a false judgement, that it is not good;
and a third, which is distinct, that it is bad. [23b] Which of these two
is contrary to the true? And if they are one and the same, which mode of
expression forms the contrary?
It is an error to suppose that judgements are to be defined as contrary
in virtue of the fact that they have contrary subjects; for the judgement
concerning a good thing, that it is good, and that concerning a bad
thing, (5) that it is bad, may be one and the same, and whether they are
so or not, they both represent the truth. Yet the subjects here are
contrary. But judgements are not contrary because they have contrary
subjects, but because they are to the contrary effect.
Now if we take the judgement that that which is good is good, and
another that it is not good, and if there are at the same time other
attributes, which do not and cannot belong to the good, we must
nevertheless refuse to treat as the contraries of the true judgement those
which opine that some other attribute subsists which does not subsist,
(10) as also those that opine that some other attribute does not subsist

which does subsist, for both these classes of judgement are of unlimited
content.
Those judgements must rather be termed contrary to the true
judgements, in which error is present. Now these judgements are those
which are concerned with the starting points of generation, and
generation is the passing from one extreme to its opposite; therefore
error is a like transition.
Now that which is good is both good and not bad. (15) The first quality
is part of its essence, the second accidental; for it is by accident that it is
not bad. But if that true judgement is most really true, which concerns
the subject’s intrinsic nature, then that false judgement likewise is most
really false, which concerns its intrinsic nature. Now the judgement that
that which is good is not good is a false judgement concerning its
intrinsic nature, the judgement that it is bad is one concerning that
which is accidental. (20) Thus the judgement which denies the truth of the
true judgement is more really false than that which positively asserts the
presence of the contrary quality. But it is the man who forms that
judgement which is contrary to the true who is most thoroughly
deceived, for contraries are among the things which differ most widely
within the same class. If then of the two judgements one is contrary to
the true judgement, but that which is contradictory is the more truly
contrary, then the latter, it seems, (25) is the real contrary. The judgement
that that which is good is bad is composite. For presumably the man
who forms that judgement must at the same time understand that that
which is good is not good.
Further, the contradictory is either always the contrary or never;
therefore, if it must necessarily be so in all other cases, our conclusion in
the case just dealt with would seem to be correct. (30) Now where terms
have no contrary, that judgement is false, which forms the negative of
the true; for instance, he who thinks a man is not a man forms a false
judgement. If then in these cases the negative is the contrary, then the
principle is universal in its application.
Again, the judgement that that which is not good is not good is
parallel with the judgement that that which is good is good. Besides
these there is the judgement that that which is good is not good, parallel
with the judgement that that which is not good is good. Let us consider,
(35) therefore, what would form the contrary of the true judgement that

that which is not good is not good. The judgement that it is bad would,
of course, fail to meet the case, since two true judgements are never
contrary and this judgement might be true at the same time as that with
which it is connected. For since some things which are not good are bad,
both judgements may be true. Nor is the judgement that it is not bad the
contrary, for this too might be true, since both qualities might be
predicated of the same subject. It remains, therefore, that of the
judgement concerning that which is not good, (40) that it is not good, the
contrary judgement is that it is good; for this is false. [24a] In the same
way, moreover, the judgement concerning that which is good, that it is
not good, is the contrary of the judgement that it is good.
It is evident that it will make no difference if we universalize the
positive judgement, for the universal negative judgement will form the
contrary. For instance, the contrary of the judgement that everything
that is good is good is that nothing that is good is good. (5) For the
judgement that that which is good is good, if the subject be understood
in a universal sense, is equivalent to the judgement that whatever is
good is good, and this is identical with the judgement that everything
that is good is good. We may deal similarly with judgements concerning
that which is not good.
If therefore this is the rule with judgements, and if spoken affirmations
and denials are judgements expressed in words, it is plain that the
universal denial is the contrary of the affirmation about the same
subject. [24b] Thus the propositions ‘everything good is good’, ‘every
man is good’, have for their contraries the propositions ‘nothing good is
good’, ‘no man is good’. The contradictory propositions, (5) on the other
hand, are ‘not everything good is good’, ‘not every man is good’.
It is evident, also, that neither true judgements nor true propositions
can be contrary the one to the other. For whereas, when two
propositions are true, a man may state both at the same time without
inconsistency, contrary propositions are those which state contrary
conditions, and contrary conditions cannot subsist at one and the same
time in the same subject.

1 Cf. 16a 22–26.

2 Cf. Poet. 1456b 11.

3 Cf. 17b 26–9.

4 Cf. 17b 29–37.

5 Cf. 16a 19, 30.

6 Analytica Priora, 51b 36–52a 17.

7 Cf. 17b 38.

8 Topica, viii. 7.
 ANALYTICA PRIORA

Translated by A. J. Jenkinson

CONTENTS

BOOK I

A. Structure of the Syllogism.

1. PRELIMINARY DISCUSSIONS.

CHAPTER
1. Subject and scope of the Analytics. Certain definitions and divisions.
2. Conversion of pure propositions.
3. Conversion of necessary and contingent propositions.

2. EXPOSITION OF THE THREE FIGURES.

4. Pure syllogisms in the first figure.

5. Pure syllogisms in the second figure.
6. Pure syllogisms in the third figure.
7. Common properties of the three figures.
[Chapters 8–12 omitted.]
13. Preliminary discussion of the contingent.
[Chapters 14–22 omitted.]

3. SUPPLEMENTARY DISCUSSIONS.

23. Every syllogism is in one of the three figures, is completed through the first figure, and
reducible to a universal mood of the first figure.
24. Quality and quantity of the premisses of the syllogism.
25. Number of the terms, propositions, and conclusions.
 26. The kinds of proposition to be established or disproved in each figure.

B. Mode of discovery of arguments.

1. GENERAL.

27. Rules for categorical syllogisms, applicable to all problems.

28. Rules for categorical syllogisms, peculiar to different problems.
29. Rules for reductio ad impossibile, hypothetical syllogisms, and modal syllogisms.

30.
2. PROPER TO THE SEVERAL SCIENCES AND ARTS.

31.
3. DIVISION.

C. Analysis (1) of arguments into figures and moods of syllogism.

[Chapters 32–46 omitted.]

BOOK II

Properties and defects of syllogism; arguments akin to syllogism.

A. PROPERTIES.

[Chapters 1–15 omitted.]

B. DEFECTS.

16. Petitio principii.

17. False Cause.
18. Falsity of conclusion due to falsity in one or more premisses.
19. How to impede opposing arguments and conceal one’s own.
20. When refutation is possible.
21. Error.

C. ARGUMENTS AKIN TO SYLLOGISM.

22. Rules for conversion and for the comparison of desirable and undesirable objects.
23. Induction.
24. Example.
25. Reduction.
26. Objection.
27. Enthymeme.
ANALYTICA PRIORA

(Prior Analytics)
 BOOK I

1 We must first state the subject of our inquiry and the faculty to
which it belongs: (10) its subject is demonstration and the faculty that
carries it out demonstrative science. [24a] We must next define a
premiss, a term, and a syllogism, and the nature of a perfect and of an
imperfect syllogism; and after that, the inclusion or non-inclusion of one
term in another as in a whole, and what we mean by predicating one
term of all, or none, of another. (15)
A premiss then is a sentence affirming or denying one thing of
another. This is either universal or particular or indefinite. By universal I
mean the statement that something belongs to all or none of something
else; by particular that it belongs to some or not to some or not to all; by
indefinite that it does or does not belong, without any mark to show
whether it is universal or particular, (20) e. g. ‘contraries are subjects of
the same science’, or ‘pleasure is not good’. The demonstrative premiss
differs from the dialectical, because the demonstrative premiss is the
assertion of one of two contradictory statements (the demonstrator does
not ask for his premiss, but lays it down), whereas the dialectical
premiss depends on the adversary’s choice between two contradictories.
(25) But this will make no difference to the production of a syllogism in

either case; for both the demonstrator and the dialectician argue
syllogistically after stating that something does or does not belong to
something else. Therefore a syllogistic premiss without qualification will
be an affirmation or denial of something concerning something else in
the way we have described; it will be demonstrative, if it is true and
obtained through the first principles of its science; while a dialectical
premiss is the giving of a choice between two contradictories, (30) when a
man is proceeding by question, (10) but when he is syllogizing it is the
assertion of that which is apparent and generally admitted, as has been
said in the Topics.1 [24b] The nature then of a premiss and the
difference between syllogistic, demonstrative, and dialectical premisses,
may be taken as sufficiently defined by us in relation to our present
need, (15) but will be stated accurately in the sequel.2
 I call that a term into which the premiss is resolved, i. e. both the
predicate and that of which it is predicated, ‘being’ being added and ‘not
being’ removed, or vice versa.
A syllogism is discourse in which, certain things being stated,
something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being
so. (20) I mean by the last phrase that they produce the consequence, and
by this, that no further term is required from without in order to make
the consequence necessary.
I call that a perfect syllogism which needs nothing other than what
has been stated to make plain what necessarily follows; a syllogism is
imperfect, if it needs either one or more propositions, (25) which are
indeed the necessary consequences of the terms set down, but have not
been expressly stated as premisses.
That one term should be included in another as in a whole is the same
as for the other to be predicated of all of the first. And we say that one
term is predicated of all of another, whenever no instance of the subject
can be found of which the other term cannot be asserted: ‘to be
predicated of none’ must be understood in the same way. (30)

2 [25a] Every premiss states that something either is or must be or

may be the attribute of something else; of premisses of these three kinds
some are affirmative, others negative, in respect of each of the three
modes of attribution; again some affirmative and negative premisses are
universal, (5) others particular, others indefinite. It is necessary then that
in universal attribution the terms of the negative premiss should be
convertible, e. g. if no pleasure is good, then no good will be pleasure;
the terms of the affirmative must be convertible, not however
universally, but in part, e. g. if every pleasure is good, some good must
be pleasure; the particular affirmative must convert in part (for if some
pleasure is good, (10) then some good will be pleasure); but the particular
negative need not convert, for if some animal is not man, it does not
follow that some man is not animal.
First then take a universal negative with the terms A and B. (15) If no B
is A, neither can any A be B. For if some A (say C) were B, it would not
be true that no B is A; for C is a B. But if every B is A, then some A is B.
For if no A were B, then no B could be A. (20) But we assumed that every
B is A. Similarly too, if the premiss is particular. For if some B is A, then
some of the As must be B. For if none were, then no B would be A. But if
some B is not A, there is no necessity that some of the As should not be
B; e. g. let B stand for animal and A for man. Not every animal is a man:
but every man is an animal. (25)

3 The same manner of conversion will hold good also in respect of

necessary premisses. The universal negative converts universally; each of
the affirmatives converts into a particular. If it is necessary that no B is
A, it is necessary also that no A is B. For if it is possible that some A is B,
(30) it would be possible also that some B is A. If all or some B is A of

necessity, it is necessary also that some A is B: for if there were no

necessity, neither would some of the Bs be A necessarily. But the
particular negative does not convert, (35) for the same reason which we
have already stated.3
In respect of possible premisses, since possibility is used in several
senses (for we say that what is necessary and what is not necessary and
what is potential is possible), affirmative statements will all convert in a
manner similar to those described.4 For if it is possible that all or some B
is A, (40) it will be possible that some A is B. [25b] For if that were not
possible, then no B could possibly be A. This has been already proved.5
But in negative statements the case is different. Whatever is said to be
possible, either because B necessarily is A, or because B is not necessarily
A, admits of conversion like other negative statements, (5) e. g. if one
should say, it is possible that man is not horse, or that no garment is
white. For in the former case the one term necessarily does not belong to
the other; in the latter there is no necessity that it should: and the
premiss converts like other negative statements. For if it is possible for
no man to be a horse, it is also admissible for no horse to be a man; and
if it is admissible for no garment to be white, (10) it is also admissible for
nothing white to be a garment. For if any white thing must be a
garment, then some garment will necessarily be white. This has been
already proved.6 The particular negative also must be treated like those
dealt with above.7 But if anything is said to be possible because it is the
general rule and natural (and it is in this way we define the possible), (15)
the negative premisses can no longer be converted like the simple
negative; the universal negative premiss does not convert, and the
particular does. This will be plain when we speak about the possible.8 At
present we may take this much as clear in addition to what has been
said: the statement that it is possible that no B is A or some B is not A is
affirmative in form: for the expression ‘is possible’ ranks along with ‘is’,
(20) and ‘is’ makes an affirmation always and in every case, whatever the

terms to which it is added in predication, e. g. ‘it is not-good’ or ‘it is

not-white’ or in a word ‘it is not-this’. But this also will be proved in the
sequel.9 (25) In conversion these premisses will behave like the other
affirmative propositions.

4 After these distinctions we now state by what means, when, and

how every syllogism is produced; subsequently10 we must speak of
demonstration. Syllogism should be discussed before demonstration, (30)
because syllogism is the more general: the demonstration is a sort of
syllogism, but not every syllogism is a demonstration.
Whenever three terms are so related to one another that the last is
contained in the middle as in a whole, and the middle is either contained
in, or excluded from, the first as in or from a whole, (35) the extremes
must be related by a perfect syllogism. I call that term middle which is
itself contained in another and contains another in itself: in position also
this comes in the middle. By extremes I mean both that term which is
itself contained in another and that in which another is contained. If11 A
is predicated of all B, and B of all C, (40) A must be predicated of all C: we
have already explained12 what we mean by ‘predicated of all’. [26a]
Similarly13 also, if A is predicated of no B, and B of all C, it is necessary
that no C will be A.
But14 if the first term belongs to all the middle, but the middle to none
of the last term, there will be no syllogism in respect of the extremes; for
nothing necessary follows from the terms being so related; for it is
possible that the first should belong either to all or to none of the last, (5)
so that neither a particular nor a universal conclusion is necessary. But if
there is no necessary consequence, there cannot be a syllogism by means
of these premisses. As an example of a universal affirmative relation
between the extremes we may take the terms animal, man, horse; of a
universal negative relation, the terms animal, man, stone. Nor15 again
can a syllogism be formed when neither the first term belongs to any of
the middle, (10) nor the middle to any of the last. As an example of a
positive relation between the extremes take the terms science, line,
medicine: of a negative relation science, line, unit.
If then the terms are universally related, it is clear in this figure when
a syllogism will be possible and when not, and that if a syllogism is
possible the terms must be related as described, (15) and if they are so
related there will be a syllogism.
But if one term is related universally, the other in part only, to its
subject, there must be a perfect syllogism whenever universality is
posited with reference to the major term either affirmatively or
negatively, and particularity with reference to the minor term
affirmatively: but whenever the universality is posited in relation to the
minor term, (20) or the terms are related in any other way, a syllogism is
impossible. I call that term the major in which the middle is contained
and that term the minor which comes under the middle. Let16 all B be A
and some C be B. Then if ‘predicated of all’ means what was said
above,17 it is necessary that some C is A. And18 if no B is A, (25) but some
C is B, it is necessary that some C is not A. (The meaning of ‘predicated
of none’ has also been defined.19) So there will be a perfect syllogism.
This holds good also if the premiss BC20 should be indefinite, provided
that it is affirmative: for we shall have the same syllogism whether the
premiss is indefinite or particular.
But if the universality is posited with respect to the minor term either
affirmatively or negatively, (30) a syllogism will not be possible, whether
the major premiss is positive or negative, indefinite or particular: e. g.21
if some B is or is not A, and all C is B. As an example of a positive
relation between the extremes take the terms good, state, (35) wisdom: of
a negative relation, good, state, ignorance. Again22 if no C is B, but some
B is or is not A, or not every B is A, there cannot be a syllogism. Take the
terms white, horse, swan: white, horse, raven. The same terms may be
taken also if the premiss BA is indefinite.
Nor when the major premiss is universal, whether affirmative or
negative, and the minor premiss is negative and particular, can there be
a syllogism, whether the minor premiss be indefinite or particular: e. g.23
if all B is A, and some C is not B, or if not all C is B. [26b] For the
major term may be predicable both of all and of none of the minor, to
some of which the middle term cannot be attributed. Suppose the terms
are animal, (5) man, white: next take some of the white things of which
man is not predicated—swan and snow: animal is predicated of all of the
one, but of none of the other. Consequently there cannot be a syllogism.
Again24 let no B be A, but let some C not be B. (10) Take the terms
inanimate, man, white: then take some white things of which man is not
predicated—swan and snow: the term inanimate is predicated of all of
the one, of none of the other.
Further since it is indefinite to say some C is not B, and it is true that
some C is not B, (15) whether no C is B, or not all C is B, and since if
terms are assumed such that no C is B, no syllogism follows (this has
already been stated25), it is clear that this arrangement of terms26 will
not afford a syllogism: otherwise one would have been possible with a
universal negative minor premiss. (20) A similar proof may also be given if
the universal premiss27 is negative.28
Nor can there in any way be a syllogism if both the relations of subject
and predicate are particular, either positively or negatively, or the one
negative and the other affirmative,29 or one indefinite and the other
definite, or both indefinite. Terms common to all the above are animal,
(25) white, horse: animal, white, stone.

It is clear then from what has been said that if there is a syllogism in
this figure with a particular conclusion, the terms must be related as we
have stated: if they are related otherwise, no syllogism is possible
anyhow. It is evident also that all the syllogisms in this figure are perfect
(for they are all completed by means of the premisses originally taken)
and that all conclusions are proved by this figure, (30) viz. universal and
particular, affirmative and negative. Such a figure I call the first.

5 Whenever the same thing belongs to all of one subject, (35) and to
none of another, or to all of each subject or to none of either, I call such
a figure the second; by middle term in it I mean that which is predicated
of both subjects, by extremes the terms of which this is said, by major
extreme that which lies near the middle, by minor that which is further
away from the middle. [27a] The middle term stands outside the
extremes, and is first in position. A syllogism cannot be perfect anyhow
in this figure, but it may be valid whether the terms are related
universally or not.
If then the terms are related universally a syllogism will be possible,
whenever the middle belongs to all of one subject and to none of another
(it does not matter which has the negative relation), (5) but in no other
way. Let M be predicated of no N, but of all O. Since, then, the negative
relation is convertible, N will belong to no M: but M was assumed to
belong to all O: consequently N will belong to no O.30 This has already
been proved.31 Again if M belongs to all N, but to no O, then N will
belong to no O.32 For if M belongs to no O, (10) O belongs to no M: but M
(as was said) belongs to all N: O then will belong to no N: for the first
figure has again been formed. But since the negative relation is
convertible, N will belong to no O. Thus it will be the same syllogism
that proves both conclusions.
It is possible to prove these results also by reduction ad impossibile. (15)
It is clear then that a syllogism is formed when the terms are so
related, but not a perfect syllogism; for necessity is not perfectly
established merely from the original premisses; others also are needed.
But if M is predicated of every N and O, there cannot be a syllogism.
Terms to illustrate a positive relation between the extremes are
substance, animal, man; a negative relation, substance, animal, (20)
number—substance being the middle term.
Nor is a syllogism possible when M is predicated neither of any N nor
of any O. Terms to illustrate a positive relation are line, animal, man: a
negative relation, line, animal, stone.
It is clear then that if a syllogism is formed when the terms are
universally related, the terms must be related as we stated at the
outset:33 for if they are otherwise related no necessary consequence
follows. (25)
If the middle term is related universally to one of the extremes, a
particular negative syllogism must result whenever the middle term is
related universally to the major whether positively or negatively, and
particularly to the minor and in a manner opposite to that of the
universal statement: by ‘an opposite manner’ I mean, if the universal
statement is negative, the particular is affirmative: if the universal is
affirmative, (30) the particular is negative. For if M belongs to no N, but
to some O, it is necessary that N does not belong to some O.34 For since
the negative statement is convertible, N will belong to no M: but M was
admitted to belong to some O: therefore N will not belong to some O: for
the result is reached by means of the first figure. (35) Again if M belongs
to all N, but not to some O, it is necessary that N does not belong to
some O:35 for if N belongs to all O, and M is predicated also of all N, M
must belong to all O: but we assumed that M does not belong to some O.
And if M belongs to all N but not to all O, we shall conclude that N does
not belong to all O: the proof is the same as the above. [27b] But if M
is predicated of all O, but not of all N, there will be no syllogism. Take
the terms animal, (5) substance, raven; animal, white, raven. Nor will
there be a conclusion when M is predicated of no O, but of some N.
Terms to illustrate a positive relation between the extremes are animal,
substance, unit: a negative relation, animal, substance, science.
If then the universal statement is opposed to the particular, (10) we
have stated when a syllogism will be possible and when not: but if the
premisses are similar in form, I mean both negative or both affirmative,
a syllogism will not be possible anyhow. First let them be negative, and
let the major premiss be universal, e. g. let M belong to no N, (15) and not
to some O. It is possible then for N to belong either to all O or to no O.
Terms to illustrate the negative relation are black, snow, animal. But it is
not possible to find terms of which the extremes are related positively
and universally, if M belongs to some O, and does not belong to some O.
For if N belonged to all O, but M to no N, then M would belong to no O:
but we assumed that it belongs to some O. (20) In this way then it is not
admissible to take terms: our point must be proved from the indefinite
nature of the particular statement. For since it is true that M does not
belong to some O, even if it belongs to no O, and since if it belongs to no
O a syllogism is (as we have seen36 not possible, clearly it will not be
possible now either.
Again let the premisses be affirmative, and let the major premiss as
before be universal, e. g. let M belong to all N and to some O. (25) It is
possible then for N to belong to all O or to no O. Terms to illustrate the
negative relation are white, swan, stone. But it is not possible to take
terms to illustrate the universal affirmative relation, for the reason
already stated:37 the point must be proved from the indefinite nature of
the particular statement. But if the minor premiss is universal, (30) and M
belongs to no O, and not to some N, it is possible for N to belong either
to all O or to no O. Terms for the positive relation are white, animal,
raven: for the negative relation, white, stone, raven. If the premisses are
affirmative, terms for the negative relation are white, animal, snow; for
the positive relation, white, animal, swan. Evidently then, whenever the
premisses are similar in form, (35) and one is universal, the other
particular, a syllogism cannot be formed anyhow. Nor is one possible if
the middle term belongs to some of each of the extremes, or does not
belong to some of either, or belongs to some of the one, not to some of
the other, or belongs to neither universally, or is related to them
indefinitely. Common terms for all the above are white, animal, man:
white, animal, inanimate.
[28a] It is clear then from what has been said that if the terms are
related to one another in the way stated, a syllogism results of necessity;
and if there is a syllogism, the terms must be so related. But it is evident
also that all the syllogisms in this figure are imperfect: for all are made
perfect by certain supplementary statements, (5) which either are
contained in the terms of necessity or are assumed as hypotheses, i. e.
when we prove per impossibile. And it is evident that an affirmative
conclusion is not attained by means of this figure, but all are negative,
whether universal or particular.

6 But if one term belongs to all, and another to none, of a third, (10) or
if both belong to all, or to none, of it, I call such a figure the third; by
middle term in it I mean that of which both the predicates are
predicated, by extremes I mean the predicates, by the major extreme
that which is further from the middle, by the minor that which is nearer
to it. The middle term stands outside the extremes, and is last in
position. (15) A syllogism cannot be perfect in this figure either, but it
may be valid whether the terms are related universally or not to the
middle term.
If they are universal, whenever both P and R belong to all S, it follows
that P will necessarily belong to some R.38 For, since the affirmative
statement is convertible, S will belong to some R: consequently since P
belongs to all S, and S to some R, P must belong to some R: for a
syllogism in the first figure is produced. (20) It is possible to demonstrate
this also per impossibile and by exposition. For if both P and R belong to
all S, should one of the Ss, e. g. N, be taken, both P and R will belong to
this, and thus P will belong to some R. (25)
If R belongs to all S, and P to no S, there will be a syllogism to prove
that P will necessarily not belong to some R.39 This may be
demonstrated in the same way as before by converting the premiss RS.40
It might be proved also per impossibile, as in the former cases. (30) But if R
belongs to no S, P to all S, there will be no syllogism. Terms for the
positive relation are animal, horse, man: for the negative relation
animal, inanimate, man.
Nor can there be a syllogism when both terms are asserted of no S.
Terms for the positive relation are animal, horse, inanimate; for the
negative relation man, horse, inanimate—inanimate being the middle
term. (35)
It is clear then in this figure also when a syllogism will be possible and
when not, if the terms are related universally. For whenever both the
terms are affirmative, there will be a syllogism to prove that one extreme
belongs to some of the other; but when they are negative, no syllogism
will be possible. [28b] But when one is negative, the other affirmative,
if the major is negative, the minor affirmative, there will be a syllogism
to prove that the one extreme does not belong to some of the other: but
if the relation is reversed, no syllogism will be possible.
If one term is related universally to the middle, (5) the other in part
only, when both are affirmative there must be a syllogism, no matter
which of the premisses is universal. For if R belongs to all S, P to some S,
P must belong to some R.41 For since the affirmative statement is
convertible S will belong to some P: consequently since R belongs to all
S, (10) and S to some P, R must also belong to some P: therefore P must
belong to some R.
Again if R belongs to some S, and P to all S, P must belong to some
R. This may be demonstrated in the same way as the preceding. And it
42
is possible to demonstrate it also per impossibile and by exposition, (15) as
in the former cases. But if one term is affirmative, the other negative,
and if the affirmative is universal, a syllogism will be possible whenever
the minor term is affirmative. For if R belongs to all S, but P does not
belong to some S, it is necessary that P does not belong to some R.43 For
if P belongs to all R, and R belongs to all S, then P will belong to all S:
but we assumed that it did not. (20) Proof is possible also without
reduction ad impossibile, if one of the Ss be taken to which P does not
belong.
But whenever the major is affirmative, no syllogism will be possible,
e. g. if P belongs to all S, and R does not belong to some S. Terms for the
universal affirmative relation are animate, man, animal. For the
universal negative relation it is not possible to get terms, (25) if R belongs
to some S, and does not belong to some S. For if P belongs to all S, and R
to some S, then P will belong to some R: but we assumed that it belongs
to no R. We must put the matter as before.44 Since the expression ‘it does
not belong to some’ is indefinite, it may be used truly of that also which
belongs to none. But if R belongs to no S, (30) no syllogism is possible, as
has been shown.45 Clearly then no syllogism will be possible here.
But if the negative term is universal, whenever the major is negative
and the minor affirmative there will be a syllogism. For if P belongs to
no S, and R belongs to some S, P will not belong to some R:46 for we
shall have the first figure again, (35) if the premiss RS is converted.
But when the minor is negative, there will be no syllogism. Terms for
the positive relation are animal, man, wild: for the negative relation,
animal, science, wild—the middle in both being the term wild.
Nor is a syllogism possible when both are stated in the negative, but
one is universal, the other particular. When the minor is related
universally to the middle, take the terms animal, science, wild; animal,
man, wild. [29a] When the major is related universally to the middle,
take as terms for a negative relation raven, snow, white. For a positive
relation terms cannot be found, if R belongs to some S, and does not
belong to some S. For if P belongs to all R, and R to some S, (5) then P
belongs to some S: but we assumed that it belongs to no S. Our point,
then, must be proved from the indefinite nature of the particular
statement.
Nor is a syllogism possible anyhow, if each of the extremes belongs to
some of the middle, or does not belong, or one belongs and the other
does not to some of the middle, or one belongs to some of the middle,
the other not to all, or if the premisses are indefinite. Common terms for
all are animal, man, white: animal, inanimate, (10) white.
It is clear then in this figure also when a syllogism will be possible,
and when not; and that if the terms are as stated, a syllogism results of
necessity, and if there is a syllogism, the terms must be so related. It is
clear also that all the syllogisms in this figure are imperfect (for all are
made perfect by certain supplementary assumptions), (15) and that it will
not be possible to reach a universal conclusion by means of this figure,
whether negative or affirmative.

7 It is evident also that in all the figures, whenever a proper syllogism

does not result, if both the terms are affirmative or negative nothing
necessary follows at all, (20) but if one is affirmative, the other negative,
and if the negative is stated universally, a syllogism always results
relating the minor to the major term, e. g. if A belongs to all or some B,
and B belongs to no C: for if the premisses are converted it is necessary
that C does not belong to some A.47 Similarly also in the other figures: a
syllogism always results by means of conversion. (25) It is evident also
that the substitution of an indefinite for a particular affirmative will
effect the same syllogism in all the figures.
It is clear too that all the imperfect syllogisms are made perfect by
means of the first figure. (30) For all are brought to a conclusion either
ostensively or per impossibile. In both ways the first figure is formed: if
they are made perfect ostensively, because (as we saw) all are brought to
a conclusion by means of conversion, (35) and conversion produces the
first figure: if they are proved per impossibile, because on the assumption
of the false statement the syllogism comes about by means of the first
figure, e. g. in the last figure, if A and B belong to all C, it follows that A
belongs to some B: for if A belonged to no B, and B belongs to all C, A
would belong to no C: but (as we stated) it belongs to all C. Similarly
also with the rest.
[29b] It is possible also to reduce all syllogisms to the universal
syllogisms in the first figure. Those in the second figure are clearly made
perfect by these, though not all in the same way; the universal
syllogisms are made perfect by converting the negative premiss, (5) each
of the particular syllogisms by reduction ad impossibile. In the first figure
particular syllogisms are indeed made perfect by themselves, but it is
possible also to prove them by means of the second figure, reducing
them ad impossibile, e. g. if A belongs to all B, and B to some C, it follows
that A belongs to some C. For if it belonged to no C, and belongs to all B,
then B will belong to no C: this we know by means of the second figure.
(10) Similarly also demonstration will be possible in the case of the

negative. For if A belongs to no B, and B belongs to some C, A will not

belong to some C: for if it belonged to all C, and belongs to no B, then B
will belong to no C: and this (as we saw) is the middle figure. (15)
Consequently, since all syllogisms in the middle figure can be reduced to
universal syllogisms in the first figure, and since particular syllogisms in
the first figure can be reduced to syllogisms in the middle figure, it is
clear that particular syllogisms48 can be reduced to universal syllogisms
in the first figure. Syllogisms in the third figure, if the terms are
universal, (20) are directly made perfect by means of those syllogisms;49
but, when one of the premisses is particular, by means of the particular
syllogisms in the first figure: and these (we have seen) may be reduced
to the universal syllogisms in the first figure: consequently also the
particular syllogisms in the third figure may be so reduced. It is clear
then that all syllogisms may be reduced to the universal syllogisms in
the first figure. (25)
We have stated then how syllogisms which prove that something
belongs or does not belong to something else are constituted, both how
syllogisms of the same figure are constituted in themselves, and how
syllogisms of different figures are related to one another.…

13 Perhaps enough has been said about the proof of necessity, (15) how
it comes about and how it differs from the proof of a simple statement.
[32a] We proceed to discuss that which is possible, when and how and
by what means it can be proved. I use the terms ‘to be possible’ and ‘the
possible’ of that which is not necessary but, being assumed, results in
nothing impossible. (20) We say indeed ambiguously of the necessary that
it is possible. But that my definition of the possible is correct is clear
from the phrases by which we deny or on the contrary affirm possibility.
For the expressions ‘it is not possible to belong’, ‘it is impossible to
belong’, and ‘it is necessary not to belong’ are either identical or follow
from one another; consequently their opposites also, ‘it is possible to
belong’, ‘it is not impossible to belong’, (25) and ‘it is not necessary not to
belong’, will either be identical or follow from one another. For of
everything the affirmation or the denial holds good. That which is
possible then will be not necessary and that which is not necessary will
be possible. It results that all premisses in the mode of possibility are
convertible into one another. (30) I mean not that the affirmative are
convertible into the negative, but that those which are affirmative in
form admit of conversion by opposition, e. g. ‘it is possible to belong’
may be converted into ‘it is possible not to belong’, and ‘it is possible for
A to belong to all B’ into ‘it is possible for A to belong to no B’ or ‘not to
all B’, and ‘it is possible for A to belong to some B’ into ‘it is possible for
A not to belong to some B’. (35) And similarly the other propositions in
this mode can be converted. For since that which is possible is not
necessary, and that which is not necessary may possibly not belong, it is
clear that if it is possible that A should belong to B, it is possible also
that it should not belong to B: and if it is possible that it should belong
to all, it is also possible that it should not belong to all. The same holds
good in the case of particular affirmations: (40) for the proof is identical.
[32b] And such premisses are affirmative and not negative: for ‘to be
possible’ is in the same rank as ‘to be’, as was said above.50
Having made these distinctions we next point out that the expression
‘to be possible’ is used in two ways. In one it means to happen generally
and fall short of necessity, (5) e. g. man’s turning grey or growing or
decaying, or generally what naturally belongs to a thing (for this has not
its necessity unbroken, since man’s existence is not continuous for ever,
although if a man does exist, it comes about either necessarily or
generally). In another sense the expression means the indefinite, (10)
which can be both thus and not thus, e. g. an animal’s walking or an
earthquake’s taking place while it is walking, or generally what happens
by chance: for none of these inclines by nature in the one way more than
in the opposite.
That which is possible in each of its two senses is convertible into its
opposite, (15) not however in the same way: but what is natural is
convertible because it does not necessarily belong (for in this sense it is
possible that a man should not grow grey) and what is indefinite is
convertible because it inclines this way no more than that. Science and
demonstrative syllogism are not concerned with things which are
indefinite, because the middle term is uncertain; but they are concerned
with things that are natural, (20) and as a rule arguments and inquiries
are made about things which are possible in this sense. Syllogisms
indeed can be made about the former, but it is unusual at any rate to
inquire about them.
These matters will be treated more definitely in the sequel;51 our
business at present is to state the moods and nature of the syllogism
made from possible premisses. The expression ‘it is possible for this to
belong to that’ may be understood in two senses: ‘that’ may mean either
that to which ‘that’ belongs or that to which it may belong; for the
expression ‘A is possible of the subject of B’ means that it is possible
either of that of which B is stated or of that of which B may possibly be
stated. (25) It makes no difference whether we say, A is possible of the
subject of B, (30) or all B admits of A. It is clear then that the expression
‘A may possibly belong to all B’ might be used in two senses. First then
we must state the nature and characteristics of the syllogism which
arises if B is possible of the subject of C, and A is possible of the subject
of B. For thus both premisses are assumed in the mode of possibility; but
whenever A is possible of that of which B is true, (35) one premiss is a
simple assertion, the other a problematic. Consequently we must start
from premisses which are similar in form, as in the other cases.…

23 [40b] It is clear from what has been said that the syllogisms in
these figures are made perfect by means of universal syllogisms in the
first figure and are reduced to them. (20) That every syllogism without
qualification can be so treated, will be clear presently, when it has been
proved that every syllogism is formed through one or other of these
figures.
It is necessary that every demonstration and every syllogism should
prove either that something belongs or that it does not, (25) and this
either universally or in part, and further either ostensively or
hypothetically. One sort of hypothetical proof is the reductio ad
impossibile. Let us speak first of ostensive syllogisms: for after these have
been pointed out the truth of our contention will be clear with regard to
those which are proved per impossibile, and in general hypothetically.
If then one wants to prove syllogistically A of B, (30) either as an
attribute of it or as not an attribute of it, one must assert something of
something else. If now A should be asserted of B, the proposition
originally in question will have been assumed. But if A should be
asserted of C, but C should not be asserted of anything, nor anything of
it, nor anything else of A, no syllogism will be possible. For nothing
necessarily follows from the assertion of some one thing concerning
some other single thing. (35) Thus we must take another premiss as well.
If then A be asserted of something else, or something else of A, or
something different of C, nothing prevents a syllogism being formed, but
it will not be in relation to B through the premisses taken. Nor when C
belongs to something else, (40) and that to something else and so on, no
connexion however being made with B, will a syllogism be possible
concerning A in its relation to B. [41a] For in general we stated52 that
no syllogism can establish the attribution of one thing to another, unless
some middle term is taken, which is somehow related to each by way of
predication. For the syllogism in general is made out of premisses, and a
syllogism referring to this out of premisses with the same reference, (5)
and a syllogism relating this to that proceeds through premisses which
relate this to that. But it is impossible to take a premiss in reference to B,
if we neither affirm nor deny anything of it; or again to take a premiss
relating A to B, if we take nothing common, (10) but affirm or deny
peculiar attributes of each. So we must take something midway between
the two, which will connect the predications, if we are to have a
syllogism relating this to that. If then we must take something common
in relation to both, and this is possible in three ways (either by
predicating A of C, and C of B, or C of both, or both of C), (15) and these
are the figures of which we have spoken, it is clear that every syllogism
must be made in one or other of these figures. The argument is the same
if several middle terms should be necessary to establish the relation to B;
for the figure will be the same whether there is one middle term or
many. (20)
It is clear then that the ostensive syllogisms are effected by means of
the aforesaid figures; these considerations will show that reductiones ad
impossibile also are effected in the same way. For all who effect an
argument per impossibile infer syllogistically what is false, (25) and prove
the original conclusion hypothetically when something impossible
results from the assumption of its contradictory; e. g. that the diagonal
of the square is incommensurate with the side, because odd numbers are
equal to evens if it is supposed to be commensurate. One infers
syllogistically that odd numbers come out equal to evens, and one proves
hypothetically the incommensurability of the diagonal, (30) since a
falsehood results through contradicting this. For this we found to be
reasoning per impossibile, viz. proving something impossible by means of
an hypothesis conceded at the beginning. Consequently, since the
falsehood is established in reductions ad impossibile by an ostensive
syllogism, and the original conclusion is proved hypothetically, (35) and
we have already stated that ostensive syllogisms are effected by means
of these figures, it is evident that syllogisms per impossibile also will be
made through these figures. Likewise all the other hypothetical
syllogisms: for in every case the syllogism leads up to the proposition
that is substituted for the original thesis; but the original thesis is
reached by means of a concession or some other hypothesis.53 [41b]
(40) But if this is true, every demonstration and every syllogism must be

formed by means of the three figures mentioned above. But when this
has been shown it is clear that every syllogism is perfected by means of
the first figure and is reducible to the universal syllogisms in this figure.
(5)

24 Further in every syllogism one of the premisses must be

affirmative, and universality must be present: unless one of the
premisses is universal either a syllogism will not be possible, or it will
not refer to the subject proposed, or the original position will be begged.
(10) Suppose we have to prove that pleasure in music is good. If one

should claim as a premiss that pleasure is good without adding ‘all’, no

syllogism will be possible; if one should claim that some pleasure is
good, then if it is different from pleasure in music, it is not relevant to
the subject proposed; if it is this very pleasure, one is assuming that
which was proposed at the outset to be proved. This is more obvious in
geometrical proofs, e. g. (15) that the angles at the base of an isosceles
triangle are equal. Suppose the lines A and B have been drawn to the
centre. If then one should assume that the angle AC is equal to the angle
BD, without claiming generally that angles of semicircles are equal; and
again if one should assume that the angle C is equal to the angle D,
without the additional assumption that every angle of a segment is equal
to every other angle of the same segment; and further if one should
assume that when equal angles are taken from the whole angles, which
are themselves equal, the remainders E and F are equal, he will beg the
thing to be proved, (20) unless he also states that when equals are taken
from equals the remainders are equal.54
It is clear then that in every syllogism there must be a universal
premiss, and that a universal statement is proved only when all the
premisses are universal, while a particular statement is proved both from
two universal premisses and from one only: consequently if the
conclusion is universal, the premisses also must be universal, (25) but if
the premisses are universal it is possible that the conclusion may not be
universal. And it is clear also that in every syllogism either both or one
of the premisses must be like the conclusion. I mean not only in being
affirmative or negative, but also in being necessary, pure, or
problematic. We must consider also the other forms of predication. (30)
It is clear also when a syllogism in general can be made and when it
cannot; and when a valid,55 when a perfect syllogism can be formed; and
that if a syllogism is formed the terms must be arranged in one of the
ways that have been mentioned. (35)

25 It is clear too that every demonstration will proceed through three

terms and no more, unless the same conclusion is established by
different pairs of propositions; e. g. the conclusion E may be established
through the propositions A and B, and through the propositions C and D,
or through the propositions A and B, or A and C, (40) or B and C. For
nothing prevents there being several middles for the same terms. But in
that case there is not one but several syllogisms. [42a] Or again when
each of the propositions A and B is obtained by syllogistic inference, e. g.
A by means of D and E, and again B by means of F and G. Or one may be
obtained by syllogistic, the other by inductive inference. But thus also
the syllogisms are many; for the conclusions are many, (5) e. g. A and B
and C. But if this can be called one syllogism, not many, the same
conclusion may be reached by more than three terms in this way, but it
cannot be reached as C is established by means of A and B. Suppose that
the proposition E is inferred from the premisses A, B, C, and D. It is
necessary then that of these one should be related to another as whole to
part: for it has already been proved that if a syllogism is formed some of
its terms must be related in this way.56 (10) Suppose then that A stands in
this relation to B. Some conclusion then follows from them. It must
either be E or one or other of C and D, or something other than these. (15)
(1) If it is E the syllogism will have A and B for its sole premisses. But
if C and D are so related that one is whole, the other part, some
conclusion will follow from them also; and it must be either E, or one or
other of the propositions A and B, or something other than these. And if
it is (i) E, or (ii) A or B, either (i) the syllogisms will be more than one,
or (ii) the same thing happens to be inferred by means of several terms
only in the sense which we saw to be possible.57 But if (iii) the
conclusion is other than E or A or B, (20) the syllogisms will be many, and
unconnected with one another. But if C is not so related to D as to make
a syllogism, the propositions will have been assumed to no purpose,
unless for the sake of induction or of obscuring the argument or
something of the sort.
(2) But if from the propositions A and B there follows not E but some
other conclusion, (25) and if from C and D either A or B follows or
something else, then there are several syllogisms, and they do not
establish the conclusion proposed: for we assumed that the syllogism
proved E. And if no conclusion follows from C and D, it turns out that
these propositions have been assumed to no purpose, and the syllogism
does not prove the original proposition. (30)
So it is clear that every demonstration and every syllogism will
proceed through three terms only.
This being evident, it is clear that a syllogistic conclusion follows from
two premisses and not from more than two. For the three terms make
two premisses, unless a new premiss is assumed, as was said at the
beginning,58 to perfect the syllogisms. It is clear therefore that in
whatever syllogistic argument the premisses through which the main
conclusion follows (for some of the preceding conclusions must be
premisses) are not even in number, (35) this argument either has not been
drawn syllogistically or it has assumed more than was necessary to
establish its thesis. (40)
If then syllogisms are taken with respect to their main premisses,
every syllogism will consist of an even number of premisses and an odd
number of terms (for the terms exceed the premisses by one), and the
conclusions will be half the number of the premisses. [42b] (5) But
whenever a conclusion is reached by means of prosyllogisms or by
means of several continuous middle terms, e. g. the proposition AB by
means of the middle terms C and D, the number of the terms will
similarly exceed that of the premisses by one (for the extra term must
either be added outside or inserted: but in either case it follows that the
relations of predication are one fewer than the terms related), and the
premisses will be equal in number to the relations of predication. (10) The
premisses however will not always be even, the terms odd; but they will
alternate—when the premisses are even, the terms must be odd; when
the terms are even, the premisses must be odd: for along with one term
one premiss is added, if a term is added from any quarter. Consequently
since the premisses were (as we saw) even, and the terms odd, (15) we
must make them alternately even and odd at each addition. But the
conclusions will not follow the same arrangement either in respect to the
terms or to the premisses. For if one term is added, conclusions will be
added less by one than the pre-existing terms: for the conclusion is
drawn not in relation to the single term last added, but in relation to all
the rest, (20) e. g. if to ABC the term D is added, two conclusions are
thereby added, one in relation to A, the other in relation to B. Similarly
with any further additions. And similarly too if the term is inserted in
the middle: for in relation to one term only, a syllogism will not be
constructed. (25) Consequently the conclusions will be much more
numerous than the terms or the premisses.

26 Since we understand the subjects with which syllogisms are

concerned, what sort of conclusion is established in each figure, and in
how many moods this is done, it is evident to us both what sort of
problem is difficult and what sort is easy to prove. (30) For that which is
concluded in many figures and through many moods is easier; that
which is concluded in few figures and through few moods is more
difficult to attempt. The universal affirmative is proved by means of the
first figure only and by this in only one mood; the universal negative is
proved both through the first figure and through the second, (35) through
the first in one mood, through the second in two. The particular
affirmative is proved through the first and through the last figure, in one
mood through the first, in three moods through the last. The particular
negative is proved in all the figures, (40) but once in the first, in two
moods in the second, in three moods in the third. [43a] It is clear then
that the universal affirmative is most difficult to establish, most easy to
overthrow. In general, universals are easier game for the destroyer than
particulars: for whether the predicate belongs to none or not to some,
they are destroyed: and the particular negative is proved in all the
figures, (5) the universal negative in two. Similarly with universal
negatives: the original statement is destroyed, whether the predicate
belongs to all or to some: and this we found possible in two figures. But
particular statements can be refuted in one way only—by proving that
the predicate belongs either to all or to none. But particular statements
are easier to establish: for proof is possible in more figures and through
more moods. (10) And in general we must not forget that it is possible to
refute statements by means of one another, I mean, universal statements
by means of particular, and particular statements by means of universal:
but it is not possible to establish universal statements by means of
particular, though it is possible to establish particular statements by
means of universal. At the same time it is evident that it is easier to
refute than to establish. (15)
The manner in which every syllogism is produced, the number of the
terms and premisses through which it proceeds, the relation of the
premisses to one another, the character of the problem proved in each
figure, and the number of the figures appropriate to each problem, all
these matters are clear from what has been said.

27 We must now state how we may ourselves always have a supply of

syllogisms in reference to the problem proposed and by what road we
may reach the principles relative to the problem: for perhaps we ought
not only to investigate the construction of syllogisms, (20) but also to
have the power of making them.
Of all the things which exist some are such that they cannot be
predicated of anything else truly and universally, (25) e. g. Cleon and
Callias, i. e. the individual and sensible, but other things may be
predicated of them (for each of these is both man and animal); and some
things are themselves predicated of others, (30) but nothing prior is
predicated of them; and some are predicated of others, and yet others of
them, e. g. man of Callias and animal of man. It is clear then that some
things are naturally not stated of anything: for as a rule each sensible
thing is such that it cannot be predicated of anything, save incidentally:
for we sometimes say that that white object is Socrates, or that that
which approaches is Callias. (35) We shall explain in another place59 that
there is an upward limit also to the process of predicating: for the
present we must assume this. Of these ultimate predicates it is not
possible to demonstrate another predicate, save as a matter of opinion,
but these may be predicated of other things. Neither can individuals be
predicated of other things, (40) though other things can be predicated of
them. Whatever lies between these limits can be spoken of in both ways:
they may be stated of others, and others stated of them. And as a rule
arguments and inquiries are concerned with these things.
We must select the premisses suitable to each problem in this manner:
first we must lay down the subject and the definitions and the properties
of the thing; next we must lay down those attributes which follow the
thing, and again those which the thing follows, and those which cannot
belong to it. [43b] But those to which it cannot belong need not be
selected, (5) because the negative statement implied above is convertible.
Of the attributes which follow we must distinguish those which fall
within the definition, those which are predicated as properties, and
those which are predicated as accidents, and of the latter those which
apparently and those which really belong. The larger the supply a man
has of these, the more quickly will he reach a conclusion; and in
proportion as he apprehends those which are truer, (10) the more
cogently will he demonstrate. But he must select not those which follow
some particular but those which follow the thing as a whole e. g. not
what follows a particular man but what follows every man: for the
syllogism proceeds through universal premisses. (15) If the statement is
indefinite, it is uncertain whether the premiss is universal, but if the
statement is definite, the matter is clear. Similarly one must select those
attributes which the subject follows as wholes, for the reason given. But
that which follows one must not suppose to follow as a whole, e. g. that
every animal follows man or every science music, but only that it
follows, without qualification, (20) as indeed we state it in a proposition:
for the other statement is useless and impossible, e. g. that every man is
every animal or justice is all good. But that which something follows
receives the mark ‘every’. Whenever the subject, for which we must
obtain the attributes that follow, is contained by something else, what
follows or does not follow the highest term universally must not be
selected in dealing with the subordinate term (for these attributes have
been taken in dealing with the superior term; for what follows animal
also follows man, (25) and what does not belong to animal does not
belong to man); but we must choose those attributes which are peculiar
to each subject. For some things are peculiar to the species as distinct
from the genus; for species being distinct there must be attributes
peculiar to each. Nor must we take as things which the superior term
follows, those things which the inferior term follows, (30) e. g. take as
subjects of the predicate ‘animal’ what are really subjects of the
predicate ‘man’. It is necessary indeed, if animal follows man, that it
should follow all these also. But these belong more properly to the
choice of what concerns man. One must apprehend also normal
consequents and normal antecedents; for propositions which obtain
normally are established syllogistically from premisses which obtain
normally, (35) some if not all of them having this character of normality.
For the conclusion of each syllogism resembles its principles. We must
not however choose attributes which are consequent upon all the
terms:60 for no syllogism can be made out of such premisses. The reason
why this is so will be clear in the sequel.61

28 If men wish to establish something about some whole, (40) they

must look to the subjects of that which is being established (the subjects
of which it happens to be asserted), and the attributes which follow that
of which it is to be predicated. For if any of these subjects is the same as
any of these attributes, the attribute originally in question must belong
to the subject originally in question.62 But if the purpose is to establish
not a universal but a particular proposition, they must look for the terms
of which the terms in question are predicable: for if any of these are
identical, the attribute in question must belong to some of the subject in
question.63 [44a] Whenever the one term has to belong to none of the
other, one must look to the consequents of the subject, and to those
attributes which cannot possibly be present in the predicate in
question:64 or conversely to the attributes which cannot possibly be
present in the subject, and to the consequents of the predicate.65 If any
members of these groups are identical, (5) one of the terms in question
cannot possibly belong to any of the other. For sometimes a syllogism in
the first figure results,66 sometimes a syllogism in the second. But if the
object is to establish a particular negative proposition, we must find
antecedents of the subject in question and attributes which cannot
possibly belong to the predicate in question.67 If any members of these
two groups are identical, (10) it follows that one of the terms in question
does not belong to some of the other. Perhaps each of these statements
will become clearer in the following way. Suppose the consequents of A
are designated by B, the antecedents of A by C, attributes which cannot
possibly belong to A by D. Suppose again that the attributes of E are
designated by F, (15) the antecedents of E by G, and attributes which
cannot belong to E by H. If then one of the Cs should be identical with
one of the Fs, A must belong to all E: for F belongs to all E, and A to all
C, consequently A belongs to all E. If C and G are identical, A must
belong to some of the Es: for A follows C, and E follows all G. (20) If F and
D are identical, A will belong to none of the Es by a prosyllogism: for
since the negative proposition is convertible, and F is identical with D, A
will belong to none of the Fs, but F belongs to all E. Again, if B and H are
identical, A will belong to none of the Es: for B will belong to all A, but
to no E: for it was assumed to be identical with H, (25) and H belonged to
none of the Es. If D and G are identical, A will not belong to some of the
Es: for it will not belong to G, because it does not belong to D: but G falls
under E: consequently A will not belong to some of the Es. (30) If B is
identical with G, there will be a converted syllogism: for E will belong to
all A, since B belongs to A and E to B (for B was found to be identical
with G): but that A should belong to all E is not necessary, but it must
belong to some E because it is possible to convert the universal
statement into a particular. (35)
It is clear then that in every proposition which requires proof we must
look to the aforesaid relations of the subject and predicate in question:
for all syllogisms proceed through these. But if we are seeking
consequents and antecedents we must look for those which are primary
and most universal, (40) e. g. in reference to E we must look to KF rather
than to F alone, and in reference to A we must look to KC rather than to
C alone. [44b] For if A belongs to KF, it belongs both to F and to E: but
if it does not follow KF, it may yet follow F. Similarly we must consider
the antecedents of A itself: for if a term follows the primary antecedents,
it will follow those also which are subordinate, (5) but if it does not
follow the former, it may yet follow the latter.
It is clear too that the inquiry proceeds through the three terms and
the two premisses, and that all the syllogisms proceed through the
aforesaid figures. For it is proved that A belongs to all E, whenever an
identical term is found among the Cs and Fs. (10) This will be the middle
term; A and E will be the extremes. So the first figure is formed. And A
will belong to some E, whenever C and G are apprehended to be the
same. This is the last figure: for G becomes the middle term. And A will
belong to no E, when D and F are identical. Thus we have both the first
figure and the middle figure; the first, because A belongs to no F, since
the negative statement is convertible, (15) and F belongs to all E; the
middle figure because D belongs to no A, and to all E. And A will not
belong to some E, whenever D and G are identical. This is the last figure:
for A will belong to no G, and E will belong to all G. Clearly then all
syllogisms proceed through the aforesaid figures, (20) and we must not
select consequents of all the terms,68 because no syllogism is produced
from them. For (as we saw)69 it is not possible at all to establish a
proposition from consequents, and it is not possible to refute by means
of a consequent of both the terms in question: for the middle term must
belong to the one, and not belong to the other.
It is clear too that other methods of inquiry by selection of middle
terms are useless to produce a syllogism, (25) e. g. if the consequents of
the terms in question are identical, or if the antecedents of A are
identical with those attributes which cannot possibly belong to E, or if
those attributes are identical which cannot belong to either term: for no
syllogism is produced by means of these. For if the consequents are
identical, (30) e. g. B and F, we have the middle figure with both
premisses affirmative: if the antecedents of A are identical with
attributes which cannot belong to E, e. g. C with H, we have the first
figure with its minor premiss negative. If attributes which cannot belong
to either term are identical, e. g. C and H, both premisses are negative,
(35) either in the first or in the middle figure. But no syllogism is possible

in this way.
It is evident too that we must find out which terms in this inquiry are
identical, not which are different or contrary, first because the object of
our investigation is the middle term, (40) and the middle term must be
not diverse but identical. Secondly, wherever it happens that a syllogism
results from taking contraries or terms which cannot belong to the same
thing, all arguments can be reduced to the aforesaid moods, e. g. if B and
F are contraries or cannot belong to the same thing. [45a] For if these
are taken, a syllogism will be formed to prove that A belongs to none of
the Es, (5) not however from the premisses taken but in the aforesaid
mood. For B will belong to all A and to no E. Consequently B must be
identical with one of the Hs. Again, if B and G cannot belong to the same
thing, it follows that A will not belong to some of the Es: for then too we
shall have the middle figure: for B will belong to all A and to no G. (10)
Consequently B must be identical with some of the Hs. For the fact that
B and G cannot belong to the same thing differs in no way from the fact
that B is identical with some of the Hs: for that includes everything
which cannot belong to E. (15)
It is clear then that from the inquiries taken by themselves no
syllogism results; but if B and F are contraries B must be identical with
one of the Hs, and the syllogism results through these terms. (20) It turns
out then that those who inquire in this manner are looking gratuitously
for some other way than the necessary way because they have failed to
observe the identity of the Bs with the Hs.

29 Syllogisms which lead to impossible conclusions are similar to

ostensive syllogisms; they also are formed by means of the consequents
and antecedents of the terms in question. (25) In both cases the same
inquiry is involved. For what is proved ostensively may also be
concluded syllogistically per impossibile by means of the same terms; and
what is proved per impossibile may also be proved ostensively, e. g. that
A belongs to none of the Es. For suppose A to belong to some E: then
since B belongs to all A and A to some of the Es, B will belong to some of
the Es: but it was assumed that it belongs to none. (30) Again we may
prove that A belongs to some E: for if A belonged to none of the Es, and
E belongs to all G, A will belong to none of the Gs: but it was assumed to
belong to all. Similarly with the other propositions requiring proof. The
proof per impossibile will always and in all cases be from the consequents
and antecedents of the terms in question. (35) Whatever the problem the
same inquiry is necessary whether one wishes to use an ostensive
syllogism or a reduction to impossibility. For both the demonstrations
start from the same terms, e. g. suppose it has been proved that A
belongs to no E, because it turns out that otherwise B belongs to some of
the Es and this is impossible—if now it is assumed that B belongs to no E
and to all A, (40) it is clear that A will belong to no E. [45b] Again if it
has been proved by an ostensive syllogism that A belongs to no E,
assume that A belongs to some E and it will be proved per impossibile to
belong to no E. Similarly with the rest. In all cases it is necessary to find
some common term other than the subjects of inquiry, (5) to which the
syllogism establishing the false conclusion may relate, so that if this
premiss is converted,70 and the other remains as it is, the syllogism will
be ostensive by means of the same terms. For the ostensive syllogism
differs from the reductio ad impossibile in this: in the ostensive syllogism
both premisses are laid down in accordance with the truth, (10) in the
reductio ad impossibile one of the premisses is assumed falsely.
These points will be made clearer by the sequel,71 when we discuss
the reduction to impossibility: at present this much must be clear, that
we must look to terms of the kinds mentioned whether we wish to use
an ostensive syllogism or a reduction to impossibility. (15) In the other
hypothetical syllogisms, I mean those which proceed by substitution,72
or by positing a certain quality, the inquiry will be directed to the terms
of the problem to be proved—not the terms of the original problem, but
the new terms introduced; and the method of the inquiry will be the
same as before. (20) But we must consider and determine in how many
ways hypothetical syllogisms are possible.
Each of the problems then can be proved in the manner described; but
it is possible to establish some of them syllogistically in another way,
e. g. universal problems by the inquiry which leads up to a particular
conclusion, with the addition of an hypothesis. For if the Cs and the Gs
should be identical, but E should be assumed to belong to the Gs only,
(25) then A would belong to every E: and again if the Ds and the Gs

should be identical, but E should be predicated of the Gs only, it follows

that A will belong to none of the Es. Clearly then we must consider the
matter in this way also. The method is the same whether the relation is
necessary or possible. For the inquiry will be the same, and the syllogism
will proceed through terms arranged in the same order whether a
possible or a pure proposition is proved. (30) We must find in the case of
possible relations, as well as terms that belong, terms which can belong
though they actually do not: for we have proved that the syllogism
which establishes a possible relation proceeds through these terms as
well. (35) Similarly also with the other modes of predication.
It is clear then from what has been said not only that all syllogisms
can be formed in this way, but also that they cannot be formed in any
other. For every syllogism has been proved to be formed through one of
the aforementioned figures, (40) and these cannot be composed through
other terms than the consequents and antecedents of the terms in
question: for from these we obtain the premisses and find the middle
term. [46a] Consequently a syllogism cannot be formed by means of
other terms.

30 The method is the same in all cases, in philosophy, in any art or

study. We must look for the attributes and the subjects of both our
terms, and we must supply ourselves with as many of these as possible,
(5) and consider them by means of the three terms, refuting statements in

one way, confirming them in another, in the pursuit of truth starting

from premisses in which the arrangement of the terms is in accordance
with truth, while if we look for dialectical syllogisms we must start from
probable premisses. (10) The principles of syllogisms have been stated in
general terms, both how they are characterized and how we must hunt
for them, so as not to look to everything that is said about the terms of
the problem or to the same points whether we are confirming or
refuting, or again whether we are confirming of all or of some, and
whether we are refuting of all or some; we must look to fewer points and
they must be definite. (15) We have also stated how we must select with
reference to everything that is, e. g. about good or knowledge. But in
each science the principles which are peculiar are the most numerous.
Consequently it is the business of experience to give the principles which
belong to each subject. I mean for example that astronomical experience
supplies the principles of astronomical science: for once the phenomena
were adequately apprehended, (20) the demonstrations of astronomy were
discovered. Similarly with any other art or science. Consequently, if the
attributes of the thing are apprehended, our business will then be to
exhibit readily the demonstrations. For if none of the true attributes of
things had been omitted in the historical survey, (25) we should be able to
discover the proof and demonstrate everything which admitted of proof,
and to make that clear, whose nature does not admit of proof.
In general then we have explained fairly well how we must select
premisses: we have discussed the matter accurately in the treatise
concerning dialectic.73 (30)

31 It is easy to see that division into classes74 is a small part of the

method we have described: for division is, so to speak, a weak syllogism;
for what it ought to prove, it begs, and it always establishes something
more general than the attribute in question. First, (35) this very point had
escaped all those who used the method of division; and they attempted
to persuade men that it was possible to make a demonstration of
substance and essence. Consequently they did not understand what it is
possible to prove syllogistically by division, nor did they understand that
it was possible to prove syllogistically in the manner we have
described.75 In demonstrations, (40) when there is a need to prove a
positive statement, the middle term through which the syllogism is
formed must always be inferior to and not comprehend the first of the
extremes. [46b] But division has a contrary intention: for it takes the
universal as middle. Let animal be the term signified by A, mortal by B,
and immortal by C, and let man, (5) whose definition is to be got, be
signified by D. The man who divides assumes that every animal is either
mortal or immortal: i. e. whatever is A is all either B or C. Again, always
dividing, he lays it down that man is an animal, so he assumes A of D as
belonging to it. Now the true conclusion is that every D is either B or C,
(10) consequently man must be either mortal or immortal, but it is not

necessary that man should be a mortal animal—this is begged: and this

is what ought to have been proved syllogistically. And again, taking A as
mortal animal, B as footed, C as footless, and D as man, (15) he assumes
in the same way that A inheres either in B or in C (for every mortal
animal is either footed or footless), and he assumes A of D (for he
assumed man, as we saw, to be a mortal animal); consequently it is
necessary that man should be either a footed or a footless animal; but it
is not necessary that man should be footed: this he assumes: and it is just
this again which he ought to have demonstrated. Always dividing then
in this way it turns out that these logicians assume as middle the
universal term, (20) and as extremes that which ought to have been the
subject of demonstration and the differentiae. In conclusion, they do not
make it clear, and show it to be necessary, that this is man or whatever
the subject of inquiry may be: for they pursue the other method
altogether, never even suspecting the presence of the rich supply of
evidence which might be used. (25) It is clear that it is neither possible to
refute a statement by this method of division, nor to draw a conclusion
about an accident or property of a thing, nor about its genus, nor in
cases in which it is unknown whether it is thus or thus, e. g. whether the
diagonal is incommensurate. For if he assumes that every length is either
commensurate or incommensurate, (30) and the diagonal is a length, he
has proved that the diagonal is either incommensurate or commensurate.
But if he should assume that it is incommensurate, he will have assumed
what he ought to have proved. He cannot then prove it: for this is his
method, but proof is not possible by this method. Let A stand for
‘incommensurate or commensurate’, B for ‘length’, C for ‘diagonal’. It is
clear then that this method of investigation is not suitable for every
inquiry, (35) nor is it useful in those cases in which it is thought to be
most suitable.
From what has been said it is clear from what elements
demonstrations are formed and in what manner, and to what points we
must look in each problem.…

1 100a 29, 104a 8.

2 The nature of demonstrative premisses is discussed in the Post. An.; that of dialectical premisses
in the Topics.
3 ll. 12, 22–6.

4 In ll. 7–13.

5 a20–2.

6 a 14–17.

7 In a12.

8 cc. 13, 17.

9 c. 46.

10 In the Posterior Analytics.

11 Barbara, major A, minor A.

12 24b 28.

13 Celarent, major E, minor A.

14 Major A, minor E.

15 Major E, minor E.

16 Darii.

17 24b 28.

18 Ferio.

19 24b 30.

20 The Aristotelian formula for the proposition, AB, in which B represents the subject and A the
predicate (A belongs to B), has been retained throughout, because in most places this suits the
context better than the modern formula in which A represents the subject and B the predicate.
21 Major I or O, minor A.

22 Major I or O, minor E.

23 Major A, minor O.

24 Major E, minor O.

25 a 2.

26 Major A, minor O.

27 i. e. the major premiss.

28 Major E, minor O.

29 II, OO, IO, OI.

30 Cesare.
31 25b 40.

32 Camestres.

33 l. 3.

34 Festino.

35 Baroco.

36 a 21.

37 l. 18.

38 Darapti.

39 Felapton.

40 See note 20.

41 Disamis.

42 Datisi.

43 Bocardo.

44 27b 20.

45 28a 30.

46 Ferison.

47 Fesapo, Fresison.

48 sc. in the first figure.

49 viz. by reduction per impossibile to Celarent and Barbara.

50 25b 21.

51 Post An. i. 8.

52 Cf. 25b 32.

53 Aristotle is thinking of the method of establishing a proposition A is B by inducing the

opponent to agree that A is B if X is Y. All that remains then is to establish syllogistically that X is
Y. That A is B thus follows from the agreement.
54 The diagram Aristotle has in mind appears to be the following:
Here A and B are the equal sides, E and F the angles at the base of the isosceles triangle. C and D
are the angles formed by the base with the circumference. The angles formed by the equal sides
with the base are loosely called AC, BD.
55 sc. but imperfect.

56 40b 30.

57 l. 6.

58 The reference is to the new premisses produced by conversion, when a syllogism in the second
or third figure is being reduced to one in the first. Cf. 24b 24.
59 Post An. i. 19–22.

60 i. e. on the major and minor terms. Two affirmative premisses in the second figure give no
conclusion.
61 44b 20.

62 We thus get a syllogism in Barbara.

63 Darapti.

64 Cesare.

65 Camestres.

66 By converting the major premiss of the Cesare syllogism or the minor premiss of the Camestres
syllogism.
67 Felapton, by conversion.

68 i. e. the consequents of A and E.

69 27a 18–20,b 23–8.

70 i. e. if this false conclusion is replaced by its contradictory and this is treated as a premiss.

71 ii. 14.

72 Cf. 41a 39.

73 Topics, especially i. 14.

74 Aristotle is thinking of Plato’s establishment of definitions by means of division by dichotomy.

75 In cc. 1–30.
 BOOK II

16 … To beg and assume the original question is a species of failure

to demonstrate the problem proposed; but this happens in many ways.
[64b] A man may not reason syllogistically at all, (30) or he may argue
from premisses which are less known or equally unknown, or he may
establish the antecedent by means of its consequents; for demonstration
proceeds from what is more certain and is prior. Now begging the
question is none of these: but since we get to know some things naturally
through themselves, and other things by means of something else (the
first principles through themselves, (35) what is subordinate to them
through something else), whenever a man tries to prove what is not self-
evident by means of itself, then he begs the original question. [65a]
This may be done by assuming what is in question at once; it is also
possible to make a transition to other things which would naturally be
proved through the thesis proposed, (40) and demonstrate it through
them, e. g. if A should be proved through B, and B through C, though it
was natural that C should be proved through A: for it turns out that
those who reason thus are proving A by means of itself. This is what
those persons do who suppose that they are constructing parallel straight
lines: for they fail to see that they are assuming facts which it is
impossible to demonstrate unless the parallels exist. (5) So it turns out
that those who reason thus merely say a particular thing is, if it is: in
this way everything will be self-evident. But that is impossible. (10)
If then it is uncertain whether A belongs to C, and also whether A
belongs to B, and if one should assume that A does belong to B, it is not
yet clear whether he begs the original question, but it is evident that he
is not demonstrating: for what is as uncertain as the question to be
answered cannot be a principle of a demonstration. If however B is so
related to C that they are identical, (15) or if they are plainly convertible,
or the one belongs to the other, the original question is begged. For one
might equally well prove that A belongs to B through those terms if they
are convertible. But if they are not convertible, it is the fact that they are
not that prevents such a demonstration, not the method of
demonstrating. But if one were to make the conversion, then he would
be doing what we have described and effecting a reciprocal proof with
three propositions.
Similarly if he should assume that B belongs to C, (20) this being as
uncertain as the question whether A belongs to C, the question is not yet
begged, but no demonstration is made. If however A and B are identical
either because they are convertible or because A follows B, then the
question is begged for the same reason as before. For we have explained
the meaning of begging the question, (25) viz. proving that which is not
self-evident by means of itself.
If then begging the question is proving what is not self-evident by
means of itself, in other words failing to prove when the failure is due to
the thesis to be proved and the premiss through which it is proved being
equally uncertain, either because predicates which are identical belong
to the same subject, or because the same predicate belongs to subjects
which are identical, the question may be begged in the middle and third
figures in both ways, (30) though, if the syllogism is affirmative, only in
the third and first figures. If the syllogism is negative, the question is
begged when identical predicates are denied of the same subject; and
both premisses do not beg the question indifferently (in a similar way
the question may be begged in the middle figure), because the terms in
negative syllogisms are not convertible. In scientific demonstrations the
question is begged when the terms are really related in the manner
described, (35) in dialectical arguments when they are according to
common opinion so related.

17 The objection that ‘this is not the reason why the result is false’,
which we frequently make in argument, is made primarily in the case of
a reductio ad impossibile, to rebut the proposition which was being
proved by the reduction. [65b] (40) For unless a man has contradicted
this proposition he will not say, ‘False cause’, but urge that something
false has been assumed in the earlier parts of the argument; nor will he
use the formula in the case of an ostensive proof; for here what one
denies is not assumed as a premiss. Further when anything is refuted
ostensively by the terms ABC, it cannot be objected that the syllogism
does not depend on the assumption laid down. (5) For we use the
expression ‘false cause’, when the syllogism is concluded in spite of the
refutation of this position; but that is not possible in ostensive proofs:
since if an assumption is refuted, a syllogism can no longer be drawn in
reference to it. It is clear then that the expression ‘false cause’ can only
be used in the case of a reductio ad impossibile, (10) and when the original
hypothesis is so related to the impossible conclusion, that the conclusion
results indifferently whether the hypothesis is made or not. The most
obvious case of the irrelevance of an assumption to a conclusion which is
false is when a syllogism drawn from middle terms to an impossible
conclusion is independent of the hypothesis, as we have explained in the
Topics.1 For to put that which is not the cause as the cause, (15) is just
this: e. g. if a man, wishing to prove that the diagonal of the square is
incommensurate with the side, should try to prove Zeno’s theorem that
motion is impossible, and so establish a reductio ad impossibile: for Zeno’s
false theorem has no connexion at all with the original assumption. (20)
Another case is where the impossible conclusion is connected with the
hypothesis, but does not result from it. This may happen whether one
traces the connexion upwards or downwards, e. g. if it is laid down that
A belongs to B, B to C, and C to D, (25) and it should be false that B
belongs to D: for if we eliminated A and assumed all the same that B
belongs to C and C to D, the false conclusion would not depend on the
original hypothesis. Or again trace the connexion upwards; e. g. suppose
that A belongs to B, E to A, (30) and F to E, it being false that F belongs to
A. In this way too the impossible conclusion would result, though the
original hypothesis were eliminated. But the impossible conclusion
ought to be connected with the original terms: in this way it will depend
on the hypothesis, e. g. when one traces the connexion downwards, (35)
the impossible conclusion must be connected with that term which is
predicate in the hypothesis: for if it is impossible that A should belong to
D, the false conclusion will no longer result after A has been eliminated.
If one traces the connexion upwards, the impossible conclusion must be
connected with that term which is subject in the hypothesis: for if it is
impossible that F should belong to B, the impossible conclusion will
disappear if B is eliminated. (40) Similarly when the syllogisms are
negative.
[66a] It is clear then that when the impossibility is not related to the
original terms, the false conclusion does not result on account of the
assumption. Or perhaps even so it may sometimes be independent. For if
it were laid down that A belongs not to B but to K, (5) and that K belongs
to C and C to D, the impossible conclusion would still stand. Similarly if
one takes the terms in an ascending series. Consequently since the
impossibility results whether the first assumption is suppressed or not, it
would appear to be independent of that assumption. Or perhaps we
ought not to understand the statement that the false conclusion results
independently of the assumption, in the sense that if something else
were supposed the impossibility would result; but rather we mean that
when the first assumption is eliminated, (10) the same impossibility
results through the remaining premisses; since it is not perhaps absurd
that the same false result should follow from several hypotheses, e. g.
that parallels meet, both on the assumption that the interior angle is
greater than the exterior and on the assumption that a triangle contains
more than two right angles. (15)

18 A false argument depends on the first false statement in it. Every

syllogism is made out of two or more premisses. If then the false
conclusion is drawn from two premisses, one or both of them must be
false: for (as was proved2) a false syllogism cannot be drawn from true
premisses. (20) But if the premisses are more than two, e. g. if C is
established through A and B, and these through D, E, F, and G, one of
these higher propositions must be false, and on this the argument
depends: for A and B are inferred by means of D, E, F, and G. Therefore
the conclusion and the error results from one of them.

19 In order to avoid having a syllogism drawn against us, (25) we must

take care, whenever an opponent asks us to admit the reason without the
conclusions, not to grant him the same term twice over in his premisses,
since we know that a syllogism cannot be drawn without a middle term,
and that term which is stated more than once is the middle. How we
ought to watch the middle in reference to each conclusion, is evident
from our knowing what kind of thesis is proved in each figure. (30) This
will not escape us since we know how we are maintaining the argument.
 That which we urge men to beware of in their admissions, they ought
in attack to try to conceal. This will be possible first, if, instead of
drawing the conclusions of preliminary syllogisms, (35) they take the
necessary premisses and leave the conclusions in the dark; secondly if
instead of inviting assent to propositions which are closely connected
they take as far as possible those that are not connected by middle
terms. For example suppose that A is to be inferred to be true of F; B, C,
D, and E being middle terms. One ought then to ask whether A belongs
to B, and next whether D belongs to E, instead of asking whether B
belongs to C; after that he may ask whether B belongs to C, (40) and so
on. [66b] And if the syllogism is drawn through one middle term, he
ought to begin with that: in this way he will most likely deceive his
opponent.

20 Since we know when a syllogism can be formed and how its terms
must be related, it is clear when refutation will be possible and when
impossible. (5) A refutation is possible whether everything is conceded, or
the answers alternate (one, I mean, being affirmative, the other
negative). For as has been shown a syllogism is possible whether the
terms are related in affirmative propositions or one proposition is
affirmative, the other negative: consequently, if what is laid down is
contrary to the conclusion, (10) a refutation must take place: for a
refutation is a syllogism which establishes the contradictory. But if
nothing is conceded, a refutation is impossible: for no syllogism is
possible (as we saw3) when all the terms are negative: therefore no
refutation is possible. For if a refutation were possible, a syllogism must
be possible; although if a syllogism is possible it does not follow that a
refutation is possible. (15) Similarly refutation is not possible if nothing is
conceded universally: since the fields of refutation and syllogism are
defined in the same way.

21 It sometimes happens that just as we are deceived in the

arrangement of the terms,4 (20) so error may arise in our thought about
them, e. g. if it is possible that the same predicate should belong to more
than one subject immediately, but although knowing the one, a man
may forget the other and think the opposite true. Suppose that A belongs
to B and to C in virtue of their nature, and that B and C belong to all D
in the same way. If then a man thinks that A belongs to all B, and B to D,
but A to no C, and C to all D, (25) he will both know and not know the
same thing5 in respect of the same thing.6 Again if a man were to make a
mistake about the members of a single series; e. g. suppose A belongs to
B, B to C, and C to D, but some one thinks that A belongs to all B, but to
no C: he will both know that A belongs to D, (30) and think that it does
not. Does he then maintain after this simply that what he knows, he does
not think? For he knows in a way that A belongs to C through B, since
the part is included in the whole; so that what he knows in a way, this
he maintains he does not think at all: but that is impossible.
In the former case, (35) where the middle term does not belong to the
same series, it is not possible to think both the premisses with reference
to each of the two middle terms: e. g. that A belongs to all B, but to no
C, and both B and C belong to all D. For it turns out that the first premiss
of the one syllogism is either wholly or partially contrary to the first
premiss of the other. For if he thinks that A belongs to everything to
which B belongs, (40) and he knows that B belongs to D, then he knows
that A belongs to D. [67a] Consequently if again he thinks that A
belongs to nothing to which C belongs, he thinks that A does not belong
to some of that to which B belongs; but if he thinks that A belongs to
everything to which B belongs, and again thinks that A does not belong
to some of that to which B belongs, (5) these beliefs are wholly or
partially contrary. In this way then it is not possible to think; but
nothing prevents a man thinking one premiss of each syllogism or both
premisses of one of the two syllogisms: e. g. A belongs to all B, and B to
D, and again A belongs to no C. An error of this kind is similar to the
error into which we fall concerning particulars: e. g. if A belongs to all B,
and B to all C, (10) A will belong to all C. If then a man knows that A
belongs to everything to which B belongs, he knows that A belongs to C.
But nothing prevents his being ignorant that C exists; e. g. let A stand for
two right angles, B for triangle, C for a particular diagram of a triangle.
A man might think that C did not exist, though he knew that every
triangle contains two right angles; consequently he will know and not
know the same thing at the same time. (15) For the expression ‘to know
that every triangle has its angles equal to two right angles’ is ambiguous,
meaning to have the knowledge either of the universal or of the
particulars. Thus then he knows that C contains two right angles with a
knowledge of the universal, but not with a knowledge of the particulars;
consequently his knowledge will not be contrary to his ignorance. (20)
The argument in the Meno7 that learning is recollection may be criticized
in a similar way. For it never happens that a man starts with a
foreknowledge of the particular, but along with the process of being led
to see the general principle he receives a knowledge of the particulars,
by an act (as it were) of recognition. For we know some things directly;
e. g. that the angles are equal to two right angles, if we know that the
figure is a triangle. (25) Similarly in all other cases.
By a knowledge of the universal then we see the particulars, but we do
not know them by the kind of knowledge which is proper to them;
consequently it is possible that we may make mistakes about them, but
not that we should have the knowledge and error that are contrary to
one another: rather we have the knowledge of the universal but make a
mistake in apprehending the particular. (30) Similarly in the cases stated
above.8 The error in respect of the middle term is not contrary to the
knowledge obtained through the syllogism, nor is the thought in respect
of one middle term contrary to that in respect of the other. Nothing
prevents a man who knows both that A belongs to the whole of B, and
that B again belongs to C, thinking that A does not belong to C, e. g. (35)
knowing that every mule is sterile and that this is a mule, and thinking
that this animal is with foal: for he does not know that A belongs to C,
unless he considers the two propositions together. So it is evident that if
he knows the one and does not know the other, he will fall into error.
And this is the relation of knowledge of the universal to knowledge of
the particular. For we know no sensible thing, once it has passed beyond
the range of our senses, even if we happen to have perceived it, except
by means of the universal and the possession of the knowledge which is
proper to the particular, but without the actual exercise of that
knowledge. [67b] For to know is used in three senses: it may mean
either to have knowledge of the universal or to have knowledge proper
to the matter in hand or to exercise such knowledge: consequently three
kinds of error also are possible. (5) Nothing then prevents a man both
knowing and being mistaken about the same thing, provided that his
knowledge and his error are not contrary. And this happens also to the
man whose knowledge is limited to each of the premisses and who has
not previously considered the particular question. For when he thinks
that the mule is with foal he has not the knowledge in the sense of its
actual exercise, (10) nor on the other hand has his thought caused an
error contrary to his knowledge: for the error contrary to the knowledge
of the universal would be a syllogism.
But he who thinks the essence of good is the essence of bad will think
the same thing to be the essence of good and the essence of bad. Let A
stand for the essence of good and B for the essence of bad, (15) and again
C for the essence of good. Since then he thinks B and C identical, he will
think that C is B, and similarly that B is A, consequently that C is A. For
just as we saw that if B is true of all of which C is true, and A is true of
all of which B is true, A is true of C, similarly with the word ‘think’.
Similarly also with the word ‘is’; for we saw that if C is the same as B, (20)
and B as A, C is the same as A. Similarly therefore with ‘opine’. Perhaps
then this9 is necessary if a man will grant the first point.10 But
presumably that is false, that any one could suppose the essence of good
to be the essence of bad, (25) save incidentally. For it is possible to think
this in many different ways. But we must consider this matter better.11

22 Whenever the extremes are convertible it is necessary that the

middle should be convertible with both. For if A belongs to C through B,
then if A and C are convertible and C belongs to everything to which A
belongs, (30) B is convertible with A, and B belongs to everything to
which A belongs, through C as middle, and C is convertible with B
through A as middle. Similarly if the conclusion is negative, e. g. if B
belongs to C, but A does not belong to B, neither will A belong to C. If
then B is convertible with A, C will be convertible with A. (35) Suppose B
does not belong to A; neither then will C: for ex hypothesi B belonged to
all C. And if C is convertible with B, B is convertible also with A: for C is
said of that of all of which B is said. And if C is convertible in relation to
A and to B, B also is convertible in relation to A. For C belongs to that to
which B belongs: but C does not belong to that to which A belongs.
[68a] And this alone starts from the conclusion; the preceding moods
do not do so as in the affirmative syllogism. Again if A and B are
convertible, and similarly C and D, and if A or C must belong to
anything whatever, (5) then B and D will be such that one or other
belongs to anything whatever. For since B belongs to that to which A
belongs, and D belongs to that to which C belongs, and since A or C
belongs to everything, but not together, it is clear that B or D belongs to
everything, but not together. For example if that which is uncreated is
incorruptible and that which is incorruptible is uncreated, it is necessary
that what is created should be corruptible and what is corruptible should
have been created. (10) For two syllogisms have been put together. Again
if A or B belongs to everything and if C or D belongs to everything, but
they cannot belong together, then when A and C are convertible B and D
are convertible. For if B does not belong to something to which D
belongs, it is clear that A belongs to it. But if A then C: for they are
convertible. Therefore C and D belong together. But this is impossible.
(15) When A belongs to the whole of B and to C and is affirmed of nothing

else, and B also belongs to all C, it is necessary that A and B should be

convertible: for since A is said of B and C only, and B is affirmed both of
itself and of C, it is clear that B will be said of everything of which A is
said, (20) except A itself. Again when A and B belong to the whole of C,
and C is convertible with B, it is necessary that A should belong to all B:
for since A belongs to all C, and C to B by conversion, A will belong to
all B.
When, of two opposites A and B, A is preferable to B, (25) and similarly
D is preferable to C, then if A and C together are preferable to B and D
together, A must be preferable to D. For A is an object of desire to the
same extent as B is an object of aversion, since they are opposites: and C
is similarly related to D, since they also are opposites. If then A is an
object of desire to the same extent as D, (30) B is an object of aversion to
the same extent as C (since each is to the same extent as each—the one
an object of aversion, the other an object of desire). Therefore both A
and C together, and B and D together, will be equally objects of desire or
aversion. But since A and C are preferable to B and D, A cannot be
equally desirable with D; for then B along with D would be equally
desirable with A along with C. But if D is preferable to A, then B must be
less an object of aversion than C: for the less is opposed to the less. (35)
But the greater good and lesser evil are preferable to the lesser good and
greater evil: the whole BD then is preferable to the whole AC. But ex
hypothesi this is not so. A then is preferable to D, and C consequently is
less an object of aversion than B. If then every lover in virtue of his love
would prefer A, viz. that the beloved should be such as to grant a favour,
(40) and yet should not grant it (for which C stands), to the beloved’s

granting the favour (represented by D) without being such as to grant it

(represented by B), it is clear that A (being of such a nature) is
preferable to granting the favour. [68b] To receive affection then is
preferable in love to sexual intercourse. Love then is more dependent on
friendship than on intercourse. And if it is most dependent on receiving
affection, then this is its end. (5) Intercourse then either is not an end at
all or is an end relative to the further end, the receiving of affection. And
indeed the same is true of the other desires and arts.

23 It is clear then how the terms are related in conversion, and in

respect of being in a higher degree objects of aversion or of desire. (10)
We must now state that not only dialectical and demonstrative
syllogisms are formed by means of the aforesaid figures, but also
rhetorical syllogisms and in general any form of persuasion, however it
may be presented. For every belief comes either through syllogism or
from induction.
Now induction, (15) or rather the syllogism which springs out of
induction, consists in establishing syllogistically a relation between one
extreme and the middle by means of the other extreme, e. g. if B is the
middle term between A and C, it consists in proving through C that A
belongs to B. For this is the manner in which we make inductions. For
example let A stand for long-lived, B for bileless, (20) and C for the
particular long-lived animals, e. g. man, horse, mule. A then belongs to
the whole of C: for whatever is bileless is long-lived. But B also (‘not
possessing bile’) belongs to all C. If then C is convertible with B, and the
middle term is not wider in extension, it is necessary that A should
belong to B. For it has already been proved that if two things belong to
the same thing, (25) and the extreme is convertible with one of them, then
the other predicate will belong to the predicate that is converted. But we
must apprehend C as made up of all the particulars. For induction
proceeds through an enumeration of all the cases.
Such is the syllogism which establishes the first and immediate
premiss: for where there is a middle term the syllogism proceeds through
the middle term; when there is no middle term, (30) through induction.
And in a way induction is opposed to syllogism: for the latter proves the
major term to belong to the third term by means of the middle, the
former proves the major to belong to the middle by means of the third.
(35) In the order of nature, syllogism through the middle term is prior and

better known, but syllogism through induction is clearer to us.

24 We have an ‘example’ when the major term is proved to belong to

the middle by means of a term which resembles the third. It ought to be
known both that the middle belongs to the third term, (40) and that the
first belongs to that which resembles the third. For example let A be evil,
B making war against neighbours, C Athenians against Thebans, D
Thebans against Phocians. [69a] If then we wish to prove that to fight
with the Thebans is an evil, we must assume that to fight against
neighbours is an evil. Evidence of this is obtained from similar cases,
e. g. that the war against the Phocians was an evil to the Thebans. (5)
Since then to fight against neighbours is an evil, and to fight against the
Thebans is to fight against neighbours, it is clear that to fight against the
Thebans is an evil. Now it is clear that B belongs to C and to D (for both
are cases of making war upon one’s neighbours) and that A belongs to D
(for the war against the Phocians did not turn out well for the Thebans):
but that A belongs to B will be proved through D. (10) Similarly if the
belief in the relation of the middle term to the extreme should be
produced by several similar cases. Clearly then to argue by example is
neither like reasoning from part to whole, nor like reasoning from whole
to part, but rather reasoning from part to part, when both particulars are
subordinate to the same term, (15) and one of them is known. It differs
from induction, because induction starting from all the particular cases
proves (as we saw12) that the major term belongs to the middle, and
does not apply the syllogistic conclusion to the minor term, whereas
argument by example does make this application and does not draw its
proof from all the particular cases.

25 By reduction we mean an argument in which the first term clearly

belongs to the middle, (20) but the relation of the middle to the last term
is uncertain though equally or more probable than the conclusion; or
again an argument in which the terms intermediate between the last
term and the middle are few. For in any of these cases it turns out that
we approach more nearly to knowledge. For example let A stand for
what can be taught, B for knowledge, C for justice. (25) Now it is clear
that knowledge can be taught: but it is uncertain whether virtue is
knowledge. If now the statement BC13 is equally or more probable than
AC, we have a reduction: for we are nearer to knowledge, since we have
taken a new term,14 being so far without knowledge that A belongs to C.
Or again suppose that the terms intermediate between B and C are few:
for thus too we are nearer knowledge. (30) For example let D stand for
squaring, E for rectilinear figure, F for circle. If there were only one term
intermediate between E and F (viz. that the circle is made equal to a
rectilinear figure by the help of lunules), we should be near to
knowledge. (35) But when BC is not more probable than AC, and the
intermediate terms are not few, I do not call this reduction: nor again
when the statement BC is immediate: for such a statement is knowledge.

26 An objection is a premiss contrary to a premiss. It differs from a

premiss, because it may be particular, but a premiss either cannot be
particular at all or not in universal syllogisms. [69b] An objection is
brought in two ways and through two figures; in two ways because
every objection is either universal or particular, by two figures because
objections are brought in opposition to the premiss, (5) and opposites can
be proved only in the first and third figures. If a man maintains a
universal affirmative, we reply with a universal or a particular negative;
the former is proved from the first figure, the latter from the third. For
example let A stand for there being a single science, B for contraries. If a
man premisses that contraries are subjects of a single science, (10) the
objection may be either that opposites are never subjects of a single
science, and contraries are opposites, so that we get the first figure, or
that the knowable and the unknowable are not subjects of a single
science: this proof is in the third figure: for it is true of C (the knowable
and the unknowable) that they are contraries, and it is false that they are
the subjects of a single science.
Similarly if the premiss objected to is negative. (15) For if a man
maintains that contraries are not subjects of a single science, we reply
either that all opposites or that certain contraries, e. g. what is healthy
and what is sickly, are subjects of the same science: the former argument
issues from the first, the latter from the third figure.
In general if a man urges a universal objection he must frame his
contradiction with reference to the universal of the terms taken by his
opponent, (20) e. g. if a man maintains that contraries are not subjects of
the same science, his opponent must reply that there is a single science
of all opposites. Thus we must have the first figure: for the term which
embraces the original subject becomes the middle term.
If the objection is particular, the objector must frame his contradiction
with reference to a term relatively to which the subject of his opponent’s
premiss is universal, e. g. he will point out that the knowable and the
unknowable are not subjects of the same science: ‘contraries’ is universal
relatively to these. (25) And we have the third figure: for the particular
term assumed is middle, e. g. the knowable and the unknowable.
Premisses from which it is possible to draw the contrary conclusion are
what we start from when we try to make objections. Consequently we
bring objections in these figures only: for in them only are opposite
syllogisms possible, (30) since the second figure cannot produce an
affirmative conclusion.
Besides, an objection in the middle figure would require a fuller
argument, e. g. if it should not be granted that A belongs to B, because C
does not follow B. This can be made clear only by other premisses. (35)
But an objection ought not to turn off into other things, but have its new
premiss quite clear immediately. For this reason also this is the only
figure from which proof by signs cannot be obtained.
We must consider later the other kinds of objection, namely the
objection from contraries, from similars, and from common opinion, and
inquire whether a particular objection cannot be elicited from the first
figure or a negative objection from the second. [70a]
27 A probability and a sign are not identical, but a probability is a
generally approved proposition: what men know to happen or not to
happen, to be or not to be, for the most part thus and thus, (5) is a
probability, e. g. ‘the envious hate’, ‘the beloved show affection’. A sign
means a demonstrative proposition necessary or generally approved: for
anything such that when it is another thing is, or when it has come into
being the other has come into being before or after, is a sign of the
other’s being or having come into being. Now an enthymeme is a
syllogism starting from probabilities or signs, (10) and a sign may be
taken in three ways, corresponding to the position of the middle term in
the figures. For it may be taken as in the first figure or the second or the
third. For example the proof that a woman is with child because she has
milk is in the first figure: for to have milk is the middle term. Let A
represent to be with child, B to have milk, (15) C woman. The proof that
wise men are good, since Pittacus is good, comes through the last figure.
Let A stand for good, B for wise men, C for Pittacus. It is true then to
affirm both A and B of C: only men do not say the latter, because they
know it, though they state the former. The proof that a woman is with
child because she is pale is meant to come through the middle figure: for
since paleness follows women with child and is a concomitant of this
woman, (20) people suppose it has been proved that she is with child. Let
A stand for paleness, B for being with child, C for woman. (25) Now if the
one proposition is stated, we have only a sign, but if the other is stated
as well, a syllogism, e. g. ‘Pittacus is generous, since ambitious men are
generous and Pittacus is ambitious’. Or again ‘Wise men are good, since
Pittacus is not only good but wise’. In this way then syllogisms are
formed, only that which proceeds through the first figure is irrefutable if
it is true (for it is universal), (30) that which proceeds through the last
figure is refutable even if the conclusion is true, since the syllogism is
not universal nor correlative to the matter in question: for though
Pittacus is good, it is not therefore necessary that all other wise men
should be good. But the syllogism which proceeds through the middle
figure is always refutable in any case: for a syllogism can never be
formed when the terms are related in this way: for though a woman with
child is pale, (35) and this woman also is pale, it is not necessary that she
should be with child. Truth then may be found in signs whatever their
kind, but they have the differences we have stated.
[70b] We must either divide signs in the way stated, and among
them designate the middle term as the index15 (for people call that the
index which makes us know, and the middle term above all has this
character), or else we must call the arguments derived from the extremes
signs, that derived from the middle term the index: for that which is
proved through the first figure is most generally accepted and most true.
(5)

It is possible to infer character from features, if it is granted that the

body and the soul are changed together by the natural affections: I say
‘natural’, for though perhaps by learning music a man has made some
change in his soul, (10) this is not one of those affections which are
natural to us; rather I refer to passions and desires when I speak of
natural motions. If then this were granted and also that for each change
there is a corresponding sign, and we could state the affection and sign
proper to each kind of animal, we shall be able to infer character from
features. For if there is an affection which belongs properly to an
individual kind, (15) e. g. courage to lions, it is necessary that there
should be a sign of it: for ex hypothesi body and soul are affected
together. Suppose this sign is the possession of large extremities: this
may belong to other kinds also though not universally. For the sign is
proper in the sense stated, because the affection is proper to the whole
kind, though not proper to it alone, (20) according to our usual manner of
speaking. The same thing then will be found in another kind, and man
may be brave, and some other kinds of animal as well. They will then
have the sign: for ex hypothesi there is one sign corresponding to each
affection. If then this is so, and we can collect signs of this sort in these
animals which have only one affection proper to them—but each
affection has its sign, since it is necessary that it should have a single
sign—we shall then be able to infer character from features. (25) But if
the kind as a whole has two properties, e. g. if the lion is both brave and
generous, how shall we know which of the signs which are its proper
concomitants is the sign of a particular affection? Perhaps if both belong
to some other kind though not to the whole of it, and if, in those kinds in
which each is found though not in the whole of their members, some
members possess one of the affections and not the other: e. g. if a man is
brave but not generous, but possesses, of the two signs, large extremities,
(30) it is clear that this is the sign of courage in the lion also. To judge

character from features, then, is possible in the first figure if the middle
term is convertible with the first extreme, but is wider than the third
term and not convertible with it: e. g. let A stand for courage, B for large
extremities, and C for lion. B then belongs to everything to which C
belongs, (35) but also to others. But A belongs to everything to which B
belongs, and to nothing besides, but is convertible with B: otherwise,
there would not be a single sign correlative with each affection.

1 Soph. El. 167b 21–36.

2 53b 11–25.

3 41b 6.

4 Cf. i. 32 ff.

5 i. e. subject.

6 i. e. attribute.

7 81.

8 66b 20–6, 26–30.

9 That a man should think the same thing to be the essence of good and to be the essence of bad.

10 That the essence of good is the essence of bad.

11 The reference may be to Met. iv. (Γ).

12 ch. 23.

13 See note 20.

14 viz. B, thus obtaining a certain premiss AB, and a premiss BC, on which the inquiry now turns.

15 This points to the argument in the first figure, whose middle term is a genuine middle term.
 ANALYTICA POSTERIORA

Translated by G. R. G. Mure

CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER
1. The student’s need of pre-existent knowledge. Its nature.
2. The nature of scientific knowledge. The conditions of demonstration. The meaning of
Contradiction, Enunciation, Proposition, Basic truth, Thesis, Axiom, Hypothesis,
Definition.
3. Two erroneous views of scientific knowledge. The futility of circular demonstration.
4. Types of attribute: ‘True in every instance’, ‘Essential’, ‘Commensurate and universal’,
‘Accidental’.
5. Causes through which we erroneously suppose a conclusion commensurate and
universal when it is not. How to avoid this error.
6. The premisses of demonstration must be necessary and essential.
7. The premisses and conclusion of a demonstration must fall within a single genus. The
three constituent elements of demonstration.
8. Only eternal connexions can be demonstrated.
9. Demonstration must proceed from the basic premisses peculiar to each science, except
in the case of subalternate sciences.
10. The different sorts of basic truth.
11. The function of the common axioms in demonstration.
12. The scientific premiss in interrogative form. Formal fallacy. The growth of a science.
13. The difference between knowledge of the fact and knowledge of the reasoned fact.
14. The first figure is the true type of scientific syllogism.
15. Immediate negative propositions.
16. Ignorance as erroneous inference when the premisses are immediate.
17. Ignorance as erroneous inference when the premisses are mediate.
18. Ignorance as the negation of knowledge, e. g. such as must result from the lack of a
 sense.
19. Can demonstration develop an indefinite regress of premisses, (1) supposing the primary
attribute fixed? (2) supposing the ultimate subject fixed? (3) supposing both
primary attribute and ultimate subject fixed?
20. If (1) and (2) are answered negatively, the answer to (3) must be in the negative.
21. If affirmative demonstration cannot develop an indefinite regress, then negative
demonstration cannot.
22. Dialectical and analytic proofs that the answer to both (1) and (2) is in the negative.
23. Corollaries.
24. The superiority of universal to particular demonstration.
25. The superiority of affirmative to negative demonstration.
26. The superiority of affirmative and negative demonstration to reductio ad impossibile.
27. The more abstract science is the prior and the more accurate science.
28. What constitutes the unity of a science.
29. How there may be several demonstrations of one connexion.
30. Chance conjunctions are not demonstrable.
31. There can be no demonstration through sense-perception.
32. Different sciences must possess different basic truths.
33. The relation of opinion to knowledge.
34. Quick wit: the faculty of instantaneously hitting upon the middle term.

BOOK II

1. The four possible forms of inquiry.

2. They all concern the middle term.
3. The difference between definition and demonstration.
4. Essential nature cannot be demonstrated.
5. Essential nature cannot be inferred by division.
6. Attempts to prove a thing’s essential nature either hypothetically or through the
definition of its contrary beg the question.
7. Definition does not touch the question of existence; demonstration proves existence.
Hence definition cannot demonstrate.
8. Yet only demonstration can reveal the essential nature of things which have a cause
other than themselves—i. e. attributes.
9. That which is self-caused—the basic premisses—is grasped immediately.
10. Types of definition.
11. The several causes as middle terms.
12. The question of time in causal inference.
13. How to obtain the definition of a substance. The use of division for this purpose.
14. How to select a connexion for demonstration.
15. One middle will often serve to prove several connexions.
16. If the effect is present, is the cause also present? Plurality of causes is impossible where
cause and effect are commensurate.
17. Different causes may produce the same effect, but not in things specifically identical.
18. The true cause of a connexion is the proximate and not the more universal cause.
19. How the individual mind comes to know the basic truths.
ANALYTICA POSTERIORA

(Posterior Analytics)
 BOOK I

1 [71a] All instruction given or received by way of argument

proceeds from pre-existent knowledge. This becomes evident upon a
survey of all the species of such instruction. The mathematical sciences
and all other speculative disciplines are acquired in this way, (5) and so
are the two forms of dialectical reasoning, syllogistic and inductive: for
each of these latter makes use of old knowledge to impart new, the
syllogism assuming an audience that accepts its premisses, induction
exhibiting the universal as implicit in the clearly known particular.
Again, the persuasion exerted by rhetorical arguments is in principle the
same, since they use either example, a kind of induction, (10) or
enthymeme, a form of syllogism.
The pre-existent knowledge required is of two kinds. In some cases
admission of the fact must be assumed, in others comprehension of the
meaning of the term used, and sometimes both assumptions are
essential. Thus, we assume that every predicate can be either truly
affirmed or truly denied of any subject, and that ‘triangle’ means so and
so; as regards ‘unit’ we have to make the double assumption of the
meaning of the word and the existence of the thing. (15) The reason is
that these several objects are not equally obvious to us. Recognition of a
truth may in some cases contain as factors both previous knowledge and
also knowledge acquired simultaneously with that recognition—
knowledge, this latter, of the particulars actually falling under the
universal and therein already virtually known. For example, (20) the
student knew beforehand that the angles of every triangle are equal to
two right angles; but it was only at the actual moment at which he was
being led on to recognize this as true in the instance before him that he
came to know ‘this figure inscribed in the semicircle’ to be a triangle.
For some things (viz. the singulars finally reached which are not
predicable of anything else as subject) are only learnt in this way, i. e.
there is here no recognition through a middle of a minor term as subject
to a major. Before he was led on to recognition or before he actually
drew a conclusion, we should perhaps say that in a manner he knew, (25)
in a manner not.
 If he did not in an unqualified sense of the term know the existence of
this triangle, how could he know without qualification that its angles
were equal to two right angles? No: clearly he knows not without
qualification but only in the sense that he knows universally. If this
distinction is not drawn, we are faced with the dilemma in the Meno:1
either a man will learn nothing or what he already knows; for we cannot
accept the solution which some people offer. A man is asked, (30) ‘Do
you, or do you not, know that every pair is even?’ He says he does know
it. The questioner then produces a particular pair, of the existence, and
so a fortiori of the evenness, of which he was unaware. The solution
which some people offer is to assert that they do not know that every
pair is even, but only that everything which they know to be a pair is
even: yet what they know to be even is that of which they have
demonstrated evenness, i. e. what they made the subject of their
premiss, viz. not merely every triangle or number which they know to be
such, but any and every number or triangle without reservation. [71b]
For no premiss is ever couched in the form ‘every number which you
know to be such’, or ‘every rectilinear figure which you know to be
such’: the predicate is always construed as applicable to any and every
instance of the thing. On the other hand, (5) I imagine there is nothing to
prevent a man in one sense knowing what he is learning, in another not
knowing it. The strange thing would be, not if in some sense he knew
what he was learning, but if he were to know it in that precise sense and
manner in which he was learning it.2

2 We suppose ourselves to possess unqualified scientific knowledge of

a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which the
sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on which the fact
depends, (10) as the cause of that fact and of no other, and, further, that
the fact could not be other than it is. Now that scientific knowing is
something of this sort is evident—witness both those who falsely claim it
and those who actually possess it, since the former merely imagine
themselves to be, while the latter are also actually, in the condition
described. Consequently the proper object of unqualified scientific
knowledge is something which cannot be other than it is. (15)
There may be another manner of knowing as well—that will be
discussed later.3 What I now assert is that at all events we do know by
demonstration. By demonstration I mean a syllogism productive of
scientific knowledge, a syllogism, that is, the grasp of which is eo ipso
such knowledge. Assuming then that my thesis as to the nature of
scientific knowing is correct, (20) the premisses of demonstrated
knowledge must be true, primary, immediate, better known than and
prior to the conclusion, which is further related to them as effect to
cause. Unless these conditions are satisfied, the basic truths will not be
‘appropriate’ to the conclusion. Syllogism there may indeed be without
these conditions, but such syllogism, not being productive of scientific
knowledge, will not be demonstration. (25) The premisses must be true:
for that which is non-existent cannot be known—we cannot know, e. g.,
that the diagonal of a square is commensurate with its side. The
premisses must be primary and indemonstrable; otherwise they will
require demonstration in order to be known, since to have knowledge, if
it be not accidental knowledge, of things which are demonstrable, means
precisely to have a demonstration of them. The premisses must be the
causes of the conclusion, better known than it, (30) and prior to it; its
causes, since we possess scientific knowledge of a thing only when we
know its cause; prior, in order to be causes; antecedently known, this
antecedent knowledge being not our mere understanding of the
meaning, but knowledge of the fact as well. Now ‘prior’ and ‘better
known’ are ambiguous terms, for there is a difference between what is
prior and better known in the order of being and what is prior and better
known to man. [72a] I mean that objects nearer to sense are prior and
better known to man; objects without qualification prior and better
known are those further from sense. Now the most universal causes are
furthest from sense and particular causes are nearest to sense, (5) and
they are thus exactly opposed to one another. In saying that the
premisses of demonstrated knowledge must be primary, I mean that they
must be the ‘appropriate’ basic truths, for I identify primary premiss and
basic truth. A ‘basic truth’ in a demonstration is an immediate
proposition. An immediate proposition is one which has no other
proposition prior to it. A proposition is either part of an enunciation, i. e.
it predicates a single attribute of a single subject. If a proposition is
dialectical, (10) it assumes either part indifferently; if it is demonstrative,
it lays down one part to the definite exclusion of the other because that
part is true. The term ‘enunciation’ denotes either part of a contradiction
indifferently. A contradiction is an opposition which of its own nature
excludes a middle. The part of a contradiction which conjoins a
predicate with a subject is an affirmation; the part disjoining them is a
negation. (15) I call an immediate basic truth of syllogism a ‘thesis’ when,
though it is not susceptible of proof by the teacher, yet ignorance of it
does not constitute a total bar to progress on the part of the pupil: one
which the pupil must know if he is to learn anything whatever is an
axiom. I call it an axiom because there are such truths and we give them
the name of axioms par excellence. If a thesis assumes one part or the
other of an enunciation, i. e. asserts either the existence or the non-
existence of a subject, (20) it is a hypothesis; if it does not so assert, it is a
definition. Definition is a ‘thesis’ or a ‘laying something down’, since the
arithmetician lays it down that to be a unit is to be quantitatively
indivisible; but it is not a hypothesis, for to define what a unit is is not
the same as to affirm its existence.
Now since the required ground of our knowledge—i. e. of our
conviction—of a fact is the possession of such a syllogism as we call
demonstration, and the ground of the syllogism is the facts constituting
its premisses, (25) we must not only know the primary premisses—some if
not all of them—beforehand, but know them better than the conclusion:
for the cause of an attribute’s inherence in a subject always itself inheres
in the subject more firmly than that attribute; e. g. the cause of our
loving anything is dearer to us than the object of our love. So since the
primary premisses are the cause of our knowledge—i. e. of our
conviction—it follows that we know them better—that is, (30) are more
convinced of them—than their consequences, precisely because our
knowledge of the latter is the effect of our knowledge of the premisses.
Now a man cannot believe in anything more than in the things he
knows, unless he has either actual knowledge of it or something better
than actual knowledge. But we are faced with this paradox if a student
whose belief rests on demonstration has not prior knowledge; a man
must believe in some, (35) if not in all, of the basic truths more than in
the conclusion. Moreover, if a man sets out to acquire the scientific
knowledge that comes through demonstration, he must not only have a
better knowledge of the basic truths and a firmer conviction of them
than of the connexion which is being demonstrated: more than this,
nothing must be more certain or better known to him than these basic
truths in their character as contradicting the fundamental premisses
which lead to the opposed and erroneous conclusion. [72b] For indeed
the conviction of pure science must be unshakable.

3 Some hold that, owing to the necessity of knowing the primary

premisses, (5) there is no scientific knowledge. Others think there is, but
that all truths are demonstrable. Neither doctrine is either true or a
necessary deduction from the premisses. The first school, assuming that
there is no way of knowing other than by demonstration, maintain that
an infinite regress is involved, on the ground that if behind the prior
stands no primary, we could not know the posterior through the prior
(wherein they are right, (10) for one cannot traverse an infinite series): if
on the other hand—they say—the series terminates and there are
primary premisses, yet these are unknowable because incapable of
demonstration, which according to them is the only form of knowledge.
And since thus one cannot know the primary premisses, knowledge of
the conclusions which follow from them is not pure scientific knowledge
nor properly knowing at all, but rests on the mere supposition that the
premisses are true. (15) The other party agree with them as regards
knowing, holding that it is only possible by demonstration, but they see
no difficulty in holding that all truths are demonstrated, on the ground
that demonstration may be circular and reciprocal.
Our own doctrine is that not all knowledge is demonstrative: on the
contrary, knowledge of the immediate premisses is independent of
demonstration. (20) (The necessity of this is obvious; for since we must
know the prior premisses from which the demonstration is drawn, and
since the regress must end in immediate truths, those truths must be
indemonstrable.) Such, then, is our doctrine, and in addition we
maintain that besides scientific knowledge there is its originative source
which enables us to recognize the definitions.
Now demonstration must be based on premisses prior to and better
known than the conclusion; and the same things cannot simultaneously
be both prior and posterior to one another: so circular demonstration is
clearly not possible in the unqualified sense of ‘demonstration’, (25) but
only possible if ‘demonstration’ be extended to include that other
method of argument which rests on a distinction between truths prior to
us and truths without qualification prior, (30) i. e. the method by which
induction produces knowledge. But if we accept this extension of its
meaning, our definition of unqualified knowledge will prove faulty; for
there seem to be two kinds of it. Perhaps, however, the second form of
demonstration, that which proceeds from truths better known to us, is
not demonstration in the unqualified sense of the term.
The advocates of circular demonstration are not only faced with the
difficulty we have just stated: in addition their theory reduces to the
mere statement that if a thing exists, then it does exist—an easy way of
proving anything. (35) That this is so can be clearly shown by taking three
terms, for to constitute the circle it makes no difference whether many
terms or few or even only two are taken. Thus by direct proof, if A is, B
must be; if B is, C must be; therefore if A is, C must be. Since then—by
the circular proof—if A is, B must be, and if B is, A must be, A may be
substituted for C above. [73a] Then ‘if B is, A must be’ = ‘if B is, C
must be’, which above gave the conclusion ‘if A is, C must be’: but C and
A have been identified. Consequently the upholders of circular
demonstration are in the position of saying that if A is, A must be—a
simple way of proving anything. (5) Moreover, even such circular
demonstration is impossible except in the case of attributes that imply
one another, viz. ‘peculiar’ properties.
Now, it has been shown that the positing of one thing—be it one term
or one premiss—never involves a necessary consequent:4 two premisses
constitute the first and smallest foundation for drawing a conclusion at
all and therefore a fortiori for the demonstrative syllogism of science. (10)
If, then, A is implied in B and C, and B and C are reciprocally implied in
one another and in A, it is possible, as has been shown in my writings on
the syllogism,5 to prove all the assumptions on which the original
conclusion rested, by circular demonstration in the first figure. But it has
also been shown that in the other figures either no conclusion is
possible, (15) or at least none which proves both the original premisses.6
Propositions the terms of which are not convertible cannot be circularly
demonstrated at all, and since convertible terms occur rarely in actual
demonstrations, it is clearly frivolous and impossible to say that
demonstration is reciprocal and that therefore everything can be
demonstrated. (20)

4 Since the object of pure scientific knowledge cannot be other than it

is, the truth obtained by demonstrative knowledge will be necessary.
And since demonstrative knowledge is only present when we have a
demonstration, it follows that demonstration is an inference from
necessary premisses. So we must consider what are the premisses of
demonstration—i. e. what is their character: and as a preliminary, (25) let
us define what we mean by an attribute ‘true in every instance of its
subject’, an ‘essential’ attribute, and a ‘commensurate and universal’
attribute. I call ‘true in every instance’ what is truly predicable of all
instances—not of one to the exclusion of others—and at all times, not at
this or that time only; e. g. if animal is truly predicable of every instance
of man, then if it be true to say ‘this is a man’, (30) ‘this is an animal’ is
also true, and if the one be true now the other is true now. A
corresponding account holds if point is in every instance predicable as
contained in line. There is evidence for this in the fact that the objection
we raise against a proposition put to us as true in every instance is either
an instance in which, or an occasion on which, it is not true. Essential
attributes are (1) such as belong to their subject as elements in its
essential nature (e. g. line thus belongs to triangle, (35) point to line; for
the very being or ‘substance’ of triangle and line is composed of these
elements, which are contained in the formulae defining triangle and
line): (2) such that, while they belong to certain subjects, the subjects to
which they belong are contained in the attribute’s own defining formula.
Thus straight and curved belong to line, odd and even, prime and
compound, (40) square and oblong, to number; and also the formula
defining any one of these attributes contains its subject—e. g. line or
number as the case may be. [73b]
Extending this classification to all other attributes, I distinguish those
that answer the above description as belonging essentially to their
respective subjects; whereas attributes related in neither of these two
ways to their subjects I call accidents or ‘coincidents’; e. g. musical or
white is a ‘coincident’ of animal. (5)
 Further (a) that is essential which is not predicated of a subject other
than itself: e. g. ‘the walking [thing]’ walks and is white in virtue of
being something else besides; whereas substance, in the sense of
whatever signifies a ‘this somewhat’, is not what it is in virtue of being
something else besides. Things, then, not predicated of a subject I call
essential; things predicated of a subject I call accidental or ‘coincidental’.
(10)

In another sense again (b) a thing consequentially connected with

anything is essential; one not so connected is ‘coincidental’. An example
of the latter is ‘While he was walking it lightened’: the lightning was not
due to his walking; it was, we should say, a coincidence. If, on the other
hand, there is a consequential connexion, the predication is essential;
e. g. if a beast dies when its throat is being cut, then its death is also
essentially connected with the cutting, (15) because the cutting was the
cause of death, not death a ‘coincident’ of the cutting.
So far then as concerns the sphere of connexions scientifically known
in the unqualified sense of that term, all attributes which (within that
sphere) are essential either in the sense that their subjects are contained
in them, or in the sense that they are contained in their subjects, are
necessary as well as consequentially connected with their subjects. For it
is impossible for them not to inhere in their subjects—either simply or in
the qualified sense that one or other of a pair of opposites must inhere in
the subject; e. g. in line must be either straightness or curvature, (20) in
number either oddness or evenness. For within a single identical genus
the contrary of a given attribute is either its privative or its
contradictory; e. g. within number what is not odd is even, inasmuch as
within this sphere even is a necessary consequent of not-odd. So, since
any given predicate must be either affirmed or denied of any subject,
essential attributes must inhere in their subjects of necessity.
Thus, then, we have established the distinction between the attribute
which is ‘true in every instance’ and the ‘essential’ attribute. (25)
I term ‘commensurately universal’ an attribute which belongs to every
instance of its subject, and to every instance essentially and as such;
from which it clearly follows that all commensurate universals inhere
necessarily in their subjects. The essential attribute, and the attribute that
belongs to its subject as such, are identical. e. g. point and straight
belong to line essentially, for they belong to line as such; and triangle as
such has two right angles, (30) for it is essentially equal to two right
angles.
An attribute belongs commensurately and universally to a subject
when it can be shown to belong to any random instance of that subject
and when the subject is the first thing to which it can be shown to
belong. Thus, e. g., (1) the equality of its angles to two right angles is
not a commensurately universal attribute of figure. For though it is
possible to show that a figure has its angles equal to two right angles, (35)
this attribute cannot be demonstrated of any figure selected at
haphazard, nor in demonstrating does one take a figure at random—a
square is a figure but its angles are not equal to two right angles. On the
other hand, any isosceles triangle has its angles equal to two right
angles, yet isosceles triangle is not the primary subject of this attribute
but triangle is prior. So whatever can be shown to have its angles equal
to two right angles, or to possess any other attribute, (40) in any random
instance of itself and primarily—that is the first subject to which the
predicate in question belongs commensurately and universally, and the
demonstration, in the essential sense, of any predicate is the proof of it
as belonging to this first subject commensurately and universally: while
the proof of it as belonging to the other subjects to which it attaches is
demonstration only in a secondary and unessential sense. [74a] Nor
again (2) is equality to two right angles a commensurately universal
attribute of isosceles; it is of wider application.

5 We must not fail to observe that we often fall into error because our
conclusion is not in fact primary and commensurately universal in the
sense in which we think we prove it so. (5) We make this mistake (1)
when the subject is an individual or individuals above which there is no
universal to be found: (2) when the subjects belong to different species
and there is a higher universal, but it has no name: (3) when the subject
which the demonstrator takes as a whole is really only a part of a larger
whole; for then the demonstration will be true of the individual
instances within the part and will hold in every instance of it, (10) yet the
demonstration will not be true of this subject primarily and
commensurately and universally. When a demonstration is true of a
subject primarily and commensurately and universally, that is to be
taken to mean that it is true of a given subject primarily and as such.
Case (3) may be thus exemplified. If a proof were given that
perpendiculars to the same line are parallel, it might be supposed that
lines thus perpendicular were the proper subject of the demonstration
because being parallel is true of every instance of them. (15) But it is not
so, for the parallelism depends not on these angles being equal to one
another because each is a right angle, but simply on their being equal to
one another. An example of (1) would be as follows: if isosceles were the
only triangle, it would be thought to have its angles equal to two right
angles qua isosceles. An instance of (2) would be the law that
proportionals alternate. Alternation used to be demonstrated separately
of numbers, lines, solids, (20) and durations, though it could have been
proved of them all by a single demonstration. Because there was no
single name to denote that in which numbers, lengths, durations, and
solids are identical, and because they differed specifically from one
another, this property was proved of each of them separately. To-day,
however, the proof is commensurately universal, for they do not possess
this attribute qua lines or qua numbers, but qua manifesting this generic
character which they are postulated as possessing universally. (25) Hence,
even if one prove of each kind of triangle that its angles are equal to two
right angles, whether by means of the same or different proofs; still, as
long as one treats separately equilateral, scalene, and isosceles, one does
not yet know, except sophistically, that triangle has its angles equal to
two right angles, nor does one yet know that triangle has this property
commensurately and universally, even if there is no other species of
triangle but these. (30) For one does not know that triangle as such has
this property, nor even that ‘all’ triangles have it—unless ‘all’ means
‘each taken singly’: if ‘all’ means ‘as a whole class’, then, though there be
none in which one does not recognize this property, one does not know
it of ‘all triangles’.
When, then, does our knowledge fail of commensurate universality,
and when is it unqualified knowledge? If triangle be identical in essence
with equilateral, i. e. with each or all equilaterals, then clearly we have
unqualified knowledge: if on the other hand it be not, and the attribute
belongs to equilateral qua triangle; then our knowledge fails of
commensurate universality. ‘But’, it will be asked, (35) ‘does this attribute
belong to the subject of which it has been demonstrated qua triangle or
qua isosceles? What is the point at which the subject to which it belongs
is primary? (i. e. to what subject can it be demonstrated as belonging
commensurately and universally?)’ Clearly this point is the first term in
which it is found to inhere as the elimination of inferior differentiae
proceeds. Thus the angles of a brazen isosceles triangle are equal to two
right angles: but eliminate brazen and isosceles and the attribute
remains. ‘But’—you may say—‘eliminate figure or limit, and the
attribute vanishes’. [74b] True, but figure and limit are not the first
differentiae whose elimination destroys the attribute. ‘Then what is the
first?’ If it is triangle, it will be in virtue of triangle that the attribute
belongs to all the other subjects of which it is predicable, and triangle is
the subject to which it can be demonstrated as belonging
commensurately and universally.

6 Demonstrative knowledge must rest on necessary basic truths; for

the object of scientific knowledge cannot be other than it is. (5) Now
attributes attaching essentially to their subjects attach necessarily to
them: for essential attributes are either elements in the essential nature
of their subjects, or contain their subjects as elements in their own
essential nature. (The pairs of opposites which the latter class includes
are necessary because one member or the other necessarily inheres.) It
follows from this that premisses of the demonstrative syllogism must be
connexions essential in the sense explained: for all attributes must inhere
essentially or else be accidental, (10) and accidental attributes are not
necessary to their subjects.
We must either state the case thus, or else premise that the conclusion
of demonstration is necessary and that a demonstrated conclusion
cannot be other than it is, and then infer that the conclusion must be
developed from necessary premisses. (15) For though you may reason
from true premisses without demonstrating, yet if your premisses are
necessary you will assuredly demonstrate—in such necessity you have at
once a distinctive character of demonstration. That demonstration
proceeds from necessary premisses is also indicated by the fact that the
objection we raise against a professed demonstration is that a premiss of
it is not a necessary truth—whether we think it altogether devoid of
necessity, (20) or at any rate so far as our opponent’s previous argument
goes. This shows how naïve it is to suppose one’s basic truths rightly
chosen if one starts with a proposition which is (1) popularly accepted
and (2) true, such as the sophists’ assumption that to know is the same
as to possess knowledge.7 For (1) popular acceptance or rejection is no
criterion of a basic truth, which can only be the primary law of the
genus constituting the subject matter of the demonstration; and (2) not
all truth is ‘appropriate’. (25)
A further proof that the conclusion must be the development of
necessary premisses is as follows. Where demonstration is possible, one
who can give no account which includes the cause has no scientific
knowledge. If, then, we suppose a syllogism in which, though A
necessarily inheres in C, yet B, the middle term of the demonstration, is
not necessarily connected with A and C, then the man who argues thus
has no reasoned knowledge of the conclusion, (30) since this conclusion
does not owe its necessity to the middle term; for though the conclusion
is necessary, the mediating link is a contingent fact. Or again, if a man is
without knowledge now, though he still retains the steps of the
argument, though there is no change in himself or in the fact and no
lapse of memory on his part; then neither had he knowledge previously.
But the mediating link, not being necessary, (35) may have perished in the
interval; and if so, though there be no change in him nor in the fact, and
though he will still retain the steps of the argument, yet he has not
knowledge, and therefore had not knowledge before. Even if the link has
not actually perished but is liable to perish, this situation is possible and
might occur. But such a condition cannot be knowledge.
[75a] When the conclusion is necessary, the middle through which it
was proved may yet quite easily be non-necessary. You can in fact infer
the necessary even from a non-necessary premiss, just as you can infer
the true from the not true. On the other hand, (5) when the middle is
necessary the conclusion must be necessary; just as true premisses
always give a true conclusion. Thus, if A is necessarily predicated of B
and B of C, then A is necessarily predicated of C. But when the
conclusion is non-necessary the middle cannot be necessary either. (10)
Thus: let A be predicated non-necessarily of C but necessarily of B, and
let B be a necessary predicate of C; then A too will be a necessary
predicate of C, which by hypothesis it is not.
To sum up, then: demonstrative knowledge must be knowledge of a
necessary nexus, and therefore must clearly be obtained through a
necessary middle term; otherwise its possessor will know neither the
cause nor the fact that his conclusion is a necessary connexion. (15) Either
he will mistake the non-necessary for the necessary and believe the
necessity of the conclusion without knowing it, or else he will not even
believe it—in which case he will be equally ignorant, whether he
actually infers the mere fact through middle terms or the reasoned fact
and from immediate premisses.
Of accidents that are not essential according to our definition of
essential there is no demonstrative knowledge; for since an accident, in
the sense in which I here speak of it, may also not inhere, (20) it is
impossible to prove its inherence as a necessary conclusion. A difficulty,
however, might be raised as to why in dialectic, if the conclusion is not a
necessary connexion, such and such determinate premisses should be
proposed in order to deal with such and such determinate problems.
Would not the result be the same if one asked any questions whatever
and then merely stated one’s conclusion? The solution is that
determinate questions have to be put, (25) not because the replies to them
affirm facts which necessitate facts affirmed by the conclusion, but
because these answers are propositions which if the answerer affirm, he
must affirm the conclusion—and affirm it with truth if they are true.
Since it is just those attributes within every genus which are essential
and possessed by their respective subjects as such that are necessary, it is
clear that both the conclusions and the premisses of demonstrations
which produce scientific knowledge are essential. (30) For accidents are
not necessary: and, further, since accidents are not necessary one does
not necessarily have reasoned knowledge of a conclusion drawn from
them (this is so even if the accidental premisses are invariable but not
essential, as in proofs through signs; for though the conclusion be
actually essential, one will not know it as essential nor know its reason);
but to have reasoned knowledge of a conclusion is to know it through its
cause. (35) We may conclude that the middle must be consequentially
connected with the minor, and the major with the middle.
7 It follows that we cannot in demonstrating pass from one genus to
another. We cannot, for instance, prove geometrical truths by arithmetic.
For there are three elements in demonstration: (1) what is proved, the
conclusion—an attribute inhering essentially in a genus; (2) the axioms,
(40) i. e. axioms which are premisses of demonstration; (3) the subject-

genus whose attributes, i. e. essential properties, are revealed by the

demonstration. [75b] The axioms which are premisses of
demonstration may be identical in two or more sciences: but in the case
of two different genera such as arithmetic and geometry you cannot
apply arithmetical demonstration to the properties of magnitudes unless
the magnitudes in question are numbers.8 (5) How in certain cases
transference is possible I will explain later.9
Arithmetical demonstration and the other sciences likewise possess,
each of them, their own genera; so that if the demonstration is to pass
from one sphere to another, the genus must be either absolutely or to
some extent the same. (10) If this is not so, transference is clearly
impossible, because the extreme and the middle terms must be drawn
from the same genus: otherwise, as predicated, they will not be essential
and will thus be accidents. That is why it cannot be proved by geometry
that opposites fall under one science, nor even that the product of two
cubes is a cube. Nor can the theorem of any one science be demonstrated
by means of another science, (15) unless these theorems are related as
subordinate to superior (e. g. as optical theorems to geometry or
harmonic theorems to arithmetic). Geometry again cannot prove of lines
any property which they do not possess qua lines, i. e. in virtue of the
fundamental truths of their peculiar genus: it cannot show, for example,
that the straight line is the most beautiful of lines or the contrary of the
circle; for these qualities do not belong to lines in virtue of their peculiar
genus, (20) but through some property which it shares with other genera.

8 It is also clear that if the premisses from which the syllogism

proceeds are commensurately universal, the conclusion of such
demonstration—demonstration, i. e., in the unqualified sense—must also
be eternal. Therefore no attribute can be demonstrated nor known by
strictly scientific knowledge to inhere in perishable things. (25) The proof
can only be accidental, because the attribute’s connexion with its
perishable subject is not commensurately universal but temporary and
special. If such a demonstration is made, one premiss must be perishable
and not commensurately universal (perishable because only if it is
perishable will the conclusion be perishable; not commensurately
universal, because the predicate will be predicable of some instances of
the subject and not of others); so that the conclusion can only be that a
fact is true at the moment—not commensurately and universally. (30) The
same is true of definitions, since a definition is either a primary premiss
or a conclusion of a demonstration, or else only differs from a
demonstration in the order of its terms. Demonstration and science of
merely frequent occurrences—e. g. of eclipse as happening to the moon
—are, as such, clearly eternal: whereas so far as they are not eternal
they are not fully commensurate. Other subjects too have properties
attaching to them in the same way as eclipse attaches to the moon. (35)

9 It is clear that if the conclusion is to show an attribute inhering as

such, nothing can be demonstrated except from its ‘appropriate’ basic
truths. Consequently a proof even from true, indemonstrable, and
immediate premisses does not constitute knowledge. (40) Such proofs are
like Bryson’s method of squaring the circle; for they operate by taking as
their middle a common character—a character, therefore, which the
subject may share with another—and consequently they apply equally to
subjects different in kind. [76a] They therefore afford knowledge of an
attribute only as inhering accidentally, not as belonging to its subject as
such: otherwise they would not have been applicable to another genus.
Our knowledge of any attribute’s connexion with a subject is
accidental unless we know that connexion through the middle term in
virtue of which it inheres, and as an inference from basic premisses
essential and ‘appropriate’ to the subject—unless we know, (5) e. g., the
property of possessing angles equal to two right angles as belonging to
that subject in which it inheres essentially, and as inferred from basic
premisses essential and ‘appropriate’ to that subject: so that if that
middle term also belongs essentially to the minor, the middle must
belong to the same kind as the major and minor terms. The only
exceptions to this rule are such cases as theorems in harmonics which
are demonstrable by arithmetic. Such theorems are proved by the same
middle terms as arithmetical properties, (10) but with a qualification—the
fact falls under a separate science (for the subject genus is separate), but
the reasoned fact concerns the superior science, to which the attributes
essentially belong. Thus, even these apparent exceptions show that no
attribute is strictly demonstrable except from its ‘appropriate’ basic
truths, which, however, in the case of these sciences have the requisite
identity of character. (15)
It is no less evident that the peculiar basic truths of each inhering
attribute are indemonstrable; for basic truths from which they might be
deduced would be basic truths of all that is, and the science to which
they belonged would possess universal sovereignty. This is so because he
knows better whose knowledge is deduced from higher causes, for his
knowledge is from prior premisses when it derives from causes
themselves uncaused: hence, (20) if he knows better than others or best of
all, his knowledge would be science in a higher or the highest degree.
But, as things are, demonstration is not transferable to another genus,
with such exceptions as we have mentioned of the application of
geometrical demonstrations to theorems in mechanics or optics, (25) or of
arithmetical demonstrations to those of harmonics.
It is hard to be sure whether one knows or not; for it is hard to be sure
whether one’s knowledge is based on the basic truths appropriate to
each attribute—the differentia of true knowledge. We think we have
scientific knowledge if we have reasoned from true and primary
premisses. But that is not so: the conclusion must be homogeneous with
the basic facts of the science. (30)

10 I call the basic truths of every genus those elements in it the

existence of which cannot be proved. As regards both these primary
truths and the attributes dependent on them the meaning of the name is
assumed. The fact of their existence as regards the primary truths must
be assumed; but it has to be proved of the remainder, the attributes.
Thus we assume the meaning alike of unity, straight, (35) and triangular;
but while as regards unity and magnitude we assume also the fact of
their existence, in the case of the remainder proof is required.
Of the basic truths used in the demonstrative sciences some are
peculiar to each science, and some are common, but common only in the
sense of analogous, being of use only in so far as they fall within the
genus constituting the province of the science in question.
Peculiar truths are, (40) e. g., the definitions of line and straight;
common truths are such as ‘take equals from equals and equals remain’.
Only so much of these common truths is required as falls within the
genus in question: for a truth of this kind will have the same force even
if not used generally but applied by the geometer only to magnitudes, or
by the arithmetician only to numbers. [76b] Also peculiar to a science
are the subjects the existence as well as the meaning of which it
assumes, and the essential attributes of which it investigates, e. g. (5) in
arithmetic units, in geometry points and lines. Both the existence and
the meaning of the subjects are assumed by these sciences; but of their
essential attributes only the meaning is assumed. For example arithmetic
assumes the meaning of odd and even, square and cube, geometry that
of incommensurable, or of deflection or verging of lines, whereas the
existence of these attributes is demonstrated by means of the axioms and
from previous conclusions as premisses. (10) Astronomy too proceeds in
the same way. For indeed every demonstrative science has three
elements: (1) that which it posits, the subject genus whose essential
attributes it examines; (2) the so-called axioms, (15) which are primary
premisses of its demonstration; (3) the attributes, the meaning of which
it assumes. Yet some sciences may very well pass over some of these
elements; e. g. we might not expressly posit the existence of the genus if
its existence were obvious (for instance, the existence of hot and cold is
more evident than that of number); or we might omit to assume
expressly the meaning of the attributes if it were well understood. In the
same way the meaning of axioms, (20) such as ‘Take equals from equals
and equals remain’, is well known and so not expressly assumed.
Nevertheless in the nature of the case the essential elements of
demonstration are three: the subject, the attributes, and the basic
premisses.
That which expresses necessary self-grounded fact, and which we must
necessarily believe,10 is distinct both from the hypotheses of a science
and from illegitimate postulate—I say ‘must believe’, because all
syllogism, and therefore a fortiori demonstration, is addressed not to the
spoken word, but to the discourse within the soul,11 and though we can
always raise objections to the spoken word, (25) to the inward discourse
we cannot always object. That which is capable of proof but assumed by
the teacher without proof is, if the pupil believes and accepts it,
hypothesis, though only in a limited sense hypothesis—that is, relatively
to the pupil; if the pupil has no opinion or a contrary opinion on the
matter, (30) the same assumption is an illegitimate postulate. Therein lies
the distinction between hypothesis and illegitimate postulate: the latter
is the contrary of the pupil’s opinion, demonstrable, but assumed and
used without demonstration.
The definitions—viz. those which are not expressed as statements that
anything is or is not—are not hypotheses: but it is in the premisses of a
science that its hypotheses are contained. (35) Definitions require only to
be understood, and this is not hypothesis—unless it be contended that
the pupil’s hearing is also an hypothesis required by the teacher.
Hypotheses, on the contrary, postulate facts on the being of which
depends the being of the fact inferred. Nor are the geometer’s
hypotheses false, as some have held, (40) urging that one must not employ
falsehood and that the geometer is uttering falsehood in stating that the
line which he draws is a foot long or straight, when it is actually neither.
The truth is that the geometer does not draw any conclusion from the
being of the particular line of which he speaks, but from what his
diagrams symbolize. [77a] A further distinction is that all hypotheses
and illegitimate postulates are either universal or particular, whereas a
definition is neither.

11 So demonstration does not necessarily imply the being of Forms

nor a One beside a Many, (5) but it does necessarily imply the possibility
of truly predicating one of many; since without this possibility we
cannot save the universal, and if the universal goes, the middle term
goes with it, and so demonstration becomes impossible. We conclude,
then, that there must be a single identical term unequivocally predicable
of a number of individuals.
The law that it is impossible to affirm and deny simultaneously the
same predicate of the same subject is not expressly posited by any
demonstration except when the conclusion also has to be expressed in
that form; in which case the proof lays down as its major premiss that
the major is truly affirmed of the middle but falsely denied. (10) It makes
no difference, however, if we add to the middle, or again to the minor
term, the corresponding negative. For grant a minor term of which it is
true to predicate man—even if it be also true to predicate not-man of it
—still grant simply that man is animal and not not-animal, (15) and the
conclusion follows: for it will still be true to say that Callias—even if it
be also true to say that not-Callias—is animal and not not-animal. The
reason is that the major term is predicable not only of the middle, but of
something other than the middle as well, (20) being of wider application;
so that the conclusion is not affected even if the middle is extended to
cover the original middle term and also what is not the original middle
term.12
The law that every predicate can be either truly affirmed or truly
denied of every subject is posited by such demonstration as uses reductio
ad impossibile, and then not always universally, but so far as it is
requisite; within the limits, that is, of the genus—the genus, (25) I mean
(as I have already explained13), to which the man of science applies his
demonstrations. In virtue of the common elements of demonstration—I
mean the common axioms which are used as premisses of
demonstration, not the subjects or the attributes demonstrated as
belonging to them—all the sciences have communion with one another,
and in communion with them all is dialectic and any science which
might attempt a universal proof of axioms such as the law of excluded
middle, (30) the law that the subtraction of equals from equals leaves
equal remainders, or other axioms of the same kind. Dialectic has no
definite sphere of this kind, not being confined to a single genus.
Otherwise its method would not be interrogative; for the interrogative
method is barred to the demonstrator, who cannot use the opposite facts
to prove the same nexus. This was shown in my work on the syllogism.14

12 If a syllogistic question15 is equivalent to a proposition embodying

one of the two sides of a contradiction, (35) and if each science has its
peculiar propositions from which its peculiar conclusion is developed,
then there is such a thing as a distinctively scientific question, and it is
the interrogative form of the premisses from which the ‘appropriate’
conclusion of each science is developed. (40) Hence it is clear that not
every question will be relevant to geometry, nor to medicine, nor to any
other science: only those questions will be geometrical which form
premisses for the proof of the theorems of geometry or of any other
science, such as optics, which uses the same basic truths as geometry.
[77b] Of the other sciences the like is true. Of these questions the
geometer is bound to give his account, using the basic truths of
geometry in conjunction with his previous conclusions; of the basic
truths the geometer, as such, is not bound to give any account. (5) The
like is true of the other sciences. There is a limit, then, to the questions
which we may put to each man of science; nor is each man of science
bound to answer all inquiries on each several subject, but only such as
fall within the defined field of his own science. If, then, in controversy
with a geometer qua geometer the disputant confines himself to
geometry and proves anything from geometrical premisses, he is clearly
to be applauded; if he goes outside these he will be at fault, (10) and
obviously cannot even refute the geometer except accidentally. One
should therefore not discuss geometry among those who are not
geometers, for in such a company an unsound argument will pass
unnoticed. This is correspondingly true in the other sciences. (15)
Since there are ‘geometrical’ questions, does it follow that there are
also distinctively ‘ungeometrical’ questions? Further, in each special
science—geometry for instance—what kind of error is it that may vitiate
questions, and yet not exclude them from that science? Again, is the
erroneous conclusion one constructed from premisses opposite to the
true premisses, or is it formal fallacy though drawn from geometrical
premisses? Or, (20) perhaps, the erroneous conclusion is due to the
drawing of premisses from another science; e. g. in a geometrical
controversy a musical question is distinctively ungeometrical, whereas
the notion that parallels meet is in one sense geometrical, being
ungeometrical in a different fashion: the reason being that
‘ungeometrical’, like ‘unrhythmical’, is equivocal, meaning in the one
case not geometry at all, (25) in the other bad geometry? It is this error,
i. e. error based on premisses of this kind—‘of’ the science but false—
that is the contrary of science. In mathematics the formal fallacy is not
so common, because it is the middle term in which the ambiguity lies,
since the major is predicated of the whole of the middle and the middle
of the whole of the minor (the predicate of course never has the prefix
‘all’); and in mathematics one can, (30) so to speak, see these middle
terms with an intellectual vision, while in dialectic the ambiguity may
escape detection. e. g. ‘Is every circle a figure?’ A diagram shows that
this is so, but the minor premiss ‘Are epics circles?’ is shown by the
diagram to be false.
If a proof has an inductive minor premiss, one should not bring an
‘objection’ against it. (35) For since every premiss must be applicable to a
number of cases (otherwise it will not be true in every instance, which,
since the syllogism proceeds from universals, it must be), then assuredly
the same is true of an ‘objection’; since premisses and ‘objections’ are so
far the same that anything which can be validly advanced as an
‘objection’ must be such that it could take the form of a premiss, (40)
either demonstrative or dialectical. On the other hand arguments
formally illogical do sometimes occur through taking as middles mere
attributes of the major and minor terms. [78a] An instance of this is
Caeneus’ proof that fire increases in geometrical proportion: ‘Fire’, he
argues, ‘increases rapidly, and so does geometrical proportion’. There is
no syllogism so, but there is a syllogism if the most rapidly increasing
proportion is geometrical and the most rapidly increasing proportion is
attributable to fire in its motion. (5) Sometimes, no doubt, it is impossible
to reason from premisses predicating mere attributes: but sometimes it is
possible, though the possibility is over-looked. If false premisses could
never give true conclusions ‘resolution’ would be easy, for premisses and
conclusion would in that case inevitably reciprocate. I might then argue
thus: let A be an existing fact; let the existence of A imply such and such
facts actually known to me to exist, which we may call B. I can now,
since they reciprocate, infer A from B.
Reciprocation of premisses and conclusion is more frequent in
mathematics, (10) because mathematics takes definitions, but never an
accident, for its premisses—a second characteristic distinguishing
mathematical reasoning from dialectical disputations.
A science expands not by the interposition of fresh middle terms, but
by the apposition of fresh extreme terms. e. g. A is predicated of B, B of
C, C of D, and so indefinitely. Or the expansion may be lateral: e. g. one
major, (15) A, may be proved of two minors, C and E. Thus let A represent
number—a number or number taken indeterminately; B determinate odd
number; C any particular odd number. We can then predicate A of C.
Next let D represent determinate even number, (20) and E even number.
Then A is predicable of E.

13 Knowledge of the fact differs from knowledge of the reasoned fact.

To begin with, they differ within the same science and in two ways: (1)
when the premisses of the syllogism are not immediate (for then the
proximate cause is not contained in them—a necessary condition of
knowledge of the reasoned fact): (2) when the premisses are immediate,
(25) but instead of the cause the better known of the two reciprocals is

taken as the middle; for of two reciprocally predicable terms the one
which is not the cause may quite easily be the better known and so
become the middle term of the demonstration. Thus (2) (a) you might
prove as follows that the planets are near because they do not twinkle:
let C be the planets, (30) B not twinkling, A proximity. Then B is
predicable of C; for the planets do not twinkle. But A is also predicable
of B, since that which does not twinkle is near—we must take this truth
as having been reached by induction or sense-perception. Therefore A is
a necessary predicate of C; so that we have demonstrated that the
planets are near. (35) This syllogism, then, proves not the reasoned fact
but only the fact; since they are not near because they do not twinkle,
but, because they are near, do not twinkle. The major and middle of the
proof, however, may be reversed, and then the demonstration will be of
the reasoned fact. (40) Thus: let C be the planets, B proximity, A not
twinkling. [78b] Then B is an attribute of C, and A—not twinkling—of
B. Consequently A is predicable of C, and the syllogism proves the
reasoned fact, since its middle term is the proximate cause. Another
example is the inference that the moon is spherical from its manner of
waxing. Thus: since that which so waxes is spherical, and since the moon
so waxes, (5) clearly the moon is spherical. Put in this form, the syllogism
turns out to be proof of the fact, but if the middle and major be reversed
it is proof of the reasoned fact; since the moon is not spherical because it
waxes in a certain manner, but waxes in such a manner because it is
spherical. (Let C be the moon, B spherical, and A waxing.) (10) Again (b),
in cases where the cause and the effect are not reciprocal and the effect
is the better known, the fact is demonstrated but not the reasoned fact.
This also occurs (1) when the middle falls outside the major and minor,
for here too the strict cause is not given, and so the demonstration is of
the fact, not of the reasoned fact. For example, (15) the question ‘Why
does not a wall breathe?’ might be answered, ‘Because it is not an
animal’; but that answer would not give the strict cause, because if not
being an animal causes the absence of respiration, then being an animal
should be the cause of respiration, according to the rule that if the
negation of x causes the non-inherence of y, (20) the affirmation of x
causes the inherence of y; e. g. if the disproportion of the hot and cold
elements is the cause of ill health, their proportion is the cause of health;
and conversely, if the assertion of x causes the inherence of y, the
negation of x must cause y’s non-inherence. But in the case given this
consequence does not result; for not every animal breathes. A syllogism
with this kind of cause takes place in the second figure. Thus: let A be
animal, B respiration, (25) C wall. Then A is predicable of all B (for all
that breathes is animal), but of no C; and consequently B is predicable of
no C; that is, the wall does not breathe. Such causes are like far-fetched
explanations, which precisely consist in making the cause too remote, (30)
as in Anacharsis’ account of why the Scythians have no flute-players;
namely because they have no vines.
Thus, then, do the syllogism of the fact and the syllogism of the
reasoned fact differ within one science and according to the position of
the middle terms. But there is another way too in which the fact and the
reasoned fact differ, and that is when they are investigated respectively
by different sciences. (35) This occurs in the case of problems related to
one another as subordinate and superior, as when optical problems are
subordinated to geometry, (40) mechanical problems to stereometry,
harmonic problems to arithmetic, the data of observation to astronomy.
[79a] (Some of these sciences bear almost the same name; e. g.
mathematical and nautical astronomy, mathematical and acoustical
harmonics.) Here it is the business of the empirical observers to know
the fact, of the mathematicians to know the reasoned fact; for the latter
are in possession of the demonstrations giving the causes, and are often
ignorant of the fact: just as we have often a clear insight into a universal,
 but through lack of observation are ignorant of some of its particular
(5)

instances. These connexions16 have a perceptible existence though they

are manifestations of forms. For the mathematical sciences concern
forms: they do not demonstrate properties of a substratum, since, even
though the geometrical subjects are predicable as properties of a
perceptible substratum, it is not as thus predicable that the
mathematician demonstrates properties of them. As optics is related to
geometry, (10) so another science is related to optics, namely the theory
of the rainbow. Here knowledge of the fact is within the province of the
natural philosopher, knowledge of the reasoned fact within that of the
optician, either qua optician or qua mathematical optician. Many
sciences not standing in this mutual relation enter into it at points; e. g.
medicine and geometry: it is the physician’s business to know that
circular wounds heal more slowly, the geometer’s to know the reason
why. (15)

14 Of all the figures the most scientific is the first. Thus, it is the
vehicle of the demonstrations of all the mathematical sciences, such as
arithmetic, geometry, and optics, and practically of all sciences that
investigate causes: for the syllogism of the reasoned fact is either
exclusively or generally speaking and in most cases in this figure—a
second proof that this figure is the most scientific; for grasp of a
reasoned conclusion is the primary condition of knowledge. (20) Thirdly,
the first is the only figure which enables us to pursue knowledge of the
essence of a thing. In the second figure no affirmative conclusion is
possible, (25) and knowledge of a thing’s essence must be affirmative;
while in the third figure the conclusion can be affirmative, but cannot be
universal, and essence must have a universal character: e. g. man is not
two-footed animal in any qualified sense, but universally. Finally, the
first figure has no need of the others, (30) while it is by means of the first
that the other two figures are developed, and have their intervals close-
packed until immediate premisses are reached. Clearly, therefore, the
first figure is the primary condition of knowledge.

15 Just as an attribute A may (as we saw) be atomically connected

with a subject B, so its disconnexion may be atomic. I call ‘atomic’
connexions or disconnexions which involve no intermediate term; since
in that case the connexion or disconnexion will not be mediated by
something other than the terms themselves. (35) It follows that if either A
or B, or both A and B, have a genus, their disconnexion cannot be
primary. Thus: let C be the genus of A. Then, if C is not the genus of B—
for A may well have a genus which is not the genus of B—there will be a
syllogism proving A’s disconnexion from B thus: (40)

all A is C,

no B is C,

no B is A.

[79b] Or if it is B which has a genus D, we have

all B is D,

no D is A,

no B is A, by syllogism;

and the proof will be similar if both A and B have a genus. (5) That the
genus of A need not be the genus of B and vice versa, is shown by the
existence of mutually exclusive co-ordinate series of predication. If no
term in the series ACD … is predicable of any term in the series BEF …,
and if G—a term in the former series—is the genus of A, (10) clearly G
will not be the genus of B; since, if it were, the series would not be
mutually exclusive. So also if B has a genus, it will not be the genus of A.
If, on the other hand, neither A nor B has a genus and A does not inhere
in B, this disconnexion must be atomic. If there be a middle term, one or
other of them is bound to have a genus, (15) for the syllogism will be
either in the first or the second figure. If it is in the first, B will have a
genus—for the premiss containing it must be affirmative;17 if in the
second, either A or B indifferently, since syllogism is possible if either is
contained in a negative premiss,18 but not if both premisses are negative.
(20)

Hence it is clear that one thing may be atomically disconnected from

another, and we have stated when and how this is possible.

16 Ignorance—defined not as the negation of knowledge but as a

positive state of mind—is error produced by inference.
(1) Let us first consider propositions asserting a predicate’s immediate
connexion with or disconnexion from a subject. (25) Here, it is true,
positive error may befall one in alternative ways; for it may arise where
one directly believes a connexion or disconnexion as well as where one’s
belief is acquired by inference. The error, however, that consists in a
direct belief is without complication; but the error resulting from
inference—which here concerns us—takes many forms. Thus, let A be
atomically disconnected from all B: then the conclusion inferred through
a middle term C, (30) that all B is A, will be a case of error produced by
syllogism. Now, two cases are possible. Either (a) both premisses, or (b)
one premiss only, may be false. (a) If neither A is an attribute of any C
nor C of any B, whereas the contrary was posited in both cases, both
premisses will be false. (C may quite well be so related to A and B that C
is neither subordinate to A nor a universal attribute of B: for B, (35) since
A was said to be primarily disconnected from B, cannot have a genus,
and A need not necessarily be a universal attribute of all things.
Consequently both premisses may be false.) On the other hand, (b) one
of the premisses may be true, (40) though not either indifferently but only
the major A–C; since, B having no genus, the premiss C–B will always be
false, while A–C may be true. [80a] This is the case if, for example, A is
related atomically to both C and B; because when the same term is
related atomically to more terms than one, neither of those terms will
belong to the other. It is, of course, equally the case if A–C is not atomic.
(5)

Error of attribution, then, occurs through these causes and in this form
only—for we found that no syllogism of universal attribution was
possible in any figure but the first. On the other hand, an error of non-
attribution may occur either in the first or in the second figure. Let us
therefore first explain the various forms it takes in the first figure and
the character of the premisses in each case. (10)
(c) It may occur when both premisses are false; e. g. supposing A
atomically connected with both C and B, if it be then assumed that no C
is A, and all B is C, both premisses are false.
(d) It is also possible when one is false. This may be either premiss
indifferently. A–C may be true, C–B false—A–C true because A is not an
attribute of all things, (15) C–B false because C, which never has the
attribute A, cannot be an attribute of B; for if C–B were true, the premiss
A–C would no longer be true, and besides if both premisses were true,
the conclusion would be true. Or again, C–B may be true and A–C false;
e. g. if both C and A contain B as genera, (20) one of them must be
subordinate to the other, so that if the premiss takes the form No C is A,
it will be false. This makes it clear that whether either or both premisses
are false, (25) the conclusion will equally be false.
In the second figure the premisses cannot both be wholly false; for if
all B is A, no middle term can be with truth universally affirmed of one
extreme and universally denied of the other: but premisses in which the
middle is affirmed of one extreme and denied of the other are the
necessary condition if one is to get a valid inference at all. (30) Therefore
if, taken in this way, they are wholly false, their contraries conversely
should be wholly true. But this is impossible. On the other hand, there is
nothing to prevent both premisses being partially false; e. g. if actually
some A is C and some B is C, then if it is premised that all A is C and no
B is C, (35) both premisses are false, yet partially, not wholly, false. The
same is true if the major is made negative instead of the minor. Or one
premiss may be wholly false, and it may be either of them. Thus,
supposing that actually an attribute of all A must also be an attribute of
all B, then if C is yet taken to be a universal attribute of all A but
universally non-attributable to B, (40) C–A will be true but C–B false.
[80b] Again, actually that which is an attribute of no B will not be an
attribute of all A either; for if it be an attribute of all A, it will also be an
attribute of all B, which is contrary to supposition; but if C be
nevertheless assumed to be a universal attribute of A, (5) but an attribute
of no B, then the premiss C–B is true but the major is false. The case is
similar if the major is made the negative premiss. For in fact what is an
attribute of no A will not be an attribute of any B either; and if it be yet
assumed that C is universally non-attributable to A, but a universal
attribute of B, (10) the premiss C–A is true but the minor wholly false.
Again, in fact it is false to assume that that which is an attribute of all B
is an attribute of no A, for if it be an attribute of all B, it must be an
attribute of some A. If then C is nevertheless assumed to be an attribute
of all B but of no A, C–B will be true but C–A false.
It is thus clear that in the case of atomic propositions erroneous
inference will be possible not only when both premisses are false but
also when only one is false. (15)

17 (2) In the case of attributes not atomically connected with or

disconnected from their subjects, (a) (i) as long as the false conclusion is
inferred through the ‘appropriate’ middle, (20) only the major and not
both premisses can be false. By ‘appropriate middle’ I mean the middle
term through which the contradictory—i. e. the true—conclusion is
inferrible. Thus, let A be attributable to B through a middle term C: then,
since to produce a conclusion the premiss C–B must be taken
affirmatively, it is clear that this premiss must always be true, (25) for its
quality is not changed. But the major A–C is false, for it is by a change in
the quality of A–C that the conclusion becomes its contradictory—i. e.
true. Similarly (ii) if the middle is taken from another series of
predication; e. g. suppose D to be not only contained within A as a part
within its whole but also predicable of all B. Then the premiss D–B must
remain unchanged, (30) but the quality of A–D must be changed; so that
D–B is always true, A–D always false. Such error is practically identical
with that which is inferred through the ‘appropriate’ middle. On the
other hand, (b) if the conclusion is not inferred through the ‘appropriate’
middle—(i) when the middle is subordinate to A but is predicable of no
B, (35) both premisses must be false, because if there is to be a conclusion
both must be posited as asserting the contrary of what is actually the
fact, and so posited both become false: e. g. suppose that actually all D is
A but no B is D; then if these premisses are changed in quality, a
conclusion will follow and both of the new premisses will be false. (40)
When, however, (ii) the middle D is not subordinate to A, A–D will be
true, D–B false—A–D true because A was not subordinate to D, D–B false
because if it had been true, the conclusion too would have been true; but
it is ex hypothesi false. [81a]
When the erroneous inference is in the second figure, (5) both
premisses cannot be entirely false; since if B is subordinate to A, there
can be no middle predicable of all of one extreme and of none of the
other as was stated before.19 One premiss, however, may be false, and it
may be either of them. Thus, if C is actually an attribute of both A and B,
but is assumed to be an attribute of A only and not of B, (10) C–A will be
true, C–B false: or again if C be assumed to be attributable to B but to no
A, C–B will be true, C–A false.
We have stated when and through what kinds of premisses error will
result in cases where the erroneous conclusion is negative. (15) If the
conclusion is affirmative, (a) (i) it may be inferred through the
‘appropriate’ middle term. In this case both premisses cannot be false
since, as we said before,20 C–B must remain unchanged if there is to be a
conclusion, and consequently A–C, the quality of which is changed, will
always be false. This is equally true if (ii) the middle is taken from
another series of predication, (20) as was stated to be the case also with
regard to negative error;21 for D–B must remain unchanged, while the
quality of A–D must be converted, and the type of error is the same as
before.
(b) The middle may be inappropriate. Then (i) if D is subordinate to A,
(25) A–D will be true, but D–B false; since A may quite well be predicable

of several terms no one of which can be subordinated to another. If,

however, (ii) D is not subordinate to A, obviously A–D, since it is
affirmed, will always be false, while D–B may be either true or false; for
A may very well be an attribute of no D, (30) whereas all B is D, e. g. no
science is animal, all music is science. Equally well A may be an
attribute of no D, and D of no B. It emerges, then, that if the middle term
is not subordinate to the major, not only both premisses but either singly
may be false.
Thus we have made it clear how many varieties of erroneous inference
are liable to happen and through what kinds of premisses they occur, (35)
in the case both of immediate and of demonstrable truths.

18 It is also clear that the loss of any one of the senses entails the loss
of a corresponding portion of knowledge, and that, since we learn either
by induction or by demonstration, this knowledge cannot be acquired.
(40) Thus demonstration develops from universals, induction from
particulars; but since it is possible to familiarize the pupil with even the
so-called mathematical abstractions only through induction—i. e. only
because each subject genus possesses, in virtue of a determinate
mathematical character, certain properties which can be treated as
separate even though they do not exist in isolation—it is consequently
impossible to come to grasp universals except through induction. [81b]
(5) But induction is impossible for those who have not sense-perception.

For it is sense-perception alone which is adequate for grasping the

particulars: they cannot be objects of scientific knowledge, because
neither can universals give us knowledge of them without induction, nor
can we get it through induction without sense-perception.

19 Every syllogism is effected by means of three terms. (10) One kind

of syllogism serves to prove that A inheres in C by showing that A
inheres in B and B in C; the other is negative and one of its premisses
asserts one term of another, while the other denies one term of another.
It is clear, then, that these are the fundamentals and so-called
hypotheses of syllogism. (15) Assume them as they have been stated, and
proof is bound to follow—proof that A inheres in C through B, and again
that A inheres in B through some other middle term, and similarly that B
inheres in C. If our reasoning aims at gaining credence and so is merely
dialectical, it is obvious that we have only to see that our inference is
based on premisses as credible as possible: so that if a middle term
between A and B is credible though not real, (20) one can reason through
it and complete a dialectical syllogism. If, however, one is aiming at
truth, one must be guided by the real connexions of subjects and
attributes. Thus: since there are attributes which are predicated of a
subject essentially or naturally and not coincidentally—not, (25) that is, in
a sense in which we say ‘That white (thing) is a man’, which is not the
same mode of predication as when we say ‘The man is white’: the man is
white not because he is something else but because he is man, but the
white is man because ‘being white’ coincides with ‘humanity’ within one
substratum—therefore there are terms such as are naturally subjects of
predicates. (30) Suppose, then, C such a term not itself attributable to
anything else as to a subject, but the proximate subject of the attribute B
—i. e. so that B–C is immediate; suppose further E related immediately
to F, and F to B. The first question is, must this series terminate, or can it
proceed to infinity? The second question is as follows: Suppose nothing
is essentially predicated of A, but A is predicated primarily of H and of
no intermediate prior term, (35) and suppose H similarly related to G and
G to B; then must this series also terminate, or can it too proceed to
infinity? There is this much difference between the questions: the first is,
is it possible to start from that which is not itself attributable to anything
else but is the subject of attributes, and ascend to infinity? The second is
the problem whether one can start from that which is a predicate but not
itself a subject of predicates, (40) and descend to infinity? A third question
is, if the extreme terms are fixed, can there be an infinity of middles? I
mean this: suppose for example that A inheres in C and B is intermediate
between them, but between B and A there are other middles, (5) and
between these again fresh middles; can these proceed to infinity or can
they not? This is the equivalent of inquiring, do demonstrations proceed
to infinity, i. e. is everything demonstrable? [82a] Or do ultimate
subject and primary attribute limit one another?
I hold that the same questions arise with regard to negative
conclusions and premisses: viz. if A is attributable to no B, (10) then either
this predication will be primary, or there will be an intermediate term
prior to B to which A is not attributable—G, let us say, which is
attributable to all B—and there may still be another term H prior to G,
which is attributable to all G. The same questions arise, I say, because in
these cases too either the series of prior terms to which A is not
attributable is infinite or it terminates.
One cannot ask the same questions in the case of reciprocating terms,
(15) since when subject and predicate are convertible there is neither

primary nor ultimate subject, seeing that all the reciprocals qua subjects
stand in the same relation to one another, whether we say that the
subject has an infinity of attributes or that both subjects and attributes—
and we raised the question in both cases—are infinite in number. These
questions then cannot be asked—unless, indeed, the terms can
reciprocate by two different modes, by accidental predication in one
relation and natural predication in the other. (20)

20 Now, it is clear that if the predications terminate in both the

upward and the downward direction (by ‘upward’ I mean the ascent to
the more universal, by ‘downward’ the descent to the more particular),
the middle terms cannot be infinite in number. For suppose that A is
predicated of F, and that the intermediates—call them BB′ B″ …—are
infinite, (25) then clearly you might descend from A and find one term
predicated of another ad infinitum, since you have an infinity of terms
between you and F; and equally, if you ascend from F, there are infinite
terms between you and A. It follows that if these processes are
impossible there cannot be an infinity of intermediates between A and F.
(30) Nor is it of any effect to urge that some terms of the series AB … F

are contiguous so as to exclude intermediates, while others cannot be

taken into the argument at all: whichever terms of the series B … I take,
the number of intermediates in the direction either of A or of F must be
finite or infinite: where the infinite series starts, whether from the first
term or from a later one, (35) is of no moment, for the succeeding terms
in any case are infinite in number.

21 Further, if in affirmative demonstration the series terminates in

both directions, clearly it will terminate too in negative demonstration.
Let us assume that we cannot proceed to infinity either by ascending
from the ultimate term (by ‘ultimate term’ I mean a term such as F was,
not itself attributable to a subject but itself the subject of attributes), or
by descending towards an ultimate from the primary term (by ‘primary
term’ I mean a term predicable of a subject but not itself a subject22).
[82b] If this assumption is justified, the series will also terminate in the
case of negation. (5) For a negative conclusion can be proved in all three
figures. In the first figure it is proved thus: no B is A, all C is B. In
packing the interval B–C we must reach immediate propositions—as is
always the case with the minor premiss—since B–C is affirmative. As
regards the other premiss it is plain that if the major term is denied of a
term D prior to B, D will have to be predicable of all B, (10) and if the
major is denied of yet another term prior to D, this term must be
predicable of all D. Consequently, since the ascending series is finite, the
descent will also terminate and there will be a subject of which A is
primarily non-predicable. In the second figure the syllogism is, all A is B,
no C is B, ∴ no C is A. If proof of this23 is required, plainly it may be
shown either in the first figure as above, (15) in the second as here, or in
the third. The first figure has been discussed, and we will proceed to
display the second, proof by which will be as follows: all B is D, no C is
D …, since it is required that B should be a subject of which a predicate
is affirmed. Next, since D is to be proved not to belong to C, then D has a
further predicate which is denied of C. Therefore, since the succession of
predicates affirmed of an ever higher universal terminates,24 the
succession of predicates denied terminates too.25 (20)
The third figure shows it as follows: all B is A, some B is not C, ∴ some
A is not C. This premiss, i. e. C–B, will be proved either in the same
figure or in one of the two figures discussed above. (25) In the first and
second figures the series terminates. If we use the third figure, we shall
take as premisses, all E is B, some E is not C, and this premiss again will
be proved by a similar prosyllogism. But since it is assumed that the
series of descending subjects also terminates, plainly the series of more
universal non-predicables will terminate also. Even supposing that the
proof is not confined to one method, but employs them all and is now in
the first figure, now in the second or third—even so the regress will
terminate, (30) for the methods are finite in number, and if finite things
are combined in a finite number of ways, the result must be finite.
Thus it is plain that the regress of middles terminates in the case of
negative demonstration, if it does so also in the case of affirmative
demonstration. That in fact the regress terminates in both these cases
may be made clear by the following dialectical considerations. (35)

22 In the case of predicates constituting the essential nature of a

thing, it clearly terminates, seeing that if definition is possible, or in
other words, if essential form is knowable, and an infinite series cannot
be traversed, predicates constituting a thing’s essential nature must be
finite in number.26 But as regards predicates generally we have the
following prefatory remarks to make. [83a] (1) We can affirm without
falsehood ‘the white (thing) is walking’, and ‘that big (thing) is a log’; or
again, ‘the log is big’, and ‘the man walks’. But the affirmation differs in
the two cases. When I affirm ‘the white is a log’, (5) I mean that
something which happens to be white is a log—not that white is the
substratum in which log inheres, for it was not qua white or qua a
species of white that the white (thing) came to be a log, and the white
(thing) is consequently not a log except incidentally. On the other hand,
when I affirm ‘the log is white’, I do not mean that something else,
which happens also to be a log, (10) is white (as I should if I said ‘the
musician is white’, which would mean ‘the man who happens also to be
a musician is white’); on the contrary, log is here the substratum—the
substratum which actually came to be white, and did so qua wood or qua
a species of wood and qua nothing else.
If we must lay down a rule, let us entitle the latter kind of statement
predication, (15) and the former not predication at all, or not strict but
accidental predication. ‘White’ and ‘log’ will thus serve as types
respectively of predicate and subject.
We shall assume, then, that the predicate is invariably predicated
strictly and not accidentally of the subject, (20) for on such predication
demonstrations depend for their force. It follows from this that when a
single attribute is predicated of a single subject, the predicate must
affirm of the subject either some element constituting its essential
nature, or that it is in some way qualified, quantified, essentially related,
active, passive, placed, or dated.27
(2) Predicates which signify substance signify that the subject is
identical with the predicate or with a species of the predicate. (25)
Predicates not signifying substance which are predicated of a subject not
identical with themselves or with a species of themselves are accidental
or coincidental; e. g. white is a coincident of man, seeing that man is not
identical with white or a species of white, (30) but rather with animal,
since man is identical with a species of animal. These predicates which
do not signify substance must be predicates of some other subject, and
nothing can be white which is not also other than white. The Forms we
can dispense with, for they are mere sound without sense; and even if
there are such things, they are not relevant to our discussion, since
demonstrations are concerned with predicates such as we have
defined.28 (35)
(3) If A is a quality of B, B cannot be a quality of A—a quality of a
quality. Therefore A and B cannot be predicated reciprocally of one
another in strict predication: they can be affirmed without falsehood of
one another, but not genuinely predicated of each other.29 For one
alternative is that they should be substantially predicated of one
another, i. e. B would become the genus or differentia of A—the
predicate now become subject. [83b] But it has been shown that in
these substantial predications neither the ascending predicates nor the
descending subjects form an infinite series; e. g. neither the series, man
is biped, biped is animal, &c., nor the series predicating animal of man,
man of Callias, Callias of a further subject as an element of its essential
nature, is infinite. For all such substance is definable, (5) and an infinite
series cannot be traversed in thought: consequently neither the ascent
nor the descent is infinite, since a substance whose predicates were
infinite would not be definable. Hence they will not be predicated each
as the genus of the other; for this would equate a genus with one of its
own species. Nor (the other alternative) can a quale be reciprocally
predicated of a quale, (10) nor any term belonging to an adjectival
category of another such term, except by accidental predication; for all
such predicates are coincidents and are predicated of substances.30 On
the other hand—in proof of the impossibility of an infinite ascending
series—every predication displays the subject as somehow qualified or
quantified or as characterized under one of the other adjectival
categories, or else is an element in its substantial nature: these latter are
limited in number, (15) and the number of the widest kinds under which
predications fall is also limited, for every predication must exhibit its
subject as somehow qualified, quantified, essentially related, acting or
suffering, or in some place or at some time.31
I assume first that predication implies a single subject and a single
attribute, and secondly that predicates which are not substantial are not
predicated of one another. We assume this because such predicates are
all coincidents, and though some are essential coincidents, (20) others of a
different type, yet we maintain that all of them alike are predicated of
some substratum and that a coincident is never a substratum—since we
do not class as a coincident anything which does not owe its designation
to its being something other than itself, but always hold that any
coincident is predicated of some substratum other than itself, and that
another group of coincidents may have a different substratum. Subject to
these assumptions then, (25) neither the ascending nor the descending
series of predication in which a single attribute is predicated of a single
subject is infinite.32 For the subjects of which coincidents are predicated
are as many as the constitutive elements of each individual substance,
and these we have seen are not infinite in number, while in the
ascending series are contained those constitutive elements with their
coincidents—both of which are finite.33 We conclude that there is a
given subject <D> of which some attribute <C> is primarily
predicable; that there must be an attribute <B> primarily predicable of
the first attribute, (30) and that the series must end with a term <A.>
not predicable able of any term prior to the last subject of which it was
predicated <B>, and of which no term prior to it is predicable.34
The argument we have given is one of the so-called proofs; an
alternative proof follows. Predicates so related to their subjects that
there are other predicates prior to them predicable of those subjects are
demonstrable; but of demonstrable propositions one cannot have
something better than knowledge, nor can one know them without
demonstration. (35) Secondly, if a consequent is only known through an
antecedent (viz. premisses prior to it) and we neither know this
antecedent nor have something better than knowledge of it, then we
shall not have scientific knowledge of the consequent. Therefore, if it is
possible through demonstration to know anything without qualification
and not merely as dependent on the acceptance of certain premisses—
i. e. hypothetically—the series of intermediate predications must
terminate. If it does not terminate, and beyond any predicate taken as
higher than another there remains another still higher, then every
predicate is demonstrable. [84a] Consequently, since these
demonstrable predicates are infinite in number and therefore cannot not
be traversed, we shall not know them by demonstration. If, therefore, we
have not something better than knowledge of them, (5) we cannot
through demonstration have unqualified but only hypothetical science of
anything.35
As dialectical proofs of our contention these may carry conviction, but
an analytic process will show more briefly that neither the ascent nor the
descent of predication can be infinite in the demonstrative sciences
which are the object of our investigation. (10) Demonstration proves the
inherence of essential attributes in things. Now attributes may be
essential for two reasons: either because they are elements in the
essential nature of their subjects, or because their subjects are elements
in their essential nature. An example of the latter is odd as an attribute
of number—though it is number’s attribute, (15) yet number itself is an
element in the definition of odd; of the former, multiplicity or the
indivisible, which are elements in the definition of number. In neither
kind of attribution can the terms be infinite. They are not infinite where
each is related to the term below it as odd is to number, for this would
mean the inherence in odd of another attribute of odd in whose nature
odd was an essential element: but then number will be an ultimate
subject of the whole infinite chain of attributes, (20) and be an element in
the definition of each of them. Hence, since an infinity of attributes such
as contain their subject in their definition cannot inhere in a single
thing, the ascending series is equally finite.36 Note, moreover, that all
such attributes must so inhere in the ultimate subject—e. g. its attributes
in number and number in them—as to be commensurate with the
subject and not of wider extent. (25) Attributes which are essential
elements in the nature of their subjects are equally finite: otherwise
definition would be impossible. Hence, if all the attributes predicated are
essential and these cannot be infinite, the ascending series will
terminate, and consequently the descending series too.37
If this is so, it follows that the intermediates between any two terms
are also always limited in number.38 An immediately obvious
consequence of this is that demonstrations necessarily involve basic
truths, (30) and that the contention of some—referred to at the outset—
that all truths are demonstrable is mistaken. For if there are basic truths,
(a) not all truths are demonstrable, and (b) an infinite regress is
impossible; since if either (a) or (b) were not a fact, it would mean that
no interval was immediate and indivisible, but that all intervals were
divisible. This is true because a conclusion is demonstrated by the
interposition, (35) not the apposition, of a fresh term. If such interposition
could continue to infinity there might be an infinite number of terms
between any two terms; but this is impossible if both the ascending and
descending series of predication terminate; and of this fact, which before
was shown dialectically, analytic proof has now been given.39 [84b]

23 It is an evident corollary of these conclusions that if the same

attribute A inheres in two terms C and D predicable either not at all, or
not of all instances, of one another, it does not always belong to them in
virtue of a common middle term. (5) Isosceles and scalene possess the
attribute of having their angles equal to two right angles in virtue of a
common middle; for they possess it in so far as they are both a certain
kind of figure, and not in so far as they differ from one another. But this
is not always the case; for, were it so, if we take B as the common
middle in virtue of which A inheres in C and D, clearly B would inhere
in C and D through a second common middle, (10) and this in turn would
inhere in C and D through a third, so that between two terms an infinity
of intermediates would fall—an impossibility. Thus it need not always be
in virtue of a common middle term that a single attribute inheres in
several subjects, (15) since there must be immediate intervals. Yet if the
attribute to be proved common to two subjects is to be one of their
essential attributes, the middle terms involved must be within one
subject genus and be derived from the same group of immediate
premisses; for we have seen that processes of proof cannot pass from one
genus to another.40
It is also clear that when A inheres in B, this can be demonstrated if
there is a middle term. (20) Further, the ‘elements’ of such a conclusion
are the premisses containing the middle in question, and they are
identical in number with the middle terms, seeing that the immediate
propositions—or at least such immediate propositions as are universal—
are the ‘elements’. If, on the other hand, there is no middle term,
demonstration ceases to be possible: we are on the way to the basic
truths. Similarly if A does not inhere in B, (25) this can be demonstrated if
there is a middle term or a term prior to B in which A does not inhere:
otherwise there is no demonstration and a basic truth is reached. There
are, moreover, as many ‘elements’ of the demonstrated conclusion as
there are middle terms, since it is propositions containing these middle
terms that are the basic premisses on which the demonstration rests; and
as there are some indemonstrable basic truths asserting that ‘this is that’
or that ‘this inheres in that’, (30) so there are others denying that ‘this is
that’ or that ‘this inheres in that’—in fact some basic truths will affirm
and some will deny being.
When we are to prove a conclusion, we must take a primary essential
predicate—suppose it C—of the subject B, and then suppose A similarly
predicable of C. If we proceed in this manner, no proposition or attribute
which falls beyond A is admitted in the proof: the interval is constantly
condensed until subject and predicate become indivisible, (35) i. e. one.
We have our unit when the premiss becomes immediate, since the
immediate premiss alone is a single premiss in the unqualified sense of
‘single’. And as in other spheres the basic element is simple but not
identical in all—in a system of weight it is the mina, in music the
quarter-tone, and so on—so in syllogism the unit is an immediate
premiss, and in the knowledge that demonstration gives it is an
intuition. [85a] In syllogisms, then, which prove the inherence of an
attribute, nothing falls outside the major term. In the case of negative
syllogisms on the other hand, (1) in the first figure nothing falls outside
the major term whose inherence is in question; e. g. to prove through a
middle C that A does not inhere in B the premisses required are, all B is
C, no C is A. (5) Then if it has to be proved that no C is A, a middle must
be found between A and C; and this procedure will never vary.
(2) If we have to show that E is not D by means of the premisses, all D
is C; no E, or not all E,41 is C; then the middle will never fall beyond E,
and E is the subject of which D is to be denied in the conclusion.
(3) In the third figure the middle will never fall beyond the limits of
the subject and the attribute denied of it. (10)

24 Since demonstrations may be either commensurately universal or

particular,42 and either affirmative or negative; the question arises,
which form is the better? And the same question may be put in regard to
so-called ‘direct’ demonstration and reductio ad impossibile. (15) Let us first
examine the commensurately universal and the particular forms, and
when we have cleared up this problem proceed to discuss ‘direct’
demonstration and reductio ad impossibile.
The following considerations might lead some minds to prefer
particular demonstration. (20)
(1) The superior demonstration is the demonstration which gives us
greater knowledge (for this is the ideal of demonstration), and we have
greater knowledge of a particular individual when we know it in itself
than when we know it through something else; e. g. we know Coriscus
the musician better when we know that Coriscus is musical than when
we know only that man is musical, (25) and a like argument holds in all
other cases. But commensurately universal demonstration, instead of
proving that the subject itself actually is x, proves only that something
else is x—e. g. in attempting to prove that isosceles is x, it proves not
that isosceles but only that triangle is x—whereas particular
demonstration proves that the subject itself is x. The demonstration,
then, that a subject, as such, possesses an attribute is superior. If this is
so, and if the particular rather than the commensurately universal form
so demonstrates, particular demonstration is superior. (30)
(2) The universal has not a separate being over against groups of
singulars. Demonstration nevertheless creates the opinion that its
function is conditioned by something like this:—some separate entity
belonging to the real world; that, for instance, of triangle or of figure or
number, (35) over against particular triangles, figures, and numbers. But
demonstration which touches the real and will not mislead is superior to
that which moves among unrealities and is delusory. Now
commensurately universal demonstration is of the latter kind: if we
engage in it we find ourselves reasoning after a fashion well illustrated
by the argument that the proportionate is what answers to the definition
of some entity which is neither line, number, solid, nor plane, but a
proportionate apart from all these. [85b] Since, then, such a proof is
characteristically commensurate and universal, and less touches reality
than does particular demonstration, and creates a false opinion, it will
follow that commensurate and universal is inferior to particular
demonstration.
We may retort thus. (1) The first argument applies no more to
commensurate and universal than to particular demonstration. (5) If
equality to two right angles is attributable to its subject not qua isosceles
but qua triangle, he who knows that isosceles possesses that attribute
knows the subject as qua itself possessing the attribute, to a less degree
than he who knows that triangle has that attribute. To sum up the whole
matter: if a subject is proved to possess qua triangle an attribute which it
does not in fact possess qua triangle, that is not demonstration: but if it
does possess it qua triangle, the rule applies that the greater knowledge
is his who knows the subject as possessing its attribute qua that in virtue
of which it actually does possess it. (10) Since, then, triangle is the wider
term, and there is one identical definition of triangle—i. e. the term is
not equivocal—and since equality to two right angles belongs to all
triangles, it is isosceles qua triangle and not triangle qua isosceles which
has its angles so related. It follows that he who knows a connexion
universally has greater knowledge of it as it in fact is than he who knows
the particular; and the inference is that commensurate and universal is
superior to particular demonstration. (15) (2) If there is a single identical
definition—i. e. if the commensurate universal is unequivocal—then the
universal will possess being not less but more than some of the
particulars, inasmuch as it is universals which comprise the
imperishable, particulars that tend to perish.
(3) Because the universal has a single meaning, we are not therefore
compelled to suppose that in these examples it has being as a substance
apart from its particulars—any more than we need make a similar
supposition in the other cases of unequivocal universal predication, viz.
where the predicate signifies not substance but quality, essential
relatedness, or action. If such a supposition is entertained, (20) the blame
rests not with the demonstration but with the hearer.
(4) Demonstration is syllogism that proves the cause, i. e. the reasoned
fact, and it is rather the commensurate universal than the particular
which is causative (as may be shown thus: that which possesses an
attribute through its own essential nature is itself the cause of the
inherence, (25) and the commensurate universal is primary;43 hence the
commensurate universal is the cause). Consequently commensurately
universal demonstration is superior as more especially proving the cause,
that is the reasoned fact.
(5) Our search for the reason ceases, and we think that we know,
when the coming to be or existence of the fact before us is not due to the
coming to be or existence of some other fact, for the last step of a search
thus conducted is eo ipso the end and limit of the problem. (30) Thus:
‘Why did he come?’ ‘To get the money—wherewith to pay a debt—that
he might thereby do what was right.’ When in this regress we can no
longer find an efficient or final cause, we regard the last step of it as the
end of the coming—or being or coming to be—and we regard ourselves
as then only having full knowledge of the reason why he came.
 If, then, all causes and reasons are alike in this respect, (35) and if this
is the means to full knowledge in the case of final causes such as we
have exemplified, it follows that in the case of the other causes also full
knowledge is attained when an attribute no longer inheres because of
something else. Thus, when we learn that exterior angles are equal to
four right angles because they are the exterior angles of an isosceles,
there still remains the question ‘Why has isosceles this attribute?’ and its
answer ‘Because it is a triangle, and a triangle has it because a triangle is
a rectilinear figure.’ [86a] If rectilinear figure possesses the property
for no further reason,44 at this point we have full knowledge—but at this
point our knowledge has become commensurately universal, and so we
conclude that commensurately universal demonstration is superior.
(6) The more demonstration becomes particular the more it sinks into
an indeterminate manifold, while universal demonstration tends to the
simple and determinate. But objects so far as they are an indeterminate
manifold are unintelligible, (5) so far as they are determinate, intelligible:
they are therefore intelligible rather in so far as they are universal than
in so far as they are particular. From this it follows that universals are
more demonstrable: but since relative and correlative increase
concomitantly, of the more demonstrable there will be fuller
demonstration. Hence the commensurate and universal form, (10) being
more truly demonstration, is the superior.
(7) Demonstration which teaches two things is preferable to
demonstration which teaches only one. He who possesses
commensurately universal demonstration knows the particular as well,
but he who possesses particular demonstration does not know the
universal. So that this is an additional reason for preferring
commensurately universal demonstration. And there is yet this further
argument:
(8) Proof becomes more and more proof of the commensurate
universal as its middle term approaches nearer to the basic truth, (15) and
nothing is so near as the immediate premiss which is itself the basic
truth. If, then, proof from the basic truth is more accurate than proof not
so derived, demonstration which depends more closely on it is more
accurate than demonstration which is less closely dependent. But
commensurately universal demonstration is characterized by this closer
dependence, and is therefore superior. Thus, if A had to be proved to
inhere in D, and the middles were B and C, (20) B being the higher term
would render the demonstration which it mediated the more universal.
Some of these arguments, however, are dialectical. The clearest
indication of the precedence of commensurately universal demonstration
is as follows: if of two propositions, a prior and a posterior, we have a
grasp of the prior, we have a kind of knowledge—a potential grasp—of
the posterior as well. For example, (25) if one knows that the angles of all
triangles are equal to two right angles, one knows in a sense—
potentially—that the isosceles’ angles also are equal to two right angles,
even if one does not know that the isosceles is a triangle; but to grasp
this posterior proposition is by no means to know the commensurate
universal either potentially or actually. Moreover, commensurately
universal demonstration is through and through intelligible; particular
demonstration issues in sense-perception. (30)

25 The preceding arguments constitute our defence of the superiority

of commensurately universal to particular demonstration. That
affirmative demonstration excels negative may be shown as follows.
(1) We may assume the superiority ceteris paribus of the demonstration
which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses—in short from fewer
premisses; for, (35) given that all these are equally well known, where
they are fewer knowledge will be more speedily acquired, and that is a
desideratum. The argument implied in our contention that
demonstration from fewer assumptions is superior may be set out in
universal form as follows. Assuming that in both cases alike the middle
terms are known, and that middles which are prior are better known
than such as are posterior, we may suppose two demonstrations of the
inherence of A in E, the one proving it through the middles B, C and D,
the other through F and G. [86b] Then A–D is known to the same
degree as A–E (in the second proof), but A–D is better known than and
prior to A–E (in the first proof); since A–E is proved through A–D, and
the ground is more certain than the conclusion.
Hence demonstration by fewer premisses is ceteris paribus superior. (5)
Now both affirmative and negative demonstration operate through three
terms and two premisses, but whereas the former assumes only that
something is, the latter assumes both that something is and that
something else is not, and thus operating through more kinds of premiss
is inferior.
(2) It has been proved45 that no conclusion follows if both premisses
are negative, (10) but that one must be negative, the other affirmative. So
we are compelled to lay down the following additional rule: as the
demonstration expands, the affirmative premisses must increase in
number, but there cannot be more than one negative premiss in each
complete proof.46 (15) Thus, suppose no B is A, and all C is B. Then, if
both the premisses are to be again expanded, a middle must be
interposed. Let us interpose D between A and B, and E between B and C.
Then clearly E is affirmatively related to B and C, while D is
affirmatively related to B but negatively to A; for all B is D, (20) but there
must be no D which is A. Thus there proves to be a single negative
premiss, A–D. In the further prosyllogisms too it is the same, because in
the terms of an affirmative syllogism the middle is always related
affirmatively to both extremes; in a negative syllogism it must be
negatively related only to one of them, (25) and so this negation comes to
be a single negative premiss, the other premisses being affirmative. If,
then, that through which a truth is proved is a better known and more
certain truth, and if the negative proposition is proved through the
affirmative and not vice versa, affirmative demonstration, being prior
and better known and more certain, will be superior.
(3) The basic truth of demonstrative syllogism is the universal
immediate premiss, (30) and the universal premiss asserts in affirmative
demonstration and in negative denies: and the affirmative proposition is
prior to and better known than the negative (since affirmation explains
denial and is prior to denial, (35) just as being is prior to not-being). It
follows that the basic premiss of affirmative demonstration is superior to
that of negative demonstration, and the demonstration which uses
superior basic premisses is superior.
(4) Affirmative demonstration is more of the nature of a basic form of
proof, because it is a sine qua non of negative demonstration.

26 [87a] Since affirmative demonstration is superior to negative, it

is clearly superior also to reductio ad impossibile. We must first make
certain what is the difference between negative demonstration and
reductio ad impossibile. Let us suppose that no B is A, (5) and that all C is
B: the conclusion necessarily follows that no C is A. If these premisses
are assumed, therefore, the negative demonstration that no C is A is
direct. Reductio ad impossibile, on the other hand, proceeds as follows:
Supposing we are to prove that A does not inhere in B, we have to
assume that it does inhere, and further that B inheres in C, with the
resulting inference that A inheres in C. (10) This we have to suppose a
known and admitted impossibility; and we then infer that A cannot
inhere in B. Thus if the inherence of B in C is not questioned, A’s
inherence in B is impossible.
The order of the terms is the same in both proofs: they differ
according to which of the negative propositions is the better known, the
one denying A of B or the one denying A of C. (15) When the falsity of the
conclusion47 is the better known, we use reductio ad impossibile; when
the major premiss of the syllogism is the more obvious, we use direct
demonstration. All the same the proposition denying A of B is, in the
order of being, prior to that denying A of C; for premisses are prior to
the conclusion which follows from them, and ‘no C is A’ is the
conclusion, ‘no B is A’ one of its premisses. (20) For the destructive result
of reductio ad impossibile is not a proper conclusion, nor are its
antecedents proper premisses. On the contrary: the constituents of
syllogism are premisses related to one another as whole to part or part to
whole, whereas the premisses A–C and A–B are not thus related to one
another. (25) Now the superior demonstration is that which proceeds from
better known and prior premisses, and while both these forms depend
for credence on the not-being of something, yet the source of the one is
prior to that of the other. Therefore negative demonstration will have an
unqualified superiority to reductio ad impossibile, and affirmative
demonstration, being superior to negative, (30) will consequently be
superior also to reductio ad impossibile.

27 The science which is knowledge at once of the fact and of the

reasoned fact, not of the fact by itself without the reasoned fact, is the
more exact and the prior science.
A science such as arithmetic, which is not a science of properties qua
inhering in a substratum, is more exact than and prior to a science like
harmonics, which is a science of properties inhering in a substratum; and
similarly a science like arithmetic, which is constituted of fewer basic
elements, is more exact than and prior to geometry, which requires
additional elements. What I mean by ‘additional elements’ is this: a unit
is substance without position, (35) while a point is substance with
position; the latter contains an additional element.

28 A single science is one whose domain is a single genus, viz. all the
subjects constituted out of the primary entities of the genus—i. e. the
parts of this total subject—and their essential properties.
One science differs from another when their basic truths have neither
a common source nor are derived those of the one science from those of
the other. This is verified when we reach the indemonstrable premisses
of a science, for they must be within one genus with its conclusions: and
this again is verified if the conclusions proved by means of them fall
within one genus—i. e. are homogeneous. [87b]

29 One can have several demonstrations of the same connexion not

only by taking from the same series of predication middles which are
other than the immediately cohering term—e. g. by taking C, D, (5) and F
severally to prove A–B—but also by taking a middle from another series.
Thus let A be change, D alteration of a property, B feeling pleasure, and
G relaxation. We can then without falsehood predicate D of B and A of
D, for he who is pleased suffers alteration of a property, (10) and that
which alters a property changes. Again, we can predicate A of G without
falsehood, and G of B; for to feel pleasure is to relax, and to relax is to
change. So the conclusion can be drawn through middles which are
different, i. e. not in the same series—yet not so that neither of these
middles is predicable of the other, for they must both be attributable to
some one subject. (15)
A further point worth investigating is how many ways of proving the
same conclusion can be obtained by varying the figure.

30 There is no knowledge by demonstration of chance conjunctions;

for chance conjunctions exist neither by necessity nor as general
connexions but comprise what comes to be as something distinct from
these. (20) Now demonstration is concerned only with one or other of
these two; for all reasoning proceeds from necessary or general
premisses, the conclusion being necessary if the premisses are necessary
and general if the premisses are general. (25) Consequently, if chance
conjunctions are neither general nor necessary, they are not
demonstrable.

31 Scientific knowledge is not possible through the act of perception.

Even if perception as a faculty is of ‘the such’ and not merely of a ‘this
somewhat’, yet one must at any rate actually perceive a ‘this somewhat’,
(30) and at a definite present place and time: but that which is

commensurately universal and true in all cases one cannot perceive,

since it is not ‘this’ and it is not ‘now’; if it were, it would not be
commensurately universal—the term we apply to what is always and
everywhere. Seeing, therefore, that demonstrations are commensurately
universal and universals imperceptible, we clearly cannot obtain
scientific knowledge by the act of perception: nay, (35) it is obvious that
even if it were possible to perceive that a triangle has its angles equal to
two right angles, we should still be looking for a demonstration—we
should not (as some48 say) possess knowledge of it; for perception must
be of a particular, whereas scientific knowledge involves the recognition
of the commensurate universal. So if we were on the moon, and saw the
earth shutting out the sun’s light, (40) we should not know the cause of
the eclipse: we should perceive the present fact of the eclipse, but not
the reasoned fact at all, since the act of perception is not of the
commensurate universal. [88a] I do not, of course, deny that by
watching the frequent recurrence of this event we might, after tracking
the commensurate universal, possess a demonstration, for the
commensurate universal is elicited from the several groups of singulars.
(5)

The commensurate universal is precious because it makes clear the

cause; so that in the case of facts like these which have a cause other
than themselves universal knowledge49 is more precious than sense-
perceptions and than intuition. (As regards primary truths there is of
course a different account to be given.50) Hence it is clear that
knowledge of things demonstrable cannot be acquired by perception, (10)
unless the term perception is applied to the possession of scientific
knowledge through demonstration. Nevertheless certain points do arise
with regard to connexions to be proved which are referred for their
explanation to a failure in sense-perception: there are cases when an act
of vision would terminate our inquiry, not because in seeing we should
be knowing, but because we should have elicited the universal from
seeing; if, for example, we saw the pores in the glass and the light
passing through, the reason of the kindling would be clear to us51
because we should at the same time see it in each instance and intuit
that it must be so in all instances. (15)

32 All syllogisms cannot have the same basic truths. This may be
shown first of all by the following dialectical considerations. (1) Some
syllogisms are true and some false: for though a true inference is possible
from false premisses, (20) yet this occurs once only—I mean if A, for
instance, is truly predicable of C, but B, the middle, is false, both A–B
and B–C being false; nevertheless, if middles are taken to prove these
premisses, they will be false because every conclusion which is a
falsehood has false premisses, while true conclusions have true
premisses, (25) and false and true differ in kind. Then again, (2)
falsehoods are not all derived from a single identical set of principles:
there are falsehoods which are the contraries of one another and cannot
coexist, e. g. ‘justice is injustice’, and ‘justice is cowardice’; ‘man is
horse’, and ‘man is ox’; ‘the equal is greater’, and ‘the equal is less’. From
our established principles we may argue the case as follows, (30)
confining ourselves therefore to true conclusions. Not even all these are
inferred from the same basic truths; many of them in fact have basic
truths which differ generically and are not transferable; units, for
instance, which are without position, cannot take the place of points,
which have position. The transferred terms could only fit in as middle
terms or as major or minor terms, or else have some of the other terms
between them, (35) others outside them.
Nor can any of the common axioms—such, I mean, as the law of
excluded middle—serve as premisses for the proof of all conclusions. For
the kinds of being are different, and some attributes attach to quanta and
some to qualia only; and proof is achieved by means of the common
axioms taken in conjunction with these several kinds and their
attributes. [88b]
Again, it is not true that the basic truths are much fewer than the
conclusions, for the basic truths are the premisses, (5) and the premisses
are formed by the apposition of a fresh extreme term or the interposition
of a fresh middle. Moreover, the number of conclusions is indefinite,
though the number of middle terms is finite; and lastly some of the basic
truths are necessary, others variable.
Looking at it in this way we see that, since the number of conclusions
is indefinite, the basic truth cannot be identical or limited in number. (10)
If, on the other hand, identity is used in another sense, and it is said,
e. g., ‘these and no other are the fundamental truths of geometry, these
the fundamentals of calculation, these again of medicine’; would the
statement mean anything except that the sciences have basic truths? To
call them identical because they are self-identical is absurd, since
everything can be identified with everything in that sense of identity. (15)
Nor again can the contention that all conclusions have the same basic
truths mean that from the mass of all possible premisses any conclusion
may be drawn. That would be exceedingly naïve, for it is not the case in
the clearly evident mathematical sciences, nor is it possible in analysis,
since it is the immediate premisses which are the basic truths, and a
fresh conclusion is only formed by the addition of a new immediate
premiss: but if it be admitted that it is these primary immediate
premisses which are basic truths, (20) each subject-genus will provide one
basic truth. If, however, it is not argued that from the mass of all
possible premisses any conclusion may be proved, nor yet admitted that
basic truths differ so as to be generically different for each science, it
remains to consider the possibility that, while the basic truths of all
knowledge are within one genus, special premisses are required to prove
special conclusions. (25) But that this cannot be the case has been shown
by our proof that the basic truths of things generically different
themselves differ generically. For fundamental truths are of two kinds,
those which are premisses of demonstration and the subject-genus; and
though the former are common, the latter—number, for instance, and
magnitude—are peculiar.

33 Scientific knowledge and its object differ from opinion and the
object of opinion in that scientific knowledge is commensurately
universal and proceeds by necessary connexions, (30) and that which is
necessary cannot be otherwise. So though there are things which are
true and real and yet can be otherwise, scientific knowledge clearly does
not concern them; if it did, things which can be otherwise would be
incapable of being otherwise. (35) Nor are they any concern of rational
intuition—by rational intuition I mean an originative source of scientific
knowledge—nor of indemonstrable knowledge, which is the grasping of
the immediate premiss. [89a] Since then rational intuition, science,
and opinion, and what is revealed by these terms, are the only things
that can be ‘true’, it follows that it is opinion that is concerned with that
which may be true or false, and can be otherwise: opinion in fact is the
grasp of a premiss which is immediate but not necessary. This view also
fits the observed facts, for opinion is unstable, (5) and so is the kind of
being we have described as its object. Besides, when a man thinks a
truth incapable of being otherwise he always thinks that he knows it,
never that he opines it. He thinks that he opines when he thinks that a
connexion, though actually so, may quite easily be otherwise; for he
believes that such is the proper object of opinion, while the necessary is
the object of knowledge. (10)
In what sense, then, can the same thing be the object of both opinion
and knowledge? And if any one chooses to maintain that all that he
knows he can also opine, why should not opinion be knowledge? For he
that knows and he that opines will follow the same train of thought
through the same middle terms until the immediate premisses are
reached; because it is possible to opine not only the fact but also the
reasoned fact, (15) and the reason is the middle term; so that, since the
former knows, he that opines also has knowledge.
The truth perhaps is that if a man grasp truths that cannot be other
than they are, in the way in which he grasps the definitions through
which demonstrations take place, he will have not opinion but
knowledge: if on the other hand he apprehends these attributes as
inhering in their subjects, but not in virtue of the subjects’ substance and
essential nature, he possesses opinion and not genuine knowledge; and
his opinion, (20) if obtained through immediate premisses, will be both of
the fact and of the reasoned fact; if not so obtained, of the fact alone.
The object of opinion and knowledge is not quite identical; it is only in a
sense identical, just as the object of true and false opinion is in a sense
identical. The sense in which some maintain that true and false opinion
can have the same object leads them to embrace many strange doctrines,
(25) particularly the doctrine that what a man opines falsely he does not

opine at all. There are really many senses of ‘identical’, and in one sense
the object of true and false opinion can be the same, in another it
cannot. Thus, to have a true opinion that the diagonal is commensurate
with the side would be absurd: but because the diagonal with which
they are both concerned is the same, (30) the two opinions have objects so
far the same: on the other hand, as regards their essential definable
nature these objects differ. The identity of the objects of knowledge and
opinion is similar. Knowledge is the apprehension of, e. g. the attribute
‘animal’ as incapable of being otherwise, opinion the apprehension of
‘animal’ as capable of being otherwise—e. g. the apprehension that
animal is an element in the essential nature of man is knowledge; the
apprehension of animal as predicable of man but not as an element in
man’s essential nature is opinion: man is the subject in both judgments,
(35) but the mode of inherence differs.

This also shows that one cannot opine and know the same thing
simultaneously; for then one would apprehend the same thing as both
capable and incapable of being otherwise—an impossibility. [89b]
Knowledge and opinion of the same thing can coexist in two different
people in the sense we have explained, but not simultaneously in the
same person. That would involve a man’s simultaneously apprehending,
e. g., (1) that man is essentially animal—i. e. cannot be other than
animal—and (2) that man is not essentially animal, (5) that is, we may
assume, may be other than animal.
Further consideration of modes of thinking and their distribution
under the heads of discursive thought, intuition, science, art, practical
wisdom, and metaphysical thinking, belongs rather partly to natural
science, partly to moral philosophy.
34 Quick wit is a faculty of hitting upon the middle term
instantaneously. (10) It would be exemplified by a man who saw that the
moon has her bright side always turned towards the sun, and quickly
grasped the cause of this, namely that she borrows her light from him; or
observed somebody in conversation with a man of wealth and divined
that he was borrowing money, or that the friendship of these people
sprang from a common enmity. In all these instances he has seen the
major and minor terms and then grasped the causes, (15) the middle
terms.
Let A represent ‘bright side turned sunward’, B ‘lighted from the sun’,
C the moon. Then B, ‘lighted from the sun’, is predicable of C, the moon,
and A, ‘having her bright side towards the source of her light’, (20) is
predicable of B. So A is predicable of C through B.

1 Plato, Meno, 80 E.

2 Cf. An. Pr. ii, ch. 21.

3 Cf. the following chapter and more particularly ii, ch. 19.

4 An. Pr. i, ch. 25.

5 Ibid. ii, ch. 5.

6 Ibid. ii, cc. 5 and 6.

7 Plato, Euthydemus, 277 B.

8 Cf. Met. 1039a 9.

9 Cf. i, cc. 9 and 13.

10 sc. axioms.

11 Cf. Plato, Theaetetus, 189 E ff.

12 Lit. ‘even if the middle is itself and also what is not itself’; i. e. you may pass from the middle
term man to include not-man without affecting the conclusion.
13 Cf. 75a 42 ff. and 76b 13.

14 An. Pr. i. 1. The ‘opposite facts’ are those which would be expressed in the alternatively
possible answers to the dialectical question, the dialectician’s aim being to refute his interlocutor
whether the latter answers the question put to him affirmatively or in the negative.
15 i. e. a premiss put in the form of a question.

16 sc. ‘which require two sciences for their proof’. Cf. 78b 35.

17 i. e. in Celarent.

18 i. e. in Cesare or Camestres.

19 Cf. 80a 29.

20 Cf. 80b 17–26.

21 Cf. 80b 26–32.

22 sc. a predicate above which is no wider universal.

23 sc. ‘that no C is B’.

24 i. e. each of the successive prosyllogisms required to prove the negative minors contains an
affirmative major in which the middle is affirmed of a subject successively ‘higher’ or more
universal than the subject of the first syllogism. Thus:

Syllogism: All B is D
No C is D
No C is B

Proyllogisms: All D is E All E is F

No C is E No C is F
No C is D No C is E

B, D, E, &c., are successively more universal subjects; and the series of affirmative majors
containing them must ex hypothesi terminate.
25 Since the series of affirmative majors terminates and since an affirmative major is required for
each prosyllogism, we shall eventually reach a minor incapable of proof and therefore
immediate.
26 If the attributes in a series of predication such as we are discussing are substantial, they must
be finite in number, because they are then the elements constituting the definition of a substance.
27 The first of three statements preliminary to a proof that predicates which are accidental—
other than substantial—cannot be unlimited in number: Accidental is to be distinguished from
essential or natural predication [cf. i, ch. 4, 73b 5 ff. and An. Pr. i, ch. 25, 43a 25–6]. The former
is alien to demonstration: hence, provided that a single attribute is predicated of a single subject,
all genuine predicates fall either under the category of substance or under one of the adjectival
categories.
28 Second preliminary statement: The precise distinction of substantive from adjectival
predication makes clear (implicitly) the two distinctions, (a) that between natural and accidental
predication, (b) that between substantival and adjectival predication, which falls within natural
predication. This enables us to reject the Platonic Forms.
29 Third preliminary statement merging into the beginning of the proof proper: Reciprocal
predication cannot produce an indefinite regress because it is not natural predication.
30 Expansion of third preliminary statement: Reciprocals A and B might be predicated of one
another (a) substantially; but it has been proved already that because a definition cannot contain
an infinity of elements substantial predication cannot generate infinity; and it would disturb the
relation of genus and species: (b) as qualia or quanta &c; but this would be unnatural predication,
because all such predicates are adjectival, i. e. accidents, or coincidents, of substances.
31 The ascent of predicates is also finite; because all predicates fall under one or other of the
categories, and (a) the series of predicates under each category terminates when the category is
reached, and (b) the number of the categories is limited. [(a) seems to mean that an attribute as
well as a substance is definable by genus and differentia, and the elements in its definition must
terminate in an upward direction at the category, and can therefore no more form an infinite
series than can the elements constituting the definition of a substance.]
32 To reinforce this brief proof that descent and ascent are both finite we may repeat the
premisses on which it depends. These are (1) the assumption that predication means the
predication of one attribute of one subject, and (2) our proof that accidents cannot be
reciprocally predicated of one another, because that would be unnatural predication. It follows
from these premisses that both ascent and descent are finite. [Actually (2) only reinforces the
proof that the descent terminates.]
33 To repeat again the proof that both ascent and descent are finite: The subjects cannot be more
in number than the constituents of a definable form, and these, we know, are not infinite in
number: hence the descent is finite. The series regarded as an ascent contains subjects and ever
more universal accidents, and neither subjects nor accidents are infinite in number.
34 Formal restatement of the last conclusion. [This is obscure: apparently Aristotle here
contemplates a hybrid series: category, accident, further specified accident … substantial genus,
subgenus … infima species, individual substance.
If this interpretation of the first portion of the chapter is at all correct, Aristotle’s first proof
that the first two questions of ch. 19 must be answered in the negative is roughly as follows: The
ultimate subject of all judgement is an individual substance, a concrete singular. Of such concrete
singulars you can predicate substantially only the elements constituting their infima species. These
are limited in number because they form an intelligible synthesis. So far, then, as substantial
predicates are concerned, the questions are answered. But these elements are also the subjects of
which accidents, or coincidents, are predicated, and therefore as regards accidental predicates, at
any rate, the descending series of subjects terminates. The ascending series of attributes also
terminates, (1) because each higher attribute in the series can only be a higher genus of the
accident predicated of the ultimate subject of its genus, and therefore an element in the
accident’s definition; (2) because the number of the categories is limited.
We may note that the first argument seems to envisage a series which, viewed as an ascent,
starts with a concrete individual of which the elements of its definition are predicated
successively, specific differentia being followed by proximate genus, which latter is the starting-
point of a succession of ever more universal attributes terminating in a category; and that the
second argument extends the scope of the dispute to the sum total of all the trains of accidental
predication which one concrete singular substance can beget. It is, as so often in Aristotle,
difficult to be sure whether he is regarding the infima species or the concrete singular as the
ultimate subject of judgement. I have assumed that he means the latter.]
35 The former proof was dialectical. So is that which follows in this paragraph. If a predicate
inheres in a subject but is subordinate to a higher predicate also predicable of that subject [i. e.
not to a wider predicate but to a middle term giving logically prior premisses and in that sense
higher], then the inherence can be known by demonstration and only by demonstration. But that
means that it is known as the consequent of an antecedent. Therefore, if demonstration gives
genuine knowledge, the series must terminate; i. e. every predicate is demonstrable and known
only as a consequent and therefore hypothetically, unless an antecedent known per se is reached.
36 As regards type (2) [the opening of the chapter has disposed of type (1)]: in any series of such
predicates any given term will contain in its definition all the lower terms, and the series will
therefore terminate at the bottom in the ultimate subject. But since every term down to and
including the ultimate subject is contained in the definition of any given term, if the series
ascend infinitely there must be a term containing an infinity of terms in its definition. But this is
impossible, and therefore the ascent terminates.
37 Note too that either type of essential attribute must be commensurate with its subject, because
the first defines, the second is defined by, its subject; and consequently no subject can possess an
infinite number of essential predicates of either type, or definition would be impossible. Hence if
the attributes predicated are all essential, the series terminates in both directions. [This passage
merely displays the ground underlying the previous argument that the ascent of attributes of type
(2) is finite, and notes in passing its more obvious and already stated application to attributes of
type (1).]
38 It follows that the intermediates between a given subject and a given attribute must also be
limited in number.
39 Corollary: (a) demonstrations necessarily involve basic truths, and therefore (b) not all truths,
as we saw [84a 32] that some maintain, are demonstrable [cf. 72b 6]. If either (a) or (b) were not
a fact, since conclusions are demonstrated by the interposition of a middle and not by the
apposition of an extreme term [cf. note on 78a15], no premiss would be an immediate indivisible
interval. This closes the analytic argument.
40 i, ch. 7.

41 Second figure, Camestres or Baroco.

42 The distinction is that of whole and part, genus and species; not that of universal and singular.

43 And therefore also essential; cf. i, ch. 4, 73b 26 ff.

44 i. e. for no reason other than its own nature.

45 An. Pr. i, ch. 7.

46 i. e. in one syllogism and two prosyllogisms proving its premisses.

47 i. e. the impossibility of A–C, the conclusion of the hypothetical syllogism.

48 Protagoras is perhaps referred to.

49 i. e. demonstration through the commensurate universal.

50 Cf. e. g. 100b 12.

51 A theory of the concentration of rays through a burning-glass which was not Aristotle’s.
 BOOK II

1 The kinds of question we ask are as many as the kinds of things

which we know. They are in fact four:—(1) whether the connexion of an
attribute with a thing is a fact, (2) what is the reason of the connexion,
(25) (3) whether a thing exists, (4) what is the nature of the thing. Thus,

when our question concerns a complex of thing and attribute and we ask
whether the thing is thus or otherwise qualified—whether, e. g., the sun
suffers eclipse or not—then we are asking as to the fact of a connexion.
That our inquiry ceases with the discovery that the sun does suffer
eclipse is an indication of this; and if we know from the start that the
sun suffers eclipse, we do not inquire whether it does so or not. On the
other hand, when we know the fact we ask the reason; as, for example,
when we know that the sun is being eclipsed and that an earthquake is
in progress, (30) it is the reason of eclipse or earthquake into which we
inquire.
Where a complex is concerned, then, those are the two questions we
ask; but for some objects of inquiry we have a different kind of question
to ask, such as whether there is or is not a centaur or a God. (By ‘is or is
not’ I mean ‘is or is not, without further qualification’; as opposed to ‘is
or is not (e. g.) white’.) On the other hand, when we have ascertained
the thing’s existence, we inquire as to its nature, asking, for instance,
‘what, then, is God?’ or ‘what is man?’

2 These, (35) then, are the four kinds of question we ask, and it is in
the answers to these questions that our knowledge consists.
Now when we ask whether a connexion is a fact, or whether a thing
without qualification is, we are really asking whether the connexion or
the thing has a ‘middle’; and when we have ascertained either that the
connexion is a fact or that the thing is—i. e. ascertained either the
partial or the unqualified being of the thing—and are proceeding to ask
the reason of the connexion or the nature of the thing, then we are
asking what the ‘middle’ is. [90a]
(By distinguishing the fact of the connexion and the existence of the
thing as respectively the partial and the unqualified being of the thing, I
mean that if we ask ‘does the moon suffer eclipse?’, or ‘does the moon
wax?’, the question concerns a part of the thing’s being; for what we are
asking in such questions is whether a thing is this or that, i. e. has or has
not this or that attribute: whereas, if we ask whether the moon or night
exists, the question concerns the unqualified being of a thing.)
We conclude that in all our inquiries we are asking either whether
there is a ‘middle’ or what the ‘middle’ is: for the ‘middle’ here is
precisely the cause, (5) and it is the cause that we seek in all our
inquiries. Thus, ‘Does the moon suffer eclipse?’ means ‘Is there or is
there not a cause producing eclipse of the moon?’, and when we have
learnt that there is, our next question is, ‘What, then, is this cause?’; for
the cause through which a thing is—not is this or that, i. e. has this or
that attribute, but without qualification is—and the cause through which
it is—not is without qualification, (10) but is this or that as having some
essential attribute or some accident—are both alike the ‘middle’. By that
which is without qualification I mean the subject, e. g. moon or earth or
sun or triangle; by that which a subject is (in the partial sense) I mean a
property, e. g. eclipse, equality or inequality, interposition or non-
interposition. For in all these examples it is clear that the nature of the
thing and the reason of the fact are identical: the question ‘What is
eclipse?’ and its answer ‘The privation of the moon’s light by the
interposition of the earth’ are identical with the question ‘What is the
reason of eclipse?’ or ‘Why does the moon suffer eclipse?’ and the reply
‘Because of the failure of light through the earth’s shutting it out’. (15)
Again, for ‘What is a concord? A commensurate numerical ratio of a high
and a low note’, (20) we may substitute ‘What reason makes a high and a
low note concordant? Their relation according to a commensurate
numerical ratio.’ ‘Are the high and the low note concordant?’ is
equivalent to ‘Is their ratio commensurate?’; and when we find that it is
commensurate, we ask ‘What, then, is their ratio?’.
Cases in which the ‘middle’ is sensible show that the object of our
inquiry is always the ‘middle’: we inquire, (25) because we have not
perceived it, whether there is or is not a ‘middle’ causing e. g. an eclipse.
On the other hand, if we were on the moon we should not be inquiring
either as to the fact or the reason, but both fact and reason would be
obvious simultaneously. For the act of perception would have enabled us
to know the universal too; since, the present fact of an eclipse being
evident, perception would then at the same time give us the present fact
of the earth’s screening the sun’s light, (30) and from this would arise the
universal.
Thus, as we maintain, to know a thing’s nature is to know the reason
why it is; and this is equally true of things in so far as they are said
without qualification to be as opposed to being possessed of some
attribute, and in so far as they are said to be possessed of some attribute
such as equal to two right angles, or greater or less.

3 It is clear, (35) then, that all questions are a search for a ‘middle’. Let
us now state how essential nature is revealed, and in what way it can be
reduced to demonstration;1 what definition is, and what things are
definable. And let us first discuss certain difficulties which these
questions raise, beginning what we have to say with a point most
intimately connected with our immediately preceding remarks, namely
the doubt that might be felt as to whether or not it is possible to know
the same thing in the same relation, both by definition and by
demonstration. [90b] It might, I mean, be urged that definition is held
to concern essential nature and is in every case universal and
affirmative; whereas, (5) on the other hand, some conclusions are
negative and some are not universal; e. g. all in the second figure are
negative, none in the third are universal. And again, not even all
affirmative conclusions in the first figure are definable, e. g. ‘every
triangle has its angles equal to two right angles’. An argument proving
this difference between demonstration and definition is that to have
scientific knowledge of the demonstrable is identical with possessing a
demonstration of it: hence if demonstration of such conclusions as these
is possible, (10) there clearly cannot also be definition of them. If there
could, one might know such a conclusion also in virtue of its definition
without possessing the demonstration of it; for there is nothing to stop
our having the one without the other.
Induction too will sufficiently convince us of this difference; for never
yet by defining anything—essential attribute or accident—did we get
knowledge of it. (15) Again, if to define is to acquire knowledge of a
substance, at any rate such attributes are not substances.
 It is evident, then, that not everything demonstrable can be defined.
What then? Can everything definable be demonstrated, or not? There is
one of our previous arguments which covers this too. (20) Of a single
thing qua single there is a single scientific knowledge. Hence, since to
know the demonstrable scientifically is to possess the demonstration of
it, an impossible consequence will follow:—possession of its definition
without its demonstration will give knowledge of the demonstrable.
Moreover, the basic premisses of demonstrations are definitions, and it
has already been shown2 that these will be found indemonstrable; either
the basic premisses will be demonstrable and will depend on prior
premisses, (25) and the regress will be endless; or the primary truths will
be indemonstrable definitions.
But if the definable and the demonstrable are not wholly the same,
may they yet be partially the same? Or is that impossible, because there
can be no demonstration of the definable? There can be none, because
definition is of the essential nature or being of something, (30) and all
demonstrations evidently posit and assume the essential nature—
mathematical demonstrations, for example, the nature of unity and the
odd, and all the other sciences likewise. Moreover, every demonstration
proves a predicate of a subject as attaching or as not attaching to it, but
in definition one thing is not predicated of another; we do not, (35) e. g.,
predicate animal of biped nor biped of animal, nor yet figure of plane—
plane not being figure nor figure plane. Again, to prove essential nature
is not the same as to prove the fact of a connexion. [91a] Now
definition reveals essential nature, demonstration reveals that a given
attribute attaches or does not attach to a given subject; but different
things require different demonstrations—unless the one demonstration is
related to the other as part to whole. [91a] I add this because if all
triangles have been proved to possess angles equal to two right angles,
then this attribute has been proved to attach to isosceles; for isosceles is
a part of which all triangles constitute the whole. (5) But in the case
before us the fact and the essential nature are not so related to one
another, since the one is not a part of the other.
So it emerges that not all the definable is demonstrable nor all the
demonstrable definable; and we may draw the general conclusion that
there is no identical object of which it is possible to possess both a
definition and a demonstration. (10) It follows obviously that definition
and demonstration are neither identical nor contained either within the
other: if they were, their objects would be related either as identical or
as whole and part.

4 So much, then, for the first stage of our problem. The next step is to
raise the question whether syllogism—i. e. demonstration—of the
definable nature is possible or, as our recent argument assumed,
impossible.
We might argue it impossible on the following grounds:—(a) syllogism
proves an attribute of a subject through the middle term; on the other
hand (b) its definable nature is both ‘peculiar’ to a subject and
predicated of it as belonging to its essence. (15) But in that case (1) the
subject, its definition, and the middle term connecting them must be
reciprocally predicable of one another; for if A is ‘peculiar’ to C,
obviously A is ‘peculiar’ to B and B to C—in fact all three terms are
‘peculiar’ to one another: and further (2) if A inheres in the essence of all
B and B is predicated universally of all C as belonging to C’s essence, (20)
A also must be predicated of C as belonging to its essence.
If one does not take this relation as thus duplicated—if, that is, A is
predicated as being of the essence of B, but B is not of the essence of the
subjects of which it is predicated—A will not necessarily be predicated
of C as belonging to its essence. So both premisses will predicate essence,
and consequently B also will be predicated of C as its essence. (25) Since,
therefore, both premisses do predicate essence—i. e. definable form—C’s
definable form will appear in the middle term before the conclusion is
drawn.
We may generalize by supposing that it is possible to prove the
essential nature of man. Let C be man, A man’s essential nature—two-
footed animal, or aught else it may be. Then, if we are to syllogize, A
must be predicated of all B. But this premiss will be mediated by a fresh
definition, which consequently will also be the essential nature of man.3
(30) Therefore the argument assumes what it has to prove, since B too is

the essential nature of man. It is, however, the case in which there are
only the two premisses—i. e. in which the premisses are primary and
immediate—which we ought to investigate, because it best illustrates the
point under discussion.
Thus they who prove the essential nature of soul or man or anything
else through reciprocating terms beg the question. (35) It would be
begging the question, for example, to contend that the soul is that which
causes its own life, and that what causes its own life is a self-moving
number; for one would have to postulate that the soul is a self-moving
number in the sense of being identical with it. [91b] For if A is
predicable as a mere consequent of B and B of C, A will not on that
account be the definable form of C: A will merely be what it was true to
say of C. Even if A is predicated of all B inasmuch as B is identical with a
species of A, still it will not follow: being an animal is predicated of
being a man—since it is true that in all instances to be human is to be
animal, (5) just as it is also true that every man is an animal—but not as
identical with being man.
We conclude, then, that unless one takes both the premisses as
predicating essence, one cannot infer that A is the definable form and
essence of C: but if one does so take them, in assuming B one will have
assumed, before drawing the conclusion, what the definable form of C is;
so that there has been no inference, for one has begged the question. (10)

5 Nor, as was said in my formal logic, is the method of division a

process of inference at all, since at no point does the characterization of
the subject follow necessarily from the premising of certain other facts:
division demonstrates as little as does induction. (15) For in a genuine
demonstration the conclusion must not be put as a question nor depend
on a concession, but must follow necessarily from its premisses, even if
the respondent deny it. The definer asks ‘Is man animal or inanimate?’
and then assumes—he has not inferred—that man is animal. Next, when
presented with an exhaustive division of animal into terrestrial and
aquatic, he assumes that man is terrestrial. Moreover, (20) that man is the
complete formula, terrestrial-animal, does not follow necessarily from
the premisses: this too is an assumption, and equally an assumption
whether the division comprises many differentiae or few. (Indeed as this
method of division is used by those who proceed by it, even truths that
can be inferred actually fail to appear as such.) (25) For why should not
the whole of this formula be true of man, and yet not exhibit his
essential nature or definable form? Again, what guarantee is there
against an unessential addition, or against the omission of the final or of
an intermediate determinant of the substantial being?
The champion of division might here urge that though these lapses do
occur, yet we can solve that difficulty if all the attributes we assume are
constituents of the definable form, and if, postulating the genus, we
produce by division the requisite uninterrupted sequence of terms, (30)
and omit nothing; and that indeed we cannot fail to fulfil these
conditions if what is to be divided falls whole into the division at each
stage, and none of it is omitted; and that this—the dividendum—must
without further question be (ultimately) incapable of fresh specific
division. Nevertheless, we reply, division does not involve inference; if it
gives knowledge, it gives it in another way. Nor is there any absurdity in
this: induction, perhaps, is not demonstration any more than is division,
yet it does make evident some truth. (35) Yet to state a definition reached
by division is not to state a conclusion: as, when conclusions are drawn
without their appropriate middles, the alleged necessity by which the
inference follows from the premisses is open to a question as to the
reason for it, so definitions reached by division invite the same question.
[92a] Thus to the question ‘What is the essential nature of man?’ the
divider replies ‘Animal, mortal, footed, biped, wingless’; and when at
each step he is asked ‘Why?’, he will say, and, as he thinks, prove by
division, that all animal is mortal or immortal: but such a formula taken
in its entirety is not definition; so that even if division does demonstrate
its formula, (5) definition at any rate does not turn out to be a conclusion
of inference.

6 Can we nevertheless actually demonstrate what a thing essentially

and substantially is, but hypothetically, i. e. by premising (1) that its
definable form is constituted by the ‘peculiar’ attributes of its essential
nature; (2) that such and such are the only attributes of its essential
nature, and that the complete synthesis of them is peculiar to the thing;
and thus—since in this synthesis consists the being of the thing—
obtaining our conclusion? Or is the truth that, (10) since proof must be
through the middle term, the definable form is once more assumed in
this minor premiss too?
 Further, just as in syllogizing we do not premise what syllogistic
inference is (since the premisses from which we conclude must be
related as whole and part),4 so the definable form must not fall within
the syllogism but remain outside the premisses posited. It is only against
a doubt as to its having been a syllogistic inference at all that we have to
defend our argument as conforming to the definition of syllogism. (15) It
is only when some one doubts whether the conclusion proved is the
definable form that we have to defend it as conforming to the definition
of definable form which we assumed. Hence syllogistic inference must be
possible even without the express statement of what syllogism is or what
definable form is.
The following type of hypothetical proof also begs the question. (20) If
evil is definable as the divisible, and the definition of a thing’s contrary
—if it has one—is the contrary of the thing’s definition; then, if good is
the contrary of evil and the indivisible of the divisible, we conclude that
to be good is essentially to be indivisible. The question is begged because
definable form is assumed as a premiss, and as a premiss which is to
prove definable form. ‘But not the same definable form’, you may object.
That I admit, for in demonstrations also we premise that ‘this’ is
predicable of ‘that’; but in this premiss the term we assert of the minor is
neither the major itself nor a term identical in definition, (25) or
convertible, with the major.
Again, both proof by division and the syllogism just described are
open to the question why man should be animal-biped-terrestrial and
not merely animal and terrestrial, since what they premise does not
ensure that the predicates shall constitute a genuine unity and not
merely belong to a single subject as do musical and grammatical when
predicated of the same man. (30)

7 How then by definition shall we prove substance or essential nature?

We cannot show it as a fresh fact necessarily following from the
assumption of premisses admitted to be facts—the method of
demonstration: we may not proceed as by induction to establish a
universal on the evidence of groups of particulars which offer no
exception, (35) because induction proves not what the essential nature of
a thing is but that it has or has not some attribute. [92b] Therefore,
since presumably one cannot prove essential nature by an appeal to
sense perception or by pointing with the finger, what other method
remains?
To put it another way: how shall we by definition prove essential
nature? He who knows what human—or any other—nature is, (5) must
know also that man exists; for no one knows the nature of what does not
exist—one can know the meaning of the phrase or name ‘goat-stag’ but
not what the essential nature of a goat-stag is. But further, if definition
can prove what is the essential nature of a thing, can it also prove that it
exists? And how will it prove them both by the same process, since
definition exhibits one single thing and demonstration another single
thing, (10) and what human nature is and the fact that man exists are not
the same thing? Then too we hold that it is by demonstration that the
being of everything must be proved—unless indeed to be were its
essence; and, since being is not a genus, it is not the essence of anything.
Hence the being of anything as fact is matter for demonstration; and this
is the actual procedure of the sciences, (15) for the geometer assumes the
meaning of the word triangle, but that it is possessed of some attribute
he proves. What is it, then, that we shall prove in defining essential
nature? Triangle? In that case a man will know by definition what a
thing’s nature is without knowing whether it exists. But that is
impossible.
Moreover it is clear, if we consider the methods of defining actually in
use, that definition does not prove that the thing defined exists: since
even if there does actually exist something which is equidistant from a
centre, (20) yet why should the thing named in the definition exist? Why,
in other words, should this be the formula defining circle? One might
equally well call it the definition of mountain copper. For definitions do
not carry a further guarantee that the thing defined can exist or that it is
what they claim to define: one can always ask why. (25)
Since, therefore, to define is to prove either a thing’s essential nature
or the meaning of its name, we may conclude that definition, if it in no
sense proves essential nature, is a set of words signifying precisely what
a name signifies. But that were a strange consequence; for (1) both what
is not substance and what does not exist at all would be definable, since
even non-existents can be signified by a name: (2) all sets of words or
sentences would be definitions, (30) since any kind of sentence could be
given a name; so that we should all be talking in definitions, and even
the Iliad would be a definition: (3) no demonstration can prove that any
particular name means any particular thing: neither, therefore, do
definitions, in addition to revealing the meaning of a name, also reveal
that the name has this meaning. (35) It appears then from these
considerations that neither definition and syllogism nor their objects are
identical, and further that definition neither demonstrates nor proves
anything, and that knowledge of essential nature is not to be obtained
either by definition or by demonstration.

8 [93a] We must now start afresh and consider which of these

conclusions are sound and which are not, and what is the nature of
definition, and whether essential nature is in any sense demonstrable
and definable or in none.
Now to know its essential nature is, as we said, the same as to know
the cause of a thing’s existence, and the proof of this depends on the fact
that a thing must have a cause. (5) Moreover, this cause is either identical
with the essential nature of the thing or distinct from it;5 and if its cause
is distinct from it, the essential nature of the thing is either demonstrable
or indemonstrable. Consequently, if the cause is distinct from the thing’s
essential nature and demonstration is possible, the cause must be the
middle term, and, the conclusion proved being universal and affirmative,
the proof is in the first figure. So the method just examined of proving it
through another essential nature would be one way of proving essential
nature, (10) because a conclusion containing essential nature must be
inferred through a middle which is an essential nature just as a ‘peculiar’
property must be inferred through a middle which is a ‘peculiar’
property; so that of the two definable natures of a single thing this
method will prove one and not the other.6
Now it was said before7 that this method could not amount to
demonstration of essential nature—it is actually a dialectical proof of it
—so let us begin again and explain by what method it can be
demonstrated. (15) When we are aware of a fact we seek its reason, and
though sometimes the fact and the reason dawn on us simultaneously,
yet we cannot apprehend the reason a moment sooner than the fact; and
clearly in just the same way we cannot apprehend a thing’s definable
form without apprehending that it exists, since while we are ignorant
whether it exists we cannot know its essential nature. (20) Moreover we
are aware whether a thing exists or not sometimes through
apprehending an element in its character, and sometimes accidentally,8
as, for example, when we are aware of thunder as a noise in the clouds,
of eclipse as a privation of light, or of man as some species of animal, or
of the soul as a self-moving thing. As often as we have accidental
knowledge that the thing exists, (25) we must be in a wholly negative
state as regards awareness of its essential nature; for we have not got
genuine knowledge even of its existence, and to search for a thing’s
essential nature when we are unaware that it exists is to search for
nothing. On the other hand, whenever we apprehend an element in the
thing’s character there is less difficulty. Thus it follows that the degree of
our knowledge of a thing’s essential nature is determined by the sense in
which we are aware that it exists. Let us then take the following as our
first instance of being aware of an element in the essential nature. (30) Let
A be eclipse, C the moon, B the earth’s acting as a screen. Now to ask
whether the moon is eclipsed or not is to ask whether or not B has
occurred. But that is precisely the same as asking whether A has a
defining condition; and if this condition actually exists, we assert that A
also actually exists. Or again we may ask which side of a contradiction
the defining condition necessitates: does it make the angles of a triangle
equal or not equal to two right angles? When we have found the answer,
if the premisses are immediate, (35) we know fact and reason together; if
they are not immediate, we know the fact without the reason, as in the
following example: let C be the moon, A eclipse, B the fact that the
moon fails to produce shadows9 though she is full and though no visible
body intervenes between us and her. Then if B, failure to produce
shadows in spite of the absence of an intervening body, is attributable to
C, and A, eclipse, is attributable to B, it is clear that the moon is
eclipsed, but the reason why is not yet clear, and we know that eclipse
exists, but we do not know what its essential nature is. [93b] But when
it is clear that A is attributable to C and we proceed to ask 5 the reason
of this fact, we are inquiring what is the nature of B: is it the earth’s
acting as a screen, or the moon’s rotation or her extinction? But B is the
definition of the other term, viz., in these examples, of the major term A;
for eclipse is constituted by the earth acting as a screen. Thus, (1) ‘What
is thunder?’ ‘The quenching of fire in cloud’, and (2) ‘Why does it
thunder?’ ‘Because fire is quenched in the cloud’, are equivalent. Let C
be cloud, A thunder, B the quenching of fire. Then B is attributable to C,
cloud, (10) since fire is quenched in it; and A, noise, is attributable to B;
and B is assuredly the definition of the major term A. If there be a
further mediating cause of B, it will be one of the remaining partial
definitions of A.
We have stated then how essential nature is discovered and becomes
known, (15) and we see that, while there is no syllogism—i. e. no
demonstrative syllogism—of essential nature, yet it is through syllogism,
viz. demonstrative syllogism, that essential nature is exhibited. So we
conclude that neither can the essential nature of anything which has a
cause distinct from itself be known without demonstration, nor can it be
demonstrated; and this is what we contended in our preliminary
discussions.10 (20)

9 Now while some things have a cause distinct from themselves,

others have not. Hence it is evident that there are essential natures
which are immediate, that is, are basic premisses; and of these not only
that they are but also what they are must be assumed or revealed in some
other way. This too is the actual procedure of the arithmetician, who
assumes both the nature and the existence of unit. (25) On the other hand,
it is possible (in the manner explained) to exhibit through demonstration
the essential nature of things which have a ‘middle’,11 i. e. a cause of
their substantial being other than that being itself; but we do not thereby
demonstrate it.

10 Since definition is said to be the statement of a thing’s nature,

obviously one kind of definition will be a statement of the meaning of
the name, or of an equivalent nominal formula. (30) A definition in this
sense tells you, e. g. the meaning of the phrase ‘triangular character’.12
When we are aware that triangle exists, we inquire the reason why it
exists. But it is difficult thus to learn the definition of things the
existence of which we do not genuinely know—the cause of this
difficulty being, as we said before,13 that we only know accidentally
whether or not the thing exises. (35) Moreover, a statement may be a
unity in either of two ways, by conjunction, like the Iliad, or because it
exhibits a single predicate as inhering not accidentally in a single
subject.14
That then is one way of defining definition. Another kind of definition
is a formula exhibiting the cause of a thing’s existence. [94a] Thus the
former signifies without proving, but the latter will clearly be a quasi-
demonstration of essential nature, differing from demonstration in the
arrangement of its terms. For there is a difference between stating why it
thunders, and stating what is the essential nature of thunder; since the
first statement will be ‘Because fire is quenched in the clouds’, while the
statement of what the nature of thunder is will be ‘The noise of fire
being quenched in the clouds’. (5) Thus the same statement takes a
different form: in one form it is continuous15 demonstration, in the other
definition. Again, thunder can be defined as noise in the clouds, which is
the conclusion of the demonstration embodying essential nature. On the
other hand the definition of immediates is an indemonstrable positing of
essential nature. (10) We conclude then that definition is (a) an
indemonstrable statement of essential nature, or (b) a syllogism of
essential nature differing from demonstration in grammatical form, or
(c) the conclusion of a demonstration giving essential nature.
Our discussion has therefore made plain (1) in what sense and of what
things the essential nature is demonstrable, (15) and in what sense and of
what things it is not; (2) what are the various meanings of the term
definition, and in what sense and of what things it proves the essential
nature, and in what sense and of what things it does not; (3) what is the
relation of definition to demonstration, and how far the same thing is
both definable and demonstrable and how far it is not.

11 We think we have scientific knowledge when we know the cause,

(20) and there are four causes: (1) the definable form, (2) an antecedent

which necessitates a consequent,16 (3) the efficient cause, (4) the final
cause. Hence each of these can be the middle term of a proof, for17 (a)
though the inference from antecedent to necessary consequent does not
hold if only one premiss is assumed—two is the minimum—still when
there are two it holds on condition that they have a single common
middle term. (25) So it is from the assumption of this single middle term
that the conclusion follows necessarily. The following example will also
show this.18 Why is the angle in a semicircle a right angle?—or from
what assumption does it follow that it is a right angle? Thus, let A be
right angle, B the half of two right angles, C the angle in a semicircle.
Then B is the cause in virtue of which A, (30) right angle, is attributable
to C, the angle in a semicircle, since B = A and the other, viz. C, = B,
for C is half of two right angles. Therefore it is the assumption of B, the
half of two right angles, from which it follows that A is attributable to C,
i. e. that the angle in a semicircle is a right angle. Moreover, B is
identical with (b) the defining form of A, since it is what A’s definition19
signifies. Moreover, the formal cause has already been shown to be the
middle.20 (35) (c) ‘Why did the Athenians become involved in the Persian
war?’ means ‘What cause originated the waging of war against the
Athenians?’ and the answer is, ‘Because they raided Sardis with the
Eretrians’, since this originated the war. [94b] Let A be war, B
unprovoked raiding, C the Athenians. Then B, unprovoked raiding, is
true of C, the Athenians, and A is true of B, since men make war on the
unjust aggressor. So A, having war waged upon them, (5) is true of B, the
initial aggressors, and B is true of C, the Athenians, who were the
aggressors. Hence here too the cause—in this case the efficient cause—is
the middle term. (d) This is no less true where the cause is the final
cause. e. g. why does one take a walk after supper? For the sake of one’s
health. Why does a house exist? For the preservation of one’s goods. The
end in view is in the one case health, (10) in the other preservation. To
ask the reason why one must walk after supper is precisely to ask to
what end one must do it. Let C be walking after supper, B the non-
regurgitation of food, A health. Then let walking after supper possess the
property of preventing food from rising to the orifice of the stomach, (15)
and let this condition be healthy; since it seems that B, the non-
regurgitation of food, is attributable to C, taking a walk, and that A,
health, is attributable to B. What, then, is the cause through which A,
the final cause, inheres in C? It is B, the non-regurgitation of food; but B
is a kind of definition of A, for A will be explained by it. Why is B the
cause of A’s belonging to C? Because to be in a condition such as B is to
be in health. (20) The definitions must be transposed, and then the detail
will become clearer. Incidentally, here the order of coming to be is the
reverse of what it is in proof through the efficient cause: in the efficient
order the middle term must come to be first, (25) whereas in the
teleological order the minor, C, must first take place, and the end in
view comes last in time.
The same thing may exist for an end and be necessitated as well. For
example, light shines through a lantern (1) because that which consists
of relatively small particles necessarily passes through pores larger than
those particles—assuming that light does issue by penetration—and (2)
for an end, (30) namely to save us from stumbling. If, then, a thing can
exist through two causes, can it come to be through two causes—as for
instance if thunder be a hiss and a roar necessarily produced by the
quenching of fire, and also designed, as the Pythagoreans say, for a
threat to terrify those that lie in Tartarus? Indeed, (35) there are very
many such cases, mostly among the processes and products of the
natural world; for nature, in different senses of the term ‘nature’,
produces now for an end, now by necessity.
Necessity too is of two kinds. [95a] It may work in accordance with
a thing’s natural tendency, or by constraint and in opposition to it; as,
for instance, by necessity a stone is borne both upwards and downwards,
but not by the same necessity.
Of the products of man’s intelligence some are never due to chance or
necessity but always to an end, as for example a house or a statue;
others, (5) such as health or safety, may result from chance as well.
It is mostly in cases where the issue is indeterminate (though only
where the production does not originate in chance, and the end is
consequently good), that a result is due to an end, and this is true alike
in nature or in art. By chance, on the other hand, nothing comes to be
for an end.

12 The effect may be still coming to be, (10) or its occurrence may be
past or future, yet the cause will be the same as when it is actually
existent—for it is the middle which is the cause—except that if the effect
actually exists the cause is actually existent, if it is coming to be so is the
cause, if its occurrence is past the cause is past, if future the cause is
future. For example, the moon was eclipsed because the earth
intervened, is becoming eclipsed because the earth is in process of
intervening, (15) will be eclipsed because the earth will intervene, is
eclipsed because the earth intervenes.
To take a second example: assuming that the definition of ice is
solidified water, let C be water, A solidified, B the middle, which is the
cause, namely total failure of heat. Then B is attributed to C, and A,
solidification, to B: ice forms when B is occurring, (20) has formed when B
has occurred, and will form when B shall occur.
This sort of cause, then, and its effect come to be simultaneously when
they are in process of becoming, and exist simultaneously when they
actually exist; and the same holds good when they are past and when
they are future. But what of cases where they are not simultaneous? Can
causes and effects different from one another form, as they seem to us to
form, a continuous succession, (25) a past effect resulting from a past
cause different from itself, a future effect from a future cause different
from it, and an effect which is coming-to-be from a cause different from
and prior to it? Now on this theory it is from the posterior event that we
reason (and this though these later events actually have their source of
origin in previous events—a fact which shows that also when the effect
is coming-to-be we still reason from the posterior event), and from the
prior event we cannot reason (we cannot argue that because an event A
has occurred, (30) therefore an event B has occurred subsequently to A
but still in the past—and the same holds good if the occurrence is future)
—cannot reason because, be the time interval definite or indefinite, it
will never be possible to infer that because it is true to say that A
occurred, therefore it is true to say that B, the subsequent event,
occurred; for in the interval between the events, though A has already
occurred, the latter statement will be false. (35) And the same argument
applies also to future events; i. e. one cannot infer from an event which
occurred in the past that a future event will occur. The reason of this is
that the middle must be homogeneous, past when the extremes are past,
future when they are future, coming to be when they are coming-to-be,
actually existent when they are actually existent; and there cannot be a
middle term homogeneous with extremes respectively past and future.
And it is a further difficulty in this theory that the time interval can be
neither indefinite nor definite, (40) since during it the inference will be
false. [95b] We have also to inquire what it is that holds events
together so that the coming-to-be now occurring in actual things follows
upon a past event. It is evident, we may suggest, that a past event and a
present process cannot be ‘contiguous’, for not even two past events can
be ‘contiguous’. For past events are limits and atomic; so just as points
are not ‘contiguous’ neither are past events, (5) since both are indivisible.
For the same reason a past event and a present process cannot be
‘contiguous’, for the process is divisible, the event indivisible. Thus the
relation of present process to past event is analogous to that of line to
point, since a process contains an infinity of past events. (10) These
questions, however, must receive a more explicit treatment in our
general theory of change.21
The following must suffice as an account of the manner in which the
middle would be identical with the cause on the supposition that
coming-to-be is a series of consecutive events: for22 in the terms of such
a series too the middle and major terms must form an immediate
premiss; e. g. we argue that, (15) since C has occurred, therefore A
occurred: and C’s occurrence was posterior, A’s prior; but C is the source
of the inference because it is nearer to the present moment, and the
starting-point of time is the present. We next argue that, since D has
occurred, therefore C occurred. Then we conclude that, (20) since D has
occurred, therefore A must have occurred; and the cause is C, for since D
has occurred C must have occurred, and since C has occurred A must
previously have occurred.
If we get our middle term in this way, will the series terminate in an
immediate premiss, or since, as we said, no two events are ‘contiguous’,
will a fresh middle term always intervene because there is an infinity of
middles? No: though no two events are ‘contiguous’, yet we must start
from a premiss consisting of a middle and the present event as major. (25)
The like is true of future events too, since if it is true to say that D will
exist, it must be a prior truth to say that A will exist, and the cause of
this conclusion is C; for if D will exist, C will exist prior to D, and if C
will exist, A will exist prior to it. And here too the same infinite
divisibility might be urged, (30) since future events are not ‘contiguous’.
But here too an immediate basic premiss must be assumed. And in the
world of fact this is so: if a house has been built, then blocks must have
been quarried and shaped. The reason is that a house having been built
necessitates a foundation having been laid, and if a foundation has been
laid blocks must have been shaped beforehand. (35) Again, if a house will
be built, blocks will similarly be shaped beforehand; and proof is
through the middle in the same way, for the foundation will exist before
the house.
Now we observe in Nature a certain kind of circular process of
coming-to-be; and this is possible only if the middle and extreme terms
are reciprocal, since conversion is conditioned by reciprocity in the
terms of the proof. (40) This—the convertibility of conclusions and
premisses—has been proved in our early chapters,23 and the circular
process is an instance of this. [96a] In actual fact it is exemplified thus:
when the earth had been moistened an exhalation was bound to rise,
and when an exhalation had risen cloud was bound to form, and from
the formation of cloud rain necessarily resulted, and by the fall of rain
the earth was necessarily moistened: but this was the starting-point, (5)
so that a circle is completed; for posit any one of the terms and another
follows from it, and from that another, and from that again the first.
Some occurrences are universal (for they are, or come-to-be what they
are, always and in every case); others again are not always what they are
but only as a general rule: for instance, (10) not every man can grow a
beard, but it is the general rule. In the case of such connexions the
middle term too must be a general rule. For if A is predicated universally
of B and B of C, A too must be predicated always and in every instance
of C, since to hold in every instance and always is of the nature of the
universal. (15) But we have assumed a connexion which is a general rule;
consequently the middle term B must also be a general rule. So
connexions which embody a general rule—i. e. which exist or come to
be as a general rule—will also derive from immediate basic premisses.

1324 We have already explained how essential nature is set out in the
terms of a demonstration, (20) and the sense in which it is or is not
demonstrable or definable; so let us now discuss the method to be
adopted in tracing the elements predicated as constituting the definable
form.
 Now of the attributes which inhere always in each several thing there
are some which are wider in extent than it but not wider than its genus
(by attributes of wider extent I mean all such as are universal attributes
of each several subject, (25) but in their application are not confined to
that subject). i. e. while an attribute may inhere in every triad, yet also
in a subject not a triad—as being inheres in triad but also in subjects not
numbers at all—odd on the other hand is an attribute inhering in every
triad and of wider application (inhering as it does also in pentad), but
which does not extend beyond the genus of triad; for pentad is a
number, (30) but nothing outside number is odd. It is such attributes
which we have to select, up to the exact point at which they are
severally of wider extent than the subject but collectively coextensive
with it; for this synthesis must be the substance of the thing. For
example every triad possesses the attributes number, (35) odd, and prime
in both senses, i. e. not only as possessing no divisors, but also as not
being a sum of numbers. This, then, is precisely what triad is, viz. a
number, odd, and prime in the former and also the latter sense of the
term: for these attributes taken severally apply, the first two to all odd
numbers, the last to the dyad also as well as to the triad, but, taken
collectively, to no other subject. [96b] Now since we have shown
above25 that attributes predicated as belonging to the essential nature
are necessary and that universals are necessary, and since the attributes
which we select as inhering in triad, or in any other subject whose
attributes we select in this way, (5) are predicated as belonging to its
essential nature, triad will thus possess these attributes necessarily.
Further, that the synthesis of them constitutes the substance of triad is
shown by the following argument. If it is not identical with the being of
triad, it must be related to triad as a genus named or nameless. It will
then be of wider extent than triad—assuming that wider potential extent
is the character of a genus. (10) If on the other hand this synthesis is
applicable to no subject other than the individual triads, it will be
identical with the being of triad, because we make the further
assumption that the substance of each subject is the predication of
elements in its essential nature down to the last differentia
characterizing the individuals. It follows that any other synthesis thus
exhibited will likewise be identical with the being of the subject. (15)
 The author of a hand-book26 on a subject that is a generic whole
should divide the genus into its first infimae species—number e. g. into
triad and dyad—and then endeavour to seize their definitions by the
method we have described—the definition, for example, of straight line
or circle or right angle. After that, having established what the category
is to which the subaltern genus belongs—quantity or quality, (20) for
instance—he should examine the properties ‘peculiar’ to the species,
working through the proximate common differentiae. He should proceed
thus because the attributes of the genera compounded of the infimae
species will be clearly given by the definitions of the species; since the
basic element of them all27 is the definition, i. e. the simple infima
species, and the attributes inhere essentially in the simple infimae species,
in the genera only in virtue of these.
Divisions according to differentiae are a useful accessory to this
method. (25) What force they have as proofs we did, indeed, explain
above,28 but that merely towards collecting the essential nature they
may be of use we will proceed to show. They might, indeed, seem to be
of no use at all, but rather to assume everything at the start and to be no
better than an initial assumption made without division. But, (30) in fact,
the order in which the attributes are predicated does make a difference
—it matters whether we say animal—tame—biped, or biped—animal—
tame. For if every definable thing consists of two elements and ‘animal-
tame’ forms a unity, and again out of this and the further differentia man
(or whatever else is the unity under construction) is constituted, then the
elements we assume have necessarily been reached by division. Again,
division is the only possible method of avoiding the omission of any
element of the essential nature. (35) Thus, if the primary genus is assumed
and we then take one of the lower divisions, the dividendum will not fall
whole into this division: e. g. it is not all animal which is either whole-
winged or split-winged but all winged animal, for it is winged animal to
which this differentiation belongs. [97a] The primary differentiation of
animal is that within which all animal falls. The like is true of every
other genus, whether outside animal or a subaltern genus of animal; e. g.
the primary differentiation of bird is that within which falls every bird,
of fish that within which falls every fish. So, if we proceed in this way,
we can be sure that nothing has been omitted: by any other method one
is bound to omit something without knowing it. (5)
To define and divide one need not know the whole of existence. Yet
some hold it impossible to know the differentiae distinguishing each
thing from every single other thing without knowing every single other
thing; and one cannot, they say, know each thing without knowing its
differentiae, since everything is identical with that from which it does
not differ, (10) and other than that from which it differs. Now first of all
this is a fallacy: not every differentia precludes identity, since many
differentiae inhere in things specifically identical, though not in the
substance of these nor essentially. Secondly, when one has taken one’s
differing pair of opposites and assumed that the two sides exhaust the
genus, and that the subject one seeks to define is present in one or other
of them, (15) and one has further verified its presence in one of them;
then it does not matter whether or not one knows all the other subjects
of which the differentiae are also predicated. For it is obvious that when
by this process one reaches subjects incapable of further differentiation
one will possess the formula defining the substance. Moreover, to
postulate that the division exhausts the genus is not illegitimate if the
opposites exclude a middle; since if it is the differentia of that genus, (20)
anything contained in the genus must lie on one of the two sides.
In establishing a definition by division one should keep three objects
in view: (1) the admission only of elements in the definable form, (2) the
arrangement of these in the right order, (25) (3) the omission of no such
elements. The first is feasible because one can establish genus and
differentia through the topic of the genus,29 just as one can conclude the
inherence of an accident through the topic of the accident.30 The right
order will be achieved if the right term is assumed as primary, and this
will be ensured if the term selected is predicable of all the others but not
all they of it; since there must be one such term. (30) Having assumed this
we at once proceed in the same way with the lower terms; for our
second term will be the first of the remainder, our third the first of those
which follow the second in a ‘contiguous’ series, since when the higher
term is excluded, that term of the remainder which is ‘contiguous’ to it
will be primary, and so on. Our procedure makes it clear that no
elements in the definable form have been omitted: we have taken the
differentia that comes first in the order of division, (35) pointing out that
animal e. g. is divisible exhaustively into A and B, and that the subject
accepts one of the two as its predicate. Next we have taken the
differentia of the whole thus reached, and shown that the whole we
finally reach is not further divisible—i. e. that as soon as we have taken
the last differentia to form the concrete totality, this totality admits of no
division into species. [97b] For it is clear that there is no superfluous
addition, since all these terms we have selected are elements in the
definable form; and nothing lacking, since any omission would have to
be a genus or a differentia. Now the primary term is a genus, and this
term taken in conjunction with its differentiae is a genus: moreover the
differentiae are all included, because there is now no further differentia;
if there were, (5) the final concrete would admit of division into species,
which, we said, is not the case.
To resume our account of the right method of investigation: We must
start by observing a set of similar—i. e. specifically identical—
individuals, and consider what element they have in common. We must
then apply the same process to another set of individuals which belong
to one species and are generically but not specifically identical with the
former set. When we have established what the common element is in all
members of this second species, (10) and likewise in members of further
species, we should again consider whether the results established possess
any identity, and persevere until we reach a single formula, since this
will be the definition of the thing. But if we reach not one formula but
two or more, evidently the definiendum cannot be one thing but must be
more than one. (15) I may illustrate my meaning as follows. If we were
inquiring what the essential nature of pride is, we should examine
instances of proud men we know of to see what, as such, they have in
common; e. g. if Alcibiades was proud, or Achilles and Ajax were proud,
we should find, on inquiring what they all had in common, that it was
intolerance of insult; it was this which drove Alcibiades to war, Achilles
to wrath, (20) and Ajax to suicide. We should next examine other cases,
Lysander, for example, or Socrates, and then if these have in common
indifference alike to good and ill fortune, I take these two results and
inquire what common element have equanimity amid the vicissitudes of
life and impatience of dishonour. If they have none, there will be two
genera of pride. (25) Besides, every definition is always universal and
commensurate: the physician does not prescribe what is healthy for a
single eye, but for all eyes or for a determinate species of eye. It is also
easier by this method to define the single species than the universal, and
that is why our procedure should be from the several species to the
universal genera—this for the further reason too that equivocation is less
readily detected in genera than in infimae species. (30) Indeed, perspicuity
is essential in definitions, just as inferential movement is the minimum
required in demonstrations; and we shall attain perspicuity if we can
collect separately the definition of each species through the group of
singulars which we have established—e. g. the definition of similarity
not unqualified but restricted to colours and to figures; the definition of
acuteness, (35) but only of sound—and so proceed to the common
universal with a careful avoidance of equivocation. We may add that if
dialectical disputation must not employ metaphors, clearly metaphors
and metaphorical expressions are precluded in definition: otherwise
dialectic would involve metaphors.

14 In order to formulate the connexions we wish to prove we have to

select our analyses and divisions. [98a] The method of selection
consists in laying down the common genus of all our subjects of
investigation—if e. g. they are animals, we lay down what the properties
are which inhere in every animal. These established, we next lay down
the properties essentially connected with the first of the remaining
classes—e. g. if this first subgenus is bird, (5) the essential properties of
every bird—and so on, always characterizing the proximate subgenus.
This will clearly at once enable us to say in virtue of what character the
subgenera—man, e. g., or horse—possess their properties. (10) Let A be
animal, B the properties of every animal, C, D, E, various species of
animal. Then it is clear in virtue of what character B inheres in D—
namely A—and that it inheres in C and E for the same reason: and
throughout the remaining subgenera always the same rule applies.
We are now taking our examples from the traditional class-names, but
we must not confine ourselves to considering these. (15) We must collect
any other common character which we observe, and then consider with
what species it is connected and what properties belong to it. For
example, as the common properties of horned animals we collect the
possession of a third stomach and only one row of teeth. Then since it is
clear in virtue of what character they possess these attributes—namely
their horned character—the next question is, to what species does the
possession of horns attach?
Yet a further method of selection is by analogy: for we cannot find a
single identical name to give to a squid’s pounce, (20) a fish’s spine, and
an animal’s bone, although these too possess common properties as if
there were a single osseous nature.

15 Some connexions that require proof are identical in that they

possess an identical ‘middle’—e. g. a whole group might be proved
through ‘reciprocal replacement’—and of these one class are identical in
genus, (25) namely all those whose difference consists in their concerning
different subjects or in their mode of manifestation. This latter class may
be exemplified by the questions as to the causes respectively of echo, of
reflection, and of the rainbow: the connexions to be proved which these
questions embody are identical generically, because all three are forms
of repercussion; but specifically they are different.
Other connexions that require proof only differ in that the ‘middle’ of
the one is subordinate to the ‘middle’ of the other. (30) For example: Why
does the Nile rise towards the end of the month? Because towards its
close the month is more stormy. Why is the month more stormy towards
its close? Because the moon is waning. Here the one cause is subordinate
to the other.

16 The question might be raised with regard to cause and effect

whether when the effect is present the cause also is present; whether, (35)
for instance, if a plant sheds its leaves or the moon is eclipsed, there is
present also the cause of the eclipse or of the fall of the leaves—the
possession of broad leaves, let us say, in the latter case, in the former the
earth’s interposition. [98b] For, one might argue, if this cause is not
present, these phenomena will have some other cause: if it is present, its
effect will be at once implied by it—the eclipse by the earth’s
interposition, the fall of the leaves by the possession of broad leaves; but
if so, they will be logically coincident and each capable of proof through
the other. Let me illustrate: Let A be deciduous character, (5) B the
possession of broad leaves, C vine. Now if A inheres in B (for every
broad-leaved plant is deciduous), and B in C (every vine possessing
broad leaves); then A inheres in C (every vine is deciduous), and the
middle term B is the cause. (10) But we can also demonstrate that the vine
has broad leaves because it is deciduous. Thus, let D be broad-leaved, E
deciduous, F vine. Then E inheres in F (since every vine is deciduous),
and D in E (for every deciduous plant has broad leaves): therefore every
vine has broad leaves, (15) and the cause is its deciduous character. If,31
however, they cannot each be the cause of the other (for cause is prior to
effect, and the earth’s interposition is the cause of the moon’s eclipse and
not the eclipse of the interposition)—if, then, demonstration through the
cause is of the reasoned fact and demonstration not through the cause is
of the bare fact, (20) one who knows it through the eclipse knows the fact
of the earth’s interposition but not the reasoned fact. Moreover, that the
eclipse is not the cause of the interposition, but the interposition of the
eclipse, is obvious because the interposition is an element in the
definition of eclipse, which shows that the eclipse is known through the
interposition and not vice versa.
On the other hand, can a single effect have more than one cause? One
might argue as follows: if the same attribute is predicable of more than
one thing as its primary subject, (25) let B be a primary subject in which
A inheres, and C another primary subject of A, and D and E primary
subjects of B and C respectively. A will then inhere in D and E, and B
will be the cause of A’s inherence in D, C of A’s inherence in E. The
presence of the cause thus necessitates that of the effect, (30) but the
presence of the effect necessitates the presence not of all that may cause
it but only of a cause which yet need not be the whole cause. We may,
however, suggest32 that if the connexion to be proved is always
universal and commensurate, not only will the cause be a whole but also
the effect will be universal and commensurate. For instance, deciduous
character will belong exclusively to a subject which is a whole, and, if
this whole has species, universally and commensurately to those species
—i. e. either to all species of plant or to a single species. (35) So in these
universal and commensurate connexions the ‘middle’ and its effect must
reciprocate, i. e. be convertible. Supposing, for example, that the reason
why trees are deciduous is the coagulation of sap, then if a tree is
deciduous, coagulation must be present, and if coagulation is present—
not in any subject but in a tree—then that tree must be deciduous.

17 [99a] Can the cause of an identical effect be not identical in

every instance of the effect but different? Or is that impossible? Perhaps
it is impossible if the effect is demonstrated as essential and not as
inhering in virtue of a symptom or an accident—because the middle is
then the definition of the major term—though possible if the
demonstration is not essential. Now it is possible to consider the effect
and its subject as an accidental conjunction, (5) though such conjunctions
would not be regarded as connexions demanding scientific proof. But if
they are accepted as such, the middle will correspond to the extremes,
and be equivocal if they are equivocal, generically one if they are
generically one. Take the question why proportionals alternate. The
cause when they are lines, and when they are numbers, is both different
and identical; different in so far as lines are lines and not numbers, (10)
identical as involving a given determinate increment. In all proportionals
this is so. Again, the cause of likeness between colour and colour is other
than that between figure and figure; for likeness here is equivocal,
meaning perhaps in the latter case equality of the ratios of the sides and
equality of the angles, (15) in the case of colours identity of the act of
perceiving them, or something else of the sort. Again, connexions
requiring proof which are identical by analogy have middles also
analogous.
The truth is that cause, effect, and subject are reciprocally predicable
in the following way. If the species are taken severally, the effect is
wider than the subject (e. g. the possession of external angles equal to
four right angles is an attribute wider than triangle or square), (20) but it
is coextensive with the species taken collectively (in this instance with
all figures whose external angles are equal to four right angles). And the
middle likewise reciprocates, for the middle is a definition of the major;
which is incidentally the reason why all the sciences are built up
through definition.
We may illustrate as follows. Deciduous is a universal attribute of
vine, and is at the same time of wider extent than vine; and of fig, and is
of wider extent than fig: but it is not wider than but co-extensive with
the totality of the species. (25) Then if you take the middle which is
proximate, it is a definition of deciduous. I say that, because you will
first reach a middle33 next the subject,34 and a premiss asserting it of the
whole subject, and after that a middle—the coagulation of sap or
something of the sort—proving the connexion of the first middle with
the major:35 but it is the coagulation of sap at the junction of leaf-stalk
and stem which defines deciduous.36
If an explanation in formal terms of the inter-relation of cause and
effect is demanded, (30) we shall offer the following. Let A be an attribute
of all B, and B of every species of D, but so that both A and B are wider
than their respective subjects. Then B will be a universal attribute of
each species of D (since I call such an attribute universal even if it is not
commensurate, and I call an attribute primary universal if it is
commensurate,37 not with each species severally but with their totality),
and it extends beyond each of them taken separately. Thus, B is the
cause of A’s inherence in the species of D: consequently A must be of
wider extent than B; otherwise why should B be the cause of A’s
inherence in D any more than A the cause of B’s inherence in D? Now if
A is an attribute of all the species of E, (35) all the species of E will be
united by possessing some common cause other than B: otherwise how
shall we be able to say that A is predicable of all of which E is
predicable, while E is not predicable of all of which A can be predicated?
I mean how can there fail to be some special cause of A’s inherence in E,
as there was of A’s inherence in all the species of D? Then are the species
of E, too, united by possessing some common cause? This cause we must
look for. [99b] Let us call it C.38
We conclude, then, that the same effect may have more than one
cause, but not in subjects specifically identical. For instance, (5) the cause
of longevity in quadrupeds is lack of bile, in birds a dry constitution—or
certainly something different.

18 If immediate premisses are not reached at once, and there is not

merely one middle but several middles, i. e. several causes; is the cause
of the property’s inherence in the several species the middle which is
proximate to the primary universal,39 (10) or the middle which is
proximate to the species?40 Clearly the cause is that nearest to each
species severally in which it is manifested, for that is the cause of the
subject’s falling under the universal. To illustrate formally: C is the cause
of B’s inherence in D; hence C is the cause of A’s inherence in D, B of A’s
inherence in C, while the cause of A’s inherence in B is B itself.

19 As regards syllogism and demonstration, (15) the definition of, and

the conditions required to produce each of them, are now clear, and
with that also the definition of, and the conditions required to produce,
demonstrative knowledge, since it is the same as demonstration. As to
the basic premisses, how they become known and what is the developed
state of knowledge of them is made clear by raising some preliminary
problems. (20)
We have already said41 that scientific knowledge through
demonstration is impossible unless a man knows the primary immediate
premisses. But there are questions which might be raised in respect of
the apprehension of these immediate premisses: one might not only ask
whether it is of the same kind as the apprehension of the conclusions,
but also whether there is or is not scientific knowledge of both; or
scientific knowledge of the latter, and of the former a different kind of
knowledge; and, (25) further, whether the developed states of knowledge
are not innate but come to be in us, or are innate but at first unnoticed.
Now it is strange if we possess them from birth; for it means that we
possess apprehensions more accurate than demonstration and fail to
notice them. If on the other hand we acquire them and do not previously
possess them, how could we apprehend and learn without a basis of pre-
existent knowledge? For that is impossible, (30) as we used to find42 in
the case of demonstration. So it emerges that neither can we possess
them from birth, nor can they come to be in us if we are without
knowledge of them to the extent of having no such developed state at
all. Therefore we must possess a capacity of some sort, but not such as to
rank higher in accuracy than these developed states. And this at least is
an obvious characteristic of all animals, for they possess a congenital
discriminative capacity which is called sense-perception. (35) But though
sense-perception is innate in all animals, in some the sense-impression
comes to persist, in others it does not. So animals in which this
persistence does not come to be have either no knowledge at all outside
the act of perceiving, or no knowledge of objects of which no impression
persists; animals in which it does come into being have perception and
can continue to retain the sense-impression in the soul: and when such
persistence is frequently repeated a further distinction at once arises
between those which out of the persistence of such sense-impressions
develop a power of systematizing them and those which do not. [100a]
So out of sense-perception comes to be what we call memory, and out of
frequently repeated memories of the same thing develops experience; for
a number of memories constitute a single experience.43 (5) From
experience again—i. e. from the universal now stabilized in its entirety
within the soul, the one beside the many which is a single identity
within them all—originate the skill of the craftsman and the knowledge
of the man of science, skill in the sphere of coming to be and science in
the sphere of being.
We conclude that these states of knowledge are neither innate in a
determinate form, nor developed from other higher states of knowledge,
(10) but from sense-perception. It is like a rout in battle stopped by first

one man making a stand and then another, until the original formation
has been restored. The soul is so constituted as to be capable of this
process.
Let us now restate the account given already, though with insufficient
clearness. When one of a number of logically indiscriminable particulars
has made a stand, (15) the earliest universal is present in the soul: for
though the act of sense-perception is of the particular, its content is
universal—is man, for example, not the man Callias. [100b] A fresh
stand is made among these rudimentary universals, and the process does
not cease until the indivisible concepts, the true universals, are
established: e. g. such and such a species of animal is a step towards the
genus animal, which by the same process is a step towards a further
generalization.
Thus it is clear that we must get to know the primary premisses by
induction; for the method by which even sense-perception implants
plants the universal is inductive. (5) Now of the thinking states by which
we grasp truth, some are unfailingly true, others admit of error—
opinion, for instance, and calculation, whereas scientific knowing and
intuition are always true: further, no other kind of thought except
intuition is more accurate than scientific knowledge, whereas primary
premisses are more knowable than demonstrations, (10) and all scientific
knowledge is discursive. From these considerations it follows that there
will be no scientific knowledge of the primary premisses, and since
except intuition nothing can be truer than scientific knowledge, it will be
intuition that apprehends the primary premisses—a result which also
follows from the fact that demonstration cannot be the originative
source of demonstration, nor, consequently, scientific knowledge of
scientific knowledge. If, therefore, it is the only other kind of true
thinking except scientific knowing, (15) intuition will be the originative
source of scientific knowledge. And the originative source of science
grasps the original basic premiss, while science as a whole is similarly
related as originative source to the whole body of fact.

1 Cf. 94a 11–14.

2 Cf. 72b 18–25 and 84a 30-b 2.

3 sc. ‘and an indefinite regress occurs’. This argument is a corollary of the proof in 15–26 that if
the proposition predicating A—its definition—of C can be a conclusion, there must be a middle
term, B, and since A, B, and C are reciprocally predicable, B too, as well as A, will be a definition
of C.
4 A reminder of a necessary condition of syllogism. If the definition of syllogism is premised the
conclusion would have to affirm some subject to be of the nature of syllogism.
5 ‘distinct from it’; i. e. in the case of properties, with the definition of which Aristotle is alone
concerned in this chapter. The being of a property consists in its inherence in a substance
through a middle which defines it. Cf. the following chapter.
6 Aristotle speaks of two moments of the definable form as two essential natures. His argument
amounts to this: that if the conclusion contains the whole definition, the question has been
begged in the premisses (cf. ii, ch. 4). Hence syllogism—and even so merely dialectical syllogism
—is only possible if premisses and conclusion each contain a part of the definition.
7 ii, ch. 2.

8 The distinction is that between genuine knowledge of a connexion through its cause and
accidental knowledge of it through a middle not the cause.
9 i. e. that there is no moonlight casting shadows on the earth on a clear night at full moon.

10 ii, ch. 3.

11 Cf., however, ii, ch. 2.

12 i. e. as treated by geometry; that is, as abstracted a materia and treated as a subject. Cf. 81b 25.

13 Cf. 93a 16–27.

14 Presumably a reason for there being a kind of definition other than nominal. The reference is
obviously to 92b 32.
15 Demonstration, like a line, is continuous because its premisses are parts which are
conterminous (as linked by middle terms), and there is a movement from premisses to
conclusion. Definition resembles rather the indivisible simplicity of a point.
16 By this Aristotle appears to mean the material cause; cf. Physics ii, 195a 18, 19, where the
premisses of a syllogism are said to be the material cause of the conclusion.
17 sc. ‘lest you should suppose that (2) could not be a middle’.

18 sc. ‘that (2) can appear as a middle’.

19 Cf. Euclid, Elem. i, Def. x, but Aristotle may be referring to some earlier definition. The proof
here given that the angle in a semicircle is a right angle is not that of Euclid iii. 31; cf. Heath,
Greek Mathematics, i. pp. 339, 340.
20 The reference is to 93a 3 ff., and other passages such as 94a 5 ff., where the middle is shown to
define the major.
21 Cf. Physics vi.

22 i. e. Aristotle has had in this chapter to explain (1) how syllogisms concerning a process of
events can be brought into line with other demonstrations equally derivable from immediate
primary premisses, and (2) in what sense the middle term contains the cause. He has in fact had
(1) to show that in these syllogisms inference must find its primary premiss in the effect, and (2)
to imply that the ‘cause’ which appears as middle when cause and effect are not simultaneous is
a causa cognoscendi and not essendi.
23 i, ch. 3 and An. Pr. ii, cc. 3–5, 8–10.

24 This chapter treats only the definition of substances.

25 i, ch. 4.

26 With the remainder of the chapter compare An. Pr. i, ch. 25, where the treatment covers all
syllogism.
27 sc. genera and species.

28 ii, ch. 5 and An. Pr. i, ch. 31.

29 Cf. Topics iv.

30 Cf. Topics ii.

31 Here begins Aristotle’s answer.

32 Here begins Aristotle’s answer.

33 sc. broad-leaved.

34 Vine, fig, &c.

35 Broad-leaved with deciduous.

36 Aristotle contemplates four terms: (1) deciduous, (2) coagulation, (3) broad-leaved, (4) vine,
fig, &c.
If we get the middle proximate to (1) it is a definition of (1). But in investigating vines, figs,
&c. according to the method of chapter 13, we shall first find a common character of them in
broad-leaved, and, taking this as a middle, we shall prove that vine, fig, &c., qua broad-leaved,
are deciduous. But this proof is not demonstration, because broad-leaved is not a definition of
deciduous. So our next step will be to find a middle—coagulation—mediating the major premiss
of this proof, and demonstrate that broad-leaved plants, qua liable to coagulation, are deciduous.
This is strict demonstration, because coagulation defines deciduous.
37 But cf. i, ch. 4, 73b 21–74a 3.

38 The schema of Aristotle’s argument in this paragraph is:

39 i. e. the property.

40 the subject

41 i, ch. 2.

42 i, ch. 1.

43 Cf. Met. A 980a 28. Met. A I should be compared with this chapter.
 TOPICA

Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge

CONTENTS

BOOK I

INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER
1. Programme of treatise.
2. Uses of treatise.
3. Ideal aimed at.

A. SUBJECTS AND MATERIALS OF DISCUSSIONS

4. Subjects (Problems) and materials (Propositions) classified into four groups according to
nature of Predicable concerned.
5. The four Predicables.
6. How far to be treated separately.
7. Different kinds of sameness.
8. Twofold proof of division of Predicables.
9. The ten Categories and their relation to the Predicables.
10. Dialectical Propositions.
11. Dialectical Problems:—Theses.
12. Dialectical Reasoning distinguished from Induction.

B. THE SUPPLY OF ARGUMENTS

13. Four sources of arguments:—

14. (1) How to secure propositions.
15. (2) How to distinguish ambiguous meanings.
16. (3) How to note differences.
17. (4) How to note resemblances.
18. The special uses of the last three processes.

[Books II–VIII omitted.]

TOPICA

(Topics)
 BOOK I

1 [100a] Our treatise proposes to find a line of inquiry whereby we

shall be able to reason from opinions that are generally accepted about
every problem propounded to us, (18) and also shall ourselves, (20) when
standing up to an argument, avoid saying anything that will obstruct us.
First, then, we must say what reasoning is, and what its varieties are, in
order to grasp dialectical reasoning: for this is the object of our search in
the treatise before us.
Now reasoning is an argument in which, (25) certain things being laid
down, something other than these necessarily comes about through
them. (a) It is a ‘demonstration’, when the premisses from which the
reasoning starts are true and primary, or are such that our knowledge of
them has originally come through premisses which are primary and true:
(b) reasoning, (30) on the other hand, is ‘dialectical’, if it reasons from
opinions that are generally accepted. [100b] Things are ‘true’ and
‘primary’ which are believed on the strength not of anything else but of
themselves: for in regard to the first principles of science it is improper
to ask any further for the why and wherefore of them; (18) each of the
first principles should command belief in and by itself. (20) On the other
hand, those opinions are ‘generally accepted’ which are accepted by
every one or by the majority or by the philosophers—i. e. by all, or by
the majority, or by the most notable and illustrious of them. Again (c),
reasoning is ‘contentious’ if it starts from opinions that seem to be
generally accepted, but are not really such, (25) or again if it merely
seems to reason from opinions that are or seem to be generally accepted.
For not every opinion that seems to be generally accepted actually is
generally accepted. For in none of the opinions which we call generally
accepted is the illusion entirely on the surface, as happens in the case of
the principles of contentious arguments; for the nature of the fallacy in
these is obvious immediately, (30) and as a rule even to persons with little
power of comprehension. [101a] So then, of the contentious
reasonings mentioned, the former really deserves to be called ‘reasoning’
as well, but the other should be called ‘contentious reasoning’, but not
‘reasoning’, since it appears to reason, but does not really do so.
Further (d), besides all the reasonings we have mentioned there are
the mis-reasonings that start from the premisses peculiar to the special
sciences, (5) as happens (for example) in the case of geometry and her
sister sciences. For this form of reasoning appears to differ from the
reasonings mentioned above; the man who draws a false figure reasons
from things that are neither true and primary, nor yet generally
accepted. (10) For he does not fall within the definition; he does not
assume opinions that are received either by every one or by the majority
or by philosophers—that is to say, by all, or by most, or by the most
illustrious of them—but he conducts his reasoning upon assumptions
which, though appropriate to the science in question, are not true; for he
effects his mis-reasoning either by describing the semicircles wrongly or
by drawing certain lines in a way in which they could not be drawn. (15)
The foregoing must stand for an outline survey of the species of
reasoning. In general, in regard both to all that we have already
discussed and to those which we shall discuss later, (20) we may remark
that that amount of distinction between them may serve, because it is
not our purpose to give the exact definition of any of them; we merely
want to describe them in outline; we consider it quite enough from the
point of view of the line of inquiry before us to be able to recognize each
of them in some sort of way.

2 Next in order after the foregoing, we must say for how many and for
what purposes the treatise is useful. (25) They are three—intellectual
training, casual encounters, and the philosophical sciences. That it is
useful as a training is obvious on the face of it. The possession of a plan
of inquiry will enable us more easily to argue about the subject
proposed. (30) For purposes of casual encounters, it is useful because
when we have counted up the opinions held by most people, we shall
meet them on the ground not of other people’s convictions but of their
own, while we shift the ground of any argument that they appear to us
to state unsoundly. For the study of the philosophical sciences it is
useful, because the ability to raise searching difficulties on both sides of
a subject will make us detect more easily the truth and error about the
several points that arise. (35) It has a further use in relation to the
ultimate bases of the principles used in the several sciences. For it is
impossible to discuss them at all from the principles proper to the
particular science in hand, seeing that the principles are the prius of
everything else: it is through the opinions generally held on the
particular points that these have to be discussed, and this task belongs
properly, or most appropriately, to dialectic: for dialectic is a process of
criticism wherein lies the path to the principles of all inquiries. [101b]

3 We shall be in perfect possession of the way to proceed when we

are in a position like that which we occupy in regard to rhetoric and
medicine and faculties of that kind: this means the doing of that which
we choose with the materials that are available. (5) For it is not every
method that the rhetorician will employ to persuade, or the doctor to
heal: still, if he omits none of the available means, (10) we shall say that
his grasp of the science is adequate.

4 First, then, we must see of what parts our inquiry consists. Now if
we were to grasp (a) with reference to how many, and what kind of,
things arguments take place, and with what materials they start, and (b)
how we are to become well supplied with these, we should have
sufficiently won our goal. Now the materials with which arguments start
are equal in number, and are identical, (15) with the subjects on which
reasonings take place. For arguments start with ‘propositions’, while the
subjects on which reasonings take place are ‘problems’. Now every
proposition and every problem indicates either a genus or a peculiarity
or an accident—for the differentia too, applying as it does to a class (or
genus), should be ranked together with the genus. Since, however, of
what is peculiar to anything part signifies its essence, (20) while part does
not, let us divide the ‘peculiar’ into both the aforesaid parts, and call
that part which indicates the essence a ‘definition’, while of the
remainder let us adopt the terminology which is generally current about
these things, and speak of it as a ‘property’. What we have said, then,
makes it clear that according to our present division, the elements turn
out to be four, all told, (25) namely either property or definition or genus
or accident. Do not let any one suppose us to mean that each of these
enunciated by itself constitutes a proposition or problem, but only that it
is from these that both problems and propositions are formed. The
difference between a problem and a proposition is a difference in the
turn of the phrase. (30) For if it be put in this way, ‘ “An animal that
walks on two feet” is the definition of man, is it not?’ or ‘ “Animal” is the
genus of man, is it not?’ the result is a proposition: but if thus, ‘Is “an
animal that walks on two feet” a definition of man or no?’ [or ‘Is
“animal” his genus or no?’] the result is a problem. Similarly too in other
cases. Naturally, then, problems and propositions are equal in number:
for out of every proposition you will make a problem if you change the
turn of the phrase. (35)

5 We must now say what are ‘definition’, ‘property’, ‘genus’, and

‘accident’. A ‘definition’ is a phrase signifying a thing’s essence. It is
rendered in the form either of a phrase in lieu of a term, or of a phrase
in lieu of another phrase; for it is sometimes possible to define the
meaning of a phrase as well. [102a] People whose rendering consists
of a term only, try it as they may, clearly do not render the definition of
the thing in question, because a definition is always a phrase of a certain
kind. One may, however, use the word ‘definitory’ also of such a remark
as ‘The “becoming” is “beautiful”,’ (5) and likewise also of the question,
‘Are sensation and knowledge the same or different?’, for argument
about definitions is mostly concerned with questions of sameness and
difference. In a word we may call ‘definitory’ everything that falls under
the same branch of inquiry as definitions; and that all the above-
mentioned examples are of this character is clear on the face of them. (10)
For if we are able to argue that two things are the same or are different,
we shall be well supplied by the same turn of argument with lines of
attack upon their definitions as well: for when we have shown that they
are not the same we shall have demolished the definition. Observe,
please, that the converse of this last statement does not hold: for to show
that they are the same is not enough to establish a definition. (15) To
show, however, that they are not the same is enough of itself to
overthrow it.
A ‘property’ is a predicate which does not indicate the essence of a
thing, but yet belongs to that thing alone, and is predicated convertibly
of it. Thus it is a property of man to be capable of learning grammar: for
if A be a man, then he is capable of learning grammar, (20) and if he be
capable of learning grammar, he is a man. For no one calls anything a
‘property’ which may possibly belong to something else, e. g. ‘sleep’ in
the case of man, even though at a certain time it may happen to belong
to him alone. That is to say, if any such thing were actually to be called
a property, it will be called not a ‘property’ absolutely, (25) but a
‘temporary’ or a ‘relative’ property: for ‘being on the right hand side’ is a
temporary property, while ‘two-footed’ is in point of fact ascribed as a
property in certain relations; e. g. it is a property of man relatively to a
horse and a dog. That nothing which may belong to anything else than A
is a convertible predicate of A is clear: for it does not necessarily follow
that if something is asleep it is a man. (30)
A ‘genus’ is what is predicated in the category of essence of a number
of things exhibiting differences in kind. We should treat as predicates in
the category of essence all such things as it would be appropriate to
mention in reply to the question, ‘What is the object before you?’; as, (35)
for example, in the case of man, if asked that question, it is appropriate
to say ‘He is an animal’. The question, ‘Is one thing in the same genus as
another or in a different one?’ is also a ‘generic’ question; for a question
of that kind as well falls under the same branch of inquiry as the genus:
for having argued that ‘animal’ is the genus of man, and likewise also of
ox, we shall have argued that they are in the same genus; whereas if we
show that it is the genus of the one but not of the other, we shall have
argued that these things are not in the same genus. [102b]
An ‘accident’ is (1) something which, though it is none of the
foregoing—i. e. neither a definition nor a property nor a genus—yet
belongs to the thing: (5) (2) something which may possibly either belong
or not belong to any one and the self-same thing, as (e. g.) the ‘sitting
posture’ may belong or not belong to some self-same thing. Likewise also
‘whiteness’, for there is nothing to prevent the same thing being at one
time white, and at another not white. (10) Of the definitions of accident
the second is the better: for if he adopts the first, any one is bound, if he
is to understand it, to know already what ‘definition’ and ‘genus’ and
‘property’ are, whereas the second is sufficient of itself to tell us the
essential meaning of the term in question. (15) To Accident are to be
attached also all comparisons of things together, when expressed in
language that is drawn in any kind of way from what happens (accidit)
to be true of them; such as, for example, the question, ‘Is the honourable
or the expedient preferable?’ and ‘Is the life of virtue or the life of self-
indulgence the pleasanter?’, and any other problem which may happen
to be phrased in terms like these. For in all such cases the question is ‘to
which of the two does the predicate in question happen (accidit) to
belong more closely?’ It is clear on the face of it that there is nothing to
prevent an accident from becoming a temporary or a relative property.
(20) Thus the sitting posture is an accident, but will be a temporary

property, whenever a man is the only person sitting, while if he be not

the only one sitting, it is still a property relatively to those who are not
sitting. (25) So then, there is nothing to prevent an accident from
becoming both a relative and a temporary property; but a property
absolutely it will never be.

6 We must not fail to observe that all remarks made in criticism of a

‘property’ and ‘genus’ and ‘accident’ will be applicable to ‘definitions’ as
well. For when we have shown that the attribute in question fails to
belong only to the term defined, as we do also in the case of a property,
(30) or that the genus rendered in the definition is not the true genus, or

that any of the things mentioned in the phrase used does not belong, as
would be remarked also in the case of an accident, we shall have
demolished the definition; so that, to use the phrase previously
employed,1 all the points we have enumerated might in a certain sense
be called ‘definitory’. But we must not on this account expect to find a
single line of inquiry which will apply universally to them all: for this is
not an easy thing to find, (35) and, even were one found, it would be very
obscure indeed, and of little service for the treatise before us. Rather, a
special plan of inquiry must be laid down for each of the classes we have
distinguished, and then, starting from the rules that are appropriate in
each case, it will probably be easier to make our way right through the
task before us. [103a] So then, as was said before,2 we must outline a
division of our subject, and other questions we must relegate each to the
particular branch to which it most naturally belongs, speaking of them
as ‘definitory’ and ‘generic’ questions. The questions I mean have
practically been already assigned to their several branches. (5)

7 First of all we must define the number of senses borne by the term
‘Sameness’. Sameness would be generally regarded as falling, roughly
speaking, into three divisions. We generally apply the term numerically
or specifically or generically—numerically in cases where there is more
than one name but only one thing, (10) e. g. ‘doublet’ and ‘cloak’;
specifically, where there is more than one thing, but they present no
differences in respect of their species, as one man and another, or one
horse and another: for things like this that fall under the same species
are said to be ‘specifically the same’. Similarly, too, those things are
called generically the same which fall under the same genus, such as a
horse and a man. It might appear that the sense in which water from the
same spring is called ‘the same water’ is somehow different and unlike
the senses mentioned above: but really such a case as this ought to be
ranked in the same class with the things that in one way or another are
called ‘the same’ in view of unity of species. (15) For all such things seem
to be of one family and to resemble one another. For the reason why all
water is said to be specifically the same as all other water is because of a
certain likeness it bears to it, (20) and the only difference in the case of
water drawn from the same spring is this, that the likeness is more
emphatic: that is why we do not distinguish it from the things that in
one way or another are called ‘the same’ in view of unity of species. It is
generally supposed that the term ‘the same’ is most used in a sense
agreed on by every one when applied to what is numerically one. (25) But
even so, it is apt to be rendered in more than one sense; its most literal
and primary use is found whenever the sameness is rendered in
reference to an alternative name or definition, as when a cloak is said to
be the same as a doublet, or an animal that walks on two feet is said to
be the same as a man: a second sense is when it is rendered in reference
to a property, as when what can acquire knowledge is called the same as
a man, and what naturally travels upward the same as fire: while a third
use is found when it is rendered in reference to some term drawn from
Accident, (30) as when the creature who is sitting, or who is musical, is
called the same as Socrates. For all these uses mean to signify numerical
unity. That what I have just said is true may be best seen where one
form of appellation is substituted for another. For often when we give
the order to call one of the people who are sitting down, indicating him
by name, we change our description, (35) whenever the person to whom
we give the order happens not to understand us; he will, we think,
understand better from some accidental feature; so we bid him call to us
‘the man who is sitting’ or ‘who is conversing over there’—clearly
supposing ourselves to be indicating the same object by its name and by
its accident.

8 [103b] Of ‘sameness’ then, as has been said,3 three senses are to

be distinguished. Now one way to confirm that the elements mentioned
above are those out of which and through which and to which
arguments proceed, is by induction: for if any one were to survey
propositions and problems one by one, it would be seen that each was
formed either from the definition of something or from its property or
from its genus or from its accident. (5) Another way to confirm it is
through reasoning. For every predicate of a subject must of necessity be
either convertible with its subject or not: and if it is convertible, it would
be its definition or property, for if it signifies the essence, (10) it is the
definition; if not, it is a property: for this was4 what a property is, viz.
what is predicated convertibly, but does not signify the essence. If, on
the other hand, it is not predicated convertibly of the thing, it either is
or is not one of the terms contained in the definition of the subject: and
if it be one of those terms, then it will be the genus or the differentia,
inasmuch as the definition consists of genus and differentiae; whereas,
(15) if it be not one of those terms, clearly it would be an accident, for

accident was said5 to be what belongs as an attribute to a subject

without being either its definition or its genus or a property.

9 Next, then, we must distinguish between the classes of predicates in

which the four orders in question are found. (20) These are ten in number:
Essence, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Place, Time, Position, State,
Activity, Passivity. For the accident and genus and property and
definition of anything will always be in one of these categories: for all
the propositions found through these signify either something’s essence
or its quality or quantity or some one of the other types of predicate. (25)
It is clear, too, on the face of it that the man who signifies something’s
essence signifies sometimes a substance, sometimes a quality, sometimes
some one of the other types of predicate. For when a man is set before
him and he says that what is set there is ‘a man’ or ‘an animal’, (30) he
states its essence and signifies a substance; but when a white colour is
set before him and he says that what is set there is ‘white’ or is ‘a
colour’, he states its essence and signifies a quality. Likewise, also, if a
magnitude of a cubit be set before him and he says that what is set there
is a magnitude of a cubit, he will be describing its essence and signifying
a quantity. Likewise, also, (35) in the other cases: for each of these kinds
of predicate, if either it be asserted of itself, or its genus be asserted of it,
signifies an essence: if, on the other hand, one kind of predicate is
asserted of another kind, it does not signify an essence, but a quantity or
a quality or one of the other kinds of predicate. Such, then, and so many,
are the subjects on which arguments take place, and the materials with
which they start. [104a] How we are to acquire them, and by what
means we are to become well supplied with them, falls next to be told.

10 First, then, a definition must be given of a ‘dialectical proposition’

and a ‘dialectical problem’. For it is not every proposition nor yet every
problem that is to be set down as dialectical: for no one in his senses
would make a proposition of what no one holds, (5) nor yet make a
problem of what is obvious to everybody or to most people: for the latter
admits of no doubt, while to the former no one would assent. Now a
dialectical proposition consists in asking something that is held by all
men or by most men or by the philosophers, i. e. either by all, or by
most, or by the most notable of these, (10) provided it be not contrary to
the general opinion; for a man would probably assent to the view of the
philosophers, if it be not contrary to the opinions of most men.
Dialectical propositions also include views which are like those generally
accepted; also propositions which contradict the contraries of opinions
that are taken to be generally accepted, (15) and also all opinions that are
in accordance with the recognized arts. Thus, supposing it to be a
general opinion that the knowledge of contraries is the same, it might
probably pass for a general opinion also that the perception of contraries
is the same: also, supposing it to be a general opinion that there is but
one single science of grammar, it might pass for a general opinion that
there is but one science of flute-playing as well, whereas, if it be a
general opinion that there is more than one science of grammar, it might
pass for a general opinion that there is more than one science of flute-
playing as well: for all these seem to be alike and akin. (20) Likewise,
also, propositions contradicting the contraries of general opinions will
pass as general opinions: for if it be a general opinion that one ought to
do good to one’s friends, it will also be a general opinion that one ought
not to do them harm. Here, that one ought to do harm to one’s friends is
contrary to the general view, and that one ought not to do them harm is
the contradictory of that contrary. (25) Likewise also, if one ought to do
good to one’s friends, one ought not to do good to one’s enemies: this
too is the contradictory of the view contrary to the general view; the
contrary being that one ought to do good to one’s enemies. Likewise,
also, in other cases. Also, on comparison, it will look like a general
opinion that the contrary predicate belongs to the contrary subject: e. g.
if one ought to do good to one’s friends, (30) one ought also to do evil to
one’s enemies. It might appear also as if doing good to one’s friends were
a contrary to doing evil to one’s enemies: but whether this is or is not so
in reality as well will be stated in the course of the discussion upon
contraries.6 Clearly also, all opinions that are in accordance with the arts
are dialectical propositions; for people are likely to assent to the views
held by those who have made a study of these things, (35) e. g. on a
question of medicine they will agree with the doctor, and on a question
of geometry with the geometrician; and likewise also in other cases.

11 [104b] A dialectical problem is a subject of inquiry that

contributes either to choice and avoidance, or to truth and knowledge,
and that either by itself, or as a help to the solution of some other such
problem. It must, moreover, be something on which either people hold
no opinion either way, or the masses hold a contrary opinion to the
philosophers, or the philosophers to the masses, or each of them among
themselves. (5) For some problems it is useful to know with a view to
choice or avoidance, e. g. whether pleasure is to be chosen or not, while
some it is useful to know merely with a view to knowledge, e. g.
whether the universe is eternal or not: others, again, are not useful in
and by themselves for either of these purposes, but yet help us in regard
to some such problems; for there are many things which we do not wish
to know in and by themselves, (10) but for the sake of other things, in
order that through them we may come to know something else.
Problems also include questions in regard to which reasonings conflict
(the difficulty then being whether so-and-so is so or not, there being
convincing arguments for both views); others also in regard to which we
have no argument because they are so vast, (15) and we find it difficult to
give our reasons, e. g. the question whether the universe is eternal or no:
for into questions of that kind too it is possible to inquire.
Problems, then, and propositions are to be defined as aforesaid.7 A
‘thesis’ is a supposition of some eminent philosopher that conflicts with
the general opinion; e. g. the view that contradiction is impossible, (20) as
Antisthenes said; or the view of Heraclitus that all things are in motion;
or that Being is one, as Melissus says: for to take notice when any
ordinary person expresses views contrary to men’s usual opinions would
be silly. Or it may be a view about which we have a reasoned theory
contrary to men’s usual opinions, e. g. the view maintained by the
sophists that what is need not in every case either have come to be or be
eternal: for a musician who is a grammarian ‘is’ so without ever having
‘come to be’ so, (25) or being so eternally. For even if a man does not
accept this view, he might do so on the ground that it is reasonable.
Now a ‘thesis’ also is a problem, though a problem is not always a
thesis, inasmuch as some problems are such that we have no opinion
about them either way. (30) That a thesis, however, also forms a problem,
is clear: for it follows of necessity from what has been said that either
the mass of men disagree with the philosophers about the thesis, or that
the one or the other class disagree among themselves, seeing that the
thesis is a supposition in conflict with general opinion. Practically all
dialectical problems indeed are now called ‘theses’. (35) But it should
make no difference whichever description is used; for our object in thus
distinguishing them has not been to create a terminology, but to
recognize what differences happen to be found between them. [105a]
Not every problem, nor every thesis, should be examined, but only one
which might puzzle one of those who need argument, (5) not punishment
or perception. For people who are puzzled to know whether one ought
to honour the gods and love one’s parents or not need punishment, while
those who are puzzled to know whether snow is white or not need
perception. The subjects should not border too closely upon the sphere
of demonstration, nor yet be too far removed from it: for the former
cases admit of no doubt, while the latter involve difficulties too great for
the art of the trainer.

12 Having drawn these definitions, (10) we must distinguish how

many species there are of dialectical arguments. There is on the one
hand Induction, on the other Reasoning. Now what reasoning is has been
said before:8 induction is a passage from individuals to universals, e. g.
the argument that supposing the skilled pilot is the most effective, (15)
and likewise the skilled charioteer, then in general the skilled man is the
best at his particular task. Induction is the more convincing and clear: it
is more readily learnt by the use of the senses, and is applicable
generally to the mass of men, though Reasoning is more forcible and
effective against contradictious people.

13 The classes, (20) then, of things about which, and of things out of
which, arguments are constructed, are to be distinguished in the way we
have said before. The means whereby we are to become well supplied
with reasonings are four: (1) the securing of propositions; (2) the power
to distinguish in how many senses a particular expression is used; (3) the
discovery of the differences of things; (4) the investigation of likeness.
(25) The last three, as well, are in a certain sense propositions: for it is

possible to make a proposition corresponding to each of them, e. g. (1)

‘The desirable may mean either the honourable or the pleasant or the
expedient’; and (2) ‘Sensation differs from knowledge in that the latter
may be recovered again after it has been lost, (30) while the former
cannot’; and (3) ‘The relation of the healthy to health is like that of the
vigorous to vigour’. The first proposition depends upon the use of one
term in several senses, the second upon the differences of things, the
third upon their likenesses.
14 Propositions should be selected in a number of ways corresponding
to the number of distinctions drawn in regard to the proposition: thus
one may first take in hand the opinions held by all or by most men or by
the philosophers, (35) i. e. by all, or most, or the most notable of them; or
opinions contrary to those that seem to be generally held; and, again, all
opinions that are in accordance with the arts. [105b] We must make
propositions also of the contradictories of opinions contrary to those that
seem to be generally held, as was laid down before. It is useful also to
make them by selecting not only those opinions that actually are
accepted, but also those that are like these, (5) e. g. ‘The perception of
contraries is the same’—the knowledge of them being so—and ‘we see
by admission of something into ourselves, not by an emission’; for so it
is, too, in the case of the other senses; for in hearing we admit something
into ourselves; we do not emit; and we taste in the same way. Likewise
also in the other cases. Moreover, all statements that seem to be true in
all or in most cases, (10) should be taken as a principle or accepted
position; for they are posited by those who do not also see what
exception there may be. We should select also from the written
handbooks of argument, and should draw up sketchlists of them upon
each several kind of subject, putting them down under separate
headings, e. g. ‘On Good’, or ‘On Life’—and that ‘On Good’ should deal
with every form of good, (15) beginning with the category of essence. In
the margin, too, one should indicate also the opinions of individual
thinkers, e. g. ‘Empedocles said that the elements of bodies were four’:
for any one might assent to the saying of some generally accepted
authority.
Of propositions and problems there are—to comprehend the matter in
outline—three divisions: for some are ethical propositions, (20) some are
on natural philosophy, while some are logical. Propositions such as the
following are ethical, e. g. ‘Ought one rather to obey one’s parents or the
laws, if they disagree?’; such as this are logical, e. g. ‘Is the knowledge of
opposites the same or not?’; while such as this are on natural
philosophy, e. g. ‘Is the universe eternal or not?’ Likewise also with
problems. (25) The nature of each of the aforesaid kinds of proposition is
not easily rendered in a definition, but we have to try to recognize each
of them by means of the familiarity attained through induction,
examining them in the light of the illustrations given above.
For purposes of philosophy we must treat of these things according to
their truth, (30) but for dialectic only with an eye to general opinion. All
propositions should be taken in their most universal form; then, the one
should be made into many. e. g. ‘The knowledge of opposites is the
same’; next, ‘The knowledge of contraries is the same’, and that ‘of
relative terms’. In the same way these two should again be divided, as
long as division is possible, (35) e. g. the knowledge of ‘good and evil’, of
‘white and black’, or ‘cold and hot’. Likewise also in other cases.

15 [106a] On the formation, then, of propositions, the above

remarks are enough. As regards the number of senses a term bears, we
must not only treat of those terms which bear different senses, but we
must also try to render their definitions; e. g. (5) we must not merely say
that justice and courage are called ‘good’ in one sense, and that what
conduces to vigour and what conduces to health are called so in another,
but also that the former are so called because of a certain intrinsic
quality they themselves have, the latter because they are productive of a
certain result and not because of any intrinsic quality in themselves.
Similarly also in other cases.
Whether a term bears a number of specific meanings or one only, (10)
may be considered by the following means. First, look and see if its
contrary bears a number of meanings, whether the discrepancy between
them be one of kind or one of names. For in some cases a difference is at
once displayed even in the names; e. g. the contrary of ‘sharp’ in the case
of a note is ‘flat’, while in the case of a solid edge it is ‘dull’. Clearly,
then, the contrary of ‘sharp’ bears several meanings, (15) and if so, so also
does ‘sharp’; for corresponding to each of the former terms the meaning
of its contrary will be different. For ‘sharp’ will not be the same when
contrary to ‘dull’ and to ‘flat’, though ‘sharp’ is the contrary of each.
Again baru (‘flat’, ‘heavy’) in the case of a note has ‘sharp’ as its
contrary, but in the case of a solid mass ‘light’, so that baru is used with
a number of meanings, (20) inasmuch as its contrary also is so used.
Likewise, also, ‘fine’ as applied to a picture has ‘ugly’ as its contrary, but,
as applied to a house, ‘ramshackle’; so that ‘fine’ is an ambiguous term.
In some cases there is no discrepancy of any sort in the names used,
but a difference of kind between the meanings is at once obvious: e. g. in
the case of ‘clear’ and ‘obscure’: for sound is called ‘clear’ and ‘obscure’,
(25) just as ‘colour’ is too. As regards the names, then, there is no

discrepancy, but the difference in kind between the meanings is at once

obvious: for colour is not called ‘clear’ in a like sense to sound. This is
plain also through sensation: for of things that are the same in kind we
have the same sensation, (30) whereas we do not judge clearness by the
same sensation in the case of sound and of colour, but in the latter case
we judge by sight, in the former by hearing. Likewise also with ‘sharp’
and ‘dull’ in regard to flavours and solid edges: here in the latter case we
judge by touch, but in the former by taste. For here again there is no
discrepancy in the names used, (35) in the case either of the original
terms or of their contraries: for the contrary also of sharp in either sense
is ‘dull’.
Moreover, see if one sense of a term has a contrary, while another has
absolutely none; e. g. the pleasure of drinking has a contrary in the pain
of thirst, whereas the pleasure of seeing that the diagonal is
incommensurate with the side has none, so that ‘pleasure’ is used in
more than one sense. [106b] To ‘love’ also, used of the frame of mind,
has to ‘hate’ as its contrary, while as used of the physical activity
(kissing) it has none: clearly, therefore, to ‘love’ is an ambiguous term.
Further, see in regard to their intermediates, if some meanings and their
contraries have an intermediate, while others have none, or if both have
one but not the same one, (5) as e. g. ‘clear’ and ‘obscure’ in the case of
colours have ‘grey’ as an intermediate, whereas in the case of sound they
have none, or, if they have, it is ‘harsh’, as some people say that a harsh
sound is intermediate. ‘Clear’, then, is an ambiguous term, and likewise
also ‘obscure’. See, moreover, if some of them have more than one
intermediate, (10) while others have but one, as is the case with ‘clear’
and ‘obscure’, for in the case of colours there are numbers of
intermediates, whereas in regard to sound there is but one, viz. ‘harsh’.
Again, in the case of the contradictory opposite, look and see if it
bears more than one meaning. For if this bears more than one meaning,
then the opposite of it also will be used in more than one meaning; (15)
e. g. ‘to fail to see’ is a phrase with more than one meaning, viz. (1) to
fail to possess the power of sight, (2) to fail to put that power to active
use. But if this has more than one meaning, it follows necessarily that ‘to
see’ also has more than one meaning: for there will be an opposite to
each sense of ‘to fail to see’; e. g. the opposite of ‘not to possess the
power of sight’ is to possess it, while of ‘not to put the power of sight to
active use’, the opposite is to put it to active use. (20)
Moreover, examine the case of terms that denote the privation or
presence of a certain state: for if the one term bears more than one
meaning, then so will the remaining term: e. g. if ‘to have sense’ be used
with more than one meaning, as applied to the soul and to the body,
then ‘to be wanting in sense’ too will be used with more than one
meaning, as applied to the soul and to the body. (25) That the opposition
between the terms now in question depends upon the privation or
presence of a certain state is clear, since animals naturally possess each
kind of ‘sense’, both as applied to the soul and as applied to the body.
Moreover, examine the inflected forms. For if ‘justly’ has more than
one meaning, then ‘just’, also, will be used with more than one meaning;
for there will be a meaning of ‘just’ corresponding to each of the
meanings of ‘justly’; e. g. if the word ‘justly’ be used of judging according
to one’s own opinion, (30) and also of judging as one ought, then ‘just’
also will be used in like manner. In the same way also, if ‘healthy’ has
more than one meaning, then ‘healthily’ also will be used with more
than one meaning: (35) e. g. if ‘healthy’ describes both what produces
health and what preserves health and what betokens health, then
‘healthily’ also will be used to mean ‘in such a way as to produce’ or
‘preserve’ or ‘betoken’ health. Likewise also in other cases, whenever the
original term bears more than one meaning, the inflexion also that is
formed from it will be used with more than one meaning, and vice versa.
[107a]
Look also at the classes of the predicates signified by the term, and see
if they are the same in all cases. For if they are not the same, (5) then
clearly the term is ambiguous: e. g. ‘good’ in the case of food means
‘productive of pleasure’, and in the case of medicine ‘productive of
health’, whereas as applied to the soul it means to be of a certain
quality, e. g. temperate or courageous or just: and likewise also, as
applied to ‘man’. Sometimes it signifies what happens at a certain time,
as (e. g.) the good that happens at the right time: for what happens at
the right time is called good. (10) Often it signifies what is of a certain
quantity, e. g. as applied to the proper amount: for the proper amount
too is called good. So then the term ‘good’ is ambiguous. In the same
way also ‘clear’, as applied to a body, signifies a colour, but in regard to
a note it denotes what is ‘easy to hear’. ‘Sharp’, too, is in a closely
similar case: for the same term does not bear the same meaning in all its
applications: for a sharp note is a swift note, (15) as the mathematical
theorists of harmony tell us, whereas a sharp (acute) angle is one that is
less than a right angle, while a sharp dagger is one containing a sharp
angle (point).
Look also at the genera of the objects denoted by the same term, and
see if they are different without being subaltern, as (e. g.) ‘donkey’,
which denotes both the animal and the engine. (20) For the definition of
them that corresponds to the name is different: for the one will be
declared to be an animal of a certain kind, and the other to be an engine
of a certain kind. If, however, the genera be subaltern, there is no
necessity for the definitions to be different. Thus (e. g.) ‘animal’ is the
genus of ‘raven’, and so is ‘bird’. Whenever therefore we say that the
raven is a bird, we also say that it is a certain kind of animal, (25) so that
both the genera are predicated of it. Likewise also whenever we call the
raven a ‘flying biped animal’, we declare it to be a bird: in this way,
then, as well, both the genera are predicated of raven, and also their
definition. But in the case of genera that are not subaltern this does not
happen, for whenever we call a thing an ‘engine’, (30) we do not call it an
animal, nor vice versa.
Look also and see not only if the genera of the term before you are
different without being subaltern, but also in the case of its contrary: for
if its contrary bears several senses, (35) clearly the term before you does
so as well.
It is useful also to look at the definition that arises from the use of the
term in combination, e. g. of a ‘clear (lit. white) body’ and of a ‘clear
note’. For then if what is peculiar in each case be abstracted, the same
expression ought to remain over. This does not happen in the case of
ambiguous terms, e. g. in the cases just mentioned. [107b] For the
former will be ‘a body possessing such and such a colour’, while the
latter will be ‘a note easy to hear’. Abstract, then, ‘a body’ and ‘a note’,
and the remainder in each case is not the same. It should, however, have
been had the meaning of ‘clear’ in each case been synonymous. (5)
Often in the actual definitions as well ambiguity creeps in unawares,
and for this reason the definitions also should be examined. If (e. g.) any
one describes what betokens and what produces health as ‘related
commensurably to health’, we must not desist but go on to examine in
what sense he has used the term ‘commensurably’ in each case, (10) e. g.
if in the latter case it means that ‘it is of the right amount to produce
health’, whereas in the former it means that ‘it is such as to betoken
what kind of state prevails’.
Moreover, see if the terms cannot be compared as ‘more or less’ or as
‘in like manner’, as is the case (e. g.) with a ‘clear’ (lit. white) sound and
a ‘clear’ garment, and a ‘sharp’ flavour and a ‘sharp’ note. (15) For neither
are these things said to be clear or sharp ‘in a like degree’, nor yet is the
one said to be clearer or sharper than the other. ‘Clear’, then, and ‘sharp’
are ambiguous. For synonyms are always comparable; for they will
always be used either in like manner, or else in a greater degree in one
case.
Now since of genera that are different without being subaltern the
differentiae also are different in kind, (20) e. g. those of ‘animal’ and
‘knowledge’ (for the differentiae of these are different), look and see if
the meanings comprised under the same term are differentiae of genera
that are different without being subaltern, as e. g. ‘sharp’ is of a ‘note’
and a ‘solid’. For being ‘sharp’ differentiates note from note, and likewise
also one solid from another. ‘Sharp’, then, is an ambiguous term: for it
forms differentiae of genera that are different without being subaltern.
(25)

Again, see if the actual meanings included under the same term
themselves have different differentiae, e. g. ‘colour’ in bodies and
‘colour’ in tunes: for the differentiae of ‘colour’ in bodies are
‘sightpiercing’ and ‘sight-compressing’, (30) whereas ‘colour’ in melodies
has not the same differentiae. Colour, then, is an ambiguous term; for
things that are the same have the same differentiae.
Moreover, since the species is never the differentia of anything, look
and see if one of the meanings included under the same term be a
species and another a differentia, as (e. g.) ‘clear’ (lit. (35) white) as
applied to a body is a species of colour, whereas in the case of a note it
is a differentia; for one note is differentiated from another by being
‘clear’.

16 The presence, then, of a number of meanings in a term may be

investigated by these and like means. [108a] The differences which
things present to each other should be examined within the same genera,
e. g. ‘Wherein does justice differ from courage, and wisdom from
temperance?’—for all these belong to the same genus; and also from one
genus to another, provided they be not very much too far apart, e. g.
‘Wherein does sensation differ from knowledge?’: for in the case of
genera that are very far apart, (5) the differences are entirely obvious.

17 Likeness should be studied, first, in the case of things belonging to

different genera, the formulae being ‘A : B = C : D’ (e. g. as knowledge
stands to the object of knowledge, so is sensation related to the object of
sensation), and ‘As A is in B, so is C in D’ (e. g. as sight is in the eye, (10)
so is reason in the soul, and as is a calm in the sea, so is windlessness in
the air). Practice is more especially needed in regard to terms that are
far apart; for in the case of the rest, we shall be more easily able to see
in one glance the points of likeness. We should also look at things which
belong to the same genus, (15) to see if any identical attribute belongs to
them all, e. g. to a man and a horse and a dog; for in so far as they have
any identical attribute, in so far they are alike.

18 It is useful to have examined the number of meanings of a term

both for clearness’ sake (for a man is more likely to know what it is he
asserts, if it has been made clear to him how many meanings it may
have), (20) and also with a view to ensuring that our reasonings shall be
in accordance with the actual facts and not addressed merely to the term
used. For as long as it is not clear in how many senses a term is used, it
is possible that the answerer and the questioner are not directing their
minds upon the same thing: whereas when once it has been made clear
how many meanings there are, and also upon which of them the former
directs his mind when he makes his assertion, (25) the questioner would
then look ridiculous if he failed to address his argument to this. It helps
us also both to avoid being misled and to mislead by false reasoning: for
if we know the number of meanings of a term, we shall certainly never
be misled by false reasoning, but shall know if the questioner fails to
address his argument to the same point; and when we ourselves put the
questions we shall be able to mislead him, if our answerer happens not
to know the number of meanings of our terms. (30) This, however, is not
possible in all cases, but only when of the many senses some are true
and others are false. This manner of argument, however, does not belong
properly to dialectic; dialecticians should therefore by all means beware
of this kind of verbal discussion, unless any one is absolutely unable to
discuss the subject before him in any other way. (35)
The discovery of the differences of things helps us both in reasonings
about sameness and difference, and also in recognizing what any
particular thing is. [108b] That it helps us in reasoning about sameness
and difference is clear: for when we have discovered a difference of any
kind whatever between the objects before us, we shall already have
shown that they are not the same: while it helps us in recognizing what
a thing is, because we usually distinguish the expression that is proper to
the essence of each particular thing by means of the differentiae that are
proper to it. (5)
The examination of likeness is useful with a view both to inductive
arguments and to hypothetical reasonings, and also with a view to the
rendering of definitions. It is useful for inductive arguments, (10) because
it is by means of an induction of individuals in cases that are alike that
we claim to bring the universal in evidence: for it is not easy to do this if
we do not know the points of likeness. It is useful for hypothetical
reasonings because it is a general opinion that among similars what is
true of one is true also of the rest. If, then, with regard to any of them
we are well supplied with matter for a discussion, we shall secure a
preliminary admission that however it is in these cases, (15) so it is also in
the case before us: then when we have shown the former we shall have
shown, on the strength of the hypothesis, the matter before us as well:
for we have first made the hypothesis that however it is in these cases,
so it is also in the case before us, and have then proved the point as
regards these cases. It is useful for the rendering of definitions because,
if we are able to see in one glance what is the same in each individual
case of it, (20) we shall be at no loss into what genus we ought to put the
object before us when we define it: for of the common predicates that
which is most definitely in the category of essence is likely to be the
genus. Likewise, also, in the case of objects widely divergent, the
examination of likeness is useful for purposes of definition, (25) e. g. the
sameness of a calm at sea, and windlessness in the air (each being a form
of rest), and of a point on a line and the unit in number—each being a
starting point. If, then, we render as the genus what is common to all the
cases, we shall get the credit of defining not inappropriately. Definition-
mongers too nearly always render them in this way: for they declare the
unit to be the starting-point of number, (30) and the point the starting-
point of a line. It is clear, then, that they place them in that which is
common to both as their genus.
The means, then, whereby reasonings are effected, are these: the
commonplace rules, for the observance of which the aforesaid means are
useful, are as follows.

[Books II–VIII omitted.]

1 a 9

2 101a 22.

3 a 7

4 102a 18.

5 102b 4.

6 ii. 7.

7 b1,a8.

8 100a 25.
 DE SOPHISTICIS ELENCHIS

Translated by W. A. Pickard-Cambridge

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY (CHAPTERS 1–2)

CHAPTER
1. General distinction of genuine from merely apparent reasonings and refutations.
2. Four classes of arguments in dialogue form:—Didactic arguments, Dialectical arguments,
Examination arguments, and Contentious arguments (the subject of the present
book).

PERPETRATION OF FALLACIES (CHAPTERS 3–15)

3. Aims of contentious reasoning fivefold.

[Chapters 4–33 omitted.]

EPILOGUE

34. (1) Our programme and its performance (183a 27−b 15).
(2) History of dialectical theory compared with that of rhetoric (183b 15–end).
 DE SOPHISTICIS ELENCHIS

(On Sophistical Refutations)

1 [164a] Let us now discuss sophistic refutations, (20) i. e. what

appear to be refutations but are really fallacies instead. We will begin in
the natural order with the first.
That some reasonings are genuine, while others seem to be so but are
not, is evident. This happens with arguments, as also elsewhere, (25)
through a certain likeness between the genuine and the sham. [164b]
For physically some people are in a vigorous condition, (20) while others
merely seem to be so by blowing and rigging themselves out as the
tribesmen do their victims for sacrifice; and some people are beautiful
thanks to their beauty, while others seem to be so, by dint of
embellishing themselves. So it is, too, with inanimate things; for of
these, too, some are really silver and others gold, while others are not
and merely seem to be such to our sense; e. g. things made of litharge
and tin seem to be of silver, while those made of yellow metal look
golden. (25) In the same way both reasoning and refutation are sometimes
genuine, sometimes not, though inexperience may make them appear so:
for inexperienced people obtain only, as it were, a distant view of these
things. [165a] For reasoning rests on certain statements such that they
involve necessarily the assertion of something other than what has been
stated, through what has been stated: refutation is reasoning involving
the contradictory of the given conclusion. Now some of them do not
really achieve this, though they seem to do so for a number of reasons;
and of these the most prolific and usual domain is the argument that
turns upon names only. (5) It is impossible in a discussion to bring in the
actual things discussed: we use their names as symbols instead of them;
and therefore we suppose that what follows in the names, follows in the
things as well, just as people who calculate suppose in regard to their
counters. (10) But the two cases (names and things) are not alike. For
names are finite and so is the sum-total of formulae, while things are
infinite in number. Inevitably, then, the same formulae, and a single
name, have a number of meanings. Accordingly just as, in counting,
those who are not clever in manipulating their counters are taken in by
the experts, (15) in the same way in arguments too those who are not well
acquainted with the force of names misreason both in their own
discussions and when they listen to others. For this reason, then, and for
others to be mentioned later, there exists both reasoning and refutation
that is apparent but not real. Now for some people it is better worth
while to seem to be wise, than to be wise without seeming to be (for the
art of the sophist is the semblance of wisdom without the reality, (20) and
the sophist is one who makes money from an apparent but unreal
wisdom); for them, then, it is clearly essential also to seem to accomplish
the task of a wise man rather than to accomplish it without seeming to
do so. To reduce it to a single point of contrast it is the business of one
who knows a thing, (25) himself to avoid fallacies in the subjects which
he knows and to be able to show up the man who makes them; and of
these accomplishments the one depends on the faculty to render an
answer, and the other upon the securing of one. Those, then, who would
be sophists are bound to study the class of arguments aforesaid: for it is
worth their while: for a faculty of this kind will make a man seem to be
wise, (30) and this is the purpose they happen to have in view.
Clearly, then, there exists a class of arguments of this kind, and it is at
this kind of ability that those aim whom we call sophists. Let us now go
on to discuss how many kinds there are of sophistical arguments, and
how many in number are the elements of which this faculty is composed,
(35) and how many branches there happen to be of this inquiry, and the

other factors that contribute to this art.

2 Of arguments in dialogue form there are four classes:

Didactic, Dialectical, Examination-arguments, and Contentious
arguments. Didactic arguments are those that reason from the principles
appropriate to each subject and not from the opinions held by the
answerer (for the learner should take things on trust): dialectical
arguments are those that reason from premisses generally accepted, to
the contradictory of a given thesis: examination-arguments are those
that reason from premisses which are accepted by the answerer and
which any one who pretends to possess knowledge of the subject is
bound to know—in what manner, (5) has been defined in another
treatise: contentious arguments are those that reason or appear to reason
to a conclusion from premisses that appear to be generally accepted but
are not so. [165b] The subject, then, of demonstrative arguments has
been discussed in the Analytics, while that of dialectic arguments and
examination-arguments has been discussed elsewhere: let us proceed to
speak of the arguments used in competitions and contests. (10)

3 First we must grasp the number of aims entertained by those who

argue as competitors and rivals to the death. These are five in number,
refutation, fallacy, paradox, solecism, (15) and fifthly to reduce the
opponent in the discussion to babbling—i. e. to constrain him to repeat
himself a number of times: or it is to produce the appearance of each of
these things without the reality. For they choose if possible plainly to
refute the other party, or as the second best to show that he is
committing some fallacy, or as a third best to lead him into paradox, or
fourthly to reduce him to solecism, i. e. to make the answerer, (20) in
consequence of the argument, to use an ungrammatical expression; or, as
a last resort, to make him repeat himself.…

34 [182a] As to the number, then, and kind of sources whence

fallacies arise in discussion, and how we are to show that our opponent
is committing a fallacy and make him utter paradoxes; moreover, by the
use of what materials solecism is brought about, (30) and how to question
and what is the way to arrange the questions; moreover, as to the
question what use is served by all arguments of this kind, and
concerning the answerer’s part, both as a whole in general, and in
particular how to solve arguments and solecisms—on all these things let
the foregoing discussion suffice. It remains to recall our original proposal
and to bring our discussion to a close with a few words upon it. (35)
Our programme was, then, to discover some faculty of reasoning
about any theme put before us from the most generally accepted
premisses that there are. For that is the essential task of the art of
discussion (dialectic) and of examination (peirastic). [183b] Inasmuch,
however, as it is annexed to it, on account of the near presence of the art
of sophistry (sophistic), not only to be able to conduct an examination
dialectically but also with a show of knowledge, we therefore proposed
for our treatise not only the aforesaid aim of being able to exact an
account of any view, but also the aim of ensuring that in standing up to
an argument we shall defend our thesis in the same manner by means of
views as generally held as possible. (5) The reason of this we have
explained;1 for this, too, was why Socrates used to ask questions and not
to answer them; for he used to confess that he did not know. We have
made clear, in the course of what precedes, the number both of the
points with reference to which, and of the materials from which, this
will be accomplished, (10) and also from what sources we can become
well supplied with these: we have shown, moreover, how to question or
arrange the questioning as a whole, and the problems concerning the
answers and solutions to be used against the reasonings of the
questioner. We have also cleared up the problems concerning all other
matters that belong to the same inquiry into arguments. In addition to
this we have been through the subject of Fallacies, as we have already
stated above.2 (15)
That our programme, then, has been adequately completed is clear.
But we must not omit to notice what has happened in regard to this
inquiry. For in the case of all discoveries the results of previous labours
that have been handed down from others have been advanced bit by bit
by those who have taken them on, whereas the original discoveries
generally make an advance that is small at first though much more
useful than the development which later springs out of them. (20) For it
may be that in everything, as the saying is, ‘the first start is the main
part’: and for this reason also it is the most difficult; for in proportion as
it is most potent in its influence, so it is smallest in its compass and
therefore most difficult to see: whereas when this is once discovered, (25)
it is easier to add and develop the remainder in connexion with it. This
is in fact what has happened in regard to rhetorical speeches and to
practically all the other arts: for those who discovered the beginnings of
them advanced them in all only a little way, whereas the celebrities of
to-day are the heirs (so to speak) of a long succession of men who have
advanced them bit by bit, (30) and so have developed them to their
present form, Tisias coming next after the first founders, then
Thrasymachus after Tisias, and Theodorus next to him, while several
people have made their several contributions to it: and therefore it is not
to be wondered at that the art has attained considerable dimensions. Of
this inquiry, on the other hand, it was not the case that part of the work
had been thoroughly done before, (35) while part had not. Nothing
existed at all. For the training given by the paid professors of contentious
arguments was like the treatment of the matter by Gorgias. For they
used to hand out speeches to be learned by heart, some rhetorical, others
in the form of question and answer, each side supposing that their
arguments on either side generally fall among them. [184a] And
therefore the teaching they gave their pupils was ready but rough. For
they used to suppose that they trained people by imparting to them not
the art but its products, as though any one professing that he would
impart a form of knowledge to obviate any pain in the feet, were then
not to teach a man the art of shoe-making or the sources whence he can
acquire anything of the kind, (5) but were to present him with several
kinds of shoes of all sorts: for he has helped him to meet his need, but
has not imparted an art to him. [184b] Moreover, on the subject of
Rhetoric there exists much that has been said long ago, whereas on the
subject of reasoning we had nothing else of an earlier date to speak of at
all, but were kept at work for a long time in experimental researches. If,
then, it seems to you after inspection that, such being the situation as it
existed at the start, our investigation is in a satisfactory condition
compared with the other inquiries that have been developed by
tradition, (5) there must remain for all of you, or for our students, the
task of extending us your pardon for the shortcomings of the inquiry,
and for the discoveries thereof your warm thanks.

1 165a 19–27.

2 183a 27.
 Physica

Translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye

 CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER
1. The scope and method of this book.
2. The problem: the number and character of the first principles of nature. 185a 20. Reality
is not one in the way that Parmenides and Melissus supposed.
3. Refutation of their arguments.
4. Statement and examination of the opinions of the natural philosophers.
5. The principles are contraries.
6. The principles are two, or three, in number.
7. The number and nature of the principles.
8. The true opinion removes the difficulty felt by the early philosophers.
9. Further reflections on the first principles of nature.

BOOK II

A.

1. Nature and the natural.

B.

2. Distinction of the natural philosopher from the mathematician and the metaphysician.

C. The conditions of change.

3. The essential conditions.

4. The opinions of others about chance and spontaneity.
5. Do chance and spontaneity exist? What is chance and what are its characteristics?
6. Distinction between chance and spontaneity, and between both and the essential
conditions of change.

D. Proof in natural philosophy.

7. The physicist demonstrates by means of the four conditions of change.

8. Does nature act for an end?
9. The sense in which necessity is present in natural things.
 BOOK III

A. Motion.

1, 2. The nature of motion.

3. The mover and the moved.

B. The infinite.

4. Opinions of the early philosophers.

203b 15. Main arguments for belief in the infinite.
5. Criticism of the Pythagorean and Platonic belief in a separately existing infinite.
204a 34. There is no infinite sensible body.
6. That the infinite exists and how it exists.
206b 33. What the infinite is.
7. The various kinds of infinite.
207b 34. Which of the four conditions of change the infinite is to be referred to.
8. Refutation of the arguments for an actual infinite.

BOOK IV

A. Place.

1. Does place exist?

209a 2. Doubts about the nature of place.
2. Is place matter or form?
3. Can a thing be in itself or a place be in a place?
4. What place is.
5. Corollaries.

B. The void.

6. The views of others about the void.

7. What ‘void’ means.
214a 16. Refutation of the arguments for belief in the void.
8. There is no void separate from bodies.
 216a 26. There is no void occupied by any body.
9. There is no void in bodies.

C. Time.

10. Doubts about the existence of time.

218a 31. Various opinions about the nature of time.
11. What time is.
219b 9. The ‘now’.
12. Various attributes of time.
220b 32. The things that are in time.
13. Definitions of temporal terms.
14. Further reflections about time.

BOOK V

1. Classification of movements and changes.

224b 35. Classification of changes per se.
2. Classification of movements per se.
226b 10. The unmovable.
3. The meaning of ‘together’, ‘apart’, ‘touch’, ‘intermediate’, ‘successive’, ‘contiguous’,
‘continuous’.
4. The unity and diversity of movements.
5. Contrariety of movement.
6. Contrariety of movement and rest.
230a 18. Contrariety of natural and unnatural movement or rest.

BOOK VI

1, 2. Every continuum consists of continuous and divisible parts.

3. A moment is indivisible and nothing is moved, or rests, in a moment.
4. Whatever is moved is divisible.
234b 21. Classification of movement.
235a 13. The time, the movement, the being-in-motion, the moving body, and the sphere
of movement, are all similarly divided.
5. Whatever has changed is, as soon as it has changed, in that to which it has changed.
 235b 32. That in which (directly) it has changed is indivisible.
236a 7. In change there is a last but no first element.
6. In whatever time a thing changes (directly), it changes in any part of that time.
236b 32. Whatever changes has changed before, and whatever has changed, before was
changing.
7. The finitude or infinity of movement, of extension, and of the moved.
8. Of coming to rest, and of rest.
239a 23. A thing that is moved in any time directly is in no part of that time in a part of
the space through which it moves.
9. Refutation of the arguments against the possibility of movement.
10. That which has not parts cannot move.
241a 26. Can change be infinite?

BOOK VII

1. Whatever is moved is moved by something.

242a 19. There is a first movent which is not moved by anything else.
2. The movent and the moved are together.
3. All alteration pertains to sensible qualities.
4. Comparison of movements.
5. Proportion of movements.

BOOK VIII

1. There always has been and always will be movement.

2. Refutation of objections to the eternity of movement.
3. There are things that are sometimes in movement, sometimes at rest.
4. Whatever is in movement is moved by something else.
5. The first movent is not moved by anything outside itself.
257a 31. The first movent is immovable.
6. The immovable first movent is eternal and one.
259a 20. The first movent is not moved even incidentally.
259b 32. The primum mobile is eternal.
7. Locomotion is the primary kind of movement.
261a 28. No movement or change is continuous except locomotion.
 8. Only circular movement can be continuous and infinite.
9. Circular movement is the primary kind of locomotion.
265a 27. Confirmation of the above doctrines.
10. The first movent has no parts nor magnitude, and is at the circumference of the world.
PHYSICA1

(Physics)
 BOOK I

1 [184a] When the objects of an inquiry, in any department, have

principles, (10) conditions, or elements, it is through acquaintance with
these that knowledge, that is to say scientific knowledge, is attained. For
we do not think that we know a thing until we are acquainted with its
primary conditions or first principles, and have carried our analysis as
far as its simplest elements. Plainly therefore in the science of Nature, (15)
as in other branches of study, our first task will be to try to determine
what relates to its principles.
The natural way of doing this is to start from the things which are
more knowable and obvious to us and proceed towards those which are
clearer and more knowable by nature; for the same things are not
‘knowable relatively to us’ and ‘knowable’ without qualification. So in
the present inquiry we must follow this method and advance from what
is more obscure by nature, (20) but clearer to us, towards what is more
clear and more knowable by nature.
Now what is to us plain and obvious at first is rather confused masses,
the elements and principles of which become known to us later by
analysis. Thus we must advance from generalities to particulars; for it is
a whole that is best known to sense-perception, (25) and a generality is a
kind of whole, comprehending many things within it, like parts.
[184b] Much the same thing happens in the relation of the name to the
formula. (10) A name, e. g. ‘round’, means vaguely a sort of whole: its
definition analyses this into its particular senses. Similarly a child begins
by calling all men ‘father’, and all women ‘mother’, but later on
distinguishes each of them.

2 The principles in question must be either (a) one or (b) more than
one. (15)
If (a) one, it must be either (i) motionless, as Parmenides and Melissus
assert, or (ii) in motion, as the physicists hold, some declaring air to be
the first principle, others water.
If (b) more than one, then either (i) a finite or (ii) an infinite plurality.
If (i) finite (but more than one), then either two or three or four or some
other number. (20) If (ii) infinite, then either as Democritus believed one
in kind, but differing in shape or form; or different in kind and even
contrary.
A similar inquiry is made by those who inquire into the number of
existents: for they inquire whether the ultimate constituents of existing
things are one or many, and if many, whether a finite or an infinite
plurality. So they too are inquiring whether the principle or element is
one or many.
Now to investigate whether Being is one and motionless is not a
contribution to the science of Nature. (25) For just as the geometer has
nothing more to say to one who denies the principles of his science—this
being a question for a different science or for one common to all—so a
man investigating principles cannot argue with one who denies their
existence. [185a] For if Being is just one, and one in the way
mentioned, there is a principle no longer, since a principle must be the
principle of some thing or things.
To inquire therefore whether Being is one in this sense would be like
arguing against any other position maintained for the sake of argument
(such as the Heraclitean thesis, (5) or such a thesis as that Being is one
man) or like refuting a merely contentious argument—a description
which applies to the arguments both of Melissus and of Parmenides:
their premisses are false and their conclusions do not follow. (10) Or
rather the argument of Melissus is gross and palpable and offers no
difficulty at all: accept one ridiculous proposition and the rest follows—a
simple enough proceeding.
We physicists, on the other hand, must take for granted that the things
that exist by nature are, either all or some of them, in motion—which is
indeed made plain by induction. Moreover, no man of science is bound
to solve every kind of difficulty that may be raised, (15) but only as many
as are drawn falsely from the principles of the science: it is not our
business to refute those that do not arise in this way: just as it is the duty
of the geometer to refute the squaring of the circle by means of
segments, but it is not his duty to refute Antiphon’s proof.2 At the same
time the holders of the theory of which we are speaking do incidentally
raise physical questions, though Nature is not their subject: so it will
perhaps be as well to spend a few words on them, especially as the
inquiry is not without scientific interest.
The most pertinent question with which to begin will be this: (20) In
what sense is it asserted that all things are one? For ‘is’ is used in many
senses. Do they mean that all things ‘are’ substance or quantities or
qualities? And, further, are all things one substance—one man, (25) one
horse, or one soul—or quality and that one and the same—white or hot
or something of the kind? These are all very different doctrines and all
impossible to maintain.
For if both substance and quantity and quality are, then, whether these
exist independently of each other or not, Being will be many.
If on the other hand it is asserted that all things are quality or
quantity, then, whether substance exists or not, an absurdity results, (30)
if indeed the impossible can properly be called absurd. For none of the
others can exist independently: substance alone is independent: for
everything is predicated of substance as subject. Now Melissus says that
Being is infinite. It is then a quantity. For the infinite is in the category
of quantity, whereas substance or quality or affection cannot be infinite
except through a concomitant attribute, that is, if at the same time they
are also quantities. [185b] For to define the infinite you must use
quantity in your formula, but not substance or quality. If then Being is
both substance and quantity, it is two, not one: if only substance, it is
not infinite and has no magnitude; for to have that it will have to be a
quantity.
Again, (5) ‘one’ itself, no less than ‘being’, is used in many senses, so we
must consider in what sense the word is used when it is said that the All
is one.
Now we say that (a) the continuous is one or that (b) the indivisible is
one, or (c) things are said to be ‘one’, when their essence is one and the
same, as ‘liquor’ and ‘drink’.
If (a) their One is one in the sense of continuous, it is many, (10) for the
continuous is divisible ad infinitum.
There is, indeed, a difficulty about part and whole, perhaps not
relevant to the present argument, yet deserving consideration on its own
account—namely, whether the part and the whole are one or more than
one, and how they can be one or many, and, if they are more than one,
in what sense they are more than one. (Similarly with the parts of
wholes which are not continuous.) (15) Further, if each of the two parts is
indivisibly one with the whole, the difficulty arises that they will be
indivisibly one with each other also.
But to proceed: If (b) their One is one as indivisible, nothing will have
quantity or quality, and so the one will not be infinite, as Melissus says
—nor, indeed, limited, as Parmenides says, for though the limit is
indivisible, the limited is not.3
But if (c) all things are one in the sense of having the same definition,
like ‘raiment’ and ‘dress’, then it turns out that they are maintaining the
Heraclitean doctrine, (20) for it will be the same thing ‘to be good’ and ‘to
be bad’, and ‘to be good’ and ‘to be not good’, and so the same thing will
be ‘good’ and ‘not good’, and man and horse; in fact, their view will be,
not that all things are one, but that they are nothing; and that ‘to be of
such-and-such a quality’ is the same as ‘to be of such-and-such a size’.
Even the more recent of the ancient thinkers were in a pother lest the
same thing should turn out in their hands both one and many. (25) So
some, like Lycophron,4 were led to omit ‘is’, others to change the mode
of expression and say ‘the man has been whitened’ instead of ‘is white’,
and ‘walks’ instead of ‘is walking’, for fear that if they added the word
‘is’ they should be making the one to be many—as if ‘one’ and ‘being’
were always used in one and the same sense. (30) What ‘is’ may be many
either in definition (for example ‘to be white’ is one thing, ‘to be
musical’ another, yet the same thing may be both, so the one is many) or
by division, as the whole and its parts. [186a] On this point, indeed,
they were already getting into difficulties and admitted that the one was
many—as if there was any difficulty about the same thing being both
one and many, provided that these are not opposites; for ‘one’ may mean
either ‘potentially one’ or ‘actually one’.

3 If, then, we approach the thesis in this way it seems impossible for
all things to be one. Further, the arguments they use to prove their
position are not difficult to expose. (5) For both of them reason
contentiously—I mean both Melissus and Parmenides. Their premisses
are false and their conclusions do not follow. Or rather the argument of
Melissus is gross and palpable and offers no difficulty at all: admit one
ridiculous proposition and the rest follows—a simple enough proceeding.
The fallacy of Melissus is obvious. (10) For he supposes that the
assumption ‘what has come into being always has a beginning’ justifies
the assumption ‘what has not come into being has no beginning’. Then
this also is absurd, that in every case there should be a beginning of the
thing—not of the time and not only in the case of coming to be in the full
sense but also in the case of coming to have a quality—as if change
never took place suddenly. (15) Again, does it follow that Being, if one, is
motionless? Why should it not move, the whole of it within itself, as
parts of it do which are unities, e. g. this water? Again, why is
qualitative change impossible? But, (20) further, Being cannot be one in
form, though it may be in what it is made of. (Even some of the
physicists hold it to be one in the latter way, though not in the former.)
Man obviously differs from horse in form, and contraries from each
other.
The same kind of argument holds good against Parmenides also,
besides any that may apply specially to his view: the answer to him
being that ‘this is not true’ and ‘that does not follow’. His assumption that
one is used in a single sense only is false, (25) because it is used in several.
His conclusion does not follow, because if we take only white things, and
if ‘white’ has a single meaning, none the less what is white will be many
and not one. For what is white will not be one either in the sense that it
is continuous or in the sense that it must be defined in only one way.
‘Whiteness’ will be different from ‘what has whiteness’. Nor does this
mean that there is anything that can exist separately, (30) over and above
what is white. For ‘whiteness’ and ‘that which is white’ differ in
definition, not in the sense that they are things which can exist apart
from each other. But Parmenides had not come in sight of this
distinction.
It is necessary for him, then, to assume not only that ‘being’ has the
same meaning, of whatever it is predicated, but further that it means (1)
what just is and (2) what is just one.
It must be so, for (1) an attribute is predicated of some subject, (35) so
that the subject to which ‘being’ is attributed will not be, as it is
something different from ‘being’. [186b] Something, therefore, which
is not will be. Hence ‘substance’ will not be a predicate of anything else.
For the subject cannot be a being, unless ‘being’ means several things, in
such a way that each is something. But ex hypothesi ‘being’ means only
one thing.
If, then, ‘substance’ is not attributed to anything, but other things are
attributed to it, how does ‘substance’ mean what is rather than what is
not? For suppose that ‘substance’ is also ‘white’. (5) Since the definition of
the latter is different (for being cannot even be attributed to white, as
nothing is which is not ‘substance’), it follows that ‘white’ is not-being—
and that not in the sense of a particular not-being, but in the sense that
it is not at all. Hence ‘substance’ is not; for it is true to say that it is
white, (10) which we found to mean not-being. If to avoid this we say that
even ‘white’ means substance, it follows that ‘being’ has more than one
meaning.
In particular, then, Being will not have magnitude, if it is substance.
For each of the two parts must be in a different sense.
(2) Substance is plainly divisible into other substances, if we consider
the mere nature of a definition. For instance, if ‘man’ is a substance, (15)
‘animal’ and ‘biped’ must also be substances. For if not substances, they
must be attributes—and if attributes, attributes either of (a) man or of
(b) some other subject. But neither is possible.
(a) An attribute is either that which may or may not belong to the
subject or that in whose definition the subject of which it is an attribute
is involved. (20) Thus ‘sitting’ is an example of a separable attribute,
while ‘snubness’ contains the definition of ‘nose’, to which we attribute
snubness. Further, the definition of the whole is not contained in the
definitions of the contents or elements of the definitory formula; that of
‘man’ for instance in ‘biped’, or that of ‘white man’ in ‘white’. If then this
is so, and if ‘biped’ is supposed to be an attribute of ‘man’, (25) it must be
either separable, so that ‘man’ might possibly not be ‘biped’, or the
definition of ‘man’ must come into the definition of ‘biped’—which is
impossible, as the converse is the case. (30)
(b) If, on the other hand, we suppose that ‘biped’ and ‘animal’ are
attributes not of man but of something else, and are not each of them a
substance, then ‘man’ too will be an attribute of something else. But we
must assume that substance is not the attribute of anything, and that the
subject of which both ‘biped’ and ‘animal’ and each separately are
predicated is the subject also of the complex ‘biped animal’.
Are we then to say that the All is composed of indivisible substances?
Some thinkers did, (35) in point of fact, give way to both arguments.
[187a] To the argument that all things are one if being means one
thing, they conceded that not-being is; to that from bisection, they
yielded by positing atomic magnitudes. But obviously it is not true that
if being means one thing, and cannot at the same time mean the
contradictory of this, (5) there will be nothing which is not, for even if
what is not cannot be without qualification, there is no reason why it
should not be a particular not-being. To say that all things will be one, if
there is nothing besides Being itself, is absurd. For who understands
‘being itself’ to be anything but a particular substance? But if this is so,
there is nothing to prevent there being many beings, as has been said.
It is, (10) then, clearly impossible for Being to be one in this sense.

4 The physicists on the other hand have two modes of explanation.

The first set make the underlying body one—either one of the three5
or something else which is denser than fire and rarer than air—then
generate everything else from this, (15) and obtain multiplicity by
condensation and rarefaction. Now these are contraries, which may be
generalized into ‘excess and defect’. (Compare Plato’s ‘Great and
Small’—except that he makes these his matter, the one his form, while
the others treat the one which underlies as matter and the contraries as
differentiae, i. e. forms.)
The second set assert that the contrarieties are contained in the one
and emerge from it by segregation, (20) for example Anaximander and
also all those who assert that ‘what is’ is one and many, like Empedocles
and Anaxagoras; for they too produce other things from their mixture by
segregation. These differ, however, from each other in that the former
imagines a cycle of such changes, the latter a single series. (25)
Anaxagoras again made both his ‘homœomerous’ substances and his
contraries infinite in multitude, whereas Empedocles posits only the so-
called elements.
The theory of Anaxagoras that the principles are infinite in multitude
was probably due to his acceptance of the common opinion of the
physicists that nothing comes into being from not-being. (30) For this is
the reason why they use the phrase ‘all things were together’ and the
coming into being of such and such a kind of thing is reduced to change
of quality, while some spoke of combination and separation. Moreover,
the fact that the contraries proceed from each other led them to the
conclusion. The one, they reasoned, must have already existed in the
other; for since everything that comes into being must arise either from
what is or from what is not, and it is impossible for it to arise from what
is not (on this point all the physicists agree), (35) they thought that the
truth of the alternative necessarily followed, namely that things come
into being out of existent things, i. e. out of things already present, but
imperceptible to our senses because of the smallness of their bulk.
[187b] So they assert that everything has been mixed in everything,
because they saw everything arising out of everything. But things, as
they say, appear different from one another and receive different names
according to the nature of the particles which are numerically
predominant among the innumerable constituents of the mixture. For
nothing, they say, is purely and entirely white or black or sweet, bone or
flesh, but the nature of a thing is held to be that of which it contains the
most. (5)
Now (1) the infinite qua infinite is unknowable, so that what is infinite
in multitude or size is unknowable in quantity, and what is infinite in
variety of kind is unknowable in quality. (10) But the principles in
question are infinite both in multitude and in kind. Therefore it is
impossible to know things which are composed of them; for it is when
we know the nature and quantity of its components that we suppose we
know a complex.
Further (2) if the parts of a whole may be of any size in the direction
either of greatness or of smallness (by ‘parts’ I mean components into
which a whole can be divided and which are actually present in it), (15) it
is necessary that the whole thing itself may be of any size. Clearly,
therefore, since it is impossible for an animal or plant to be indefinitely
big or small, neither can its parts be such, or the whole will be the same.
But flesh, bone, and the like are the parts of animals, and the fruits are
the parts of plants. Hence it is obvious that neither flesh, (20) bone, nor
any such thing can be of indefinite size in the direction either of the
greater or of the less.
 Again (3) according to the theory all such things are already present in
one another and do not come into being but are constituents which are
separated out, and a thing receives its designation from its chief
constituent. Further, anything may come out of anything—water by
segregation from flesh and flesh from water. Hence, (25) since every finite
body is exhausted by the repeated abstraction of a finite body, it seems
obviously to follow that everything cannot subsist in everything else. For
let flesh be extracted from water and again more flesh be produced from
the remainder by repeating the process of separation: then, even though
the quantity separated out will continually decrease, still it will not fall
below a certain magnitude. If, (30) therefore, the process comes to an end,
everything will not be in everything else (for there will be no flesh in the
remaining water); if on the other hand it does not, and further extraction
is always possible, there will be an infinite multitude of finite equal
particles in a finite quantity—which is impossible. Another proof may be
added: Since every body must diminish in size when something is taken
from it, (35) and flesh is quantitatively definite in respect both of
greatness and smallness, it is clear that from the minimum quantity of
flesh no body can be separated out; for the flesh left would be less than
the minimum of flesh. [188a]
Lastly (4) in each of his infinite bodies there would be already present
infinite flesh and blood and brain—having a distinct existence, however,
from one another, and no less real than the infinite bodies, and each
infinite: which is contrary to reason.
The statement that complete separation never will take place is correct
enough, (5) though Anaxagoras is not fully aware of what it means. For
affections are indeed inseparable. If then colours and states had entered
into the mixture, and if separation took place, there would be a ‘white’
or a ‘healthy’ which was nothing but white or healthy, i. e. was not the
predicate of a subject. So his ‘Mind’ is an absurd person aiming at the
impossible, (10) if he is supposed to wish to separate them, and it is
impossible to do so, both in respect of quantity and of quality—of
quantity, because there is no minimum magnitude, and of quality,
because affections are inseparable.
Nor is Anaxagoras right about the coming to be of homogeneous
bodies. It is true there is a sense in which clay is divided into pieces of
clay, (15) but there is another in which it is not. Water and air are, and
are generated, ‘from’ each other, but not in the way in which bricks
come ‘from’ a house and again a house ‘from’ bricks; and it is better to
assume a smaller and finite number of principles, as Empedocles does.

5 All thinkers then agree in making the contraries principles, both

those who describe the All as one and unmoved (for even Parmenides
treats hot and cold as principles under the names of fire and earth) and
those too who use the rare and the dense. (20) The same is true of
Democritus also, with his plenum and void, both of which exist, he says,
the one as being, the other as not-being. Again he speaks of differences
in position, shape, and order, and these are genera of which the species
are contraries, namely, of position, (25) above and below, before and
behind; of shape, angular and angle-less, straight and round.
It is plain then that they all in one way or another identify the
contraries with the principles. And with good reason. For first principles
must not be derived from one another nor from anything else, while
everything has to be derived from them. But these conditions are
fulfilled by the primary contraries, which are not derived from anything
else because they are primary, nor from each other because they are
contraries.
But we must see how this can be arrived at as a reasoned result, (30) as
well as in the way just indicated.
Our first presupposition must be that in nature nothing acts on, or is
acted on by, any other thing at random, nor may anything come from
anything else, unless we mean that it does so in virtue of a concomitant
attribute. For how could ‘white’ come from ‘musical’, (35) unless ‘musical’
happened to be an attribute of the not-white or of the black? No, ‘white’
comes from ‘not-white’—and not from any ‘not-white’, but from black or
some intermediate colour. [188b] Similarly, ‘musical’ comes to be from
‘not-musical’, but not from any thing other than musical, but from
‘unmusical’ or any intermediate state there may be.
Nor again do things pass into the first chance thing; ‘white’ does not
pass into ‘musical’ (except, it may be, in virtue of a concomitant
attribute), but into ‘not-white’—and not into any chance thing which is
not white, but into black or an intermediate colour; ‘musical’ passes into
‘not-musical’—and not into any chance thing other than musical, (5) but
into ‘unmusical’ or any intermediate state there may be.
The same holds of other things also: even things which are not simple
but complex follow the same principle, (10) but the opposite state has not
received a name, so we fail to notice the fact. What is in tune must come
from what is not in tune, and vice versa; the tuned passes into
untunedness—and not into any untunedness, but into the corresponding
opposite. It does not matter whether we take attunement, (15) order, or
composition for our illustration; the principle is obviously the same in
all, and in fact applies equally to the production of a house, a statue, or
any other complex. A house comes from certain things in a certain state
of separation instead of conjunction, a statue (or any other thing that has
been shaped) from shapelessness—each of these objects being partly
order and partly composition. (20)
If then this is true, everything that comes to be or passes away comes
from, or passes into, its contrary or an intermediate state. But the
intermediates are derived from the contraries—colours, for instance,
from black and white. Everything, (25) therefore, that comes to be by a
natural process is either a contrary or a product of contraries.
Up to this point we have practically had most of the other writers on
the subject with us, as I have said already6: for all of them identify their
elements, and what they call their principles, with the contraries, giving
no reason indeed for the theory, (30) but constrained as it were by the
truth itself. They differ, however, from one another in that some assume
contraries which are more primary, others contraries which are less so:
some those more knowable in the order of explanation, others those
more familiar to sense. For some make hot and cold, or again moist and
dry, the conditions of becoming; while others make odd and even, (35) or
again Love and Strife; and these differ from each other in the way
mentioned.
Hence their principles are in one sense the same, in another different;
different certainly, as indeed most people think, but the same inasmuch
as they are analogous; for all are taken from the same table of columns,7
some of the pairs being wider, others narrower in extent. [189a] In
this way then their theories are both the same and different, some better,
some worse; some, as I have said, take as their contraries what is more
knowable in the order of explanation, (5) others what is more familiar to
sense. (The universal is more knowable in the order of explanation, the
particular in the order of sense: for explanation has to do with the
universal, sense with the particular.) ‘The great and the small’, for
example, belong to the former class, ‘the dense and the rare’ to the
latter.
It is clear then that our principles must be contraries. (10)

6 The next question is whether the principles are two or three or more
in number.
One they cannot be, for there cannot be one contrary. Nor can they be
innumerable, because, if so, Being will not be knowable: and in any one
genus there is only one contrariety, (15) and substance is one genus: also
a finite number is sufficient, and a finite number, such as the principles
of Empedocles, is better than an infinite multitude; for Empedocles
professes to obtain from his principles all that Anaxagoras obtains from
his innumerable principles. Lastly, some contraries are more primary
than others, and some arise from others—for example sweet and bitter,
white and black—whereas the principles must always remain principles.
This will suffice to show that the principles are neither one nor
innumerable. (20)
Granted, then, that they are a limited number, it is plausible to
suppose them more than two. For it is difficult to see how either density
should be of such a nature as to act in any way on rarity or rarity on
density. The same is true of any other pair of contraries; for Love does
not gather Strife together and make things out of it, (25) nor does Strife
make anything out of Love, but both act on a third thing different from
both. Some indeed assume more than one such thing from which they
construct the world of nature.
Other objections to the view that it is not necessary to assume a third
principle as a substratum may be added. (1) We do not find that the
contraries constitute the substance of any thing. (30) But what is a first
principle ought not to be the predicate of any subject. If it were, there
would be a principle of the supposed principle: for the subject is a
principle, and prior presumably to what is predicated of it. Again (2) we
hold that a substance is not contrary to another substance. How then can
substance be derived from what are not substances? Or how can non-
substance be prior to substance?
If then we accept both the former argument8 and this one,9 we must,
to preserve both, assume a third somewhat as the substratum of the
contraries, (35) such as is spoken of by those who describe the All as one
nature—water or fire or what is intermediate between them. [189b]
What is intermediate seems preferable; for fire, earth, air, and water are
already involved with pairs of contraries. There is, therefore, much to be
said for those who make the underlying substance different from these
four; of the rest, the next best choice is air, as presenting sensible
differences in a less degree than the others; and after air, water. All,
however, agree in this, that they differentiate their One by means of the
contraries, such as density and rarity and more and less, (10) which may
of course be generalized, as has already been said,10 into excess and
defect. Indeed this doctrine too (that the One and excess and defect are
the principles of things) would appear to be of old standing, though in
different forms; for the early thinkers made the two the active and the
one the passive principle, whereas some of the more recent maintain the
reverse. (15)
To suppose then that the elements are three in number would seem,
from these and similar considerations, a plausible view, as I said
before.11 On the other hand, the view that they are more than three in
number would seem to be untenable.
For the one substratum is sufficient to be acted on; but if we have four
contraries, there will be two contrarieties, and we shall have to suppose
an intermediate nature for each pair separately. (20) If, on the other hand,
the contrarieties, being two, can generate from each other, the second
contrariety will be superfluous. Moreover, it is impossible that there
should be more than one primary contrariety. For substance is a single
genus of being, so that the principles can differ only as prior and
posterior, (25) not in genus; in a single genus there is always a single
contrariety, all the other contrarieties in it being held to be reducible to
one.
It is clear then that the number of elements is neither one nor more
than two or three; but whether two or three is, as I said, a question of
considerable difficulty.
7 We will now give our own account, (30) approaching the question
first with reference to becoming in its widest sense: for we shall be
following the natural order of inquiry if we speak first of common
characteristics, and then investigate the characteristics of special cases.
We say that one thing comes to be from another thing, and one sort of
thing from another sort of thing, both in the case of simple and of
complex things. I mean the following. We can say (1) the ‘man becomes
musical’, (35) (2) what is ‘not-musical becomes musical’, or (3) the ‘not-
musical man becomes a musical man’. [190a] Now what becomes in
(1) and (2)—‘man’ and ‘not musical’—I call simple, and what each
becomes—‘musical’—simple also. But when (3) we say the ‘not-musical
man becomes a musical man’, both what becomes and what it becomes
are complex.
As regards one of these simple ‘things that become’ we say not only
‘this becomes so-and-so’, (5) but also ‘from being this, comes to be so-and-
so’, as ‘from being not-musical comes to be musical’; as regards the other
we do not say this in all cases, as we do not say (1) ‘from being a man he
came to be musical’ but only ‘the man became musical’.
When a ‘simple’ thing is said to become something, in one case (1) it
survives through the process, in the other (2) it does not. (10) For the man
remains a man and is such even when he becomes musical, whereas
what is not musical or is unmusical does not continue to exist, either
simply or combined with the subject.
These distinctions drawn, one can gather from surveying the various
cases of becoming in the way we are describing that, as we say, there
must always be an underlying something, namely that which becomes,
(15) and that this, though always one numerically, in form at least is not

one. (By that I mean that It can be described in different ways.) For ‘to
be man’ is not the same as ‘to be unmusical’. One part survives, the other
does not: what is not an opposite survives (for ‘man’ survives), but ‘not-
musical’ or ‘unmusical’ does not survive, (20) nor does the compound of
the two, namely ‘unmusical man’.
We speak of ‘becoming that from this’ instead of ‘this becoming that’
more in the case of what does not survive the change—‘becoming
musical from unmusical’, not ‘from man’—but there are exceptions, as
we sometimes use the latter form of expression even of what survives;
we speak of ‘a statue coming to be from bronze’, (25) not of the ‘bronze
becoming a statue’. The change, however, from an opposite which does
not survive is described indifferently in both ways, ‘becoming that from
this’ or ‘this becoming that’. We say both that ‘the unmusical becomes
musical’, and that ‘from unmusical he becomes musical’. (30) And so both
forms are used of the complex, ‘becoming a musical man from an
unmusical man’, and ‘an unmusical man becoming a musical man’.
But there are different senses of ‘coming to be’. In some cases we do
not use the expression ‘come to be’, but ‘come to be so-and-so’. Only
substances are said to ‘come to be’ in the unqualified sense.
Now in all cases other than substance it is plain that there must be
some subject, namely, that which becomes. For we know that when a
thing comes to be of such a quantity or quality or in such a relation, (35)
time, or place, a subject is always presupposed, since substance alone is
not predicated of another subject, but everything else of substance.
But that substances too, and anything else that can be said ‘to be’
without qualification, come to be from some substratum, will appear on
examination. [190b] For we find in every case something that
underlies from which proceeds that which comes to be; for instance,
animals and plants from seed.
Generally things which come to be, come to be in different ways: (1)
by change of shape, (5) as a statue; (2) by addition, as things which grow;
(3) by taking away, as the Hermes from the stone; (4) by putting
together, as a house; (5) by alteration, as things which ‘turn’ in respect
of their material substance.
It is plain that these are all cases of coming to be from a substratum.
Thus, clearly, from what has been said, whatever comes to be is
always complex. (10) There is, on the one hand, (a) something which
comes into existence, and again (b) something which becomes that—the
latter (b) in two senses, either the subject or the opposite. By the
‘opposite’ I mean the ‘unmusical’, by the ‘subject’ ‘man’, and similarly I
call the absence of shape or form or order the ‘opposite’, (15) and the
bronze or stone or gold the ‘subject’.
Plainly then, if there are conditions and principles which constitute
natural objects and from which they primarily are or have come to be—
have come to be, I mean, what each is said to be in its essential nature,
not what each is in respect of a concomitant attribute—plainly, (20) I say,
everything comes to be from both subject and form. For ‘musical man’ is
composed (in a way) of ‘man’ and ‘musical’: you can analyse it into the
definitions of its elements. It is clear then that what comes to be will
come to be from these elements.
Now the subject is one numerically, though it is two in form. (For it is
the man, the gold—the ‘matter’ generally—that is counted, (25) for it is
more of the nature of a ‘this’, and what comes to be does not come from
it in virtue of a concomitant attribute; the privation, on the other hand,
and the contrary are incidental in the process.) And the positive form is
one—the order, the acquired art of music, or any similar predicate.
There is a sense, therefore, in which we must declare the principles to
be two, and a sense in which they are three; a sense in which the
contraries are the principles—say for example the musical and the
unmusical, (30) the hot and the cold, the tuned and the untuned—and a
sense in which they are not, since it is impossible for the contraries to be
acted on by each other. But this difficulty also is solved by the fact that
the substratum is different from the contraries, (35) for it is itself not a
contrary. The principles therefore are, in a way, not more in number
than the contraries, but as it were two, nor yet precisely two, since there
is a difference of essential nature, but three. [191a] For ‘to be man’ is
different from ‘to be unmusical’, and ‘to be unformed’ from ‘to be
bronze’.
We have now stated the number of the principles of natural objects
which are subject to generation, and how the number is reached: and it
is clear that there must be a substratum for the contraries, (5) and that
the contraries must be two. (Yet in another way of putting it this is not
necessary, as one of the contraries will serve to effect the change by its
successive absence and presence.)
The underlying nature is an object of scientific knowledge, by an
analogy. For as the bronze is to the statue, the wood to the bed, (10) or
the matter and the formless before receiving form to any thing which
has form, so is the underlying nature to substance, i. e. the ‘this’ or
existent.
This then is one principle (though not one or existent in the same
sense as the ‘this’), and the definition was one as we agreed; then further
there is its contrary, the privation. In what sense these are two, (15) and
in what sense more, has been stated above. Briefly, we explained first12
that only the contraries were principles, and later13 that a substratum
was indispensable, and that the principles were three; our last
statement14 has elucidated the difference between the contraries, the
mutual relation of the principles, and the nature of the substratum.
Whether the form or the substratum is the essential nature of a physical
object is not yet clear.15 But that the principles are three, (20) and in what
sense, and the way in which each is a principle, is clear.
So much then for the question of the number and the nature of the
principles.

8 We will now proceed to show that the difficulty of the early

thinkers, as well as our own, is solved in this way alone.
The first of those who studied science were misled in their search for
truth and the nature of things by their inexperience, (25) which as it were
thrust them into another path. So they say that none of the things that
are either comes to be or passes out of existence, because what comes to
be must do so either from what is or from what is not, both of which are
impossible. For what is cannot come to be (because it is already), (30) and
from what is not nothing could have come to be (because something
must be present as a substratum). So too they exaggerated the
consequence of this, and went so far as to deny even the existence of a
plurality of things, maintaining that only Being itself is. Such then was
their opinion, and such the reason for its adoption.
Our explanation on the other hand is that the phrases ‘something
comes to be from what is or from what is not’, ‘what is not or what is
does something or has something done to it or becomes some particular
thing’, (35) are to be taken (in the first way of putting our explanation) in
the same sense as ‘a doctor does something or has something done to
him’, ‘is or becomes something from being a doctor’. [191b] These
expressions may be taken in two senses, and so too, clearly, may ‘from
being’, and ‘being acts or is acted on’. A doctor builds a house, not qua
doctor, but qua housebuilder, and turns gray, (5) not qua doctor, but qua
dark-haired. On the other hand he doctors or fails to doctor qua doctor.
But we are using words most appropriately when we say that a doctor
does something or undergoes something, or becomes something from
being a doctor, if he does, undergoes, or becomes qua doctor. Clearly
then also ‘to come to be so-and-so from not-being’ means ‘qua not-being’.
It was through failure to make this distinction that those thinkers gave
the matter up, (10) and through this error that they went so much farther
astray as to suppose that nothing else comes to be or exists apart from
Being itself, thus doing away with all becoming.
We ourselves are in agreement with them in holding that nothing can
be said without qualification to come from what is not. But nevertheless
we maintain that a thing may ‘come to be from what is not’—that is, (15)
in a qualified sense. For a thing comes to be from the privation, which in
its own nature is not-being—this not surviving as a constituent of the
result. Yet this causes surprise, and it is thought impossible that
something should come to be in the way described from what is not.
In the same way we maintain that nothing comes to be from being,
and that being does not come to be except in a qualified sense. In that
way, however, it does, just as animal might come to be from animal, (20)
and an animal of a certain kind from an animal of a certain kind. Thus,
suppose a dog to come to be from a horse. The dog would then, it is
true, come to be from animal (as well as from an animal of a certain
kind) but not as animal, for that is already there. But if anything is to
become an animal, not in a qualified sense, (25) it will not be from
animal: and if being, not from being—nor from not-being either, for it
has been explained16 that by ‘from not-being’ we mean from not-being
qua not-being.
Note further that we do not subvert the principle that everything
either is or is not.
This then is one way of solving the difficulty. Another consists in
pointing out that the same things can be explained in terms of
potentiality and actuality. But this has been done with greater precision
elsewhere.17
So as we said, (30) the difficulties which constrain people to deny the
existence of some of the things we mentioned are now solved. For it was
this reason which also caused some of the earlier thinkers to turn so far
aside from the road which leads to coming to be and passing away and
change generally. If they had come in sight of this nature, all their
ignorance would have been dispelled.

9 Others,18 (35) indeed, have apprehended the nature in question, but

not adequately.
In the first place they allow that a thing may come to be without
qualification from not-being, accepting on this point the statement19 of
Parmenides. [192a] Secondly, they think that if the substratum is one
numerically, it must have also only a single potentiality—which is a very
different thing.
Now we distinguish matter and privation, and hold that one of these,
namely the matter, is not-being only in virtue of an attribute which it
has, while the privation in its own nature is not-being; and that the
matter is nearly, in a sense is, substance, (5) while the privation in no
sense is. They, on the other hand, identify their Great and Small alike
with not-being, and that whether they are taken together as one or
separately. Their triad is therefore of quite a different kind from ours.
For they got so far as to see that there must be some underlying nature,
(10) but they make it one—for even if one philosopher20 makes a dyad of

it, which he calls Great and Small, the effect is the same, for he
overlooked the other nature.21 For the one which persists is a joint
cause, with the form, of what comes to be—a mother, as it were.22 But
the negative part of the contrariety may often seem, (15) if you
concentrate your attention on it as an evil agent, not to exist at all.
For admitting with them that there is something divine, good, and
desirable, we hold that there are two other principles, the one contrary
to it, the other such as of its own nature to desire and yearn for it. But
the consequence of their view is that the contrary desires its own
extinction. Yet the form cannot desire itself, for it is not defective; nor
can the contrary desire it, (20) for contraries are mutually destructive. The
truth is that what desires the form is matter, as the female desires the
male and the ugly the beautiful—only the ugly or the female not per se
but per accidens.
The matter comes to be and ceases to be in one sense, (25) while in
another it does not. As that which contains the privation, it ceases to be
in its own nature, for what ceases to be—the privation—is contained
within it. But as potentiality it does not cease to be in its own nature,
but is necessarily outside the sphere of becoming and ceasing to be. For
if it came to be, something must have existed as a primary substratum
from which it should come and which should persist in it; but this is its
own special nature, so that it will be before coming to be. (30) (For my
definition of matter is just this—the primary substratum of each thing,
from which it comes to be without qualification, and which persists in
the result.) And if it ceases to be it will pass into that at the last, so it
will have ceased to be before ceasing to be.
The accurate determination of the first principle in respect of form,
whether it is one or many and what it is or what they are, (35) is the
province of the primary type of science;23 so these questions may stand
over till then.24 [192b] But of the natural, i. e. perishable, forms we
shall speak in the expositions which follow.
The above, then, may be taken as sufficient to establish that there are
principles and what they are and how many there are. Now let us make
a fresh start and proceed.

1 The present treatise, usually called the Physics, deals with natural body in general: the special
kinds are discussed in Aristotle’s other physical works, the De Caelo, &c. The first book is
concerned with the elements of a natural body (matter and form): the second mainly with the
different types of cause studied by the physicist. Books III–VII deal with movement, and the
notions implied in it. The subject of VIII is the prime mover, which, though not itself a natural
body, is the cause of movement in natural bodies.
2 The former method was suggested by Hippocrates of Chios, and rested on the rather obvious
geometrical fallacy of supposing that if a particular kind of lunule can be squared, another kind
can be squared also. Antiphon’s method was that of exhaustion. He drew a square in the circle,
and then isosceles triangles on its sides, and so on, and inferred that ultimately the inscribed
polygon was equal in area to the circle. This involves a denial of the geometrical principle that
every geometrical magnitude can be divided ad infinitum, and gives only an approximate result.
3 e. g. a point which terminates a line is indivisible, though the line is not.

4 An orator and a pupil of Gorgias.

5 Water, air, or fire. Aristotle points out elsewhere (Met. A. 988b 30) that no one made earth the
substratum.
6 a19–30.

7 The table is given in Met. A. 986a 23.

8 That the contraries are principles (ch. 5).

9 That the contraries need a substratum (ll. 21–34).

10 187a 16.
11 a21.

12 Ch. 5.

13 Ch. 6.

14 Ch. 7.

15 This is discussed below, Bk. II, Ch. 1.

16 l. 9.

17 Met. Bk. ix, and v. 1017a 35−b 9.

18 The Platonists.

19 That if a thing does not come to be from being, it must come to be from not-being.

20 Plato.

21 The privation.

22 Cf. Tim. 50 D, 51. A.

23 Metaphysics or ‘First philosophy’ as it is often called.

24 Met. xii 7–9.

 BOOK II

1 Of things that exist, some exist by nature, some from other causes.
‘By nature’ the animals and their parts exist, (10) and the plants and the
simple bodies (earth, fire, air, water)—for we say that these and the like
exist ‘by nature’.
All the things mentioned present a feature in which they differ from
things which are not constituted by nature. Each of them has within itself
a principle of motion and of stationariness (in respect of place, (15) or of
growth and decrease, or by way of alteration). On the other hand, a bed
and a coat and anything else of that sort, qua receiving these
designations—i. e. in so far as they are products of art—have no innate
impulse to change. But in so far as they happen to be composed of stone
or of earth or of a mixture of the two, (20) they do have such an impulse,
and just to that extent—which seems to indicate that nature is a source or
cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to which it belongs
primarily, in virtue of itself and not in virtue of a concomitant attribute.
I say ‘not in virtue of a concomitant attribute’, because (for instance) a
man who is a doctor might cure himself. (25) Nevertheless it is not in so
far as he is a patient that he possesses the art of medicine: it merely has
happened that the same man is doctor and patient—and that is why
these attributes are not always found together. So it is with all other
artificial products. None of them has in itself the source of its own
production. But while in some cases (for instance houses and the other
products of manual labour) that principle is in something else external to
the thing, (30) in others—those which may cause a change in themselves
in virtue of a concomitant attribute—it lies in the things themselves (but
not in virtue of what they are).
‘Nature’ then is what has been stated. Things ‘have a nature’ which
have a principle of this kind. Each of them is a substance; for it is a
subject, and nature always implies a subject in which it inheres.
The term ‘according to nature’ is applied to all these things and also to
the attributes which belong to them in virtue of what they are, (35) for
instance the property of fire to be carried upwards—which is not a
‘nature’ nor ‘has a nature’ but is ‘by nature’ or ‘according to nature’.
 What nature is, then, and the meaning of the terms ‘by nature’ and
‘according to nature’, has been stated. [193a] That nature exists, it
would be absurd to try to prove; for it is obvious that there are many
things of this kind, and to prove what is obvious by what is not is the
mark of a man who is unable to distinguish what is self-evident from
what is not. (5) (This state of mind is clearly possible. A man blind from
birth might reason about colours. Presumably therefore such persons
must be talking about words without any thought to correspond.)
Some identify the nature or substance of a natural object with that
immediate constituent of it which taken by itself is without arrangement,
(10) e. g. the wood is the ‘nature’ of the bed, and the bronze the ‘nature’

of the statue.
As an indication of this Antiphon points out that if you planted a bed
and the rotting wood acquired the power of sending up a shoot, it would
not be a bed that would come up, but wood—which shows that the
arrangement in accordance with the rules of the art is merely an
incidental attribute, (15) whereas the real nature is the other, which,
further, persists continuously through the process of making.
But if the material of each of these objects has itself the same relation
to something else, say bronze (or gold) to water, bones (or wood) to
earth and so on, that (they say) would be their nature and essence. (20)
Consequently some assert earth, others fire or air or water or some or all
of these, to be the nature of the things that are. For whatever any one of
them supposed to have this character—whether one thing or more than
one thing—this or these he declared to be the whole of substance, (25) all
else being its affections, states, or dispositions. Every such thing they
held to be eternal (for it could not pass into anything else), but other
things to come into being and cease to be times without number.
This then is one account of ‘nature’, namely that it is the immediate
material substratum of things which have in themselves a principle of
motion or change.
Another account is that ‘nature’ is the shape or form which is specified
in the definition of the thing. (30)
For the word ‘nature’ is applied to what is according to nature and the
natural in the same way as ‘art’ is applied to what is artistic or a work of
art. We should not say in the latter case that there is anything artistic
about a thing, if it is a bed only potentially, not yet having the form of a
bed; nor should we call it a work of art. (35) The same is true of natural
compounds. What is potentially flesh or bone has not yet its own
‘nature’, and does not exist ‘by nature’, until it receives the form
specified in the definition, which we name in defining what flesh or
bone is. [193b] Thus in the second sense of ‘nature’ it would be the
shape or form (not separable except in statement) of things which have
in themselves a source of motion. (5) (The combination of the two, e. g.
man, is not ‘nature’ but ‘by nature’ or ‘natural’.)
The form indeed is ‘nature’ rather than the matter; for a thing is more
properly said to be what it is when it has attained to fulfilment than
when it exists potentially. Again man is born from man, but not bed
from bed. That is why people say that the figure is not the nature of a
bed, (10) but the wood is—if the bed sprouted not a bed but wood would
come up. But even if the figure is art, then on the same principle the
shape of man is his nature. For man is born from man.
We also speak of a thing’s nature as being exhibited in the process of
growth by which its nature is attained. The ‘nature’ in this sense is not
like ‘doctoring’, (15) which leads not to the art of doctoring but to health.
Doctoring must start from the art, not lead to it. But it is not in this way
that nature (in the one sense) is related to nature (in the other). What
grows qua growing grows from something into something. Into what
then does it grow? Not into that from which it arose but into that to
which it tends. The shape then is nature.
‘Shape’ and ‘nature’, it should be added, are used in two senses. (20) For
the privation too is in a way form. But whether in unqualified coming to
be there is privation, i. e. a contrary to what comes to be, we must
consider later.1

2 We have distinguished, then, the different ways in which the term

‘nature’ is used.
The next point to consider is how the mathematician differs from the
physicist. Obviously physical bodies contain surfaces and volumes, lines
and points, and these are the subject-matter of mathematics.
Further, (25) is astronomy different from physics or a department of it?
It seems absurd that the physicist should be supposed to know the nature
of sun or moon, but not to know any of their essential attributes,
particularly as the writers on physics obviously do discuss their shape
also and whether the earth and the world are spherical or not. (30)
Now the mathematician, though he too treats of these things,
nevertheless does not treat of them as the limits of a physical body; nor
does he consider the attributes indicated as the attributes of such bodies.
That is why he separates them; for in thought they are separable from
motion, and it makes no difference, nor does any falsity result, if they
are separated. The holders of the theory of Forms do the same, (35)
though they are not aware of it; for they separate the objects of physics,
which are less separable than those of mathematics. This becomes plain
if one tries to state in each of the two cases the definitions of the things
and of their attributes. [194a] ‘Odd’ and ‘even’, ‘straight’ and ‘curved’,
and likewise ‘number’, ‘line’, and ‘figure’, do not involve motion; not so
‘flesh’ and ‘bone’ and ‘man’—these are defined like ‘snub nose’, (5) not
like ‘curved’.
Similar evidence is supplied by the more physical of the branches of
mathematics, such as optics, harmonics, and astronomy. These are in a
way the converse of geometry. While geometry investigates physical
lines but not qua physical, optics investigates mathematical lines, (10) but
qua physical, not qua mathematical.
Since ‘nature’ has two senses, the form and the matter, we must
investigate its objects as we would the essence of snubness. That is, such
things are neither independent of matter nor can be defined in terms of
matter only. Here too indeed one might raise a difficulty. (15) Since there
are two natures, with which is the physicist concerned? Or should he
investigate the combination of the two? But if the combination of the
two, then also each severally. Does it belong then to the same or to
different sciences to know each severally?
If we look at the ancients, physics would seem to be concerned with
the matter. (It was only very slightly that Empedocles and Democritus
touched on the forms and the essence. (20))
But if on the other hand art imitates nature, and it is the part of the
same discipline to know the form and the matter up to a point (e. g. the
doctor has a knowledge of health and also of bile and phlegm, in which
health is realized, and the builder both of the form of the house and of
the matter, namely that it is bricks and beams, (25) and so forth): if this is
so, it would be the part of physics also to know nature in both its senses.
Again, ‘that for the sake of which’, or the end, belongs to the same
department of knowledge as the means. But the nature is the end or ‘that
for the sake of which’. For if a thing undergoes a continuous change and
there is a stage which is last, this stage is the end or ‘that for the sake of
which’. (That is why the poet was carried away into making an absurd
statement when he said ‘he has the end2 for the sake of which he was
born’. (30) For not every stage that is last claims to be an end, but only
that which is best.)
For the arts make their material (some simply ‘make’ it, others make it
serviceable), and we use everything as if it was there for our sake. (35)
(We also are in a sense an end. ‘That for the sake of which’ has two
senses: the distinction is made in our work On Philosophy.3) The arts,
therefore, which govern the matter and have knowledge are two, namely
the art which uses the product and the art which directs the production
of it. [194b] That is why the using art also is in a sense directive; but it
differs in that it knows the form, whereas the art which is directive as
being concerned with production knows the matter. (5) For the helmsman
knows and prescribes what sort of form a helm should have, the other
from what wood it should be made and by means of what operations. In
the products of art, however, we make the material with a view to the
function, whereas in the products of nature the matter is there all along.
Again, matter is a relative term: to each form there corresponds a
special matter. (10) How far then must the physicist know the form or
essence? Up to a point, perhaps, as the doctor must know sinew or the
smith bronze (i. e. until he understands the purpose of each): and the
physicist is concerned only with things whose forms are separable
indeed, but do not exist apart from matter. Man is begotten by man and
by the sun as well. The mode of existence and essence of the separable it
is the business of the primary type of philosophy to define. (15)

3 Now that we have established these distinctions, we must proceed

to consider causes, their character and number. Knowledge is the object
of our inquiry, and men do not think they know a thing till they have
grasped the ‘why’ of it (which is to grasp its primary cause). (20) So
clearly we too must do this as regards both coming to be and passing
away and every kind of physical change, in order that, knowing their
principles, we may try to refer to these principles each of our problems.
In one sense, then, (1) that out of which a thing comes to be and
which persists, is called ‘cause’, e. g. the bronze of the statue, (25) the
silver of the bowl, and the genera of which the bronze and the silver are
species.
In another sense (2) the form or the archetype, i. e. the statement of
the essence, and its genera, are called ‘causes’ (e. g. of the octave the
relation of 2:1, and generally number), and the parts in the definition.
Again (3) the primary source of the change or coming to rest; e. g. the
man who gave advice is a cause, the father is cause of the child, (30) and
generally what makes of what is made and what causes change of what
is changed.
Again (4) in the sense of end or ‘that for the sake of which’ a thing is
done, e. g. health is the cause of walking about. (‘Why is he walking
about?’ we say. ‘To be healthy’, and, having said that, we think we have
assigned the cause.) The same is true also of all the intermediate steps
which are brought about through the action of something else as means
towards the end, (35) e. g. reduction of flesh, purging, drugs, or surgical
instruments are means towards health. [195a] All these things are ‘for
the sake of’ the end, though they differ from one another in that some
are activities, others instruments.
This then perhaps exhausts the number of ways in which the term
‘cause’ is used.
As the word has several senses, it follows that there are several causes
of the same thing (not merely in virtue of a concomitant attribute), e. g.
both the art of the sculptor and the bronze are causes of the statue. (5)
These are causes of the statue qua statue, not in virtue of anything else
that it may be—only not in the same way, the one being the material
cause, the other the cause whence the motion comes. Some things cause
each other reciprocally, e. g. hard work causes fitness and vice versa, but
again not in the same way, but the one as end, (10) the other as the origin
of change. Further the same thing is the cause of contrary results. For
that which by its presence brings about one result is sometimes blamed
for bringing about the contrary by its absence. Thus we ascribe the
wreck of a ship to the absence of the pilot whose presence was the cause
of its safety.
All the causes now mentioned fall into four familiar divisions. (15) The
letters are the causes of syllables, the material of artificial products, fire,
&c., of bodies, the parts of the whole, and the premisses of the
conclusion, in the sense of ‘that from which’. Of these pairs the one set
are causes in the sense of substratum, e. g. the parts, (20) the other set in
the sense of essence—the whole and the combination and the form. But
the seed and the doctor and the adviser, and generally the maker, are all
sources whence the change or stationariness originates, while the others
are causes in the sense of the end or the good of the rest; for ‘that for the
sake of which’ means what is best and the end of the things that lead up
to it. (Whether we say the ‘good itself’ or the ‘apparent good’ makes no
difference. (25))
Such then is the number and nature of the kinds of cause.
Now the modes of causation are many, though when brought under
heads they too can be reduced in number. For ‘cause’ is used in many
senses and even within the same kind one may be prior to another (e. g.
the doctor and the expert are causes of health, (30) the relation 2 : 1 and
number of the octave), and always what is inclusive to what is
particular. Another mode of causation is the incidental and its genera,
e. g. in one way ‘Polyclitus’, in another ‘sculptor’ is the cause of a statue,
(35) because ‘being Polyclitus’ and ‘sculptor’ are incidentally conjoined.

Also the classes in which the incidental attribute is included; thus ‘a

man’ could be said to be the cause of a statue or, generally, ‘a living
creature’. [195b] An incidental attribute too may be more or less
remote, e. g. suppose that ‘a pale man’ or ‘a musical man’ were said to
be the cause of the statue.
All causes, both proper and incidental, may be spoken of either as
potential or as actual; (5) e. g. the cause of a house being built is either
‘house-builder’ or ‘house-builder building’.
Similar distinctions can be made in the things of which the causes are
causes, e. g. of ‘this statue’ or of ‘statue’ or of ‘image’ generally, of ‘this
bronze’ or of ‘bronze’ or of ‘material’ generally. So too with the
incidental attributes. (10) Again we may use a complex expression for
either and say, e. g., neither ‘Polyclitus’ nor ‘sculptor’ but ‘Polyclitus,
sculptor’.
All these various uses, however, come to six in number, under each of
which again the usage is twofold. Cause means either what is particular
or a genus, (15) or an incidental attribute or a genus of that, and these
either as a complex or each by itself; and all six either as actual or as
potential. The difference is this much, that causes which are actually at
work and particular exist and cease to exist simultaneously with their
effect, e. g. this healing person with this being-healed person and that
housebuilding man with that being-built house; but this is not always
true of potential causes—the house and the housebuilder do not pass
away simultaneously. (20)
In investigating the cause of each thing it is always necessary to seek
what is most precise (as also in other things): thus man builds because
he is a builder, and a builder builds in virtue of his art of building. This
last cause then is prior: and so generally.
Further, (25) generic effects should be assigned to generic causes,
particular effects to particular causes, e. g. statue to sculptor, this statue
to this sculptor; and powers are relative to possible effects, actually
operating causes to things which are actually being effected.
This must suffice for our account of the number of causes and the
modes of causation. (30)

4 But chance also and spontaneity are reckoned among causes: many
things are said both to be and to come to be as a result of chance and
spontaneity. We must inquire therefore in what manner chance and
spontaneity are present among the causes enumerated, and whether they
are the same or different, and generally what chance and spontaneity
are. (35)
Some people4 even question whether they are real or not. They say
that nothing happens by chance, but that everything which we ascribe to
chance or spontaneity has some definite cause, e. g. coming ‘by chance’
into the market and finding there a man whom one wanted but did not
expect to meet is due to one’s wish to go and buy in the market.
[196a] Similarly in other cases of chance it is always possible, (5) they
maintain, to find something which is the cause; but not chance, for if
chance were real, it would seem strange indeed, and the question might
be raised, why on earth none of the wise men of old in speaking of the
causes of generation and decay took account of chance; whence it would
seem that they too did not believe that anything is by chance. (10) But
there is a further circumstance that is surprising. Many things both come
to be and are by chance and spontaneity, and although all know that
each of them can be ascribed to some cause (as the old argument said
which denied chance), (15) nevertheless they speak of some of these
things as happening by chance and others not. For this reason also they
ought to have at least referred to the matter in some way or other.
Certainly the early physicists found no place for chance among the
causes which they recognized—love, strife, mind, fire, or the like. This is
strange, whether they supposed that there is no such thing as chance or
whether they thought there is but omitted to mention it—and that too
when they sometimes used it, (20) as Empedocles does when he says that
the air is not always separated into the highest region, but ‘as it may
chance’. At any rate he says in his cosmogony that ‘it happened to run
that way at that time, but it often ran otherwise.’ He tells us also that
most of the parts of animals came to be by chance.
There are some5 too who ascribe this heavenly sphere and all the
worlds to spontaneity. (25) They say that the vortex arose spontaneously,
i. e. the motion that separated and arranged in its present order all that
exists. This statement might well cause surprise. For they are asserting
that chance is not responsible for the existence or generation of animals
and plants, nature or mind or something of the kind being the cause of
them (for it is not any chance thing that comes from a given seed but an
olive from one kind and a man from another); and yet at the same time
they assert that the heavenly sphere and the divinest of visible things
arose spontaneously, (30) (35) having no such cause as is assigned to
animals and plants. Yet if this is so, it is a fact which deserves to be
dwelt upon, and something might well have been said about it. [196b]
For besides the other absurdities of the statement, it is the more absurd
that people should make it when they see nothing coming to be
spontaneously in the heavens, but much happening by chance among the
things which as they say are not due to chance; whereas we should have
expected exactly the opposite. (5)
Others6 there are who, indeed, believe that chance is a cause, but that
it is inscrutable to human intelligence, as being a divine thing and full of
mystery.
Thus we must inquire what chance and spontaneity are, whether they
are the same or different, and how they fit into our division of causes.

5 First then we observe that some things always come to pass in the
same way, (10) and others for the most part. It is clearly of neither of
these that chance is said to be the cause, nor can the ‘effect of chance’ be
identified with any of the things that come to pass by necessity and
always, or for the most part. But as there is a third class of events
besides these two—events which all say are ‘by chance’—it is plain that
there is such a thing as chance and spontaneity; for we know that things
of this kind are due to chance and that things due to chance are of this
kind. (15)
But, secondly, some events are for the sake of something, others not.
Again, some of the former class are in accordance with deliberate
intention, others not, but both are in the class of things which are for the
sake of something. (20) Hence it is clear that even among the things
which are outside the necessary and the normal, there are some in
connexion with which the phrase ‘for the sake of something’ is
applicable. (Events that are for the sake of something include whatever
may be done as a result of thought or of nature.) Things of this kind,
then, when they come to pass incidentally are said to be ‘by chance’. (25)
For just as a thing is something either in virtue of itself or incidentally,
so may it be a cause. For instance, the housebuilding faculty is in virtue
of itself the cause of a house, whereas the pale or the musical7 is the
incidental cause. That which is per se cause of the effect is determinate,
but the incidental cause is indeterminable, for the possible attributes of
an individual are innumerable. To resume then; when a thing of this
kind comes to pass among events which are for the sake of something,
(30) it is said to be spontaneous or by chance. (The distinction between

the two must be made later8—for the present it is sufficient if it is plain

that both are in the sphere of things done for the sake of something.)
Example: A man is engaged in collecting subscriptions for a feast. He
would have gone to such and such a place for the purpose of getting the
money, if he had known. He actually went there for another purpose, (35)
and it was only incidentally that he got his money by going there; and
this was not due to the fact that he went there as a rule or necessarily,
nor is the end effected (getting the money) a cause present in himself—it
belongs to the class of things that are intentional and the result of
intelligent deliberation. [197a] It is when these conditions are satisfied
that the man is said to have gone ‘by chance’. If he had gone of
deliberate purpose and for the sake of this—if he always or normally
went there when he was collecting payments—he would not be said to
have gone ‘by chance’.
It is clear then that chance is an incidental cause in the sphere of those
actions for the sake of something which involve purpose. (5) Intelligent
reflection, then, and chance are in the same sphere, for purpose implies
intelligent reflection.
It is necessary, no doubt, that the causes of what comes to pass by
chance be indefinite; and that is why chance is supposed to belong to the
class of the indefinite and to be inscrutable to man, (10) and why it might
be thought that, in a way, nothing occurs by chance. For all these
statements are correct, because they are well grounded. Things do, in a
way, occur by chance, for they occur incidentally and chance is an
incidental cause. But strictly it is not the cause—without qualification—of
anything; for instance, a housebuilder is the cause of a house;
incidentally, a flute-player may be so.
And the causes of the man’s coming and getting the money (when he
did not come for the sake of that) are innumerable. (15) He may have
wished to see somebody or been following somebody or avoiding
somebody, or may have gone to see a spectacle. Thus to say that chance
is a thing contrary to rule is correct. For ‘rule’ applies to what is always
true or true for the most part, whereas chance belongs to a third type of
event. Hence, to conclude, since causes of this kind are indefinite, (20)
chance too is indefinite. (Yet in some cases one might raise the question
whether any incidental fact might be the cause of the chance occurrence,
e. g. of health the fresh air or the sun’s heat may be the cause, but
having had one’s hair cut cannot; for some incidental causes are more
relevant to the effect than others.)
Chance or fortune is called ‘good’ when the result is good, (25) ‘evil’
when it is evil. The terms ‘good fortune’ and ‘ill fortune’ are used when
either result is of considerable magnitude. Thus one who comes within
an ace of some great evil or great good is said to be fortunate or
unfortunate. The mind affirms the presence of the attribute, (30) ignoring
the hair’s breadth of difference. Further, it is with reason that good
fortune is regarded as unstable; for chance is unstable, as none of the
things which result from it can be invariable or normal.
Both are then, as I have said, incidental causes—both chance and
spontaneity—in the sphere of things which are capable of coming to pass
not necessarily, nor normally, (35) and with reference to such of these as
might come to pass for the sake of something.

6 They differ in that ‘spontaneity’ is the wider term. Every result of

chance is from what is spontaneous, but not everything that is from what
is spontaneous is from chance.
[197b] Chance and what results from chance are appropriate to
agents that are capable of good fortune and of moral action generally.
Therefore necessarily chance is in the sphere of moral actions. This is
indicated by the fact that good fortune is thought to be the same, or
nearly the same, as happiness, and happiness to be a kind of moral
action, (5) since it is well-doing. Hence what is not capable of moral
action cannot do anything by chance. Thus an inanimate thing or a
lower animal or a child cannot do anything by chance, because it is
incapable of deliberate intention; nor can ‘good fortune’ or ‘ill fortune’
be ascribed to them, except metaphorically, as Protarchus, for example,
said that the stones of which altars are made are fortunate because they
are held in honour, (10) while their fellows are trodden under foot. Even
these things, however, can in a way be affected by chance, when one
who is dealing with them does something to them by chance, but not
otherwise.
The spontaneous on the other hand is found both in the lower animals
and in many inanimate objects. (15) We say, for example, that the horse
came ‘spontaneously’, because, though his coming saved him, he did not
come for the sake of safety. Again, the tripod fell ‘of itself’, because,
though when it fell it stood on its feet so as to serve for a seat, it did not
fall for the sake of that.
Hence it is clear that events which (1) belong to the general class of
things that may come to pass for the sake of something, (2) do not come
to pass for the sake of what actually results, and (3) have an external
cause, may be described by the phrase ‘from spontaneity’. (20) These
‘spontaneous’ events are said to be ‘from chance’ if they have the further
characteristics of being the objects of deliberate intention and due to
agents capable of that mode of action. This is indicated by the phrase ‘in
vain’, which is used when A, which is for the sake of B, does not result in
B. For instance, taking a walk is for the sake of evacuation of the bowels;
if this does not follow after walking, we say that we have walked ‘in
vain’ and that the walking was ‘vain’. This implies that what is naturally
the means to an end is ‘in vain’, (25) when it does not effect the end
towards which it was the natural means—for it would be absurd for a
man to say that he had bathed in vain because the sun was not eclipsed,
since the one was not done with a view to the other. Thus the
spontaneous is even according to its derivation the case in which the
thing itself happens in vain. The stone that struck the man did not fall
for the purpose of striking him; therefore it fell spontaneously, (30)
because it might have fallen by the action of an agent and for the
purpose of striking. The difference between spontaneity and what results
by chance is greatest in things that come to be by nature; for when
anything comes to be contrary to nature, we do not say that it came to
be by chance, but by spontaneity. Yet strictly this too is different from
the spontaneous proper; for the cause of the latter is external, (35) that of
the former internal.
[198a] We have now explained what chance is and what spontaneity
is, and in what they differ from each other. Both belong to the mode of
causation ‘source of change’, for either some natural or some intelligent
agent is always the cause; but in this sort of causation the number of
possible causes is infinite.
Spontaneity and chance are causes of effects which, (5) though they
might result from intelligence or nature, have in fact been caused by
something incidentally. Now since nothing which is incidental is prior to
what is per se, it is clear that no incidental cause can be prior to a cause
per se. Spontaneity and chance, therefore, are posterior to intelligence
and nature. Hence, however true it may be that the heavens are due to
spontaneity, (10) it will still be true that intelligence and nature will be
prior causes of this All and of many things in it besides.

7 It is clear then that there are causes, and that the number of them is
what we have stated. The number is the same as that of the things
comprehended under the question ‘why’. (15) The ‘why’ is referred
ultimately either (1), in things which do not involve motion, e. g. in
mathematics, to the ‘what’ (to the definition of ‘straight line’ or
‘commensurable’, &c), or (2) to what initiated a motion, e. g. ‘why did
they go to war?—because there had been a raid’; or (3) we are inquiring
‘for the sake of what?’—‘that they may rule’; or (4), (20) in the case of
things that come into being, we are looking for the matter. The causes,
therefore, are these and so many in number.
Now, the causes being four, it is the business of the physicist to know
about them all, and if he refers his problems back to all of them, he will
assign the ‘why’ in the way proper to his science—the matter, (25) the
form, the mover, ‘that for the sake of which’. The last three often
coincide; for the ‘what’ and ‘that for the sake of which’ are one, while
the primary source of motion is the same in species as these (for man
generates man), and so too, in general, are all things which cause
movement by being themselves moved; and such as are not of this kind
are no longer inside the province of physics, for they cause motion not
by possessing motion or a source of motion in themselves, but being
themselves incapable of motion. Hence there are three branches of
study, (30) one of things which are incapable of motion, the second of
things in motion, but indestructible, the third of destructible things.
The question ‘why’, then, is answered by reference to the matter, to
the form, and to the primary moving cause. For in respect of coming to
be it is mostly in this last way that causes are investigated—‘what comes
to be after what? what was the primary agent or patient?’ and so at each
step of the series.
Now the principles which cause motion in a physical way are two, (35)
of which one is not physical, as it has no principle of motion in itself.
[198b] Of this kind is whatever causes movement, not being itself
moved, such as (1) that which is completely unchangeable, the primary
reality, and (2) the essence of that which is coming to be, i. e. the form;
for this is the end or ‘that for the sake of which’. Hence since nature is
for the sake of something, we must know this cause also. (5) We must
explain the ‘why’ in all the senses of the term, namely, (1) that from this
that will necessarily result (‘from this’ either without qualification or in
most cases); (2) that ‘this must be so if that is to be so’ (as the conclusion
presupposes the premisses); (3) that this was the essence of the thing;
and (4) because it is better thus (not without qualification, but with
reference to the essential nature in each case).

8 We must explain then (1) that Nature belongs to the class of causes
which act for the sake of something; (2) about the necessary and its
place in physical problems, (10) for all writers ascribe things to this cause,
arguing that since the hot and the cold, &c., are of such and such a kind,
therefore certain things necessarily are and come to be—and if they
mention any other cause (one9 his ‘friendship and strife’, (15) another10
his ‘mind’), it is only to touch on it, and then goodbye to it.
A difficulty presents itself: why should not nature work, not for the
sake of something, nor because it is better so, but just as the sky rains,
not in order to make the corn grow, but of necessity? What is drawn up
must cool, and what has been cooled must become water and descend,
(20) the result of this being that the corn grows. Similarly if a man’s crop

is spoiled on the threshing-floor, the rain did not fall for the sake of this
—in order that the crop might be spoiled—but that result just followed.
Why then should it not be the same with the parts in nature, e. g. that
our teeth should come up of necessity—the front teeth sharp, fitted for
tearing, the molars broad and useful for grinding down the food—since
they did not arise for this end, (25) but it was merely a coincident result;
and so with all other parts in which we suppose that there is purpose?
Wherever then all the parts came about just what they would have been
if they had come to be for an end, (30) such things survived, being
organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew
otherwise perished and continue to perish, as Empedocles says his ‘man-
faced ox-progeny’ did.
Such are the arguments (and others of the kind) which may cause
difficulty on this point. Yet it is impossible that this should be the true
view. For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally
come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or
spontaneity is this true. (35) We do not ascribe to chance or mere
coincidence the frequency of rain in winter, but frequent rain in summer
we do; nor heat in the dog-days, but only if we have it in winter.
[199a] If then, it is agreed that things are either the result of
coincidence or for an end, and these cannot be the result of coincidence
or spontaneity, it follows that they must be for an end; and that such
things are all due to nature even the champions of the theory which is
before us would agree. (5) Therefore action for an end is present in things
which come to be and are by nature.
Further, where a series has a completion, all the preceding steps are
for the sake of that. Now surely as in intelligent action, (10) so in nature;
and as in nature, so it is in each action, if nothing interferes. Now
intelligent action is for the sake of an end; therefore the nature of things
also is so. Thus if a house, e. g., had been a thing made by nature, it
would have been made in the same way as it is now by art; and if things
made by nature were made also by art, (15) they would come to be in the
same way as by nature. Each step then in the series is for the sake of the
next; and generally art partly completes what nature cannot bring to a
finish, and partly imitates her. If, therefore, artificial products are for the
sake of an end, so clearly also are natural products. The relation of the
later to the earlier terms of the series is the same in both.
This is most obvious in the animals other than man: they make things
neither by art nor after inquiry or deliberation. (20) Wherefore people
discuss whether it is by intelligence or by some other faculty that these
creatures work,—spiders, ants, and the like. By gradual advance in this
direction we come to see clearly that in plants too that is produced
which is conducive to the end—leaves, (25) e. g. grow to provide shade
for the fruit. If then it is both by nature and for an end that the swallow
makes its nest and the spider its web, and plants grow leaves for the sake
of the fruit and send their roots down (not up) for the sake of
nourishment, it is plain that this kind of cause is operative in things
which come to be and are by nature. (30) And since ‘nature’ means two
things, the matter and the form, of which the latter is the end, and since
all the rest is for the sake of the end, the form must be the cause in the
sense of ‘that for the sake of which’.
Now mistakes come to pass even in the operations of art: the
grammarian makes a mistake in writing and the doctor pours out the
wrong dose. (35) Hence clearly mistakes are possible in the operations of
nature also. [199b] If then in art there are cases in which what is
rightly produced serves a purpose, and if where mistakes occur there
was a purpose in what was attempted, only it was not attained, so must
it be also in natural products, and monstrosities will be failures in the
purposive effort. (5) Thus in the original combinations the ‘ox-progeny’ if
they failed to reach a determinate end must have arisen through the
corruption of some principle corresponding to what is now the seed.
Further, seed must have come into being first, and not straightway the
animals: the words ‘whole-natured first …’11 must have meant seed.
Again, in plants too we find the relation of means to end, (10) though
the degree of organization is less. Were there then in plants also ‘olive-
headed vine-progeny’, like the ‘man-headed ox-progeny’, or not? An
absurd suggestion; yet there must have been, if there were such things
among animals.
Moreover, among the seeds anything must have come to be at random.
But the person who asserts this entirely does away with ‘nature’ and
what exists ‘by nature’. For those things are natural which, (15) by a
continuous movement originated from an internal principle, arrive at
some completion: the same completion is not reached from every
principle; nor any chance completion, but always the tendency in each is
towards the same end, if there is no impediment.
The end and the means towards it may come about by chance. We say,
for instance, that a stranger has come by chance, (20) paid the ransom,
and gone away, when he does so as if he had come for that purpose,
though it was not for that that he came. This is incidental, for chance is
an incidental cause, as I remarked before.12 But when an event takes
place always or for the most part, it is not incidental or by chance. In
natural products the sequence is invariable, (25) if there is no
impediment.
It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not
observe the agent deliberating. Art does not deliberate. If the ship-
building art were in the wood, it would produce the same results by
nature. If, therefore, purpose is present in art, it is present also in nature.
The best illustration is a doctor doctoring himself: nature is like that. (30)
 It is plain then that nature is a cause, a cause that operates for a
purpose.

9 As regards what is ‘of necessity’, we must ask whether the necessity

is ‘hypothetical’, or ‘simple’ as well. (35) The current view places what is
of necessity in the process of production, just as if one were to suppose
that the wall of a house necessarily comes to be because what is heavy is
naturally carried downwards and what is light to the top, wherefore the
stones and foundations take the lowest place, with earth above because
it is lighter, and wood at the top of all as being the lightest. [200a]
Whereas, though the wall does not come to be without these, (5) it is not
due to these, except as its material cause: it comes to be for the sake of
sheltering and guarding certain things. Similarly in all other things
which involve production for an end; the product cannot come to be
without things which have a necessary nature, but it is not due to these
(except as its material); it comes to be for an end. (10) For instance, why
is a saw such as it is? To effect so-and-so and for the sake of so-and-so.
This end, however, cannot be realized unless the saw is made of iron. It
is, therefore, necessary for it to be of iron, if we are to have a saw and
perform the operation of sawing. What is necessary then, is necessary on
a hypothesis; it is not a result necessarily determined by antecedents.
Necessity is in the matter, while ‘that for the sake of which’ is in the
definition.
Necessity in mathematics is in a way similar to necessity in things
which come to be through the operation of nature. (15) Since a straight
line is what it is, it is necessary that the angles of a triangle should equal
two right angles. But not conversely; though if the angles are not equal
to two right angles, then the straight line is not what it is either. But in
things which come to be for an end, the reverse is true. (20) If the end is
to exist or does exist, that also which precedes it will exist or does exist;
otherwise just as there, if the conclusion is not true, the premiss will not
be true, so here the end or ‘that for the sake of which’ will not exist. For
this too is itself a starting-point, but of the reasoning, not of the action;
while in mathematics the starting-point is the starting point of the
reasoning only, as there is no action. (25) If then there is to be a house,
such-and-such things must be made or be there already or exist, or
generally the matter relative to the end, bricks and stones if it is a house.
But the end is not due to these except as the matter, nor will it come to
exist because of them. Yet if they do not exist at all, neither will the
house, or the saw—the former in the absence of stones, the latter in the
absence of iron—just as in the other case the premisses will not be true,
if the angles of the triangle are not equal to two right angles.
The necessary in nature, (30) then, is plainly what we call by the name
of matter, and the changes in it. Both causes must be stated by the
physicist, but especially the end; for that is the cause of the matter, not
vice versa; and the end is ‘that for the sake of which’, (35) and the
beginning starts from the definition or essence; as in artificial products,
since a house is of such-and-such a kind, certain things must necessarily
come to be or be there already, or since health is this, these things must
necessarily come to be or be there already. [200b] Similarly if man is
this, then these; if these, then those. (5) Perhaps the necessary is present
also in the definition. For if one defines the operation of sawing as being
a certain kind of dividing, then this cannot come about unless the saw
has teeth of a certain kind; and these cannot be unless it is of iron. For in
the definition too there are some parts that are, as it were, its matter.

1 De Gen. et Corr. i. 3.

2 i. e. death.

3 i. e. in the dialogue De Philosophia.

4 Apparently Democritus is meant.

5 Apparently Democritus is meant.

6 Democritus.

7 Incidental attributes of the housebuilder.

8 In ch. 6.

9 Empedocles.

10 Anaxagoras.

11 Empedocles, Fr. 62. 4.

12 196b 23–7.
 BOOK III

1 Nature has been defined as a ‘principle of motion and change’, (12)

and it is the subject of our inquiry. We must therefore see that we
understand the meaning of ‘motion’; for if it were unknown, the meaning
of ‘nature’ too would be unknown.
When we have determined the nature of motion, (15) our next task will
be to attack in the same way the terms which are involved in it. Now
motion is supposed to belong to the class of things which are continuous;
and the infinite presents itself first in the continuous—that is how it
comes about that ‘infinite’ is often used in definitions of the continuous
(‘what is infinitely divisible is continuous’). Besides these, place, void,
and time are thought to be necessary conditions of motion. (20)
Clearly, then, for these reasons and also because the attributes
mentioned are common to, and coextensive with, all the objects of our
science, we must first take each of them in hand and discuss it. For the
investigation of special attributes comes after that of the common
attributes.
To begin then, as we said, with motion. (25)
We may start by distinguishing (1) what exists in a state of fulfilment
only, (2) what exists as potential, (3) what exists as potential and also in
fulfilment—one being a ‘this’, another ‘so much’, a third ‘such’, and
similarly in each of the other modes of the predication of being.
Further, the word ‘relative’ is used with reference to (1) excess and
defect, (2) agent and patient and generally what can move and what can
be moved. (30) For ‘what can cause movement’ is relative to ‘what can be
moved’, and vice versa.
Again, there is no such thing as motion over and above the things. It is
always with respect to substance or to quantity or to quality or to place
that what changes changes. But it is impossible, as we assert, to find
anything common to these which is neither ‘this’ nor quantum nor quale
nor any of the other predicates. [201a] (35) Hence neither will motion
and change have reference to something over and above the things
mentioned, for there is nothing over and above them.
 Now each of these belongs to all its subjects in either of two ways:
namely (1) substance—the one is positive form, (5) the other privation;
(2) in quality, white and black; (3) in quantity, complete and
incomplete; (4) in respect of locomotion, upwards and downwards or
light and heavy. Hence there are as many types of motion or change as
there are meanings of the word ‘is’.
We have now before us the distinctions in the various classes of being
between what is fully real and what is potential.
Def. (10) The fulfilment of what exists potentially, in so far as it exists
potentially, is motion—namely, of what is alterable qua alterable,
alteration: of what can be increased and its opposite what can be
decreased (there is no common name), increase and decrease: of what can
come to be and can pass away, coming to be and passing away: of what
can be carried along, locomotion.
Examples will elucidate this definition of motion. (15) When the
buildable, in so far as it is just that, is fully real, it is being built, and this
is building. Similarly, learning, doctoring, rolling, leaping, ripening,
ageing.
The same thing, if it is of a certain kind, can be both potential and
fully real, (20) not indeed at the same time or not in the same respect, but
e. g. potentially hot and actually cold. Hence at once such things will act
and be acted on by one another in many ways: each of them will be
capable at the same time of causing alteration and of being altered.
Hence, too, what effects motion as a physical agent can be moved: when
a thing of this kind causes motion, it is itself also moved. This, (25)
indeed, has led some people to suppose that every mover is moved. But
this question depends on another set of arguments, and the truth will be
made clear later.1 It is possible for a thing to cause motion, though it is
itself incapable of being moved.
It is the fulfilment of what is potential when it is already fully real and
operates not as itself but as movable, that is motion. (30) What I mean by
‘as’ is this: Bronze is potentially a statue. But it is not the fulfilment of
bronze as bronze which is motion. For ‘to be bronze’ and ‘to be a certain
potentiality’ are not the same. If they were identical without
qualification, i. e. in definition, the fulfilment of bronze as bronze would
have been motion. But they are not the same, as has been said. (This is
obvious in contraries. To be capable of health’ and ‘to be capable of
illness’ are not the same, (35) for if they were there would be no
difference between being ill and being well. [201b] Yet the subject
both of health and of sickness—whether it is humour or blood—is one
and the same.)
We can distinguish, then, between the two—just as, to give another
example, ‘colour’ and ‘visible’ are different—and clearly it is the
fulfilment of what is potential as potential that is motion. (5) So this,
precisely, is motion.
Further it is evident that motion is an attribute of a thing just when it
is fully real in this way, and neither before nor after. For each thing of
this kind is capable of being at one time actual, at another not. Take for
instance the buildable as buildable. The actuality of the buildable as
buildable is the process of building. (10) For the actuality of the buildable
must be either this or the house. But when there is a house, the
buildable is no longer buildable. On the other hand, it is the buildable
which is being built. The process then of being built must be the kind of
actuality required. But building is a kind of motion, and the same
account will apply to the other kinds also. (15)

2 The soundness of this definition is evident both when we consider

the accounts of motion that the others have given, and also from the
difficulty of defining it otherwise.
One could not easily put motion and change in another genus—this is
plain if we consider where some people put it; they identify motion with
‘difference’ or ‘inequality’2 or ‘not being’; but such things are not
necessarily moved, (20) whether they are ‘different’ or ‘unequal’ or ‘non-
existent’: Nor is change either to or from these rather than to or from
their opposites.
The reason why they put motion into these genera is that it is thought
to be something indefinite, and the principles in the second column are
indefinite because they are privative: none of them is either ‘this’ or
‘such’ or comes under any of the other modes of predication. (25) The
reason in turn why motion is thought to be indefinite is that it cannot be
classed simply as a potentiality or as an actuality—a thing that is merely
capable of having a certain size is not undergoing change, nor yet a thing
that is actually of a certain size, (30) and motion is thought to be a sort of
actuality, but incomplete, the reason for this view being that the
potential whose actuality it is is incomplete. This is why it is hard to
grasp what motion is. It is necessary to class it with privation or with
potentiality or with sheer actuality, yet none of these seems possible. (35)
There remains then the suggested mode of definition, namely that it is a
sort of actuality, or actuality of the kind described, hard to grasp, but
not incapable of existing. [202a]
The mover too is moved, as has been said—every mover, that is,
which is capable of motion, and whose immobility is rest—when a thing
is subject to motion its immobility is rest. For to act on the movable as
such is just to move it. But this it does by contact, (5) so that at the same
time it is also acted on. Hence we can define motion as the fulfilment of
the movable qua movable, the cause of the attribute being contact with what
can move, so that the mover is also acted on. The mover or agent will
always be the vehicle of a form, either a ‘this’ or a ‘such,’ (10) which,
when it acts, will be the source and cause of the change, e. g. the full-
formed man begets man from what is potentially man.

3 The solution of the difficulty that is raised about the motion—

whether it is in the movable—is plain. It is the fulfilment of this
potentiality, and by the action of that which has the power of causing
motion; and the actuality of that which has the power of causing motion
is not other than the actuality of the movable, (15) for it must be the
fulfilment of both. A thing is capable of causing motion because it can do
this, it is a mover because it actually does it. But it is on the movable
that it is capable of acting. Hence there is a single actuality of both alike,
just as one to two and two to one are the same interval, (20) and the steep
ascent and the steep descent are one—for these are one and the same,
although they can be described in different ways. So it is with the mover
and the moved.
This view has a dialectical difficulty. Perhaps it is necessary that the
actuality of the agent and that of the patient should not be the same. The
one is ‘agency’ and the other ‘patiency’; and the outcome and completion
of the one is an ‘action’, that of the other a ‘passion’. (25) Since then they
are both motions, we may ask: in what are they, if they are different?
Either (a) both are in what is acted on and moved, or (b) the agency is in
the agent and the patiency in the patient. (If we ought to call the latter
also ‘agency’, the word would be used in two senses.)
Now, in alternative (b) the motion will be in the mover, for the same
statement will hold of ‘mover’ and ‘moved’.3 Hence either every mover
will be moved, (30) or, though having motion, it will not be moved.
If on the other hand (a) both are in what is moved and acted on—both
the agency and the patiency (e. g. both teaching and learning, though
they are two, in the learner), then, first, the actuality of each will not be
present in each, and, a second absurdity, (35) a thing will have two
motions at the same time. How will there be two alterations of quality in
one subject towards one definite quality? The thing is impossible: the
actualization will be one. [202b]
But (some one will say) it is contrary to reason to suppose that there
should be one identical actualization of two things which are different in
kind. Yet there will be, if teaching and learning are the same, and
agency and patiency. To teach will be the same as to learn, and to act
the same as to be acted on—the teacher will necessarily be learning
everything that he teaches, and the agent will be acted on.
One may reply:
(1) It is not absurd that the actualization of one thing should be in
another. (5) Teaching is the activity of a person who can teach, yet the
operation is performed on some patient—it is not cut adrift from a
subject, but is of A on B.
(2) There is nothing to prevent two things having one and the same
actualization, provided the actualizations are not described in the same
way, but are related as what can act to what is acting.
(3) Nor is it necessary that the teacher should learn, (10) even if to act
and to be acted on are one and the same, provided they are not the same
in definition (as ‘raiment’ and ‘dress’), but are the same merely in the
sense in which the road from Thebes to Athens and the road from Athens
to Thebes are the same, as has been explained above.4 For it is not things
which are in a way the same that have all their attributes the same, but
only such as have the same definition. (15) But indeed it by no means
follows from the fact that teaching is the same as learning, that to learn
is the same as to teach, any more than it follows from the fact that there
is one distance between two things which are at a distance from each
other, that the two vectors AB and BA are one and the same. To
generalize, teaching is not the same as learning, or agency as patiency,
in the full sense, (20) though they belong to the same subject, the motion;
for the ‘actualization of X in Y’ and the ‘actualization of Y through the
action of X’ differ in definition.
What then Motion is, has been stated both generally and particularly.
It is not difficult to see how each of its types will be defined—alteration
is the fulfilment of the alterable qua alterable (or, (25) more scientifically,
the fulfilment of what can act and what can be acted on, as such)—
generally and again in each particular case, building, healing, &c. A
similar definition will apply to each of the other kinds of motion.

4 The science of nature is concerned with spatial magnitudes and

motion and time, (30) and each of these at least is necessarily infinite or
finite, even if some things dealt with by the science are not, e. g. a
quality or a point—it is not necessary perhaps that such things should be
put under either head. Hence it is incumbent on the person who
specializes in physics to discuss the infinite and to inquire whether there
is such a thing or not, (35) and, if there is, what it is.
The appropriateness to the science of this problem is clearly indicated.
[203a] All who have touched on this kind of science in a way worth
considering have formulated views about the infinite, and indeed, to a
man, make it a principle of things.
(1) Some, as the Pythagoreans and Plato, (5) make the infinite a
principle in the sense of a self-subsistent substance, and not as a mere
attribute of some other thing. Only the Pythagoreans place the infinite
among the objects of sense (they do not regard number as separable
from these), and assert that what is outside the heaven is infinite. Plato,
on the other hand, holds that there is no body outside (the Forms are not
outside, because they are nowhere), yet that the infinite is present not
only in the objects of sense but in the Forms also.
Further, (10) the Pythagoreans identify the infinite with the even. For
this, they say, when it is cut off and shut in by the odd, provides things
with the element of infinity. An indication of this is what happens with
numbers. If the gnomons are placed round the one, and without the
one,5 in the one construction the figure that results is always different,
(15) in the other it is always the same. But Plato has two infinites, the

Great and the Small.

The physicists, on the other hand, all of them, always regard the
infinite as an attribute of a substance which is different from it and
belongs to the class of the so-called elements6—water or air or what is
intermediate between them. Those who make them limited in number
never make them infinite in amount. But those who make the elements
infinite in number, (20) as Anaxagoras and Democritus do, say that the
infinite is continuous by contact—compounded of the homogeneous
parts according to the one, of the seed-mass of the atomic shapes
according to the other.
Further, Anaxagoras held that any part is a mixture in the same way
as the All, on the ground of the observed fact that anything comes out of
anything. For it is probably for this reason that he maintains that once
upon a time all things were together. (25) (This flesh and this bone were
together, and so of any thing: therefore all things: and at the same time
too.) For there is a beginning of separation, not only for each thing, but
for all. Each thing that comes to be comes to be from a similar body, and
there is a coming to be of all things, (30) though not, it is true, at the
same time. Hence there must also be an origin of coming to be. One such
source there is which he calls Mind, and Mind begins its work of
thinking from some starting-point. So necessarily all things must have
been together at a certain time, and must have begun to be moved at a
certain time.
Democritus, for his part, asserts the contrary, namely that no element
arises from another element. Nevertheless for him the common body is a
source of all things, differing from part to part in size and in shape.
[203b]
It is clear then from these considerations that the inquiry concerns the
physicist. Nor is it without reason that they all make it a principle or
source. We cannot say that the infinite has no effect, (5) and the only
effectiveness which we can ascribe to it is that of a principle. Everything
is either a source or derived from a source. But there cannot be a source
of the infinite or limitless, for that would be a limit of it. Further, as it is
a beginning, it is both uncreatable and indestructible. For there must be
a point at which what has come to be reaches completion, and also a
termination of all passing away. That is why, (10) as we say, there is no
principle of this, but it is this which is held to be the principle of other
things, and to encompass all and to steer all, as those assert who do not
recognize, alongside the infinite, other causes, such as Mind or
Friendship. Further they identify it with the Divine, for it is ‘deathless
and imperishable’ as Anaximander says, with the majority of the
physicists.
Belief in the existence of the infinite comes mainly from five
considerations:

(1) From the nature of time—for it is infinite. (15)

(2) From the division of magnitudes—for the mathematicians also use the notion of the infinite.
(3) If coming to be and passing away do not give out, it is only because that from which things
come to be is infinite.
(4) Because the limited always finds its limit in something, (20) so that there must be no limit, if
everything is always limited by something different from itself.
(5) Most of all, a reason which is peculiarly appropriate and presents the difficulty that is felt
by everybody—not only number but also mathematical magnitudes and what is outside the
heaven are supposed to be infinite because they never give out in our thought.

The last fact (that what is outside is infinite) leads people to suppose
that body also is infinite, (25) and that there is an infinite number of
worlds. Why should there be body in one part of the void rather than in
another? Grant only that mass is anywhere and it follows that it must be
everywhere. Also, if void and place are infinite, there must be infinite
body too, for in the case of eternal things what may be must be.
But the problem of the infinite is difficult: many contradictions result
whether we suppose it to exist or not to exist. (30) If it exists, we have still
to ask how it exists; as a substance or as the essential attribute of some
entity? Or in neither way, yet none the less is there something which is
infinite or some things which are infinitely many?
The problem, however, which specially belongs to the physicist is to
investigate whether there is a sensible magnitude which is infinite.
[204a]
 We must begin by distinguishing the various senses in which the term
‘infinite’ is used.

(1) What is incapable of being gone through, because it is not its nature to be gone through (the
sense in which the voice is ‘invisible’).
(2) What admits of being gone through, the process however having no termination, (5) or (3)
what scarcely admits of being gone through.
(4) What naturally admits of being gone through, but is not actually gone through or does not
actually reach an end.

Further, everything that is infinite may be so in respect of addition or

division or both.

5 Now it is impossible that the infinite should be a thing which is

itself infinite, separable from sensible objects. (10) If the infinite is neither
a magnitude nor an aggregate, but is itself a substance and not an
attribute, it will be indivisible; for the divisible must be either a
magnitude or an aggregate. But if indivisible, then not infinite, except in
the sense (1) in which the voice is ‘invisible’. But this is not the sense in
which it is used by those who say that the infinite exists, nor that in
which we are investigating it, namely as (2), ‘that which cannot be gone
through’. But if the infinite exists as an attribute, (15) it would not be, qua
infinite, an element in substances, any more than the invisible would be
an element of speech, though the voice is invisible.
Further, how can the infinite be itself any thing, unless both number
and magnitude, of which it is an essential attribute, exist in that way? If
they are not substances, a fortiori the infinite is not.
It is plain, (20) too, that the infinite cannot be an actual thing and a
substance and principle. For any part of it that is taken will be infinite, if
it has parts: for ‘to be infinite’ and ‘the infinite’ are the same, if it is a
substance and not predicated of a subject. Hence it will be either
indivisible or divisible into infinites. (25) But the same thing cannot be
many infinites. (Yet just as part of air is air, so a part of the infinite
would be infinite, if it is supposed to be a substance and principle.)
Therefore the infinite must be without parts and indivisible. But this
cannot be true of what is infinite in full completion: for it must be a
definite quantity.
Suppose then that infinity belongs to substance as an attribute. But, if
so, it cannot, as we have said, be described as a principle, (30) but rather
that of which it is an attribute—the air or the even number.
Thus the view of those who speak after the manner of the
Pythagoreans is absurd. With the same breath they treat the infinite as
substance, and divide it into parts.
This discussion, however, involves the more general question whether
the infinite can be present in mathematical objects and things which are
intelligible and do not have extension, (35) as well as among sensible
objects. [204b] Our inquiry (as physicists) is limited to its special
subject-matter, the objects of sense, and we have to ask whether there is
or is not among them a body which is infinite in the direction of
increase.
We may begin with a dialectical argument and show as follows that
there is no such thing.
If ‘bounded by a surface’ is the definition of body there cannot be an
infinite body either intelligible or sensible. (5) Nor can number taken in
abstraction be infinite, for number or that which has number is
numerable. If then the numerable can be numbered, it would also be
possible to go through the infinite.
If, on the other hand, we investigate the question more in accordance
with principles appropriate to physics, (10) we are led as follows to the
same result.
The infinite body must be either (1) compound, or (2) simple; yet
neither alternative is possible.
(1) Compound the infinite body will not be, if the elements are finite
in number. For they must be more than one, and the contraries must
always balance, and no one of them can be infinite. If one of the bodies
falls in any degree short of the other in potency—suppose fire is finite in
amount while air is infinite and a given quantity of fire exceeds in power
the same amount of air in any ratio provided it is numerically definite—
the infinite body will obviously prevail over and annihilate the finite
body. (15) On the other hand, it is impossible that each should be infinite.
‘Body’ is what has extension in all directions and the infinite is what is
boundlessly extended, (20) so that the infinite body would be extended in
all directions ad infinitum.
Nor (2) can the infinite body be one and simple, whether it is, as
some7 hold, a thing over and above the elements (from which they
generate the elements) or is not thus qualified.
(a) We must consider the former alternative; for there are some people
who make this the infinite, and not air or water, (25) in order that the
other elements may not be annihilated by the element which is infinite.
They have contrariety with each other—air is cold, water moist, fire hot;
if one were infinite, the others by now would have ceased to be. As it is,
they say, the infinite is different from them and is their source.
It is impossible, however, that there should be such a body; not
because it is infinite—on that point a general proof can be given which
applies equally to all, (30) air, water, or anything else—but simply
because there is, as a matter of fact, no such sensible body, alongside the
so-called elements. Everything can be resolved into the elements of
which it is composed. Hence the body in question would have been
present in our world here, alongside air and fire and earth and water:
but nothing of the kind is observed. (35)
(b) Nor can fire or any other of the elements be infinite. [205a] For
generally, and apart from the question how any of them could be
infinite, the All, even if it were limited, cannot either be or become one
of them, as Heraclitus says that at some time all things become fire. (5)
(The same argument applies also to the one which the physicists suppose
to exist alongside the elements: for everything changes from contrary to
contrary, e. g. from hot to cold).
The preceding consideration of the various cases serves to show us
whether it is or is not possible that there should be an infinite sensible
body. The following arguments give a general demonstration that it is
not possible.
It is the nature of every kind of sensible body to be somewhere, (10)
and there is a place appropriate to each, the same for the part and for
the whole, e. g. for the whole earth and for a single clod, and for fire and
for a spark.
Suppose (a) that the infinite sensible body is homogeneous. Then each
part will be either immovable or always being carried along. Yet neither
is possible. For why downwards rather than upwards or in any other
direction? I mean, e. g., if you take a clod, (15) where will it be moved or
where will it be at rest? For ex hypothesi the place of the body akin to it
is infinite. Will it occupy the whole place, then? And how? What then
will be the nature of its rest and of its movement, or where will they be?
It will either be at home everywhere—then it will not be moved; or it
will be moved everywhere—then it will not come to rest.
But if (b) the All has dissimilar parts, the proper places of the parts
will be dissimilar also, and the body of the All will have no unity except
that of contact. (20) Then, further, the parts will be either finite or infinite
in variety of kind. (1) Finite they cannot be, for if the All is to be infinite,
some of them would have to be infinite, while the others were not, e. g.
fire or water will be infinite. But, as we have seen before, such an
element would destroy what is contrary to it. (This indeed is the reason
why none of the physicists made fire or earth the one infinite body, (25)
but either water or air or what is intermediate between them, because
the abode of each of the two was plainly determinate, while the others
have an ambiguous place between up and down.)
But (ii) if the parts are infinite in number and simple, their proper
places too will be infinite in number, and the same will be true of the
elements themselves. If that is impossible, and the places are finite, (30)
the whole too must be finite; for the place and the body cannot but fit
each other. Neither is the whole place larger than what can be filled by
the body (and then the body would no longer be infinite), nor is the
body larger than the place; for either there would be an empty space or
a body whose nature it is to be nowhere. (35)
Anaxagoras gives an absurd account of why the infinite is at rest.
[205b] He says that the infinite itself is the cause of its being fixed.
This because it is in itself, since nothing else contains it—on the
assumption that wherever anything is, it is there by its own nature. (5)
But this is not true: a thing could be somewhere by compulsion, and not
where it is its nature to be.
Even if it is true as true can be that the whole is not moved (for what
is fixed by itself and is in itself must be immovable), yet we must explain
why it is not its nature to be moved. It is not enough just to make this
statement and then decamp. Anything else might be in a state of rest,
but there is no reason why it should not be its nature to be moved. (10)
The earth is not carried along, and would not be carried along if it were
infinite, provided it is held together by the centre. But it would not be
because there was no other region in which it could be carried along
that it would remain at the centre, but because this is its nature. Yet in
this case also we may say that it fixes itself. If then in the case of the
earth, supposed to be infinite, it is at rest, not because it is infinite, but
because it has weight and what is heavy rests at the centre and the earth
is at the centre, (15) similarly the infinite also would rest in itself, not
because it is infinite and fixes itself, but owing to some other cause.
Another difficulty emerges at the same time. Any part of the infinite
body ought to remain at rest. Just as the infinite remains at rest in itself
because it fixes itself, (20) so too any part of it you may take will remain
in itself. The appropriate places of the whole and of the part are alike,
e. g. of the whole earth and of a clod the appropriate place is the lower
region; of fire as a whole and of a spark, the upper region. If, therefore,
to be in itself is the place of the infinite, that also will be appropriate to
the part. Therefore it will remain in itself.
In general, the view that there is an infinite body is plainly
incompatible with the doctrine that there is necessarily a proper place
for each kind of body, (25) if every sensible body has either weight or
lightness, and if a body has a natural locomotion towards the centre if it
is heavy, and upwards if it is light. This would need to be true of the
infinite also. But neither character can belong to it: it cannot be either as
a whole, nor can it be half the one and half the other. (30) For how should
you divide it? or how can the infinite have the one part up and the other
down, or an extremity and a centre?
Further, every sensible body is in place, and the kinds or differences of
place are up-down, before-behind, right-left; and these distinctions hold
not only in relation to us and by arbitrary agreement, (35) but also in the
whole itself. But in the infinite body they cannot exist. In general, if it is
impossible that there should be an infinite place, and if every body is in
place, there cannot be an infinite body. [206a]
Surely what is in a special place is in place, and what is in place is in a
special place. Just, then, as the infinite cannot be quantity—that would
imply that it has a particular quantity, (5) e. g. two or three cubits;
quantity just means these—so a thing’s being in place means that it is
somewhere, and that is either up or down or in some other of the six
differences of position: but each of these is a limit.
It is plain from these arguments that there is no body which is actually
infinite.

6 But on the other hand to suppose that the infinite does not exist in
any way leads obviously to many impossible consequences: there will be
a beginning and an end of time, (10) a magnitude will not be divisible
into magnitudes, number will not be infinite. If, then, in view of the
above considerations, neither alternative seems possible, an arbiter must
be called in; and clearly there is a sense in which the infinite exists and
another in which it does not.
We must keep in mind that the word ‘is’ means either what potentially
is or what fully is.
Further, a thing is infinite either by addition or by division. (15)
Now, as we have seen, magnitude is not actually infinite. But by
division it is infinite. (There is no difficulty in refuting the theory of
indivisible lines.) The alternative then remains that the infinite has a
potential existence.
But the phrase ‘potential existence’ is ambiguous. When we speak of
the potential existence of a statue we mean that there will be an actual
statue. It is not so with the infinite. There will not be an actual infinite.
(20) The word ‘is’ has many senses, and we say that the infinite ‘is’ in the

sense in which we say ‘it is day’ or ‘it is the games’, because one thing
after another is always coming into existence. For of these things too the
distinction between potential and actual existence holds. We say that
there are Olympic games, both in the sense that they may occur and that
they are actually occurring.
The infinite exhibits itself in different ways—in time, in the
generations of man, (25) and in the division of magnitudes. For generally
the infinite has this mode of existence: one thing is always being taken
after another, and each thing that is taken is always finite, but always
different. Again, ‘being’ has more than one sense, (30) so that we must not
regard the infinite as a ‘this’, such as a man or a horse, but must suppose
it to exist in the sense in which we speak of the day or the games as
existing—things whose being has not come to them like that of a
substance, but consists in a process of coming to be or passing away;
definite if you like at each stage, yet always different.
But when this takes place in spatial magnitudes, what is taken persists,
while in the succession of time and of men it takes place by the passing
away of these in such a way that the source of supply never gives out.
[206b]
In a way the infinite by addition is the same thing as the infinite by
division. In a finite magnitude, the infinite by addition comes about in a
way inverse to that of the other. For in proportion as we see division
going on, in the same proportion we see addition being made to what is
already marked off. (5) For if we take a determinate part of a finite
magnitude and add another part determined by the same ratio (not taking
in the same amount of the original whole), and so on, we shall not
traverse the given magnitude. (10) But if we increase the ratio of the part,
so as always to take in the same amount, we shall traverse the
magnitude, for every finite magnitude is exhausted by means of any
determinate quantity however small.
The infinite, then, exists in no other way, but in this way it does exist,
potentially and by reduction. It exists fully in the sense in which we say
‘it is day’ or ‘it is the games’; and potentially as matter exists, (15) not
independently as what is finite does.
By addition then, also, there is potentially an infinite, namely, what
we have described as being in a sense the same as the infinite in respect
of division. For it will always be possible to take something ab extra. Yet
the sum of the parts taken will not exceed every determinate magnitude,
just as in the direction of division every determinate magnitude is
surpassed in smallness and there will be a smaller part.
But in respect of addition there cannot be an infinite which even
potentially exceeds every assignable magnitude, (20) unless it has the
attribute of being actually infinite, as the physicists hold to be true of the
body which is outside the world, whose essential nature is air or
something of the kind. But if there cannot be in this way a sensible body
which is infinite in the full sense, (25) evidently there can no more be a
body which is potentially infinite in respect of addition, except as the
inverse of the infinite by division, as we have said. It is for this reason
that Plato also made the infinites two in number, because it is supposed
to be possible to exceed all limits and to proceed ad infinitum in the
direction both of increase and of reduction. Yet though he makes the
infinites two, he does not use them. (30) For in the numbers the infinite in
the direction of reduction is not present, as the monad is the smallest;
nor is the infinite in the direction of increase, for the parts number only
up to the decad.
The infinite turns out to be the contrary of what it is said to be.
[207a] It is not what has nothing outside it that is infinite, but what
always has something outside it. This is indicated by the fact that rings
also that have no bezel are described as ‘endless’, because it is always
possible to take a part which is outside a given part. The description
depends on a certain similarity, but it is not true in the full sense of the
word. (5) This condition alone is not sufficient: it is necessary also that
the next part which is taken should never be the same. In the circle, the
latter condition is not satisfied: it is only the adjacent part from which
the new part is different.
Our definition then is as follows:
A quantity is infinite if it is such that we can always take a part outside
what has been already taken. On the other hand, what has nothing outside
it is complete and whole. For thus we define the whole—that from
which nothing is wanting, (10) as a whole man or a whole box. What is
true of each particular is true of the whole as such—the whole is that of
which nothing is outside. On the other hand that from which something
is absent and outside, however small that may be, is not ‘all’. ‘Whole’
and ‘complete’ are either quite identical or closely akin. Nothing is
complete (teleion) which has no end (telos); and the end is a limit.
Hence Parmenides must be thought to have spoken better than
Melissus. (15) The latter says that the whole is infinite, but the former
describes it as limited, ‘equally balanced from the middle’. For to
connect the infinite with the all and the whole is not like joining two
pieces of string; for it is from this they get the dignity they ascribe to the
infinite—its containing all things and holding the all in itself—from its
having a certain similarity to the whole. (20) It is in fact the matter of the
completeness which belongs to size, and what is potentially a whole,
though not in the full sense. It is divisible both in the direction of
reduction and of the inverse addition. It is a whole and limited; not,
however, in virtue of its own nature, but in virtue of what is other than
it. It does not contain, but, in so far as it is infinite, is contained.
Consequently, also, it is unknowable, qua infinite; for the matter has no
form. (25) (Hence it is plain that the infinite stands in the relation of part
rather than of whole. For the matter is part of the whole, as the bronze is
of the bronze statue.) If it contains in the case of sensible things, in the
case of intelligible things the great and the small ought to contain them.
But it is absurd and impossible to suppose that the unknowable and
indeterminate should contain and determine. (30)

7 It is reasonable that there should not be held to be an infinite in

respect of addition such as to surpass every magnitude, but that there
should be thought to be such an infinite in the direction of division. For
the matter and the infinite are contained inside what contains them, (35)
while it is the form which contains. [207b] It is natural too to suppose
that in number there is a limit in the direction of the minimum, and that
in the other direction every assigned number is surpassed. In magnitude,
on the contrary, every assigned magnitude is surpassed in the direction
of smallness, while in the other direction there is no infinite magnitude.
The reason is that what is one is indivisible whatever it may be, (5) e. g. a
man is one man, not many. Number on the other hand is a plurality of
‘ones’ and a certain quantity of them. Hence number must stop at the
indivisible: for ‘two’ and ‘three’ are merely derivative terms, and so with
each of the other numbers. But in the direction of largeness it is always
possible to think of a larger number: for the number of times a
magnitude can be bisected is infinite. (10) Hence this infinite is potential,
never actual: the number of parts that can be taken always surpasses any
assigned number. But this number is not separable from the process of
bisection, and its infinity is not a permanent actuality but consists in a
process of coming to be, like time and the number of time.
With magnitudes the contrary holds. (15) What is continuous is divided
ad infinitum, but there is no infinite in the direction of increase. For the
size which it can potentially be, it can also actually be. Hence since no
sensible magnitude is infinite, it is impossible to exceed every assigned
magnitude; for if it were possible there would be something bigger than
the heavens. (20)
 The infinite is not the same in magnitude and movement and time, in
the sense of a single nature, but its secondary sense depends on its
primary sense, i. e. movement is called infinite in virtue of the
magnitude covered by the movement (or alteration or growth), (25) and
time because of the movement. (I use these terms for the moment. Later
I shall explain what each of them means, and also why every magnitude
is divisible into magnitudes.)
Our account does not rob the mathematicians of their science, by
disproving the actual existence of the infinite in the direction of
increase, in the sense of the untraversable. In point of fact they do not
need the infinite and do not use it. (30) They postulate only that the finite
straight line may be produced as far as they wish. It is possible to have
divided in the same ratio as the largest quantity another magnitude of
any size you like. Hence, for the purposes of proof, it will make no
difference to them to have such an infinite instead, while its existence
will be in the sphere of real magnitudes.
In the four-fold scheme of causes, (35) it is plain that the infinite is a
cause in the sense of matter, and that its essence is privation, the subject
as such being what is continuous and sensible. [208a] All the other
thinkers, too, evidently treat the infinite as matter—that is why it is
inconsistent in them to make it what contains, and not what is
contained.

8 It remains to dispose of the arguments8 which are supposed to

support the view that the infinite exists not only potentially but as a
separate thing. (5) Some have no cogency; others can be met by fresh
objections that are valid.
(1) In order that coming to be should not fail, it is not necessary that
there should be a sensible body which is actually infinite. (10) The passing
away of one thing may be the coming to be of another, the All being
limited.
(2) There is a difference between touching and being limited. The
former is relative to something and is the touching of something (for
everything that touches touches something), and further is an attribute
of some one of the things which are limited. On the other hand, what is
limited is not limited in relation to anything. Again, contact is not
necessarily possible between any two things taken at random.
(3) To rely on mere thinking is absurd, for then the excess or defect is
not in the thing but in the thought. (15) One might think that one of us is
bigger than he is and magnify him ad infinitum. But it does not follow
that he is bigger than the size we are, just because some one thinks he is,
but only because he is the size he is. The thought is an accident.

(a) Time indeed and movement are infinite, and also thinking, (20) in the sense that each part
that is taken passes in succession out of existence.
(b) Magnitude is not infinite either in the way of reduction or of magnification in thought.

This concludes my account of the way in which the infinite exists, and
of the way in which it does not exist, and of what it is.

1 viii. 5.

2 Plato in the Timaeus (52 E, 57 E, 58 A) makes motion depend on inequality.

3 i. e. we can substitute ‘mover’ and ‘moved’ for ‘agent’ and ‘patient’ in the formulation of the
hypothesis.
4 Cf. a18–20.

5 Aristotle’s general meaning is fairly plain. He is describing two constructions: in the one odd
gnomons are placed round the one, in the other even gnomons are placed round the two.
6 Aristotle does not regard them as elements.

7 The reference is probably to Anaximander.

8 Cf. 203b 15–30.

 BOOK IV

1 The physicist must have a knowledge of Place, too, as well as of the

infinite—namely, whether there is such a thing or not, and the manner
of its existence and what it is—both because all suppose that things
which exist are somewhere (the non-existent is nowhere—where is the
goat-stag or the sphinx?), (30) and because ‘motion’ in its most general
and primary sense is change of place, which we call ‘locomotion’.
The question, what is place? presents many difficulties. An
examination of all the relevant facts seems to lead to divergent
conclusions. Moreover, we have inherited nothing from previous
thinkers, (35) whether in the way of a statement of difficulties or of a
solution.
The existence of place is held to be obvious from the fact of mutual
replacement. [208b] Where water now is, there in turn, when the
water has gone out as from a vessel, air is present. When therefore
another body occupies this same place, the place is thought to be
different from all the bodies which come to be in it and replace one
another. (5) What now contains air formerly contained water, so that
clearly the place or space into which and out of which they passed was
something different from both.
Further, the typical locomotions of the elementary natural bodies—
namely, fire, earth, and the like—show not only that place is something,
(10) but also that it exerts a certain influence. Each is carried to its own

place, if it is not hindered, the one up, the other down. Now these are
regions or kinds of place—up and down and the rest of the six
directions. Nor do such distinctions (up and down and right and left, (15)
&c.) hold only in relation to us. To us they are not always the same but
change with the direction in which we are turned: that is why the same
thing may be both right and left, up and down, before and behind. But in
nature each is distinct, taken apart by itself. It is not every chance
direction which is ‘up’, (20) but where fire and what is light are carried;
similarly, too, ‘down’ is not any chance direction but where what has
weight and what is made of earth are carried—the implication being
that these places do not differ merely in relative position, but also as
possessing distinct potencies. This is made plain also by the objects
studied by mathematics. Though they have no real place, they
nevertheless, in respect of their position relatively to us, have a right and
left as attributes ascribed to them only in consequence of their relative
position, not having by nature these various characteristics. Again, (25)
the theory that the void exists involves the existence of place: for one
would define void as place bereft of body.
These considerations then would lead us to suppose that place is
something distinct from bodies, and that every sensible body is in place.
Hesiod too might be held to have given a correct account of it when he
made chaos first. (30) At least he says:

First of all things came chaos to being, then broad-breasted earth,

implying that things need to have space first, because he thought, with
most people, that everything is somewhere and in place. If this is its
nature, the potency of place must be a marvellous thing, (35) and take
precedence of all other things. For that without which nothing else can
exist, while it can exist without the others, must needs be first; for place
does not pass out of existence when the things in it are annihilated.
[209a]
True, but even if we suppose its existence settled, the question of its
nature presents difficulty—whether it is some sort of ‘bulk’ of body or
some entity other than that, for we must first determine its genus.
(1) Now it has three dimensions, (5) length, breadth, depth, the
dimensions by which all body also is bounded. But the place cannot be
body; for if it were there would be two bodies in the same place.
(2) Further, if body has a place and space, clearly so too have surface
and the other limits of body; for the same statement will apply to them:
where the bounding planes of the water were, there in turn will be those
of the air. But when we come to a point we cannot make a distinction
between it and its place. (10) Hence if the place of a point is not different
from the point, no more will that of any of the others be different, and
place will not be something different from each of them.
(3) What in the world then are we to suppose place to be? If it has the
sort of nature described, it cannot be an element or composed of
elements, whether these be corporeal or incorporeal: for while it has
size, (15) it has not body. But the elements of sensible bodies are bodies,
while nothing that has size results from a combination of intelligible
elements.
(4) Also we may ask: of what in things is space the cause? None of the
four modes of causation can be ascribed to it. It is neither cause in the
sense of the matter of existents (for nothing is composed of it), (20) nor as
the form and definition of things, nor as end, nor does it move existents.
(5) Further, too, if it is itself an existent, where will it be? Zeno’s
difficulty demands an explanation: for if everything that exists has a
place, (25) place too will have a place, and so on ad infinitum.
(6) Again, just as every body is in place, so, too, every place has a
body in it. What then shall we say about growing things? It follows from
these premisses that their place must grow with them, if their place is
neither less nor greater than they are.
By asking these questions, then, we must raise the whole problem
about place—not only as to what it is, but even whether there is such a
thing. (30)

2 We may distinguish generally between predicating B of A because it

(A) is itself, and because it is something else; and particularly between
place which is common and in which all bodies are, and the special
place occupied primarily by each. I mean, for instance, that you are now
in the heavens because you are in the air and it is in the heavens; and
you are in the air because you are on the earth; and similarly on the
earth because you are in this place which contains no more than you. (35)
Now if place is what primarily contains each body, it would be a limit,
so that the place would be the form or shape of each body by which the
magnitude or the matter of the magnitude is defined: for this is the limit
of each body. [209b]
If, (5) then, we look at the question in this way the place of a thing is
its form. But, if we regard the place as the extension of the magnitude, it
is the matter. For this is different from the magnitude: it is what is
contained and defined by the form, as by a bounding plane. Matter or
the indeterminate is of this nature; when the boundary and attributes of
a sphere are taken away, (10) nothing but the matter is left.
 This is why Plato in the Timaeus1 says that matter and space are the
same; for the ‘participant’ and space are identical. (It is true, indeed, that
the account he gives there of the ‘participant’ is different from what he
says in his so-called ‘unwritten teaching’.2 (15) Nevertheless, he did
identify place and space.) I mention Plato because, while all hold place
to be something, he alone tried to say what it is.
In view of these facts we should naturally expect to find difficulty in
determining what place is, if indeed it is one of these two things, (20)
matter or form. They demand a very close scrutiny, especially as it is not
easy to recognize them apart.
But it is at any rate not difficult to see that place cannot be either of
them. The form and the matter are not separate from the thing, whereas
the place can be separated. As we pointed out,3 where air was, (25) water
in turn comes to be, the one replacing the other; and similarly with other
bodies. Hence the place of a thing is neither a part nor a state of it, but is
separable from it. For place is supposed to be something like a vessel—
the vessel being a transportable place. But the vessel is no part of the
thing.
In so far then as it is separable from the thing, (30) it is not the form:
qua containing, it is different from the matter.
Also it is held that what is anywhere is both itself something and that
there is a different thing outside it.4 (Plato of course, if we may digress,
ought to tell us why the form and the numbers are not in place, (35) if
‘what participates’ is place—whether what participates is the Great and
the Small or the matter, as he called it in writing in the Timaeus.)
[210a]
Further, how could a body be carried to its own place, if place was the
matter or the form? It is impossible that what has no reference to motion
or the distinction of up and down can be place. So place must be looked
for among things which have these characteristics.
If the place is in the thing (it must be if it is either shape or matter)
place will have a place: for both the form and the indeterminate undergo
change and motion along with the thing, (5) and are not always in the
same place, but are where the thing is. Hence the place will have a
place.
Further, when water is produced from air, the place has been
destroyed, for the resulting body is not in the same place. (10) What sort
of destruction then is that?
This concludes my statement of the reasons why space must be
something, and again of the difficulties that may be raised about its
essential nature.

3 The next step we must take is to see in how many senses one thing
is said to be ‘in’ another.

(1) As the finger is ‘in’ the hand and generally the part ‘in’ the whole. (15)

(2) As the whole is ‘in’ the parts: for there is no whole over and above the parts.
(3) As man is ‘in’ animal and generally species ‘in’ genus.
(4) As the genus is ‘in’ the species and generally the part of the specific form ‘in’ the definition
of the specific form.
(5) As health is ‘in’ the hot and the cold and generally the form ‘in’ the matter. (20)

(6) As the affairs of Greece centre ‘in’ the king, and generally events centre ‘in’ their primary
motive agent.
(7) As the existence of a thing centres ‘in’ its good and generally ‘in’ its end, i. e. ‘in that for the
sake of which’ it exists.
(8) In the strictest sense of all, as a thing is ‘in’ a vessel, and generally ‘in’ place.

One might raise the question whether a thing can be in itself, (25) or
whether nothing can be in itself—everything being either nowhere or in
something else.
The question is ambiguous; we may mean the thing qua itself or qua
something else.
When there are parts of a whole—the one that in which a thing is, the
other the thing which is in it—the whole will be described as being in
itself. For a thing is described in terms of its parts, as well as in terms of
the thing as a whole, e. g. a man is said to be white because the visible
surface of him is white, or to be scientific because his thinking faculty
has been trained. The jar then will not be in itself and the wine will not
be in itself. (30) But the jar of wine will: for the contents and the
container are both parts of the same whole.
In this sense then, but not primarily, a thing can be in itself, namely,
as ‘white’ is in body (for the visible surface is in body), and science is in
the mind.
[210b] It is from these, which are ‘parts’ (in the sense at least of
being ‘in’ the man), that the man is called white, &c. But the jar and the
wine in separation are not parts of a whole, though together they are. So
when there are parts, a thing will be in itself, as ‘white’ is in man
because it is in body, and in body because it resides in the visible
surface. (5) We cannot go further and say that it is in surface in virtue of
something other than itself. (Yet it is not in itself: though these are in a
way the same thing,) they differ in essence, each having a special nature
and capacity, ‘surface’ and ‘white’.
Thus if we look at the matter inductively we do not find anything to
be ‘in’ itself in any of the senses that have been distinguished; and it can
be seen by argument that it is impossible. (10) For each of two things will
have to be both, e. g. the jar will have to be both vessel and wine, and
the wine both wine and jar, if it is possible for a thing to be in itself; so
that, however true it might be that they were in each other, the jar will
receive the wine in virtue not of its being wine but of the wine’s being
wine, (15) and the wine will be in the jar in virtue not of its being a jar
but of the jar’s being a jar. Now that they are different in respect of their
essence is evident; for ‘that in which something is’ and ‘that which is in
it’ would be differently defined.
Nor is it possible for a thing to be in itself even incidentally: for two
things would be at the same time in the same thing. (20) The jar would be
in itself—if a thing whose nature it is to receive can be in itself; and that
which it receives, namely (if wine) wine, will be in it. Obviously then a
thing cannot be in itself primarily.
Zeno’s problem—that if Place is something it must be in something—is
not difficult to solve. There is nothing to prevent the first place from
being ‘in’ something else—not indeed in that as ‘in’ place, (25) but as
health is ‘in’ the hot as a positive determination of it or as the hot is ‘in’
body as an affection. So we escape the infinite regress.
Another thing is plain: since the vessel is no part of what is in it (what
contains in the strict sense is different from what is contained), place
could not be either the matter or the form of the thing contained, (30) but
must be different—for the latter, both the matter and the shape, are
parts of what is contained.
This then may serve as a critical statement of the difficulties involved.

4 What then after all is place? The answer to this question may be
elucidated as follows.
Let us take for granted about it the various characteristics which are
supposed correctly to belong to it essentially. We assume then—

(1) Place is what contains that of which it is the place.

(2) Place is no part of the thing. [211a]

(3) The immediate place of a thing is neither less nor greater than the thing.
(4) Place can be left behind by the thing and is separable.

In addition:

(5) All place admits of the distinction of up and down, and each of the bodies is naturally
carried to its appropriate place and rests there, and this makes the place either up or down.
(5)

Having laid these foundations, we must complete the theory. We

ought to try to make our investigation such as will render an account of
place, and will not only solve the difficulties connected with it, but will
also show that the attributes supposed to belong to it do really belong to
it, and further will make clear the cause of the trouble and of the
difficulties about it. (10) Such is the most satisfactory kind of exposition.
First then we must understand that place would not have been
thought of, if there had not been a special kind of motion, namely that
with respect to place. It is chiefly for this reason that we suppose the
heaven also to be in place, because it is in constant movement. Of this
kind of change there are two species—locomotion on the one hand and,
(15) on the other, increase and diminution. For these too involve variation

of place: what was then in this place has now in turn changed to what is
larger or smaller.
Again, when we say a thing is ‘moved’, the predicate either (1)
belongs to it actually, in virtue of its own nature, or (2) in virtue of
something conjoined with it. In the latter case it may be either (a)
something which by its own nature is capable of being moved, (20) e. g.
the parts of the body or the nail in the ship, or (b) something which is
not in itself capable of being moved, but is always moved through its
conjunction with something else, as ‘whiteness’ or ‘science’. These have
changed their place only because the subjects to which they belong do
so.
We say that a thing is in the world, in the sense of in place, because it
is in the air, and the air is in the world; and when we say it is in the air,
(25) we do not mean it is in every part of the air, but that it is in the air

because of the outer surface of the air which surrounds it; for if all the
air were its place, the place of a thing would not be equal to the thing—
which it is supposed to be, and which the primary place in which a thing
is actually is.
When what surrounds, then, is not separate from the thing, (30) but is
in continuity with it, the thing is said to be in what surrounds it, not in
the sense of in place, but as a part in a whole. But when the thing is
separate and in contact, it is immediately ‘in’ the inner surface of the
surrounding body, and this surface is neither a part of what is in it nor
yet greater than its extension, but equal to it; for the extremities of
things which touch are coincident.
Further, if one body is in continuity with another, (35) it is not moved
in that but with that. On the other hand it is moved in that if it is
separate. It makes no difference whether what contains is moved or not.
[211b] Again, when it is not separate it is described as a part in a
whole, as the pupil in the eye or the hand in the body: when it is
separate, as the water in the cask or the wine in the jar. For the hand is
moved with the body and the water in the cask.
It will now be plain from these considerations what place is. (5) There
are just four things of which place must be one—the shape, or the
matter, or some sort of extension between the bounding surfaces of the
containing body, or this boundary itself if it contains no extension over
and above the bulk of the body which comes to be in it.
Three of these it obviously cannot be:
(1) The shape is supposed to be place because it surrounds, (10) for the
extremities of what contains and of what is contained are coincident.
Both the shape and the place, it is true, are boundaries. But not of the
same thing: the form is the boundary of the thing, the place is the
boundary of the body which contains it.
(2) The extension between the extremities is thought to be something,
because what is contained and separate may often be changed while the
container remains the same (as water may be poured from a vessel)—the
assumption being that the extension is something over and above the
body displaced. (15) But there is no such extension. One of the bodies
which change places and are naturally capable of being in contact with
the container falls in—whichever it may chance to be.
If there were an extension which were such as to exist independently
and be permanent, (20) there would be an infinity of places in the same
thing. For when the water and the air change places, all the portions of
the two together will play the same part in the whole which was
previously played by all the water in the vessel; at the same time the
place too will be undergoing change; so that there will be another place
which is the place of the place, and many places will be coincident. (25)
There is not a different place of the part, in which it is moved, when the
whole vessel changes its place: it is always the same: for it is in the
(proximate) place where they are that the air and the water (or the parts
of the water) succeed each other, not in that place in which they come to
be, which is part of the place which is the place of the whole world.
(3) The matter, too, might seem to be place, at least if we consider it
in what is at rest and is thus separate but in continuity. (30) For just as in
change of quality there is something which was formerly black and is
now white, or formerly soft and now hard—this is just why we say that
the matter exists—so place, because it presents a similar phenomenon, is
thought to exist—only in the one case we say so because what was air is
now water, (35) in the other because where air formerly was there is now
water. [212a] But the matter, as we said before,5 is neither separable
from the thing nor contains it, whereas place has both characteristics.
Well, then, if place is none of the three—neither the form nor the
matter nor an extension which is always there, different from, and over
and above, the extension of the thing which is displaced—place
necessarily is the one of the four which is left, namely, (5) the boundary
of the containing body at which it is in contact with the contained body.
(By the contained body is meant what can be moved by way of
locomotion.)
Place is thought to be something important and hard to grasp, both
because the matter and the shape present themselves along with it, and
because the displacement of the body that is moved takes place in a
stationary container, for it seems possible that there should be an
interval which is other than the bodies which are moved. (10) The air,
too, which is thought to be incorporeal, contributes something to the
belief: it is not only the boundaries of the vessel which seem to be place,
but also what is between them, regarded as empty. Just, in fact, as the
vessel is transportable place, so place is a non-portable vessel. So when
what is within a thing which is moved, is moved and changes its place,
(15) as a boat on a river, what contains plays the part of a vessel rather

than that of place. Place on the other hand is rather what is motionless:
so it is rather the whole river that is place, because as a whole it is
motionless.
Hence we conclude that the innermost motionless boundary of what
contains is place. (20)
This explains why the middle of the heaven and the surface which
faces us of the rotating system are held to be ‘up’ and ‘down’ in the strict
and fullest sense for all men: for the one is always at rest, while the
inner side of the rotating body remains always coincident with itself. (25)
Hence since the light is what is naturally carried up, and the heavy what
is carried down, the boundary which contains in the direction of the
middle of the universe, and the middle itself, are down, and that which
contains in the direction of the outermost part of the universe, and the
outermost part itself, are up.
For this reason, too, place is thought to be a kind of surface, and as it
were a vessel, i. e. a container of the thing.
Further, (30) place is coincident with the thing, for boundaries are
coincident with the bounded.

5 If then a body has another body outside it and containing it, it is in

place, and if not, not. That is why, even if there were to be water which
had not a container, the parts of it, on the one hand, will be moved (for
one part is contained in another), while, on the other hand, (35) the
whole will be moved in one sense, but not in another. For as a whole it
does not simultaneously change its place, though it will be moved in a
circle: for this place is the place of its parts. [212b] (Some things are
moved, not up and down, but in a circle; others up and down, such
things namely as admit of condensation and rarefaction.)
As was explained,6 some things are potentially in place, others
actually. So, when you have a homogeneous substance which is
continuous, (5) the parts are potentially in place: when the parts are
separated, but in contact, like a heap, they are actually in place.
Again, (1) some things are per se in place, namely every body which is
movable either by way of locomotion or by way of increase is per se
somewhere, but the heaven, as has been said,7 is not anywhere as a
whole, nor in any place, if at least, as we must suppose, (10) no body
contains it. On the line on which it is moved, its parts have place: for
each is contiguous to the next.
But (2) other things are in place indirectly, through something
conjoined with them, as the soul and the heaven. The latter is, in a way,
in place, for all its parts are: for on the orb one part contains another.
That is why the upper part is moved in a circle, while the All is not
anywhere. (15) For what is somewhere is itself something, and there must
be alongside it some other thing wherein it is and which contains it. But
alongside the All or the Whole there is nothing outside the All, and for
this reason all things are in the heaven; for the heaven, we may say, is
the All. Yet their place is not the same as the heaven. It is part of it, the
innermost part of it, which is in contact with the movable body; and for
this reason the earth is in water, (20) and this in the air, and the air in the
aether, and the aether in heaven, but we cannot go on and say that the
heaven is in anything else.
It is clear, too, from these considerations that all the problems which
were raised8 about place will be solved when it is explained in this way:

(1) There is no necessity that the place should grow with the body in it,
(2) Nor that a point should have a place,
(3) Nor that two bodies should be in the same place, (25)

(4) Nor that place should be a corporeal interval: for what is between the boundaries of the
place is any body which may chance to be there, not an interval in body.
 Further, (5) place is also somewhere, not in the sense of being in a
place, but as the limit is in the limited; for not everything that is is in
place, but only movable body.
Also (6) it is reasonable that each kind of body should be carried to its
own place. For a body which is next in the series and in contact (not by
compulsion) is akin, (30) and bodies which are united do not affect each
other, while those which are in contact interact on each other.
Nor (7) is it without reason that each should remain naturally in its
proper place. For this part has the same relation to its place, (35) as a
separable part to its whole, as when one moves a part of water or air: so,
too, air is related to water, for the one is like matter, the other form—
water is the matter of air, air as it were the actuality of water, for water
is potentially air, while air is potentially water, though in another way.
[213a]
These distinctions will be drawn more carefully later.9 On the present
occasion it was necessary to refer to them: what has now been stated
obscurely will then be made more clear. (5) If the matter and the
fulfilment are the same thing (for water is both, the one potentially, the
other completely), water will be related to air in a way as part to whole.
That is why these have contact: it is organic union when both become
actually one.
This concludes my account of place—both of its existence and of its
nature. (10)

6 The investigation of similar questions about the void, also, must be

held to belong to the physicist—namely whether it exists or not, and
how it exists or what it is—just as about place. The views taken of it
involve arguments both for and against, in much the same sort of way.
(15) For those who hold that the void exists regard it as a sort of place or

vessel which is supposed to be ‘full’ when it holds the bulk which it is

capable of containing, ‘void’ when it is deprived of that—as if ‘void’ and
‘full’ and ‘place’ denoted the same thing, though the essence of the three
is different.
We must begin the inquiry by putting down the account given by
those who say that it exists, (20) then the account of those who say that it
does not exist, and third the current view on these questions.
 Those who try to show that the void does not exist do not disprove
what people really mean by it, but only their erroneous way of speaking;
this is true of Anaxagoras and of those who refute the existence of the
void in this way. (25) They merely give an ingenious demonstration that
air is something—by straining wine-skins and showing the resistance of
the air, and by cutting it off in clepsydras. But people really mean that
there is an empty interval in which there is no sensible body. They hold
that everything which is is body and say that what has nothing in it at
all is void (so what is full of air is void). (30) It is not then the existence of
air that needs to be proved, but the non-existence of an interval,
different from the bodies, either separable or actual—an interval which
divides the whole body so as to break its continuity, as Democritus and
Leucippus hold, and many other physicists—or even perhaps as
something which is outside the whole body, which remains continuous.
[213b]
These people, then, have not reached even the threshold of the
problem, but rather those who say that the void exists.
(1) They argue, for one thing, (5) that change in place (i. e. locomotion
and increase) would not be. For it is maintained that motion would seem
not to exist, if there were no void, since what is full cannot contain
anything more. If it could, and there were two bodies in the same place,
it would also be true that any number of bodies could be together; for it
is impossible to draw a line of division beyond which the statement
would become untrue. If this were possible, (10) it would follow also that
the smallest body would contain the greatest; for ‘many a little makes a
mickle’: thus if many equal bodies can be together, so also can many
unequal bodies.
Melissus, indeed, infers from these considerations that the All is
immovable; for if it were moved there must, he says, be void, but void is
not among the things that exist.
This argument, then, is one way in which they show that there is a
void.
(2) They reason from the fact that some things are observed to
contract and be compressed, (15) as people say that a cask will hold the
wine which formerly filled it, along with the skins into which the wine
has been decanted, which implies that the compressed body contracts
into the voids present in it.
Again (3) increase, too, is thought to take place always by means of
void, for nutriment is body, and it is impossible for two bodies to be
together. (20) A proof of this they find also in what happens to ashes,
which absorb as much water as the empty vessel.
The Pythagoreans, too, (4) held that void exists and that it enters the
heaven itself, which as it were inhales it, from the infinite air. Further it
is the void which distinguishes the natures of things, (25) as if it were like
what separates and distinguishes the terms of a series. This holds
primarily in the numbers, for the void distinguishes their nature.
These, then, and so many, are the main grounds on which people have
argued for and against the existence of the void.

7 As a step towards settling which view is true, (30) we must determine

the meaning of the name.
The void is thought to be place with nothing in it. The reason for this
is that people take what exists to be body, and hold that while every
body is in place, void is place in which there is no body, so that where
there is no body, there must be void.
Every body, again, they suppose to be tangible; and of this nature is
whatever has weight or lightness. [214a]
Hence, by a syllogism, what has nothing heavy or light in it, is void.
This result, then, as I have said, is reached by syllogism. It would be
absurd to suppose that the point is void; for the void must be place
which has in it an interval in tangible body. (5)
But at all events we observe then that in one way the void is described
as what is not full of body perceptible to touch; and what has heaviness
and lightness is perceptible to touch. So we would raise the question:
what would they say of an interval that has colour or sound—is it void
or not? Clearly they would reply that if it could receive what is tangible
it was void, (10) and if not, not.
In another way void is that in which there is no ‘this’ or corporeal
substance. So some say that the void is the matter of the body (they
identify the place, too, with this), and in this they speak incorrectly; for
the matter is not separable from the things, (15) but they are inquiring
about the void as about something separable.
 Since we have determined the nature of place, and void must, if it
exists, be place deprived of body, and we have stated both in what sense
place exists and in what sense it does not, it is plain that on this showing
void does not exist, (20) either unseparated or separated; for the void is
meant to be, not body but rather an interval in body. This is why the
void is thought to be something, viz. because place is, and for the same
reasons. For the fact of motion in respect of place comes to the aid both
of those who maintain that place is something over and above the bodies
that come to occupy it, and of those who maintain that the void is
something. They state that the void is the condition of movement in the
sense of that in which movement takes place; and this would be the kind
of thing that some say place is. (25)
But there is no necessity for there being a void if there is movement. It
is not in the least needed as a condition of movement in general, for a
reason which, incidentally, escaped Melissus; viz. that the full can suffer
qualitative change.
But not even movement in respect of place involves a void; for bodies
may simultaneously make room for one another, (30) though there is no
interval separate and apart from the bodies that are in movement. And
this is plain even in the rotation of continuous things, as in that of
liquids.
And things can also be compressed not into a void but because they
squeeze out what is contained in them (as, for instance, when water is
compressed the air within it is squeezed out); and things can increase in
size not only by the entrance of something but also by qualitative
change; e. g. if water were to be transformed into air. [214b]
In general, both the argument about increase of size and that about
the water poured on to the ashes get in their own way. (5) For either not
any and every part of the body is increased, or bodies may be increased
otherwise than by the addition of body, or there may be two bodies in
the same place (in which case they are claiming to solve a quite general
difficulty, but are not proving the existence of void), or the whole body
must be void, if it is increased in every part and is increased by means of
void. The same argument applies to the ashes.
It is evident, (10) then, that it is easy to refute the arguments by which
they prove the existence of the void.
8 Let us explain again that there is no void existing separately, as
some maintain. If each of the simple bodies has a natural locomotion,
e. g. fire upward and earth downward and towards the middle of the
universe, (15) it is clear that it cannot be the void that is the condition of
locomotion. What, then, will the void be the condition of? It is thought
to be the condition of movement in respect of place, and it is not the
condition of this.
Again, if void is a sort of place deprived of body, when there is a void
where will a body placed in it move to? It certainly cannot move into
the whole of the void. The same argument applies as against those who
think that place is something separate, (20) into which things are carried;
viz. how will what is placed in it move, or rest? Much the same
argument will apply to the void as to the ‘up’ and ‘down’ in place, as is
natural enough since those who maintain the existence of the void make
it a place.
And in what way will things be present either in place or in the void?
For the expected10 result does not take place when a body is placed as a
whole in a place conceived of as separate and permanent; for a part of it,
(25) unless it be placed apart, will not be in a place but in the whole.

Further, if separate place does not exist, neither will void.

If people say that the void must exist, as being necessary if there is to
be movement, what rather turns out to be the case, if one studies the
matter, is the opposite, that not a single thing can be moved if there is a
void; for as with those who for a like reason say the earth is at rest, (30)
so, too, in the void things must be at rest; for there is no place to which
things can move more or less than to another; since the void in so far as
it is void admits no difference.
[215a] The second reason is this: all movement is either compulsory
or according to nature, and if there is compulsory movement there must
also be natural (for compulsory movement is contrary to nature, and
movement contrary to nature is posterior to that according to nature, so
that if each of the natural bodies has not a natural movement, none of
the other movements can exist); but how can there be natural movement
if there is no difference throughout the void or the infinite? For in so far
as it is infinite, (5) there will be no up or down or middle, and in so far as
it is a void, up differs no whit from down; for as there is no difference in
what is nothing, there is none in the void (for the void seems to be a
non-existent and a privation of being), (10) but natural locomotion seems
to be differentiated, so that the things that exist by nature must be
differentiated. Either, then, nothing has a natural locomotion, or else
there is no void.
Further, in point of fact things that are thrown move though that
which gave them their impulse is not touching them, either by reason of
mutual replacement, (15) as some maintain, or because the air that has
been pushed pushes them with a movement quicker than the natural
locomotion of the projectile wherewith it moves to its proper place. But
in a void none of these things can take place, nor can anything be moved
save as that which is carried is moved.
Further, no one could say why a thing once set in motion should stop
anywhere; for why should it stop here rather than here? So that a thing
will either be at rest or must be moved ad infinitum, (20) unless something
more powerful get in its way.
Further, things are now thought to move into the void because it
yields; but in a void this quality is present equally everywhere, so that
things should move in all directions.
Further, the truth of what we assert is plain from the following
considerations. (25) We see the same weight or body moving faster than
another for two reasons, either because there is a difference in what it
moves through, as between water, air, and earth, or because, other
things being equal, the moving body differs from the other owing to
excess of weight or of lightness.
Now the medium causes a difference because it impedes the moving
thing, most of all if it is moving in the opposite direction, (30) but in a
secondary degree even if it is at rest; and especially a medium that is not
easily divided, i. e. a medium that is somewhat dense.
[215b] A, then, will move through B in time C, and through D,
which is thinner, in time E (if the length of B is equal to D), in
proportion to the density of the hindering body. For let B be water and D
air; then by so much as air is thinner and more incorporeal than water,
(5) A will move through D faster than through B. Let the speed have the

same ratio to the speed, then, that air has to water. Then if air is twice
as thin, the body will traverse B in twice the time that it does D, and the
time C will be twice the time E. And always, (10) by so much as the
medium is more incorporeal and less resistant and more easily divided,
the faster will be the movement.
Now there is no ratio in which the void is exceeded by body, as there
is no ratio of o to a number. For if 4 exceeds 3 by 1, (15) and 2 by more
than 1, and 1 by still more than it exceeds 2, still there is no ratio by
which it exceeds o; for that which exceeds must be divisible into the
excess + that which is exceeded, so that 4 will be what it exceeds o by
+ o. For this reason, too, a line does not exceed a point—unless it is
composed of points! Similarly the void can bear no ratio to the full, (20)
and therefore neither can movement through the one to movement
through the other, but if a thing moves through the thickest medium
such and such a distance in such and such a time, it moves through the
void with a speed beyond any ratio. For let F be void, equal in
magnitude to B and to D. Then if A is to traverse and move through it in
a certain time, G, a time less than E, however, (25) the void will bear this
ratio to the full. But in a time equal to G, A will traverse the part H of D.
And it will surely also traverse in that time any substance F which
exceeds air in thickness in the ratio which the time E bears to the time
G. For if the body F be as much thinner than D as E exceeds G, (30) A, if it
moves through F, will traverse it in a time inverse to the speed of the
movement, i. e. in a time equal to G. [216a] If, then, there is no body
in F, A will traverse F still more quickly. But we supposed that its
traverse of F when F was void occupied the time G. So that it will
traverse F in an equal time whether F be full or void. But this is
impossible. It is plain, then, that if there is a time in which it will move
through any part of the void, this impossible result will follow: it will be
found to traverse a certain distance, (5) whether this be full or void, in an
equal time; for there will be some body which is in the same ratio to the
other body as the time is to the time.
To sum the matter up, the cause of this result is obvious, viz. that
between any two movements there is a ratio (for they occupy time, and
there is a ratio between any two times, so long as both are finite), (10) but
there is no ratio of void to full.
These are the consequences that result from a difference in the media;
the following depend upon an excess of one moving body over another.
We see that bodies which have a greater impulse either of weight or of
lightness, if they are alike in other respects, (15) move faster over an
equal space, and in the ratio which their magnitudes bear to each other.
Therefore they will also move through the void with this ratio of speed.
But that is impossible; for why should one move faster? (In moving
through plena it must be so; for the greater divides them faster by its
force. For a moving thing cleaves the medium either by its shape, or by
the impulse which the body that is carried along or is projected
possesses.) Therefore all will possess equal velocity. (20) But this is
impossible.
It is evident from what has been said, then, that, if there is a void, a
result follows which is the very opposite of the reason for which those
who believe in a void set it up. They think that if movement in respect of
place is to exist, the void cannot exist, separated all by itself; but this is
the same as to say that place is a separate cavity; and this has already
been stated to be impossible.11 (25)
But even if we consider it on its own merits the so-called vacuum will
be found to be really vacuous. For as, if one puts a cube in water, an
amount of water equal to the cube will be displaced; so too in air; but
the effect is imperceptible to sense. And indeed always, (30) in the case of
any body that can be displaced, it must, if it is not compressed, be
displaced in the direction in which it is its nature to be displaced—
always either down, if its locomotion is downwards as in the case of
earth, or up, if it is fire, or in both directions—whatever be the nature of
the inserted body. Now in the void this is impossible; for it is not body;
the void must have penetrated the cube to a distance equal to that which
this portion of void formerly occupied in the void, (35) just as if the water
or air had not been displaced by the wooden cube, but had penetrated
right through it. [216b]
But the cube also has a magnitude equal to that occupied by the void;
a magnitude which, if it is also hot or cold, or heavy or light, (5) is none
the less different in essence from all its attributes, even if it is not
separable from them; I mean the volume of the wooden cube. So that
even if it were separated from everything else and were neither heavy
nor light, it will occupy an equal amount of void, and fill the same place,
as the part of place or of the void equal to itself. How then will the body
of the cube differ from the void or place that is equal to it? And if there
can be two such things, (10) why cannot there be any number coinciding?
This, then, is one absurd and impossible implication of the theory. It is
also evident that the cube will have this same volume even if it is
displaced, which is an attribute possessed by all other bodies also.
Therefore if this differs in no respect from its place, why need we assume
a place for bodies over and above the volume of each, (15) if their volume
be conceived of as free from attributes? It contributes nothing to the
situation if there is an equal interval attached to it as well. Further, it
ought to be clear by the study of moving things what sort of thing void
is. But in fact it is found nowhere in the world. For air is something,
though it does not seem to be so—nor, for that matter, would water, if
fishes were made of iron; for the discrimination of the tangible is by
touch.
It is clear, (20) then, from these considerations that there is no separate
void.

9 There are some who think that the existence of rarity and density
shows that there is a void. If rarity and density do not exist, they say,
neither can things contract and be compressed. But if this were not to
take place, either there would be no movement at all, (25) or the universe
would bulge, as Xuthus12 said, or air and water must always change into
equal amounts (e. g. if air has been made out of a cupful of water, at the
same time out of an equal amount of air a cupful of water must have
been made), or void must necessarily exist; for compression and
expansion cannot take place otherwise.
Now, if they mean by the rare that which has many voids existing
separately, (30) it is plain that if void cannot exist separate any more than
a place can exist with an extension all to itself, neither can the rare exist
in this sense. But if they mean that there is void, not separately existent,
but still present in the rare, this is less impossible, yet, first, the void
turns out not to be a condition of all movement, (35) but only of
movement upwards (for the rare is light, which is the reason why they
say fire is rare); second, the void turns out to be a condition of
movement not as that in which it takes place, but in that the void carries
things up as skins by being carried up themselves carry up what is
continuous with them. [217a] Yet how can void have a local
movement or a place? For thus that into which void moves is till then
void of a void.
Again, how will they explain, in the case of what is heavy, (5) its
movement downwards? And it is plain that if the rarer and more void a
thing is the quicker it will move upwards, if it were completely void it
would move with a maximum speed! But perhaps even this is
impossible, that it should move at all; the same reason which showed
that in the void all things are incapable of moving shows that the void
cannot move, viz., the fact that the speeds are incomparable.
Since we deny that a void exists, but for the rest the problem has been
truly stated, (10) that either there will be no movement, if there is not to
be condensation and rarefaction, or the universe will bulge, or a
transformation of water into air will always be balanced by an equal
transformation of air into water (for it is clear that the air produced from
water is bulkier than the water): it is necessary therefore, (15) if
compression does not exist, either that the next portion will be pushed
outwards and make the outermost part bulge, or that somewhere else
there must be an equal amount of water produced out of air, so that the
entire bulk of the whole may be equal, or that nothing moves. For when
anything is displaced this will always happen, unless it comes round in a
circle; but locomotion is not always circular, but sometimes in a straight
line.
These then are the reasons for which they might say that there is a
void; our statement is based on the assumption that there is a single
matter for contraries, (20) hot and cold and the other natural
contrarieties, and that what exists actually is produced from a potential
existent, and that matter is not separable from the contraries but its
being is different, (25) and that a single matter may serve for colour and
heat and cold.
The same matter also serves for both a large and a small body. This is
evident; for when air is produced from water, the same matter has
become something different, not by acquiring an addition to it, but has
become actually what it was potentially, and, again, (30) water is
produced from air in the same way, the change being sometimes from
smallness to greatness, and sometimes from greatness to smallness.
Similarly, therefore, if air which is large in extent comes to have a
smaller volume, or becomes greater from being smaller, it is the matter
which is potentially both that comes to be each of the two.
For as the same matter becomes hot from being cold, and cold from
being hot, because it was potentially both, so too from hot it can become
more hot, though nothing in the matter has become hot that was not hot
when the thing was less hot; just as, if the arc or curve of a greater circle
becomes that of a smaller, whether it remains the same or becomes a
different curve, convexity has not come to exist in anything that was not
convex but straight (for differences of degree do not depend on an
intermission of the quality); nor can we get any portion of a flame, (5) in
which both heat and whiteness are not present. [217b] So too, then, is
the earlier heat related to the later. So that the greatness and smallness,
also, of the sensible volume are extended, not by the matter’s acquiring
anything new, (10) but because the matter is potentially matter for both
states; so that the same thing is dense and rare, and the two qualities
have one matter.
The dense is heavy, and the rare is light. Again, as the arc of a circle
when contracted into a smaller space does not acquire a new part which
is convex, but what was there has been contracted; and as any part of
fire that one takes will be hot; so, too, it is all a question of contraction
and expansion of the same matter. (15) There are two types in each case,
both in the dense and in the rare; for both the heavy and the hard are
thought to be dense, and contrariwise both the light and the soft are
rare; and weight and hardness fail to coincide in the case of lead and
iron.
From what has been said it is evident, (20) then, that void does not exist
either separate (either absolutely separate or as a separate element in the
rare) or potentially, unless one is willing to call the condition of
movement void, whatever it may be. At that rate the matter of the heavy
and the light, qua matter of them, would be the void; for the dense and
the rare are productive of locomotion in virtue of this contrariety, and in
virtue of their hardness and softness productive of passivity and
impassivity, (25) i. e. not of locomotion but rather of qualitative change.
So much, then, for the discussion of the void, and of the sense in
which it exists and the sense in which it does not exist.
10 Next for discussion after the subjects mentioned is Time.
The best plan will be to begin by working out the difficulties
connected with it, (30) making use of the current arguments. First, does it
belong to the class of things that exist or to that of things that do not
exist? Then secondly, what is its nature? To start, then: the following
considerations would make one suspect that it either does not exist at all
or barely, and in an obscure way. One part of it has been and is not,
while the other is going to be and is not yet. [218a] Yet time—both
infinite time and any time you like to take—is made up of these. One
would naturally suppose that what is made up of things which do not
exist could have no share in reality.
Further, if a divisible thing is to exist, it is necessary that, when it
exists, all or some of its parts must exist. But of time some parts have
been, (5) while others have to be, and no part of it is, though it is
divisible. For what is ‘now’ is not a part: a part is a measure of the
whole, which must be made up of parts. Time, on the other hand, is not
held to be made up of ‘nows’.
Again, the ‘now’ which seems to bound the past and the future—does
it always remain one and the same or is it always other and other? It is
hard to say. (10)
(1) If it is always different and different, and if none of the parts in
time which are other and other are simultaneous (unless the one
contains and the other is contained, as the shorter time is by the longer),
and if the ‘now’ which is not, but formerly was, must have ceased-to-be
at some time, the ‘nows’ too cannot be simultaneous with one another,
(15) but the prior ‘now’ must always have ceased-to-be. But the prior

‘now’ cannot have ceased-to-be in13 itself (since it then existed); yet it
cannot have ceased-to-be in another ‘now’. For we may lay it down that
one ‘now’ cannot be next to another, any more than point to point. If
then it did not cease-to-be in the next ‘now’ but in another, it would
exist simultaneously with the innumerable ‘nows’ between the two—
which is impossible. (20)
Yes, but (2) neither is it possible for the ‘now’ to remain always the
same. No determinate divisible thing has a single termination, whether it
is continuously extended in one or in more than one dimension: but the
‘now’ is a termination, and it is possible to cut off a determinate time. (25)
Further, if coincidence in time (i. e. being neither prior nor posterior)
means to be ‘in one and the same “now” ’, then, if both what is before
and what is after are in this same ‘now’, things which happened ten
thousand years ago would be simultaneous with what has happened to-
day, and nothing would be before or after anything else.
This may serve as a statement of the difficulties about the attributes of
time. (30)
As to what time is or what is its nature, the traditional accounts give
us as little light as the preliminary problems which we have worked
through.
Some assert that it is (1) the movement of the whole, others that it is
(2) the sphere itself.14 [218b]
(1) Yet part, too, of the revolution is a time, but it certainly is not a
revolution: for what is taken is part of a revolution, not a revolution.
Besides, if there were more heavens than one, the movement of any of
them equally would be time, so that there would be many times at the
same time.
(2) Those who said that time is the sphere of the whole thought so, (5)
no doubt, on the ground that all things are in time and all things are in
the sphere of the whole. The view is too naive for it to be worth while to
consider the impossibilities implied in it.
But as time is most usually supposed to be (3) motion and a kind of
change, we must consider this view. (10)
Now (a) the change or movement of each thing is only in the thing
which changes or where the thing itself which moves or changes may
chance to be. But time is present equally everywhere and with all things.
Again, (b) change is always faster or slower, (15) whereas time is not:
for ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ are defined by time—‘fast’ is what moves much in a
short time, ‘slow’ what moves little in a long time; but time is not
defined by time, by being either a certain amount or a certain kind of it.
Clearly then it is not movement. (We need not distinguish at present
between ‘movement’ and ‘change’. (20))

11 But neither does time exist without change; for when the state of
our own minds does not change at all, or we have not noticed its
changing, we do not realize that time has elapsed, any more than those
who are fabled to sleep among the heroes in Sardinia do when they are
awakened; for they connect the earlier ‘now’ with the later and make
them one, (25) cutting out the interval because of their failure to notice it.
So, just as, if the ‘now’ were not different but one and the same, there
would not have been time, so too when its difference escapes our notice
the interval does not seem to be time. If, then, the non-realization of the
existence of time happens to us when we do not distinguish any change,
(30) but the soul seems to stay in one indivisible state, and when we

perceive and distinguish we say time has elapsed, evidently time is not
independent of movement and change. It is evident, then, that time is
neither movement nor independent of movement. [219a]
We must take this as our starting-point and try to discover—since we
wish to know what time is—what exactly it has to do with movement.
Now we perceive movement and time together: for even when it is
dark and we are not being affected through the body, (5) if any
movement takes place in the mind we at once suppose that some time
also has elapsed; and not only that but also, when some time is thought
to have passed, some movement also along with it seems to have taken
place. Hence time is either movement or something that belongs to
movement. Since then it is not movement, it must be the other.
But what is moved is moved from something to something, (10) and all
magnitude is continuous. Therefore the movement goes with the
magnitude. Because the magnitude is continuous, the movement too
must be continuous, and if the movement, then the time; for the time
that has passed is always thought to be in proportion to the movement.
The distinction of ‘before’ and ‘after’ holds primarily then, in place;
and there in virtue of relative position. Since then ‘before’ and ‘after’
hold in magnitude, they must hold also in movement, (15) these
corresponding to those. But also in time the distinction of ‘before’ and
‘after’ must hold, for time and movement always correspond with each
other. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ in motion identical in substratum with
motion yet differs from it in definition, and is not identical with motion.
(20)

But we apprehend time only when we have marked motion, marking it

by ‘before’ and ‘after’; and it is only when we have perceived ‘before’
and ‘after’ in motion that we say that time has elapsed. (25) Now we mark
them by judging that A and B are different, and that some third thing is
intermediate to them. When we think of the extremes as different from
the middle and the mind pronounces that the ‘nows’ are two, one before
and one after, it is then that we say that there is time, and this that we
say is time. For what is bounded by the ‘now’ is thought to be time—we
may assume this.
When, (30) therefore, we perceive the ‘now’ as one, and neither as
before and after in a motion nor as an identity but in relation to a
‘before’ and an ‘after’, no time is thought to have elapsed, because there
has been no motion either. On the other hand, when we do perceive a
‘before’ and an ‘after’, then we say that there is time. [219b] For time
is just this—number of motion in respect of ‘before’ and ‘after’.
Hence time is not movement, but only movement in so far as it admits
of enumeration. A proof of this: we discriminate the more or the less by
number, but more or less movement by time. (5) Time then is a kind of
number. (Number, we must note, is used in two senses—both of what is
counted or the countable and also of that with which we count. Time
obviously is what is counted, not that with which we count: these are
different kinds of thing.)
Just as motion is a perpetual succession, so also is time. (10) But every
simultaneous time is self-identical; for the ‘now’ as a subject is an
identity, but it accepts different attributes.15 The ‘now’ measures time, in
so far as time involves the ‘before and after’.
The ‘now’ in one sense is the same, in another it is not the same. In so
far as it is in succession, it is different (which is just what its being now
was supposed to mean), but its substratum is an identity: for motion, (15)
as was said, goes with magnitude, and time, as we maintain, with
motion. Similarly, then, there corresponds to the point the body which is
carried along, and by which we are aware of the motion and of the
‘before and after’ involved in it. This is an identical substratum (whether
a point or a stone or something else of the kind), (20) but it has different
attributes—as the sophists assume that Coriscus’ being in the Lyceum is a
different thing from Coriscus’ being in the market-place. And the body
which is carried along is different, in so far as it is at one time here and
at another there. But the ‘now’ corresponds to the body that is carried
along, as time corresponds to the motion. For it is by means of the body
that is carried along that we become aware of the ‘before and after’ in
the motion, (25) and if we regard these as countable we get the ‘now’.
Hence in these also the ‘now’ as substratum remains the same (for it is
what is before and after in movement), but what is predicated of it is
different; for it is in so far as the ‘before and after’ is numerable that we
get the ‘now’. This is what is most knowable: for, similarly, motion is
known because of that which is moved, locomotion because of that
which is carried. For what is carried is a real thing, the movement is not.
(30) Thus what is called ‘now’ in one sense is always the same; in another

it is not the same: for this is true also of what is carried.

Clearly, too, if there were no time, there would be no ‘now’, and vice
versa. Just as the moving body and its locomotion involve each other
mutually, so too do the number of the moving body and the number of
its locomotion. [220a] For the number of the locomotion is time, while
the ‘now’ corresponds to the moving body, and is like the unit of
number.
Time, then, also is both made continuous by the ‘now’ and divided at
it. (5) For here too there is a correspondence with the locomotion and the
moving body. For the motion or locomotion is made one by the thing
which is moved, because it is one—not because it is one in its own
nature (for there might be pauses in the movement of such a thing)—but
because it is one in definition: for this determines the movement as
‘before’ and ‘after’. Here, too, there is a correspondence with the point;
for the point also both connects and terminates the length—it is the
beginning of one and the end of another. (10) But when you take it in this
way, using the one point as two, a pause is necessary, if the same point
is to be the beginning and the end. The ‘now’ on the other hand, since
the body carried is moving, is always different.
Hence time is not number in the sense in which there is ‘number’ of
the same point because it is beginning and end, but rather as the
extremities of a line form a number, and not as the parts of the line do
so, (15) both for the reason given (for we can use the middle point as two,
so that on that analogy time might stand still), and further because
obviously the ‘now’ is no part of time nor the section any part of the
movement, any more than the points are parts of the line—for it is two
lines that are parts of one line. (20)
 In so far then as the ‘now’ is a boundary, it is not time, but an
attribute of it; in so far as it numbers, it is number; for boundaries
belong only to that which they bound, but number (e. g. ten) is the
number of these horses, and belongs also elsewhere.
It is clear, then, that time is ‘number of movement in respect of the
before and after’, and is continuous since it is an attribute of what is
continuous. (25)

12 The smallest number, in the strict sense of the word ‘number’, is

two. But of number as concrete, sometimes there is a minimum,
sometimes not: e. g. of a ‘line’, the smallest in respect of multiplicity is
two (or, if you like, one), but in respect of size there is no minimum; for
every line is divided ad infinitum. (30) Hence it is so with time. In respect
of number the minimum is one (or two); in point of extent there is no
minimum.
It is clear, too, that time is not described as fast or slow, but as many
or few16 and as long or short. [220b] For as continuous it is long or
short and as a number many or few, but it is not fast or slow—any more
than any number with which we number is fast or slow.
Further, (5) there is the same time everywhere at once, but not the
same time before and after, for while the present change is one, the
change which has happened and that which will happen are different.
Time is not number with which we count, but the number of things
which are counted, and this according as it occurs before or after is
always different, (10) for the ‘nows’ are different. And the number of a
hundred horses and a hundred men is the same, but the things numbered
are different—the horses from the men. Further, as a movement can be
one and the same again and again, so too can time, e. g. a year or a
spring or an autumn.
Not only do we measure the movement by the time, (15) but also the
time by the movement, because they define each other. The time marks
the movement, since it is its number, and the movement the time. We
describe the time as much or little, measuring it by the movement, just
as we know the number by what is numbered, (20) e. g. the number of the
horses by one horse as the unit. For we know how many horses there are
by the use of the number; and again by using the one horse as unit we
know the number of the horses itself. So it is with the time and the
movement; for we measure the movement by the time and vice versa. It
is natural that this should happen; for the movement goes with the
distance and the time with the movement, (25) because they are quanta
and continuous and divisible. The movement has these attributes
because the distance is of this nature, and the time has them because of
the movement. And we measure both the distance by the movement and
the movement by the distance; for we say that the road is long, if the
journey is long, and that this is long, (30) if the road is long—the time,
too, if the movement, and the movement, if the time.
[221a] Time is a measure of motion and of being moved, and it
measures the motion by determining a motion which will measure
exactly the whole motion, as the cubit does the length by determining an
amount which will measure out the whole. Further ‘to be in time’ means,
for movement, that both it and its essence are measured by time (for
simultaneously it measures both the movement and its essence, (5) and
this is what being in time means for it, that its essence should be
measured).
Clearly then ‘to be in time’ has the same meaning for other things also,
namely, that their being should be measured by time. ‘To be in time’ is
one of two things: (1) to exist when time exists, (10) (2) as we say of some
things that they are ‘in number’. The latter means either what is a part
or mode of number—in general, something which belongs to number—
or that things have a number.
Now, since time is number, the ‘now’ and the ‘before’ and the like are
in time, just as ‘unit’ and ‘odd’ and ‘even’ are in number, (15) i. e. in the
sense that the one set belongs to number, the other to time. But things
are in time as they are in number. If this is so, they are contained by
time as things in place are contained by place.
Plainly, too, to be in time does not mean to coexist with time, any
more than to be in motion or in place means to coexist with motion or
place. (20) For if ‘to be in something’ is to mean this, then all things will
be in anything, and the heaven will be in a grain; for when the grain is,
then also is the heaven. But this is a merely incidental conjunction,
whereas the other is necessarily involved: that which is in time
necessarily involves that there is time when it is, (25) and that which is in
motion that there is motion when it is.
Since what is ‘in time’ is so in the same sense as what is in number is
so, a time greater than everything in time can be found. So it is
necessary that all the things in time should be contained by time, just
like other things also which are ‘in anything’, e. g. the things ‘in place’
by place.
A thing, then, will be affected by time, just as we are accustomed to
say that time wastes things away, (30) and that all things grow old
through time, and that there is oblivion owing to the lapse of time, but
we do not say the same of getting to know or of becoming young or fair.
For time is by its nature the cause rather of decay, since it is the number
of change, and change removes what is. [221b]
Hence, plainly, things which are always are not, as such, in time, for
they are not contained by time, nor is their being measured by time. A
proof of this is that none of them is affected by time, which indicates that
they are not in time. (5)
Since time is the measure of motion, it will be the measure of rest too
—indirectly. For all rest is in time. For it does not follow that what is in
time is moved, though what is in motion is necessarily moved. (10) For
time is not motion, but ‘number of motion’: and what is at rest, also, can
be in the number of motion. Not everything that is not in motion can be
said to be ‘at rest’—but only that which can be moved, though it actually
is not moved, as was said above.17
‘To be in number’ means that there is a number of the thing, (15) and
that its being is measured by the number in which it is. Hence if a thing
is ‘in time’ it will be measured by time. But time will measure what is
moved and what is at rest, the one qua moved, the other qua at rest; for
it will measure their motion and rest respectively.
Hence what is moved will not be measurable by the time simply in so
far as it has quantity, (20) but in so far as its motion has quantity. Thus
none of the things which are neither moved nor at rest are in time: for
‘to be in time’ is ‘to be measured by time’, while time is the measure of
motion and rest.
Plainly, then, neither will everything that does not exist be in time,
i. e. those non-existent things that cannot exist, as the diagonal cannot
be commensurate with the side.
 Generally, (25) if time is directly the measure of motion and indirectly
of other things, it is clear that a thing whose existence is measured by it
will have its existence in rest or motion. Those things therefore which
are subject to perishing and becoming—generally, (30) those which at one
time exist, at another do not—are necessarily in time: for there is a
greater time which will extend both beyond their existence and beyond
the time which measures their existence. [222a] Of things which do
not exist but are contained by time some were, e. g. Homer once was,
some will be, e. g. a future event; this depends on the direction in which
time contains them; if on both, they have both modes of existence. As to
such things as it does not contain in any way, they neither were nor are
nor will be. These are those non-existents whose opposites always are, (5)
as the incommensurability of the diagonal always is—and this will not
be in time. Nor will the commensurability, therefore; hence this
eternally is not, because it is contrary to what eternally is. A thing whose
contrary is not eternal can be and not be, and it is of such things that
there is coming to be and passing away.

13 The ‘now’ is the link of time, (10) as has been said18 (for it connects
past and future time), and it is a limit of time (for it is the beginning of
the one and the end of the other). But this is not obvious as it is with the
point, which is fixed. It divides potentially, (15) and in so far as it is
dividing the ‘now’ is always different, but in so far as it connects it is
always the same, as it is with mathematical lines. For the intellect it is
not always one and the same point, since it is other and other when one
divides the line; but in so far as it is one, it is the same in every respect.
So the ‘now’ also is in one way a potential dividing of time, in another
the termination of both parts, and their unity. And the dividing and the
uniting are the same thing and in the same reference, but in essence they
are not the same.
So one kind of ‘now’ is described in this way: another is when the time
is near this kind of ‘now’. (20) ‘He will come now’ because he will come
to-day; ‘he has come now’ because he came to-day. But the things in the
Iliad have not happened ‘now’, nor is the flood ‘now’—not that the time
from now to them is not continuous, but because they are not near.
‘At some time’ means a time determined in relation to the first of the
two types of ‘now’, e. g. ‘at some time’ Troy was taken, (25) and ‘at some
time’ there will be a flood; for it must be determined with reference to
the ‘now’. There will thus be a determinate time from this ‘now’ to that,
and there was such in reference to the past event. But if there be no time
which is not ‘sometime’, every time will be determined.
Will time then fail? Surely not, if motion always exists. Is time then
always different or does the same time recur? Clearly time is, (30) in the
same way as motion is. For if one and the same motion sometimes
recurs, it will be one and the same time, and if not, not.
Since the ‘now’ is an end and a beginning of time, not of the same
time however, but the end of that which is past and the beginning of
that which is to come, it follows that, as the circle has its convexity and
its concavity, in a sense, in the same thing, so time is always at a
beginning and at an end. [222b] And for this reason it seems to be
always different; for the ‘now’ is not the beginning and the end of the
same thing; if it were, (5) it would be at the same time and in the same
respect two opposites. And time will not fail; for it is always at a
beginning.
‘Presently’ or ‘just’ refers to the part of future time which is near the
indivisible present ‘now’ (‘When do you walk?’ ‘Presently’, (10) because
the time in which he is going to do so is near), and to the part of past
time which is not far from the ‘now’ (‘When do you walk?’ ‘I have just
been walking’). But to say that Troy has just been taken—we do not say
that, because it is too far from the ‘now’. ‘Lately’, too, refers to the part
of past time which is near the present ‘now’. ‘When did you go?’ ‘Lately’,
if the time is near the existing now. ‘Long ago’ refers to the distant past.
‘Suddenly’ refers to what has departed from its former condition in a
time imperceptible because of its smallness; but it is the nature of all
change to alter things from their former condition. (15) In time all things
come into being and pass away; for which reason some called it the
wisest of all things, but the Pythagorean Paron called it the most stupid,
because in it we also forget; and his was the truer view. It is clear then
that it must be in itself, as we said before19 the condition of destruction
rather than of coming into being (for change, (20) in itself, makes things
depart from their former condition), and only incidentally of coming
into being, and of being. A sufficient evidence of this is that nothing
comes into being without itself moving somehow and acting, but a thing
can be destroyed even if it does not move at all. And this is what, as a
rule, we chiefly mean by a thing’s being destroyed by time. (25) Still, time
does not work even this change; even this sort of change takes place
incidentally in time.
We have stated, then, that time exists and what it is, and in how many
senses we speak of the ‘now’, and what ‘at some time’, ‘lately’, ‘presently’
or ‘just’, ‘long ago’, and ‘suddenly’ mean.

14 These distinctions having been drawn, (30) it is evident that every

change and everything that moves is in time; for the distinction of faster
and slower exists in reference to all change, since it is found in every
instance. In the phrase ‘moving faster’ I refer to that which changes
before another into the condition in question, when it moves over the
same interval and with a regular movement; e. g. in the case of
locomotion, if both things move along the circumference of a circle, or
both along a straight line; and similarly in all other cases. [223a] (5)
But what is before is in time; for we say ‘before’ and ‘after’ with reference
to the distance from the ‘now’, and the ‘now’ is the boundary of the past
and the future; so that since ‘nows’ are in time, the before and the after
will be in time too; for in that in which the ‘now’ is, the distance from
the ‘now’ will also be. But ‘before’ is used contrariwise with reference to
past and to future time; for in the past we call ‘before’ what is farther
from the ‘now’, (10) and ‘after’ what is nearer, but in the future we call
the nearer ‘before’ and the farther ‘after’. So that since the ‘before’ is in
time, and every movement involves a ‘before’, (15) evidently every change
and every movement is in time.
It is also worth considering how time can be related to the soul; and
why time is thought to be in everything, both in earth and in sea and in
heaven. Is it because it is an attribute, or state, of movement (since it is
the number of movement) and all these things are movable (for they are
all in place), and time and movement are together, (20) both in respect of
potentiality and in respect of actuality?
Whether if soul did not exist time would exist or not, is a question that
may fairly be asked; for if there cannot be some one to count there
cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently there cannot
be number; for number is either what has been, or what can be, counted.
But if nothing but soul, or in soul reason, is qualified to count, (25) there
would not be time unless there were soul, but only that of which time is
an attribute, i. e. if movement can exist without soul, and the before and
after are attributes of movement, and time is these qua numerable.
One might also raise the question what sort of movement time is the
number of. Must we not say ‘of any kind’? For things both come into
being in time and pass away, (30) and grow, and are altered in time, and
are moved locally; thus it is of each movement qua movement that time
is the number. And so it is simply the number of continuous movement,
not of any particular kind of it.
But other things as well may have been moved now, and there would
be a number of each of the two movements. [223b] Is there another
time, then, and will there be two equal times at once? Surely not. For a
time that is both equal and simultaneous is one and the same time, and
even those that are not simultaneous are one in kind; for if there were
dogs, and horses, and seven of each, it would be the same number. (5) So,
too, movements that have simultaneous limits have the same time, yet
the one may in fact be fast and the other not, and one may be
locomotion and the other alteration; still the time of the two changes is
the same if their number also is equal and simultaneous; and for this
reason, while the movements are different and separate, (10) the time is
everywhere the same, because the number of equal and simultaneous
movements is everywhere one and the same.
Now there is such a thing as locomotion, and in locomotion there is
included circular movement, and everything is measured by some one
thing homogeneous with it, units by a unit, horses by a horse, and
similarly times by some definite time, and, as we said,20 time is
measured by motion as well as motion by time (this being so because by
a motion definite in time the quantity both of the motion and of the time
is measured): if, (15) then, what is first is the measure of everything
homogeneous with it, regular circular motion is above all else the
measure, because the number of this is the best known. (20) Now neither
alteration nor increase nor coming into being can be regular, but
locomotion can be. This also is why time is thought to be the movement
of the sphere, viz. because the other movements are measured by this,
and time by this movement.
This also explains the common saying that human affairs form a circle,
(25) and that there is a circle in all other things that have a natural

movement and coming into being and passing away. This is because all
other things are discriminated by time, and end and begin as though
conforming to a cycle; for even time itself is thought to be a circle. (30)
And this opinion again is held because time is the measure of this kind
of locomotion and is itself measured by such. So that to say that the
things that come into being form a circle is to say that there is a circle of
time; and this is to say that it is measured by the circular movement; for
apart from the measure nothing else to be measured is observed; the
whole is just a plurality of measures. [224a]
It is said rightly, too, that the number of the sheep and of the dogs is
the same number if the two numbers are equal, but not the same decad or
the same ten; just as the equilateral and the scalene are not the same
triangle, (5) yet they are the same figure, because they are both triangles.
For things are called the same so-and-so if they do not differ by a
differentia of that thing, but not if they do; e. g. triangle differs from
triangle by a differentia of triangle, therefore they are different triangles;
but they do not differ by a differentia of figure, but are in one and the
same division of it. For a figure of one kind is a circle and a figure of
another kind a triangle, (10) and a triangle of one kind is equilateral and a
triangle of another kind scalene. They are the same figure, then, and
that, triangle, but not the same triangle. Therefore the number of two
groups also is the same number (for their number does not differ by a
differentia of number), but it is not the same decad; for the things of
which it is asserted differ; one group are dogs, and the other horses.
We have now discussed time—both time itself and the matters
appropriate to the consideration of it. (15)

1 52.

2 Where he apparently identified ‘the participant’ with ‘the great and the small’; cf. 1. 35.

3 208b 2.

4 Cf. 212b 14–16.

5 209b 22–32.
6 211a 17–b5.

7 a32.

8 209a 2–30.

9 De Gen. et Corr. i. 3.

10 Expected by those who believe in a separately existing place or void.

11 211b 19 sqq., 213a 31.

12 A Pythagorean of Croton.

13 The argument would be clearer if we could say ‘during’ itself. If the existent perished ‘in’ itself,
it would never exist without perishing.
14 Aristotle is probably referring to Plato and the Pythagoreans respectively.

15 e. g. if you come in when I go out, the time of your coming in is in fact the time of my going
out, though for it to be the one and to be the other are different things.
16 e. g. ‘many years’.

17 202a 4.

18 220a 5.

19 221b 1.

20 220b 28.
 BOOK V

1 Everything with changes does so in one of three senses. (21) It may

change (1) accidentally, as for instance when we say that something
musical walks, that which walks being something in which aptitude for
music is an accident. Again (2) a thing is said without qualification to
change because something belonging to it changes, (25) i. e. in statements
which refer to part of the thing in question: thus the body is restored to
health because the eye or the chest, that is to say a part of the whole
body, is restored to health. And above all there is (3) the case of a thing
which is in motion neither accidentally nor in respect of something else
belonging to it, but in virtue of being itself directly in motion. Here we
have a thing which is essentially movable: and that which is so is a
different thing according to the particular variety of motion: for instance
it may be a thing capable of alteration: and within the sphere of
alteration it is again a different thing according as it is capable of being
restored to health or capable of being heated. (30) And there are the same
distinctions in the case of the mover: (1) one thing causes motion
accidentally, (2) another partially (because something belonging to it
causes motion), (3) another of itself directly, as, for instance, the
physician heals, the hand strikes. We have, then, the following factors:
(a) on the one hand that which directly causes motion, and (b) on the
other hand that which is in motion: further, we have (c) that in which
motion takes place, (35) namely time, and (distinct from these three) (d)
that from which and (e) that to which it proceeds: for every motion
proceeds from something and to something, that which is directly in
motion being distinct from that to which it is in motion and that from
which it is in motion: for instance, we may take the three things ‘wood’,
‘hot’, and ‘cold’, of which the first is that which is in motion, the second
is that to which the motion proceeds, and the third is that from which it
proceeds. [224b] This being so, it is clear that the motion is in the
wood, not in its form: for the motion is neither caused nor experienced
by the form or the place or the quantity. (5) So we are left with a mover,
a moved, and a goal of motion. I do not include the starting-point of
motion: for it is the goal rather than the starting-point of motion that
gives its name to a particular process of change. Thus ‘perishing’ is
change to not-being, though it is also true that that which perishes
changes from being: and ‘becoming’ is change to being, though it is also
change from not-being.
Now a definition of motion has been given above,1a from which it will
be seen that every goal of motion, (10) whether it be a form, an affection,
or a place, is immovable, as, for instance, knowledge and heat. Here,
however, a difficulty may be raised. Affections, it may be said, are
motions, and whiteness is an affection: thus there may be change to a
motion. To this we may reply that it is not whiteness but whitening that
is a motion. (15) Here also the same distinctions are to be observed: a goal
of motion may be so accidentally, or partially and with reference to
something other than itself, or directly and with no reference to
anything else: for instance, a thing which is becoming white changes
accidentally to an object of thought, the colour being only accidentally
the object of thought; it changes to colour, (20) because white is a part of
colour, or to Europe, because Athens is a part of Europe; but it changes
essentially to white colour. It is now clear in what sense a thing is in
motion essentially, accidentally, or in respect of something other than
itself, and in what sense the phrase ‘itself directly’ is used in the case
both of the mover and of the moved: and it is also clear that the motion
is not in the form but in that which is in motion, (25) that is to say ‘the
movable in activity’. Now accidental change we may leave out of
account: for it is to be found in everything, at any time, and in any
respect. Change which is not accidental on the other hand is not to be
found in everything, but only in contraries, in things intermediate
between contraries, (30) and in contradictories, as may be proved by
induction. An intermediate may be a starting-point of change, since for
the purposes of the change it serves as contrary to either of two
contraries: for the intermediate is in a sense the extremes. Hence we
speak of the intermediate as in a sense a contrary relatively to the
extremes and of either extreme as a contrary relatively to the
intermediate: for instance, the central note is low relatively to the
highest and high relatively to the lowest, and grey is light relatively to
black and dark relatively to white. (35)
And since every change is from something to something—as the word
itself metabole indicates, implying something ‘after’ (meta) something
else, that is to say something earlier and something later—that which
changes must change in one of four ways: from subject to subject, (5)
from subject to non-subject, from non-subject to subject, or from non-
subject to non-subject, where by ‘subject’ I mean what is affirmatively
expressed. [225a] So it follows necessarily from what has been said
above that there are only three kinds of change, that from subject to
subject, that from subject to non-subject, (10) and that from non-subject
to subject: for the fourth conceivable kind, that from non-subject to non-
subject, is not change, as in that case there is no opposition either of
contraries or of contradictories.
Now change from non-subject to subject, the relation being that of
contradiction, is ‘coming to be’—‘unqualified coming to be’ when the
change takes place in an unqualified way, ‘particular coming to be’ when
the change is change in a particular character: for instance, a change
from not-white to white is a coming to be of the particular thing, (15)
white, while change from unqualified not-being to being is coming to be
in an unqualified way, in respect of which we say that a thing ‘comes to
be’ without qualification, not that it ‘comes to be’ some particular thing.
Change from subject to non-subject is ‘perishing’—‘unqualified perishing’
when the change is from being to not-being, ‘particular perishing’ when
the change is to the opposite negation, the distinction being the same as
that made in the case of coming to be.
Now the expression ‘not-being’ is used in several senses: and there can
be motion neither of that which ‘is not’ in respect of the affirmation or
negation of a predicate, (20) nor of that which ‘is not’ in the sense that it
only potentially ‘is’, that is to say the opposite of that which actually ‘is’
in an unqualified sense: for although that which is ‘not-white’ or ‘not-
good’ may nevertheless be in motion accidentally (for example that
which is ‘not-white’ might be a man), yet that which is without
qualification ‘not-so-and-so’ cannot in any sense be in motion: Therefore
it is impossible for that which is not to be in motion. (25) This being so, it
follows that ‘becoming’ cannot be a motion: for it is that which ‘is not’
that ‘becomes’. For however true it may be that it accidentally ‘becomes’,
it is nevertheless correct to say that it is that which ‘is not’ that in an
unqualified sense ‘becomes’. And similarly it is impossible for that which
‘is not’ to be at rest.
There are these difficulties, then, in the way of the assumption that
that which ‘is not’ can be in motion: and it may be further objected that,
(30) whereas everything which is in motion is in space, that which ‘is not’

is not in space: for then it would be somewhere.

So, too, ‘perishing’ is not a motion: for a motion has for its contrary
either another motion or rest, whereas ‘perishing’ is the contrary of
‘becoming’.
Since, then, every motion is a kind of change, and there are only the
three kinds of change mentioned above; and since of these three those
which take the form of ‘becoming’ and ‘perishing’, (35) that is to say those
which imply a relation of contradiction, are not motions: it necessarily
follows that only change from subject to subject is motion. [225b] And
every such subject is either a contrary or an intermediate (for a privation
may be allowed to rank as a contrary) and can be affirmatively
expressed, as naked, toothless, or black. If, then, (5) the categories are
severally distinguished as Being, Quality, Place, Time, Relation,
Quantity, and Activity or Passivity, it necessarily follows that there are
three kinds of motion—qualitative, quantitative, and local.

2 In respect of Substance there is no motion, (10) because Substance

has no contrary among things that are. Nor is there motion in respect of
Relation: for it may happen that when one correlative changes, the
other, although this does not itself change, is no longer applicable, so
that in these cases the motion is accidental. Nor is there motion in
respect of Agent and Patient—in fact there can never be motion of
mover and moved, (15) because there cannot be motion of motion or
becoming of becoming or in general change of change.
For in the first place there are two senses in which motion of motion is
conceivable. (1) The motion of which there is motion might be
conceived as subject; e. g. a man is in motion because he changes from
fair to dark. Can it be that in this sense motion grows hot or cold, (20) or
changes place, or increases or decreases? Impossible: for change is not a
subject. Or (2) can there be motion of motion in the sense that some
other subject changes from a change to another mode of being, as e. g. a
man changes from falling ill to getting well? Even this is possible only in
an accidental sense. For, whatever the subject may be, movement is
change from one form to another. (25) (And the same holds good of
becoming and perishing, except that in these processes we have a change
to a particular1 kind of opposite, while the other, motion, is a change to
a different2 kind.) So, if there is to be motion of motion, that which is
changing from health to sickness must simultaneously be changing from
this very change to another. It is clear, then, that by the time that it has
become sick, it must also have changed to whatever may be the other
change concerned (for that it should be at rest, though logically possible,
is excluded by the theory). Moreover this other can never be any casual
change, (30) but must be a change from something definite to some other
definite thing. So in this case it must be the opposite change, viz.
convalescence. It is only accidentally that there can be change of change,
e. g. there is a change from remembering to forgetting only because the
subject of this change changes at one time to knowledge, at another to
ignorance.
In the second place, if there is to be change of change and becoming
of becoming, we shall have an infinite regress. [226a] Thus if one of a
series of changes is to be a change of change, (35) the preceding change
must also be so: e. g. if simple becoming was ever in process of
becoming, then that which was becoming simple becoming was also in
process of becoming, so that we should not yet have arrived at what was
in process of simple becoming but only at what was already in process of
becoming in process of becoming. And this again was sometime in
process of becoming, so that even then we should not have arrived at
what was in process of simple becoming. And since in an infinite series
there is no first term, here there will be no first stage and therefore no
following stage either. (5) On this hypothesis, then, nothing can become
or be moved or change.
Thirdly, if a thing is capable of any particular motion, it is also
capable of the corresponding contrary motion or the corresponding
coming to rest, and a thing that is capable of becoming is also capable of
perishing: consequently, if there be becoming of becoming, that which is
in process of becoming is in process of perishing at the very moment
when it has reached the stage of becoming: since it cannot be in process
of perishing when it is just beginning to become or after it has ceased to
become: for that which is in process of perishing must be in existence.
Fourthly, there must be a substrate underlying all processes of
becoming and changing. (10) What can this be in the present case? It is
either the body or the soul that undergoes alteration: what is it that
correspondingly becomes motion or becoming? And again what is the
goal of their motion? It must be the motion or becoming of something
from something to something else. But in what sense can this be so? For
the becoming of learning cannot be learning: so neither can the
becoming of becoming be becoming, (15) nor can the becoming of any
process be that process.
Finally, since there are three kinds of motion, the substratum and the
goal of motion must be one or other of these, e. g. locomotion will have
to be altered or to be locally moved.
To sum up, then, since everything that is moved is moved in one of
three ways, either accidentally, or partially, or essentially, (20) change
can change only accidentally, as e. g. when a man who is being restored
to health runs or learns: and accidental change we have long ago3
decided to leave out of account.
Since, then, motion can belong neither to Being nor to Relation nor to
Agent and Patient, it remains that there can be motion only in respect of
Quality, Quantity, and Place: for with each of these we have a pair of
contraries. (25) Motion in respect of Quality let us call alteration, a
general designation that is used to include both contraries: and by
Quality I do not here mean a property of substance (in that sense that
which constitutes a specific distinction is a quality) but a passive quality
in virtue of which a thing is said to be acted on or to be incapable of
being acted on. Motion in respect of Quantity has no name that includes
both contraries, (30) but it is called increase or decrease according as one
or the other is designated: that is to say motion in the direction of
complete magnitude is increase, motion in the contrary direction is
decrease. Motion in respect of Place has no name either general or
particular: but we may designate it by the general name of locomotion,
though strictly the term ‘locomotion’ is applicable to things that change
their place only when they have not the power to come to a stand, (35)
and to things that do not move themselves locally.
[226b] Change within the same kind from a lesser to a greater or
from a greater to a lesser degree is alteration: for it is motion either from
a contrary or to a contrary, whether in an unqualified or in a qualified
sense: for change to a lesser degree of a quality will be called change to
the contrary of that quality, and change to a greater degree of a quality
will be regarded as change from the contrary of that quality to the
quality itself. (5) It makes no difference whether the change be qualified
or unqualified, except that in the former case the contraries will have to
be contrary to one another only in a qualified sense: and a thing’s
possessing a quality in a greater or in a lesser degree means the presence
or absence in it of more or less of the opposite quality. It is now clear,
then, that there are only these three kinds of motion.
The term ‘immovable’ we apply in the first place to that which is
absolutely incapable of being moved (just as we correspondingly apply
the term invisible to sound); in the second place to that which is moved
with difficulty after a long time or whose movement is slow at the start
—in fact, (10) what we describe as hard to move; and in the third place to
that which is naturally designed for and capable of motion, but is not in
motion when, where, and as it naturally would be so. This last is the
only kind of immovable thing of which I use the term ‘being at rest’: for
rest is contrary to motion, (15) so that rest will be negation of motion in
that which is capable of admitting motion.
The foregoing remarks are sufficient to explain the essential nature of
motion and rest, the number of kinds of change, and the different
varieties of motion.

3 Let us now proceed to define the terms ‘together’ and ‘apart’, ‘in
contact’, ‘between’, ‘in succession’, ‘contiguous’, and ‘continuous’, (20)
and to show in what circumstances each of these terms is naturally
applicable.
Things are said to be together in place when they are in one place (in
the strictest sense of the word ‘place’) and to be apart when they are in
different places.
Things are said to be in contact when their extremities are together.
That which a changing thing, if it changes continuously in a natural
manner, (25) naturally reaches before it reaches that to which it changes
last, is between. Thus ‘between’ implies the presence of at least three
things: for in a process of change it is the contrary that is ‘last’: and a
thing is moved continuously if it leaves no gap or only the smallest
possible gap in the material—not in the time (for a gap in the time does
not prevent things having a ‘between’, while, on the other hand, there is
nothing to prevent the highest note sounding immediately after the
lowest) but in the material in which the motion takes place. (30) This is
manifestly true not only in local changes but in every other kind as well.
<Now every change implies a pair of opposites,7 and opposites may be
either contraries or contradictories; since then contradiction admits of no
mean term, it is obvious that ‘between’ must imply a pair of
contraries.>3a That is locally contrary which is most distant in a straight
line: for the shortest line is definitely limited, and that which is
definitely limited constitutes a measure.
A thing is ‘in succession’ when it is after the beginning in position or
in form or in some other respect in which it is definitely so regarded, (35)
and when further there is nothing of the same kind as itself between it
and that to which it is in succession, e. g. a line or lines if it is a line, a
unit or units if it is a unit, a house if it is a house (there is nothing to
prevent something of a different kind being between). [227a] For that
which is in succession is in succession to a particular thing, and is
something posterior: for one is not ‘in succession’ to two, nor is the first
day of the month to the second: in each case the latter is ‘in succession’
to the former. (5)
A thing that is in succession and touches is ‘contiguous’.
The ‘continuous’ is a subdivision of the contiguous: things are called
continuous when the touching limits of each become one and the same
and are, (10) as the word implies, contained in each other: continuity is
impossible if these extremities are two. This definition makes it plain
that continuity belongs to things that naturally in virtue of their mutual
contact form a unity. And in whatever way that which holds them
together is one, (15) so too will the whole be one, e. g. by a rivet or glue
or contact or organic union.
It is obvious that of these terms ‘in succession’ is first in order of
analysis: for that which touches is necessarily in succession, but not
everything that is in succession touches: and so succession is a property
of things prior in definition, e. g. numbers, while contact is not. (20) And
if there is continuity there is necessarily contact, but if there is contact,
that alone does not imply continuity: for the extremities of things may
be ‘together’ without necessarily being one: but they cannot be one
without being necessarily together. So natural junction is last in coming
to be: for the extremities must necessarily come into contact if they are
to be naturally joined: but things that are in contact are not all naturally
joined, (25) while where there is no contact clearly there is no natural
junction either. Hence, if as some say ‘point’ and ‘unit’ have an
independent existence of their own, it is impossible for the two to be
identical: for points can touch while units can only be in succession. (30)
Moreover, there can always be something between points (for all lines
are intermediate between points), whereas it is not necessary that there
should possibly be anything between units: for there can be nothing
between the numbers one and two.
We have now defined what is meant by ‘together’ and ‘apart’,
‘contact’, ‘between’ and ‘in succession’, ‘contiguous’ and ‘continuous’:
and we have shown in what circumstances each of these terms is
applicable. [227b]

4 There are many senses in which motion is said to be ‘one’: for we

use the term ‘one’ in many senses.
Motion is one generically according to the different categories to which
it may be assigned: thus any locomotion is one generically with any
other locomotion, (5) whereas alteration is different generically from
locomotion.
Motion is one specifically when besides being one generically it also
takes place in a species incapable of subdivision: e. g. colour has specific
differences: therefore blackening and whitening differ specifically; but at
all events every whitening will be specifically the same with every other
whitening and every blackening with every other blackening. (10) But
whiteness is not further subdivided by specific differences: hence any
whitening is specifically one with any other whitening. Where it happens
that the genus is at the same time a species, it is clear that the motion
will then in a sense be one specifically though not in an unqualified
sense: learning is an example of this, knowledge being on the one hand a
species of apprehension and on the other hand a genus including the
various knowledges. A difficulty, however, may be raised as to whether
a motion is specifically one when the same thing changes from the same
to the same, (15) e. g. when one point changes again and again from a
particular place to a particular place: if this motion is specifically one,
circular motion will be the same as rectilinear motion, and rolling the
same as walking. But is not this difficulty removed by the principle
already laid down that if that in which the motion takes place is
specifically different (as in the present instance the circular path is
specifically different from the straight) the motion itself is also different?
We have explained, (20) then, what is meant by saying that motion is one
generically or one specifically.
Motion is one in an unqualified sense when it is one essentially or
numerically: and the following distinctions will make clear what this
kind of motion is. There are three classes of things in connexion with
which we speak of motion, the ‘that which’, the ‘that in which’, and the
‘that during which’. I mean that there must be something that is in
motion, e. g. a man or gold, and it must be in motion in something, (25)
e. g. a place or an affection, and during something, for all motion takes
place during a time. Of these three it is the thing in which the motion
takes place that makes it one generically or specifically, it is the thing
moved that makes the motion one in subject, and it is the time that
makes it consecutive: but it is the three together that make it one
without qualification: to effect this, that in which the motion takes place
(the species) must be one and incapable of subdivision, (30) that during
which it takes place (the time) must be one and unintermittent, and that
which is in motion must be one—not in an accidental sense (i. e. it must
be one as the white that blackens is one or Coriscus who walks is one,
not in the accidental sense in which Coriscus and white may be one), nor
merely in virtue of community of nature (for there might be a case of
two men being restored to health at the same time in the same way, e. g.
from inflammation of the eye, yet this motion is not really one, but only
specifically one). [228a]
Suppose, however, that Socrates undergoes an alteration specifically
the same but at one time and again at another: in this case if it is
possible for that which ceased to be again to come into being and remain
numerically the same, then this motion too will be one: otherwise it will
be the same but not one. (5) And akin to this difficulty there is another;
viz. is health one? and generally are the states and affections in bodies
severally one in essence although (as is clear) the things that contain
them are obviously in motion and in flux? Thus if a person’s health at
daybreak and at the present moment is one and the same, (10) why
should not this health be numerically one with that which he recovers
after an interval? The same argument applies in each case. There is,
however, we may answer, this difference: that if the states are two then
it follows simply from this fact that the activities must also in point of
number be two (for only that which is numerically one can give rise to
an activity that is numerically one), but if the state is one, (15) this is not
in itself enough to make us regard the activity also as one: for when a
man ceases walking, the walking no longer is, but it will again be if he
begins to walk again. But, be this as it may, if in the above instance the
health is one and the same, then it must be possible for that which is one
and the same to come to be and to cease to be many times. However,
these difficulties lie outside our present inquiry.
Since every motion is continuous, (20) a motion that is one in an
unqualified sense must (since every motion is divisible) be continuous,
and a continuous motion must be one. There will not be continuity
between any motion and any other indiscriminately any more than there
is between any two things chosen at random in any other sphere: there
can be continuity only when the extremities of the two things are one.
Now some things have no extremities at all: and the extremities of others
differ specifically although we give them the same name of ‘end’: (25)
how should e. g. the ‘end’ of a line and the ‘end’ of walking touch or
come to be one? Motions that are not the same either specifically or
generically may, it is true, be consecutive (e. g. a man may run and then
at once fall ill of a fever), and again, in the torch-race we have
consecutive but not continuous locomotion: for according to our
definition there can be continuity only when the ends of the two things
are one. (30) Hence motions may be consecutive or successive in virtue of
the time being continuous, but there can be continuity only in virtue of
the motions themselves being continuous, that is when the end of each is
one with the end of the other. [228b] Motion, therefore, that is in an
unqualified sense continuous and one must be specifically the same, of
one thing, and in one time. Unity is required in respect of time in order
that there may be no interval of immobility, for where there is
intermission of motion there must be rest, and a motion that includes
intervals of rest will be not one but many, (5) so that a motion that is
interrupted by stationariness is not one or continuous, and it is so
interrupted if there is an interval of time. And though of a motion that is
not specifically one (even if the time is unintermittent) the time is one,
the motion is specifically different, and so cannot really be one, for
motion that is one must be specifically one, (10) though motion that is
specifically one is not necessarily one in an unqualified sense. We have
now explained what we mean when we call a motion one without
qualification.
Further, a motion is also said to be one generically, specifically, or
essentially when it is complete, just as in other cases completeness and
wholeness are characteristics of what is one: and sometimes a motion
even if incomplete is said to be one, provided only that it is continuous.
And besides the cases already mentioned there is another in which a
motion is said to be one, (15) viz. when it is regular: for in a sense a
motion that is irregular is not regarded as one, that title belonging rather
to that which is regular, as a straight line is regular, the irregular being
as such divisible. But the difference would seem to be one of degree. In
every kind of motion we may have regularity or irregularity: thus there
may be regular alteration, and locomotion in a regular path, (20) e. g. in a
circle or on a straight line, and it is the same with regard to increase and
decrease. The difference that makes a motion irregular is sometimes to
be found in its path: thus a motion cannot be regular if its path is an
irregular magnitude, e. g. a broken line, a spiral, or any other magnitude
that is not such that any part of it taken at random fits on to any other
that may be chosen. Sometimes it is found neither in the place nor in the
time nor in the goal but in the manner of the motion: for in some cases
the motion is differentiated by quickness and slowness: thus if its
velocity is uniform a motion is regular, (25) if not it is irregular. So
quickness and slowness are not species of motion nor do they constitute
specific differences of motion, because this distinction occurs in
connexion with all the distinct species of motion. The same is true of
heaviness and lightness when they refer to the same thing: (30) e. g. they
do not specifically distinguish earth from itself or fire from itself.
Irregular motion, therefore, while in virtue of being continuous it is one,
is so in a lesser degree, as is the case with locomotion in a broken line:
and a lesser degree of something always means an admixture of its
contrary. [229a] And since every motion that is one can be both
regular and irregular, motions that are consecutive but not specifically
the same cannot be one and continuous: for how should a motion
composed of alteration and locomotion be regular? If a motion is to be
regular its parts ought to fit one another. (5)

5 We have further to determine what motions are contrary to each

other, and to determine similarly how it is with rest. And we have first
to decide whether contrary motions are motions respectively from and to
the same thing, e. g. a motion from health and a motion to health
(where the opposition, (10) it would seem, is of the same kind as that
between coming to be and ceasing to be); or motions respectively from
contraries, e. g. a motion from health and a motion from disease; or
motions respectively to contraries, e. g. a motion to health and a motion
to disease; or motions respectively from a contrary and to the opposite
contrary, e. g. a motion from health and a motion to disease; or motions
respectively from a contrary to the opposite contrary and from the latter
to the former, e. g. a motion from health to disease and a motion from
disease to health: for motions must be contrary to one another in one or
more of these ways, (15) as there is no other way in which they can be
opposed.
Now motions respectively from a contrary and to the opposite
contrary, e. g. a motion from health and a motion to disease, are not
contrary motions: for they are one and the same. (Yet their essence is not
the same, just as changing from health is different from changing to
disease.) (20) Nor are motions respectively from a contrary and from the
opposite contrary contrary motions, for a motion from a contrary is at
the same time a motion to a contrary or to an intermediate (of this,
however, we shall speak later),4 but changing to a contrary rather than
changing from a contrary would seem to be the cause of the contrariety
of motions, the latter being the loss, the former the gain, (25) of
contrariness. Moreover, each several motion takes its name rather from
the goal than from the starting-point of change, e. g. motion to health
we call convalescence, motion to disease sickening. Thus we are left with
motions respectively to contraries, and motions respectively to contraries
from the opposite contraries. Now it would seem that motions to
contraries are at the same time motions from contraries (though their
essence may not be the same; ‘to health’ is distinct, I mean, from ‘from
disease’, and ‘from health’ from ‘to disease’).
Since then change differs from motion (motion being change from a
particular subject to a particular subject), (30) it follows that contrary
motions are motions respectively from a contrary to the opposite
contrary and from the latter to the former, e. g. a motion from health to
disease and a motion from disease to health. [229b] Moreover, the
consideration of particular examples will also show what kinds of
processes are generally recognized as contrary: thus falling ill is regarded
as contrary to recovering one’s health, these processes having contrary
goals, (5) and being taught as contrary to being led into error by another,
it being possible to acquire error, like knowledge, either by one’s own
agency or by that of another. Similarly we have upward locomotion and
downward locomotion, which are contrary lengthwise, locomotion to the
right and locomotion to the left, which are contrary breadthwise, and
forward locomotion and backward locomotion, which too are contraries.
On the other hand, (10) a process simply to a contrary, e. g. that
denoted by the expression ‘becoming white’, where no starting-point is
specified, is a change but not a motion. And in all cases of a thing that
has no contrary we have as contraries change from and change to the
same thing. Thus coming to be is contrary to ceasing to be, and losing to
gaining. But these are changes and not motions. (15) And wherever a pair
of contraries admit of an intermediate, motions to that intermediate
must be held to be in a sense motions to one or other of the contraries:
for the intermediate serves as a contrary for the purposes of the motion,
in whichever direction the change may be, e. g. grey in a motion from
grey to white takes the place of black as starting-point, in a motion from
white to grey it takes the place of black as goal, and in a motion from
black to grey it takes the place of white as goal: for the middle is
opposed in a sense to either of the extremes, (20) as has been said above.5
Thus we see that two motions are contrary to each other only when one
is a motion from a contrary to the opposite contrary and the other is a
motion from the latter to the former.

6 But since a motion appears to have contrary to it not only another

motion but also a state of rest, we must determine how this is so. A
motion has for its contrary in the strict sense of the term another
motion, but it also has for an opposite a state of rest (for rest is the
privation of motion and the privation of anything may be called its
contrary), (25) and motion of one kind has for its opposite rest of that
kind, e. g. local motion has local rest. This statement, however, needs
further qualification: there remains the question, is the opposite of
remaining at a particular place motion from or motion to that place? It is
surely clear that since there are two subjects between which motion
takes place, motion from one of these (A) to its contrary (B) has for its
opposite remaining in A, (30) while the reverse motion has for its opposite
remaining in B. At the same time these two are also contrary to each
other: for it would be absurd to suppose that there are contrary motions
and not opposite states of rest. [230a] States of rest in contraries are
opposed. To take an example, a state of rest in health is (1) contrary to a
state of rest in disease, and (2) the motion to which it is contrary is that
from health to disease. For (2) it would be absurd that its contrary
motion should be that from disease to health, since motion to that in
which a thing is at rest is rather a coming to rest, the coming to rest
being found to come into being simultaneously with the motion; and one
of these two motions it must be. (5) And (1) rest in whiteness is of course
not contrary to rest in health.
Of all things that have no contraries there are opposite changes (viz.
change from the thing and change to the thing, e. g. change from being
and change to being), but no motion. So, too, of such things there is no
remaining though there is absence of change. (10) Should there be a
particular subject, absence of change in its being will be contrary to
absence of change in its not-being. And here a difficulty may be raised: if
not-being is not a particular something, what is it, it may be asked, that
is contrary to absence of change in a thing’s being? and is this absence of
change a state of rest? If it is, then either it is not true that every state of
rest is contrary to a motion or else coming to be and ceasing to be are
motion. (15) It is clear then that, since we exclude these from among
motions, we must not say that this absence of change is a state of rest:
we must say that it is similar to a state of rest and call it absence of
change. And it will have for its contrary either nothing or absence of
change in the thing’s not-being, or the ceasing to be of the thing: for
such ceasing to be is change from it and the thing’s coming to be is
change to it.
Again, a further difficulty may be raised. How is it, it may be asked,
that whereas in local change both remaining and moving may be natural
or unnatural, (20) in the other changes this is not so? e. g. alteration is not
now natural and now unnatural, for convalescence is no more natural or
unnatural than falling ill, whitening no more natural or unnatural than
blackening; so, too, with increase and decrease: these are not contrary to
each other in the sense that either of them is natural while the other is
unnatural, (25) nor is one increase contrary to another in this sense; and
the same account may be given of becoming and perishing: it is not true
that becoming is natural and perishing unnatural (for growing old is
natural), nor do we observe one becoming to be natural and another
unnatural. We answer that if what happens under violence is unnatural,
(30) then violent perishing is unnatural and as such contrary to natural

perishing. Are there then also some becomings that are violent and not
the result of natural necessity, and are therefore contrary to natural
becomings, and violent increases and decreases, e. g. the rapid growth to
maturity of profligates and the rapid ripening of seeds even when not
packed close in the earth? And how is it with alterations? [230b]
Surely just the same: we may say that some alterations are violent while
others are natural, e. g. (5) patients alter naturally or unnaturally
according as they throw off fevers on the critical days or not. But, it may
be objected, then we shall have perishings contrary to one another, not
to becoming. Certainly: and why should not this in a sense be so? Thus it
is so if one perishing is pleasant and another painful: and so one
perishing will be contrary to another not in an unqualified sense, but in
so far as one has this quality and the other that.
Now motions and states of rest universally exhibit contrariety in the
manner described above,6 (10) e. g. upward motion and rest above are
respectively contrary to downward motion and rest below, these being
instances of local contrariety; and upward locomotion belongs naturally
to fire and downward to earth, i. e. the locomotions of the two are
contrary to each other. And again, fire moves up naturally and down
unnaturally: and its natural motion is certainly contrary to its unnatural
motion. Similarly with remaining: remaining above is contrary to motion
from above downwards, (15) and to earth this remaining comes
unnaturally, this motion naturally. So the unnatural remaining of a thing
is contrary to its natural motion, just as we find a similar contrariety in
the motion of the same thing: one of its motions, (20) the upward or the
downward, will be natural, the other unnatural.
Here, however, the question arises, has every state of rest that is not
permanent a becoming, and is this becoming a coming to a standstill? If
so, there must be a becoming of that which is at rest unnaturally, e. g. of
earth at rest above: and therefore this earth during the time that it was
being carried violently upward was coming to a standstill. But whereas
the velocity of that which comes to a standstill seems always to increase,
the velocity of that which is carried violently seems always to decrease:
so it will be in a state of rest without having become so. (25) Moreover
‘coming to a standstill’ is generally recognized to be identical or at least
concomitant with the locomotion of a thing to its proper place.
There is also another difficulty involved in the view that remaining in
a particular place is contrary to motion from that place. For when a
thing is moving from or discarding something, it still appears to have
that which is being discarded, so that if a state of rest is itself contrary to
the motion from the state of rest to its contrary, (30) the contraries rest
and motion will be simultaneously predicable of the same thing. May we
not say, however, that in so far as the thing is still stationary it is in a
state of rest in a qualified sense? For, in fact, whenever a thing is in
motion, part of it is at the starting-point while part is at the goal to
which it is changing: and consequently a motion finds its true contrary
rather in another motion than in a state of rest. [231a]
With regard to motion and rest, then, we have now explained in what
sense each of them is one and under what conditions they exhibit
contrariety.
With regard to coming to a standstill the question may be raised
whether there is an opposite state of rest to unnatural as well as to
natural motions. (5) It would be absurd if this were not the case: for a
thing may remain still merely under violence: thus we shall have a thing
being in a non-permanent state of rest without having become so. But it
is clear that it must be the case: for just as there is unnatural motion, so,
too, a thing may be in an unnatural state of rest. Further, some things
have a natural and an unnatural motion, (10) e. g. fire has a natural
upward motion and an unnatural downward motion: is it, then, this
unnatural downward motion or is it the natural downward motion of
earth that is contrary to the natural upward motion? Surely it is clear
that both are contrary to it though not in the same sense: the natural
motion of earth is contrary inasmuch as the motion of fire is also
natural, (15) whereas the upward motion of fire as being natural is
contrary to the downward motion of fire as being unnatural. The same is
true of the corresponding cases of remaining. But there would seem to
be a sense in which a state of rest and a motion are opposites.

1a 201a 10.

1 sc. a contradictory.

2 sc. a contrary.

3 224b 26.

3a This sentence has been transposed from its place in the next paragraph in the interest of sense.
—Ed.
4 l. 28 sqq.

5 224b 32 sqq.

6 In chapter 5.
 BOOK VI

1 Now if the terms ‘continuous’, (21) ‘in contact’, and ‘in succession’ are
understood as defined above1—things being ‘continuous’ if their
extrèmities are one, ‘in contact’ if their extremities are together, and ‘in
succession’ if there is nothing of their own kind intermediate between
them—nothing that is continuous can be composed of indivisibles: (25)
e. g. a line cannot be composed of points, the line being continuous and
the point indivisible. For the extremities of two points can neither be one
(since of an indivisible there can be no extremity as distinct from some
other part) nor together (since that which has no parts can have no
extremity, the extremity and the thing of which it is the extremity being
distinct).
Moreover, if that which is continuous is composed of points, (30) these
points must be either continuous or in contact with one another: and the
same reasoning applies in the case of all indivisibles. [231b] Now for
the reason given above they cannot be continuous: and one thing can be
in contact with another only if whole is in contact with whole or part
with part or part with whole. But since indivisibles have no parts, they
must be in contact with one another as whole with whole. And if they
are in contact with one another as whole with whole, they will not be
continuous: for that which is continuous has distinct parts: and these
parts into which it is divisible are different in this way, (5) i. e. spatially
separate.
Nor, again, can a point be in succession to a point or a moment to a
moment in such a way that length can be composed of points or time of
moments: for things are in succession if there is nothing of their own
kind intermediate between them, whereas that which is intermediate
between points is always a line and that which is intermediate between
moments is always a period of time.
Again, (10) if length and time could thus be composed of indivisibles,
they could be divided into indivisibles, since each is divisible into the
parts of which it is composed. But, as we saw, no continuous thing is
divisible into things without parts. Nor can there be anything of any
other kind intermediate between the parts or between the moments: for
if there could be any such thing it is clear that it must be either
indivisible or divisible, and if it is divisible, it must be divisible either
into indivisibles or into divisibles that are infinitely divisible, in which
case it is continuous.
Moreover, it is plain that everything continuous is divisible into
divisibles that are infinitely divisible: for if it were divisible into
indivisibles, (15) we should have an indivisible in contact with an
indivisible, since the extremities of things that are continuous with one
another are one and are in contact.
The same reasoning applies equally to magnitude, to time, and to
motion: either all of these are composed of indivisibles and are divisible
into indivisibles, or none. This may be made clear as follows. (20) If a
magnitude is composed of indivisibles, the motion over that magnitude
must be composed of corresponding indivisible motions: e. g. if the
magnitude ABC is composed of the indivisibles A, B, C, each
corresponding part of the motion DEF of Z over ABC is indivisible.
Therefore, since where there is motion there must be something that is
in motion, (25) and where there is something in motion there must be
motion, therefore the being-moved will also be composed of indivisibles.
So Z traversed A when its motion was D, B when its motion was E, and C
similarly when its motion was F. Now a thing that is in motion from one
place to another cannot at the moment when it was in motion both be in
motion and at the same time have completed its motion at the place to
which it was in motion: e. g. if a man is walking to Thebes, he cannot be
walking to Thebes and at the same time have completed his walk to
Thebes: and, as we saw, (30) Z traverses the partless section A in virtue of
the presence of the motion D. [232a] Consequently, if Z actually
passed through A after being in process of passing through, the motion
must be divisible: for at the time when Z was passing through, it neither
was at rest nor had completed its passage but was in an intermediate
state: while if it is passing through and has completed its passage at the
same moment, then that which is walking will at the moment when it is
walking have completed its walk and will be in the place to which it is
walking; that is to say, (5) it will have completed its motion at the place
to which it is in motion.2 And if a thing is in motion over the whole ABC
and its motion is the three D, E, and F, and if it is not in motion at all
over the partless section A but has completed its motion over it, then the
motion will consist not of motions but of starts, and will take place by a
thing’s having completed a motion without being in motion: for on this
assumption it has completed its passage through A without passing
through it. (10) So it will be possible for a thing to have completed a walk
without ever walking: for on this assumption it has completed a walk
over a particular distance without walking over that distance. Since,
then, everything must be either at rest or in motion, and Z is therefore at
rest in each of the sections A, B, and C, it follows that a thing can be
continuously at rest and at the same time in motion: for, as we saw, Z is
in motion over the whole ABC and at rest in any part (and consequently
in the whole) of it. (15) Moreover, if the indivisibles composing DEF are
motions, it would be possible for a thing in spite of the presence in it of
motion to be not in motion but at rest, while if they are not motions, it
would be possible for motion to be composed of something other than
motions.
And if length and motion are thus indivisible, it is neither more nor
less necessary that time also be similarly indivisible, that is to say be
composed of indivisible moments: for if the whole distance is divisible
and an equal velocity will cause a thing to pass through less of it in less
time, (20) the time must also be divisible, and conversely, if the time in
which a thing is carried over the section A is divisible, this section A
must also be divisible.

2 And since every magnitude is divisible into magnitudes—for we

have shown that it is impossible for anything continuous to be composed
of indivisible parts, and every magnitude is continuous—it necessarily
follows that the quicker of two things traverses a greater magnitude in
an equal time, (25) an equal magnitude in less time, and a greater
magnitude in less time, in conformity with the definition sometimes
given of ‘the quicker’. Suppose that A is quicker than B. Now since of
two things that which changes sooner is quicker, (30) in the time FG, in
which A has changed from C to D, B will not yet have arrived at D but
will be short of it: so that in an equal time the quicker will pass over a
greater magnitude. More than this, it will pass over a greater magnitude
in less time: for in the time in which A has arrived at D, B being the
slower has arrived, let us say, at E. [232b] Then since A has occupied
the whole time FG in arriving at D, it will have arrived at H in less time
than this, say FJ. Now the magnitude CH that A has passed over is
greater than the magnitude CE, and the time FJ is less than the whole
time FG: so that the quicker will pass over a greater magnitude in less
time. (5) And from this it is also clear that the quicker will pass over an
equal magnitude in less time than the slower. For since it passes over the
greater magnitude in less time than the slower, and (regarded by itself)
passes over KL the greater in more time than KN the lesser, the time PQ
in which it passes over KL will be more than the time PR in which it
passes over KN: so that, (10) the time PQ being less than the time PV in
which the slower passes over KN, the time PR will also be less than the
time PV: for it is less than the time PQ, and that which is less than
something else that is less than a thing is also itself less than that thing.
Hence it follows that the quicker will traverse an equal magnitude in less
time than the slower. Again, since the motion of anything must always
occupy either an equal time or less or more time in comparison with that
of another thing, (15) and since, whereas a thing is slower if its motion
occupies more time and of equal velocity if its motion occupies an equal
time, the quicker is neither of equal velocity nor slower, it follows that
the motion of the quicker can occupy neither an equal time nor more
time. It can only be, then, that it occupies less time, and thus we get the
necessary consequence that the quicker will pass over an equal
magnitude (as well as a greater) in less time than the slower. (20)
And since every motion is in time and a motion may occupy any time,
and the motion of everything that is in motion may be either quicker or
slower, both quicker motion and slower motion may occupy any time:
and this being so, it necessarily follows that time also is continuous. By
continuous I mean that which is divisible into divisibles that are
infinitely divisible: and if we take this as the definition of continuous, (25)
it follows necessarily that time is continuous. For since it has been
shown that the quicker will pass over an equal magnitude in less time
than the slower, suppose that A is quicker and B slower, and that the
slower has traversed the magnitude CD in the time FG. (30) Now it is
clear that the quicker will traverse the same magnitude in less time than
this: let us say in the time FH. Again, since the quicker has passed over
the whole CD in the time FH, the slower will in the same time pass over
CJ, say, which is less than CD. [233a] And since B, the slower, has
passed over CJ in the time FH, the quicker will pass over it in less time:
so that the time FH will again be divided. And if this is divided the
magnitude CJ will also be divided just as CD was: and again, if the
magnitude is divided, the time will also be divided. And we can carry on
this process for ever, (5) taking the slower after the quicker and the
quicker after the slower alternately, and using what has been
demonstrated at each stage as a new point of departure: for the quicker
will divide the time and the slower will divide the length. If, then, this
alternation always holds good, and at every turn involves a division, (10)
it is evident that all time must be continuous. And at the same time it is
clear that all magnitude is also continuous; for the divisions of which
time and magnitude respectively are susceptible are the same and equal.
Moreover, the current popular arguments make it plain that, if time is
continuous, magnitude is continuous also, (15) inasmuch as a thing passes
over half a given magnitude in half the time taken to cover the whole: in
fact without qualification it passes over a less magnitude in less time; for
the divisions of time and of magnitude will be the same. And if either is
infinite, so is the other, and the one is so in the same way as the other;
i. e. if time is infinite in respect of its extremities, length is also infinite
in respect of its extremities: if time is infinite in respect of divisibility,
length is also infinite in respect of divisibility: and if time is infinite in
both respects, (20) magnitude is also infinite in both respects.
Hence Zeno’s argument makes a false assumption in asserting that it is
impossible for a thing to pass over or severally to come in contact with
infinite things in a finite time. For there are two senses in which length
and time and generally anything continuous are called ‘infinite’: they are
called so either in respect of divisibility or in respect of their extremities.
(25) So while a thing in a finite time cannot come in contact with things

quantitatively infinite, it can come in contact with things infinite in

respect of divisibility: for in this sense the time itself is also infinite: and
so we find that the time occupied by the passage over the infinite is not
a finite but an infinite time, (30) and the contact with the infinites is made
by means of moments not finite but infinite in number.
The passage over the infinite, then, cannot occupy a finite time, and
the passage over the finite cannot occupy an infinite time: if the time is
infinite the magnitude must be infinite also, and if the magnitude is
infinite, so also is the time. This may be shown as follows. Let AB be a
finite magnitude, and let us suppose that it is traversed in infinite time
C, (35) and let a finite period CD of the time be taken. [233b] Now in
this period the thing in motion will pass over a certain segment of the
magnitude: let BE be the segment that it has thus passed over. (This will
be either an exact measure of AB or less or greater than an exact
measure: it makes no difference which it is.) Then, since a magnitude
equal to BE will always be passed over in an equal time, (5) and BE
measures the whole magnitude, the whole time occupied in passing over
AB will be finite: for it will be divisible into periods equal in number to
the segments into which the magnitude is divisible. Moreover, if it is the
case that infinite time is not occupied in passing over every magnitude,
but it is possible to pass over some magnitude, say BE, in a finite time,
and if this BE measures the whole of which it is a part, (10) and if an
equal magnitude is passed over in an equal time, then it follows that the
time like the magnitude is finite. That infinite time will not be occupied
in passing over BE is evident if the time be taken as limited in one
direction: for as the part will be passed over in less time than the whole,
the time occupied in traversing this part must be finite, the limit in one
direction being given. The same reasoning will also show the falsity of
the assumption that infinite length can be traversed in a finite time. It is
evident, then, from what has been said that neither a line nor a surface
nor in fact anything continuous can be indivisible. (15)
This conclusion follows not only from the present argument but from
the consideration that the opposite assumption implies the divisibility of
the indivisible. For since the distinction of quicker and slower may apply
to motions occupying any period of time and in an equal time the
quicker passes over a greater length, (20) it may happen that it will pass
over a length twice, or one and a half times, as great as that passed over
by the slower: for their respective velocities may stand to one another in
this proportion. Suppose, then, that the quicker has in the same time
been carried over a length one and a half times as great as that traversed
by the slower, and that the respective magnitudes are divided, that of
the quicker, the magnitude ABCD, into three indivisibles, and that of the
slower into the two indivisibles EF, FG. Then the time may also be
divided into three indivisibles, (25) for an equal magnitude will be passed
over in an equal time. Suppose then that it is thus divided into JK, KL,
LM. Again, since in the same time the slower has been carried over EF,
FG, the time may also be similarly divided into two. Thus the indivisible
will be divisible, and that which has no parts will be passed over not in
an indivisible but in a greater time.3 (30) It is evident, therefore, that
nothing continuous is without parts.

3 The present also is necessarily indivisible—the present, that is, not

in the sense in which the word is applied to one thing in virtue of
another,4 but in its proper and primary sense; in which sense it is
inherent in all time. (35) For the present is something that is an extremity
of the past (no part of the future being on this side of it) and also of the
future (no part of the past being on the other side of it): it is, as we have
said,5 a limit of both. [234a] And if it is once shown that it is
essentially of this character and one and the same, it will at once be
evident also that it is indivisible. (5)
Now the present that is the extremity of both times must be one and
the same: for if each extremity were different, the one could not be in
succession to the other, because nothing continuous can be composed of
things having no parts: and if the one is apart from the other, there will
be time intermediate between them, because everything continuous is
such that there is something intermediate between its limits and
described by the same name as itself. (10) But if the intermediate thing is
time, it will be divisible: for all time has been shown6 to be divisible.
Thus on this assumption the present is divisible. But if the present is
divisible, there will be part of the past in the future and part of the
future in the past: for past time will be marked off from future time at
the actual point of division. Also the present will be a present not in the
proper sense but in virtue of something else: for the division which
yields it will not be a division proper.7 (15) Furthermore, there will be a
part of the present that is past and a part that is future, and it will not
always be the same part that is past or future: in fact one and the same
present will not be simultaneous: for the time may be divided at many
points. If, therefore, the present cannot possibly have these
characteristics, it follows that it must be the same present that belongs to
each of the two times. (20) But if this is so it is evident that the present is
also indivisible: for if it is divisible it will be involved in the same
implications as before. It is clear, then, from what has been said that
time contains something indivisible, and this is what we call a present.
We will now show that nothing can be in motion in a present. (25) For
if this is possible, there can be both quicker and slower motion in the
present. Suppose then that in the present M the quicker has traversed the
distance AB. That being so, the slower will in the same present traverse a
distance less than AB, say AC. But since the slower will have occupied
the whole present in traversing AC, (30) the quicker will occupy less than
this in traversing it. Thus we shall have a division of the present,
whereas we found it to be indivisible. It is impossible, therefore, for
anything to be in motion in a present.
Nor can anything be at rest in a present: for, as we were saying,8 that
only can be at rest which is naturally designed to be in motion but is not
in motion when, where, or as it would naturally be so: since, therefore,
nothing is naturally designed to be in motion in a present, it is clear that
nothing can be at rest in a present either.
Moreover, inasmuch as it is the same present that belongs to both the
times,9 and it is possible for a thing to be in motion throughout one time
and to be at rest throughout the other, (35) and that which is in motion or
at rest for the whole of a time will be in motion or at rest as the case
may be in any part of it in which it is naturally designed to be in motion
or at rest: this being so, the assumption that there can be motion or rest
in a present will carry with it the implication that the same thing can at
the same time be at rest and in motion: for both the times have the same
extremity, viz. [234b] the present.
Again, when we say that a thing is at rest, we imply that its condition
in whole and in part is at the time of speaking uniform with what it was
previously: but the present contains no ‘previously’: consequently, (5)
there can be no rest in it.
It follows then that the motion of that which is in motion and the rest
of that which is at rest must occupy time.

4 Further, everything that changes must be divisible. (10) For since

every change is from something to something, and when a thing is at the
goal of its change it is no longer changing, and when both it itself and all
its parts are at the starting-point of its change it is not changing (for that
which is in whole and in part in an unvarying condition is not in a state
of change); it follows, therefore, (15) that part of that which is changing
must be at the starting-point and part at the goal: for as a whole it
cannot be in both or in neither. (Here by ‘goal of change’ I mean that
which comes first in the process of change: e. g. in a process of change
from white the goal in question will be grey, not black: for it is not
necessary that that which is changing should be at either of the
extremes.) It is evident, (20) therefore, that everything that changes must
be divisible.
Now motion is divisible in two senses. In the first place it is divisible
in virtue of the time that it occupies. In the second place it is divisible
according to the motions of the several parts of that which is in motion:
e. g. if the whole AC is in motion, there will be a motion of AB and a
motion of BC. That being so, let DE be the motion of the part AB and EF
the motion of the part BC. (25) Then the whole DF must be the motion of
AC: for DF must constitute the motion of AC inasmuch as DE and EF
severally constitute the motions of each of its parts. But the motion of a
thing can never be constituted by the motion or something else:
consequently the whole motion is the motion of the whole magnitude.
Again, since every motion is a motion of something, and the whole
motion DF is not the motion of either of the parts (for each of the parts
DE, EF is the motion of one of the parts AB, BC) (30) or of anything else
(for, the whole motion being the motion of a whole, the parts of the
motion are the motions of the parts of that whole: and the parts of DF
are the motions of AB, BC and of nothing else: for, as we saw,10 a motion
that is one cannot be the motion of more things than one): since this is
so, the whole motion will be the motion of the magnitude ABC.
Again, if there is a motion of the whole other than DF, say HI, the
motion of each of the parts may be subtracted from it: and these motions
will be equal to DE, (35) EF respectively: for the motion of that which is
one must be one. [235a] So if the whole motion HI may be divided
into the motions of the parts, HI will be equal to DF: if on the other hand
there is any remainder, say JI, this will be a motion of nothing: for it can
be the motion neither of the whole nor of the parts (as the motion of
that which is one must be one) nor of anything else: for a motion that is
continuous must be the motion of things that are continuous. (5) And the
same result follows if the division of HI reveals a surplus on the side of
the motions of the parts. Consequently, if this is impossible, the whole
motion must be the same as and equal to DF.
This then is what is meant by the division of motion according to the
motions of the parts: and it must be applicable to everything that is
divisible into parts.
Motion is also susceptible of another kind of division, (10) that
according to time. For since all motion is in time and all time is
divisible, and in less time the motion is less, it follows that every motion
must be divisible according to time. And since everything that is in
motion is in motion in a certain sphere and for a certain time and has a
motion belonging to it, (15) it follows that the time, the motion, the
being-in-motion, the thing that is in motion, and the sphere of the
motion must all be susceptible of the same divisions (though spheres of
motion are not all divisible in a like manner: thus quantity is essentially,
quality accidentally divisible). For suppose that A is the time occupied
by the motion B. (20) Then if all the time has been occupied by the whole
motion, it will take less of the motion to occupy half the time, less again
to occupy a further subdivision of the time, and so on to infinity. Again,
the time will be divisible similarly to the motion: for if the whole motion
occupies all the time half the motion will occupy half the time, and less
of the motion again will occupy less of the time.
In the same way the being-in-motion will also be divisible. (25) For let
C be the whole being-in-motion. Then the being-in-motion that
corresponds to half the motion will be less than the whole being-in-
motion, that which corresponds to a quarter of the motion will be less
again, and so on to infinity. Moreover by setting out successively the
being-in-motion corresponding to each of the two motions DC (say) and
CE, we may argue that the whole being-in-motion will correspond to the
whole motion (for if it were some other being-in-motion that
corresponded to the whole motion, (30) there would be more than one
being-in-motion corresponding to the same motion), the argument being
the same as that whereby we showed11 that the motion of a thing is
divisible into the motions of the parts of the thing: for if we take
separately the being-in-motion corresponding to each of the two
motions, we shall see that the whole being-in-motion is continuous.
The same reasoning will show the divisibility of the length, and in fact
of everything that forms a sphere of change (though some of these are
only accidentally divisible because that which changes is so): for the
division of one term will involve the division of all. (35) So, too, in the
matter of their being finite or infinite, they will all alike be either the
one or the other. And we now see that in most cases the fact that all the
terms are divisible or infinite is a direct consequence of the fact that the
thing that changes is divisible or infinite: for the attributes ‘divisible’ and
‘infinite’ belong in the first instance to the thing that changes. [235b]
That divisibility does so we have already12 shown; that infinity does so
will be made clear in what follows.13 (5)

5 Since everything that changes changes from something to

something, that which has changed must at the moment when it has first
changed be in that to which it has changed. For that which changes
retires from or leaves that from which it changes: and leaving, if not
identical with changing, is at any rate a consequence of it. (10) And if
leaving is a consequence of changing, having left is a consequence of
having changed: for there is a like relation between the two in each case.
One kind of change, then, being change in a relation of contradiction,
where a thing has changed from not-being to being it has left not-being.
(15) Therefore it will be in being: for everything must either be or not be.

It is evident, then, that in contradictory change that which has changed

must be in that to which it has changed. And if this is true in this kind of
change, it will be true in all other kinds as well: for in this matter what
holds good in the case of one will hold good likewise in the case of the
rest.
Moreover, if we take each kind of change separately, the truth of our
conclusion will be equally evident, on the ground that that which has
changed must be somewhere or in something. (20) For, since it has left
that from which it has changed and must be somewhere, it must be
either in that to which it has changed or in something else. If, then, that
which has changed to B is in something other than B, say C, it must
again be changing from C to B: for it cannot be assumed that there is no
interval between C and B, (25) since change is continuous. Thus we have
the result that the thing that has changed, at the moment when it has
changed, is changing to that to which it has changed, which is
impossible: that which has changed, therefore, must be in that to which
it has changed. So it is evident likewise that that which has come to be,
at the moment when it has come to be, will be, and that which has
ceased to be will not-be: for what we have said applies universally to
every kind of change, and its truth is most obvious in the case of
contradictory change. (30) It is clear, then, that that which has changed,
at the moment when it has first changed, is in that to which it has
changed.
We will now show that the ‘primary when’ in which that which has
changed effected the completion of its change must be indivisible, where
by ‘primary’ I mean possessing the characteristics in question of itself
and not in virtue of the possession of them by something else belonging
to it. For let AC be divisible, and let it be divided at B. (35) If then the
completion of change has been effected in AB or again in BC, AC cannot
be the primary thing in which the completion of change has been
effected. If, on the other hand, it has been changing in both AB and BC
(for it must either have changed or be changing in each of them), it must
have been changing in the whole AC: but our assumption was that AC
contains only the completion of the change. [236a] It is equally
impossible to suppose that one part of AC contains the process and the
other the completion of the change: for then we shall have something
prior to what is primary.14 So that in which the completion of change
has been effected must be indivisible. (5) It is also evident, therefore, that
that in which that which has ceased to be has ceased to be and that in
which that which has come to be has come to be are indivisible.
But there are two senses of the expression ‘the primary when in which
something has changed’. On the one hand it may mean the primary
when containing the completion of the process of change—the moment
when it is correct to say ‘it has changed’: on the other hand it may mean
the primary when containing the beginning of the process of change. Now
the primary when that has reference to the end of the change is
something really existent: for a change may really be completed, (10) and
there is such a thing as an end of change, which we have in fact shown
to be indivisible because it is a limit. But that which has reference to the
beginning is not existent at all: for there is no such thing as a beginning
of a process of change, and the time occupied by the change does not
contain any primary when in which the change began. (15) For suppose
that AD is such a primary when. Then it cannot be indivisible: for, if it
were, the moment immediately preceding the change and the moment in
which the change begins would be consecutive (and moments cannot be
consecutive). Again, if the changing thing is at rest in the whole
preceding time CA (for we may suppose that it is at rest), it is at rest in
A also: so if AD is without parts, it will simultaneously be at rest and
have changed: for it is at rest in A and has changed in D. (20) Since then
AD is not without parts, it must be divisible, and the changing thing
must have changed in every part of it (for if it has changed in neither of
the two parts into which AD is divided, it has not changed in the whole
either: if, on the other hand, it is in process of change in both parts, it is
likewise in process of change in the whole: and if, again, it has changed
in one of the two parts, the whole is not the primary when in which it
has changed: it must therefore have changed in every part). (25) It is
evident, then, that with reference to the beginning of change there is no
primary when in which change has been effected: for the divisions are
infinite.
So, too, of that which has changed there is no primary part that has
changed. For suppose that of DE the primary part that has changed is DF
(everything that changes having been shown15 to be divisible): and let
HI be the time in which DF has changed. (30) If, then, in the whole time
DF has changed, in half the time there will be a part that has changed,
less than and therefore prior to DF: and again there will be another part
prior to this, and yet another, and so on to infinity. Thus of that which
changes there cannot be any primary part that has changed. It is evident,
then, from what has been said, (35) that neither of that which changes nor
of the time in which it changes is there any primary part. [236b]
With regard, however, to the actual subject of change—that is to say
that in respect of which a thing changes—there is a difference to be
observed. For in a process of change we may distinguish three terms—
that which changes, that in which it changes, and the actual subject of
change, e. g. the man, the time, and the fair complexion. (5) Of these the
man and the time are divisible: but with the fair complexion it is
otherwise (though they are all divisible accidentally, for that in which
the fair complexion or any other quality is an accident is divisible). For
of actual subjects of change it will be seen that those which are classed
as essentially, not accidentally, (10) divisible have no primary part. Take
the case of magnitudes: let AB be a magnitude, and suppose that it has
moved from B to a primary ‘where’ C. Then if BC is taken to be
indivisible, two things without parts will have to be contiguous (which is
impossible): if on the other hand it is taken to be divisible, there will be
something prior to C to which the magnitude has changed, and
something else again prior to that, and so on to infinity, because the
process of division may be continued without end. (15) Thus there can be
no primary ‘where’ to which a thing has changed. And if we take the
case of quantitative change, we shall get a like result, for here too the
change is in something continuous. It is evident, then, that only in
qualitative motion can there be anything essentially indivisible.

6 Now everything that changes changes in time, (20) and that in two
senses: for the time in which a thing is said to change may be the
primary time, or on the other hand it may have an extended reference,
as e. g. when we say that a thing changes in a particular year because it
changes in a particular day. That being so, that which changes must be
changing in any part of the primary time in which it changes. This is
clear from our definition of ‘primary’,16 in which the word is said to
express just this: it may also, however, (25) be made evident by the
following argument. Let VQ be the primary time in which that which is
in motion is in motion: and (as all time is divisible) let it be divided at J.
Now in the time VJ it either is in motion or is not in motion, and the
same is likewise true of the time JQ. Then if it is in motion in neither of
the two parts, it will be at rest in the whole: for it is impossible that it
should be in motion in a time in no part of which it is in motion. If on
the other hand it is in motion in only one of the two parts of the time,
(30) VQ cannot be the primary time in which it is in motion: for its

motion will have reference to a time other than VQ. It must, then, have
been in motion in any part of VQ.
 And now that this has been proved, it is evident that everything that is
in motion must have been in motion before. For if that which is in
motion has traversed the distance JK in the primary time VQ, (35) in half
the time a thing that is in motion with equal velocity and began its
motion at the same time will have traversed half the distance. But if this
second thing whose velocity is equal has traversed a certain distance in a
certain time, the original thing that is in motion must have traversed the
same distance in the same time. [237a] Hence that which is in motion
must have been in motion before.
Again, if by taking the extreme moment of the time—for it is the
moment that defines the time, and time is that which is intermediate
between moments—we are enabled to say that motion has taken place in
the whole time VQ or in fact in any period of it, (5) motion may likewise
be said to have taken place in every other such period. But half the time
finds an extreme in the point of division. Therefore motion will have
taken place in half the time and in fact in any part of it: for as soon as
any division is made there is always a time defined by moments. If, then,
all time is divisible, (10) and that which is intermediate between moments
is time, everything that is changing must have completed an infinite
number of changes.
Again, since a thing that changes continuously and has not perished or
ceased from its change must either be changing or have changed in any
part of the time of its change, and since it cannot be changing in a
moment, it follows that it must have changed at every moment in the
time: consequently, since the moments are infinite in number, (15)
everything that is changing must have completed an infinite number of
changes.
And not only must that which is changing have changed, but that
which has changed must also previously have been changing, since
everything that has changed from something to something has changed
in a period of time. For suppose that a thing has changed from A to B in
a moment. (20) Now the moment in which it has changed cannot be the
same as that in which it is at A (since in that case it would be in A and B
at once): for we have shown above17 that that which has changed, when
it has changed, is not in that from which it has changed. If, on the other
hand, it is a different moment, there will be a period of time
intermediate between the two: for, (25) as we saw,18 moments are not
consecutive. Since, then, it has changed in a period of time, and all time
is divisible, in half the time it will have completed another change, in a
quarter another, and so on to infinity: consequently when it has
changed, it must have previously been changing.
Moreover, the truth of what has been said is more evident in the case
of magnitude, because the magnitude over which what is changing
changes is continuous. (30) For suppose that a thing has changed from C
to D. Then if CD is indivisible, two things without parts will be
consecutive. But since this is impossible, that which is intermediate
between them must be a magnitude and divisible into an infinite number
of segments: consequently, before the change is completed, the thing
changes to those segments. Everything that has changed, (35) therefore,
must previously have been changing: for the same proof also holds good
of change with respect to what is not continuous, changes, that is to say,
between contraries and between contradictories. [237b] In such cases
we have only to take the time in which a thing has changed and again
apply the same reasoning. So that which has changed must have been
changing and that which is changing must have changed, and a process
of change is preceded by a completion of change and a completion by a
process: and we can never take any stage and say that it is absolutely the
first. (5) The reason of this is that no two things without parts can be
contiguous, and therefore in change the process of division is infinite,
just as lines may be infinitely divided so that one part is continually
increasing and the other continually decreasing.19
So it is evident also that that which has become must previously have
been in process of becoming, (10) and that which is in process of
becoming must previously have become, everything (that is) that is
divisible and continuous: though it is not always the actual thing that is
in process of becoming of which this is true: sometimes it is something
else, that is to say, some part of the thing in question, e. g. the
foundation-stone of a house. So, too, in the case of that which is
perishing and that which has perished: for that which becomes and that
which perishes must contain an element of infiniteness as an immediate
consequence of the fact that they are continuous things: and so a thing
cannot be in process of becoming without having become or have
become without having been in process of becoming. (15) So, too, in the
case of perishing and having perished: perishing must be preceded by
having perished, and having perished must be preceded by perishing. It
is evident, then, that that which has become must previously have been
in process of becoming, and that which is in process of becoming must
previously have become: for all magnitudes and all periods of time are
infinitely divisible. (20)
Consequently no absolutely first stage of change can be represented by
any particular part of space or time which the changing thing may
occupy.

7 Now since the motion of everything that is in motion occupies a

period of time, and a greater magnitude is traversed in a longer time, it
is impossible that a thing should undergo a finite motion in an infinite
time, (25) if this is understood to mean not that the same motion or a part
of it is continually repeated, but that the whole infinite time is occupied
by the whole finite motion. In all cases where a thing is in motion with
uniform velocity it is clear that the finite magnitude is traversed in a
finite time. For if we take a part of the motion which shall be a measure
of the whole, the whole motion is completed in as many equal periods of
the time as there are parts of the motion. (30) Consequently, since these
parts are finite, both in size individually and in number collectively, the
whole time must also be finite: for it will be a multiple of the portion,
equal to the time occupied in completing the aforesaid part multiplied
by the number of the parts.
But it makes no difference even if the velocity is not uniform. For let
us suppose that the line AB represents a finite stretch over which a thing
has been moved in the given time, (35) and let CD be the infinite time.
Now if one part of the stretch must have been traversed before another
part (this is clear, that in the earlier and in the later part of the time a
different part of the stretch has been traversed: for as the time lengthens
a different part of the motion will always be completed in it, whether
the thing in motion changes with uniform velocity or not: and whether
the rate of motion increases or diminishes or remains stationary this is
none the less so), (5) let us then take AE a part of the whole stretch of
motion AB which shall be a measure of AB. [238a] Now this part of
the motion occupies a certain period of the infinite time: it cannot itself
occupy an infinite time, for we are assuming that that is occupied by the
whole AB. And if again I take another part equal to AE, that also must
occupy a finite time in consequence of the same assumption. (10) And if I
go on taking parts in this way, on the one hand there is no part which
will be a measure of the infinite time (for the infinite cannot be
composed of finite parts whether equal or unequal, because there must
be some unity which will be a measure of things finite in multitude or in
magnitude, (15) which, whether they are equal or unequal, are none the
less limited in magnitude); while on the other hand the finite stretch of
motion AB is a certain multiple of AE: consequently the motion AB must
be accomplished in a finite time. Moreover it is the same with coming to
rest as with motion. And so it is impossible for one and the same thing to
be infinitely in process of becoming or of perishing.
The same reasoning will prove that in a finite time there cannot be an
infinite extent of motion or of coming to rest, (20) whether the motion is
regular or irregular. For if we take a part which shall be a measure of the
whole time, in this part a certain fraction, not the whole, of the
magnitude will be traversed, because we assume that the traversing of
the whole occupies all the time. Again, in another equal part of the time
another part of the magnitude will be traversed: and similarly in each
part of the time that we take, (25) whether equal or unequal to the part
originally taken. It makes no difference whether the parts are equal or
not, if only each is finite: for it is clear that while the time is exhausted
by the subtraction of its parts, the infinite magnitude will not be thus
exhausted, since the process of subtraction is finite both in respect of the
quantity subtracted and of the number of times a subtraction is made.
Consequently the infinite magnitude will not be traversed in a finite
time: and it makes no difference whether the magnitude is infinite in
only one direction or in both: for the same reasoning will hold good. (30)
This having been proved, it is evident that neither can a finite
magnitude traverse an infinite magnitude in a finite time, the reason
being the same as that given above: in part of the time it will traverse a
finite magnitude and in each several part likewise, (35) so that in the
whole time it will traverse a finite magnitude.
 And since a finite magnitude will not traverse an infinite in a finite
time, it is clear that neither will an infinite traverse a finite in a finite
time. [238b] For if the infinite could traverse the finite, the finite
could traverse the infinite; for it makes no difference which of the two is
the thing in motion: either case involves the traversing of the infinite by
the finite. (5) For when the infinite magnitude A is in motion a part of it,
say CD, will occupy the finite B, and then another, and then another,
and so on to infinity. Thus the two results will coincide: the infinite will
have completed a motion over the finite and the finite will have
traversed the infinite: for it would seem to be impossible for the motion
of the infinite over the finite to occur in any way other than by the finite
traversing the infinite either by locomotion over it or by measuring it.
(10) Therefore, since this is impossible, the infinite cannot traverse the

finite.
Nor again will the infinite traverse the infinite in a finite time.
Otherwise it would also traverse the finite, for the infinite includes the
finite. (15) We can further prove this in the same way by taking the time
as our starting-point.
Since, then, it is established that in a finite time neither will the finite
traverse the infinite, nor the infinite the finite, nor the infinite the
infinite, it is evident also that in a finite time there cannot be infinite
motion: for what difference does it make whether we take the motion or
the magnitude to be infinite? If either of the two is infinite, (20) the other
must be so likewise: for all locomotion is in space.

8 Since everything to which motion or rest is natural is in motion or

at rest in the natural time, place, and manner, that which is coming to a
stand, when it is coming to a stand, must be in motion: for if it is not in
motion it must be at rest: but that which is at rest cannot be coming to
rest. (25) From this it evidently follows that coming to a stand must
occupy a period of time: for the motion of that which is in motion
occupies a period of time, and that which is coming to a stand has been
shown to be in motion: consequently coming to a stand must occupy a
period of time.
Again, since the terms ‘quicker’ and ‘slower’ are used only of that
which occupies a period of time, and the process of coming to a stand
may be quicker or slower, (30) the same conclusion follows.
And that which is coming to a stand must be coming to a stand in any
part of the primary time in which it is coming to a stand. For if it is
coming to a stand in neither of two parts into which the time may be
divided, it cannot be coming to a stand in the whole time, with the
result that that which is coming to a stand will not be coming to a stand.
If on the other hand it is coming to a stand in only one of the two parts
of the time, the whole cannot be the primary time in which it is coming
to a stand: for it is coming to a stand in the whole time not primarily but
in virtue of something distinct from itself, (35) the argument being the
same as that which we used above about things in motion.20
And just as there is no primary time in which that which is in motion
is in motion, so too there is no primary time in which that which is
coming to a stand is coming to a stand, there being no primary stage
either of being in motion or of coming to a stand. [239a] For let AB be
the primary time in which a thing is coming to a stand. Now AB cannot
be without parts: for there cannot be motion in that which is without
parts, because the moving thing would necessarily have been already
moved for part of the time of its movement: and that which is coming to
a stand has been shown to be in motion. (5) But since AB is therefore
divisible, the thing is coming to a stand in every one of the parts of AB:
for we have shown above21 that it is coming to a stand in every one of
the parts in which it is primarily coming to a stand. Since, then, that in
which primarily a thing is coming to a stand must be a period of time
and not something indivisible, and since all time is infinitely divisible,
there cannot be anything in which primarily it is coming to a stand.
Nor again can there be a primary time at which the being at rest of
that which is at rest occurred: for it cannot have occurred in that which
has no parts, (10) because there cannot be motion in that which is
indivisible, and that in which rest takes place is the same as that in
which motion takes place: for we defined22 a state of rest to be the state
of a thing to which motion is natural but which is not in motion when
(that is to say in that23 in which) motion would be natural to it. Again,
our use of the phrase ‘being at rest’ also implies that the previous state of
a thing is still unaltered, (15) not one point only but two at least being
thus needed to determine its presence: consequently that in which a
thing is at rest cannot be without parts. Since, then, it is divisible, it
must be a period of time, and the thing must be at rest in every one of its
parts, as may be shown by the same method as that used above in
similar demonstrations.
So there can be no primary part of the time: and the reason is that rest
and motion are always in a period of time, (20) and a period of time has
no primary part any more than a magnitude or in fact anything
continuous: for everything continuous is divisible into an infinite
number of parts.
And since everything that is in motion is in motion in a period of time
and changes from something to something, when its motion is comprised
within a particular period of time essentially—that is to say when it fills
the whole and not merely a part of the time in question—it is impossible
that in that time that which is in motion should be over against some
particular thing primarily.24 (25) For if a thing—itself and each of its parts
—occupies the same space for a definite period of time, it is at rest: for it
is in just these circumstances that we use the term ‘being at rest’—when
at one moment after another it can be said with truth that a thing, itself
and its parts, occupies the same space. So if this is being at rest it is
impossible for that which is changing to be as a whole, at the time when
it is primarily changing, (30) over against any particular thing (for the
whole period of time is divisible), so that in one part of it after another it
will be true to say that the thing, itself and its parts, occupies the same
space. If this is not so and the aforesaid proposition is true only at a
single moment, then the thing will be over against a particular thing not
for any period of time but only at a moment that limits the time. It is
true that at any moment it is always over against something stationary:
but it is not at rest: for at a moment it is not possible for anything to be
either in motion or at rest. [239b] (35) So while it is true to say that
that which is in motion is at a moment not in motion and is opposite
some particular thing, it cannot in a period of time be over against that
which is at rest: for that would involve the conclusion that that which is
in locomotion is at rest.

9 Zeno’s reasoning, however, is fallacious, when he says that if

everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, (5) and if that
which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment,
the flying arrow is therefore motionless. This is false, for time is not
composed of indivisible moments any more than any other magnitude is
composed of indivisibles.
Zeno’s arguments about motion, which cause so much disquietude to
those who try to solve the problems that they present, (10) are four in
number. The first asserts the non-existence of motion on the ground that
that which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it
arrives at the goal. This we have discussed above.25
The second is the so-called ‘Achilles’, and it amounts to this, that in a
race the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, (15) since the
pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that
the slower must always hold a lead. This argument is the same in
principle as that which depends on bisection,26 though it differs from it
in that the spaces with which we successively have to deal are not
divided into halves. The result of the argument is that the slower is not
overtaken: but it proceeds along the same lines as the bisection-
argument (for in both a division of the space in a certain way leads to
the result that the goal is not reached, (20) though the ‘Achilles’ goes
further in that it affirms that even the quickest runner in legendary
tradition must fail in his pursuit of the slowest), so that the solution
must be the same. (25) And the axiom that that which holds a lead is
never overtaken is false: it is not overtaken, it is true, while it holds a
lead: but it is overtaken nevertheless if it is granted that it traverses the
finite distance prescribed. These then are two of his arguments.
The third is that already given above, (30) to the effect that the flying
arrow is at rest, which result follows from the assumption that time is
composed of moments: if this assumption is not granted, the conclusion
will not follow.
The fourth argument is that concerning the two rows of bodies, each
row being composed of an equal number of bodies of equal size, passing
each other on a race-course as they proceed with equal velocity in
opposite directions, the one row originally occupying the space between
the goal and the middle point of the course and the other that between
the middle point and the starting-post. (35) This, he thinks, involves the
conclusion that half a given time is equal to double that time. [240a]
The fallacy of the reasoning lies in the assumption that a body occupies
an equal time in passing with equal velocity a body that is in motion and
a body of equal size that is at rest; which is false. For instance (so runs
the argument), let A, (5) A … be the stationary bodies of equal size, B,
B … the bodies, equal in number and in size to A, A …, originally
occupying the half of the course from the starting-post to the middle of
the A’s, and C, C, … those originally occupying the other half from the
goal to the middle of the A’s, equal in number, size, and velocity to B, B.
… Then three consequences follow:
First, as the B’s and the C’s pass one another, (10) the first B reaches the
last C at the same moment as the first C reaches the last B. Secondly, at
this moment the first C has passed all the A’s, whereas the first B has
passed only half the A’s, and has consequently occupied only half the
time occupied by the first C, since each of the two occupies an equal
time in passing each A. Thirdly, at the same moment all the B’s have
passed all the C’s: for the first C and the first B will simultaneously reach
the opposite ends of the course, (15) since (so says Zeno) the time
occupied by the first C in passing each of the B’s is equal to that
occupied by it in passing each of the A’s, because an equal time is
occupied by both the first B and the first C in passing all the A’s. This is
the argument, but it presupposed the aforesaid fallacious assumption.
Nor in reference to contradictory change shall we find anything
unanswerable in the argument that if a thing is changing from not-white,
(20) say, to white, and is in neither condition, then it will be neither white

nor not-white: for the fact that it is not wholly in either condition will
not preclude us from calling it white or not-white. We call a thing white
or not-white not necessarily because it is wholly either one or the other,
but because most of its parts or the most essential parts of it are so: not
being in a certain condition is different from not being wholly in that
condition. (25) So, too, in the case of being and not-being and all other
conditions which stand in a contradictory relation: while the changing
thing must of necessity be in one of the two opposites, it is never wholly
in either.
Again, in the case of circles and spheres and everything whose motion
is confined within the space that it occupies, it is not true to say that the
motion can be nothing but rest, on the ground that such things in
motion, (30) themselves and their parts, will occupy the same position for
a period of time, and that therefore they will be at once at rest and in
motion. For in the first place the parts do not occupy the same position
for any period of time: and in the second place the whole also is always
changing to a different position: for if we take the orbit as described
from a point A on a circumference, it will not be the same as the orbit as
described from B or C or any other point on the same circumference
except in an accidental sense, the sense that is to say in which a musical
man is the same as a man. [240b] (5) Thus one orbit is always changing
into another, and the thing will never be at rest. And it is the same with
the sphere and everything else whose motion is confined within the
space that it occupies.

10 Our next point is that that which is without parts cannot be in

motion except accidentally: i. e. it can be in motion only in so far as the
body or the magnitude is in motion and the partless is in motion by
inclusion therein, (10) just as that which is in a boat may be in motion in
consequence of the locomotion of the boat, or a part may be in motion
in virtue of the motion of the whole. (It must be remembered, however,
that by ‘that which is without parts’ I mean that which is quantitatively
indivisible (and that the case of the motion of a part is not exactly
parallel): for parts have motions belonging essentially and severally to
themselves distinct from the motion of the whole. (15) The distinction
may be seen most clearly in the case of a revolving sphere, in which the
velocities of the parts near the centre and of those on the surface are
different from one another and from that of the whole; this implies that
there is not one motion but many.) As we have said, then, that which is
without parts can be in motion in the sense in which a man sitting in a
boat is in motion when the boat is travelling, but it cannot be in motion
of itself. (20) For suppose that it is changing from AB to BC—either from
one magnitude to another, or from one form to another, or from some
state to its contradictory—and let D be the primary time in which it
undergoes the change. Then in the time in which it is changing it must
be either in AB or in BC or partly in one and partly in the other: for this,
(25) as we saw,27 is true of everything that is changing. Now it cannot be

partly in each of the two: for then it would be divisible into parts. Nor
again can it be in BC: for then it will have completed the change,
whereas the assumption is that the change is in process. It remains, then,
that in the time in which it is changing, it is in AB. That being so, it will
be at rest: for, as we saw,28 to be in the same condition for a period of
time is to be at rest. (30) So it is not possible for that which has no parts
to be in motion or to change in any way: for only one condition could
have made it possible for it to have motion, viz. that time should be
composed of moments, in which case at any moment it would have
completed a motion or a change, so that it would never be in motion,
but would always have been in motion. [241a] But this we have
already shown above29 to be impossible: time is not composed of
moments, just as a line is not composed of points, and motion is not
composed of starts: (5) for this theory simply makes motion consist of
indivisibles in exactly the same way as time is made to consist of
moments or a length of points.
Again, it may be shown in the following way that there can be no
motion of a point or of any other indivisible. That which is in motion
can never traverse a space greater than itself without first traversing a
space equal to or less than itself. That being so, (10) it is evident that the
point also must first traverse a space equal to or less than itself. But
since it is indivisible, there can be no space less than itself for it to
traverse first: so it will have to traverse a distance equal to itself. Thus
the line will be composed of points, for the point, as it continually
traverses a distance equal to itself, will be a measure of the whole line.
But since this is impossible, it is likewise impossible for the indivisible to
be in motion.
Again, (15) since motion is always in a period of time and never in a
moment, and all time is divisible, for everything that is in motion there
must be a time less than that in which it traverses a distance as great as
itself. For that in which it is in motion will be a time, because all motion
is in a period of time; and all time has been shown above30 to be
divisible. Therefore, if a point is in motion, there must be a time less
than that in which it has itself traversed any distance. But this is
impossible, for in less time it must traverse less distance, (20) and thus the
indivisible will be divisible into something less than itself, just as the
time is so divisible: the fact being that the only condition under which
that which is without parts and indivisible could be in motion would
have been the possibility of the infinitely small being in motion in a
moment: for in the two questions—that of motion in a moment and that
of motion of something indivisible—the same principle is involved. (25)
Our next point is that no process of change is infinite: for every
change, whether between contradictories or between contraries, is a
change from something to something. Thus in contradictory changes the
positive or the negative, as the case may be, is the limit, e. g. being is the
limit of coming to be and not-being is the limit of ceasing to be: and in
contrary changes the particular contraries are the limits, since these are
the extreme points of any such process of change, (30) and consequently
of every process of alteration: for alteration is always dependent upon
some contraries. Similarly contraries are the extreme points of processes
of increase and decrease: the limit of increase is to be found in the
complete magnitude proper to the peculiar nature of the thing that is
increasing, while the limit of decrease is the complete loss of such
magnitude. [241b] Locomotion, it is true, we cannot show to be finite
in this way, since it is not always between contraries. But since that
which cannot be cut (in the sense that it is inconceivable that it should
be cut, the term ‘cannot’ being used in several senses)—since it is
inconceivable that that which in this sense cannot be cut should be in
process of being cut, (5) and generally that that which cannot come to be
should be in process of coming to be, it follows that it is inconceivable
that that which cannot complete a change should be in process of
changing to that to which it cannot complete a change. If, then, it is to
be assumed that that which is in locomotion is in process of changing, it
must be capable of completing the change. Consequently its motion is
not infinite, and it will not be in locomotion over an infinite distance, (10)
for it cannot traverse such a distance.
It is evident, then, that a process of change cannot be infinite in the
sense that it is not defined by limits. But it remains to be considered
whether it is possible in the sense that one and the same process of
change may be infinite in respect of the time which it occupies. If it is
not one process, it would seem that there is nothing to prevent its being
infinite in this sense; e. g. if a process of locomotion be succeeded by a
process of alteration and that by a process of increase and that again by
a process of coming to be: in this way there may be motion for ever so
far as the time is concerned, (15) but it will not be one motion, because all
these motions do not compose one. If it is to be one process, no motion
can be infinite in respect of the time that it occupies, (20) with the single
exception of rotatory locomotion.

1 v. 3.

2 Which is ex hypothesi impossible (231b 28–30).

3 The slower will traverse EF in a greater time than the indivisible time in which the quicker
traverses JK.
4 i. e. in which it means a period of time including the present proper.

5 222a 12.

6 Chapter 2.

7 i. e. it will not be a point of division but merely something intermediate between past and
future.
8 226b 12 sqq.

9 viz. past and future.

10 223b 1 sqq.

11 234b 24 sqq., especially 234b 34 sqq.

12 234b 10–20.

13 Chapter 7.

14 sc. BC will have more right than AC to be regarded as that in which the change has been
completed.
15 234b 10 sqq.

16 235b 33. The ‘primary time’ is the irreducible minimum: thus the very terms of the definition
make it clear that a thing must be changing in the whole of the ‘primary time’ in which it
changes.
17 235b 6 sqq.

18 231b 6 sqq.

19 i. e. you may begin by cutting off half the line, then half of what remains, and so on, the part
cut off thus continuously increasing and the part remaining continually decreasing.
20 Ch. 6.

21 238b 31 sqq.

22 226b 12 sqq.

23 sc. time.

24 i. e. a space only just large enough to contain it, not a larger space of which only part is
occupied.
25 233a 13 sqq.

26 viz. the first argument given above, ll. 11–14.

27 234b 10 sqq.

28 239a 27.

29 231b 18 sqq.

30 232b 23 sqq.
 BOOK VII

1 Everything that is in motion must be moved by something. (25) For if

it has not the source of its motion in itself it is evident that it is moved
by something other than itself, for there must be something else that
moves it. If on the other hand it has the source of its motion in itself, let
AB be taken to represent that which is in motion essentially of itself and
not in virtue of the fact that something belonging to it is in motion. Now
in the first place to assume that AB, (30) because it is in motion as a
whole and is not moved by anything external to itself, is therefore
moved by itself—this is just as if, supposing that JK is moving KL and is
also itself in motion, we were to deny that JL is moved by anything on
the ground that it is not evident which is the part that is moving it and
which the part that is moved. In the second place that which is in
motion without being moved by anything does not necessarily cease
from its motion because something else is at rest, but a thing must be
moved by something if the fact of something else having ceased from its
motion causes it to be at rest. [242a] Thus, if this is accepted,
everything that is in motion must be moved by something. (5) For AB,
which has been taken to represent that which is in motion, must be
divisible, since everything that is in motion is divisible. Let it be divided,
then, at C. Now if CB is not in motion, then AB will not be in motion: for
if it is, it is clear that AC would be in motion while BC is at rest, (10) and
thus AB cannot be in motion essentially and primarily. But ex hypothesi
AB is in motion essentially and primarily. Therefore if CB is not in
motion AB will be at rest. But we have agreed that that which is at rest if
something else is not in motion must be moved by something.
Consequently, everything that is in motion must be moved by
something: for that which is in motion will always be divisible, (15) and if
a part of it is not in motion the whole must be at rest.
Since everything that is in motion must be moved by something, let us
take the case in which a thing is in locomotion and is moved by
something that is itself in motion, and that again is moved by something
else that is in motion, and that by something else, (20) and so on
continually: then the series cannot go on to infinity, but there must be
some first movent. For let us suppose that this is not so and take the
series to be infinite. Let A then be moved by B, B by C, C by D, and so
on, each member of the series being moved by that which comes next to
it. Then since ex hypothesi the movent while causing motion is also itself
in motion, and the motion of the moved and the motion of the movent
must proceed simultaneously (for the movent is causing motion and the
moved is being moved simultaneously) it is evident that the respective
motions of A, (25) B, C, and each of the other moved movents are
simultaneous. Let us take the motion of each separately and let E be the
motion of A, F of B, and G and H respectively the motions of C and D:
for though they are all moved severally one by another, yet we may still
take the motion of each as numerically one, since every motion is from
something to something and is not infinite in respect of its extreme
points. (30) By a motion that is numerically one I mean a motion that
proceeds from something numerically one and the same to something
numerically one and the same in a period of time numerically one and
the same: for a motion may be the same generically, specifically, (35) or
numerically: it is generically the same if it belongs to the same category,
e. g. substance or quality: it is specifically the same if it proceeds from
something specifically the same to something specifically the same, e. g.
from white to black or from good to bad, which is not of a kind
specifically distinct: it is numerically the same if it proceeds from
something numerically one to something numerically one in the same
period of time, e. g. from a particular white to a particular black, or
from a particular place to a particular place, in a particular period of
time: for if the period of time were not one and the same, the motion
would no longer be numerically one though it would still be specifically
one. [242b] We have dealt with this question above.1 (4) Now let us
further take the time in which A has completed its motion, (8) and let it
be represented by J. Then since the motion of A is finite the time will
also be finite. But since the movents and the things moved are infinite,
the motion EFGH, i. e. the motion that is composed of all the individual
motions, (15) must be infinite. For the motions of A, B, and the others
may be equal, or the motions of the others may be greater: but assuming
what is conceivable, we find that whether they are equal or some are
greater, in both cases the whole motion is infinite. And since the motion
of A and that of each of the others are simultaneous, the whole motion
must occupy the same time as the motion of A: but the time occupied by
the motion of A is finite: consequently the motion will be infinite in a
finite time, which is impossible.
It might be thought that what we set out to prove has thus been
shown, (20) but our argument so far does not prove it, because it does not
yet prove that anything impossible results from the contrary supposition:
for in a finite time there may be an infinite motion, though not of one
thing, but of many: and in the case that we are considering this is so: for
each thing accomplishes its own motion, and there is no impossibility in
many things being in motion simultaneously. But if (as we see to be
universally the case) that which primarily is moved locally and
corporeally must be either in contact with or continuous with that which
moves it, (25) the things moved and the movents must be continuous or in
contact with one another, so that together they all form a single unity:
whether this unity is finite or infinite makes no difference to our present
argument; for in any case since the things in motion are infinite in
number the whole motion will be infinite, if, as is theoretically possible,
each motion is either equal to or greater than that which follows it in the
series: for we shall take as actual that which is theoretically possible. If,
(30) then, A, B, C, D form an infinite magnitude that passes through the

motion EFGH in the finite time J, this involves the conclusion that an
infinite motion is passed through in a finite time: and whether the
magnitude in question is finite or infinite this is in either case
impossible. Therefore the series must come to an end, and there must be
a first movent and a first moved: for the fact that this impossibility
results only from the assumption of a particular case is immaterial, since
the case assumed is theoretically possible, and the assumption of a
theoretically possible case ought not to give rise to any impossible result.
[243a]

2 That which is the first movent of a thing—in the sense that it

supplies not ‘that for the sake of which’ but the source of the motion—is
always together with that which is moved by it (by ‘together’ I mean
that there is nothing intermediate between them). (5) This is universally
true wherever one thing is moved by another. And since there are three
kinds of motion, local, qualitative, and quantitative, there must also be
three kinds of movent, that which causes locomotion, that which causes
alteration, and that which causes increase or decrease.
Let us begin with locomotion, (10) for this is the primary motion.
Everything that is in locomotion is moved either by itself or by
something else. In the case of things that are moved by themselves it is
evident that the moved and the movent are together: for they contain
within themselves their first movent, so that there is nothing in between.
The motion of things that are moved by something else must proceed in
one of four ways: for there are four kinds of locomotion caused by
something other than that which is in motion, (15) viz. pulling, pushing,
carrying, and twirling. All forms of locomotion are reducible to these.
Thus pushing on is a form of pushing in which that which is causing
motion away from itself follows up that which it pushes and continues to
push it: pushing off occurs when the movent does not follow up the
thing that it has moved: throwing when the movent causes a motion
away from itself more violent than the natural locomotion of the thing
moved, (20) which continues its course so long as it is controlled by the
motion imparted to it. [243b] Again, pushing apart and pushing
together are forms respectively of pushing off and pulling: pushing apart
is pushing off, which may be a motion either away from the pusher or
away from something else, while pushing together is pulling, which may
be a motion towards something else as well as towards the puller. (5) We
may similarly classify all the varieties of these last two, e. g. packing and
combing: the former is a form of pushing together, the latter a form of
pushing apart. The same is true of the other processes of combination
and separation (they will all be found to be forms of pushing apart or of
pushing together), except such as are involved in the processes of
becoming and perishing. (At the same time it is evident that there is no
other kind of motion but combination and separation: for they may all
be apportioned to one or other of those already mentioned. (10)) Again,
inhaling is a form of pulling, exhaling a form of pushing: and the same is
true of spitting and of all other motions that proceed through the body,
whether secretive or assimilative, the assimilative being forms of pulling,
the secretive of pushing off. (15) All other kinds of locomotion must be
similarly reduced, for they all fall under one or other of our four heads.
And again, of these four, carrying and twirling are reducible to pulling
and pushing. For carrying always follows one of the other three
methods, for that which is carried is in motion accidentally, because it is
in or upon something that is in motion, and that which carries it is in
doing so being either pulled or pushed or twirled; (20) thus carrying
belongs to all the other three kinds of motion in common. [244a] And
twirling is a compound of pulling and pushing, for that which is twirling
a thing must be pulling one part of the thing and pushing another part,
since it impels one part away from itself and another part towards itself.
If, therefore, it can be shown that that which is pushing and that which
is pulling are adjacent respectively to that which is being pushed and
that which is being pulled, it will be evident that in all locomotion there
is nothing intermediate between moved and movent. (5) But the former
fact is clear even from the definitions of pushing and pulling, for pushing
is motion to something else from oneself or from something else, and
pulling is motion from something else to oneself or to something else,
when the motion of that which is pulling is quicker than the motion that
would separate from one another the two things that are continuous:2
for it is this that causes one thing to be pulled on along with the other.
(10) (It might indeed be thought that there is a form of pulling that arises

in another way: that wood, e. g. pulls fire in a manner different from

that described above. But it makes no difference whether that which
pulls is in motion or is stationary when it is pulling: in the latter case it
pulls to the place where it is, while in the former it pulls to the place
where it was.) Now it is impossible to move anything either from oneself
to something else or from something else to oneself without being in
contact with it: it is evident, (15) therefore, that in all locomotion there is
nothing intermediate between moved and movent. [244b]
Nor again is there anything intermediate between that which
undergoes and that which causes alteration: this can be proved by
induction: for in every case we find that the respective extremities of
that which causes and that which undergoes alteration are adjacent. For
our assumption is that things that are undergoing alteration are altered
in virtue of their being affected in respect of their so-called affective
qualities, since that which is of a certain quality is altered in so far as it
is sensible, and the characteristics in which bodies differ from one
another are sensible characteristics: for every body differs from another
in possessing a greater or lesser number of sensible characteristics or in
possessing the same sensible characteristics in a greater or lesser degree.
But the alteration of that which undergoes alteration is also caused by
the above-mentioned characteristics, (5) which are affections of some
particular underlying quality. Thus we say that a thing is altered by
becoming hot or sweet or thick or dry or white: and we make these
assertions alike of what is inanimate and of what is animate, and further,
where animate things are in question, we make them both of the parts
that have no power of sense-perception and of the senses themselves. (10)
For in a way even the senses undergo alteration, since the active sense is
a motion through the body in the course of which the sense is affected in
a certain way. We see, then, that the animate is capable of every kind of
alteration of which the inanimate is capable: but the inanimate is not
capable of every kind of alteration of which the animate is capable, since
it is not capable of alteration in respect of the senses: moreover the
inanimate is unconscious of being affected by alteration, (15) whereas the
animate is conscious of it, though there is nothing to prevent the
animate also being unconscious of it when the process of the alteration
does not concern the senses. [245a] Since, then, the alteration of that
which undergoes alteration is caused by sensible things, in every case of
such alteration it is evident that the respective extremities of that which
causes and that which undergoes alteration are adjacent. Thus the air is
continuous with that which causes the alteration, (5) and the body that
undergoes alteration is continuous with the air. Again, the colour is
continuous with the light and the light with the sight. And the same is
true of hearing and smelling: for the primary movent in respect to the
moved is the air. Similarly, in the case of tasting, the flavour is adjacent
to the sense of taste. And it is just the same in the case of things that are
inanimate and incapable of sense-perception. (10) Thus there can be
nothing intermediate between that which undergoes and that which
causes alteration.
Nor, again, can there be anything intermediate between that which
suffers and that which causes increase: for the part of the latter that
starts the increase does so by becoming attached in such a way to the
former that the whole becomes one. Again, the decrease of that which
suffers decrease is caused by a part of the thing becoming detached. So
that which causes increase and that which causes decrease must be
continuous with that which suffers increase and that which suffers
decrease respectively: and if two things are continuous with one another
there can be nothing intermediate between them. (15)
It is evident, therefore, that between the extremities of the moved and
the movent that are respectively first and last in reference to the moved
there is nothing intermediate. [245b]

3 Everything, we say, that undergoes alteration is altered by sensible

causes, and there is alteration only in things that are said to be
essentially affected by sensible things. The truth of this is to be seen
from the following considerations. Of all other things it would be most
natural to suppose that there is alteration in figures and shapes, (5) and in
acquired states and in the processes of acquiring and losing these: but as
a matter of fact in neither of these two classes of things is there
alteration.
In the first place, when a particular formation of a thing is completed,
(10) we do not call it by the name of its material: e. g. we do not call the

statue ‘bronze’ or the pyramid3 ‘wax’ or the bed ‘wood’, but we use a
derived expression and call them ‘of bronze’, ‘waxen’, and ‘wooden’
respectively. But when a thing has been affected and altered in any way
we still call it by the original name: thus we speak of the bronze or the
wax being dry or fluid or hard or hot. (15) And not only so: we also speak
of the particular fluid or hot substance as being bronze, giving the
material the same name as that which we use to describe the affection.
[246a] Since, therefore, having regard to the figure or shape of a
thing we no longer call that which has become of a certain figure by the
name of the material that exhibits the figure, whereas having regard to a
thing’s affections or alterations we still call it by the name of its
material, it is evident that becomings of the former kind cannot be
alterations.
Moreover it would seem absurd even to speak in this way, to speak, (5)
that is to say, of a man or house or anything else that has come into
existence as having been altered. Though it may be true that every such
becoming is necessarily the result of something’s being altered, the
result, e. g. of the material’s being condensed or rarefied or heated or
cooled, nevertheless it is not the things that are coming into existence
that are altered, and their becoming is not an alteration.
Again, (10) acquired states, whether of the body or of the soul, are not
alterations. For some are excellences and others are defects, and neither
excellence nor defect is an alteration: excellence is a perfection (for
when anything acquires its proper excellence we call it perfect, (15) since
it is then if ever that we have a thing in its natural state: e. g. we have a
perfect circle when we have one as good as possible), while defect is a
perishing of or departure from this condition. So just as when speaking
of a house we do not call its arrival at perfection an alteration (for it
would be absurd to suppose that the coping or the tiling is an alteration
or that in receiving its coping or its tiling a house is altered and not
perfected), (20) the same also holds good in the case of excellences and
defects and of the persons or things that possess or acquire them: for
excellences are perfections of a thing’s nature and defects are departures
from it: consequently they are not alterations. [246b]
Further, we say that all excellences depend upon particular relations.
Thus bodily excellences such as health and a good state of body we
regard as consisting in a blending of hot and cold elements within the
body in due proportion, (5) in relation either to one another or to the
surrounding atmosphere: and in like manner we regard beauty, strength,
and all the other bodily excellences and defects. Each of them exists in
virtue of a particular relation and puts that which possesses it in a good
or bad condition with regard to its proper affections, where by ‘proper’
affections I mean those influences that from the natural constitution of a
thing tend to promote or destroy its existence. Since, then, relatives are
neither themselves alterations nor the subjects of alteration or of
becoming or in fact of any change whatever, (10) it is evident that neither
states nor the processes of losing and acquiring states are alterations,
though it may be true that their becoming or perishing is necessarily, (15)
like the becoming or perishing of a specific character or form, the result
of the alteration of certain other things, e. g. hot and cold or dry and wet
elements or the elements, whatever they may be, on which the states
primarily depend. For each several bodily defect or excellence involves a
relation with those things from which the possessor of the defect or
excellence is naturally subject to alteration: thus excellence disposes its
possessor to be unaffected by these influences or to be affected by those
of them that ought to be admitted, while defect disposes its possessor to
be affected by them or to be unaffected by those of them that ought to
be admitted.
And the case is similar in regard to the states of the soul, (20) all of
which (like those of body) exist in virtue of particular relations, the
excellences being perfections of nature and the defects departures from
it: moreover, excellence puts its possessor in good condition, while
defect puts its possessor in a bad condition, to meet his proper affections.
[247a] Consequently these cannot any more than the bodily states be
alterations, (5) nor can the processes of losing and acquiring them be so,
though their becoming is necessarily the result of an alteration of the
sensitive part of the soul, and this is altered by sensible objects: for all
moral excellence is concerned with bodily pleasures and pains, which
again depend either upon acting or upon remembering or upon
anticipating. Now those that depend upon action are determined by
sense-perception, i. e. they are stimulated by something sensible: and
those that depend upon memory or anticipation are likewise to be traced
to sense-perception, (10) for in these cases pleasure is felt either in
remembering what one has experienced or in anticipating what one is
going to experience. Thus all pleasure of this kind must be produced by
sensible things: and since the presence in any one of moral defect or
excellence involves the presence in him of pleasure or pain (with which
moral excellence and defect are always concerned), (15) and these
pleasures and pains are alterations of the sensitive part, it is evident that
the loss and acquisition of these states no less than the loss and
acquisition of the states of the body must be the result of the alteration
of something else. Consequently, though their becoming is accompanied
by an alteration, they are not themselves alterations.
[247b] Again, the states of the intellectual part of the soul are not
alterations, nor is there any becoming of them. In the first place it is
much more true of the possession of knowledge that it depends upon a
particular relation. And further, it is evident that there is no becoming of
these states. For that which is potentially possessed of knowledge
becomes actually possessed of it not by being set in motion at all itself
but by reason of the presence of something else: (5) i. e. it is when it
meets with the particular object that it knows in a manner the particular
through its knowledge of the universal. (Again, there is no becoming of
the actual use and activity of these states, unless it is thought that there
is a becoming of vision and touching and that the activity in question is
similar to these. (10)) And the original acquisition of knowledge is not a
becoming or an alteration: for the terms ‘knowing’ and ‘understanding’
imply that the intellect has reached a state of rest and come to a
standstill,4 and there is no becoming that leads to a state of rest, since,
as we have said above,5 no change at all can have a becoming.
Moreover, just as to say, when any one has passed from a state of
intoxication or sleep or disease to the contrary state, (15) that he has
become possessed of knowledge again is incorrect in spite of the fact
that he was previously incapable of using his knowledge, so, too, when
any one originally acquires the state, it is incorrect to say that he
becomes possessed of knowledge: for the possession of understanding
and knowledge is produced by the soul’s settling down6 out of the
restlessness natural to it. Hence, too, in learning and in forming
judgements on matters relating to their sense-perceptions children are
inferior to adults owing to the great amount of restlessness and motion
in their souls. [248a] Nature itself causes the soul to settle down and
come to a state of rest for the performance of some of its functions,
while for the performance of others other things do so: but in either case
the result is brought about through the alteration of something in the
body, as we see in the case of the use and activity of the intellect arising
from a man’s becoming sober or being awakened. (5) It is evident, then,
from the preceding argument that alteration and being altered occur in
sensible things and in the sensitive part of the soul and, except
accidentally, in nothing else.

4 A difficulty may be raised as to whether every motion is

commensurable with every other or not. (10) Now if they are all
commensurable and if two things to have the same velocity must
accomplish an equal motion in an equal time, then we may have a
circumference equal to a straight line, or, of course, the one may be
greater or less than the other. Further, if one thing alters and another
accomplishes a locomotion in an equal time, we may have an alteration
and a locomotion equal to one another: thus an affection will be equal to
a length, (15) which is impossible. But is it not only when an equal
motion is accomplished by two things in an equal time that the
velocities of the two are equal? Now an affection cannot be equal to a
length. Therefore there cannot be an alteration equal to or less than a
locomotion: and consequently it is not the case that every motion is
commensurable with every other.
But how will our conclusion work out in the case of the circle and the
straight line? It would be absurd to suppose that the motion of one thing
in a circle and of another in a straight line cannot be similar, (20) but that
the one must inevitably move more quickly or more slowly than the
other, just as if the course of one were downhill and of the other uphill.
Moreover it does not as a matter of fact make any difference to the
argument to say that the one motion must inevitably be quicker or
slower than the other: for then the circumference can be greater or less
than the straight line; and if so it is possible for the two to be equal. For
if in the time A the quicker (B) passes over the distance B′ and the
slower (C) passes over the distance C′, (25) B′ will be greater than C′: for
this is what we7 took ‘quicker’ to mean: and so quicker motion also
implies that one thing traverses an equal distance in less time than
another: consequently there will be a part of A in which B will pass over
a part of the circle equal to C′, while C will occupy the whole of A in
passing over C′. [248b] None the less, if the two motions are
commensurable, (5) we are confronted with the consequence stated
above, viz. that there may be a straight line equal to a circle. But these
are not commensurable: and so the corresponding motions are not
commensurable either.
But may we say that things are always commensurable if the same
terms are applied to them without equivocation? e. g. a pen, a wine, and
the highest note in a scale are not commensurable: we cannot say
whether any one of them is sharper than any other: and why is this?
they are incommensurable because it is only equivocally that the same
term ‘sharp’ is applied to them: whereas the highest note in a scale is
commensurable with the leading-note, (10) because the term ‘sharp’ has
the same meaning as applied to both. Can it be, then, that the term
‘quick’ has not the same meaning as applied to straight motion and to
circular motion respectively? If so, far less will it have the same meaning
as applied to alteration and to locomotion.
Or shall we in the first place deny that things are always
commensurable if the same terms are applied to them without
equivocation? For the term ‘much’ has the same meaning whether
applied to water or to air, yet water and air are not commensurable in
respect of it: or, if this illustration is not considered satisfactory, ‘double’
at any rate would seem to have the same meaning as applied to each
(denoting in each case the proportion of two to one), yet water and air
are not commensurable in respect of it. (15) But here again may we not
take up the same position and say that the term ‘much’ is equivocal? In
fact there are some terms of which even the definitions are equivocal;
e. g. if ‘much’ were defined as ‘so much and more’, ‘so much’ would
mean something different in different cases: ‘equal’ is similarly
equivocal; and ‘one’ again is perhaps inevitably an equivocal term; and if
‘one’ is equivocal, (20) so is ‘two’. Otherwise why is it that some things
are commensurable while others are not, if the nature of the attribute in
the two cases is really one and the same?
Can it be that the incommensurability of two things in respect of any
attribute is due to a difference in that which is primarily capable of
carrying the attribute? Thus horse and dog are so commensurable that
we may say which is the whiter, since that which primarily contains the
whiteness is the same in both, viz. the surface: and similarly they are
commensurable in respect of size. But water and speech are not
commensurable in respect of clearness, since that which primarily
contains the attribute is different in the two cases. (25) It would seem,
however, that we must reject this solution, since clearly we could thus
make all equivocal attributes univocal and say merely that that which
contains each of them is different in different cases: thus ‘equality’,
‘sweetness’, and ‘whiteness’’ will severally always be the same, though
that which contains them is different in different cases. [249a]
Moreover, it is not any casual thing that is capable of carrying any
attribute: each single attribute can be carried primarily only by one
single thing.
 Must we then say that, if two things are to be commensurable in
respect of any attribute, not only must the attribute in question be
applicable to both without equivocation, but there must also be no
specific differences either in the attribute itself or in that which contains
the attribute—that these, I mean, must not be divisible in the way in
which colour is divided into kinds? Thus in this respect one thing will
not be commensurable with another, (5) i. e. we cannot say that one is
more coloured than the other where only colour in general and not any
particular colour is meant; but they are commensurable in respect of
whiteness.
Similarly in the case of motion: two things are of the same velocity if
they occupy an equal time in accomplishing a certain equal amount of
motion. Suppose, then, that in a certain time an alteration is undergone
by one half of a body’s length and a locomotion is accomplished by the
other half: can we say that in this case the alteration is equal to the
locomotion and of the same velocity? That would be absurd, (10) and the
reason is that there are different species of motion. And if in
consequence of this we must say that two things are of equal velocity if
they accomplish locomotion over an equal distance in an equal time, we
have to admit the equality of a straight line and a circumference. What,
then, is the reason of this? Is it that locomotion is a genus or that line is
a genus? (We may leave the time out of account, (15) since that is one and
the same.) If the lines are specifically different, the locomotions also
differ specifically from one another: for locomotion is specifically
differentiated according to the specific differentiation of that over which
it takes place. (It is also similarly differentiated, it would seem,
accordingly as the instrument of the locomotion is different: thus if feet
are the instrument, it is walking, if wings it is flying; but perhaps we
should rather say that this is not so, and that in this case the differences
in the locomotion are merely differences of posture in that which is in
motion.) We may say, therefore, that things are of equal velocity if in an
equal time they traverse the same magnitude: and when I call it ‘the
same’ I mean that it contains no specific difference and therefore no
difference in the motion that takes place over it. (20) So we have now to
consider how motion is differentiated: and this discussion serves to show
that the genus is not a unity but contains a plurality latent in it and
distinct from it, and that in the case of equivocal terms sometimes the
different senses in which they are used are far removed from one
another, while sometimes there is a certain likeness between them, and
sometimes again they are nearly related either generically or
analogically, with the result that they seem not to be equivocal though
they really are.
When, then, is there a difference of species? Is an attribute specifically
different if the subject is different while the attribute is the same, (25) or
must the attribute itself be different as well? And how are we to define
the limits of a species? What will enable us to decide that particular
instances of whiteness or sweetness are the same or different? Is it
enough that it appears different in one subject from what it appears in
another? Or must there be no sameness at all? And further, where
alteration is in question, how is one alteration to be of equal velocity
with another? One person may be cured quickly and another slowly, (30)
and cures may also be simultaneous: so that, recovery of health being an
alteration, we have here alterations of equal velocity, since each
alteration occupies an equal time. [249b] But what alteration? We
cannot here speak of an ‘equal’ alteration: what corresponds in the
category of quality to equality in the category of quantity is ‘likeness’.
However, let us say that there is equal velocity where the same change is
accomplished in an equal time. (5) Are we, then, to find the
commensurability in the subject of the affection or in the affection itself?
In the case that we have just been considering it is the fact that health is
one and the same that enables us to arrive at the conclusion that the one
alteration is neither more nor less than the other, but that both are alike.
If on the other hand the affection is different in the two cases, e. g. when
the alterations take the form of becoming white and becoming healthy
respectively, here there is no sameness or equality or likeness inasmuch
as the difference in the affections at once makes the alterations
specifically different, (10) and there is no unity of alteration any more
than there would be unity of locomotion under like conditions.8 So we
must find out how many species there are of alteration and of
locomotion respectively. Now if the things that are in motion—that is to
say, the things to which the motions belong essentially and not
accidentally—differ specifically, then their respective motions will also
differ specifically: if on the other hand they differ generically or
numerically, the motions also will differ generically or numerically as
the case may be. (15) But there still remains the question whether,
supposing that two alterations are of equal velocity, we ought to look for
this equality in the sameness (or likeness) of the affections, or in the
things altered, to see e. g. whether a certain quantity of each has become
white. Or ought we not rather to look for it in both? That is to say, the
alterations are the same or different according as the affections are the
same or different, while they are equal or unequal according as the
things altered are equal or unequal.
And now we must consider the same question in the case of becoming
and perishing: how is one becoming of equal velocity with another?
They are of equal velocity if in an equal time there are produced two
things that are the same and specifically inseparable, (20) e. g. two men
(not merely generically inseparable as e. g. two animals). Similarly one
is quicker than the other if in an equal time the product is different in
the two cases. I state it thus because we have no pair of terms that will
convey this ‘difference’ in the way in which unlikeness is conveyed. If
we adopt the theory that it is number that constitutes being, we may
indeed speak of a ‘greater number’ and a ‘lesser number’ within the same
species, but there is no common term that will include both relations,
nor are there terms to express each of them separately in the same way
as we indicate a higher degree or preponderance of an affection by
‘more’, (25) of a quantity by ‘greater’.

5 Now since wherever there is a movent, its motion always acts upon
something, is always in something, and always extends to something (by
‘is always in something’ I mean that it occupies a time: and by ‘extends
to something’ I mean that it involves the traversing of a certain amount
of distance: for at any moment when a thing is causing motion, it also
has caused motion, so that there must always be a certain amount of
distance that has been traversed and a certain amount of time that has
been occupied). If, then, (30) A the movent have moved B a distance C in
a time D, then in the same time the same force A will move ½ B twice
the distance C, and in ½ D it will move ½ B the whole distance C: for
thus the rules of proportion will be observed. [250a] Again if a given
force move a given weight a certain distance in a certain time and half
the distance in half the time, (5) half the motive power will move half the
weight the same distance in the same time. Let E represent half the
motive power A and F half the weight B: then the ratio between the
motive power and the weight in the one case is similar and
proportionate to the ratio in the other, so that each force will cause the
same distance to be traversed in the same time.
But if E move F a distance C in a time D, (10) it does not necessarily
follow that E can move twice F half the distance C in the same time. If,
then, A move B a distance C in a time D, it does not follow that E, being
half of A, will in the time D or in any fraction of it cause B to traverse a
part of C the ratio between which and the whole of C is proportionate to
that between A and E (whatever fraction of A E may be): in fact it might
well be that it will cause no motion at all; for it does not follow that, (15)
if a given motive power causes a certain amount of motion, half that
power will cause motion either of any particular amount or in any
length of time: otherwise one man might move a ship, since both the
motive power of the shiphaulers and the distance that they all cause the
ship to traverse are divisible into as many parts as there are men. (20)
Hence Zeno’s reasoning is false when he argues that there is no part of
the millet that does not make a sound: for there is no reason why any
such part should not in any length of time fail to move the air that the
whole bushel moves in falling. In fact it does not of itself move even
such a quantity of the air as it would move if this part were by itself: for
no part even exists otherwise than potentially.
If on the other hand we have two forces each of which separately
moves one of two weights a given distance in a given time, (25) then the
forces in combination will move the combined weights an equal distance
in an equal time: for in this case the rules of proportion apply.
Then does this hold good of alteration and of increase also? Surely it
does, for in any given case we have a definite thing that causes increase
and a definite thing that suffers increase, (30) and the one causes and the
other suffers a certain amount of increase in a certain amount of time.
Similarly we have a definite thing that causes alteration and a definite
thing that undergoes alteration, and a certain amount, or rather degree,
of alteration is completed in a certain amount of time: thus in twice as
much time twice as much alteration will be completed and conversely
twice as much alteration will occupy twice as much time: and the
alteration of half of its object will occupy half as much time and in half
as much time half of the object will be altered: or again, in the same
amount of time it will be altered twice as much. [250b]
On the other hand if that which causes alteration or increase causes a
certain amount of increase or alteration respectively in a certain amount
of time, (5) it does not necessarily follow that half the force will occupy
twice the time in altering or increasing the object, or that in twice the
time the alteration or increase will be completed by it: it may happen
that there will be no alteration or increase at all, the case being the same
as with the weight.

1 v. 4. 227b 3 sqq.

2 i. e. the thing pulling and the thing pulled. The second motion is the natural resistance of the
thing pulled, which seeks to disconnect itself from that which is pulling it.
3 sc. candle.

4 The etymological connexion between episteme and stenai can hardly be adequately given in
translation.
5 v. 2. 225b 15 sqq.

6 The same etymological connexion is here present to Aristotle’s mind as that noted above.

7 vi. 2. 232a 25 sqq.

8 sc. if there are two locomotions of different species.

 BOOK VIII

1 It remains to consider the following question. (11) Was there ever a

becoming of motion before which it had no being, and is it perishing
again so as to leave nothing in motion? Or are we to say that it never
had any becoming and is not perishing, but always was and always will
be? Is it in fact an immortal never-failing property of things that are, a
sort of life as it were to all naturally constituted things?
Now the existence of motion is asserted by all who have anything to
say about nature, (15) because they all concern themselves with the
construction of the world and study the question of becoming and
perishing, which processes could not come about without the existence
of motion. But those who say that there is an infinite number of worlds,
some of which are in process of becoming while others are in process of
perishing, assert that there is always motion (for these processes of
becoming and perishing of the worlds necessarily involve motion), (20)
whereas those who hold that there is only one world, whether
everlasting or not, make corresponding assumptions in regard to motion.
If then it is possible that at any time nothing should be in motion, this
must come about in one of two ways: either in the manner described by
Anaxagoras, who says that all things were together and at rest for an
infinite period of time, (25) and that then Mind introduced motion and
separated them; or in the manner described by Empedocles, according to
whom the universe is alternately in motion and at rest—in motion, when
Love is making the one out of many, or Strife is making many out of one,
and at rest in the intermediate periods of time—his account being as
follows:

‘Since One hath learned to spring from Manifold, (30)

And One disjoined makes Manifold arise,
Thus they Become, nor stable is their life:
But since their motion must alternate be,
Thus have they ever Rest upon their round’:

for we must suppose that he means by this that they alternate from the
one motion to the other. [251a] We must consider, then, how this
matter stands, (5) for the discovery of the truth about it is of importance,
not only for the study of nature, but also for the investigation of the First
Principle.
Let us take our start from what we have already1 laid down in our
course on Physics. Motion, we say, is the fulfilment of the movable in so
far as it is movable. Each kind of motion, therefore, (10) necessarily
involves the presence of the things that are capable of that motion. In
fact, even apart from the definition of motion, every one would admit
that in each kind of motion it is that which is capable of that motion that
is in motion: thus it is that which is capable of alteration that is altered,
and that which is capable of local change that is in locomotion: and so
there must be something capable of being burned before there can be a
process of being burned, (15) and something capable of burning before
there can be a process of burning. Moreover, these things also must
either have a beginning before which they had no being, or they must be
eternal. Now if there was a becoming of every movable thing, it follows
that before the motion in question another change or motion must have
taken place in which that which was capable of being moved or of
causing motion had its becoming. To suppose, (20) on the other hand, that
these things were in being throughout all previous time without there
being any motion appears unreasonable on a moment’s thought, and still
more unreasonable, we shall find, on further consideration. For if we are
to say that, while there are on the one hand things that are movable, and
on the other hand things that are motive, there is a time when there is a
first movent and a first moved, and another time when there is no such
thing but only something that is at rest, (25) then this thing that is at rest
must previously have been in process of change: for there must have
been some cause of its rest, rest being the privation of motion.
Therefore, before this first change there will be a previous change. For
some things cause motion in only one way, while others can produce
either of two contrary motions: thus fire causes heating but not cooling,
(30) whereas it would seem that knowledge may be directed to two

contrary ends while remaining one and the same. Even in the former
class, however, there seems to be something similar, for a cold thing in a
sense causes heating by turning away and retiring, just as one possessed
of knowledge voluntarily makes an error when he uses his knowledge in
the reverse way.2 [251b] But at any rate all things that are capable
respectively of affecting and being affected, or of causing motion and
being moved, are capable of it not under all conditions, but only when
they are in a particular condition and approach one another: so it is on
the approach of one thing to another that the one causes motion and the
other is moved, and when they are present under such conditions as
rendered the one motive and the other movable. (5) So if the motion was
not always in process, it is clear that they must have been in a condition
not such as to render them capable respectively of being moved and of
causing motion, and one or other of them must have been in process of
change: for in what is relative this is a necessary consequence: e. g. if
one thing is double another when before it was not so, one or other of
them, if not both, must have been in process of change. It follows, then,
that there will be a process of change previous to the first.
(Further, (10) how can there be any ‘before’ and ‘after’ without the
existence of time? Or how can there be any time without the existence of
motion? If, then, time is the number of motion or itself a kind of motion,
it follows that, if there is always time, motion must also be eternal. But
so far as time is concerned we see that all with one exception are in
agreement in saying that it is uncreated: in fact, it is just this that
enables Democritus to show that all things cannot have had a becoming:
for time, (15) he says, is uncreated. Plato alone asserts the creation of
time, saying3 that it had a becoming together with the universe, the
universe according to him having had a becoming. Now since time
cannot exist and is unthinkable apart from the moment, and the moment
is a kind of middle-point, uniting as it does in itself both a beginning and
an end, (20) a beginning of future time and an end of past time, it follows
that there must always be time: for the extremity of the last period of
time that we take must be found in some moment, since time contains
no point of contact for us except the moment. Therefore, since the
moment is both a beginning and an end, (25) there must always be time
on both sides of it. But if this is true of time, it is evident that it must
also be true of motion, time being a kind of affection of motion.)
The same reasoning will also serve to show the imperishability of
motion: just as a becoming of motion would involve, as we saw, (30) the
existence of a process of change previous to the first, in the same way a
perishing of motion would involve the existence of a process of change
subsequent to the last: for when a thing ceases to be moved, it does not
therefore at the same time cease to be movable—e. g. the cessation of
the process of being burned does not involve the cessation of the
capacity of being burned, since a thing may be capable of being burned
without being in process of being burned—nor, when a thing ceases to
be movent, does it therefore at the same time cease to be motive. Again,
the destructive agent will have to be destroyed, after what it destroys
has been destroyed, and then that which has the capacity of destroying it
will have to be destroyed afterwards, (so that there will be a process of
change subsequent to the last,) for being destroyed also is a kind of
change. [252a] If, then, the view which we are criticizing involves
these impossible consequences, it is clear that motion is eternal and
cannot have existed at one time and not at another: in fact, such a view
can hardly be described as anything else than fantastic.
And much the same may be said of the view that such is the ordinance
of nature and that this must be regarded as a principle, (5) as would seem
to be the view of Empedocles when he says that the constitution of the
world is of necessity such that Love and Strife alternately predominate
and cause motion, while in the intermediate period of time there is a
state of rest. (10) Probably also those who, like Anaxagoras, assert a single
principle (of motion) would hold this view. But that which is produced
or directed by nature can never be anything disorderly: for nature is
everywhere the cause of order. Moreover, there is no ratio in the relation
of the infinite to the infinite, whereas order always means ratio. But if
we say that there is first a state of rest for an infinite time, and then
motion is started at some moment, (15) and that the fact that it is this
rather than a previous moment is of no importance, and involves no
order, then we can no longer say that it is nature’s work: for if anything
is of a certain character naturally, it either is so invariably and is not
sometimes of this and sometimes of another character (e. g. fire, which
travels upwards naturally, does not sometimes do so and sometimes not)
or there is a ratio in the variation. (20) It would be better, therefore, to
say with Empedocles and any one else who may have maintained such a
theory as his that the universe is alternately at rest and in motion: for in
a system of this kind we have at once a certain order. But even here the
holder of the theory ought not only to assert the fact: he ought also to
explain the cause of it: i. e. he should not make any mere assumption or
lay down any gratuitous axiom, but should employ either inductive or
demonstrative reasoning. (25) The Love and Strife postulated by
Empedocles are not in themselves causes of the fact in question, nor is it
of the essence of either that it should be so, the essential function of the
former being to unite, of the latter to separate. If he is to go on to
explain this alternate predominance, he should adduce cases where such
a state of things exists, as he points to the fact that among mankind we
have something that unites men, namely Love, (30) while on the other
hand enemies avoid one another: thus from the observed fact that this
occurs in certain cases comes the assumption that it occurs also in the
universe. Then, again, some argument is needed to explain why the
predominance of each of the two forces lasts for an equal period of time.
But it is a wrong assumption to suppose universally that we have an
adequate first principle in virtue of the fact that something always is so
or always happens so. Thus Democritus reduces the causes that explain
nature to the fact that things happened in the past in the same way as
they happen now: but he does not think fit to seek for a first principle to
explain this ‘always’: so, (35) while his theory is right in so far as it is
applied to certain individual cases, he is wrong in making it of universal
application. [252b] Thus, a triangle always has its angles equal to two
right angles, but there is nevertheless an ulterior cause of the eternity of
this truth, whereas first principles are eternal and have no ulterior cause.
Let this conclude what we have to say in support of our contention that
there never was a time when there was not motion, (5) and never will be
a time when there will not be motion.

2 The arguments that may be advanced against this position are not
difficult to dispose of. The chief considerations that might be thought to
indicate that motion may exist though at one time it had not existed at
all are the following:
First, it may be said that no process of change is eternal: for the nature
of all change is such that it proceeds from something to something, (10) so
that every process of change must be bounded by the contraries that
mark its course, and no motion can go on to infinity.
Secondly, we see that a thing that neither is in motion nor contains
any motion within itself can be set in motion; e. g. inanimate things that
are (whether the whole or some part is in question) not in motion but at
rest, are at some moment set in motion: whereas, (15) if motion cannot
have a becoming before which it had no being, these things ought to be
either always or never in motion.
Thirdly, the fact is evident above all in the case of animate beings: for
it sometimes happens that there is no motion in us and we are quite still,
and that nevertheless we are then at some moment set in motion, that is
to say it sometimes happens that we produce a beginning of motion in
ourselves spontaneously without anything having set us in motion from
without. (20) We see nothing like this in the case of inanimate things,
which are always set in motion by something else from without: the
animal, on the other hand, we say, moves itself: therefore, if an animal is
ever in a state of absolute rest, we have a motionless thing in which
motion can be produced from the thing itself, and not from without.
Now if this can occur in an animal, why should not the same be true also
of the universe as a whole? If it can occur in a small world it could also
occur in a great one: and if it can occur in the world, (25) it could also
occur in the infinite; that is, if the infinite could as a whole possibly be
in motion or at rest.
Of these objections, then, the first-mentioned—that motion to
opposites is not always the same and numerically one—is a correct
statement; in fact, (30) this may be said to be a necessary conclusion,
provided that it is possible for the motion of that which is one and the
same to be not always one and the same. (I mean that e. g. we may
question whether the note given by a single string is one and the same,
or is different each time the string is struck, although the string is in the
same condition and is moved in the same way.) But still, (35) however
this may be, there is nothing to prevent there being a motion that is the
same in virtue of being continuous and eternal: we shall have something
to say later4 that will make this point clearer. [253a]
As regards the second objection, no absurdity is involved in the fact
that something not in motion may be set in motion, that which caused
the motion from without being at one time present, and at another
absent. Nevertheless, how this can be so remains matter for inquiry; how
it comes about, I mean, that the same motive force at one time causes a
thing to be in motion, and at another does not do so: for the difficulty
raised by our objector really amounts to this—why is it that some things
are not always at rest, (5) and the rest always in motion?
The third objection may be thought to present more difficulty than the
others, namely, that which alleges that motion arises in things in which
it did not exist before, and adduces in proof the case of animate things:
thus an animal is first at rest and afterwards walks, (10) not having been
set in motion apparently by anything from without. This, however, is
false: for we observe that there is always some part of the animal’s
organism in motion, and the cause of the motion of this part is not the
animal itself, but, it may be, its environment. Moreover, we say that the
animal itself originates not all of its motions but its locomotion. (15) So it
may well be the case—or rather we may perhaps say that it must
necessarily be the case—that many motions are produced in the body by
its environment, and some of these set in motion the intellect or the
appetite, and this again then sets the whole animal in motion: this is
what happens when animals are asleep: though there is then no
perceptive motion in them, (20) there is some motion that causes them to
wake up again. But we will leave this point also to be elucidated at a
later5 stage in our discussion.

3 Our enquiry will resolve itself at the outset into a consideration of

the above-mentioned problem—what can be the reason why some things
in the world at one time are in motion and at another are at rest again?
Now one of three things must be true: either all things are always at rest,
(25) or all things are always in motion, or some things are in motion and

others at rest: and in this last case again either the things that are in
motion are always in motion and the things that are at rest are always at
rest, or they are all constituted so as to be capable alike of motion and of
rest; or there is yet a third possibility remaining—it may be that some
things in the world are always motionless, others always in motion,
while others again admit of both conditions. This last is the account of
the matter that we must give: for herein lies the solution of all the
difficulties raised and the conclusion of the investigation upon which we
are engaged. (30)
To maintain that all things are at rest, and to disregard sense-
perception in an attempt to show the theory to be reasonable, would be
an instance of intellectual weakness: it would call in question a whole
system, not a particular detail: moreover, it would be an attack not only
on the physicist but on almost all sciences and all received opinions, (35)
since motion plays a part in all of them. [253b] Further, just as in
arguments about mathematics objections that involve first principles do
not affect the mathematician—and the other sciences are in similar case
—so, too, objections involving the point that we have just raised do not
affect the physicist: for it is a fundamental assumption with him that
motion is ultimately referable to nature herself. (5)
The assertion that all things are in motion we may fairly regard as
equally false, though it is less subversive of physical science: for though
in our course on physics6 it was laid down that rest no less than motion
is ultimately referable to nature herself, nevertheless motion is the
characteristic fact of nature: moreover, the view is actually held by some
that not merely some things but all things in the world are in motion
and always in motion, (10) though we cannot apprehend the fact by
sense-perception. Although the supporters of this theory do not state
clearly what kind of motion they mean, or whether they mean all kinds,
it is no hard matter to reply to them: thus we may point out that there
cannot be a continuous process either of increase or of decrease: that
which comes between the two has to be included. The theory resembles
that about the stone being worn away by the drop of water or split by
plants growing out of it: if so much has been extruded or removed by the
drop, (15) it does not follow that half the amount has previously been
extruded or removed in half the time: the case of the hauled ship is
exactly comparable: here we have so many drops setting so much in
motion, but a part of them will not set as much in motion in any period
of time. The amount removed is, it is true, divisible into a number of
parts, but no one of these was set in motion separately: they were all set
in motion together. (20) It is evident, then, that from the fact that the
decrease is divisible into an infinite number of parts it does not follow
that some part must always be passing away: it all passes away at a
particular moment. Similarly, too, in the case of any alteration whatever
if that which suffers alteration is infinitely divisible it does not follow
from this that the same is true of the alteration itself, which often occurs
all at once, (25) as in freezing. Again, when any one has fallen ill, there
must follow a period of time in which his restoration to health is in the
future: the process of change cannot take place in an instant: yet the
change cannot be a change to anything else but health. The assertion,
therefore, that alteration is continuous is an extravagant calling into
question of the obvious: for alteration is a change from one contrary to
another. (30) Moreover, we notice that a stone becomes neither harder
nor softer. Again, in the matter of locomotion, it would be a strange
thing if a stone could be falling or resting on the ground without our
being able to perceive the fact. Further, it is a law of nature that earth
and all other bodies should remain in their proper places and be moved
from them only by violence: from the fact then that some of them are in
their proper places it follows that in respect of place also all things
cannot be in motion. [254a] (35) These and other similar arguments,
then, should convince us that it is impossible either that all things are
always in motion or that all things are always at rest.
Nor again can it be that some things are always at rest, others always
in motion, and nothing sometimes at rest and sometimes in motion. (5)
This theory must be pronounced impossible on the same grounds as
those previously mentioned: viz. that we see the above-mentioned
changes occurring in the case of the same things. We may further point
out that the defender of this position is fighting against the obvious, for
on this theory there can be no such thing as increase: nor can there be
any such thing as compulsory motion, (10) if it is impossible that a thing
can be at rest before being set in motion unnaturally. This theory, then,
does away with becoming and perishing. Moreover, motion, it would
seem, is generally thought to be a sort of becoming and perishing, for
that to which a thing changes comes to be, or occupancy of it comes to
be, and that from which a thing changes ceases to be, or there ceases to
be occupancy of it. It is clear, therefore, that there are cases of
occasional motion and occasional rest.
We have now to take the assertion that all things are sometimes at rest
and sometimes in motion and to confront it with the arguments
previously advanced. (15) We must take our start as before from the
possibilities that we distinguished just above. Either all things are at rest,
or all things are in motion, or some things are at rest and others in
motion. And if some things are at rest and others in motion, (20) then it
must be that either all things are sometimes at rest and sometimes in
motion, or some things are always at rest and the remainder always in
motion, or some of the things are always at rest and others always in
motion while others again are sometimes at rest and sometimes in
motion. Now we have said before that it is impossible that all things
should be at rest: nevertheless we may now repeat that assertion. We
may point out that, even if it is really the case, (25) as certain persons
assert,7 that the existent is infinite and motionless, it certainly does not
appear to be so if we follow sense-perception: many things that exist
appear to be in motion. Now if there is such a thing as false opinion at
all, there is also motion: and similarly if there is such a thing as
imagination, or if it is the case that anything seems to be different at
different times: for imagination and opinion are thought to be motions of
a kind.8 But to investigate this question at all—to see a reasoned
justification of a belief with regard to which we are too well off to
require reasoned justification—implies bad judgment of what is better
and what is worse, (30) what commends itself to belief and what does not,
what is ultimate and what is not. It is likewise impossible that all things
should be in motion or that some things should be always in motion and
the remainder always at rest. (35) We have sufficient ground for rejecting
all these theories in the single fact that we see some things that are
sometimes in motion and sometimes at rest. [254b] It is evident,
therefore, that it is no less impossible that some things should be always
in motion and the remainder always at rest than that all things should be
at rest or that all things should be in motion continuously. It remains,
then, to consider whether all things are so constituted as to be capable
both of being in motion and of being at rest, or whether, while some
things are so constituted, (5) some are always at rest and some are always
in motion: for it is this last view that we have to show to be true.

4 Now of things that cause motion or suffer motion, to some the

motion is accidental, to others essential: thus it is accidental to what
merely belongs to or contains as a part a thing that causes motion or
suffers motion, (10) essential to a thing that causes motion or suffers
motion not merely by belonging to such a thing or containing it as a
part.
Of things to which the motion is essential some derive their motion
from themselves, others from something else: and in some cases their
motion is natural, in others violent and unnatural. Thus in things that
derive their motion from themselves, e. g. all animals, (15) the motion is
natural (for when an animal is in motion its motion is derived from
itself): and whenever the source of the motion of a thing is in the thing
itself we say that the motion of that thing is natural. Therefore the
animal as a whole moves itself naturally: but the body of the animal may
be in motion unnaturally as well as naturally: it depends upon the kind
of motion that it may chance to be suffering and the kind of element9 of
which it is composed. (20) And the motion of things that derive their
motion from something else is in some cases natural, in others
unnatural: e. g. upward motion of earthy things and downward motion
of fire are unnatural. Moreover the parts of animals are often in motion
in an unnatural way, their positions and the character of the motion
being abnormal. The fact that a thing that is in motion derives its motion
from something is most evident in things that are in motion unnaturally,
(25) because in such cases it is clear that the motion is derived from

something other than the thing itself. Next to things that are in motion
unnaturally those whose motion while natural is derived from
themselves—e. g. animals—make this fact clear: for here the uncertainty
is not as to whether the motion is derived from something but as to how
we ought to distinguish in the thing between the movent and the moved.
(30) It would seem that in animals, just as in ships and things not

naturally organized, that which causes motion is separate from that

which suffers motion, and that it is only in this sense that the animal as
a whole causes its own motion.
The greatest difficulty, however, is presented by the remaining case of
those that we last distinguished. (35) Where things derive their motion
from something else we distinguished the cases in which the motion is
unnatural: we are left with those that are to be contrasted with the
others by reason of the fact that the motion is natural. [255a] It is in
these cases that difficulty would be experienced in deciding whence the
motion is derived, e. g. in the case of light and heavy things. When these
things are in motion to positions the reverse of those they would
properly occupy, their motion is violent: when they are in motion to
their proper positions—the light thing up and the heavy thing down—
their motion is natural; but in this latter case it is no longer evident, as it
is when the motion is unnatural, (5) whence their motion is derived. It is
impossible to say that their motion is derived from themselves: this is a
characteristic of life and peculiar to living things. Further, if it were, it
would have been in their power to stop themselves (I mean that if e. g. a
thing can cause itself to walk it can also cause itself not to walk), and so,
since on this supposition fire itself possesses the power of upward
locomotion, it is clear that it should also possess the power of downward
locomotion. (10) Moreover if things move themselves, it would be
unreasonable to suppose that in only one kind of motion is their motion
derived from themselves. Again, how can anything of continuous and
naturally connected substance move itself? In so far as a thing is one and
continuous not merely in virtue of contact, it is impassive: it is only in so
far as a thing is divided that one part of it is by nature active and
another passive. Therefore none of the things that we are now
considering move themselves (for they are of naturally connected
substance), (15) nor does anything else that is continuous: in each case the
movent must be separate from the moved, as we see to be the case with
inanimate things when an animate thing moves them. It is the fact that
these things also always derive their motion from something: what it is
would become evident if we were to distinguish the different kinds of
cause.
The above-mentioned distinctions can also be made in the case of
things that cause motion: (20) some of them are capable of causing
motion unnaturally (e. g. the lever is not naturally capable of moving the
weight), others naturally (e. g. what is actually hot is naturally capable
of moving10 what is potentially hot): and similarly in the case of all
other things of this kind.
In the same way, too, what is potentially of a certain quality or of a
certain quantity or in a certain place is naturally movable when it
contains the corresponding principle in itself and not accidentally (for
the same thing may be both of a certain quality and of a certain
quantity, (25) but the one is an accidental, not an essential property of the
other). So when fire or earth is moved by something the motion is
violent when it is unnatural, and natural when it brings to actuality the
proper activities11 that they potentially possess. (30) But the fact that the
term ‘potentially’ is used in more than one sense is the reason why it is
not evident whence such motions as the upward motion of fire and the
downward motion of earth are derived. One who is learning a science
potentially knows it in a different sense from one who while already
possessing the knowledge is not actually exercising it. Wherever we have
something capable of acting and something capable of being
correspondingly acted on, in the event of any such pair being in contact
what is potential becomes at times actual: (35) e. g. the learner becomes
from one potential something another potential something: for one who
possesses knowledge of a science but is not actually exercising it knows
the science potentially in a sense, though not in the same sense as he
knew it potentially before he learnt it. [255b] And when he is in this
condition, if something does not prevent him, he actively exercises his
knowledge: otherwise he would be in the contradictory state of not
knowing. In regard to natural bodies also the case is similar. (5) Thus
what is cold is potentially hot: then a change takes place and it is fire,
and it burns, unless something prevents and hinders it. So, too, with
heavy and light: light is generated from heavy, e. g. air from water (for
water is the first thing that is potentially light), (10) and air is actually
light, and will at once realize its proper activity as such unless
something prevents it. The activity of lightness consists in the light thing
being in a certain situation, namely high up: when it is in the contrary
situation, it is being prevented from rising. The case is similar also in
regard to quantity and quality. But, be it noted, this is the question we
are trying to answer—how can we account for the motion of light things
and heavy things to their proper situations? The reason for it is that they
have a natural tendency respectively towards a certain position: and this
constitutes the essence of lightness and heaviness, (15) the former being
determined by an upward, the latter by a downward, tendency. As we
have said, a thing may be potentially light or heavy in more senses than
one. Thus not only when a thing is water is it in a sense potentially light,
but when it has become air it may be still potentially light: for it may be
that through some hindrance it does not occupy an upper position, (20)
whereas, if what hinders it is removed, it realizes its activity and
continues to rise higher. The process whereby what is of a certain
quality changes to a condition of active existence is similar: thus the
exercise of knowledge follows at once upon the possession of it unless
something prevents it. So, too, what is of a certain quantity extends itself
over a certain space unless something prevents it. The thing in a sense is
and in a sense is not moved by one who moves what is obstructing and
preventing its motion (e. g. one who pulls away a pillar from under a
roof or one who removes a stone from a wine-skin in the water is the
accidental cause of motion):12 (25) and in the same way the real cause of
the motion of a ball rebounding from a wall is not the wall but the
thrower. So it is clear that in all these cases the thing does not move
itself, (30) but it contains within itself the source of motion—not of
moving something or of causing motion, but of suffering it.
If then the motion of all things that are in motion is either natural or
unnatural and violent, and all things whose motion is violent and
unnatural are moved by something, and something other than
themselves, and again all things whose motion is natural are moved by
something—both those that are moved by themselves and those that are
not moved by themselves (e. g. light things and heavy things, which are
moved either by that which brought the thing into existence as such and
made it light and heavy, (35) or by that which released what was
hindering and preventing it); then all things that are in motion must be
moved by something. [256a]

5 Now this may come about in either of two ways. Either the movent
is not itself responsible for the motion, which is to be referred to
something else which moves the movent, or the movent is itself
responsible for the motion. (5) Further, in the latter case, either the
movent immediately precedes the last thing in the series,13 or there may
be one or more intermediate links: e. g. the stick moves the stone and is
moved by the hand, which again is moved by the man: in the man,
however, we have reached a movent that is not so in virtue of being
moved by something else. Now we say that the thing is moved both by
the last and by the first movent in the series, but more strictly by the
first, since the first movent moves the last, whereas the last does not
move the first, (10) and the first will move the thing without the last, but
the last will not move it without the first: e. g. the stick will not move
anything unless it is itself moved by the man. If then everything that is
in motion must be moved by something, and the movent must either
itself be moved by something else or not, and in the former case there
must be some first movent that is not itself moved by anything else, (15)
while in the case of the immediate movent being of this kind there is no
need of an intermediate movent that is also moved (for it is impossible
that there should be an infinite series of movents, each of which is itself
moved by something else, since in an infinite series there is no first
term)—if then everything that is in motion is moved by something, and
the first movent is moved but not by anything else, (20) it must be moved
by itself.
This same argument may also be stated in another way as follows.
Every movent moves something and moves it with something, either
with itself or with something else: e. g. a man moves a thing either
himself or with a stick, and a thing is knocked down either by the wind
itself or by a stone propelled by the wind. But it is impossible for that
with which a thing is moved to move it without being moved by that
which imparts motion by its own agency: on the other hand, (25) if a
thing imparts motion by its own agency, it is not necessary that there
should be anything else with which it imparts motion, whereas if there is
a different thing with which it imparts motion, there must be something
that imparts motion not with something else but with itself, or else there
will be an infinite series. If, then, anything is a movent while being itself
moved, the series must stop somewhere and not be infinite. (30) Thus, if
the stick moves something in virtue of being moved by the hand, the
hand moves the stick: and if something else moves with the hand, the
hand also is moved by something different from itself. So when motion
by means of an instrument is at each stage caused by something different
from the instrument, this must always be preceded by something else
which imparts motion with itself. Therefore, if this last movent is in
motion and there is nothing else that moves it, it must move itself.
[256b] So this reasoning also shows that, when a thing is moved, if it
is not moved immediately by something that moves itself, the series
brings us at some time or other to a movent of this kind.
And if we consider the matter in yet a third way we shall get this same
result as follows: If everything that is in motion is moved by something
that is in motion, (5) either this being in motion is an accidental attribute
of the movents in question, so that each of them moves something while
being itself in motion, but not always because it is itself in motion, or it
is not an accidental but an essential attribute. Let us consider the former
alternative. If then it is an accidental attribute, it is not necessary that
that which is in motion should be in motion: and if this is so it is clear
that there may be a time when nothing that exists is in motion, since the
accidental is not necessary but contingent. (10) Now if we assume the
existence of a possibility, any conclusion that we thereby reach will not
be an impossibility, though it may be contrary to fact. But the non-
existence of motion is an impossibility: for we have shown above14 that
there must always be motion.
Moreover, the conclusion to which we have been led is a reasonable
one. (15) For there must be three things—the moved, the movent, and the
instrument of motion. Now the moved must be in motion, but it need
not move anything else: the instrument of motion must both move
something else and be itself in motion (for it changes together with the
moved, with which it is in contact and continuous, as is clear in the case
of things that move other things locally, in which case the two things
must up to a certain point15 be in contact): and the movent—that is to
say, that which causes motion in such a manner that it is not merely the
instrument of motion—must be unmoved. (20) Now we have visual
experience of the last term in this series, namely that which has the
capacity of being in motion, but does not contain a motive principle, and
also of that which is in motion but is moved by itself and not by
anything else: it is reasonable, therefore, not to say necessary, to suppose
the existence of the third term also, that which causes motion but is
itself unmoved. So, too, Anaxagoras is right when he says that Mind is
impassive and unmixed, (25) since he makes it the principle of motion: for
it could cause motion in this sense only by being itself unmoved, and
have supreme control only by being unmixed.
We will now take the second alternative. If the movent is not
accidentally but necessarily in motion—so that, if it were not in motion,
it would not move anything—then the movent, in so far as it is in
motion, must be in motion in one of two ways: it is moved either as that
is which is moved with the same kind of motion, (30) or with a different
kind—either that which is heating, I mean, is itself in process of
becoming hot, that which is making healthy in process of becoming
healthy, and that which is causing locomotion in process of locomotion,
or else that which is making healthy is, let us say, in process of
locomotion, and that which is causing locomotion in process of, say,
increase. But it is evident that this is impossible. For if we adopt the first
assumption we have to make it apply within each of the very lowest
species into which motion can be divided: e. g. we must say that if some
one is teaching some lesson in geometry, he is also in process of being
taught that same lesson in geometry, and that if he is throwing he is in
process of being thrown in just the same manner. [257a] Or if we
reject this assumption we must say that one kind of motion is derived
from another; e. g. that that which is causing locomotion is in process of
increase, that which is causing this increase is in process of being altered
by something else, (5) and that which is causing this alteration is in
process of suffering some different kind of motion. But the series must
stop somewhere, since the kinds of motion are limited; and if we say that
the process is reversible, and that that which is causing alteration is in
process of locomotion, we do no more than if we had said at the outset
that that which is causing locomotion is in process of locomotion, and
that one who is teaching is in process of being taught: for it is clear that
everything that is moved is moved by the movent that is further back in
the series as well as by that which immediately moves it: in fact the
earlier movent is that which more strictly moves it. (10) But this is of
course impossible: for it involves the consequence that one who is
teaching is in process of learning what he is teaching, whereas teaching
necessarily implies possessing knowledge, and learning not possessing it.
Still more unreasonable is the consequence involved that, since
everything that is moved is moved by something that is itself moved by
something else, (15) everything that has a capacity for causing motion has
as such a corresponding capacity for being moved: i. e. it will have a
capacity for being moved in the sense in which one might say that
everything that has a capacity for making healthy, and exercises that
capacity, has as such a capacity for being made healthy, and that which
has a capacity for building has as such a capacity for being built. It will
have the capacity for being thus moved either immediately or through
one or more links (as it will if, while everything that has a capacity for
causing motion has as such a capacity for being moved by something
else, (20) the motion that it has the capacity for suffering is not that with
which it affects what is next to it, but a motion of a different kind; e. g.
that which has a capacity for making healthy might as such have a
capacity for learning: the series, however, could be traced back, as we
said before, until at some time or other we arrived at the same kind of
motion). Now the first alternative is impossible, and the second is
fantastic: it is absurd that that which has a capacity for causing
alteration should as such necessarily have a capacity, (25) let us say, for
increase. It is not necessary, therefore, that that which is moved should
always be moved by something else that is itself moved by something
else: so there will be an end to the series. Consequently the first thing
that is in motion will derive its motion either from something that is at
rest or from itself. But if there were any need to consider which of the
two, that which moves itself or that which is moved by something else,
(30) is the cause and principle of motion, every one would decide for the

former: for that which is itself independently a cause is always prior as a

cause to that which is so only in virtue of being itself dependent upon
something else that makes it so.
We must therefore make a fresh start and consider the question; if a
thing moves itself, in what sense and in what manner does it do so? Now
everything that is in motion must be infinitely divisible, for it has been
shown already16 in our general course on Physics, that everything that is
essentially in motion is continuous. [257b] Now it is impossible that
that which moves itself should in its entirety move itself: for then, while
being specifically one and indivisible, it would as a whole both undergo
and cause the same locomotion or alteration: thus it would at the same
time be both teaching and being taught (the same thing), (5) or both
restoring to and being restored to the same health. Moreover, we have17
established the fact that it is the movable that is moved; and this is
potentially, not actually, in motion, but the potential is in process to
actuality, and motion is an incomplete actuality of the movable. The
movent on the other hand is already in activity: e. g. it is that which is
hot that produces heat: in fact, that which produces the form18 is always
something that possesses it. Consequently (if a thing can move itself as a
whole), (10) the same thing in respect of the same thing19 may be at the
same time both hot and not hot. So, too, in every other case where the
movent must be described by the same name in the same sense as the
moved. Therefore when a thing moves itself it is one part of it that is the
movent and another part that is moved. But it is not self-moving in the
sense that each of the two parts is moved by the other part: the
following considerations make this evident. In the first place, if each of
the two parts is to move the other, there will be no first movent. (15) If a
thing is moved by a series of movents, that which is earlier in the series
is more the cause of its being moved than that which comes next, and
will be more truly the movent: for we found that there are two kinds of
movent, that which is itself moved by something else and that which
derives its motion from itself: and that which is further from the thing
that is moved is nearer to the principle of motion than that which is
intermediate. In the second place, (20) there is no necessity for the
movent part to be moved by anything but itself: so it can only be
accidentally that the other part moves it in return. I take then the
possible case of its not moving it: then there will be a part that is moved
and a part that is an unmoved movent. In the third place, there is no
necessity for the movent to be moved in return: on the contrary the
necessity that there should always be motion makes it necessary that
there should be some movent that is either unmoved or moved by itself.
In the fourth place we should then have a thing undergoing the same
motion that it is causing—that which is producing heat, (25) therefore,
being heated. But as a matter of fact that which primarily moves itself
cannot contain either a single part that moves itself or a number of parts
each of which moves itself. For, if the whole is moved by itself, it must
be moved either by some part of itself or as a whole by itself as a whole.
If, then, it is moved in virtue of some part of it being moved by that part
itself, (30) it is this part that will be the primary self-movent, since, if this
part is separated from the whole, the part will still move itself, but the
whole will do so no longer. If on the other hand the whole is moved by
itself as a whole, it must be accidentally that the parts move themselves:
and therefore, their self-motion not being necessary, we may take the
case of their not being moved by themselves. [258a] Therefore in the
whole of the thing we may distinguish that which imparts motion
without itself being moved and that which is moved: for only in this way
is it possible for a thing to be self-moved. Further, if the whole moves
itself we may distinguish in it that which imparts the motion and that
which is moved: so while we say that AB is moved by itself, (5) we may
also say that it is moved by A. And since that which imparts motion may
be either a thing that is moved by something else or a thing that is
unmoved, and that which is moved may be either a thing that imparts
motion to something else or a thing that does not, that which moves
itself must be composed of something that is unmoved but imparts
motion and also of something that is moved but does not necessarily
impart motion but may or may not do so. Thus let A be something that
imparts motion but is unmoved, B something that is moved by A and
moves C, (10) C something that is moved by B but moves nothing (granted
that we eventually arrive at C we may take it that there is only one
intermediate term, though there may be more). Then the whole ABC
moves itself. But if I take away C, AB will move itself, A imparting
motion and B being moved, (15) whereas C will not move itself or in fact
be moved at all. Nor again will BC move itself apart from A: for B
imparts motion only through being moved by something else, not
through being moved by any part of itself. So only AB moves itself. That
which moves itself, therefore, must comprise something that imparts
motion but is unmoved and something that is moved but does not
necessarily move anything else: and each of these two things, (20) or at
any rate one of them, must be in contact with the other. If, then, that
which imparts motion is a continuous substance—that which is moved
must of course be so—it is clear that it is not through some part of the
whole being of such a nature as to be capable of moving itself that the
whole moves itself: it moves itself as a whole, both being moved and
imparting motion through containing a part that imparts motion and a
part that is moved. (25) It does not impart motion as a whole nor is it
moved as a whole: it is A alone that imparts motion and B alone that is
moved. It is not true, further, that C is moved by A, which is impossible.
Here a difficulty arises: if something is taken away from A (supposing
that that which imparts motion but is unmoved is a continuous
substance), or from B the part that is moved, will the remainder of A
continue to impart motion or the remainder of B continue to be moved?
If so, (30) it will not be AB primarily that is moved by itself, since, when
something is taken away from AB, the remainder of AB will still
continue to move itself. [258b] Perhaps we may state the case thus:
there is nothing to prevent each of the two parts, or at any rate one of
them, that which is moved, being divisible though actually undivided, so
that if it is divided it will not continue in the possession of the same
capacity: and so there is nothing to prevent self-motion residing
primarily in things that are potentially divisible.
From what has been said, then, it is evident that that which primarily
imparts motion is unmoved: for, (5) whether the series is closed at once
by that which is in motion but moved by something else deriving its
motion directly from the first unmoved, or whether the motion is
derived from what is in motion but moves itself and stops its own
motion, on both suppositions we have the result that in all cases of
things being in motion that which primarily imparts motion is unmoved.

6 Since there must always be motion without intermission, (10) there

must necessarily be something, one thing or it may be a plurality, that
first imparts motion, and this first movent must be unmoved. Now the
question whether each of the things that are unmoved but impart
motion20 is eternal is irrelevant to our present argument: but the
following considerations will make it clear that there must necessarily be
some such thing, which, while it has the capacity of moving something
else, is itself unmoved and exempt from all change, (15) which can affect
it neither in an unqualified nor in an accidental sense. Let us suppose, if
any one likes, that in the case of certain things it is possible for them at
different times to be and not to be, without any process of becoming and
perishing (in fact it would seem to be necessary, if a thing that has not
parts at one time is and at another time is not, that any such thing
should without undergoing any process of change at one time be and at
another time not be). And let us further suppose it possible that some
principles that are unmoved but capable of imparting motion at one time
are and at another time are not. (20) Even so, this cannot be true of all
such principles, since there must clearly be something that causes things
that move themselves at one time to be and at another not to be. For,
since nothing that has not parts can be in motion, that which moves
itself must as a whole have magnitude, though nothing that we have said
makes this necessarily true of every movent. (25) So the fact that some
things become and others perish, and that this is so continuously, cannot
be caused by any one of those things that, though they are unmoved, do
not always exist: nor again can it be caused by any of those which move
certain particular things, while others move other things. The eternity
and continuity of the process cannot be caused either by any one of
them singly or by the sum of them, (30) because this causal relation must
be eternal and necessary, whereas the sum of these movents is infinite
and they do not all exist together. It is clear, then, that though there may
be countless instances of the perishing of some principles that are
unmoved but impart motion, and though many things that move
themselves perish and are succeeded by others that come into being, and
though one thing that is unmoved moves one thing while another moves
another, nevertheless there is something that comprehends them all, and
that as something apart from each one of them, and this it is that is the
cause of the fact that some things are and others are not and of the
continuous process of change: and this causes the motion of the other
movents, (5) while they are the causes of the motion of other things.
[259a] Motion, then, being eternal, the first movent, if there is but
one, will be eternal also: if there are more than one, there will be a
plurality of such eternal movents. We ought, however, to suppose that
there is one rather than many, and a finite rather than an infinite
number. When the consequences of either assumption are the same, we
should always assume that things are finite rather than infinite in
number, (10) since in things constituted by nature that which is finite and
that which is better ought, if possible, to be present rather than the
reverse: and here it is sufficient to assume only one movent, the first of
unmoved things, which being eternal will be the principle of motion to
everything else.
The following argument also makes it evident that the first movent
must be something that is one and eternal. (15) We have shown21 that
there must always be motion. That being so, motion must also be
continuous, because what is always is continuous, whereas what is
merely in succession is not continuous. But further, if motion is
continuous, it is one: and it is one only if the movent and the moved that
constitute it are each of them one, since in the event of a thing’s being
moved now by one thing and now by another the whole motion will not
be continuous but successive.
Moreover a conviction that there is a first unmoved something may be
reached not only from the foregoing arguments, (20) but also by
considering again the principles operative in movents. Now it is evident
that among existing things there are some that are sometimes in motion
and sometimes at rest. This fact has served above22 to make it clear that
it is not true either that all things are in motion or that all things are at
rest or that some things are always at rest and the remainder always in
motion: on this matter proof is supplied by things that fluctuate between
the two and have the capacity of being sometimes in motion and
sometimes at rest. (25) The existence of things of this kind is clear to all:
but we wish to explain also the nature of each of the other two kinds
and show that there are some things that are always unmoved and some
things that are always in motion. In the course of our argument directed
to this end we established the fact that everything that is in motion is
moved by something,23 and that the movent is either unmoved or in
motion, (30) and that, if it is in motion, it is moved either by itself or by
something else and so on throughout the series: and so we proceeded to
the position24 that the first principle that directly causes things that are
in motion to be moved is that which moves itself, and the first principle
of the whole series is the unmoved. Further it is evident from actual
observation that there are things that have the characteristic of moving
themselves, e. g. the animal kingdom and the whole class of living
things. [259b] This being so, then, the view was suggested25 that
perhaps it may be possible for motion to come to be in a thing without
having been in existence at all before, because we see this actually
occurring in animals: they are unmoved at one time and then again they
are in motion, (5) as it seems. We must grasp the fact, therefore, that
animals move themselves only with one kind of motion,26 and that this
is not strictly originated by them. The cause of it is not derived from the
animal itself: it is connected with other natural motions in animals,
which they do not experience through their own instrumentality, e. g.
increase, decrease, and respiration: these are experienced by every
animal while it is at rest and not in motion in respect of the motion set
up by its own agency:27 here the motion is caused by the atmosphere
and by many things that enter into the animal: thus in some cases the
cause is nourishment: when it is being digested animals sleep, (10) and
when it is being distributed through the system they awake and move
themselves, the first principle of this motion being thus originally
derived from outside. Therefore animals are not always in continuous
motion by their own agency: it is something else that moves them, (15)
itself being in motion and changing as it comes into relation with each
several thing that moves itself. (Moreover in all these self-moving things
the first movent and cause of their self-motion is itself moved by itself,
though in an accidental sense: that is to say, the body changes its place,
so that that which is in the body changes its place also and is a self-
movent through its exercise of leverage.) (20) Hence we may confidently
conclude that if a thing belongs to the class of unmoved movents that
are also themselves moved accidentally, it is impossible that it should
cause continuous motion. So the necessity that there should be motion
continuously requires that there should be a first movent that is
unmoved even accidentally, if, as we have said,28 there is to be in the
world of things an unceasing and undying motion, (25) and the world is to
remain permanently self-contained and within the same limits: for if the
first principle is permanent, the universe must also be permanent, since
it is continuous with the first principle. (We must distinguish, however,
between accidental motion of a thing by itself and such motion by
something else, the former being confined to perishable things, whereas
the latter belongs also to certain first principles of heavenly bodies, (30) of
all those, that is to say, that experience more than one locomotion.29)
And further, if there is always something of this nature, a movent that
is itself unmoved and eternal, then that which is first moved by it must
be eternal. [260a] Indeed this is clear also from the consideration that
there would otherwise be no becoming and perishing and no change of
any kind in other things, which require something that is in motion to
move them: for the motion imparted by the unmoved will always be
imparted in the same way and be one and the same, since the unmoved
does not itself change in relation to that which is moved by it. (5) But
that30 which is moved by something that, though it is in motion, is
moved directly by the unmoved stands in varying relations to the things
that it moves, so that the motion that it causes will not be always the
same: by reason of the fact that it occupies contrary positions or assumes
contrary forms at different times it will produce contrary motions in
each several thing that it moves and will cause it to be at one time at
rest and at another time in motion. (10)
The foregoing argument, then, has served to clear up the point about
which we raised a difficulty at the outset31—why is it that instead of all
things being either in motion or at rest, or some things being always in
motion and the remainder always at rest, there are things that are
sometimes in motion and sometimes not? The cause of this is now plain:
it is because, while some things are moved by an eternal unmoved
movent and are therefore always in motion, other things are moved by a
movent that is in motion and changing, (15) so that they too must change.
But the unmoved movent, as has been said, since it remains permanently
simple and unvarying and in the same state, will cause motion that is
one and simple.

7 This matter will be made clearer, however, if we start afresh from

another point. (20) We must consider whether it is or is not possible that
there should be a continuous motion, and, if it is possible, which motion
this is, and which is the primary motion: for it is plain that if there must
always be motion, and a particular motion is primary and continuous,
then it is this motion that is imparted by the first movent, (25) and so it is
necessarily one and the same and continuous and primary.
Now of the three kinds of motion that there are—motion in respect of
magnitude, motion in respect of affection, and motion in respect of place
—it is this last, which we call locomotion, that must be primary. This
may be shown as follows. It is impossible that there should be increase
without the previous occurrence of alteration: for that which is
increased, (30) although in a sense it is increased by what is like itself, is
in a sense increased by what is unlike itself: thus it is said that contrary
is nourishment to contrary:32 but growth is effected only by things
becoming like to like. There must be alteration, then, in that there is this
change from contrary to contrary. [260b] But the fact that a thing is
altered requires that there should be something that alters it, something
e. g. that makes the potentially hot into the actually hot: so it is plain
that the movent does not maintain a uniform relation to it but is at one
time nearer to and at another farther from that which is altered: and we
cannot have this without locomotion. (5) If, therefore, there must always
be motion, there must also always be locomotion as the primary motion,
and, if there is a primary as distinguished from a secondary form of
locomotion, it must be the primary form. Again, all affections have their
origin in condensation and rarefaction: thus heavy and light, soft and
hard, (10) hot and cold, are considered to be forms of density and rarity.
But condensation and rarefaction are nothing more than combination
and separation, processes in accordance with which substances are said
to become and perish: and in being combined and separated things must
change in respect of place. And further, when a thing is increased or
decreased its magnitude changes in respect of place.
Again, there is another point of view from which it will be clearly seen
that locomotion is primary. (15) As in the case of other things so too in
the case of motion the word ‘primary’ may be used in several senses. A
thing is said to be prior to other things when, if it does not exist, the
others will not exist, whereas it can exist without the others: and there is
also priority in time and priority in perfection of existence. Let us begin,
then, with the first sense. Now there must be motion continuously, (20)
and there may be continuously either continuous motion or successive
motion, the former, however, in a higher degree than the latter:
moreover it is better that it should be continuous rather than successive
motion, and we always assume the presence in nature of the better, if it
be possible: since, then, continuous motion is possible (this will be
proved later:33 for the present let us take it for granted), and no other
motion can be continuous except locomotion, (25) locomotion must be
primary. For there is no necessity for the subject of locomotion to be the
subject either of increase or of alteration, nor need it become or perish:
on the other hand there cannot be any one of these processes without
the existence of the continuous motion imparted by the first movent.
Secondly, locomotion must be primary in time: for this is the only
motion possible for eternal things. (30) It is true indeed that, in the case of
any individual thing that has a becoming, locomotion must be the last of
its motions: for after its becoming it first experiences alteration and
increase, and locomotion is a motion that belongs to such things only
when they are perfected. [261a] But there must previously be
something else that is in process of locomotion to be the cause even of
the becoming of things that become, without itself being in process of
becoming, as e. g. the begotten is preceded by what begot it: otherwise
becoming might be thought to be the primary motion on the ground that
the thing must first become. (5) But though this is so in the case of any
individual thing that becomes, nevertheless before anything becomes,
something else must be in motion, not itself becoming but being, and
before this there must again be something else. And since becoming
cannot be primary—for, if it were, everything that is in motion would be
perishable—it is plain that no one of the motions next in order can be
prior to locomotion. (10) By the motions next in order I mean increase
and then alteration, decrease, and perishing. All these are posterior to
becoming: consequently, if not even becoming is prior to locomotion,
then no one of the other processes of change is so either.
Thirdly, that which is in process of becoming appears universally as
something imperfect and proceeding to a first principle: and so what is
posterior in the order of becoming is prior in the order of nature. Now
all things that go through the process of becoming acquire locomotion
last. It is this that accounts for the fact that some living things, (15) e. g.
plants and many kinds of animals, owing to lack of the requisite organ,
are entirely without motion, whereas others acquire it in the course of
their being perfected. Therefore, if the degree in which things possess
locomotion corresponds to the degree in which they have realized their
natural development, then this motion must be prior to all others in
respect of perfection of existence: and not only for this reason but also
because a thing that is in motion loses its essential character less in the
process of locomotion than in any other kind of motion: it is the only
motion that does not involve a change of being in the sense in which
there is a change in quality when a thing is altered and a change in
quantity when a thing is increased or decreased. (20) Above all it is plain
that this motion, motion in respect of place, is what is in the strictest
sense produced by that which moves itself; but it is the self-movent that
we declare to be the first principle of things that are moved and impart
motion and the primary source to which things that are in motion are to
be referred. (25)
It is clear, then, from the foregoing arguments that locomotion is the
primary motion. We have now to show which kind of locomotion is
primary. The same process of reasoning will also make clear at the same
time the truth of the assumption we have made both now and at a
previous stage34 that it is possible that there should be a motion that is
continuous and eternal. (30) Now it is clear from the following
considerations that no other than locomotion can be continuous. Every
other motion and change is from an opposite to an opposite: thus for the
processes of becoming and perishing the limits are the existent and the
non-existent, for alteration the various pairs of contrary affections, and
for increase and decrease either greatness and smallness or perfection
and imperfection of magnitude: and changes to the respective contraries
are contrary changes. (35) Now a thing that is undergoing any particular
kind of motion, but though previously existent has not always undergone
it, must previously have been at rest so far as that motion is concerned.
[261b] It is clear, then, that for the changing thing the contraries will
be states of rest. And we have a similar result in the case of changes that
are not motions: for becoming and perishing, whether regarded simply
as such without qualification or as affecting something in particular, are
opposites: therefore provided it is impossible for a thing to undergo
opposite changes at the same time, (5) the change will not be continuous,
but a period of time will intervene between the opposite processes. The
question whether these contradictory changes are contraries or not
makes no difference, provided only it is impossible for them both to be
present to the same thing at the same time: the point is of no importance
to the argument. (10) Nor does it matter if the thing need not rest in the
contradictory state, or if there is no state of rest as a contrary to the
process of change: it may be true that the nonexistent is not at rest, and
that perishing is a process to the nonexistent. All that matters is the
intervention of a time: it is this that prevents the change from being
continuous: so, too, in our previous instances the important thing was
not the relation of contrariety but the impossibility of the two processes
being present to a thing at the same time. (15) And there is no need to be
disturbed by the fact that on this showing there may be more than one
contrary to the same thing, that a particular motion will be contrary
both to rest and to motion in the contrary direction. We have only to
grasp the fact that a particular motion is in a sense the opposite both of
a state of rest and of the contrary motion, in the same way as that which
is of equal or standard measure is the opposite both of that which
surpasses it and of that which it surpasses, (20) and that it is impossible
for the opposite motions or changes to be present to a thing at the same
time. Furthermore, in the case of becoming and perishing it would seem
to be an utterly absurd thing if as soon as anything has become it must
necessarily perish and cannot continue to exist for any time: and, if this
is true of becoming and perishing, (25) we have fair grounds for inferring
the same to be true of the other kinds of change, since it would be in the
natural order of things that they should be uniform in this respect.

8 Let us now proceed to maintain that it is possible that there should

be an infinite motion that is single and continuous, and that this motion
is rotatory motion. The motion of everything that is in process of
locomotion is either rotatory or rectilinear or a compound of the two:
consequently, if one of the former two is not continuous, (30) that which
is composed of them both cannot be continuous either. Now it is plain
that if the locomotion of a thing is rectilinear and finite it is not
continuous locomotion: for the thing must turn back, and that which
turns back in a straight line undergoes two contrary locomotions, since,
so far as motion in respect of place is concerned, upward motion is the
contrary of downward motion, forward motion. (35) of backward motion,
and motion to the left of motion to the right, these being the pairs of
contraries in the sphere of place. But we have already35 defined single
and continuous motion to be motion of a single thing in a single period
of time and operating within a sphere admitting of no further specific
differentiation (for we have three things to consider, first that which is
in motion, e. g. a man or a god, secondly the ‘when’ of the motion, that
is to say, the time, and thirdly the sphere within which it operates,
which may be either place or affection or essential form or magnitude):
and contraries are specifically not one and the same but distinct: and
within the sphere of place we have the above-mentioned distinctions.
[262a] (5) Moreover we have an indication that motion from A to B is
the contrary of motion from B to A in the fact that, if they occur at the
same time, they arrest and stop each other. And the same is true in the
case of a circle: the motion from A towards B is the contrary of the
motion from A towards C: for even if they are continuous and there is no
turning back they arrest each other, (10) because contraries annihilate or
obstruct one another. On the other hand lateral motion is not the
contrary of upward motion. But what shows most clearly that rectilinear
motion cannot be continuous is the fact that turning back necessarily
implies coming to a stand, not only when it is a straight line that is
traversed, but also in the case of locomotion in a circle (which is not the
same thing as rotatory locomotion: for, (15) when a thing merely traverses
a circle, it may either proceed on its course without a break or turn back
again when it has reached the same point from which it started). We
may assure ourselves of the necessity of this coming to a stand not only
on the strength of observation, but also on theoretical grounds. We may
start as follows: we have three points, starting-point, middle-point, and
finishing-point, of which the middle-point in virtue of the relations in
which it stands severally to the other two is both a starting-point and a
finishing-point, (20) and though numerically one is theoretically two. We
have further the distinction between the potential and the actual. So in
the straight line in question any one of the points lying between the two
extremes is potentially a middle-point: but it is not actually so unless
that which is in motion divides the line by coming to a stand at that
point and beginning its motion again: thus the middle-point becomes
both a starting-point and a goal, (25) the starting-point of the latter part
and the finishing-point of the first part of the motion. This is the case
e. g. when A in the course of its locomotion comes to a stand at B and
starts again towards C: but when its motion is continuous A cannot
either have come to be or have ceased to be at the point B: it can only
have been there at the moment of passing, (30) its passage not being
contained within any period of time except the whole of which the
particular moment is a dividing-point. To maintain that it has come to
be and ceased to be there will involve the consequence that A in the
course of its locomotion will always be coming to a stand: for it is
impossible that A should simultaneously have come to be at B and
ceased to be there, so that the two things must have happened at
different points of time, and therefore there will be the intervening
period of time: consequently A will be in a state of rest at B, and
similarly at all other points, (5) since the same reasoning holds good in
every case. [262b] When to A, that which is in process of locomotion,
B, the middle-point, serves both as a finishing-point and as a starting-
point for its motion, A must come to a stand at B, because it makes it
two just as one might do in thought. However, the point A is the real
starting-point at which the moving body has ceased to be, and it is at C
that it has really come to be when its course is finished and it comes to a
stand. So this is how we must meet the difficulty that then arises, (10)
which is as follows. Suppose the line E is equal to the line F, that A
proceeds in continuous locomotion from the extreme point of E to C, and
that, at the moment when A is at the point B, D is proceeding in uniform
locomotion and with the same velocity as A from the extremity of F to G:
then, says the argument, D will have reached G before A has reached C:
for that which makes an earlier start and departure must make an earlier
arrival: the reason, (15) then, for the late arrival of A is that it has not
simultaneously come to be and ceased to be at B: otherwise it will not
arrive later: for this to happen it will be necessary that it should come to
a stand there. Therefore we must not hold that there was a moment
when A came to be at B and that at the same moment D was in motion
from the extremity of F: for the fact of A’s having come to be at B will
involve the fact of its also ceasing to be there, (20) and the two events will
not be simultaneous, whereas the truth is that A is at B at a sectional
point of time and does not occupy time there. In this case, therefore,
where the motion of a thing is continuous, it is impossible to use this
form of expression. On the other hand in the case of a thing that turns
back in its course we must do so. For suppose G in the course of its
locomotion proceeds to D and then turns back and proceeds downwards
again: then the extreme point D has served as finishing-point and as
starting-point for it, (25) one point thus serving as two: therefore G must
have come to a stand there: it cannot have come to be at D and departed
from D simultaneously, for in that case it would simultaneously be there
and not be there at the same moment. And here we cannot apply the
argument used to solve the difficulty stated above: we cannot argue that
G is at D at a sectional point of time and has not come to be or ceased to
be there. For here the goal that is reached is necessarily one that is
actually, (30) not potentially, existent. Now the point in the middle is
potential: but this one is actual, and regarded from below it is a
finishing-point, while regarded from above it is a starting-point, so that
it stands in these same two respective relations to the two motions.
[263a] Therefore that which turns back in traversing a rectilinear
course must in so doing come to a stand. Consequently there cannot be a
continuous rectilinear motion that is eternal.
The same method should also be adopted in replying to those who ask,
in the terms of Zeno’s argument, whether we admit that before any
distance can be traversed half the distance must be traversed, (5) that
these half-distances are infinite in number, and that it is impossible to
traverse distances infinite in number—or some on the lines of this same
argument put the questions in another form, and would have us grant
that in the time during which a motion is in progress it should be
possible to reckon a half-motion before the whole for every half-distance
that we get, so that we have the result that when the whole distance is
traversed we have reckoned an infinite number, (10) which is admittedly
impossible. Now when we first discussed the question of motion we put
forward a solution36 of this difficulty turning on the fact that the period
of time occupied in traversing the distance contains within itself an
infinite number of units: there is no absurdity, we said, in supposing the
traversing of infinite distances in infinite time, and the element of
infinity is present in the time no less than in the distance. But, although
this solution is adequate as a reply to the questioner (the question asked
being whether it is possible in a finite time to traverse or reckon an
infinite number of units), (15) nevertheless as an account of the fact and
explanation of its true nature it is inadequate. For suppose the distance
to be left out of account and the question asked to be no longer whether
it is possible in a finite time to traverse an infinite number of distances,
(20) and suppose that the inquiry is made to refer to the time taken by

itself (for the time contains an infinite number of divisions): then this
solution will no longer be adequate, and we must apply the truth that we
enunciated in our recent discussion, stating it in the following way. In
the act of dividing the continuous distance into two halves one point is
treated as two, since we make it a starting-point and a finishing-point:
and this same result is also produced by the act of reckoning halves as
well as by the act of dividing into halves. (25) But if divisions are made in
this way, neither the distance nor the motion will be continuous: for
motion if it is to be continuous must relate to what is continuous: and
though what is continuous contains an infinite number of halves, they
are not actual but potential halves. If the halves are made actual, we
shall get not a continuous but an intermittent motion. (30) In the case of
reckoning the halves, it is clear that this result follows: for then one
point must be reckoned as two: it will be the finishing-point of the one
half and the starting-point of the other, if we reckon not the one
continuous whole but the two halves. [263b] Therefore to the question
whether it is possible to pass through an infinite number of units either
of time or of distance we must reply that in a sense it is and in a sense it
is not. (5) If the units are actual, it is not possible: if they are potential, it
is possible. For in the course of a continuous motion the traveller has
traversed an infinite number of units in an accidental sense but not in an
unqualified sense: for though it is an accidental characteristic of the
distance to be an infinite number of half-distances, this is not its real and
essential character. It is also plain that unless we hold that the point of
time that divides earlier from later always belongs only to the later so
far as the thing is concerned, (10) we shall be involved in the consequence
that the same thing is at the same moment existent and not existent, and
that a thing is not existent at the moment when it has become. It is true
that the point is common to both times, the earlier as well as the later,
and that, while numerically one and the same, it is theoretically not so,
being the finishing-point of the one and the starting-point of the other:
but so far as the thing is concerned it belongs to the later stage of what
happens to it. (15) Let us suppose a time KBC and a thing D, D being
white in the time A and not-white in the time B. Then D is at the
moment C white and not-white: for if we were right in saying that it is
white during the whole time A, it is true to call it white at any moment
of A, and not-white in B, and C is in both A and B. We must not allow,
(20) therefore, that it is white in the whole of A, but must say that it is so

in all of it except the last moment C. C belongs already to the later

period, and if in the whole of A not-white was in process of becoming
and white of perishing, at C the process is complete. And so C is the first
moment at which it is true to call the thing white or not-white
respectively. Otherwise a thing may be non-existent at the moment when
it has become and existent at the moment when it has perished: or else it
must be possible for a thing at the same time to be white and not white
and in fact to be existent and non-existent. (25) Further, if anything that
exists after having been previously non-existent must become existent
and does not exist when it is becoming, time cannot be divisible into
time-atoms. For suppose that D was becoming white in the time A and
that at another time B, a time-atom consecutive with the last atom of A,
D has already become white and so is white at that moment: then,
inasmuch as in the time A it was becoming white and so was not white
and at the moment B it is white, (30) there must have been a becoming
between A and B and therefore also a time in which the becoming took
place. On the other hand, those who deny atoms of time (as we do) are
not affected by this argument: according to them D has become and so is
white at the last point of the actual time in which it was becoming
white: and this point has no other point consecutive with or in
succession to it, whereas time-atoms are conceived as successive.
[264a] Moreover it is clear that if D was becoming white in the whole
time A, the time occupied by it in having become white in addition to
having been in process of becoming white is no more than all that it
occupied in the mere process of becoming white. (5)
These and such-like, then, are the arguments for our conclusion that
derive cogency from the fact that they have a special bearing on the
point at issue. If we look at the question from the point of view of
general theory, the same result would also appear to be indicated by the
following arguments. Everything whose motion is continuous must, on
arriving at any point in the course of its locomotion, (10) have been
previously also in process of locomotion to that point, if it is not forced
out of its path by anything: e. g. on arriving at B a thing must also have
been in process of locomotion to B, and that not merely when it was
near to B, but from the moment of its starting on its course, since there
can be no reason for its being so at any particular stage rather than at an
earlier one. So, too, in the case of the other kinds of motion. Now we are
to suppose that a thing proceeds in locomotion from A to C and that at
the moment of its arrival at C the continuity of its motion is unbroken
and will remain so until it has arrived back at A. (15) Then when it is
undergoing locomotion from A to C it is at the same time undergoing
also its locomotion to A from C: consequently it is simultaneously
undergoing two contrary motions, since the two motions that follow the
same straight line are contrary to each other. With this consequence
there also follows another: we have a thing that is in process of change
from a position in which it has not yet been: so, inasmuch as this is
impossible, the thing must come to a stand at C. Therefore the motion is
not a single motion, (20) since motion that is interrupted by stationariness
is not single.
Further, the following argument will serve better to make this point
clear universally in respect of every kind of motion. If the motion
undergone by that which is in motion is always one of those already
enumerated, and the state of rest that it undergoes is one of those that
are the opposites of the motions (for we found37 that there could be no
other besides these), and moreover that which is undergoing but does
not always undergo a particular motion (by this I mean one of the
various specifically distinct motions, (25) not some particular part of the
whole motion) must have been previously undergoing the state of rest
that is the opposite of the motion, the state of rest being privation of
motion; then, inasmuch as the two motions that follow the same straight
line are contrary motions, and it is impossible for a thing to undergo
simultaneously two contrary motions, (30) that which is undergoing
locomotion from A to C cannot also simultaneously be undergoing
locomotion from C to A: and since the latter locomotion is not
simultaneous with the former but is still to be undergone, before it is
undergone there must occur a state of rest at C: for this, as we found,38
is the state of rest that is the opposite of the motion from C. The
foregoing argument, then, makes it plain that the motion in question is
not continuous.
[264b] Our next argument has a more special bearing than the
foregoing on the point at issue. We will suppose that there has occurred
in something simultaneously a perishing of not-white and a becoming of
white. Then if the alteration to white and from white is a continuous
process and the white does not remain any time, (5) there must have
occurred simultaneously a perishing of not-white, a becoming of white,
and a becoming of not-white: for the time of the three will be the same.
Again, from the continuity of the time in which the motion takes place
we cannot infer continuity in the motion, but only successiveness: in
fact, how could contraries, e. g. whiteness and blackness, meet in the
same extreme point?
On the other hand, in motion on a circular line we shall find
singleness and continuity: for here we are met by no impossible
consequence: that which is in motion from A will in virtue of the same
direction of energy be simultaneously in motion to A (since it is in
motion to the point at which it will finally arrive), (10) and yet will not be
undergoing two contrary or opposite motions: for a motion to a point
and a motion from that point are not always contraries or opposites:
they are contraries only if they are on the same straight line (for then
they are contrary to one another in respect of place, (15) as e. g. the two
motions along the diameter of the circle, since the ends of this are at the
greatest possible distance from one another), and they are opposites only
if they are along the same line. Therefore in the case we are now
considering there is nothing to prevent the motion being continuous and
free from all intermission: for rotatory motion is motion of a thing from
its place to its place, (20) whereas rectilinear motion is motion from its
place to another place.
Moreover the progress of rotatory motion is never localized within
certain fixed limits, whereas that of rectilinear motion repeatedly is so.
Now a motion that is always shifting its ground from moment to
moment can be continuous: but a motion that is repeatedly localized
within certain fixed limits cannot be so, since then the same thing would
have to undergo simultaneously two opposite motions. So, too, there
cannot be continuous motion in a semicircle or in any other arc of a
circle, (25) since here also the same ground must be traversed repeatedly
and two contrary processes of change must occur. The reason is that in
these motions the starting-point and the termination do not coincide,
whereas in motion over a circle they do coincide, and so this is the only
perfect motion.39
This differentiation also provides another means of showing that the
other kinds of motion cannot be continuous either: for in all of them we
find that there is the same ground to be traversed repeatedly: thus in
alteration there are the intermediate stages of the process, (30) and in
quantitative change there are the intervening degrees of magnitude: and
in becoming and perishing the same thing is true. It makes no difference
whether we take the intermediate stages of the process to be few or
many, or whether we add or subtract one: for in either case we find that
there is still the same ground to be traversed repeatedly. [265a]
Moreover it is plain from what has been said that those physicists who
assert that all sensible things are always in motion are wrong: for their
motion must be one or other of the motions just mentioned: in fact they
mostly conceive it as alteration (things are always in flux and decay, (5)
they say), and they go so far as to speak even of becoming and perishing
as a process of alteration. On the other hand, our argument has enabled
us to assert the fact, applying universally to all motions, that no motion
admits of continuity except rotatory motion: consequently neither
alteration nor increase admits of continuity. (10) We need now say no
more in support of the position that there is no process of change that
admits of infinity or continuity except rotatory locomotion.

9 It can now be shown plainly that rotation is the primary

locomotion. Every locomotion, as we said before,40 is either rotatory or
rectilinear or a compound of the two: and the two former must be prior
to the last, (15) since they are the elements of which the latter consists.
Moreover rotatory locomotion is prior to rectilinear locomotion, because
it is more simple and complete, which may be shown as follows. The
straight line traversed in rectilinear motion cannot be infinite: for there
is no such thing as an infinite straight line; and even if there were, it
would not be traversed by anything in motion: for the impossible does
not happen and it is impossible to traverse an infinite distance. (20) On
the other hand rectilinear motion on a finite straight line is if it turns
back a composite motion, in fact two motions, while if it does not turn
back it is incomplete and perishable: and in the order of nature, of
definition, and of time alike the complete is prior to the incomplete and
the imperishable to the perishable. Again, a motion that admits of being
eternal is prior to one that does not. (25) Now rotatory motion can be
eternal: but no other motion, whether locomotion or motion of any other
kind, can be so, since in all of them rest must occur, and with the
occurrence of rest the motion has perished. Moreover the result at which
we have arrived, that rotatory motion is single and continuous, and
rectilinear motion is not, is a reasonable one. In rectilinear motion we
have a definite starting-point, finishing-point, and middle-point, (30)
which all have their place in it in such a way that there is a point from
which that which is in motion can be said to start and a point at which it
can be said to finish its course (for when anything is at the limits of its
course, whether at the starting-point or at the finishing-point, it must be
in a state of rest41). On the other hand in circular motion there are no
such definite points: for why should any one point on the line be a limit
rather than any other? Any one point as much as any other is alike
starting-point, middle-point, and finishing-point, so that we can say of
certain things both that they are always and that they never are at a
starting-point and at a finishing-point (so that a revolving sphere, while
it is in motion, is also in a sense at rest, for it continues to occupy the
same place). [265b] The reason of this is that in this case all these
characteristics belong to the centre: that is to say, the centre is alike
starting-point, middle-point, and finishing-point of the space traversed;
consequently since this point is not a point on the circular line, (5) there
is no point at which that which is in process of locomotion can be in a
state of rest as having traversed its course, because in its locomotion it is
proceeding always about a central point and not to an extreme point:
therefore it remains still, and the whole is in a sense always at rest as
well as continuously in motion. Our next point gives a convertible result:
on the one hand, because rotation is the measure of motions it must be
the primary motion (for all things are measured by what is primary): on
the other hand, (10) because rotation is the primary motion it is the
measure of all other motions. Again, rotatory motion is also the only
motion that admits of being regular. In rectilinear locomotion the
motion of things in leaving the starting-point is not uniform with their
motion in approaching the finishing-point, since the velocity of a thing
always increases proportionately as it removes itself farther from its
position of rest: on the other hand rotatory motion is the only motion
whose course is naturally such that it has no starting-point or finishing-
point in itself but is determined from elsewhere. (15)
 As to locomotion being the primary motion, this is a truth that is
attested by all who have ever made mention of motion in their theories:
they all assign their first principles of motion to things that impart
motion of this kind. Thus ‘separation’ and ‘combination’ are motions in
respect of place, and the motion imparted by ‘Love’ and ‘Strife’42 takes
these forms, (20) the latter ‘separating’ and the former ‘combining’.
Anaxagoras, too, says that ‘Mind’, his first movent, ‘separates’. Similarly
those43 who assert no cause of this kind but say that ‘void’ accounts for
motion—they also hold that the motion of natural substance is motion in
respect of place: for their motion that is accounted for by ‘void’ is
locomotion, (25) and its sphere of operation may be said to be place.
Moreover they are of opinion that the primary substances are not subject
to any of the other motions, though the things that are compounds of
these substances are so subject: the processes of increase and decrease
and alteration, they say, are effects of the ‘combination’ and ‘separation’
of ‘atoms’. (30) It is the same, too, with those who make out that the
becoming or perishing of a thing is accounted for by ‘density’ or
‘rarity’:44 for it is by ‘combination’ and ‘separation’ that the place of
these things in their systems is determined. Moreover to these we may
add those who make Soul the cause of motion:45 for they say that things
that undergo motion have as their first principle ‘that which moves
itself’: and when animals and all living things move themselves, the
motion is motion in respect of place. [266a] Finally it is to be noted
that we say that a thing ‘is in motion’ in the strictest sense of the term
only when its motion is motion in respect of place: if a thing is in
process of increase or decrease or is undergoing some alteration while
remaining at rest in the same place, we say that it is in motion in some
particular respect: we do not say that it ‘is in motion’ without
qualification. (5)
Our present position, then, is this: We have argued that there always
was motion and always will be motion throughout all time, and we have
explained what is the first principle of this eternal motion: we have
explained further which is the primary motion and which is the only
motion that can be eternal: and we have pronounced the first movent to
be unmoved.
10 We have now to assert that the first movent must be without parts
and without magnitude, (10) beginning with the establishment of the
premisses on which this conclusion depends.
One of these premisses is that nothing finite can cause motion during
an infinite time. We have three things, the movent, the moved, and
thirdly that in which the motion takes place, namely the time: and these
are either all infinite or all finite or partly—that is to say two of them or
one of them—finite and partly infinite. (15) Let A be the movent, B the
moved, and C the infinite time. Now let us suppose that D46 moves E, a
part of B. Then the time occupied by this motion cannot be equal to C:
for the greater the amount moved, the longer the time occupied.47 It
follows that the time F48 is not infinite. Now we see that by continuing
to add to D, I shall use up A, (20) and by continuing to add to E, I shall
use up B: but I shall not use up the time by continually subtracting a
corresponding amount from it, because it is infinite. Consequently the
duration of the part of C which is occupied by all A in moving the whole
of B, will be finite. Therefore a finite thing cannot impart to anything an
infinite motion. It is clear, then, that it is impossible for the finite to
cause motion during an infinite time.
It has now to be shown that in no case is it possible for an infinite
force to reside in a finite magnitude. (25) This can be shown as follows:
we take it for granted that the greater force is always that which in less
time than another does an equal amount of work when engaged in any
activity—in heating, for example, or sweetening or throwing; in fact, in
causing any kind of motion. Then that on which the forces act must be
affected to some extent by our supposed finite magnitude possessing an
infinite force as well as by anything else, in fact to a greater extent than
by anything else, since the infinite force is greater than any other. But
then there cannot be any time in which its action could take place. (30)
Suppose that A is the time occupied by the infinite power in the
performance of an act of heating or pushing, and that AB is the time
occupied by a finite power in the performance of the same act: then by
adding to the latter another finite power and continually increasing the
magnitude of the power so added I shall at some time or other reach a
point at which the finite power has completed the motive act in the time
A: for by continual addition to a finite magnitude I must arrive at a
magnitude that exceeds any assigned limit, and in the same way by
continual subtraction I must arrive at one that falls short of any assigned
limit. [266b] So we get the result that the finite force will occupy the
same amount of time in performing the motive act as the infinite force.
But this is impossible. (5) Therefore nothing finite can possess an infinite
force. So it is also impossible for a finite force to reside in an infinite
magnitude. It is true that a greater force can reside in a lesser
magnitude: but the superiority of any such greater force can be still
greater if the magnitude in which it resides is greater. Now let AB be an
infinite magnitude. Then BC49 possesses a certain force that occupies a
certain time, let us say the time EF50 in moving D. Now if I take a
magnitude twice as great as BC, (10) the time occupied by this magnitude
in moving D will be half of EF (assuming this to be the proportion51): so
we may call this time FG. That being so, by continually taking a greater
magnitude in this way I shall never arrive at the full AB, whereas I shall
always be getting a lesser fraction of the time originally given. Therefore
the force must be infinite, since it exceeds any finite force. (15) Moreover
the time occupied by the action of any finite force must also be finite: for
if a given force moves something in a certain time, a greater force will
do so in a lesser time, but still a definite time, in inverse proportion. But
a force must always be infinite—just as a number or a magnitude is—if
it exceeds all definite limits. (20) This point may also be proved in
another way—by taking a finite magnitude in which there resides a force
the same in kind as that which resides in the infinite magnitude, so that
this force will be a measure of the finite force residing in the infinite
magnitude.
It is plain, (25) then, from the foregoing arguments that it is impossible
for an infinite force to reside in a finite magnitude or for a finite force to
reside in an infinite magnitude. But before proceeding to our conclusion
it will be well to discuss a difficulty that arises in connexion with
locomotion. If everything that is in motion with the exception of things
that move themselves is moved by something else, how is it that some
things, e. g. things thrown, continue to be in motion when their movent
is no longer in contact with them? If we say that the movent in such
cases moves something else at the same time, (30) that the thrower e. g.
also moves the air, and that this in being moved is also a movent, then it
would be no more possible for this second thing than for the original
thing to be in motion when the original movent is not in contact with it
or moving it: all the things moved would have to be in motion
simultaneously and also to have ceased simultaneously to be in motion
when the original movent ceases to move them, even if, like the magnet,
it makes that which it has moved capable of being a movent. [267a]
Therefore, while we must accept this explanation to the extent of saying
that the original movent gives the power of being a movent either to air
or to water or to something else of the kind, (5) naturally adapted for
imparting and undergoing motion, we must say further that this thing
does not cease simultaneously to impart motion and to undergo motion:
it ceases to be in motion at the moment when its movent ceases to move
it, but it still remains a movent, and so it causes something else
consecutive with it to be in motion, and of this again the same may be
said. The motion begins to cease when the motive force produced in one
member of the consecutive series is at each stage less than that possessed
by the preceding member, and it finally ceases when one member no
longer causes the next member to be a movent but only causes it to be in
motion. (10) The motion of these last two—of the one as movent and of
the other as moved—must cease simultaneously, and with this the whole
motion ceases. Now the things in which this motion is produced are
things that admit of being sometimes in motion and sometimes at rest,
and the motion is not continuous but only appears so: for it is motion of
things that are either successive or in contact, (15) there being not one
movent but a number of movents consecutive with one another: and so
motion of this kind takes place in air and water. Some say52 that it is
‘mutual replacement’: but we must recognize that the difficulty raised
cannot be solved otherwise than in the way we have described. So far as
they are affected by ‘mutual replacement’, all the members of the series
are moved and impart motion simultaneously, so that their motions also
cease simultaneously: but our present problem concerns the appearance
of continuous motion in a single thing, (20) and therefore, since it cannot
be moved throughout its motion by the same movent, the question is,
what moves it?
Resuming our main argument, we proceed from the positions that
there must be continuous motion in the world of things, that this is a
single motion, that a single motion must be a motion of a magnitude (for
that which is without magnitude cannot be in motion), and that the
magnitude must be a single magnitude moved by a single movent (for
otherwise there will not be continuous motion but a consecutive series of
separate motions), and that if the movent is a single thing, it is either
itself in motion or itself unmoved: if, then, it is in motion, it will have to
be subject to the same conditions as that which it moves, (25) that is to
say it will itself be in process of change and in being so will also have to
be moved by something: so we have a series that must come to an end,
and a point will be reached at which motion is imparted by something
that is unmoved. [267b] Thus we have a movent that has no need to
change along with that which it moves but will be able to cause motion
always (for the causing of motion under these conditions involves no
effort): and this motion alone is regular, or at least it is so in a higher
degree than any other, since the movent is never subject to any change.
So, too, in order that the motion may continue to be of the same
character, (5) the moved must not be subject to change in respect of its
relation to the movent. Moreover the movent must occupy either the
centre or the circumference, since these are the first principles from
which a sphere is derived. But the things nearest the movent are those
whose motion is quickest, and in this case it is the motion of the
circumference that is the quickest: therefore the movent occupies the
circumference.
There is a further difficulty in supposing it to be possible for anything
that is in motion to cause motion continuously and not merely in the
way in which it is caused by something repeatedly pushing (in which
case the continuity amounts to no more than successiveness). (10) Such a
movent must either itself continue to push or pull or perform both these
actions, or else the action must be taken up by something else and be
passed on from one movent to another (the process that we described
before as occurring in the case of things thrown, since the air or the
water, being divisible, is a movent only in virtue of the fact that different
parts of the air are moved one after another): and in either case the
motion cannot be a single motion, (15) but only a consecutive series of
motions. The only continuous motion, then, is that which is caused by
the unmoved movent: and this motion is continuous because the movent
remains always invariable, so that its relation to that which it moves
remains also invariable and continuous.
Now that these points are settled, it is clear that the first unmoved
movent cannot have any magnitude. For if it has magnitude, this must
be either a finite or an infinite magnitude. (20) Now we have already53
proved in our course on Physics that there cannot be an infinite
magnitude: and we have now proved that it is impossible for a finite
magnitude to have an infinite force, and also that it is impossible for a
thing to be moved by a finite magnitude during an infinite time. But the
first movent causes a motion that is eternal and does cause it during an
infinite time. (25) It is clear, therefore, that the first movent is indivisible
and is without parts and without magnitude.

1 iii. 1.

2 i. e. by means of his knowledge he can be sure of giving a wrong opinion and thus deceiving
some one.
3 Aristotle is thinking of a passage in the Timaeus (38 B).

4 Chapter 8.

5 Chapter 6.

6 ii. 1. 192b 21.

7 Melissus is meant; cf. 185a 32.

8 Cf. De An. iii. 3. 428b 11.

9 i. e. the material of which a body is composed may be so light as naturally to have an upward
tendency.
10 i. e. causing to become hot.

11 sc. upward motion and downward motion respectively.

12 The real cause here is the upward or downward tendency.

13 i. e. the thing that is moved.

14 Chapter 1.

15 i. e. not necessarily continuously: e. g. a thing thrown continues its course after contact with
the thrower has ceased.
16 The reference is apparently to vi. 4. 234b 10 sqq.

17 Ch. 1. 251a 9 sqq.

18 i. e. any particular characteristic such as heat.

19 i. e. the whole of itself: there is no question of one part of a thing heating another part.

20 e. g. individual souls.
21 Chapter 1.

22 Chapter 3.

23 Chapter 4.

24 Chapter 5.

25 253a 7 sqq.

26 sc. locomotion.

27 sc. locomotion.

28 Chapter 1.

29 sc. the planets.

30 e. g. any one of the heavenly bodies.

31 Chapter 3.

32 Cf. De An. ii. 4. 416a 21 sqq.

33 Chapter 8.

34 253a 29.

35 v. 4.

36 vi. 2. 233a 21 sqq., and vi. 9.

37 v. 2.

38 v. 6. 229b 28 sqq.

39 Because finite lines may be extended, whereas a circle is once for all complete.

40 Ch. 8. 261b 28.

41 And therefore the motion must have limits.

42 The motive forces in the system of Empedocles.

43 Leucippus and Democritus.

44 The early Ionian school: Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, the last two of whom are known
to have employed these terms.
45 Plato and the Platonists.

46 sc. a part of A.

47 Clearly D must be a larger fraction of A than E is of B.

48 The time occupied by D in moving E to the same extent as B is moved by A.

49 sc. a part of AB.

50 E being presumably the time occupied by AB in moving D.

51 He assumes that the force increases proportionately to the magnitude, so that the time
decreases proportionately. This simplifies the argument, though of course it is not essential to it.
52 Cf. Pl. Tim. 59 A, 79 B, C, E, 80 c.

53 iii. 5.
 De Caelo

Translated by J. L. Stocks

 CONTENTS

BOOK I. OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES

CHAPTER
1. The subject of inquiry
2. That in addition to the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, there is a fifth element,
the movement of which is circular
3. That this body is exempt from alteration and decay
4. That the circular movement has no contrary
5. That no body is infinite.—(i) Not the primary body, or fifth element
6. (ii) None of the other elements
7. (iii) In general, an infinite body is impossible
8. That there cannot be more than one Heaven.—(i) Proved from a consideration of the
natural movements and places of the elements
9. (ii) Proved by the principles of form and matter, the three different senses of the term
‘heaven’ being explained. Corollary.—There is no place or void or time outside the
Heaven
10. That the Heaven is ungenerated and indestructible.—(i) Review of previous theories
11. (ii) Definition of the terms ‘ungenerated’ and ‘indestructible’, and of their opposites
12. (iii) Proof of the thesis

BOOK II. OF THE HEAVENLY BODIES (Continued)

[Chapters 1–12 omitted.]

13. Of the Earth.—(i) Review of previous theories

14. (ii) That it is at rest at the centre, and spherical in shape

BOOK III. OF THE SUBLUNARY BODIES

1. Previous theories concerning generations stated; the analysis of bodies into planes
refuted
2. That every simple body possesses a natural movement; that this movement is either
upward or downward; how unnatural movement occurs. General results
concerning generation
3. Of bodies subject to generation.—(i) What the elements are
4. (ii) That trie elements are limited in number; the view of Leucippus and Democritus
 refuted
5. (iii) That the elements cannot be reduced to one
6. (iv) That the elements are not eternal, but are generated out of one another
7. (v) Of the manner of their generation: the view of Empedocles and the explanation by
planes refuted
8. (vi) Refutation of the attempt to differentiate the elements by their shapes

BOOK IV. OF THE SUBLUNARY BODIES (Continued)

1. Of the meaning of the terms ‘heavy’ and ‘light’

2. Review of previous theories concerning these
3. Explanation of the variety of motions exhibited by the elements
4. Of the distinctive constitution and properties of the four elements
5. In what sense the matter of which the elements are composed may be regarded as one
6. That the shape of a body cannot account for the direction, but only for the pace, of its
movement
 DE CAELO

(On the Heavens)

 BOOK I

1 [268a] The science which has to do with nature clearly concerns

itself for the most part with bodies and magnitudes and their properties
and movements, but also with the principles of this sort of substance, (5)
as many as they may be. For of things constituted by nature some are
bodies and magnitudes, some possess body and magnitude,1 and some
are principles of things which possess these.2 Now a continuum is that
which is divisible into parts always capable of subdivision, and a body is
that which is every way divisible. A magnitude if divisible one way is a
line, if two ways a surface, and if three a body. (10) Beyond these there is
no other magnitude, because the three dimensions are all that there are,
and that which is divisible in three directions is divisible in all. For, as
the Pythagoreans say, the world and all that is in it is determined by the
number three, since beginning and middle and end give the number of
an ‘all’, and the number they give is the triad. And so, having taken
these three3 from nature as (so to speak) laws of it, (15) we make further
use of the number three in the worship of the Gods. Further, we use the
terms in practice in this way. Of two things, or men, we say ‘both’, but
not ‘all’: three is the first number to which the term ‘all’ has been
appropriated. And in this, (20) as we have said, we do but follow the lead
which nature gives. Therefore, since ‘every’ and ‘all’ and ‘complete’ do
not differ from one another in respect of form, but only, if at all, in their
matter and in that to which they are applied, body alone among
magnitudes can be complete. For it alone is determined by the three
dimensions, that is, is an ‘all’. But if it is divisible in three dimensions it
is every way divisible, (25) while the other magnitudes are divisible in
one dimension or in two alone: for the divisibility and continuity of
magnitudes depend upon the number of the dimensions, one sort being
continuous in one direction, another in two, another in all. All
magnitudes, then, which are divisible are also continuous. Whether we
can also say that whatever is continuous is divisible does not yet, on our
present grounds, (30) appear. One thing, however, is clear. We cannot
pass beyond body to a further kind, as we passed from length to surface,
and from surface to body. [268b] For if we could, it would cease to be
true that body is complete magnitude. We could pass beyond it only in
virtue of a defect in it; and that which is complete cannot be defective,
since it has being in every respect. (5) Now bodies which are classed as
parts of the whole4 are each complete according to our formula, since
each possesses every dimension. But each is determined relatively to that
part which is next to it by contact, for which reason each of them is in a
sense many bodies. But the whole of which they are parts must
necessarily be complete, and thus, in accordance with the meaning of
the word, have being, not in some respects only, (10) but in every respect.

2 The question as to the nature of the whole, whether it is infinite in

size or limited in its total mass, is a matter for subsequent inquiry.5 We
will now speak of those parts of the whole which are specifically
distinct. Let us take this as our starting-point. (15) All natural bodies and
magnitudes we hold to be, as such, capable of locomotion; for nature, we
say, is their principle of movement. But all movement that is in place, all
locomotion, as we term it, is either straight or circular or a combination
of these two, which are the only simple movements. And the reason of
this is that these two, the straight and the circular line, are the only
simple magnitudes. (20) Now revolution about the centre is circular
motion, while the upward and downward movements are in a straight
line, ‘upward’ meaning motion away from the centre, and ‘downward’
motion towards it. All simple motion, then, must be motion either away
from or towards or about the centre. This seems to be in exact accord
with what we said above: as body found its completion in three
dimensions, (25) so its movement completes itself in three forms.
Bodies are either simple or compounded of such; and by simple bodies
I mean those which possess a principle of movement in their own nature,
such as fire and earth with their kinds, and whatever is akin to them.
Necessarily, then, movements also will be either simple or in some sort
compound—simple in the case of the simple bodies, (30) compound in
that of the composite—and in the latter case the motion will be that of
the simple body which prevails in the composition. [269a] Supposing,
then, that there is such a thing as simple movement, and that circular
movement is an instance of it, and that both movement of a simple body
is simple and simple movement is of a simple body (for if it is movement
of a compound it will be in virtue of a prevailing simple element), (5)
then there must necessarily be some simple body which revolves
naturally and in virtue of its own nature with a circular movement. By
constraint, of course, it may be brought to move with the motion of
something else different from itself, but it cannot so move naturally,
since there is one sort of movement natural to each of the simple bodies.
Again, if the unnatural movement is the contrary of the natural and a
thing can have no more than one contrary, (10) it will follow that circular
movement, being a simple motion, must be unnatural, if it is not natural,
to the body moved. If then (1) the body, whose movement is circular, is
fire or some other element, its natural motion must be the contrary of
the circular motion. But a single thing has a single contrary; and upward
and downward motion are the contraries of one another. (15) If, on the
other hand, (2) the body moving with this circular motion which is
unnatural to it is something different from the elements, there will be
some other motion which is natural to it. But this cannot be. For if the
natural motion is upward, it will be fire or air, and if downward, water
or earth. Further, this circular motion is necessarily primary. (20) For the
perfect is naturally prior to the imperfect, and the circle is a perfect
thing. This cannot be said of any straight line:—not of an infinite line;
for, if it were perfect, it would have a limit and an end: nor of any finite
line; for in every case there is something beyond it, since any finite line
can be extended. And so, since the prior movement belongs to the body
which is naturally prior, (25) and circular movement is prior to straight,
and movement in a straight line belongs to simple bodies—fire moving
straight upward and earthy bodies straight downward towards the centre
—since this is so, it follows that circular movement also must be the
movement of some simple body. For the movement of composite bodies
is, as we said, determined by that simple body which preponderates in
the composition. (30) These premises clearly give the conclusion that
there is in nature some bodily substance other than the formations we
know, prior to them all and more divine than they. But it may also be
proved as follows. We may take it that all movement is either natural or
unnatural, and that the movement which is unnatural to one body is
natural to another—as, for instance, (35) is the case with the upward and
downward movements, which are natural and unnatural to fire and
earth respectively. [269b] It necessarily follows that circular
movement, being unnatural to these bodies, is the natural movement of
some other. Further, if, on the one hand, circular movement is natural to
something, it must surely be some simple and primary body which is
ordained to move with a natural circular motion, (5) as fire is ordained to
fly up and earth down. If, on the other hand, the movement of the
rotating bodies about the centre is unnatural, it would be remarkable and
indeed quite inconceivable that this movement alone should be
continuous and eternal, being nevertheless contrary to nature. At any
rate the evidence of all other cases goes to show that it is the unnatural
which quickest passes away. And so, (10) if, as some say, the body so
moved is fire, this movement is just as unnatural to it as downward
movement; for any one can see that fire moves in a straight line away
from the centre. On all these grounds, therefore, we may infer with
confidence that there is something beyond the bodies that are about us
on this earth, (15) different and separate from them; and that the superior
glory of its nature is proportionate to its distance from this world of
ours.

3 In consequence of what has been said, in part by way of assumption

and in part by way of proof, it is clear that not every body either
possesses lightness or heaviness. As a preliminary we must explain in
what sense we are using the words ‘heavy’ and ‘light’, (20) sufficiently, at
least, for our present purpose: we can examine the terms more closely
later, when we come to consider their essential nature.6 Let us then
apply the term ‘heavy’ to that which naturally moves towards the centre,
and ‘light’ to that which moves naturally away from the centre. The
heaviest thing will be that which sinks to the bottom of all things that
move downward, (25) and the lightest that which rises to the surface of
everything that moves upward. Now, necessarily, everything which
moves either up or down possesses lightness or heaviness or both—but
not both relatively to the same thing: for things are heavy and light
relatively to one another; air, for instance, is light relatively to water,
and water light relatively to earth. The body, (30) then, which moves in a
circle cannot possibly possess either heaviness or lightness. For neither
naturally nor unnaturally can it move either towards or away from the
centre. Movement in a straight line certainly does not belong to it
naturally, since one sort of movement is, as we saw, appropriate to each
simple body, and so we should be compelled to identify it with one of
the bodies which move in this way. (35) Suppose, then, that the
movement is unnatural. In that case, if it is the downward movement
which is unnatural, the upward movement will be natural; and if it is the
upward which is unnatural, the downward will be natural. [270a] For
we decided that of contrary movements, if the one is unnatural to
anything, the other will be natural to it. But since the natural movement
of the whole and of its part—of earth, (5) for instance, as a whole and of
a small clod—have one and the same direction, it results, in the first
place, that this body can possess no lightness or heaviness at all (for that
would mean that it could move by its own nature either from or towards
the centre, which, as we know, is impossible); and, secondly, that it
cannot possibly move in the way of locomotion by being forced violently
aside in an upward or downward direction. (10) For neither naturally nor
unnaturally can it move with any other motion but its own, either itself
or any part of it, since the reasoning which applies to the whole applies
also to the part.
It is equally reasonable to assume that this body will be ungenerated
and indestructible and exempt from increase and alteration, (15) since
everything that comes to be comes into being from its contrary and in
some substrate, and passes away likewise in a substrate by the action of
the contrary into the contrary, as we explained in our opening
discussions.7 Now the motions of contraries are contrary. If then this
body can have no contrary, because there can be no contrary motion to
the circular, (20) nature seems justly to have exempted from contraries
the body which was to be ungenerated and indestructible. For it is in
contraries that generation and decay subsist. Again, that which is subject
to increase increases upon contact with a kindred body, (25) which is
resolved into its matter. But there is nothing out of which this body can
have been generated. And if it is exempt from increase and diminution,
the same reasoning leads us to suppose that it is also unalterable. For
alteration is movement in respect of quality; and qualitative states and
dispositions, such as health and disease, do not come into being without
changes of properties. (30) But all natural bodies which change their
properties we see to be subject without exception to increase and
diminution. This is the case, for instance, with the bodies of animals and
their parts and with vegetable bodies, and similarly also with those of
the elements. And so, if the body which moves with a circular motion
cannot admit of increase or diminution, (35) it is reasonable to suppose
that it is also unalterable. [270b]
The reasons why the primary body is eternal and not subject to
increase or diminution, but unaging and unalterable and unmodified,
will be clear from what has been said to any one who believes in our
assumptions. (5) Our theory seems to confirm experience and to be
confirmed by it. For all men have some conception of the nature of the
gods, and all who believe in the existence of gods at all, whether
barbarian or Greek, agree in allotting the highest place to the deity,
surely because they suppose that immortal is linked with immortal and
regard any other supposition as inconceivable. If then there is, as there
certainly is, anything divine, what we have just said about the primary
bodily substance was well said. (10) The mere evidence of the senses is
enough to convince us of this, at least with human certainty. For in the
whole range of time past, so far as our inherited records reach, no
change appears to have taken place either in the whole scheme of the
outermost heaven or in any of its proper parts. (15) The common name,
too, which has been handed down from our distant ancestors even to our
own day, seems to show that they conceived of it in the fashion which
we have been expressing. The same ideas, one must believe, recur in
men’s minds not once or twice but again and again. (20) And so, implying
that the primary body is something else beyond earth, fire, air, and
water, they gave the highest place a name of its own, aither, derived
from the fact that it ‘runs always’8 for an eternity of time. Anaxagoras,
however, scandalously misuses this name, (25) taking aither as equivalent
to fire.9
It is also clear from what has been said why the number of what we
call simple bodies cannot be greater than it is. The motion of a simple
body must itself be simple, and we assert that there are only these two
simple motions, the circular and the straight, (30) the latter being
subdivided into motion away from and motion towards the centre.

4 That there is no other form of motion opposed as contrary to the

circular may be proved in various ways. In the first place, there is an
obvious tendency to oppose the straight line to the circular. (35) For
concave and convex are not only regarded as opposed to one another,
but they are also coupled together and treated as a unity in opposition to
the straight. [271a] And so, if there is a contrary to circular motion,
motion in a straight line must be recognized as having the best claim to
that name. But the two forms of rectilinear motion are opposed to one
another by reason of their places; for up and down is a difference and a
contrary opposition in place. (5) Secondly, it may be thought that the
same reasoning which holds good of the rectilinear path applies also to
the circular, movement from A to B being opposed as contrary to
movement from B to A. But what is meant is still rectilinear motion. For
that is limited to a single path, (10) while the circular paths which pass
through the same two points are infinite in number. Even if we are
confined to the single semicircle and the opposition is between
movement from C to D and from D to C along that semicircle, the case is
no better. For the motion is the same as that along the diameter, since
we invariably regard the distance between two points as the length of
the straight line which joins them. It is no more satisfactory to construct
a circle and treat motion along one semicircle as contrary to motion
along the other. (15) For example, taking a complete circle, motion from E
to F on the semicircle G may be opposed to motion from F to E on the
semicircle H. But even supposing these are contraries, it in no way
follows that the reverse motions on the complete circumference are
contraries. (20) Nor again can motion along the circle from A to B be
regarded as the contrary of motion from A to C: for the motion goes
from the same point towards the same point, and contrary motion was
distinguished as motion from a contrary to its contrary.10 And even if
the motion round a circle is the contrary of the reverse motion, one of
the two would be ineffective: for both move to the same point, (25)
because that which moves in a circle, at whatever point it begins, must
necessarily pass through all the contrary places alike. (By contrarieties of
place I mean up and down, back and front, and right and left; and the
contrary oppositions of movements are determined by those of places.)
One of the motions, then, would be ineffective, for if the two motions
were of equal strength, (30) there would be no movement either way, and
if one of the two were preponderant, the other would be inoperative. So
that if both bodies were there, one of them, inasmuch as it would not be
moving with its own movement, would be useless, in the sense in which
a shoe is useless when it is not worn. But God and nature create nothing
that has not its use.

5 This being clear, we must go on to consider the questions which

remain. [271b] First, is there an infinite body, as the majority of the
ancient philosophers thought, or is this an impossibility? The decision of
this question, (5) either way, is not unimportant, but rather all-important,
to our search for the truth. It is this problem which has practically
always been the source of the differences of those who have written
about nature as a whole. So it has been and so it must be; since the least
initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. (10)
Admit, for instance, the existence of a minimum magnitude, and you will
find that the minimum which you have introduced, small as it is, causes
the greatest truths of mathematics to totter. The reason is that a
principle is great rather in power than in extent; hence that which was
small at the start turns out a giant at the end. Now the conception of the
infinite possesses this power of principles, (15) and indeed in the sphere of
quantity possesses it in a higher degree than any other conception; so
that it is in no way absurd or unreasonable that the assumption that an
infinite body exists should be of peculiar moment to our inquiry. The
infinite, then, we must now discuss, opening the whole matter from the
beginning.
Every body is necessarily to be classed either as simple or as
composite; the infinite body, therefore, will be either simple or
composite. But it is clear, further, that if the simple bodies are finite, (20)
the composite must also be finite, since that which is composed of bodies
finite both in number and in magnitude is itself finite in respect of
number and magnitude: its quantity is in fact the same as that of the
bodies which compose it. What remains for us to consider, then, is
whether any of the simple bodies can be infinite in magnitude, or
whether this is impossible. Let us try the primary body first, (25) and then
go on to consider the others.
The body which moves in a circle must necessarily be finite in every
respect, for the following reasons. (1) If the body so moving is infinite,
the radii drawn from the centre will be infinite. (30) But the space
between infinite radii is infinite: and by the space between the radii I
mean the area outside which no magnitude which is in contact with the
two lines can be conceived as falling. This, I say, will be infinite: first,
because in the case of finite radii it is always finite; and secondly,
because in it one can always go on to a width greater than any given
width; thus the reasoning which forces us to believe in infinite number,
because there is no maximum, applies also to the space between the
radii. [272a] Now the infinite cannot be traversed, and if the body is
infinite the interval between the radii is necessarily infinite: circular
motion therefore is an impossibility. (5) Yet our eyes tell us that the
heavens revolve in a circle, and by argument also we have determined
that there is something to which circular movement belongs.
(2) Again, if from a finite time a finite time be subtracted, what
remains must be finite and have a beginning. And if the time of a
journey has a beginning, there must be a beginning also of the
movement, (10) and consequently also of the distance traversed. This
applies universally. Take a line, ACE, infinite in one direction, E, and
another line, BB, infinite in both directions. Let ACE describe a circle,
revolving upon C as centre. In its movement it will cut BB continuously
for a certain time. (15) This will be a finite time, since the total time is
finite in which the heavens complete their circular orbit, and
consequently the time subtracted from it, during which the one line in
its motion cuts the other, is also finite. Therefore there will be a point at
which ACE began for the first time to cut BB. This, however, is
impossible. (20) The infinite, then, cannot revolve in a circle; nor could
the world, if it were infinite.
(3) That the infinite cannot move may also be shown as follows. Let A
be a finite line moving past the finite line, B. Of necessity A will pass
clear of B and B of A at the same moment; for each overlaps the other to
precisely the same extent. (25) Now if the two were both moving, and
moving in contrary directions, they would pass clear of one another
more rapidly; if one were still and the other moving past it, less rapidly;
provided that the speed of the latter were the same in both cases. This,
however, is clear: that it is impossible to traverse an infinite line in a
finite time. (30) Infinite time, then, would be required. (This we
demonstrated above in the discussion of movement.11) [272b] And it
makes no difference whether a finite is passing by an infinite or an
infinite by a finite. For when A is passing B, then B overlaps A, and it
makes no difference whether B is moved or unmoved, except that, if
both move, they pass clear of one another more quickly. It is, however,
quite possible that a moving line should in certain cases pass one which
is stationary quicker than it passes one moving in an opposite direction.
(5) One has only to imagine the movement to be slow where both move

and much faster where one is stationary. To suppose one line stationary,
then, makes no difficulty for our argument, since it is quite possible for
A to pass B at a slower rate when both are moving than when only one
is. (10) If, therefore, the time which the finite moving line takes to pass
the other is infinite, then necessarily the time occupied by the motion of
the infinite past the finite is also infinite. For the infinite to move at all is
thus absolutely impossible; since the very smallest movement
conceivable must take an infinity of time. Moreover the heavens
certainly revolve, (15) and they complete their circular orbit in a finite
time; so that they pass round the whole extent of any line within their
orbit, such as the finite line AB. The revolving body, therefore, cannot be
infinite.
(4) Again, as a line which has a limit cannot be infinite, or, if it is
infinite, is so only in length, so a surface cannot be infinite in that
respect in which it has a limit; or, indeed, if it is completely determinate,
(20) in any respect whatever. Whether it be a square or a circle or a

sphere, it cannot be infinite, any more than a foot-rule can. There is then
no such thing as an infinite sphere or square or circle, and where there is
no circle there can be no circular movement, and similarly where there
is no infinite at all there can be no infinite movement; and from this it
follows that, an infinite circle being itself an impossibility, there can be
no circular motion of an infinite body.
(5) Again, take a centre C, an infinite line, AB, (25) another infinite line
at right angles to it, E, and a moving radius, CD. CD will never cease
contact with E, but the position will always be something like CE, CD
cutting E at F. The infinite line, therefore. refuses to complete the circle.
(6) Again, if the heaven is infinite and moves in a circle, (30) we shall
have to admit that in a finite time it has traversed the infinite. For
suppose the fixed heaven infinite, and that which moves within it equal
to it. It results that when the infinite body has completed its revolution,
it has traversed an infinite equal to itself in a finite time. [273a] But
that we know to be impossible.
(7) It can also be shown, conversely, that if the time of revolution is
finite, the area traversed must also be finite; but the area traversed was
equal to itself; therefore, it is itself finite.
We have now shown that the body which moves in a circle is not
endless or infinite, (5) but has its limit.

6 Further, neither that which moves towards nor that which moves
away from the centre can be infinite. For the upward and downward
motions are contraries and are therefore motions towards contrary
places. But if one of a pair of contraries is determinate, the other must be
determinate also. (10) Now the centre is determined; for, from whatever
point the body which sinks to the bottom starts its downward motion, it
cannot go farther than the centre. The centre, therefore, being
determinate, the upper place must also be determinate. But if these two
places are determined and finite, (15) the corresponding bodies must also
be finite. Further, if up and down are determinate, the intermediate
place is also necessarily determinate. For, if it is indeterminate, the
movement within it will be infinite; and that we have already shown to
be an impossibility.12 The middle region then is determinate, and
consequently any body which either is in it, or might be in it, is
determinate. But the bodies which move up and down may be in it, (20)
since the one moves naturally away from the centre and the other
towards it.
From this alone it is clear that an infinite body is an impossibility; but
there is a further point. If there is no such thing as infinite weight, then
it follows that none of these bodies can be infinite. For the supposed
infinite body would have to be infinite in weight. (25) (The same
argument applies to lightness: for as the one supposition involves infinite
weight, so the infinity of the body which rises to the surface involves
infinite lightness.) This is proved as follows. Assume the weight to be
finite, and take an infinite body, AB, of the weight C. (30) Subtract from
the infinite body a finite mass, BD, the weight of which shall be E. E then
is less than C, since it is the weight of a lesser mass. Suppose then that
the smaller goes into the greater a certain number of times, and take BF
bearing the same proportion to BD which the greater weight bears to the
smaller. [273b] For you may subtract as much as you please from an
infinite. If now the masses are proportionate to the weights, and the
lesser weight is that of the lesser mass, (5) the greater must be that of the
greater. The weights, therefore, of the finite and of the infinite body are
equal. Again, if the weight of a greater body is greater than that of a
less, the weight of GB will be greater than that of FB; and thus the
weight of the finite body is greater than that of the infinite. And, further,
the weight of unequal masses will be the same, (10) since the infinite and
the finite cannot be equal. It does not matter whether the weights are
commensurable or not. If (a) they are incommensurable the same
reasoning holds. For instance, suppose E multiplied by three is rather
more than C: the weight of three masses of the full size of BD will be
greater than C. (15) We thus arrive at the same impossibility as before.
Again (b) we may assume weights which are commensurate; for it makes
no difference whether we begin with the weight or with the mass. For
example, assume the weight E to be commensurate with C, and take
from the infinite mass a part BD of weight E. (20) Then let a mass BF be
taken having the same proportion to BD which the two weights have to
one another. (For the mass being infinite you may subtract from it as
much as you please.) These assumed bodies will be commensurate in
mass and in weight alike. Nor again does it make any difference to our
demonstration whether the total mass has its weight equally or
unequally distributed. (25) For it must always be possible to take from the
infinite mass a body of equal weight to BD by diminishing or increasing
the size of the section to the necessary extent.
From what we have said, then, it is clear that the weight of the infinite
body cannot be finite. It must then be infinite. We have therefore only to
show this to be impossible in order to prove an infinite body impossible.
(30) But the impossibility of infinite weight can be shown in the following
way. A given weight moves a given distance in a given time; a weight
which is as great and more moves the same distance in a less time, the
times being in inverse proportion to the weights. [274a] For instance,
if one weight is twice another, it will take half as long over a given
movement. Further, a finite weight traverses any finite distance in a
finite time. It necessarily follows from this that infinite weight, if there is
such a thing, being, on the one hand, as great and more than as great as
the finite, will move accordingly, but being, (5) on the other hand,
compelled to move in a time inversely proportionate to its greatness,
cannot move at all. The time should be less in proportion as the weight
is greater. But there is no proportion between the infinite and the finite:
proportion can only hold between a less and a greater finite time. And
though you may say that the time of the movement can be continually
diminished, yet there is no minimum. Nor, if there were, would it help
us. (10) For some finite body could have been found greater than the
given finite in the same proportion which is supposed to hold between
the infinite and the given finite; so that an infinite and a finite weight
must have traversed an equal distance in equal time. But that is
impossible. Again, whatever the time, so long as it is finite, in which the
infinite performs the motion, (15) a finite weight must necessarily move a
certain finite distance in that same time. Infinite weight is therefore
impossible, and the same reasoning applies also to infinite lightness.
Bodies then of infinite weight and of infinite lightness are equally
impossible.
That there is no infinite body may be shown, as we have shown it, by
a detailed consideration of the various cases. But it may also be shown
universally, (20) not only by such reasoning as we advanced in our
discussion of principles13 (though in that passage we have already
determined universally the sense in which the existence of an infinite is
to be asserted or denied), but also suitably to our present purpose in the
following way. That will lead us to a further question. Even if the total
mass is not infinite, it may yet be great enough to admit a plurality of
universes. (25) The question might possibly be raised whether there is any
obstacle to our believing that there are other universes composed on the
pattern of our own, more than one, though stopping short of infinity.
First, however, let us treat of the infinite universally.
7 Every body must necessarily be either finite or infinite, (30) and if
infinite, either of similar or of dissimilar parts. If its parts are dissimilar,
they must represent either a finite or an infinite number of kinds. That
the kinds cannot be infinite is evident, if our original presuppositions
remain unchallenged. [274b] For the primary movements being finite
in number, the kinds of simple body are necessarily also finite, since the
movement of a simple body is simple, and the simple movements are
finite, and every natural body must always have its proper motion. Now
if the infinite body is to be composed of a finite number of kinds, (5) then
each of its parts must necessarily be infinite in quantity, that is to say,
the water, fire, &c., which compose it. But this is impossible, because, as
we have already shown, infinite weight and lightness do not exist.
Moreover it would be necessary also that their places should be infinite
in extent, (10) so that the movements too of all these bodies would be
infinite. But this is not possible, if we are to hold to the truth of our
original presuppositions and to the view that neither that which moves
downward, nor, by the same reasoning, that which moves upward, can
prolong its movement to infinity. For it is true in regard to quality,
quantity, and place alike that any process of change is impossible which
can have no end. (15) I mean that if it is impossible for a thing to have
come to be white, or a cubit long, or in Egypt, it is also impossible for it
to be in process of coming to be any of these. It is thus impossible for a
thing to be moving to a place at which in its motion it can never by any
possibility arrive. Again, suppose the body to exist in dispersion, it may
be maintained none the less that the total of all these scattered particles,
say, of fire, (20) is infinite. But body we saw to be that which has
extension every way. How can there be several dissimilar elements, each
infinite? Each would have to be infinitely extended every way.
It is no more conceivable, again, that the infinite should exist as a
whole of similar parts. For, in the first place, there is no other [straight]
movement beyond those mentioned: we must therefore give it one of
them. (25) And if so, we shall have to admit either infinite weight or
infinite lightness. Nor, secondly, could the body whose movement is
circular be infinite, since it is impossible for the infinite to move in a
circle. This, indeed, would be as good as saying that the heavens are
infinite, which we have shown to be impossible.
 Moreover, (30) in general, it is impossible that the infinite should move
at all. If it did, it would move either naturally or by constraint: and if by
constraint, it possesses also a natural motion, that is to say, there is
another place, infinite like itself, to which it will move. But that is
impossible.
That in general it is impossible for the infinite to be acted upon by the
finite or to act upon it may be shown as follows.
[275a] <1. The infinite cannot be acted upon by the finite.> Let A be
an infinite, B a finite, C the time of a given movement produced by one
in the other. Suppose, then, that A was heated, or impelled, or modified
in any way, or caused to undergo any sort of movement whatever, by B
in the time C. Let D be less than B; and, (5) assuming that a lesser agent
moves a lesser patient in an equal time, call the quantity thus modified
by D, E. Then, as D is to B, so is E to some finite quantum. We assume
that the alteration of equal by equal takes equal time, and the alteration
of less by less or of greater by greater takes the same time, if the
quantity of the patient is such as to keep the proportion which obtains
between the agents, greater and less. If so, (10) no movement can be
caused in the infinite by any finite agent in any time whatever. For a less
agent will produce that movement in a less patient in an equal time, and
the proportionate equivalent of that patient will be a finite quantity,
since no proportion holds between finite and infinite.
<2. The infinite cannot act upon the finite.> Nor, again, can the infinite
produce a movement in the finite in any time whatever. (15) Let A be an
infinite, B14 a finite, C the time of action. In the time C, D will produce
that motion in a patient less than B, say F. Then take E, bearing the same
proportion to D as the whole BF bears to F. E will produce the motion in
BF in the time C. Thus the finite and the infinite effect the same
alteration in equal times. (20) But this is impossible; for the assumption is
that the greater effects it in a shorter time. It will be the same with any
time that can be taken, so that there will be no time in which the infinite
can effect this movement. And, as to infinite time, in that nothing can
move another or be moved by it. For such time has no limit, while the
action and reaction have.
<3. There is no interaction between infinites.> Nor can infinite be acted
upon in any way by infinite. Let A and B be infinites, CD being the time
of the action of A upon B. (25) Now the whole B was modified in a certain
time, and the part of this infinite, E, cannot be so modified in the same
time, since we assume that a less quantity makes the movemnet in a less
time. Let E then, when acted upon by A, complete the movement in the
time D. Then, as D is to CD, so is E to some finite part of B. (30) This part
dill necessarily be moved by A in the time CD. For we suppose that the
same agent produces a given effect on a greater and a smaller mass in
longer and shorter times, the times and masses varying proportionately.
[275b] There is thus no finite time in which infinites can move one
another. Is their time then infinite? No, for infinite time has no end, but
the movement communicated has.
If therefore every perceptible body possesses the power of acting or of
being acted upon, (5) or both of these, it is impossible that an infinite
body should be perceptible. All bodies, however, that occupy place are
perceptible. There is therefore no infinite body beyond the heaven. Nor
again is there anything of limited extent beyond it. And so beyond the
heaven there is no body at all. (10) For if you suppose it an object of
intelligence, it will be in a place—since place is what ‘within’ and
‘beyond’ denote—and therefore an object of perception. But nothing that
is not in a place is perceptible.
The question may also be examined in the light of more general
considerations as follows. The infinite, considered as a whole of similar
parts, cannot, on the one hand, move in a circle. (15) For there is no
centre of the infinite, and that which moves in a circle moves about the
centre. Nor again can the infinite move in a straight line. For there
would have to be another place infinite like itself to be the goal of its
natural movement and another, equally great, for the goal of its
unnatural movement. Moreover, whether its rectilinear movement is
natural or constrained, in either case the force which causes its motion
will have to be infinite. (20) For infinite force is force of an infinite body,
and of an infinite body the force is infinite. So the motive body also will
be infinite. (The proof of this is given in our discussion of movement,15
where it is shown that no finite thing possesses infinite power, and no
infinite thing finite power.) If then that which moves naturally can also
move unnaturally, there will be two infinites, (25) one which causes, and
another which exhibits the latter motion. Again, what is it that moves
the infinite? If it moves itself, it must be animate. But how can it
possibly be conceived as an infinite animal? And if there is something
else that moves it, there will be two infinites, that which moves and that
which is moved, differing in their form and power.
If the whole is not continuous, (30) but exists, as Democritus and
Leucippus think, in the form of parts separated by void, there must
necessarily be one movement of all the multitude. [276a] They are
distinguished, we are told, from one another by their figures; but their
nature is one, like many pieces of gold separated from one another. But
each piece must, as we assert, have the same motion. For a single clod
moves to the same place as the whole mass of earth, and a spark to the
same place as the whole mass of fire. So that if it be weight that all
possess, (5) no body is, strictly speaking, light; and if lightness be
universal, none is heavy. Moreover, whatever possesses weight or
lightness will have its place either at one of the extremes or in the
middle region. But this is impossible while the world is conceived as
infinite. And, generally, that which has no centre or extreme limit, (10) no
up or down, gives the bodies no place for their motion; and without that
movement is impossible. A thing must move either naturally or
unnaturally, and the two movements are determined by the proper and
alien places. Again, a place in which a thing rests or to which it moves
unnaturally, must be the natural place for some other body, (15) as
experience shows. Necessarily, therefore, not everything possesses
weight or lightness, but some things do and some do not. From these
arguments then it is clear that the body of the universe is not infinite.

8 We must now proceed to explain why there cannot be more than

one heaven—the further question mentioned above. For it may be
thought that we have not proved universally of bodies that none
whatever can exist outside our universe, (20) and that our argument
applied only to those of indeterminate extent.
Now all things rest and move naturally and by constraint. A thing
moves naturally to a place in which it rests without constraint, and rests
naturally in a place to which it moves without constraint. On the other
hand, a thing moves by constraint to a place in which it rests by
constraint, (25) and rests by constraint in a place to which it moves by
constraint. Further, if a given movement is due to constraint, its contrary
is natural. If, then, it is by constraint that earth moves from a certain
place to the centre here, its movement from here to there will be natural,
and if earth from there rests here without constraint, its movement
hither will be natural. And the natural movement in each case is one.
Further, (30) these worlds, being similar in nature to ours, must all be
composed of the same bodies as it. Moreover each of the bodies, fire, I
mean, and earth and their intermediates, must have the same power as
in our world. [276b] For if these names are used equivocally, if the
identity of name does not rest upon an identity of form in those elements
and ours, then the whole to which they belong can only be called a
world by equivocation. Clearly, then, one of the bodies will move
naturally away from the centre and another towards the centre, (5) since
fire must be identical with fire, earth with earth, and so on, as the
fragments of each are identical in this world. That this must be the case
is evident from the principles laid down in our discussion of the
movements;16 for these are limited in number, and the distinction of the
elements depends upon the distinction of the movements. Therefore,
since the movements are the same, (10) the elements must also be the
same everywhere. The particles of earth, then, in another world move
naturally also to our centre and its fire to our circumference. This,
however, is impossible, since, if it were true, earth must, in its own
world, move upwards, and fire to the centre; in the same way the earth
of our world must move naturally away from the centre when it moves
towards the centre of another universe. (15) This follows from the
supposed juxtaposition of the worlds. For either we must refuse to admit
the identical nature of the simple bodies in the various universes, (20) or,
admitting this, we must make the centre and the extremity one as
suggested. This being so, it follows that there cannot be more worlds
than one.
To postulate a difference of nature in the simple bodies according as
they are more or less distant from their proper places is unreasonable.
For what difference can it make whether we say that a thing is this
distance away or that? One would have to suppose a difference
proportionate to the distance and increasing with it, (25) but the form is
in fact the same. Moreover, the bodies must have some movement, since
the fact that they move is quite evident. Are we to say then that all their
movements, even those which are mutually contrary, are due to
constraint? No, for a body which has no natural movement at all cannot
be moved by constraint. (30) If then the bodies have a natural movement,
the movement of the particular instances of each form must necessarily
have for goal a place numerically one, i. e. a particular centre or a
particular extremity. If it be suggested that the goal in each case is one
in form but numerically more than one, on the analogy of particulars
which are many though each undifferentiated in form, we reply that the
variety of goal cannot be limited to this portion or that but must extend
to all alike. [277a] For all are equally undifferentiated in form, (5) but
any one is different numerically from any other. What I mean is this: if
the portions in this world behave similarly both to one another and to
those in another world, then the portion which is taken hence will not
behave differently either from the portions in another world or from
those in the same world, but similarly to them, since in form no portion
differs from another. The result is that we must either abandon our
present assumptions or assert that the centre and the extremity are each
numerically one. (10) But this being so, the heaven, by the same evidence
and the same necessary inferences, must be one only and no more.
A consideration of the other kinds of movement also makes it plain
that there is some point to which earth and fire move naturally. (15) For
in general that which is moved changes from something into something,
the starting-point and the goal being different in form, and always it is a
finite change. For instance, to recover health is to change from disease to
health, to increase is to change from smallness to greatness. Locomotion
must be similar: for it also has its goal and starting-point—and therefore
the starting-point and the goal of the natural movement must differ in
form—just as the movement of coming to health does not take any
direction which chance or the wishes of the mover may select. (20) Thus,
too, fire and earth move not to infinity but to opposite points; and since
the opposition in place is between above and below, these will be the
limits of their movement. (Even in circular movement there is a sort of
opposition between the ends of the diameter, though the movement as a
whole has no contrary: so that here too the movement has in a sense an
opposed and finite goal.) (25) There must therefore be same end to
locomotion: it cannot continue to infinity.
This conclusion that local movement is not continued to infinity is
corroborated by the fact that earth moves more quickly the nearer it is
to the centre, and fire the nearer it is to the upper place. (30) But if
movement were infinite speed would be infinite also; and if speed then
weight and lightness. For as superior speed in downward movement
implies superior weight, so infinite increase of weight necessitates
infinite increase of speed.
Further, it is not the action of another body that makes one of these
bodies move up and the other down; nor is it constraint, like the
‘extrusion’ of some writers.17 [277b] For in that case the larger the
mass of fire or earth the slower would be the upward or downward
movement; but the fact is the reverse: the greater the mass of fire or
earth the quicker always is its movement towards its own place. Again,
(5) the speed of the movement would not increase towards the end if it

were due to constraint or extrusion; for a constrained movement always

diminishes in speed as the source of constraint becomes more distant,
and a body moves without constraint to the place whence it was moved
by constraint.
A consideration of these points, then, gives adequate assurance of the
truth of our contentions. The same could also be shown with the aid of
the discussions which fall under First Philosophy,18 as well as from the
nature of the circular movement, (10) which must be eternal both here
and in the other worlds. It is plain, too, from the following
considerations that the universe must be one.
The bodily elements are three, and therefore the places of the
elements will be three also; the place, first, of the body which sinks to
the bottom, (15) namely the region about the centre; the place, secondly,
of the revolving body, namely the outermost place, and thirdly, the
intermediate place, belonging to the intermediate body. Here in this
third place will be the body which rises to the surface; since, if not here,
it will be elsewhere, and it cannot be elsewhere: for we have two bodies,
one weightless, one endowed with weight, (20) and below is the place of
the body endowed with weight, since the region about the centre has
been given to the heavy body. And its position cannot be unnatural to it,
for it would have to be natural to something else, and there is nothing
else. It must then occupy the intermediate place. What distinctions there
are within the intermediate itself we will explain later on.
We have now said enough to make plain the character and number of
the bodily elements, the place of each, and further, in general, (25) how
many in number the various places are.

9 We must show not only that the heaven is one, but also that more
than one heaven is impossible, and, further, that, as exempt from decay
and generation, the heaven is eternal. We may begin by raising a
difficulty. (30) From one point of view it might seem impossible that the
heaven should be one and unique, since in all formations and products
whether of nature or of art we can distinguish the shape in itself and the
shape in combination with matter. [278a] For instance the form of the
sphere is one thing and the gold or bronze sphere another; the shape of
the circle again is one thing, the bronze or wooden circle another. For
when we state the essential nature of the sphere or circle we do not
include in the formula gold or bronze, (5) because they do not belong to
the essence, but if we are speaking of the copper or gold sphere we do
include them. We still make the distinction even if we cannot conceive
or apprehend any other example beside the particular thing. This may,
of course, sometimes be the case: it might be, for instance, that only one
circle could be found; yet none the less the difference will remain
between the being of circle and of this particular circle, (10) the one being
form, the other form in matter, i. e. a particular thing. Now since the
universe is perceptible it must be regarded as a particular; for everything
that is perceptible subsists, as we know, in matter. But if it is a
particular, there will be a distinction between the being of ‘this universe’
and of ‘universe’ unqualified. There is a difference, then, between ‘this
universe’ and simple ‘universe’; the second is form and shape, (15) the
first form in combination with matter; and any shape or form has, or
may have, more than one particular instance.
On the supposition of Forms such as some assert, this must be the
case, and equally on the view that no such entity has a separate
existence. For in every case in which the essence is in matter it is a fact
of observation that the particulars of like form are several or infinite in
number. Hence there either are, or may be, (20) more heavens than one.
On these grounds, then, it might be inferred either that there are or that
there might be several heavens. We must, however, return and ask how
much of this argument is correct and how much not.
Now it is quite right to say that the formula of the shape apart from
the matter must be different from that of the shape in the matter, and we
may allow this to be true. We are not, however, (25) therefore compelled
to assert a plurality of worlds. Such a plurality is in fact impossible if
this world contains the entirety of matter, as in fact it does. But perhaps
our contention can be made clearer in this way. Suppose ‘aquilinity’ to
be curvature in the nose or flesh, and flesh to be the matter of aquilinity.
Suppose, (30) further, that all flesh came together into a single whole of
flesh endowed with this aquiline quality. Then neither would there be,
nor could there arise, any other thing that was aquiline. Similarly,
suppose flesh and bones to be the matter of man, and suppose a man to
be created of all flesh and all bones in indissoluble union. (35) The
possibility of another man would be removed. Whatever case you took it
would be the same. The general rule is this: a thing whose essence
resides in a substratum of matter can never come into being in the
absence of all matter. [278b] Now the universe is certainly a particular
and a material thing: if however it is composed not of a part but of the
whole of matter, then though the being of ‘universe’ and of ‘this
universe’ are still distinct, (5) yet there is no other universe, and no
possibility of others being made, because all the matter is already
included in this. It remains, then, only to prove that it is composed of all
natural perceptible body.
First, however, we must explain what we mean by ‘heaven’ and in
how many senses we use the word, (10) in order to make clearer the
object of our inquiry. (a) In one sense, then, we call ‘heaven’ the
substance of the extreme circumference of the whole, or that natural
body whose place is at the extreme circumference. We recognize
habitually a special right to the name ‘heaven’ in the extremity or upper
region, (15) which we take to be the seat of all that is divine. (b) In
another sense, we use this name for the body continuous with the
extreme circumference, which contains the moon, the sun, and some of
the stars; these we say are ‘in the heaven’. (c) In yet another sense we
give the name to all body included within the extreme circumference, (20)
since we habitually call the whole or totality ‘the heaven’. The word,
then, is used in three senses.
Now the whole included within the extreme circumference must be
composed of all physical and sensible body, because there neither is, nor
can come into being, any body outside the heaven. (25) For if there is a
natural body outside the extreme circumference it must be either a
simple or a composite body, and its position must be either natural or
unnatural. But it cannot be any of the simple bodies. For, first, it has
been shown19 that that which moves in a circle cannot change its place.
(30) And, secondly, it cannot be that which moves from the centre or that

which lies lowest. Naturally they could not be there, since their proper
places are elsewhere; and if these are there unnaturally, the exterior
place will be natural to some other body, since a place which is
unnatural to one body must be natural to another: but we saw that there
is no other body besides these. (35) Then it is not possible that any simple
body should be outside the heaven. [279a] But, if no simple body,
neither can any mixed body be there: for the presence of the simple body
is involved in the presence of the mixture. Further neither can any body
come into that place: for it will do so either naturally or unnaturally, (5)
and will be either simple or composite; so that the same argument will
apply, since it makes no difference whether the question is ‘does A
exist?’ or ‘could A come to exist?’ From our arguments then it is evident
not only that there is not, but also that there could never come to be,
any bodily mass whatever outside the circumference. The world as a
whole, therefore, includes all its appropriate matter, which is, as we saw,
natural perceptible body. So that neither are there now, nor have there
ever been, (10) nor can there ever be formed more heavens than one, but
this heaven of ours is one and unique and complete.
It is therefore evident that there is also no place or void or time
outside the heaven. For in every place body can be present; and void is
said to be that in which the presence of body, though not actual, (15) is
possible; and time is the number of movement. But in the absence of
natural body there is no movement, and outside the heaven, as we have
shown, body neither exists nor can come to exist. It is clear then that
there is neither place, nor void, nor time, outside the heaven. Hence
whatever is there, is of such a nature as not to occupy any place, (20) nor
does time age it; nor is there any change in any of the things which lie
beyond the outermost motion; they continue through their entire
duration unalterable and unmodified, living the best and most self-
sufficient of lives. As a matter of fact, this word ‘duration’ possessed a
divine significance for the ancients, for the fulfilment which includes the
period of life of any creature, outside of which no natural development
can fall, (25) has been called its duration. On the same principle the
fulfilment of the whole heaven, the fulfilment which includes all time
and infinity, is ‘duration’—a name based upon the fact that it is always20
—duration immortal and divine. From it derive the being and life which
other things, some more or less articulately but others feebly, (30) enjoy.
So, too, in its discussions concerning the divine, popular philosophy
often propounds the view that whatever is divine, whatever is primary
and supreme, is necessarily unchangeable. This fact confirms what we
have said. For there is nothing else stronger than it to move it—since
that would mean more divine—and it has no defect and lacks none of its
proper excellences. [279b] (35) Its unceasing movement, then, is also
reasonable, since everything ceases to move when it comes to its proper
place, but the body whose path is the circle has one and the same place
for starting-point and goal.

10 Having established these distinctions, we may now proceed to the

question whether the heaven is ungenerated or generated, (5)
indestructible or destructible. Let us start with a review of the theories of
other thinkers; for the proofs of a theory are difficulties for the contrary
theory. Besides, those who have first heard the pleas of our adversaries
will be more likely to credit the assertions which we are going to make.
We shall be less open to the charge of procuring judgement by default.
(10) To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be

rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.

That the world was generated all are agreed, but, generation over,
some say that it is eternal, others say that it is destructible like any other
natural formation.21 Others again, (15) with Empedocles of Acragas and
Heraclitus of Ephesus, believe that there is alteration in the destructive
process, which takes now this direction, now that, and continues without
end.
 Now to assert that it was generated and yet is eternal is to assert the
impossible; for we cannot reasonably attribute to anything any
characteristics but those which observation detects in many or all
instances. But in this case the facts point the other way: generated things
are seen always to be destroyed. (20) Further, a thing whose present state
had no beginning and which could not have been other than it was at
any previous moment throughout its entire duration, cannot possibly be
changed. For there will have to be some cause of change, and if this had
been present earlier it would have made possible another condition of
that to which any other condition was impossible. Suppose that the
world was formed out of elements which were formerly otherwise
conditioned than as they are now. (25) Then (1) if their condition was
always so and could not have been otherwise, the world could never
have come into being. And (2) if the world did come into being, then,
clearly, their condition must have been capable of change and not
eternal: after combination therefore they will be dispersed, just as in the
past after dispersion they came into combination, and this process either
has been, or could have been, (30) indefinitely repeated. But if this is so,
the world cannot be indestructible, and it does not matter whether the
change of condition has actually occurred or remains a possibility.
Some of those who hold that the world, though indestructible, was yet
generated, try to support their case by a parallel which is illusory.22
They say that in their statements about its generation they are doing
what geometricians do when they construct their figures, (35) not
implying that the universe really had a beginning, but for didactic
reasons facilitating understanding by exhibiting the object, like the
figure, as in course of formation. [280a] The two cases, as we said, are
not parallel; for, in the construction of the figure, when the various steps
are completed the required figure forthwith results; but in these other
demonstrations what results is not that which was required. (5) Indeed it
cannot be so; for antecedent and consequent, as assumed, are in
contradiction. The ordered, it is said,23 arose out of the unordered; and
the same thing cannot be at the same time both ordered and unordered;
there must be a process and a lapse of time separating the two states. (10)
In the figure, on the other hand, there is no temporal separation. It is
clear then that the universe cannot be at once eternal and generated.
 To say that the universe alternately combines and dissolves is no more
paradoxical than to make it eternal but varying in shape. (15) It is as if
one were to think that there was now destruction and now existence
when from a child a man is generated, and from a man a child. For it is
clear that when the elements come together the result is not a chance
system and combination, but the very same as before—especially on the
view of those who hold this theory, since they say that the contrary is
the cause of each state.24 So that if the totality of body, (20) which is a
continuum, is now in this order or disposition and now in that, and if the
combination of the whole is a world or heaven, then it will not be the
world that comes into being and is destroyed, but only its dispositions.
If the world is believed to be one, it is impossible to suppose that it
should be, as a whole, first generated and then destroyed, never to
reappear; since before it came into being there was always present the
combination prior to it, (25) and that, we hold, could never change if it
was never generated. If, on the other hand, the worlds are infinite in
number the view is more plausible. But whether this is, or is not,
impossible will be clear from what follows. For there are some who
think it possible both for the ungenerated to be destroyed and for the
generated to persist undestroyed. (This is held in the Timaeus,25 where
Plato says that the heaven, (30) though it was generated, will none the
less exist to eternity.) So far as the heaven is concerned we have
answered this view with arguments appropriate to the nature of the
heaven: on the general question we shall attain clearness when we
examine the matter universally.

11 [280b] We must first distinguish the senses in which we use the

words ‘ungenerated’ and ‘generated’, ‘destructible’ and ‘indestructible’.
These have many meanings, and though it may make no difference to
the argument, yet some confusion of mind must result from treating as
uniform in its use a word which has several distinct applications. (5) The
character which is the ground of the predication will always remain
obscure.
The word ‘ungenerated’ then is used (a) in one sense whenever
something now is which formerly was not, no process of becoming or
change being involved. Such is the case, according to some, with contact
and motion, since there is no process of coming to be in contact or in
motion. (b) It is used in another sense, when something which is capable
of coming to be, with or without process, (10) does not exist; such a thing
is ungenerated in the sense that its generation is not a fact but a
possibility. (c) It is also applied where there is general impossibility of
any generation such that the thing now is which then was not. And
‘impossibility’ has two uses: first, where it is untrue to say that the thing
can ever come into being, and secondly, where it cannot do so easily,
quickly, or well. In the same way the word ‘generated’ is used, (15) (a)
first, where what formerly was not afterwards is, whether a process of
becoming was or was not involved, so long as that which then was not,
now is; (b) secondly, of anything capable of existing, ‘capable’ being
defined with reference either to truth or to facility; (c) thirdly, of
anything to which the passage from not being to being belongs, whether
already actual, (20) if its existence is due to a past process of becoming, or
not yet actual but only possible. The uses of the words ‘destructible’ and
‘indestructible’ are similar. ‘Destructible’ is applied (a) to that which
formerly was and afterwards either is not or might not be, whether a
period of being destroyed and changed intervenes or not; and (b)
sometimes we apply the word to that which a process of destruction may
cause not to be; and also (c) in a third sense, to that which is easily
destructible, (25) to the ‘easily-destroyed’, so to speak. Of the
indestructible the same account holds good. It is either (a) that which
now is and now is not, without any process of destruction, like contact,
which without being destroyed afterwards is not, though formerly it
was; or (b) that which is but might not be, or which will at some time
not be, (30) though it now is. For you exist now and so does the contact;
yet both are destructible, because a time will come when it will not be
true of you that you exist, nor of these things that they are in contact.
Thirdly (c) in its most proper use, it is that which is, but is incapable of
any destruction such that the thing which now is later ceases to be or
might cease to be; or again, that which has not yet been destroyed, but
in the future may cease to be. [281a] For indestructible is also used of
that which is destroyed with difficulty.
This being so, we must ask what we mean by ‘possible’ and
‘impossible’. For in its most proper use the predicate ‘indestructible’ is
given because it is impossible that the thing should be destroyed, (5) i. e.
exist at one time and not at another. And ‘ungenerated’ also involves
impossibility when used for that which cannot be generated, in such
fashion that, while formerly it was not, later it is. An instance is a
commensurable diagonal. Now when we speak of a power to move or to
lift weights, we refer always to the maximum. We speak, for instance, of
a power to lift a hundred talents or walk a hundred stades—though a
power to effect the maximum is also a power to effect any part of the
maximum—since we feel obliged in defining the power to give the limit
or maximum. (10) A thing, then, which is capable of a certain amount as
maximum must also be capable of that which lies within it. If, for
example, a man can lift a hundred talents, he can also lift two, and if he
can walk a hundred stades, he can also walk two. (15) But the power is of
the maximum, and a thing said, with reference to its maximum, to be
incapable of so much is also incapable of any greater amount. It is, for
instance, clear that a person who cannot walk a thousand stades will
also be unable to walk a thousand and one. This point need not trouble
us, for we may take it as settled that what is, in the strict sense, possible
is determined by a limiting maximum. Now perhaps the objection might
be raised that there is no necessity in this, (20) since he who sees a stade
need not see the smaller measures contained in it, while, on the
contrary, he who can see a dot or hear a small sound will perceive what
is greater. This, however, does not touch our argument. The maximum
may be determined either in the power or in its object. The application
of this is plain. (25) Superior sight is sight of the smaller body, but
superior speed is that of the greater body.

12 Having established these distinctions we can now proceed to the

sequel. If there are things capable both of being and of not being, there
must be some definite maximum time of their being and not being; a
time, I mean, during which continued existence is possible to them and a
time during which continued non-existence is possible. (30) And this is
true in every category, whether the thing is, for example, ‘man’, or
‘white’, or ‘three cubits long’, or whatever it may be. For if the time is
not definite in quantity, but longer than any that can be suggested and
shorter than none, then it will be possible for one and the same thing to
exist for infinite time and not to exist for another infinity. [281b] This,
however, is impossible.
Let us take our start from this point. The impossible and the false have
not the same significance. One use of ‘impossible’ and ‘possible’, and
‘false’ and ‘true’, is hypothetical. It is impossible, for instance, (5) on a
certain hypothesis that the triangle should have its angles equal to two
right angles, and on another the diagonal is commensurable. But there
are also things possible and impossible, false and true, absolutely. Now it
is one thing to be absolutely false, and another thing to be absolutely
impossible. To say that you are standing when you are not standing is to
assert a falsehood, but not an impossibility. (10) Similarly to say that a
man who is playing the harp, but not singing, is singing, is to say what is
false but not impossible. To say, however, that you are at once standing
and sitting, or that the diagonal is commensurable, is to say what is not
only false but also impossible. Thus it is not the same thing to make a
false and to make an impossible hypothesis; and from the impossible
hypothesis impossible results follow. (15) A man has, it is true, the
capacity at once of sitting and of standing, because when he possesses
the one he also possesses the other; but it does not follow that he can at
once sit and stand, only that at another time he can do the other also.
But if a thing has for infinite time more than one capacity, another time
is impossible and the times must coincide. (20) Thus if anything which
exists for infinite time is destructible, it will have the capacity of not
being. Now if it exists for infinite time let this capacity be actualized;
and it will be in actuality at once existent and non-existent. Thus a false
conclusion would follow because a false assumption was made, (25) but if
what was assumed had not been impossible its consequence would not
have been impossible.
Anything then which always exists is absolutely imperishable. It is also
ungenerated, since if it was generated it will have the power for some
time of not being. For as that which formerly was, but now is not, or is
capable at some future time of not being, is destructible, so that which is
capable of formerly not having been is generated. But in the case of that
which always is, there is no time for such a capacity of not being, (30)
whether the supposed time is finite or infinite; for its capacity of being
must include the finite time since it covers infinite time.
 It is therefore impossible that one and the same thing should be
capable of always existing and of always not-existing. And ‘not always
existing’, the contradictory, is also excluded. [282a] Thus it is
impossible for a thing always to exist and yet to be destructible. Nor,
similarly, can it be generated. For of two attributes if B cannot be
present without A, the impossibility of A proves the impossibility of B.
What always is, then, since it is incapable of ever not being, cannot
possibly be generated. But since the contradictory of ‘that which is
always capable of being’ is ‘that which is not always capable of being’;
while ‘that which is always capable of not being’ is the contrary, (5)
whose contradictory in turn is ‘that which is not always capable of not
being’, it is necessary that the contradictories of both terms should be
predicable of one and the same thing, and thus that, intermediate
between what always is and what always is not, (10) there should be that
to which being and not-being are both possible; for the contradictory of
each will at times be true of it unless it always exists. Hence that which
not always is not will sometimes be and sometimes not be; and it is clear
that this is true also of that which cannot always be but sometimes is
and therefore sometimes is not. One thing, then, will have the power of
being and of not being, and will thus be intermediate between the other
two.
Expressed universally our argument is as follows. Let there be two
attributes, (15) A and B, not capable of being present in any one thing
together, while either A or C and either B or D are capable of being
present in everything. Then C and D must be predicated of everything of
which neither A nor B is predicated. Let E lie between A and B; for that
which is neither of two contraries is a mean between them. In E both C
and D must be present, for either A or C is present everywhere and
therefore in E. Since then A is impossible, (20) C must be present, and the
same argument holds of D.26
Neither that which always is, therefore, nor that which always is not is
either generated or destructible. And clearly whatever is generated or
destructible is not eternal. If it were, it would be at once capable of
always being and capable of not always being, (25) but it has already been
shown27 that this is impossible. Surely then whatever is ungenerated and
in being must be eternal, and whatever is indestructible and in being
must equally be so. (I use the words ‘ungenerated’ and ‘indestructible’ in
their proper sense, ‘ungenerated’ for that which now is and could not at
any previous time have been truly said not to be; ‘indestructible’ for that
which now is and cannot at any future time be truly said not to be.) If,
again, the two terms are coincident, (30) if the ungenerated is
indestructible, and the indestructible ungenerated, then each of them is
coincident with ‘eternal’; anything ungenerated is eternal and anything
indestructible is eternal. [282b] This is clear too from the definition of
the terms. Whatever is destructible must be generated; for it is either
ungenerated or generated, but, if ungenerated, it is by hypothesis
indestructible. Whatever, further, is generated must be destructible. For
it is either destructible or indestructible, but, if indestructible, it is by
hypothesis ungenerated. (5) If, however, ‘indestructible’ and
‘ungenerated’ are not coincident, there is no necessity that either the
ungenerated or the indestructible should be eternal. But they must be
coincident, for the following reasons. The terms ‘generated’ and
‘destructible’ are coincident; this is obvious from our former remarks,
since between what always is and what always is not there is an
intermediate which is neither, (10) and that intermediate is the generated
and destructible. For whatever is either of these is capable both of being
and of not being for a definite time: in either case, I mean, there is a
certain period of time during which the thing is and another during
which it is not. Anything therefore which is generated or destructible
must be intermediate. (15) Now let A be that which always is and B that
which always is not, C the generated, and D the destructible. Then C
must be intermediate between A and B. For in their case there is no time
in the direction of either limit, in which either A is not or B is. (20) But for
the generated there must be such a time either actually or potentially,
though not for A and B in either way. C then will be, and also not be, for
a limited length of time, and this is true also of D, the destructible.
Therefore each is both generated and destructible. Therefore ‘generated’
and ‘destructible’ are coincident. Now let E stand for the ungenerated,
(25) F for the generated, G for the indestructible, and H for the

destructible. As for F and H, it has been shown that they are coincident.
But when terms stand to one another as these do, F and H coincident, E
and F never predicated of the same thing but one or other of everything,
(30) and G and H likewise, then E and G must needs be coincident. For
suppose that E is not coincident with G, then F will be, since either E or
F is predicable of everything. But of that of which F is predicated H will
be predicable also. [283a] H will then be coincident with G, but this
we saw to be impossible. And the same argument shows that G is
coincident with E.
Now the relation of the ungenerated (E) to the generated (F) is the
same as that of the indestructible (G) to the destructible (H). To say then
that there is no reason why anything should not be generated and yet
indestructible or ungenerated and yet destroyed, (5) to imagine that in
the one case generation and in the other case destruction occurs once for
all, is to destroy part of the data.28 For (1) everything is capable of
acting or being acted upon, of being or not being, either for an infinite,
or for a definitely limited space of time; and the infinite time is only a
possible alternative because it is after a fashion defined, (10) as a length
of time which cannot be exceeded. But infinity in one direction is neither
infinite nor finite. (2) Further, why, after always existing, was the thing
destroyed, why, after an infinity of not being, was it generated, at one
moment rather than another? If every moment is alike and the moments
are infinite in number, it is clear that a generated or destructible thing
existed for an infinite time. It has therefore for an infinite time the
capacity of not being (since the capacity of being and the capacity of not
being will be present together), (15) if destructible, in the time before
destruction, if generated, in the time after generation. If then we assume
the two capacities to be actualized, opposites will be present together.
(3) Further, this second capacity will be present like the first at every
moment, so that the thing will have for an infinite time the capacity
both of being and of not being; but this has been shown to be
impossible. (4) Again, if the capacity is present prior to the activity, (20) it
will be present for all time, even while the thing was as yet un-generated
and non-existent, throughout the infinite time in which it was capable of
being generated. At the time, then, when it was not, at that same time it
had the capacity of being, both of being then and of being thereafter,
and therefore for an infinity of time.
It is clear also on other grounds that it is impossible that the
destructible should not at some time be destroyed. (25) For otherwise it
will always be at once destructible and in actuality indestructible, so
that it will be at the same time capable of always existing and of not
always existing. Thus the destructible is at some time actually destroyed.
The generable, similarly, has been generated, for it is capable of having
been generated and thus also of not always existing.
We may also see in the following way how impossible it is either for a
thing which is generated to be thenceforward indestructible, (30) or for a
thing which is ungenerated and has always hitherto existed to be
destroyed. Nothing that is by chance can be indestructible or
ungenerated, since the products of chance and fortune are opposed to
what is, or comes to be, always or usually, while anything which exists
for a time infinite either absolutely or in one direction, is in existence
either always or usually. [283b] That which is by chance, then, is by
nature such as to exist at one time and not at another. But in things of
that character the contradictory states proceed from one and the same
capacity, the matter of the thing being the cause equally of its existence
and of its non-existence. (5) Hence contradictories would be present
together in actuality.
Further, it cannot truly be said of a thing now that it exists last year,
nor could it be said last year that it exists now. It is therefore impossible
for what once did not exist later to be eternal. For in its later state it will
possess the capacity of not existing, only not of not existing at a time
when it exists—since then it exists in actuality—but of not existing last
year or in the past. (10) Now suppose it to be in actuality what it is
capable of being. It will then be true to say now that it does not exist last
year. But this is impossible. No capacity relates to being in the past, but
always to being in the present or future. It is the same with the notion of
an eternity of existence followed later by non-existence. In the later state
the capacity will be present for that which is not there in actuality. (15)
Actualize, then, the capacity. It will be true to say now that this exists
last year or in the past generally.
Considerations also not general like these but proper to the subject
show it to be impossible that what was formerly eternal should later be
destroyed or that what formerly was not should later be eternal. (20)
Whatever is destructible or generated is always alterable. Now alteration
is due to contraries, and the things which compose the natural body are
the very same that destroy it.…

1 i. e. animate things, such as plants and animals.

2 e. g. matter and form, movement, or, in the case of living things, soul.

3 viz. beginning, middle, and end.

4 i. e. the elements.

5 See c. vii.

6 Below, Bk. IV, cc. 1–4.

7 Phys. i. 7–9.

8 i. e. aither from aei thein.

9 i. e. deriving aither from aithein.

10 Phys. v. 5. 229b 21.

11 Aristotle refers to the Physics, here and elsewhere, as continuous with the De Caelo. Different
parts of the Physics are referred to by different names.
12 Phys. viii. 8.

13 Phys. iii. 4–8.

14 Called BF a few lines below.

15 Phys. viii. 10.

16 Above, cc. 2–4.

17 The atomists, Leucippus and Democritus.

18 i. e. Metaphysics, Cf. Met. v. 8.

19 The reference is to cc. 2 and 3 above.

20 i. e. aion is derived from aei on.

21 The former view is that of Orpheus (i. e. of Orphic cosmogony), Hesiod, and Plato, while the
latter is that of Democritus and his school.
22 Simpl. refers the following argument to Xenocrates and the Platonists.

23 Cp. Plato, Timaeus 30A.

24 Here Aristotle clearly refers to Empedocles, rather than to Heraclitus. The two causes of
Empedocles are Love and Strife and since these are two it follows, Aristotle argues, that the
world would merely oscillate between two arrangements or dispositions.
25 The reference is to Plato, Timaeus 31. Plato is quoted as authority for the indestructible-
generated not for the ungenerated-destructible, as the context shows.
26 The four letters ABCD are to be allotted as follows: A is ‘that which is always capable of being’
= ‘what always is’, B is its contrary, ‘that which is always capable of not being’ = ‘what always
is not’, C is its contradictory, ‘that which is not always capable of being’, and D is the
contradictory of B, ‘that which is not always capable of not being’. C and D might also be
described by the terms ‘what not always is’ and ‘what not always is not’ respectively.
27 281b 18 ff.

28 Aristotle now proceeds to apply his results to the refutation of the view attributed in 280a 30
to Plato’s Timaeus. He there promised to give a clearer demonstration of its absurdity when the
terms ‘generated’, ‘ungenerated’, &c. should be investigated on their own account and apart from
the special case of the heaven.
 BOOK II

13 [293a] It remains to speak of the earth, (15) of its position, of the

question whether it is at rest or in motion, and of its shape.
I. As to its position there is some difference of opinion. Most people—
all, in fact, who regard the whole heaven as finite—say it lies at the
centre. (20) But the Italian philosophers known as Pythagoreans take the
contrary view. At the centre, they say, is fire, and the earth is one of the
stars, creating night and day by its circular motion about the centre.
They further construct another earth in opposition to ours to which they
give the name counter-earth. (25) In all this they are not seeking for
theories and causes to account for observed facts, but rather forcing their
observations and trying to accommodate them to certain theories and
opinions of their own. But there are many others who would agree that
it is wrong to give the earth the central position, (30) looking for
confirmation rather to theory than to the facts of observation. Their view
is that the most precious place befits the most precious thing: but fire,
they say, is more precious than earth, and the limit than the
intermediate, and the circumference and the centre are limits. Reasoning
on this basis they take the view that it is not earth that lies at the centre
of the sphere, but rather fire. [293b] The Pythagoreans have a further
reason. They hold that the most important part of the world, which is
the centre, should be most strictly guarded, and name it, or rather the
fire which occupies that place, the ‘Guard-house of Zeus’, as if the word
‘centre’ were quite unequivocal, (5) and the centre of the mathematical
figure were always the same with that of the thing or the natural centre.
But it is better to conceive of the case of the whole heaven as analogous
to that of animals, in which the centre of the animal and that of the
body are different. For this reason they have no need to be so disturbed
about the world, (10) or to call in a guard for its centre: rather let them
look for the centre in the other sense and tell us what it is like and
where nature has set it. That centre will be something primary and
precious; but to the mere position we should give the last place rather
than the first. For the middle is what is defined, and what defines it is
the limit, and that which contains or limits is more precious than that
which is limited, seeing that the latter is the matter and the former the
essence of the system. (15)
II. As to the position of the earth, then, this is the view which some
advance, and the views advanced concerning its rest or motion are
similar. For here too there is no general agreement. All who deny that
the earth lies at the centre think that it revolves about the centre, and
not the earth only but, as we said before, the counter-earth as well. (20)
Some of them even consider it possible that there are several bodies so
moving, which are invisible to us owing to the interposition of the earth.
This, they say, accounts for the fact that eclipses of the moon are more
frequent than eclipses of the sun: for in addition to the earth each of
these moving bodies can obstruct it. Indeed, (25) as in any case the
surface of the earth is not actually a centre but distant from it a full
hemisphere, there is no more difficulty, they think, in accounting for the
observed facts on their view that we do not dwell at the centre, than on
the common view that the earth is in the middle. Even as it is, there is
nothing in the observations to suggest that we are removed from the
centre by half the diameter of the earth. (30) Others, again, say that the
earth, which lies at the centre, is ‘rolled’, and thus in motion, about the
axis of the whole heaven. So it stands written in the Timaeus.1
III. There are similar disputes about the shape of the earth. Some think
it is spherical, others that it is flat and drum-shaped. For evidence they
bring the fact that, as the sun rises and sets, the part concealed by the
earth shows a straight and not a curved edge, whereas if the earth were
spherical the line of section would have to be circular. [294a] In this
they leave out of account the great distance of the sun from the earth
and the great size of the circumference, (5) which, seen from a distance
on these apparently small circles appears straight. Such an appearance
ought not to make them doubt the circular shape of the earth. But they
have another argument. They say that because it is at rest, the earth
must necessarily have this shape. (10) For there are many different ways
in which the movement or rest of the earth has been conceived.
The difficulty must have occurred to every one. It would indeed be a
complacent mind that felt no surprise that, while a little bit of earth, let
loose in mid-air, moves and will not stay still, (15) and the more there is
of it the faster it moves, the whole earth, free in mid-air, should show no
movement at all. Yet here is this great weight of earth, and it is at rest.
And again, from beneath one of these moving fragments of earth, before
it falls, take away the earth, and it will continue its downward
movement with nothing to stop it. The difficulty then, (20) has naturally
passed into a commonplace of philosophy; and one may well wonder
that the solutions offered are not seen to involve greater absurdities than
the problem itself.
By these considerations some have been led to assert that the earth
below us is infinite, saying, with Xenophanes of Colophon, that it has
‘pushed its roots to infinity’,—in order to save the trouble of seeking for
the cause. (25) Hence the sharp rebuke of Empedocles, in the words ‘if the
deeps of the earth are endless and endless the ample ether—such is the
vain tale told by many a tongue, poured from the mouths of those who
have seen but little of the whole’. Others say the earth rests upon water.
This, indeed, is the oldest theory that has been preserved, (30) and is
attributed to Thales of Miletus. It was supposed to stay still because it
floated like wood and other similar substances, which are so constituted
as to rest upon water but not upon air. As if the same account had not to
be given of the water which carries the earth as of the earth itself! It is
not the nature of water, any more than of earth, to stay in mid-air: it
must have something to rest upon. [294b] Again, as air is lighter than
water, so is water than earth: how then can they think that the naturally
lighter substance lies below the heavier? Again, if the earth as a whole is
capable of floating upon water, that must obviously be the case with any
part of it. (5) But observation shows that this is not the case. Any piece of
earth goes to the bottom, the quicker the larger it is. These thinkers
seem to push their inquiries some way into the problem, but not so far as
they might. It is what we are all inclined to do, to direct our inquiry not
by the matter itself, but by the views of our opponents: and even when
interrogating oneself one pushes the inquiry only to the point at which
one can no longer offer any opposition. (10) Hence a good inquirer will be
one who is ready in bringing forward the objections proper to the genus,
and that he will be when he has gained an understanding of all the
differences.
Anaximenes and Anaxagoras and Democritus give the flatness of the
earth as the cause of its staying still. (15) Thus, they say, it does not cut,
but covers like a lid, the air beneath it. This seems to be the way of flat-
shaped bodies: for even the wind can scarcely move them because of
their power of resistance. The same immobility, they say, is produced by
the flatness of the surface which the earth presents to the air which
underlies it; while the air, not having room enough to change its place
because it is underneath the earth, stays there in a mass, (20) like the
water in the case of the water-clock. And they adduce an amount of
evidence to prove that air, when cut off and at rest, can bear a
considerable weight.
Now, first, if the shape of the earth is not flat, its flatness cannot be
the cause of its immobility. But in their own account it is rather the size
of the earth than its flatness that causes it to remain at rest. (25) For the
reason why the air is so closely confined that it cannot find a passage,
and therefore stays where it is, is its great amount: and this amount is
great because the body which isolates it, the earth, is very large. This
result, then, will follow, even if the earth is spherical, so long as it
retains its size. So far as their arguments go, (30) the earth will still be at
rest.
In general, our quarrel with those who speak of movement in this way
cannot be confined to the parts2; it concerns the whole universe. One
must decide at the outset whether bodies have a natural movement or
not, whether there is no natural but only constrained movement. Seeing,
however, that we have already decided this matter to the best of our
ability, we are entitled to treat our results as representing fact. [295a]
Bodies, we say, which have no natural movement, have no constrained
movement; and where there is no natural and no constrained movement
there will be no movement at all. This is a conclusion, (5) the necessity of
which we have already decided,3 and we have seen further that rest also
will be inconceivable, since rest, like movement, is either natural or
constrained. But if there is any natural movement, constraint will not be
the sole principle of motion or of rest. If, then, it is by constraint that the
earth now keeps its place, the so-called ‘whirling’ movement by which
its parts came together at the centre was also constrained. (10) (The form
of causation supposed they all borrow from observations of liquids and
of air, in which the larger and heavier bodies always move to the centre
of the whirl. This is thought by all those who try to generate the heavens
to explain why the earth came together at the centre. They then seek a
reason for its staying there; and some say, (15) in the manner explained,
that the reason is its size and flatness, others, with Empedocles, that the
motion of the heavens, moving about it at a higher speed, prevents
movement of the earth, as the water in a cup, when the cup is given a
circular motion, (20) though it is often underneath the bronze, is for this
same reason prevented from moving with the downward movement
which is natural to it.) But suppose both the ‘whirl’ and its flatness (the
air beneath being withdrawn) cease to prevent the earth’s motion, where
will the earth move to then? Its movement to the centre was constrained
and its rest at the centre is due to constraint; but there must be some
motion which is natural to it. (25) Will this be upward motion or
downward or what? It must have some motion; and if upward and
downward motion are alike to it, and the air above the earth does not
prevent upward movement, then no more could air below it prevent
downward movement. For the same cause must necessarily have the
same effect on the same thing.
Further, (30) against Empedocles there is another point which might be
made. When the elements were separated off by Hate, what caused the
earth to keep its place? Surely the ‘whirl’ cannot have been then also the
cause. It is absurd too not to perceive that, while the whirling movement
may have been responsible for the original coming together of the parts
of earth at the centre, the question remains, (35) why now do all heavy
bodies move to the earth? For the whirl surely does not come near us.
[295b] Why, again, does fire move upward? Not, surely, because of the
whirl. But if fire is naturally such as to move in a certain direction,
clearly the same may be supposed to hold of earth. Again, it cannot be
the whirl which determines the heavy and the light. (5) Rather that
movement caused the pre-existent heavy and light things to go to the
middle and stay on the surface respectively. Thus, before ever the whirl
began, heavy and light existed; and what can have been the ground of
their distinction, or the manner and direction of their natural
movements? In the infinite chaos there can have been neither above nor
below, and it is by these that heavy and light are determined.
It is to these causes that most writers pay attention: but there are
some, (10) Anaximander, for instance, among the ancients, who say that
the earth keeps its place because of its indifference. Motion upward and
downward and sideways were all, they thought, equally inappropriate to
that which is set at the centre and indifferently related to every extreme
point; and to move in contrary directions at the same time was
impossible: so it must needs remain still. (15) This view is ingenious but
not true. The argument would prove that everything, whatever it be,
which is put at the centre, must stay there. Fire, then, will rest at the
centre: for the proof turns on no peculiar property of earth. (20) But this
does not follow. The observed facts about earth are not only that it
remains at the centre, but also that it moves to the centre. The place to
which any fragment of earth moves must necessarily be the place to
which the whole moves; and in the place to which a thing naturally
moves, it will naturally rest. The reason then is not in the fact that the
earth is indifferently related to every extreme point: for this would apply
to any body, (25) whereas movement to the centre is peculiar to earth.
Again it is absurd to look for a reason why the earth remains at the
centre and not for a reason why fire remains at the extremity. If the
extremity is the natural place of fire, clearly earth must also have a
natural place. But suppose that the centre is not its place, and that the
reason of its remaining there is this necessity of indifference—on the
analogy of the hair which, (30) it is said, however great the tension, will
not break under it, if it be evenly distributed, or of the man who, though
exceedingly hungry and thirsty, and both equally, yet being equidistant
from food and drink, is therefore bound to stay where he is—even so, (35)
it still remains to explain why fire stays at the extremities. [296a] It is
strange, too, to ask about things staying still but not about their motion
—why, I mean, one thing, if nothing stops it, moves up, and another
thing to the centre. Again, their statements are not true. It happens,
indeed, (5) to be the case that a thing to which movement this way and
that is equally inappropriate is obliged to remain at the centre.4 But so
far as their argument goes, instead of remaining there, it will move, only
not as a mass but in fragments. For the argument applies equally to fire.
Fire, if set at the centre, should stay there, like earth, since it will be
indifferently related to every point on the extremity. (10) Nevertheless it
will move, as in fact it always does move when nothing stops it, away
from the centre to the extremity. It will not, however, move in a mass to
a single point on the circumference—the only possible result on the lines
of the indifference theory—but rather each corresponding portion of fire
to the corresponding part of the extremity, (15) each fourth part, for
instance, to a fourth part of the circumference. For since no body is a
point, it will have parts. The expansion, when the body increased the
place occupied, would be on the same principle as the contraction, in
which the place was diminished. Thus, for all the indifference theory
shows to the contrary, earth also would have moved in this manner
away from the centre, (20) unless the centre had been its natural place.
We have now outlined the views held as to the shape, position, and
rest or movement of the earth.

14 Let us first decide the question whether the earth moves or is at

rest. For, as we said, there are some who make it one of the stars, (25) and
others who, setting it at the centre, suppose it to be ‘rolled’ and in
motion about the pole as axis. That both views are untenable will be
clear if we take as our starting-point the fact that the earth’s motion,
whether the earth be at the centre or away from it, (30) must needs be a
constrained motion. It cannot be the movement of the earth itself. If it
were, any portion of it would have this movement; but in fact every part
moves in a straight line to the centre. Being, then, constrained and
unnatural, the movement could not be eternal. But the order of the
universe is eternal. (35) Again, everything that moves with the circular
movement, except the first sphere, is observed to be passed, and to move
with more than one motion. [296b] The earth, then, also, whether it
move about the centre or as stationary at it, must necessarily move with
two motions. But if this were so, (5) there would have to be passings and
turnings of the fixed stars. Yet no such thing is observed. The same stars
always rise and set in the same parts of the earth.
Further, the natural movement of the earth, part and whole alike, is to
the centre of the whole—whence the fact that it is now actually situated
at the centre—but it might be questioned, (10) since both centres are the
same, which centre it is that portions of earth and other heavy things
move to. Is this their goal because it is the centre of the earth or because
it is the centre of the whole? The goal, surely, must be the centre of the
whole. For fire and other light things move to the extremity of the area
which contains the centre. (15) It happens, however, that the centre of the
earth and of the whole is the same. Thus they do move to the centre of
the earth, but accidentally, in virtue of the fact that the earth’s centre
lies at the centre of the whole. That the centre of the earth is the goal of
their movement is indicated by the fact that heavy bodies moving
towards the earth do not move parallel but so as to make equal angles,5
(20) and thus to a single centre, that of the earth. It is clear, then, that the

earth must be at the centre and immovable, not only for the reasons
already given, but also because heavy bodies forcibly thrown quite
straight upward return to the point from which they started, (25) even it
they are thrown to an infinite distance. From these considerations then it
is clear that the earth does not move and does not lie elsewhere than at
the centre.
From what we have said the explanation of the earth’s immobility is
also apparent. If it is the nature of earth, as observation shows, to move
from any point to the centre, as of fire contrariwise to move from the
centre to the extremity, (30) it is impossible that any portion of earth
should move away from the centre except by constraint. For a single
thing has a single movement, and a simple thing a simple: contrary
movements cannot belong to the same thing, and movement away from
the centre is the contrary of movement to it. If then no portion of earth
can move away from the centre, obviously still less can the earth as a
whole so move. (35) For it is the nature of the whole to move to the point
to which the part naturally moves. [297a] Since, then, it would require
a force greater than itself to move it, it must needs stay at the centre.
This view is further supported by the contributions of mathematicians to
astronomy, since the observations made as the shapes change by which
the order of the stars is determined, (5) are fully accounted for on the
hypothesis that the earth lies at the centre. Of the position of the earth
and of the manner of its rest or movement, our discussion may here end.
Its shape must necessarily be spherical. For every portion of earth has
weight until it reaches the centre, and the jostling of parts greater and
smaller would bring about not a waved surface, (10) but rather
compression and convergence of part and part until the centre is
reached. The process should be conceived by supposing the earth to
come into being in the way that some of the natural philosophers
describe.6 Only they attribute the downward movement to constraint, (15)
and it is better to keep to the truth and say that the reason of this motion
is that a thing which possesses weight is naturally endowed with a
centripetal movement. When the mixture, then, was merely potential,
the things that were separated off moved similarly from every side
towards the centre. Whether the parts which came together at the centre
were distributed at the extremities evenly, or in some other way, (20)
makes no difference. If, on the one hand, there were a similar movement
from each quarter of the extremity to the single centre, it is obvious that
the resulting mass would be similar on every side. For if an equal
amount is added on every side the extremity of the mass will be
everywhere equidistant from its centre, i. e. the figure will be spherical.
(25) But neither will it in any way affect the argument if there is not a

similar accession of concurrent fragments from every side. For the

greater quantity, finding a lesser in front of it, must necessarily drive it
on, both having an impulse whose goal is the centre, and the greater
weight driving the lesser forward till this goal is reached. (30) In this we
have also the solution of a possible difficulty. The earth, it might be
argued, is at the centre and spherical in shape: if, then, a weight many
times that of the earth were added to one hemisphere, the centre of the
earth and of the whole will no longer be coincident. So that either the
earth will not stay still at the centre, or if it does, it will be at rest
without having its centre at the place to which it is still its nature to
move. [297b] Such is the difficulty. A short consideration will give us
an easy answer, if we first give precision to our postulate that any body
endowed with weight, of whatever size, (5) moves towards the centre.
Clearly it will not stop when its edge touches the centre. The greater
quantity must prevail until the body’s centre occupies the centre. For
that is the goal of its impulse. Now it makes no difference whether we
apply this to a clod or common fragment of earth or to the earth as a
whole. (10) The fact indicated does not depend upon degrees of size but
applies universally to everything that has the centripetal impulse.
Therefore earth in motion, whether in a mass or in fragments,
necessarily continues to move until it occupies the centre equally every
way, the less being forced to equalize itself by the greater owing to the
forward drive of the impulse.7
If the earth was generated, then, it must have been formed in this
way, (15) and so clearly its generation was spherical; and if it is
ungenerated and has remained so always, its character must be that
which the initial generation, if it had occurred, would have given it. But
the spherical shape, necessitated by this argument, follows also from the
fact that the motions of heavy bodies always make equal angles, (20) and
are not parallel. This would be the natural form of movement towards
what is naturally spherical. Either then the earth is spherical or it is at
least naturally spherical. And it is right to call anything that which
nature intends it to be, and which belongs to it, rather than that which it
is by constraint and contrary to nature. The evidence of the senses
further corroborates this. How else would eclipses of the moon show
segments shaped as we see them? As it is, (25) the shapes which the moon
itself each month shows are of every kind—straight, gibbous, and
concave—but in eclipses the outline is always curved: and, since it is the
interposition of the earth that makes the eclipse, (30) the form of this line
will be caused by the form of the earth’s surface, which is therefore
spherical. Again, our observations of the stars make it evident, not only
that the earth is circular, but also that it is a circle of no great size. For
quite a small change of position to south or north causes a manifest
alteration of the horizon. There is much change, I mean, in the stars
which are overhead, and the stars seen are different, as one moves
northward or southward. [298a] Indeed there are some stars seen in
Egypt and in the neighbourhood of Cyprus which are not seen in the
northerly regions; and stars, (5) which in the north are never beyond the
range of observation, in those regions rise and set. All of which goes to
show not only that the earth is circular in shape, but also that it is a
sphere of no great size: for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of
place would not be so quickly apparent. Hence one should not be too
sure of the incredibility of the view of those who conceive that there is
continuity between the parts about the pillars of Hercules and the parts
about India, (10) and that in this way the ocean is one. As further
evidence in favour of this they quote the case of elephants, a species
occurring in each of these extreme regions, suggesting that the common
characteristic of these extremes is explained by their continuity. Also, (15)
those mathematicians who try to calculate the size of the earth’s
circumference arrive at the figure 400,000 stades.8 This indicates not
only that the earth’s mass is spherical in shape, but also that as
compared with the stars it is not of great size. (20)

1 Timaeus, 40 B.

2 i. e. to the single element earth or to earth and air.

3 i. 2–4.

4 The principle is in fact true, if it is properly understood, i. e. seen to apply, as explained in what
follows, only to indivisible bodies.
5 i. e. at right angles to a tangent: if it fell otherwise than at right angles, the angles on each side
of the line of fall would be unequal.
6 The cosmogony which follows is in principle that of Anaxagoras.

7 The argument is quite clear if it is understood that ‘greater’ and ‘less’ here and in a30 and in b5
stand for greater and smaller portions of one body, the line of division passing through the centre
which is the goal. Suppose the earth so placed in regard to the centre. The larger and heavier
division would ‘drive the lesser forward’, i. e. beyond the centre (a30); it would ‘prevail until the
body’s centre occupied the centre’ (b5); it would ‘force the less to equalize itself’, i. e. to move on
until the line passing through the central goal divided the body equally.
8 This appears to be the oldest recorded estimate of the size of the earth. 400,000 stades = 9,987
geographical miles. Other estimates (in miles) are: Archimedes, 7,495; Eratosthenes and
Hipparchus, 6,292; Posidonius, 5,992 or 4,494; present day, 5,400.
 BOOK III

1 We have already discussed the first heaven and its parts, the moving
stars within it, the matter of which these are composed and their bodily
constitution, (25) and we have also shown that they are un-generated and
indestructible. Now things that we call natural are either substances or
functions and attributes of substances. As substances I class the simple
bodies—fire, earth, and the other terms of the series—and all things
composed of them; for example, (30) the heaven as a whole and its parts,
animals, again, and plants and their parts. By attributes and functions I
mean the movements of these and of all other things in which they have
power in themselves to cause movement, and also their alterations and
reciprocal transformations. [298b] It is obvious, then, that the greater
part of the inquiry into nature concerns bodies: for a natural substance is
either a body or a thing which cannot come into existence without body
and magnitude. This appears plainly from an analysis of the character of
natural things, (5) and equally from an inspection of the instances of
inquiry into nature. Since, then, we have spoken of the primary element,
of its bodily constitution, and of its freedom from destruction and
generation, it remains to speak of the other two.1 In speaking of them we
shall be obliged also to inquire into generation and destruction. (10) For if
there is generation anywhere, it must be in these elements and things
composed of them.
This is indeed the first question we have to ask: is generation a fact or
not? Earlier speculation was at variance both with itself and with the
views here put forward as to the true answer to this question. (15) Some
removed generation and destruction from the world altogether. Nothing
that is, they said, is generated or destroyed, and our conviction to the
contrary is an illusion. So maintained the school of Melissus and
Parmenides. But however excellent their theories may otherwise be,
anyhow they cannot be held to speak as students of nature. There may
be things not subject to generation or any kind of movement, (20) but if
so they belong to another and a higher inquiry than the study of nature.
They, however, had no idea of any form of being other than the
substance of things perceived; and when they saw, what no one
previously had seen, that there could be no knowledge or wisdom
without some such unchanging entities, they naturally transferred what
was true of them to things perceived. Others, perhaps intentionally, (25)
maintain precisely the contrary opinion to this. It had been asserted that
everything in the world was subject to generation and nothing was
ungenerated, but that after being generated some things remained
indestructible while the rest were again destroyed. This had been
asserted in the first instance by Hesiod and his followers, but afterwards
outside his circle by the earliest natural philosophers.2 But what these
thinkers maintained was that all else has been generated and, (30) as they
said, ‘is flowing away’, nothing having any solidity, except one single
thing which persists as the basis of all these transformations. So we may
interpret the statements of Heraclitus of Ephesus and many others.3 And
some subject all bodies whatever to generation,4 by means of the
composition and separation of planes. [299a]
Discussion of the other views may be postponed. But this last theory
which composes every body of planes is, as the most superficial
observation shows, in many respects in plain contradiction with
mathematics. It is, however, wrong to remove the foundations of a
science unless you can replace them with others more convincing. (5)
And, secondly, the same theory which composes solids of planes clearly
composes planes of lines and lines of points, so that a part of a line need
not be a line. This matter has been already considered in our discussion
of movement, where we have shown that an indivisible length is
impossible. (10) But with respect to natural bodies there are
impossibilities involved in the view which asserts indivisible lines, which
we may briefly consider at this point. For the impossible consequences
which result from this view in the mathematical sphere will reproduce
themselves when it is applied to physical bodies, but there will be
difficulties in physics which are not present in mathematics; for
mathematics deals with an abstract and physics with a more concrete
object. (15) There are many attributes necessarily present in physical
bodies which are necessarily excluded by indivisibility; all attributes, in
fact, which are divisible. There can be nothing divisible in an indivisible
thing, but the attributes of bodies are all divisible in one of two ways.
They are divisible into kinds, as colour is divided into white and black,
(20) and they are divisible per accidens when that which has them is

divisible. In this latter sense attributes which are simple are nevertheless
divisible. Attributes of this kind will serve, therefore, to illustrate the
impossibility of the view. It is impossible, if two parts of a thing have no
weight, that the two together should have weight. (25) But either all
perceptible bodies or some, such as earth and water, have weight, as
these thinkers would themselves admit. Now if the point has no weight,
clearly the lines have not either, and, if they have not, neither have the
planes. Therefore no body has weight. It is, further, manifest that the
point cannot have weight. For while a heavy thing may always be
heavier than something and a light thing lighter than something, (30) a
thing which is heavier or lighter than something need not be itself heavy
or light, just as a large thing is larger than others, but what is larger is
not always large. [299b] A thing which, judged absolutely, is small
may none the less be larger than other things. Whatever, (5) then, is
heavy and also heavier than something else, must exceed this by
something which is heavy. A heavy thing therefore is always divisible.
But it is common ground that a point is indivisible. Again, suppose that
what is heavy is a dense body, and what is light rare. Dense differs from
rare in containing more matter in the same cubic area. (10) A point, then,
if it may be heavy or light, may be dense or rare. But the dense is
divisible while a point is indivisible. And if what is heavy must be either
hard or soft, an impossible consequence is easy to draw. For a thing is
soft if its surface can be pressed in, hard if it cannot; and if it can be
pressed in it is divisible.
Moreover, (15) no weight can consist of parts not possessing weight. For
how, except by the merest fiction, can they specify the number and
character of the parts which will produce weight? And, further, when
one weight is greater than another, the difference is a third weight; from
which it will follow that every indivisible part possesses weight. For
suppose that a body of four points possesses weight. A body composed of
more than four points will be superior in weight to it, (20) a thing which
has weight. But the difference between weight and weight must be a
weight, as the difference between white and whiter is white. Here the
difference which makes the superior weight heavier is the single point
which remains when the common number, four, is subtracted. A single
point, therefore, has weight.
Further, to assume, on the one hand, that the planes can only be put
in linear contact would be ridiculous. (25) For just as there are two ways
of putting lines together, namely, end to end and side by side, so there
must be two ways of putting planes together. Lines can be put together
so that contact is linear by laying one along the other, though not by
putting them end to end. But if, similarly, in putting the planes together,
superficial contact is allowed as an alternative to linear, (30) that method
will give them bodies which are not any element nor composed of
elements. Again, if it is the number of planes in a body that makes one
heavier than another, as the Timaeus explains, clearly the line and the
point will have weight. [300a] For the three cases are, as we said
before, analogous. But if the reason of differences of weight is not this,
(5) but rather the heaviness of earth and the lightness of fire, then some

of the planes will be light and others heavy (which involves a similar
distinction in the lines and the points); the earth-plane, I mean, will be
heavier than the fire-plane. In general, the result is either that there is no
magnitude at all, or that all magnitude could be done away with. (10) For
a point is to a line as a line is to a plane and as a plane is to a body. Now
the various forms in passing into one another will each be resolved into
its ultimate constituents. It might happen therefore that nothing existed
except points, and that there was no body at all. A further consideration
is that if time is similarly constituted, there would be, or might be, a
time at which it was done away with. (15) For the indivisible now is like a
point in a line. The same consequences follow from composing the
heaven of numbers, as some of the Pythagoreans do who make all nature
out of numbers. For natural bodies are manifestly endowed with weight
and lightness, but an assemblage of units can neither be composed to
form a body nor possess weight.

2 The necessity that each of the simple bodies should have a natural
movement may be shown as follows. (20) They manifestly move, and if
they have no proper movement they must move by constraint: and the
constrained is the same as the unnatural. Now an unnatural movement
presupposes a natural movement which it contravenes, (25) and which,
however many the unnatural movements, is always one. For naturally a
thing moves in one way, while its unnatural movements are manifold.
The same may be shown from the fact of rest. Rest, also, must either be
constrained or natural, constrained in a place to which movement was
constrained, natural in a place movement to which was natural. Now
manifestly there is a body which is at rest at the centre. (30) If then this
rest is natural to it, clearly motion to this place is natural to it. If, on the
other hand, its rest is constrained, what is hindering its motion?
Something, perhaps, which is at rest: but if so, we shall simply repeat the
same argument; and either we shall come to an ultimate something to
which rest where it is is natural, or we shall have an infinite process,
which is impossible. [300b] The hindrance to its movement, then, we
will suppose, is a moving thing—as Empedocles says that it is the vortex
which keeps the earth still—: but in that case we ask, where would it
have moved to but for the vortex? It could not move infinitely; for to
traverse an infinite is impossible, (5) and impossibilities do not happen.
So the moving thing must stop somewhere, and there rest not by
constraint but naturally. But a natural rest proves a natural movement to
the place of rest. Hence Leucippus and Democritus, who say that the
primary bodies are in perpetual movement in the void or infinite, may
be asked to explain the manner of their motion and the kind of
movement which is natural to them. (10) For if the various elements are
constrained by one another to move as they do, each must still have a
natural movement which the constrained contravenes, and the prime
mover must cause motion not by constraint but naturally. If there is no
ultimate natural cause of movement and each preceding term in the
series is always moved by constraint, (15) we shall have an infinite
process. The same difficulty is involved even if it is supposed, as we read
in the Timaeus,5 that before the ordered world was made the elements
moved without order. Their movement must have been due either to
constraint or to their nature. (20) And if their movement was natural, a
moment’s consideration shows that there was already an ordered world.
For the prime mover must cause motion in virtue of its own natural
movement, and the other bodies, moving without constraint, as they
came to rest in their proper places, would fall into the order in which
they now stand, (25) the heavy bodies moving towards the centre and the
light bodies away from it. But that is the order of their distribution in
our world. There is a further question, too, which might be asked. Is it
possible or impossible that bodies in unordered movement should
combine in some cases into combinations like those of which bodies of
nature’s composing are composed, such, I mean, as bones and flesh? Yet
this is what Empedocles asserts to have occurred under Love. (30) ‘Many a
head’, says he, ‘came to birth without a neck’. The answer to the view
that there are infinite bodies moving in an infinite is that, if the cause of
movement is single, they must move with a single motion, and therefore
not without order; and if, on the other hand, the causes are of infinite
variety, their motions too must be infinitely varied. [301a] For a finite
number of causes would produce a kind of order, since absence of order
is not proved by diversity of direction in motions: indeed, in the world
we know, not all bodies, but only bodies of the same kind, (5) have a
common goal of movement. Again, disorderly movement means in
reality unnatural movement, since the order proper to perceptible things
is their nature. And there is also absurdity and impossibility in the
notion that the disorderly movement is infinitely continued. For the
nature of things is the nature which most of them possess for most of the
time. Thus their view brings them into the contrary position that
disorder is natural, (10) and order or system unnatural. But no natural fact
can originate in chance. This is a point which Anaxagoras seems to have
thoroughly grasped; for he starts his cosmogony from unmoved things.
The others, it is true, make things collect together somehow before they
try to produce motion and separation. But there is no sense in starting
generation from an original state in which bodies are separated and in
movement. (15) Hence Empedocles begins after the process ruled by Love:
for he could not have constructed the heaven by building it up out of
bodies in separation, making them to combine by the power of Love,
since our world has its constituent elements in separation, (20) and
therefore presupposes a previous state of unity and combination.
These arguments make it plain that every body has its natural
movement, which is not constrained or contrary to its nature. We go on
to show that there are certain bodies whose necessary impetus is that of
weight and lightness. Of necessity, we assert, they must move, and a
moved thing which has no natural impetus cannot move either towards
or away from the centre. (25) Suppose a body A without weight, and a
body B endowed with weight. Suppose the weightless body to move the
distance CD, while B in the same time moves the distance CE, which will
be greater since the heavy thing must move further. Let the heavy body
then be divided in the proportion CE:CD (for there is no reason why a
part of B should not stand in this relation to the whole). (30) Now if the
whole moves the whole distance CE, the part must in the same time
move the distance CD. A weightless body, therefore, and one which has
weight will move the same distance, which is impossible. [301b] And
the same argument would fit the case of lightness. Again, a body which
is in motion but has neither weight nor lightness, must be moved by
constraint, and must continue its constrained movement infinitely. For
there will be a force which moves it, and the smaller and lighter a body
is the further will a given force move it. (5) Now let A, the weightless
body, be moved the distance CE, and B, which has weight, be moved in
the same time the distance CD. Dividing the heavy body in the
proportion CE:CD, we subtract from the heavy body a part which will in
the same time move the distance CE, (10) since the whole moved CD: for
the relative speeds of the two bodies will be in inverse ratio to their
respective sizes. Thus the weightless body will move the same distance
as the heavy in the same time. But this is impossible. Hence, since the
motion of the weightless body will cover a greater distance than any that
is suggested, (15) it will continue infinitely. It is therefore obvious that
every body must have a definite6 weight or lightness. But since ‘nature’
means a source of movement within the thing itself, while a force is a
source of movement in something other than it or in itself quâ other, and
since movement is always due either to nature or to constraint, (20)
movement which is natural, as downward movement is to a stone, will
be merely accelerated by an external force, while an unnatural
movement will be due to the force alone. In either case the air is as it
were instrumental to the force. For air is both light and heavy, and thus
quâ light produces upward motion, being propelled and set in motion by
the force, (25) and quâ heavy produces a downward motion. In either case
the force transmits the movement to the body by first, as it were,
impregnating the air. That is why a body moved by constraint continues
to move when that which gave the impulse ceases to accompany it.
Otherwise, i. e. if the air were not endowed with this function,
constrained movement would be impossible. And the natural movement
of a body may be helped on in the same way. (30) This discussion suffices
to show (1) that all bodies are either light or heavy, and (2) how
unnatural movement takes place.
From what has been said earlier it is plain that there cannot be
generation either of everything or in an absolute sense of anything.
[302a] It is impossible that everything should be generated, unless an
extra-corporeal7 void is possible. For, assuming generation, the place
which is to be occupied by that which is coming to be, must have been
previously occupied by void in which no body was. Now it is quite
possible for one body to be generated out of another, air for instance out
of fire, (5) but in the absence of any pre-existing mass generation is
impossible. That which is potentially a certain kind of body may, it is
true, become such in actuality. But if the potential body was not already
in actuality some other kind of body, the existence of an extra-corporeal
void must be admitted.

3 It remains to say what bodies are subject to generation, (10) and

why. Since in every case knowledge depends on what is primary, and the
elements are the primary constituents of bodies, we must ask which of
such bodies8 are elements, and why; and after that what is their number
and character. (15) The answer will be, plain if we first explain what kind
of substance an element is. An element, we take it, is a body into which
other bodies may be analysed, present in them potentially or in actuality
(which of these, is still disputable), and not itself divisible into bodies
different in form. That, or something like it, is what all men in every
case mean by element. (20) Now if what we have described is an element,
clearly there must be such bodies. For flesh and wood and all other
similar bodies contain potentially fire and earth, since one sees these
elements exuded from them; and, on the other hand, neither in
potentiality nor in actuality does fire contain flesh or wood, (25) or it
would exude them. Similarly, even if there were only one elementary
body, it would not contain them. For though it will be either flesh or
bone or something else, that does not at once show that it contained
these in potentiality: the further question remains, in what manner it
becomes them. Now Anaxagoras opposes Empedocles’ view of the
elements. Empedocles says that fire and earth and the related bodies are
elementary bodies of which all things are composed; but this Anaxagoras
denies. (30) His elements are the homoeomerous things,9 viz. [302b]
flesh, bone, and the like. Earth and fire are mixtures, composed of them
and all the other seeds, each consisting of a collection of all the
homoeomerous bodies, separately invisible; and that explains why from
these two bodies all others are generated. (To him fire and aither are the
same thing.) (5) But since every natural body has its proper movement,
and movements are either simple or mixed, mixed in mixed bodies and
simple in simple, there must obviously be simple bodies; for there are
simple movements. It is plain, then, that there are elements, and why.

4 The next question to consider is whether the elements are finite or

infinite in number, (10) and, if finite, what their number is. Let us first
show reason for denying that their number is infinite, as some suppose.
We begin with the view of Anaxagoras that all the homoeomerous bodies
are elements. Any one who adopts this view misapprehends the meaning
of element. (15) Observation shows that even mixed bodies are often
divisible into homoeomerous parts; examples are flesh, bone, wood, and
stone. Since then the composite cannot be an element, not every
homoeomerous body can be an element; only, as we said before,10 that
which is not divisible into bodies different in form. (20) But even taking
‘element’ as they do, they need not assert an infinity of elements, since
the hypothesis of a finite number will give identical results. Indeed even
two or three such bodies serve the purpose as well, as Empedocles’
attempt shows. Again, even on their view it turns out that all things are
not composed of homoeomerous bodies. (25) They do not pretend that a
face is composed of faces, or that any other natural conformation is
composed of parts like itself. Obviously then it would be better to
assume a finite number of principles. They should, in fact, be as few as
possible, consistently with proving what has to be proved. This is the
common demand of mathematicians, (30) who always assume as
principles things finite either in kind or in number. Again, if body is
distinguished from body by the appropriate qualitative difference, and
there is a limit to the number of differences (for the difference lies in
qualities apprehended by sense, which are in fact finite in number,
though this requires proof), then manifestly there is necessarily a limit to
the number of elements. [303a]
There is, further, another view—that of Leucippus and Democritus of
Abdera—the implications of which are also unacceptable. The primary
masses, according to them, are infinite in number and indivisible in
mass: one cannot turn into many nor many into one; and all things are
generated by their combination and involution. (5) Now this view in a
sense makes things out to be numbers or composed of numbers.11 (10)
The exposition is not clear, but this is its real meaning. And further, they
say that since the atomic bodies differ in shape, and there is an infinity
of shapes, there is an infinity of simple bodies. But they have never
explained in detail the shapes of the various elements, (15) except so far
as to allot the sphere to fire. Air, water, and the rest they distinguished
by the relative size of the atom, assuming that the atomic substance was
a sort of master-seed for each and every element. Now, in the first place,
they make the mistake already noticed. The principles which they
assume are not limited in number, though such limitation would
necessitate no other alteration in their theory. Further, if the differences
of bodies are not infinite, (20) plainly the elements will not be an infinity.
Besides, a view which asserts atomic bodies must needs come into
conflict with the mathematical sciences, in addition to invalidating many
common opinions and apparent data of sense perception. But of these
things we have already spoken in our discussion of time and
movement.12 They are also bound to contradict themselves. (25) For if the
elements are atomic, air, earth, and water cannot be differentiated by
the relative sizes of their atoms, since then they could not be generated
out of one another. The extrusion of the largest atoms is a process that
will in time exhaust the supply; and it is by such a process that they
account for the generation of water, air, and earth from one another. (30)
Again, even on their own presuppositions it does not seem as if the
elements would be infinite in number. [303b] The atoms differ in
figure, and all figures are composed of pyramids, rectilinear in the case
of rectilinear figures, while the sphere has eight pyramidal parts.13 The
figures must have their principles,14 and, whether these are one or two
or more, the simple bodies must be the same in number as they. Again, if
every element has its proper movement, (5) and a simple body has a
simple movement, and the number of simple movements is not infinite,
because the simple motions are only two and the number of places is not
infinite,15 on these grounds also we should have to deny that the number
of elements is infinite.

5 Since the number of the elements must be limited, it remains to

inquire whether there is more than one element. Some assume one only,
(10) which is according to some16 water, to others17 air, to others18 fire,

to others19 again something finer than water and denser than air, an
infinite body—so they say—embracing all the heavens.
Now those who decide for a single element, which is either water or
air or a body finer than water and denser than air, and proceed to
generate other things out of it by use of the attributes density and rarity,
(15) all alike fail to observe the fact that they are depriving the element of

its priority. Generation out of the elements is, as they say, synthesis, and
generation into the elements is analysis, so that the body with the finer
parts must have priority in the order of nature. But they say that fire is
of all bodies the finest. (20) Hence fire will be first in the natural order.
And whether the finest body is fire or not makes no difference; anyhow
it must be one of the other bodies that is primary and not that which is
intermediate. Again, density and rarity, as instruments of generation, are
equivalent to fineness and coarseness, since the fine is rare, and coarse
in their use means dense. But fineness and coarseness, again, are
equivalent to greatness and smallness, (25) since a thing with small parts
is fine and a thing with large parts coarse. For that which spreads itself
out widely is fine, and a thing composed of small parts is so spread out.
In the end, then, they distinguish the various other substances from the
element by the greatness and smallness of their parts. (30) This method of
distinction makes all judgment relative. There will be no absolute
distinction between fire, water, and air, but one and the same body will
be relatively to this fire, relatively to something else air. [304a] The
same difficulty is involved equally in the view which recognizes several
elements and distinguishes them by their greatness and smallness. The
principle of distinction between bodies being quantity, the various sizes
will be in a definite ratio, and whatever bodies are in this ratio to one
another must be air, fire, earth, (5) and water respectively. For the ratios
of smaller bodies may be repeated among greater bodies.
Those who start from fire as the single element, while avoiding this
difficulty, involve themselves in many others. Some of them give fire a
particular shape, (10) like those who make it a pyramid, and this on one
of two grounds. The reason given may be—more crudely—that the
pyramid is the most piercing of figures as fire is of bodies, or—more
ingeniously—the position may be supported by the following argument.
As all bodies are composed of that which has the finest parts, (15) so all
solid figures are composed of pyramids: but the finest body is fire, while
among figures the pyramid is primary and has the smallest parts; and the
primary body must have the primary figure: therefore fire will be a
pyramid. Others, again, express no opinion on the subject of its figure,
but simply regard it as the body of the finest parts, (20) which in
combination will form other bodies, as the fusing of gold-dust produces
solid gold. Both of these views involve the same difficulties. For (1) if,
on the one hand, they make the primary body an atom, the view will be
open to the objections already advanced against the atomic theory. And
further the theory is inconsistent with a regard for the facts of nature. (25)
For if all bodies are quantitatively commensurable, and the relative size
of the various homoeomerous masses and of their several elements are in
the same ratio, so that the total mass of water, for instance, is related to
the total mass of air as the elements of each are to one another, (30) and
so on, and if there is more air than water and, generally, more of the
finer body than of the coarser, obviously the element of water will be
smaller than that of air. [304b] But the lesser quantity is contained in
the greater. Therefore the air element is divisible. And the same could be
shown of fire and of all bodies whose parts are relatively fine. (2) If, on
the other hand, the primary body is divisible, then (a) those who give
fire a special shape will have to say that a part of fire is not fire, because
a pyramid is not composed of pyramids,20 (5) and also that not every
body is either an element or composed of elements, since a part of fire
will be neither fire nor any other element. And (b) those whose ground
of distinction is size will have to recognize an element prior to the
element, a regress which continues infinitely, since every body is
divisible and that which has the smallest parts is the element. Further,
they too will have to say that the same body is relatively to this fire and
relatively to that air, (10) to others again water and earth.
The common error of all views which assume a single element is that
they allow only one natural movement, which is the same for every
body. For it is a matter of observation that a natural body possesses a
principle of movement. If then all bodies are one, all will have one
movement. With this motion the greater their quantity the more they
will move, (15) just as fire, in proportion as its quantity is greater, moves
faster with the upward motion which belongs to it. But the fact is that
increase of quantity makes many things move the faster downward. For
these reasons, then, as well as from the distinction already established21
of a plurality of natural movements, (20) it is impossible that there should
be only one element. But if the elements are not an infinity and not
reducible to one, they must be several and finite in number.

6 First we must inquire whether the elements are eternal or subject to

generation and destruction; for when this question has been answered
their number and character will be manifest. (25) In the first place, they
cannot be eternal. It is a matter of observation that fire, water, and every
simple body undergo a process of analysis, which must either continue
infinitely or stop somewhere. (1) Suppose it infinite. Then the time
occupied by the process will be infinite, and also that occupied by the
reverse process of synthesis. (30) For the processes of analysis and
synthesis succeed one another in the various parts. It will follow that
there are two infinite times which are mutually exclusive, the time
occupied by the synthesis, which is infinite, being preceded by the
period of analysis. There are thus two mutually exclusive infinites, which
is impossible. [305a] (2) Suppose, on the other hand, that the analysis
stops somewhere. Then the body at which it stops will be either atomic
or, as Empedocles seems to have intended, a divisible body which will
yet never be divided. The foregoing arguments22 show that it cannot be
an atom; but neither can it be a divisible body which analysis will never
reach. (5) For a smaller body is more easily destroyed than a larger; and a
destructive process which succeeds in destroying, that is, in resolving
into smaller bodies, a body of some size, cannot reasonably be expected
to fail with the smaller body. Now in fire we observe a destruction of
two kinds: it is destroyed by its contrary when it is quenched, (10) and by
itself when it dies out. But the effect is produced by a greater quantity
upon a lesser, and the more quickly the smaller it is. The elements of
bodies must therefore be subject to destruction and generation.
Since they are generated, they must be generated either from
something incorporeal or from a body, and if from a body, (15) either
from one another or from something else. The theory which generates
them from something incorporeal requires an extra-corporeal void. For
everything that comes to be comes to be in something, and that in which
the generation takes place must either be incorporeal or possess body;
and if it has body, there will be two bodies in the same place at the same
time, viz. that which is coming to be and that which was previously
there, (20) while if it is incorporeal, there must be an extra-corporeal
void. But we have already shown23 that this is impossible. But, on the
other hand, it is equally impossible that the elements should be
generated from some kind of body. That would involve a body distinct
from the elements and prior to them. (25) But if this body possesses
weight or lightness, it will be one of the elements; and if it has no
tendency to movement, it will be an immovable or mathematical entity,
and therefore not in a place at all. A place in which a thing is at rest is a
place in which it might move, either by constraint, i. e. unnaturally, or
in the absence of constraint, i. e. naturally. If, then, it is in a place and
somewhere, it will be one of the elements; and if it is not a place, (30)
nothing can come from it, since that which comes into being and that
out of which it comes must needs be together. The elements therefore
cannot be generated from something incorporeal nor from a body which
is not an element, and the only remaining alternative is that they are
generated from one another.

7 We must, therefore, turn to the question, what is the manner of

their generation from one another? Is it as Empedocles and Democritus
say, (35) or as those who resolve bodies into planes say, or is there yet
another possibility? (1) What the followers of Empedocles do, though
without observing it themselves, is to reduce the generation of elements
out of one another to an illusion. [305b] They make it a process of
excretion from a body of what was in it all the time—as though
generation required a vessel rather than a material—so that it involves
no change of anything. (5) And even if this were accepted, there are other
implications equally unsatisfactory. We do not expect a mass of matter
to be made heavier by compression. But they will be bound to maintain
this, if they say that water is a body present in air and excreted from air,
(10) since air becomes heavier when it turns into water. Again, when the

mixed body is divided, they can show no reason why one of the
constituents must by itself take up more room than the body did: but
when water turns into air, the room occupied is increased. The fact is
that the finer body takes up more room, as is obvious in any case of
transformation. As the liquid is converted into vapour or air the vessel
which contains it is often burst because it does not contain room enough.
(15) Now, if there is no void at all, and if, as those who take this view say,

there is no expansion of bodies, the impossibility of this is manifest: and

if there is void and expansion, there is no accounting for the fact that the
body which results from division occupies of necessity a greater space.
(20) It is inevitable, too, that generation of one out of another should

come to a stop, since a finite quantum cannot contain an infinity of finite

quanta. When earth produces water something is taken away from the
earth, for the process is one of excretion. The same thing happens again
when the residue produces water. But this can only go on for ever, if the
finite body contains an infinity, which is impossible. (25) Therefore the
generation of elements out of one another will not always continue.
(2) We have now explained that the mutual transformations of the
elements cannot take place by means of excretion. The remaining
alternative is that they should be generated by changing into one
another. And this in one of two ways, either by change of shape, (30) as
the same wax takes the shape both of a sphere and of a cube, or, as some
assert, by resolution into planes. (a) Generation by change of shape
would necessarily involve the assertion of atomic bodies. For if the
particles were divisible there would be a part of fire which was not fire
and a part of earth which was not earth, (35) for the reason that not every
part of a pyramid is a pyramid nor of a cube a cube. [306a] But if (b)
the process is resolution into planes, the first difficulty is that the
elements cannot all be generated out of one another. This they are
obliged to assert, and do assert. It is absurd, because it is unreasonable
that one element alone should have no part in the transformations, and
also contrary to the observed data of sense, (5) according to which all
alike change into one another. In fact their explanation of the
observations is not consistent with the observations. And the reason is
that their ultimate principles are wrongly assumed: they had certain
predetermined views, and were resolved to bring everything into line
with them. It seems that perceptible things require perceptible
principles, eternal things eternal principles, (10) corruptible things
corruptible principles; and, in general, every subject matter principles
homogeneous with itself. But they, owing to their love for their
principles, fall into the attitude of men who undertake the defence of a
position in argument. In the confidence that the principles are true they
are ready to accept any consequence of their application. As though
some principles did not require to be judged from their results, (15) and
particularly from their final issue! And that issue, which in the case of
productive knowledge24 is the product, in the knowledge of nature is the
unimpeachable evidence of the senses as to each fact.
The result of their view is that earth has the best right to the name
element, (20) and is alone indestructible; for that which is indissoluble is
indestructible and elementary, and earth alone cannot be dissolved into
any body but itself. Again, in the case of those elements which do suffer
dissolution, the ‘suspension’ of the triangles is unsatisfactory. But this
takes place whenever one is dissolved into another, because of the
numerical inequality of the triangles which compose them. Further,
those who hold these views must needs suppose that generation does not
start from a body. (25) For what is generated out of planes cannot be said
to have been generated from a body. And they must also assert that not
all bodies are divisible, coming thus into conflict with our most accurate
sciences, namely the mathematical, which assume that even the
intelligible is divisible, while they, in their anxiety to save their
hypothesis, (30) cannot even admit this of every perceptible thing. For
any one who gives each element a shape of its own, and makes this the
ground of distinction between the substances, has to attribute to them
indivisibility; since division of a pyramid or a sphere must leave
somewhere at least a residue which is not a sphere or a pyramid.
[306b] Either, then, a part of fire is not fire, so that there is a body
prior to the element—for every body is either an element or composed of
elements—or not every body is divisible.

8 In general, the attempt to give a shape to each of the simple bodies

is unsound, for the reason, first, that they will not succeed in filling the
whole. (5) It is agreed that there are only three plane figures which can
fill a space, the triangle, the square, and the hexagon, and only two
solids, the pyramid and the cube. But the theory needs more than these
because the elements which it recognizes are more in number. Secondly,
it is manifest that the simple bodies are often given a shape by the place
in which they are included, (10) particularly water and air. In such a case
the shape of the element cannot persist; for, if it did, the contained mass
would not be in continuous contact with the containing body; while, if
its shape is changed, it will cease to be water, since the distinctive
quality is shape. Clearly, then, (15) their shapes are not fixed. Indeed,
nature itself seems to offer corroboration of this theoretical conclusion.
Just as in other cases the substratum must be formless and unshapen—
for thus the ‘all-receptive’, as we read in the Timaeus,25 will be best for
modelling—so the elements should be conceived as a material for
composite things; and that is why they can put off their qualitative
distinctions and pass into one another. (20) Further, how can they account
for the generation of flesh and bone or any other continuous body? The
elements alone cannot produce them because their collocation cannot
produce a continuum. Nor can the composition of planes; for this
produces the elements themselves, (25) not bodies made up of them. Any
one then who insists upon an exact statement of this kind of theory,
instead of assenting after a passing glance at it, will see that it removes
generation from the world.
Further, the very properties, powers, and motions, to which they pay
particular attention in allotting shapes, show the shapes not to be in
accord with the bodies. (30) Because fire is mobile and productive of heat
and combustion, some made it a sphere, others a pyramid. These shapes,
they thought, were the most mobile because they offer the fewest points
of contact and are the least stable of any; they were also the most apt to
produce warmth and combustion, because the one is angular throughout
while the other has the most acute angles, and the angles, they say,
produce warmth and combustion. [307a] Now, in the first place, with
regard to movement both are in error. These may be the figures best
adapted to movement; they are not, (5) however, well adapted to the
movement of fire, which is an upward and rectilinear movement, but
rather to that form of circular movement which we call rolling. Earth,
again, they call a cube because it is stable and at rest. But it rests only in
its own place, not anywhere; from any other it moves if nothing hinders,
(10) and fire and the other bodies do the same. The obvious inference,

therefore, is that fire and each several element is in a foreign place a

sphere or a pyramid, but in its own a cube. Again, if the possession of
angles makes a body produce heat and combustion, every element
produces heat, (15) though one may do so more than another. For they all
possess angles, the octahedron and dodecahedron as well as the
pyramid; and Democritus makes even the sphere a kind of angle, which
cuts things because of its mobility. The difference, then, will be one of
degree: and this is plainly false. They must also accept the inference that
the mathematical solids produce heat and combustion, (20) since they too
possess angles and contain atomic spheres and pyramids, especially if
there are, as they allege, atomic figures.26 Anyhow if these functions
belong to some of these things and not to others, they should explain the
difference, instead of speaking in quite general terms as they do. Again,
combustion of a body produces fire, and fire is a sphere or a pyramid. (25)
The body, then, is turned into spheres or pyramids. Let us grant that
these figures may reasonably be supposed to cut and break up bodies as
fire does; still it remains quite inexplicable that a pyramid must needs
produce pyramids or a sphere spheres. (30) One might as well postulate
that a knife or a saw divides things into knives or saws. It is also
ridiculous to think only of division when allotting fire its shape. Fire is
generally thought of as combining and connecting rather than as
separating. [307b] For though it separates bodies different in kind, it
combines those which are the same; and the combining is essential to it,
the functions of connecting and uniting being a mark of fire, while the
separating is incidental. For the expulsion of the foreign body is an
incident in the compacting of the homogeneous. In choosing the shape,
(5) then, they should have thought either of both functions or preferably

of the combining function. In addition, since hot and cold are contrary
powers, it is impossible to allot any shape to the cold. For the shape
given must be the contrary of that given to the hot, but there is no
contrariety between figures. That is why they have all left the cold out,
(10) though properly either all or none should have their distinguishing

figures. Some of them, however, do attempt to explain this power, and

they contradict themselves. A body of large particles, they say, is cold
because instead of penetrating through the passages it crushes. Clearly,
then, that which is hot is that which penetrates these passages, or in
other words that which has fine particles. (15) It results that hot and cold
are distinguished not by the figure but by the size of the particles. Again,
if the pyramids are un-equal in size, the large ones will not be fire, and
that figure will produce not combustion but its contrary.
From what has been said it is clear that the difference of the elements
does not depend upon their shape. (20) Now their most important
differences are those of property, function, and power; for every natural
body has, we maintain, its own functions, properties, and powers. Our
first business, then, will be to speak of these, and that inquiry will
enable us to explain the differences of each from each.

1 Aristotle speaks of the four sublunary elements as two, because generically they are two. Two
are heavy, two light: two move up and two down. Books III and IV of this treatise deal solely
with these elements.
2
The reference, according to Simplicius, is to Orphic writings (‘the school of Orpheus and
Musaeus’).
3 e. g. Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes.

4 The theory criticized is certainly that advanced in the Timaeus, and is usually attributed to
Plato, but Aristotle probably has also in mind certain members of the Academy, particularly
Xenocrates.
5 Plato, Tim. 30 a.

6 i. e. not infinite.

7 i. e. a void outside bodies, as distinct from the fragments of void which are supposed to be
distributed throughout the texture of every body.
8 viz. bodies subject to generation.

9 ‘Homoeomerous’ means ‘having parts like one another and like the whole of which they are
parts’.
10 Above, 302a 18.

11 Because the atom is practically a mathematical unit, out of which bodies are formed by simple
addition. Cp. Met. vii. 13. 1039a 3 ff.
12 Esp. Phys. vi. 1–2 (231a 18 ff.).

13 The pyramids are tetrahedrons; and those produced by triple section of a sphere are irregular,
having a spherical base.
14 i. e. there must be a limited number of primary figures to which all other figures are reducible.

15 There are only two places to which movement can be directed, viz. the circumference and the
centre. By the two simple motions Aristotle probably here means motions towards these two
places, motion up and motion down. Circular motion is not possible beneath the moon.
16 Thales and Hippon.

17 Anaximenes and Diogenes of Apollonia.

18 Heraclitus and Hippasus.

19 Anaximander. This identification has been rejected by many modern scholars.

20 i. e. a pyramid cannot be divided so that every part is a pyramid.

21 Book I, c. 2.

22 c. 4.

23 Phys. iv. 8.

24 i. e. in the case of art.

25 Plato, Tim. 51 A.

26 i. e. indivisible units of line, of which the geometrical figures are composed.

 BOOK IV

1 We have now to consider the terms ‘heavy’ and ‘light.’ (30) We must
ask what the bodies so called are, how they are constituted, and what is
the reason of their possessing these powers. The consideration of these
questions is a proper part of the theory of movement, since we call
things heavy and light because they have the power of being moved
naturally in a certain way. The activities corresponding to these powers
have not been given any name, unless it is thought that ‘impetus’ is such
a name. [308a] But because the inquiry into nature is concerned with
movement, and these things have in themselves some spark (as it were)
of movement, all inquirers avail themselves of these powers, though in
all but a few cases without exact discrimination. We must then first look
at whatever others have said, (5) and formulate the questions which
require settlement in the interests of this inquiry, before we go on to
state our own view of the matter.
Language recognizes (a) an absolute, (b) a relative heavy and light. Of
two heavy things, such as wood and bronze, we say that the one is
relatively light, the other relatively heavy. (10) Our predecessors have not
dealt at all with the absolute use of the terms, but only with the relative.
I mean, they do not explain what the heavy is or what the light is, but
only the relative heaviness and lightness of things possessing weight.
This can be made clearer as follows. There are things whose constant
nature it is to move away from the centre, while others move constantly
towards the centre; and of these movements that which is away from the
centre I call upward movement and that which is towards it I call
downward movement. (15) (The view, urged by some,1 that there is no up
and no down in the heaven, is absurd. There can be, they say, no up and
no down, since the universe is similar every way, and from any point on
the earth’s surface a man by advancing far enough will come to stand
foot to foot with himself. (20) But the extremity of the whole, which we
call ‘above’, is in position above and in nature primary. And since the
universe has an extremity and a centre, it must clearly have an up and
down. Common usage is thus correct, though inadequate. And the reason
of its inadequacy is that men think that the universe is not similar every
way. (25) They recognize only the hemisphere which is over us. But if
they went on to think of the world as formed on this pattern all round,
with a centre identically related to each point on the extremity, they
would have to admit that the extremity was above and the centre
below.) By absolutely light, then, we mean that which moves upward or
to the extremity, and by absolutely heavy that which moves downward
or to the centre. (30) By lighter or relatively light we mean that one, of
two bodies endowed with weight and equal in bulk, which is exceeded
by the other in the speed of its natural downward movement.

2 Those of our predecessors who have entered upon this inquiry have
for the most part spoken of light and heavy things only in the sense in
which one of two things both endowed with weight is said to be the
lighter. (35) [308b] And this treatment they consider a sufficient
analysis also of the notions of absolute heaviness and absolute lightness,
to which their account does not apply. This, however, will become
clearer as we advance. (5) One use of the terms ‘lighter’ and ‘heavier’ is
that which is set forth in writing in the Timaeus,2 that the body which is
composed of the greater number of identical parts is relatively heavy,
while that which is composed of a smaller number is relatively light. As
a larger quantity of lead or of bronze is heavier than a smaller—and this
holds good of all homogeneous masses, (10) the superior weight always
depending upon a numerical superiority of equal parts—in precisely the
same way, they assert, lead is heavier than wood. For all bodies, in spite
of the general opinion to the contrary, are composed of identical parts
and of a single material. But this analysis says nothing of the absolutely
heavy and light. The facts are that fire is always light and moves
upward, while earth and all earthy things move downwards or towards
the centre. (15) It cannot then be the fewness of the triangles (of which, in
their view, all these bodies are composed) which disposes fire to move
upward. If it were, the greater the quantity of fire the slower it would
move, owing to the increase of weight due to the increased number of
triangles. But the palpable fact, on the contrary, is that the greater the
quantity, (20) the lighter the mass is and the quicker its upward
movement: and, similarly, in the reverse movement from above
downward, the small mass will move quicker and the large slower.
Further, since to be lighter is to have fewer of these homogeneous parts
and to be heavier is to have more, and air, water, and fire are composed
of the same triangles, (25) the only difference being in the number of such
parts, which must therefore explain any distinction of relatively light
and heavy between these bodies, it follows that there must be a certain
quantum of air which is heavier than water. But the facts are directly
opposed to this. The larger the quantity of air the more readily it moves
upward, and any portion of air without exception will rise up out of the
water.
So much for one view of the distinction between light and heavy. (30)
To others3 the analysis seems insufficient; and their views on the subject,
though they belong to an older generation than ours, have an air of
novelty. It is apparent that there are bodies which, when smaller in bulk
than others, yet exceed them in weight. It is therefore obviously
insufficient to say that bodies of equal weight are composed of an equal
number of primary parts: for that would give equality of bulk. (35) Those
who maintain that the primary or atomic parts, of which bodies
endowed with weight are composed, are planes, cannot so speak without
absurdity;4 but those who regard them as solids are in a better position
to assert that of such bodies the larger is the heavier. [309a] But since
in composite bodies the weight obviously does not correspond in this
way to the bulk, the lesser bulk being often superior in weight (as, for
instance, if one be wool and the other bronze), (5) there are some who
think and say that the cause is to be found elsewhere. The void, they say,
which is imprisoned in bodies, lightens them and sometimes makes the
larger body the lighter. The reason is that there is more void. And this
would also account for the fact that a body composed of a number of
solid parts equal to, or even smaller than, that of another is sometimes
larger in bulk than it. In short, generally and in every case a body is
relatively light when it contains a relatively large amount of void. (10)
This is the way they put it themselves, but their account requires an
addition. Relative lightness must depend not only on an excess of void,
but also on a defect of solid: for if the ratio of solid to void exceeds a
certain proportion, the relative lightness will disappear. Thus fire, (15)
they say, is the lightest of things just for this reason that it has the most
void. But it would follow that a large mass of gold, as containing more
void than a small mass of fire, is lighter than it, unless it also contains
many times as much solid. The addition is therefore necessary.
Of those who deny the existence of a void some, like Anaxagoras and
Empedocles, have not tried to analyse the notions of light and heavy at
all; and those who, while still denying the existence of a void, (20) have
attempted this,5 have failed to explain why there are bodies which are
absolutely heavy and light, or in other words why some move upward
and others downward. The fact, again, that the body of greater bulk is
sometimes lighter than smaller bodies is one which they have passed
over in silence, (25) and what they have said gives no obvious suggestion
for reconciling their views with the observed facts.
But those who attribute the lightness of fire to its containing so much
void are necessarily involved in practically the same difficulties. For
though fire be supposed to contain less solid than any other body, (30) as
well as more void, yet there will be a certain quantum of fire in which
the amount of solid or plenum is in excess of the solids contained in
some small quantity of earth. They may reply that there is an excess of
void also. But the question is, how will they discriminate the absolutely
heavy? Presumably, either by its excess of solid or by its defect of void.
[309b] On the former view there could be an amount of earth so small
as to contain less solid than a large mass of fire. And similarly, if the
distinction rests on the amount of void, there will be a body, lighter than
the absolutely light, (5) which nevertheless moves downward as
constantly as the other moves upward. But that cannot be so, since the
absolutely light is always lighter than bodies which have weight and
move downward, while, on the other hand, that which is lighter need
not be light, because in common speech we distinguish a lighter and a
heavier (viz. water and earth) among bodies endowed with weight.
Again, the suggestion of a certain ratio between the void and the solid in
a body is no more equal to solving the problem before us. (10) This
manner of speaking will issue in a similar impossibility. For any two
portions of fire, small or great, will exhibit the same ratio of solid to
void; but the upward movement of the greater is quicker than that of the
less, (15) just as the downward movement of a mass of gold or lead, or of
any other body endowed with weight, is quicker in proportion to its size.
This, however, should not be the case if the ratio is the ground of
distinction between heavy things and light. There is also an absurdity in
attributing the upward movement of bodies to a void which does not
itself move. If, however, it is the nature of a void to move upward and of
a plenum to move downward, and therefore each causes a like
movement in other things, (20) there was no need to raise the question
why composite bodies are some light and some heavy; they had only to
explain why these two things are themselves light and heavy
respectively, and to give, further, the reason why the plenum and the
void are not eternally separated. It is also unreasonable to imagine a
place for the void, (25) as if the void were not itself a kind of place. But if
the void is to move, it must have a place out of which and into which
the change carries it. Also what is the cause of its movement? Not,
surely, its voidness: for it is not the void only which is moved, but also
the solid.
Similar difficulties are involved in all other methods of distinction, (30)
whether they account for the relative lightness and heaviness of bodies
by distinctions of size, or proceed on any other principle, so long as they
attribute to each the same matter, or even if they recognize more than
one matter, so long as that means only a pair of contraries. If there is a
single matter, as with those who compose things of triangles, nothing
can be absolutely heavy or light: and if there is one matter and its
contrary—the void, for instance, and the plenum—no reason can be
given for the relative lightness and heaviness of the bodies intermediate
between the absolutely light and heavy when compared either with one
another or with these themselves. [310a] The view which bases the
distinction upon differences of size is more like a mere fiction than those
previously mentioned, but, in that it is able to make distinctions between
the four elements, (5) it is in a stronger position for meeting the foregoing
difficulties. Since, however, it imagines that these bodies which differ in
size are all made of one substance, it implies, equally with the view that
there is but one matter, that there is nothing absolutely light and
nothing which moves upward (except as being passed by other things or
forced up by them); and since a multitude of small atoms are heavier
than a few large ones, (10) it will follow that much air or fire is heavier
than a little water or earth, which is impossible.
3 These, then, are the views which have been advanced by others and
the terms in which they state them. We may begin our own statement by
settling a question which to some has been the main difficulty—the
question why some bodies move always and naturally upward and
others downward, (15) while others again move both upward and
downward. After that we will inquire into light and heavy and the
explanation of the various phenomena connected with them. (20) The
local movement of each body into its own place must be regarded as
similar to what happens in connexion with other forms of generation
and change. There are, in fact, three kinds of movement, affecting
respectively the size, the form, and the place of a thing, and in each it is
observable that change proceeds from a contrary to a contrary or to
something intermediate: it is never the change of any chance subject in
any chance direction, (25) nor, similarly, is the relation of the mover to its
object fortuitous: the thing altered is different from the thing increased,
and precisely the same difference holds between that which produces
alteration and that which produces increase. In the same manner it must
be thought that that which produces local motion and that which is so
moved are not fortuitously related. (30) Now, that which produces
upward and downward movement is that which produces weight and
lightness, and that which is moved is that which is potentially heavy or
light, and the movement of each body to its own place is motion towards
its own form. (It is best to interpret in this sense the common statement
of the older writers that ‘like moves to like’. [310b] For the words are
not in every sense true to fact. If one were to remove the earth to where
the moon now is, the various fragments of earth would each move not
towards it but to the place in which it now is. In general, when a
number of similar and undifferentiated bodies are moved with the same
motion this result is necessarily produced, (5) viz. that the place which is
the natural goal of the movement of each single part is also that of the
whole. But since the place of a thing is the boundary of that which
contains it, and the continent of all things that move upward or
downward is the extremity and the centre, (10) and this boundary comes
to be, in a sense, the form of that which is contained, it is to its like that
a body moves when it moves to its own place. For the successive
members of the series are like one another: water, I mean, is like air and
air like fire, and between intermediates the relation may be converted,
though not between them and the extremes; thus air is like water, but
water is like earth: for the relation of each outer body to that which is
next within it is that of form to matter.) (15) Thus to ask why fire moves
upward and earth downward is the same as to ask why the healable,
when moved and changed qua healable, attains health and not
whiteness; and similar questions might be asked concerning any other
subject of alteration. (20) Of course the subject of increase, when changed
qua increasable, attains not health but a superior size. The same applies
in the other cases. One thing changes in quality, another in quantity: and
so in place, a light thing goes upward, a heavy thing downward. The
only difference is that in the last case, viz. that of the heavy and the
light, (25) the bodies are thought to have a spring of change within
themselves, while the subjects of healing and increase are thought to be
moved purely from without. Sometimes, however, even they change of
themselves, i. e. in response to a slight external movement reach health
or increase, as the case may be. And since the same thing which is
healable is also receptive of disease, (30) it depends on whether it is
moved qua healable or qua liable to disease whether the motion is
towards health or towards disease. But the reason why the heavy and the
light appear more than these things to contain within themselves the
source of their movements is that their matter is nearest to being. This is
indicated by the fact that locomotion belongs to bodies only when
isolated from other bodies, and is generated last of the several kinds of
movement; in order of being then it will be first. [311a] Now
whenever air comes into being out of water, light out of heavy, it goes to
the upper place. It is forthwith light: becoming is at an end, and in that
place it has being. Obviously, then, it is a potentiality, (5) which, in its
passage to actuality, comes into that place and quantity and quality
which belong to its actuality. And the same fact explains why what is
already actually fire or earth moves, when nothing obstructs it, towards
its own place. For motion is equally immediate in the case of nutriment,
when nothing hinders, and in the case of the thing healed, when nothing
stays the healing. But the movement is also due to the original creative
force and to that which removes the hindrance or off which the moving
thing rebounded, (10) as was explained in our opening discussions, where
we tried to show how none of these things moves itself.6 The reason of
the various motions of the various bodies, and the meaning of the
motion of a body to its own place, have now been explained.

4 We have now to speak of the distinctive properties of these bodies

and of the various phenomena connected with them. (15) In accordance
with general conviction we may distinguish the absolutely heavy, as that
which sinks to the bottom of all things, from the absolutely light, which
is that which rises to the surface of all things. I use the term ‘absolutely’,
in view of the generic character of ‘light’ and ‘heavy’,7 in order to
confine the application to bodies which do not combine lightness and
heaviness. It is apparent, I mean, that fire, (20) in whatever quantity, so
long as there is no external obstacle, moves upward, and earth
downward; and, if the quantity is increased, the movement is the same,
though swifter. But the heaviness and lightness of bodies which combine
these qualities is different from this, since while they rise to the surface
of some bodies they sink to the bottom of others. Such are air and water.
Neither of them is absolutely either light or heavy. Both are lighter than
earth—for any portion of either rises to the surface of it—but heavier
than fire, (25) since a portion of either, whatever its quantity, sinks to the
bottom of fire; compared together, however, the one has absolute
weight, the other absolute lightness, since air in any quantity rises to the
surface of water, while water in any quantity sinks to the bottom of air.
Now other bodies are severally light and heavy, and evidently in them
the attributes are due to the difference of their uncompounded parts:
that is to say, (30) according as the one or the other happens to
preponderate the bodies will be heavy and light respectively. Therefore
we need only speak of these parts, since they are primary and all else
consequential: and in so doing we shall be following the advice which
we gave8 to those who attribute heaviness to the presence of plenum and
lightness to that of void. (35) [311b] It is due to the properties of the
elementary bodies that a body which is regarded as light in one place is
regarded as heavy in another, and vice versa. In air, for instance, a
talent’s weight of wood is heavier than a mina of lead, but in water the
wood is the lighter. The reason is that all the elements except fire have
weight and all but earth lightness. (5) Earth, then, and bodies in which
earth preponderates, must needs have weight everywhere, while water is
heavy anywhere but in earth, and air is heavy when not in water or
earth. In its own place each of these bodies has weight except fire, even
air. (10) Of this we have evidence in the fact that a bladder when inflated
weighs more than when empty. A body, then, in which air preponderates
over earth and water, may well be lighter than something in water and
yet heavier than it in air, since such a body does not rise in air but rises
to the surface in water.
The following account will make it plain that there is an absolutely
light and an absolutely heavy body. (15) And by absolutely light I mean
one which of its own nature always moves upward, by absolutely heavy
one which of its own nature always moves downward, if no obstacle is in
the way. There are, I say, these two kinds of body, and it is not the case,
as some9 maintain, that all bodies have weight. Different views are in
fact agreed that there is a heavy body, (20) which moves uniformly
towards the centre. But there is also similarly a light body. For we see
with our eyes, as we said before,10 that earthy things sink to the bottom
of all things and move towards the centre. But the centre is a fixed point.
If therefore there is some body which rises to the surface of all things—
and we observe fire to move upward even in air itself, while the air
remains at rest—clearly this body is moving towards the extremity. It
cannot then have any weight. If it had, (25) there would be another body
in which it sank: and if that had weight, there would be yet another
which moved to the extremity and thus rose to the surface of all moving
things. In fact, however, we have no evidence of such a body. Fire, then,
has no weight. Neither has earth any lightness, since it sinks to the
bottom of all things, and that which sinks moves to the centre. That
there is a centre towards which the motion of heavy things, (30) and away
from which that of light things is directed, is manifest in many ways.
First, because no movement can continue to infinity. For what cannot be
can no more come-to-be than be, and movement is a coming-to-be in one
place from another. Secondly, like the upward movement of fire, (35) the
downward movement of earth and all heavy things makes equal angles
on every side with the earth’s surface: it must therefore be directed
towards the centre. [312a] Whether it is really the centre of the earth
and not rather that of the whole to which it moves, may be left to
another inquiry, since these are coincident.11 But since that which sinks
to the bottom of all things moves to the centre, necessarily that which
rises to the surface moves to the extremity of the region in which the
movement of these bodies takes place. (5) For the centre is opposed as
contrary to the extremity, as that which sinks is opposed to that which
rises to the surface. This also gives a reasonable ground for the duality of
heavy and light in the spatial duality centre and extremity. Now there is
also the intermediate region to which each name is given in opposition
to the other extreme. For that which is intermediate between the two is
in a sense both extremity and centre. (10) For this reason there is another
heavy and light; namely, water and air. But in our view the continent
pertains to form and the contained to matter: and this distinction is
present in every genus.12 Alike in the sphere of quality and in that of
quantity there is that which corresponds rather to form and that which
corresponds to matter. (15) In the same way, among spatial distinctions,
the above belongs to the determinate, the below to matter. The same
holds, consequently, also of the matter itself of that which is heavy and
light: as potentially possessing the one character, it is matter for the
heavy, and as potentially possessing the other, for the light. It is the
same matter, but its being is different, as that which is receptive of
disease is the same as that which is receptive of health, (20) though in
being different from it, and therefore diseasedness is different from
healthiness.

5 A thing then which has the one kind of matter is light and always
moves upward, while a thing which has the opposite matter is heavy and
always moves downward. Bodies composed of kinds of matter different
from these but having relatively to each other the character which these
have absolutely, possess both the upward and the downward motion. (25)
Hence air and water each have both lightness and weight, and water
sinks to the bottom of all things except earth, while air rises to the
surface of all things except fire. But since there is one body only which
rises to the surface of all things and one only which sinks to the bottom
of all things, there must needs be two other bodies which sink in some
bodies and rise to the surface of others. (30) The kinds of matter, then,
must be as numerous as these bodies, i. e. four, but though they are four
there must be a common matter of all—particularly if they pass into one
another—which in each is in being different. [312b] There is no reason
why there should not be one or more intermediates between the
contraries, as in the case of colour; for ‘intermediate’ and ‘mean’ are
capable of more than one application.
Now in its own place every body endowed with both weight and
lightness has weight—whereas earth has weight everywhere—but they
only have lightness among bodies to whose surface they rise. (5) Hence
when a support is withdrawn such a body moves downward until it
reaches the body next below it, air to the place of water and water to
that of earth. But if the fire above air is removed, it will not move
upward to the place of fire, except by constraint; and in that way water
also may be drawn up, (10) when the upward movement of air which has
had a common surface with it is swift enough to overpower the
downward impulse of the water. Nor does water move upward to the
place of air, except in the manner just described. Earth is not so affected
at all, because a common surface is not possible to it. Hence water is
drawn up into the vessel to which fire is applied, but not earth. As earth
fails to move upward, (15) so fire fails to move downward when air is
withdrawn from beneath it: for fire has no weight even in its own place,
as earth has no lightness. The other two move downward when the body
beneath is withdrawn because, while the absolutely heavy is that which
sinks to the bottom of all things, the relatively heavy sinks to its own
place or to the surface of the body in which it rises, since it is similar in
matter to it.
It is plain that one must suppose as many distinct species of matter as
there are bodies. (20) For if, first, there is a single matter of all things, as,
for instance, the void or the plenum or extension or the triangles, either
all things will move upward or all things will move downward, and the
second motion will be abolished. And so, either there will be no
absolutely light body, if superiority of weight is due to superior size or
number of the constituent bodies or to the fullness of the body: but the
contrary is a matter of observation, (25) and it has been shown that the
downward and upward movements are equally constant and universal:
or, if the matter in question is the void or something similar, which
moves uniformly upward, there will be nothing to move uniformly
downward. Further, it will follow that the intermediate bodies move
downward in some cases quicker than earth: for air in sufficiently large
quantity will contain a larger number of triangles or solids or particles.
(30) It is, however, manifest that no portion of air whatever moves

downward.13 And the same reasoning applies to lightness, if that is

supposed to depend on superiority of quantity of matter.14 But if,
secondly, the kinds of matter are two, it will be difficult to make the
intermediate bodies behave as air and water behave. [313a] Suppose,
for example, that the two asserted are void and plenum. Fire, then, as
moving upward, will be void, earth, as moving downward, plenum; and
in air, it will be said, fire preponderates, in water, earth. There will then
be a quantity of water containing more fire than a little air, and a large
amount of air will contain more earth than a little water: consequently
we shall have to say that air in a certain quantity moves downward more
quickly than a little water. (5) But such a thing has never been observed
anywhere. Necessarily, then, as fire goes up because it has something,
e. g. void, which other things do not have, and earth goes downward
because it has plenum, so air goes to its own place above water because
it has something else, (10) and water goes downward because of some
special kind of body. But if the two bodies15 are one matter, or two
matters both present in each, there will be a certain quantity of each at
which water will excel a little air in the upward movement and air excel
water in the downward movement, as we have already often said.

6 The shape of bodies will not account for their moving upward or
downward in general, (15) though it will account for their moving faster
or slower. The reasons for this are not difficult to see. For the problem
thus raised is why a flat piece of iron or lead floats upon water, while
smaller and less heavy things, so long as they are round or long—a
needle, for instance—sink down; and sometimes a thing floats because it
is small, as with gold dust and the various earthy and dusty materials
which throng the air. (20) With regard to these questions, it is wrong to
accept the explanation offered by Democritus. He says that the warm
bodies moving up out of the water hold up heavy bodies which are
broad, while the narrow ones fall through, because the bodies which
offer this resistance are not numerous. [313b] But this would be even
more likely to happen in air—an objection which he himself raises. His
reply to the objection is feeble. In the air, he says, the ‘drive’ (meaning
by drive the movement of the upward moving bodies) is not uniform in
direction. (5) But since some continua are easily divided and others less
easily, and things which produce division differ similarly in the ease
with which they produce it, the explanation must be found in this fact. It
is the easily bounded, in proportion as it is easily bounded, which is
easily divided; and air is more so than water, (10) water than earth.
Further, the smaller the quantity in each kind, the more easily it is
divided and disrupted. Thus the reason why broad things keep their
place is because they cover so wide a surface and the greater quantity is
less easily disrupted. (15) Bodies of the opposite shape sink down because
they occupy so little of the surface, which is therefore easily parted. And
these considerations apply with far greater force to air, since it is so
much more easily divided than water. But since there are two factors,
the force responsible for the downward motion of the heavy body and
the disruption-resisting force of the continuous surface, there must be
some ratio between the two. For in proportion as the force applied by
the heavy thing towards disruption and division exceeds that which
resides in the continuum, (20) the quicker will it force its way down; only
if the force of the heavy thing is the weaker, will it ride upon the
surface.
We have now finished our examination of the heavy and the light and
of the phenomena connected with them.

1 The digression is directed against Plato, Tim. 62 E; but the view was held by others besides
Timaeus.
2 63 C.

3 The atomists, Democritus and Leucippus.

4 For, since the planes have no weight, their number cannot affect the weight of a body.

5 Plato, in the Timaeus.

6 Phys. vii. 1. 241b 24; viii. 4. 254b 7.

7 i. e. because there are distinct species of light and heavy.

8 Above, 309b 20: if they would only give an account of the simple bodies, their questions as to
the composite would answer themselves.
9 This view is maintained in its most unqualified form by those (atomists, probably) who
distinguish the four elements by the size of their particles (Cf. C. 2. 310a 9).
10 Above, 311a 20.

11 The question is discussed in ii. 14. 296b 9.

12 i. e. in every category.

13 sc. in earth.

14 On the somewhat absurd theory that the universal ‘matter’ is void or absolute lightness.

15 viz. air and water.

 De Generatione et Corruptione

Translated by Harold H. Joachim

 CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTERS 1–5. Coming-to-be and passing-away are distinguished from ‘alteration’ and from
growth and diminution.
CHAPTER
1. Are coming-to-be and passing-away distinct from ‘alteration’? It is clear that, amongst
the ancient philosophers, the monists are logically bound to identify, and the
pluralists to distinguish, these changes. Hence both Anaxagoras and Empedocles
(who are pluralists) are inconsistent in their statements on this subject.
Empedocles, it must be added, is inconsistent and obscure in many other respects
as well.
2. There are no indivisible magnitudes. Nevertheless, coming-to-be and passing-away may
well occur and be distinct from ‘alteration’. For coming-to-be is not effected by the
‘association’ of discrete constituents, nor passing-away by their ‘dissociation’; and
‘change in what is continuous’ is not always ‘alteration’.
3. Coming-to-be and passing-away (in the strict or ‘unqualified’ sense of the terms) are in
fact always occurring in Nature. Their ceaseless occurrence is made possible by
the character of Matter (materia prima).
4. ‘Alteration’ is change of quality. It is thus essentially distinct from coming-to-be and
passing-away, which are changes of substance.
5. Definition and explanation of growth and diminution.

CHAPTERS 6–10. What comes-to-be is formed out of certain material constituents, by their
‘combination’. Combination implies ‘action and passion’, which in turn imply ‘contact’.
6. Definition and explanation of ‘contact’.
7. Agent and patient are neither absolutely identical with, nor sheerly other than, one
another. They must be contrasted species of the same genus, opposed formations
of the same matter.
8. Bodies do not consist of indivisible solids with void interspaces, as the Atomists
maintain: nor are there ‘pores’ or empty channels running through them, as
Empedocles supposes. Neither of these theories could account for ‘action-passion’.
9. The true explanation of ‘action-passion’ depends (a) upon the distinction between a
body’s actual and potential possession of a quality, and (b) upon the fact that
potential possession (i. e. ‘susceptibility’) may vary in intensity or degree in
different parts of the body.
10. What ‘combination’ is, and how it can take place.

BOOK II

CHAPTERS 1–8. The material constituents of all that comes-to-be and passes-away are the so-
called ‘elements’, i. e., the ‘simple’ bodies. What these are, how they are transformed
into one another, and how they ‘combine’.
CHAPTER
1. Earth, Air, Fire, and Water are not really ‘elements’ of body, but ‘simple’ bodies. The
‘elements’ of body are ‘primary matter’ and certain ‘contrarieties’.
2. The ‘contrarieties’ in question are ‘the hot and the cold’ and ‘the dry and the moist’.
3. These four ‘elementary qualities’ (hot, cold, dry, moist) are diversely coupled so as to
constitute four ‘simple’ bodies analogous to, but purer than, Earth, Air, Fire, and
Water.
4. The four ‘simple’ bodies undergo reciprocal transformation in various manners.
5. Restatement and confirmation of the preceding doctrine.
6. Empedocles maintains that his four ‘elements’ cannot be transformed into one another.
How then can they be ‘equal’ (i. e. comparable) as he asserts? His whole theory,
indeed, is thoroughly unsatisfactory. In particular, he entirely fails to explain how
compounds (e. g. bone or flesh) come-to-be out of his ‘elements’.
7. How the ‘simple’ bodies combine to form compounds.
8. Every compound body requires all four ‘simple’ bodies as its constituents.

CHAPTERS 9–10. The causes of coming-to-be and passing-away.

9. Material, formal, and final causes of coming-to-be and passing-away. The failure of
earlier theories—e. g. of the ‘materialist’ theory and of the theory advanced by
Socrates in the Phaedo—must be ascribed to inadequate recognition of the
efficient cause.
10. The sun’s annual movement in the ecliptic or zodiac circle is the efficient cause of
coming-to-be and passing-away. It explains the occurrence of these changes and
their ceaseless alternation.

Appendix.

11. In what sense, and under what conditions, the things which come-to-be are ‘necessary’.
Absolute necessity characterizes every sequence of transformations which is
cyclical.
DE GENERATIONE ET CORRUPTIONE

(On Generation and Corruption)

 BOOK I

1 [314a] Our next task is to study coming-to-be and passing-away.

We are to distinguish the causes, and to state the definitions, of these
processes considered in general—as changes predicable uniformly of all
the things that come-to-be and pass-away by nature. Further, we are to
study growth and ‘alteration’. We must inquire what each of them is;
and whether ‘alteration’ is to be identified with coming-to-be, (5) or
whether to these different names there correspond two separate
processes with distinct natures.
On this question, indeed, the early philosophers are divided. Some of
them assert that the so-called ‘unqualified coming-to-be’ is ‘alteration’,
while others maintain that ‘alteration’ and coming-to-be are distinct. For
those who say that the universe is one something (i. e. those who
generate all things out of one thing) are bound to assert that coming-to-
be is ‘alteration’, (10) and that whatever ‘comes-to-be’ in the proper sense
of the term is ‘being altered’: but those who make the matter of things
more than one must distinguish coming-to-be from ‘alteration’. To this
latter class belong Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Leucippus. And yet
Anaxagoras himself failed to understand his own utterance. He says, at
all events, that coming-to-be and passing-away are the same as ‘being
altered’: yet, (15) in common with other thinkers, he affirms that the
elements are many. Thus Empedocles holds that the corporeal elements
are four, while all the elements—including those which initiate
movement—are six in number; whereas Anaxagoras agrees with
Leucippus and Democritus that the elements are infinite.
(Anaxagoras posits as elements the ‘homoeomeries’, viz. bone, flesh,
(20) marrow, and everything else which is such that part and whole are

the same in name and nature; while Democritus and Leucippus say that
there are indivisible bodies, infinite both in number and in the varieties
of their shapes, of which everything else is composed—the compounds
differing one from another according to the shapes, ‘positions’, and
‘groupings’ of their constituents.)
For the views of the school of Anaxagoras seem diametrically opposed
to those of the followers of Empedocles. (25) Empedocles says that Fire,
Water, Air, and Earth are four elements, and are thus ‘simple’ rather
than flesh, bone, and bodies which, like these, are ‘homoeomeries’. But
the followers of Anaxagoras regard the ‘homoeomeries’ as ‘simple’ and
elements, whilst they affirm that Earth, Fire, Water, and Air are
composite; for each of these is (according to them) a ‘common seminary’
of all the ‘homoeomeries’. [314b]
Those, then, who construct all things out of a single element, must
maintain that coming-to-be and passing-away are ‘alteration’. For they
must affirm that the underlying something always remains identical and
one; and change of such a substratum is what we call ‘altering’. Those, on
the other hand, who make the ultimate kinds of things more than one,
must maintain that ‘alteration’ is distinct from coming-to-be: for coming-
to-be and passing-away result from the consilience and the dissolution of
the many kinds. (5) That is why Empedocles too1 uses language to this
effect, when he says ‘There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only a
mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled’. Thus it is clear (i)
that to describe coming-to-be and passing-away in these terms is in
accordance with their fundamental assumption, and (ii) that they do in
fact so describe them: nevertheless, (10) they too2 must recognize
‘alteration’ as a fact distinct from coming-to-be, though it is impossible
for them to do so consistently with what they say.
That we are right in this criticism is easy to perceive. For ‘alteration’ is
a fact of observation. While the substance of the thing remains
unchanged, we see it ‘altering’ just as we see in it the changes of
magnitude called ‘growth’ and ‘diminution’. (15) Nevertheless, the
statements of those who posit more ‘original reals’ than one make
‘alteration’ impossible. For ‘alteration’, as we assert, takes place in
respect to certain qualities: and these qualities (I mean, e. g., hot-cold,
white-black, dry-moist, soft-hard, and so forth) are, all of them, (20)
differences characterizing the ‘elements’. The actual words of
Empedocles may be quoted in illustration—

The sun everywhere bright to see, and hot;

The rain everywhere dark and cold;

and he distinctively characterizes his remaining elements in a similar

manner. Since, therefore, it is not possible3 for Fire to become Water, or
Water to become Earth, neither will it be possible for anything white to
become black, (25) or anything soft to become hard; and the same
argument applies to all the other qualities. Yet this is what ‘alteration’
essentially is.
It follows, as an obvious corollary, that a single matter must always be
assumed as underlying the contrary ‘poles’ of any change—whether
change of place, or growth and diminution, or ‘alteration’; further, that
the being of this matter and the being of ‘alteration’ stand and fall
together. [315a] For if the change is ‘alteration’, then the substratum is
a single element; i. e. all things which admit of change into one another
have a single matter. And, conversely, if the substratum of the changing
things is one, there is ‘alteration’.
Empedocles, indeed, seems to contradict his own statements as well as
the observed facts. (5) For he denies that any one of his elements comes-
to-be out of any other, insisting on the contrary that they are the things
out of which everything else comes-to-be; and yet (having brought the
entirety of existing things, except Strife, together into one) he maintains,
simultaneously with this denial, that each thing once more comes-to-be
out of the One. Hence it was clearly out of a One that this came-to-be
Water, and that Fire, (10) various portions of it being separated off by
certain characteristic differences or qualities—as indeed he calls the sun
‘white and hot’, and the earth ‘heavy and hard’. If, therefore, these
characteristic differences be taken away (for they can be taken away,
since they came-to-be), it will clearly be inevitable for Earth to come-to-
be out of Water and Water out of Earth, and for each of the other
elements to undergo a similar transformation—not only then,4 (15) but
also now—if, and because, they change their qualities. And, to judge by
what he says, the qualities are such that they can be ‘attached’ to things
and can again be ‘separated’ from them, especially since Strife and Love
are still fighting with one another for the mastery. It was owing to this
same conflict that the elements were generated from a One at the former
period. I say ‘generated’, for presumably Fire, Earth, and Water had no
distinctive existence at all while merged in one.
There is another obscurity in the theory of Empedocles. (20) Are we to
regard the One as his ‘original real’? Or is it the Many—i. e. Fire and
Earth, and the bodies co-ordinate with these? For the One is an ‘element’
in so far as it underlies the process as matter—as that out of which Earth
and Fire come-to-be through a change of qualities due to ‘the motion’.5
On the other hand, in so far as the One results from composition (by a
consilience of the Many), whereas they result from disintegration, the
Many are more ‘elementary’ than the One, (25) and prior to it in their
nature.

2 We have therefore to discuss the whole subject of ‘unqualified’

coming-to-be and passing-away; we have to inquire whether these
changes do or do not occur and, if they occur, to explain the precise
conditions of their occurrence. We must also discuss the remaining forms
of change, viz. growth and ‘alteration’. For though, no doubt, Plato
investigated the conditions under which things come-to-be and pass-
away, he confined his inquiry to these changes; and he discussed not all
coming-to-be, (30) but only that of the elements. He asked no questions as
to how flesh or bones, or any of the other similar compound things,
come-to-be; nor again did he examine the conditions under which
‘alteration’ or growth are attributable to things.
A similar criticism applies to all our predecessors with the single
exception of Democritus. Not one of them penetrated below the surface
or made a thorough examination of a single one of the problems. (35)
Democritus, however, does seem not only to have thought carefully
about all the problems, but also to be distinguished from the outset by
his method. [315b] For, as we are saying, none of the other
philosophers made any definite statement about growth, except such as
any amateur might have made. They said that things grow ‘by the
accession of like to like’, but they did not proceed to explain the manner
of this accession. Nor did they give any account of ‘combination’: and
they neglected almost every single one of the remaining problems,
offering no explanation, e. g., of ‘action’ or ‘passion’—how in physical
actions one thing acts and the other undergoes action. (5) Democritus and
Leucippus, however, postulate the ‘figures’, and make ‘alteration’ and
coming-to-be result from them. They explain coming-to-be and passing-
away by their ‘dissociation’ and ‘association’, but ‘alteration’ by their
‘grouping’ and ‘position’. And since they thought that the truth lay in the
appearance, and the appearances are conflicting and infinitely many, (10)
they made the ‘figures’ infinite in number. Hence—owing to the changes
of the compound—the same thing seems different and conflicting to
different people: it is ‘transposed’ by a small additional ingredient, and
appears utterly other by the ‘transposition’ of a single constituent. For
Tragedy and Comedy are both composed of the same letters. (15)
Since almost all our predecessors think (i) that coming-to-be is distinct
from ‘alteration’, and (ii) that, whereas things ‘alter’ by change of their
qualities, it is by ‘association’ and ‘dissociation’ that they come-to-be and
pass-away, we must concentrate our attention on these theses. For they
lead to many perplexing and well-grounded dilemmas. (20) If, on the one
hand, coming-to-be is ‘association’, many impossible consequences
result: and yet there are other arguments, not easy to unravel, which
force the conclusion upon us that coming-to-be cannot possibly be
anything else. If, on the other hand, coming-to-be is not ‘association’,
either there is no such thing as coming-to-be at all or it is ‘alteration’: or
else6 we must endeavour to unravel this dilemma too—and a stubborn
one we shall find it.
The fundamental question, (25) in dealing with all these difficulties, is
this: ‘Do things come-to-be and “alter” and grow, and undergo the
contrary changes, because the primary “reals” are indivisible
magnitudes? Or is no magnitude indivisible?’ For the answer we give to
this question makes the greatest difference. And again, (30) if the primary
‘reals’ are indivisible magnitudes, are these bodies, as Democritus and
Leucippus maintain? Or are they planes, as is asserted in the Timaeus?
To resolve bodies into planes and no further—this, as we have also
remarked elsewhere,7 is in itself a paradox. Hence there is more to be
said for the view that there are indivisible bodies. Yet even these involve
much of paradox. Still, as we have said, it is possible to construct
‘alteration’ and coming-to-be with them, (35) if one ‘transposes’ the same
by ‘turning’ and ‘intercontact’, and by ‘the varieties of the figures’, as
Democritus does. [316a] (His denial of the reality of colour is a
corollary from this position: for, according to him, things get coloured
by ‘turning’ of the ‘figures’.) But the possibility of such a construction no
longer exists for those who divide bodies into planes. For nothing except
solids results from putting planes together: they do not even attempt to
generate any quality from them.
Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive
view of the admitted facts. (5) Hence those who dwell in intimate
association with nature and its phenomena grow more and more able to
formulate, as the foundations of their theories, principles such as to
admit of a wide and coherent development: while those whom devotion
to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too
ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations. (10) The rival
treatments of the subject now before us will serve to illustrate how great
is the difference between a ‘scientific’ and a ‘dialectical’ method of
inquiry. For, whereas the Platonists argue that there must be atomic
magnitudes ‘because otherwise “The Triangle” will be more than one’,
Democritus would appear to have been convinced by arguments
appropriate to the subject, i. e. drawn from the science of nature. Our
meaning will become clear as we proceed.
For to suppose that a body (i. e. a magnitude) is divisible through and
through, (15) and that this division is possible, involves a difficulty. What
will there be in the body which escapes the division?
If it is divisible through and through, and if this division is possible,
then it might be, at one and the same moment, divided through and
through, even though the dividings had not been effected
simultaneously: and the actual occurrence of this result would involve
no impossibility. Hence the same principle will apply whenever a body is
by nature divisible through and through, (20) whether by bisection,8 or
generally by any method whatever: nothing impossible will have
resulted if it has actually been divided—not even if it has been divided
into innumerable parts, themselves divided innumerable times. Nothing
impossible will have resulted, though perhaps nobody in fact could so
divide it.
Since, therefore, the body is divisible through and through, let it have
been divided. What, then, will remain? A magnitude? No: that is
impossible, since then there will be something not divided, (25) whereas
ex hypothesi the body was divisible through and through. But if it be
admitted that neither a body nor a magnitude will remain, and yet
division9 is to take place, the constituents of the body will either be
points (i. e. without magnitude) or absolutely nothing. If its constituents
are nothings, then it might both come-to-be out of nothings and exist as
a composite of nothings: and thus presumably the whole body will be
nothing but an appearance. But if it consists of points, a similar
absurdity will result: it will not possess any magnitude. (30) For when the
points were in contact and coincided to form a single magnitude, they
did not make the whole any bigger (since, when the body was divided
into two or more parts, the whole10 was not a bit smaller or bigger than
it was before the division): hence, even if all the points11 be put
together, they will not make any magnitude.
But suppose that, as the body is being divided, a minute section—a
piece of sawdust, as it were—is extracted, and that in this sense a body
‘comes away’ from the magnitude, evading the division. [316b] Even
then the same12 argument applies. For in what sense is that section
divisible? But if what ‘came away’ was not a body but a separable form
or quality, and if the magnitude is ‘points or contacts thus qualified’: it is
paradoxical that a magnitude should consist of elements which are not
magnitudes. (5) Moreover, where will the points be? And are they
motionless or moving? And every contact is always a contact of two
somethings, i. e. there is always something besides the contact or the
division or the point.
These, then, are the difficulties resulting from the supposition that any
and every body, whatever its size, is divisible through and through. (10)
There is, besides, this further consideration. If, having divided a piece of
wood or anything else, I put it together, it is again equal to what it was,
and is one. Clearly this is so, whatever the point at which I cut the wood.
The wood, therefore, has been divided potentially through and through.
What, then, is there in the wood besides the division? For even if we
suppose there is some quality, yet how is the wood dissolved into such
constituents13 and how does it come-to-be out of them? Or how are such
constituents separated so as to exist apart from one another?
Since, (15) therefore, it is impossible for magnitudes to consist of
contacts or points, there must be indivisible bodies and magnitudes. Yet,
if we do postulate the latter, we are confronted with equally impossible
consequences, which we have examined in other works.14 But we must
try to disentangle these perplexities, and must therefore formulate the
whole problem over again.
 On the one hand, (20) then, it is in no way paradoxical that every
perceptible body should be indivisible as well as divisible at any and
every point. For the second predicate will attach to it potentially, but the
first actually. On the other hand, it would seem to be impossible for a
body to be, even potentially, divisible at all points simultaneously. For if
it were possible, then it might actually occur, with the result, not that
the body would simultaneously be actually both (indivisible and
divided), but that it would be simultaneously divided at any and every
point. (25) Consequently, nothing will remain and the body will have
passed-away into what is incorporeal: and so it might come-to-be again
either out of points or absolutely out of nothing. And how is that
possible?
But now it is obvious that a body is in fact divided into separable
magnitudes which are smaller at each division—into magnitudes which
fall apart from one another and are actually separated. Hence (it is
urged) the process of dividing a body part by part is not a ‘breaking up’
which could continue ad infinitum; nor can a body be simultaneously
divided at every point, (30) for that is not possible; but there is a limit,
beyond which the ‘breaking up’ cannot proceed. The necessary
consequence—especially if coming-to-be and passing-away are to take
place by ‘association’ and ‘dissociation’ respectively—is that a body15
must contain atomic magnitudes which are invisible.
Such is the argument which is believed to establish the necessity of
atomic magnitudes: we must now show that it conceals a faulty
inference, and exactly where it conceals it. [317a]
For, since point is not ‘immediately-next’ to point, magnitudes are
‘divisible through and through’ in one sense, and yet not in another.
When, however, it is admitted that a magnitude is ‘divisible through and
through’, (5) it is thought there is a point not only anywhere, but also
everywhere, in it: hence it is supposed to follow, from the admission,
that the magnitude must be divided away into nothing. For—it is
supposed—there is a point everywhere within it, so that it consists either
of contacts or of points. But it is only in one sense that the magnitude is
‘divisible through and through’, viz. in so far as there is one point
anywhere within it and all its points are everywhere within it if you take
them singly one by one. But there are not more points than one anywhere
within it, for the points are not ‘consecutive’: hence it is not
simultaneously ‘divisible through and through’. For if it were, (10) then, if
it be divisible at its centre, it will be divisible also at a point
‘immediately-next’ to its centre. But it is not so divisible: for position is
not ‘immediately-next’ to position, nor point to point—in other words,
division is not ‘immediately-next’ to division, nor composition to
composition.
Hence there are both ‘association’ and ‘dissociation’, though neither
(a) into, and out of, atomic magnitudes (for that involves many
impossibilities), nor (b) so that division takes place through and through
—for this would have resulted only if point had been ‘immediately-next’
to point: but ‘dissociation’ takes place into small (i. e. relatively small)
parts, (15) and ‘association’ takes place out of relatively small parts.
It is wrong, however, to suppose, as some assert, that coming-to-be
and passing-away in the unqualified and complete sense are distinctively
defined by ‘association’ and ‘dissociation’, while the change that takes
place in what is continuous is ‘alteration’. On the contrary, (20) this is
where the whole error lies. For unqualified coming-to-be and passing-
away are not effected by ‘association’ and ‘dissociation’. They take place
when a thing changes, from this to that, as a whole. But the philosophers
we are criticizing suppose that all such change16 is ‘alteration’: whereas
in fact there is a difference. For in that which underlies the change there
is a factor corresponding to the definition17 and there is a material
factor. (25) When, then, the change is in these constitutive factors, there
will be coming-to-be or passing-away: but when it is in the thing’s
qualities, i. e. a change of the thing per accidens, there will be ‘alteration’.
‘Dissociation’ and ‘association’ affect the thing’s susceptibility to
passing-away. For if water has first been ‘dissociated’ into smallish
drops, air comes-to-be out of it more quickly: while, if drops of water
have first been ‘associated’, air comes-to-be more slowly. (30) Our
doctrine will become clearer in the sequel.18 Meantime, so much may be
taken as established—viz. that coming-to-be cannot be ‘association’, at
least not the kind of ‘association’ some philosophers assert it to be.

3 Now that we have established the preceding distinctions, we must

first19 consider whether there is anything which comes-to-be and passes-
away in the unqualified sense: or whether nothing comes-to-be in this
strict sense, but everything always comes-to-be something and out of
something—I mean, (35) e. g., comes-to-be-heal thy out of being-ill and ill
out of being-healthy, comes-to-be-small out of being-big and big out of
being-small, and so on in every other instance. [317b] For if there is to
be coming-to-be without qualification, ‘something’ must—without
qualification—‘come-to-be out of not-being’, so that it would be true to
say that ‘not-being is an attribute of some things’. For qualified coming-
to-be is a process out of qualified not-being (e. g. out of not-white or not-
beautiful), (5) but unqualified coming-to-be is a process out of unqualified
not-being.
Now ‘unqualified’ means either (i) the primary predication within
each Category, or (ii) the universal, i. e. the all-comprehensive,
predication. Hence, if ‘unqualified not-being’ means the negation of
‘being’ in the sense of the primary term of the Category in question, we
shall have, in ‘unqualified coming-to-be’, a coming-to-be of a substance
out of not-substance. But that which is not a substance or a ‘this’ clearly
cannot possess predicates drawn from any of the other Categories either
—e. g. we cannot attribute to it any quality, (10) quantity, or position.
Otherwise, properties would admit of existence in separation from
substances. If, on the other hand, ‘unqualified not-being’ means ‘what is
not in any sense at all’, it will be a universal negation of all forms of
being, so that what comes-to-be will have to come-to-be out of nothing.
Although we have dealt with these problems at greater length in
another work,20 where we have set forth the difficulties and established
the distinguishing definitions, the following concise restatement of our
results must here be offered:—
In one sense things come-to-be out of that which has no ‘being’
without qualification: yet in another sense they come-to-be always out of
‘what is’. (15) For coming-to-be necessarily implies the pre-existence of
something which potentially ‘is’, but actually ‘is not’; and this something
is spoken of both as ‘being’ and as ‘not-being’.
These distinctions may be taken as established: but even then it is
extraordinarily difficult to see how there can be ‘unqualified coming-to-
be’ (whether we suppose it to occur out of what potentially ‘is’, or in
some other way), and we must recall this problem for further
examination. (20) For the question might be raised whether substance
(i. e. the ‘this’) comes-to-be at all. Is it not rather the ‘such’, the ‘so-
great’, or the ‘somewhere’, which comes-to-be? And the same question
might be raised about ‘passing-away’ also. For if a substantial thing
comes-to-be, it is clear that there will ‘be’ (not actually, but potentially)
a substance, out of which its coming-to-be will proceed and into which
the thing that is passing-away will necessarily change. Then will any
predicate belonging to the remaining Categories attach actually to this
presupposed substance? In other words, (25) will that which is only
potentially a ‘this’ (which only potentially is), while without the
qualification ‘potentially’ it is not a ‘this’ (i. e. is not), possess, e. g., any
determinate size or quality or position? For (i) if it possesses none of
these determinations actually, but all of them only potentially, the result
is first that a being, which is not a determinate being, is capable of
separate existence; and in addition that coming-to-be proceeds out of
nothing pre-existing—a thesis which, more than any other, preoccupied
and alarmed the earliest philosophers. (30) On the other hand (ii) if,
although it is not a ‘this somewhat’ or a substance, it is to possess some
of the remaining determinations quoted above, then (as we said)21
properties will be separable from substances.
We must therefore concentrate all our powers on the discussion of
these difficulties and on the solution of a further question—viz. (35) What
is the cause of the perpetuity of coming-to-be? Why is there always
unqualified,22 as well as partial,23 coming-to-be?
‘Cause’ in this connexion has two senses. [318a] It means (i) the
source from which, as we say, the process ‘originates’, and (ii) the
matter. It is the material cause that we have here to state. For, as to the
other cause, we have already explained (in our treatise on Motion24) that
it involves (a) something immovable through all time and (b) something
always being moved. (5) And the accurate treatment of the first of these
—of the immovable ‘originative source’—belongs to the province of the
other, or ‘prior’, philosophy: while as regards ‘that which sets everything
else in motion by being itself continuously moved’, we shall have to
explain later25 which amongst the so-called ‘specific’ causes exhibits this
character. But at present we are to state the material cause—the cause
classed under the head of matter—to which it is due that passing-away
and coming-to-be never fail to occur in Nature. (10) For perhaps, if we
succeed in clearing up this question, it will simultaneously become clear
what account we ought to give of that which perplexed us just now, i. e.
of unqualified passing-away and coming-to-be.
Our new question too—viz. ‘what is the cause of the unbroken
continuity of coming-to-be?’—is sufficiently perplexing, (15) if in fact
what passes-away vanishes into ‘what is not’ and ‘what is not’ is nothing
(since ‘what is not’ is neither a thing, nor possessed of a quality or
quantity, nor in any place). If, then, some one of the things ‘which are’ is
constantly disappearing, why has not the whole of ‘what is’ been used up
long ago and vanished away—assuming of course that the material of all
the several comings-to-be was finite? For, presumably, the unfailing
continuity of coming-to-be cannot be attributed to the infinity of the
material. (20) That is impossible, for nothing is actually infinite. A thing is
infinite only potentially, i. e. the dividing of it can continue indefinitely:
so that we should have to suppose there is only one kind of coming-to-be
in the world—viz. one which never fails, because it is such that what
comes-to-be is on each successive occasion smaller than before. But in
fact this is not what we see occurring.
Why, then, is this form of change necessarily ceaseless? Is it because
the passing-away of this is a coming-to-be of something else, (25) and the
coming-to-be of this a passing-away of something else?
The cause implied in this solution26 must no doubt be considered
adequate to account for coming-to-be and passing-away in their general
character as they occur in all existing things alike. Yet, if the same
process is a coming-to-be of this but a passing-away of that, (30) and a
passing-away of this but a coming-to-be of that, why are some things said
to come-to-be and pass-away without qualification, but others only with
a qualification?
This distinction must be investigated once more, for it demands some
explanation. <It is applied in a twofold manner.> For (i) we say ‘it is
now passing-away’ without qualification, and not merely ‘this is passing-
away’:27 and we call this change ‘coming-to-be’, and that ‘passing-away’,
without qualification. And (ii) so-and-so ‘comes-to-be-something’, but
does not ‘come-to-be’ without qualification; for we say that the student
‘comes-to-be-learned’, not ‘comes-to-be’ without qualification. (35)
 (i) Now we often divide terms into those which signify a ‘this
somewhat’ and those which do not. [318b] And <the first form of>
the distinction, which we are investigating, results from a similar
division of terms: for it makes a difference into what the changing thing
changes. Perhaps, e. g., the passage into Fire is ‘coming-to-be’
unqualified, but ‘passing-away-of-something’ (e. g. of Earth): whilst the
coming-to-be of Earth is qualified (not unqualified) ‘coming-to-be’, (5)
though unqualified ‘passing-away’ (e. g. of Fire). This would be the case
on the theory set forth in Parmenides:28 for he says that the things into
which change takes place are two, and he asserts that these two, viz.
what is and what is not, are Fire and Earth. Whether we postulate these,29
or other things of a similar kind, makes no difference. For we are trying
to discover not what undergoes these changes, but what is their
characteristic manner. The passage, then, (10) into what ‘is not’ except
with a qualification is unqualified passing-away, while the-passage into
what ‘is’ without qualification is unqualified coming-to-be. Hence
whatever the contrasted ‘poles’ of the changes may be—whether Fire
and Earth, or some other couple—the one of them will be a ‘being’ and
the other ‘a not-being’.30
We have thus stated one characteristic manner in which unqualified
will be distinguished from qualified coming-to-be and passing-away; but
they are also distinguished according to the special nature of the
material of the changing thing. (15) For a material, whose constitutive
differences signify more a ‘this somewhat’, is itself more ‘substantial’ or
‘real’: while a material, whose constitutive differences signify privation,
is ‘not real’. (Suppose, e. g., that ‘the hot’ is a positive predication, i. e. a
‘form’, whereas ‘cold’ is a privation, and that Earth and Fire differ from
one another by these constitutive differences.)
The opinion, however, which most people are inclined to prefer, is
that the distinction31 depends upon the difference between ‘the
perceptible’ and ‘the imperceptible’. (20) Thus, when there is a change
into perceptible material, people say there is ‘coming-to-be’; but when
there is a change into invisible material, they call it ‘passing-away’. For
they distinguish ‘what is’ and ‘what is not’ by their perceiving and not-
perceiving, just as what is knowable ‘is’ and what is unknowable ‘is
not’—perception on their view having the force of knowledge. Hence, (25)
just as they deem themselves to live and to ‘be’ in virtue of their
perceiving or their capacity to perceive, so too they deem the things to
‘be’ qua perceived or perceptible—and in this they are in a sense on the
track of the truth, though what they actually say is not true.
Thus unqualified coming-to-be and passing-away turn out to be
different according to common opinion from what they are in truth.32
For Wind and Air are in truth more real—more a ‘this somewhat’ or a
‘form’—than Earth. But they are less real to perception—which explains
why things are commonly said to ‘pass-away’ without qualification when
they change into Wind and Air, (30) and to ‘come-to-be’33 when they
change into what is tangible, i. e. into Earth.
We have now explained why there is ‘unqualified coming-to-be’
(though it is a passing-away-of-something) and ‘unqualified passing-
away’ (though it is a coming-to-be-of-something). For this distinction (35)
of appellation depends upon a difference in the material out of which,
and into which, the changes are effected. It depends either upon whether
the material is or is not ‘substantial’, or upon whether it is more or less
‘substantial’, or upon whether it is more or less perceptible, (ii) But why
are some things said to ‘come-to-be’ without qualification, and others
only to ‘come-to-be-so-and-so’, in cases different from the one we have
been considering where two things come-to-be reciprocally out of one
another? For at present we have explained no more than this:—why,
when two things change reciprocally into one another, (5) we do not
attribute coming-to-be and passing-away uniformly to them both,
although every coming-to-be is a passing-away of something else and
every passing-away some other thing’s coming-to-be. [319a] But the
question subsequently formulated involves a different problem—viz.
why, although the learning thing is said to ‘come-to-be-learned’ but not
to ‘come-to-be’ without qualification, (10) yet the growing thing is said to
‘come-to-be’.
The distinction here turns upon the difference of the Categories. For
some things signify a this somewhat, others a such, and others a so-much.
Those things, then, which do not signify substance, are not said to
‘come-to-be’ without qualification, but only to ‘come-to-be-so-and-so’.
Nevertheless, in all changing things alike, we speak of ‘coming-to-be’34
when the thing comes-to-be something in one35 of the two Columns—
e. g. in Substance, (15) if it comes-to-be Fire but not if it comes-to-be
Earth; and in Quality, if it comes-to-be learned but not when it comes-to-
be ignorant.
We have explained why some things come-to-be without qualification,
but not others—both in general, and also when the changing things are
substances and nothing else; and we have stated that the substratum is
the material cause of the continuous occurrence of coming-to-be,
because it is such as to change from contrary to contrary and because,
(20) in substances, the coming-to-be of one thing is always a passing-away

of another, and the passing-away of one thing is always another’s

coming-to-be. But there is no need even to discuss the other question we
raised—viz. why coming-to-be continues though things are constantly
being destroyed.36 For just as people speak of ‘a passing-away’ without
qualification when a thing has passed into what is imperceptible and
what in that sense ‘is not’, so also they speak of ‘a coming-to-be out of a
not-being’ when a thing emerges from an imperceptible. (25) Whether,
therefore, the substratum is or is not something, what comes-to-be
emerges out of a ‘not-being’:37 so that a thing ‘comes-to-be out of a not-
being’ just as much as it ‘passes-away into what is not’. Hence it is
reasonable enough that coming-to-be should never fail. For coming-to-be
is a passing-away of ‘what is not’ and passing-away is a coming-to-be of
‘what is not’.38
But what about that which ‘is’ not except with a qualification? Is it
one of the two contrary poles of the change—e. g. is Earth (i. e. the
heavy) a ‘not-being’, (30) but Fire (i. e. the light) a ‘being’? Or, on the
contrary, does ‘what is’ include Earth as well as Fire, whereas ‘what is
not’ is matter—the matter of Earth and Fire alike? And again, is the
matter of each different? Or is it the same, since otherwise they would
not come-to-be reciprocally out of one another, i. e. contraries out of
contraries? [319b] For these things—Fire, Earth, Water, Air—are
characterized by ‘the contraries.’39
Perhaps the solution is that their matter is in one sense the same, but
in another sense different. For that which underlies them, whatever its
nature may be qua underlying them, is the same: but its actual being is
not the same.
4 So much, then, on these topics. Next we must state what the
difference is between coming-to-be and ‘alteration’—for we maintain
that these changes are distinct from one another. (5)
Since, then, we must distinguish (a) the substratum, and (b) the
property whose nature it is to be predicated of the substratum; and since
change of each of these occurs; there is ‘alteration’ when the substratum
is perceptible and persists, (10) but changes in its own properties, the
properties in question being opposed to one another either as contraries
or as intermediates. The body, e. g., although persisting as the same
body, is now healthy and now ill; and the bronze is now spherical and at
another time angular, and yet remains the same bronze. (15) But when
nothing perceptible persists in its identity as a substratum, and the thing
changes as a whole (when e. g. the seed as a whole is converted into
blood, or water into air, or air as a whole into water), such an
occurrence is no longer ‘alteration’. It is a coming-to-be of one substance
and a passing-away of the other—especially if the change proceeds from
an imperceptible something to something perceptible (either to touch or
to all the senses), (20) as when water comes-to-be out of, or passes-away
into, air: for air is pretty well imperceptible. If, however, in such cases,
any property (being one of a pair of contraries) persists, in the thing that
has come-to-be, the same as it was in the thing which has passed-away—
if, e. g., when water comes-to-be out of air, both are transparent or
cold40—the second thing, into which the first changes, must not be a
property of this persistent identical something. Otherwise the change
will be ‘alteration’.
Suppose, e. g., that the musical man passed-away and an unmusical man
came-to-be, (25) and that the man persists as something identical. Now, if
‘musicalness and unmusicalness’ had not been a property essentially
inhering in man, these changes would have been a coming-to-be of
unmusicalness and a passing-away of musicalness: but in fact
‘musicalness and unmusicalness’ are a property of the persistent identity,
viz. man. (Hence, as regards man, these changes are ‘modifications’;
though, as regards musical man and unmusical man, (30) they are a
passing-away and a coming-to-be.) Consequently such changes are
‘alteration’.
When the change from contrary to contrary is in quantity, it is ‘growth
and diminution’; when it is in place, it is ‘motion’; when it is in property,
i. e. in quality, it is ‘alteration’: but when nothing persists, of which the
resultant is a property (or an ‘accident’ in any sense of the term), it is
‘coming-to-be’, and the converse change is ‘passing-away’. [320a]
‘Matter’, in the most proper sense of the term, is to be identified with
the substratum which is receptive of coming-to-be and passing-away: but
the substratum of the remaining kinds of change is also, in a certain
sense, ‘matter’, because all these substrata are receptive of ‘contrarieties’
of some kind. (5) So much, then, as an answer to the questions (i)
whether coming-to-be ‘is’ or ‘is not’—i. e. what are the precise conditions
of its occurrence—and (ii) what ‘alteration’ is: but we have still to treat
of growth.41

5 We must explain (i) wherein growth differs from coming-to-be and

from ‘alteration’, and (ii) what is the process of growing and the process
of diminishing in each and all of the things that grow and diminish. (10)
Hence our first question is this: Do these changes differ from one
another solely because of a difference in their respective ‘spheres’? In
other words, do they differ because, while a change from this to that (viz.
from potential to actual substance) is coming-to-be, a change in the
sphere of magnitude is growth and one in the sphere of quality is
‘alteration’—both growth and ‘alteration’ being changes from what is-
potentially to what is-actually magnitude and quality respectively? Or is
there also a difference in the manner of the change, (15) since it is evident
that, whereas neither what is ‘altering’ nor what is coming-to-be
necessarily changes its place, what is growing or diminishing changes its
spatial position of necessity, though in a different manner from that in
which the moving thing does so? For that which is being moved changes
its place as a whole: but the growing thing changes its place like a metal
that is being beaten, (20) retaining its position as a whole while its parts
change their places. They change their places, but not in the same way
as the parts of a revolving globe. For the parts of the globe change their
places while the whole continues to occupy an equal place: but the parts
of the growing thing expand over an ever-increasing place and the parts
of the diminishing thing contract within an ever-diminishing area. (25)
It is clear, then, that these changes—the changes of that which is
coming-to-be, of that which is ‘altering’, and of that which is growing—
differ in manner as well as in sphere. But how are we to conceive the
‘sphere’ of the change which is growth and diminution? The ‘sphere’ of
growing and diminishing is believed to be magnitude. Are we to suppose
that body and magnitude come-to-be out of something which, (30) though
potentially magnitude and body, is actually incorporeal and devoid of
magnitude? And since this description may be understood in two
different ways, in which of these two ways are we to apply it to the
process of growth? Is the matter,42 out of which growth takes place, (i)
‘separate’ and existing alone by itself, or (ii) ‘separate’ but contained in
another body?43
Perhaps it is impossible for growth to take place in either of these
ways. [320b] For since the matter44 is ‘separate’, either (a) it will
occupy no place (as if it were a point), or (b) it will be a ‘void’, i. e. a
non-perceptible body. But the first of these alternatives is impossible. For
since what comes-to-be out of this incorporeal and sizeless something
will always be ‘somewhere’, it too must be ‘somewhere’—either
intrinsically or indirectly.45 (5) And the second alternative necessarily
implies that the matter is contained in some other body. But if it is to be
‘in’ another body and yet remains ‘separate’ in such a way that it is in no
sense a part of that body (neither a part of its substantial being nor an
‘accident’ of it), many impossibilities will result. It is as if we were to
suppose that when, e. g., air comes-to-be out of water the process were
due not to a change of the water, (10) but to the matter of the air being
‘contained in’ the water as in a vessel. This is impossible. For (i) there is
nothing to prevent an indeterminate number of matters being thus
‘contained in’ the water, so that they might come-to-be actually an
indeterminate quantity of air; and (ii) we do not in fact see air coming-
to-be out of water in this fashion, viz. withdrawing out of it and leaving
it unchanged.
It is therefore better to suppose that in all instances of coming-to-be
the matter is. inseparable,46 being numerically identical and one with
the ‘containing’ body, though isolable from it by definition. But the same
reasons also forbid us to regard the matter, out of which the body
comes-to-be, as points or lines. The matter is that of which points and
lines are limits, (15) and it is something that can never exist without
quality and without form.
Now it is no doubt true, as we have also established elsewhere,47 that
one thing ‘comes-to-be’ (in the unqualified sense) out of another thing:
and further it is true that the efficient cause of its coming-to-be is either
(i) an actual thing (which is the same as the effect either generically—for
the efficient cause of the coming-to-be of a hard thing is not a hard
thing48—or specifically, (20) as e. g. fire is the efficient cause of the
coming-to-be of fire or one man of the birth of another), or (ii) an
actuality.49 Nevertheless, since there is also a matter out of which
corporeal substance itself comes-to-be (corporeal substance, however,
already characterized as such-and-such a determinate body, for there is
no such thing as body in general), this same matter is also the matter of
magnitude and quality—being separable from these matters by
definition, but not separable in place unless Qualities are, in their turn,
separable.50
It is evident, (25) from the preceding51 development and discussion of
difficulties, that growth is not a change out of something which, though
potentially a magnitude, actually possesses no magnitude. For, if it were,
‘the void’ would exist in separation; but we have explained in a former
work52 that this is impossible. Moreover, a change of that kind is not
peculiarly distinctive of growth, but characterizes coming-to-be as such
or in general. For growth is an increase, (30) and diminution is a
lessening, of the magnitude which is there already—that, indeed, is why
the growing thing must possess some magnitude. Hence growth must not
be regarded as a process from a matter without magnitude to an
actuality of magnitude: for this would be a body’s coming-to-be rather
than its growth.
We must therefore come to closer quarters with the subject of our
inquiry. [321a] We must ‘grapple’ with it (as it were) from its
beginning, and determine the precise character of the growing and
diminishing whose causes we are investigating.
It is evident (i) that any and every part of the growing thing has
increased, and that similarly in diminution every part has become
smaller: also (ii) that a thing grows by the accession, (5) and diminishes
by the departure, of something. Hence it must grow by the accession
either (a) of something incorporeal or (b) of a body. Now, if (a) it grows
by the accession of something incorporeal, there will exist separate a
void: but (as we have stated before)53 it is impossible for a matter of
magnitude to exist ‘separate’. If, on the other hand, (b) it grows by the
accession of a body, there will be two bodies—that which grows and
that which increases it—in the same place: and this too is impossible.
But neither is it open to us to say that growth or diminution occurs in
the way in which e. g. air is generated from water. (10) For, although the
volume has then become greater, the change will not be growth, but a
coming-to-be of the one—viz. of that into which the change is taking
place—and a passing-away of the contrasted body. It is not a growth of
either. Nothing grows in the process; unless indeed there be something
common to both things (to that which is coming-to-be and to that which
passed-away), (15) e. g. ‘body’, and this grows. The water has not grown,
nor has the air: but the former has passed-away and the latter has come-
to-be, and—if anything has grown—there has been a growth of ‘body’.
Yet this too is impossible. For our account of growth must preserve the
characteristics of that which is growing and diminishing. And these
characteristics are three: (i) any and every part of the growing
magnitude is made bigger (e. g. if flesh grows, (20) every particle of the
flesh gets bigger), (ii) by the accession of something, and (iii) in such a
way that the growing thing is preserved and persists. For whereas a
thing does not persist in the processes of unqualified coming-to-be or
passing-away, that which grows or ‘alters’ persists in its identity through
the ‘altering’ and through the growing or diminishing, (25) though the
quality (in ‘alteration’) and the size (in growth) do not remain the same.
Now if the generation of air from water is to be regarded as growth, a
thing might grow without the accession (and without the persistence) of
anything, and diminish without the departure of anything—and that
which grows need not persist. But this characteristic54 must be
preserved: for the growth we are discussing has been assumed to be thus
characterized.
One might raise a further difficulty. What is ‘that which grows’? Is it
that to which something is added? If, (30) e. g., a man grows in his shin, is
it the shin which is greater55—but not that ‘whereby’ he grows, viz. not
the food? Then why have not both ‘grown’? For when A is added to B,
both A and B are greater, as when you mix wine with water; for each
ingredient is alike increased in volume. Perhaps the explanation is that
the substance of the one56 remains unchanged, but the substance of the
other (viz. of the food) does not. For indeed, (35) even in the mixture of
wine and water, it is the prevailing ingredient which is said to have
increased in volume. [321b] We say, e. g., that the wine has increased,
because the whole mixture acts as wine but not as water. A similar
principle applies also to ‘alteration’. Flesh is said to have been ‘altered’
if, while its character and substance remain, some one of its essential
properties, which was not there before, now qualifies it: on the other
hand, that ‘whereby’ it has been ‘altered’ may have undergone no
change, (5) though sometimes it too has been affected. The altering agent,
however, and the originative source of the process are in the growing
thing and in that which is being ‘altered’: for the efficient cause is in
these.57 No doubt the food, which has come in, may sometimes expand
as well as the body that has consumed it (that is so, e. g., if, after having
come in, a food is converted into wind), but when it has undergone this
change it has passed-away: and the efficient cause is not in the food. (10)
We have now developed the difficulties sufficiently and must therefore
try to find a solution of the problem. Our solution must preserve intact
the three characteristics of growth—that the growing thing persists, that
it grows by the accession (and diminishes by the departure) of
something, and further that every perceptible particle of it has become
either larger or smaller. We must recognize also (a) that the growing
body is not ‘void’ and that yet there are not two magnitudes in the same
place, (15) and (b) that it does not grow by the accession of something
incorporeal.
Two preliminary distinctions will prepare us to grasp the cause of
growth. We must note (i) that the organic parts grow by the growth of
the tissues (for every organ is composed of these as its constituents); and
(ii) that flesh, (20) bone, and every such part—like every other thing
which has its form immersed in matter—has a twofold nature: for the
form as well as the matter is called ‘flesh’ or ‘bone’.
Now, that any and every part of the tissue qua form should grow—and
grow by the accession of something—is possible, but not that any and
every part of the tissue qua matter should do so. (25) For we must think of
the tissue after the image of flowing water that is measured by one and
the same measure; particle after particle comes-to-be, and each
successive particle is different. And it is in this sense that the matter of
the flesh grows, some flowing out and some flowing in fresh; not in the
sense that fresh matter accedes to every particle of it. There is, however,
an accession to every part of its figure or ‘form’.
That growth has taken place proportionally,58 is more manifest in the
organic parts—e. g. in the hand. For there the fact that the matter is
distinct from the form is more manifest than in flesh, (30) i. e. than in the
tissues. That is why there is a greater tendency to suppose that a corpse
still possesses flesh and bone than that it still has a hand or an arm.
Hence in one sense it is true that any and every part of the flesh has
grown; but in another sense it is false. For there has been an accession to
every part of the flesh in respect to its form, (35) but not in respect to its
matter. The whole, however, has become larger. And this increase is due
(a) on the one hand to the accession of something, which is called ‘food’
and is said to be ‘contrary’ to flesh, but (b) on the other hand to the
transformation of this food into the same form as that of flesh—as if,
e. g., ‘moist’ were to accede to ‘dry’ and, having acceded, were to be
transformed and to become ‘dry’. [322a] For in one sense ‘Like grows
by Like’, but in another sense ‘Unlike grows by Unlike’.
One might discuss what must be the character of that ‘whereby’ a
thing grows. (5) Clearly it must be potentially that which is growing—
potentially flesh, e. g., if it is flesh that is growing. Actually, therefore, it
must be ‘other’ than the growing thing. This ‘actual other’, then, has
passed-away and come-to-be flesh. But it has not been transformed into
flesh alone by itself (for that would have been a coming-to-be, not a
growth): on the contrary, it is the growing thing which has come-to-be
flesh <and grown> by the food. In what way, then, has the food been
modified by the growing thing?59 Perhaps we should say that it has been
‘mixed’ with it, as if one were to pour water into wine and the wine
were able to convert the new ingredient into wine. (10) And as fire lays
hold of the inflammable,60 so the active principle of growth, dwelling in
the growing thing (i. e. in that which is actually flesh), lays hold of an
acceding food which is potentially flesh and converts it into actual flesh.
The acceding food, therefore, must be together with the growing thing:61
for if it were apart from it, the change would be a coming-to-be.62 For it
is possible to produce fire by piling logs on to the already burning fire.
That is ‘growth’. (15) But when the logs themselves are set on fire, that is
‘coming-to-be’.
‘Quantum-in-general’ does not come-to-be any more than ‘animal’
which is neither man nor any other of the specific forms of animal: what
‘animal-in-general’ is in coming-to-be, that ‘quantum-in-general’ is in
growth. But what does come-to-be in growth is flesh or bone—or a hand
or arm (i. e. the tissues of these organic parts).63 Such things come-to-be,
then, by the accession not of quantified-flesh but of a quantified-
something. (20) In so far as this acceding food is potentially the double
result—e. g. is potentially so-much-flesh—it produces growth: for it is
bound to become actually both so-much and flesh. But in so far as it is
potentially flesh only, it nourishes: for it is thus that ‘nutrition’ and
‘growth’ differ by their definition. That is why a body’s ‘nutrition’
continues so long as it is kept alive (even when it is diminishing), though
not its ‘growth’; and why nutrition, though ‘the same’ as growth, is yet
different from it in its actual being. (25) For in so far as that which
accedes is potentially ‘so-much-flesh’ it tends to increase flesh: whereas,
in so far as it is potentially ‘flesh’ only, it is nourishment.
The form of which we have spoken64 is a kind of power immersed in
matter—a duct, as it were. If, then, a matter accedes—a matter, which is
potentially a duct and also potentially possesses determinate quantity—
the ducts to which it accedes will become bigger. (30) But if it65 is no
longer able to act—if it has been weakened by the continued influx of
matter, just as water, continually mixed in greater and greater quantity
with wine, in the end makes the wine watery and converts it into water
—then it will cause a diminution of the quantum;66 though still the form
persists.

6 [322b] <In discussing the causes of coming-to-be> we must first

investigate the matter, i. e. the so-called ‘elements’. We must ask whether
they really are elements or not, i. e. whether each of them is eternal or
whether there is a sense in which they come-to-be: and, if they do come-
to-be, whether all of them come-to-be in the same manner, reciprocally
out of one another, or whether one amongst them is something primary.
(5) Hence we must begin by explaining certain preliminary matters, about
which the statements now current are vague.
For all <the pluralist philosophers >—those who generate the
‘elements’ as well as those who generate the bodies that are compounded
of the elements—make use of ‘dissociation’ and ‘association’, and of
‘action’ and ‘passion’. Now ‘association’ is ‘combination’; but the precise
meaning of the process we call ‘combining’ has not been explained.
Again, <all the monists make use of ‘alteration’; but> without an agent
and a patient there cannot be ‘altering’ any more than there can be
‘dissociating’ and ‘associating’. (10) For not only those who postulate a
plurality of elements employ their reciprocal action and passion to
generate the compounds: those who derive things from a single element
are equally compelled to introduce ‘acting’. And in this respect Diogenes
is right when he argues that ‘unless all things were derived from one, (15)
reciprocal action and passion could not have occurred’. The hot thing,
e. g., would not be cooled and the cold thing in turn be warmed: for heat
and cold do not change reciprocally into one another, but what changes
(it is clear) is the substratum. Hence, whenever there is action and
passion between two things, that which underlies them must be a single
something. No doubt, (20) it is not true to say that all things are of this
character:67 but it is true of all things between which there is reciprocal
action and passion.
But if we must investigate ‘action-passion’ and ‘combination’, we must
also investigate ‘contact’. For action and passion (in the proper sense of
the terms) can only occur between things which are such as to touch one
another; nor can things enter into combination at all unless they have
come into a certain kind of contact. (25) Hence we must give a definite
account of these three things—of ‘contact’, ‘combination’, and ‘acting’.
Let us start as follows. All things which admit of ‘combination’ must
be capable of reciprocal contact: and the same is true of any two things,
of which one ‘acts’ and the other ‘suffers action’ in the proper sense of
the terms. For this reason we must treat of ‘contact’ first.
Now every term which possesses a variety of meanings includes those
various meanings either owing to a mere coincidence of language, (30) or
owing to a real order of derivation in the different things to which it is
applied: but, though this may be taken to hold of ‘contact’ as of all such
terms, it is nevertheless true that ‘contact’ in the proper sense applies only
to things which have ‘position’. And ‘position’ belongs only to those
things which also have a ‘place’: for in so far as we attribute ‘contact’ to
the mathematical things, we must also attribute ‘place’ to them, whether
they exist in separation or in some other fashion. [323a] Assuming,
therefore, that ‘to touch’ is—as we have defined it in a previous work68
—‘to have the extremes together’, only those things will touch one
another which, being separate magnitudes and possessing position, (5)
have their extremes ‘together’. And since position belongs only to those
things which also have a ‘place’, while the primary differentiation of
‘place’ is ‘the above’ and ‘the below’ (and the similar pairs of opposites),
all things which touch one another will have ‘weight’ or
‘lightness’—either both these qualities or one or the other of them.69 But
bodies which are heavy or light are such as to ‘act’ and ‘suffer action’.
Hence it is clear that those things are by nature such as to touch one
another, (10) which (being separate magnitudes) have their extremes
‘together’ and are able to move, and be moved by, one another.
The manner in which the ‘mover’ moves the ‘moved’ is not always the
same: on the contrary, whereas one kind of ‘mover’ can only impart
motion by being itself moved, another kind can do so though remaining
itself unmoved. Clearly therefore we must recognize a corresponding
variety in speaking of the ‘acting’ thing too: for the ‘mover’ is said to
‘act’ (in a sense) and the ‘acting’ thing to ‘impart motion’. (15)
Nevertheless there is a difference and we must draw a distinction. For
not every ‘mover’ can ‘act’, if (a) the term ‘agent’ is to be used in
contrast to ‘patient’ and (b) ‘patient’ is to be applied only to those things
whose motion is a ‘qualitative affection’—i. e. a quality, like ‘white’ or
‘hot’, in respect to which they are ‘moved’ only in the sense that they are
‘altered’: on the contrary, (20) to ‘impart motion’ is a wider term than to
‘act’. Still, so much, at any rate, is clear: the things which are ‘such as to
impart motion’, if that description be interpreted in one sense, will touch
the things which are ‘such as to be moved by them’—while they will not
touch them, if the description be interpreted in a different sense. But the
disjunctive definition of ‘touching’ must include and distinguish (a)
‘contact in general’ as the relation between two things which, having
position, are such that one is able to impart motion and the other to be
moved, and (b) ‘reciprocal contact’ as the relation between two things,
one able to impart motion and the other able to be moved in such a way
that ‘action and passion’ are predictable of them. (25)
As a rule, no doubt, if A touches B, B touches A. For indeed practically
all the ‘movers’ within our ordinary experience impart motion by being
moved: in their case, what touches inevitably must, and also evidently
does, touch something which reciprocally touches it. Yet, if A moves B, it
is possible—as we sometimes express it—for A ‘merely to touch’ B, and
that which touches need not touch a something which touches it. (30)
Nevertheless it is commonly supposed that ‘touching’ must be reciprocal.
The reason of this belief is that ‘movers’ which belong to the same kind
as the ‘moved’ impart motion by being moved. Hence if anything
imparts motion without itself being moved, it may touch the ‘moved’
and yet itself be touched by nothing—for we say sometimes that the man
who grieves us ‘touches’ us, but not that we ‘touch’ him.
The account just given may serve to distinguish and define the
‘contact’ which occurs in the things of Nature. [323b] Next in order we
must discuss ‘action’ and ‘passion’.

7 The traditional theories on the subject are conflicting. For (i) most
thinkers are unanimous in maintaining (a) that ‘like’ is always
unaffected by ‘like’, (5) because (as they argue) neither of two ‘likes’ is
more apt than the other either to act or to suffer action, since all the
properties which belong to the one belong identically and in the same
degree to the other; and (b) that ‘unlikes’, i. e. ‘differents’, are by nature
such as to act and suffer action reciprocally. For even when the smaller
fire is destroyed by the greater, it suffers this effect (they say) owing to
its ‘contrariety’—since the great is contrary to the small. (10) But (ii)
Democritus dissented from all the other thinkers and maintained a
theory peculiar to himself. He asserts that agent and patient are
identical, i. e. ‘like’. It is not possible (he says) that ‘others’, i. e.
‘differents’, should suffer action from one another: on the contrary, (15)
even if two things, being ‘others’, do act in some way on one another,
this happens to them not qua ‘others’ but qua possessing an identical
property.
Such, then, are the traditional theories, and it looks as if the
statements of their advocates were in manifest conflict. But the reason of
this conflict is that each group is in fact stating a part, whereas they
ought to have taken a comprehensive view of the subject as a whole. For
(i) if A and B are ‘like’—absolutely and in all respects without difference
from one another—it is reasonable to infer that neither is in any way
affected by the other. (20) Why, indeed, should either of them tend to act
any more than the other? Moreover, if ‘like’ can be affected by ‘like’, a
thing can also be affected by itself: and yet if that were so—if ‘like’
tended in fact to act qua ‘like’—there would be nothing indestructible or
immovable, for everything would move itself. And (ii) the same
consequence follows if A and B are absolutely ‘other’, i. e. in no respect
identical. Whiteness could not be affected in any way by line nor linẹ by
whiteness—except perhaps ‘coincidentally’, (25) viz. if the line happened
to be white or black: for unless two things either are, or are composed
of, ‘contraries’, neither drives the other out of its natural condition. (30)
But (iii) since only those things which either involve a ‘contrariety’ or
are ‘contraries’—and not any things selected at random—are such as to
suffer action and to act, agent and patient must be ‘like’ (i. e. identical)
in kind and yet ‘unlike’ (i. e. contrary) in species. (For it is a law of
nature that body is affected by body, flavour by flavour, colour by
colour, and so in general what belongs to any kind by a member of the
same kind—the reason being that ‘contraries’ are in every case within a
single identical kind, and it is ‘contraries’ which reciprocally act and
suffer action.) [324a] Hence agent and patient must be in one sense
identical, (5) but in another sense other than (i. e. ‘unlike’) one another.
And since (a) patient and agent are generically identical (i. e. ‘like’) but
specifically ‘unlike’, while (b) it is ‘contraries’ that exhibit this character:
it is clear that ‘contraries’ and their ‘intermediates’ are such as to suffer
action and to act reciprocally—for indeed it is these that constitute the
entire sphere of passing-away and coming-to-be.
We can now understand why fire heats and the cold thing cools, (10)
and in general why the active thing assimilates to itself the patient. For
agent and patient are contrary to one another, and coming-to-be is a
process into the contrary: hence the patient must change into the agent,
since it is only thus that coming-to-be will be a process into the contrary.
And, again, it is intelligible that the advocates of both views, although
their theories are not the same, are yet in contact with the nature of the
facts. (15) For sometimes we speak of the substratum as suffering action
(e. g. of ‘the man’ as being healed, being warmed and chilled, and
similarly in all the other cases), but at other times we say ‘what is cold is
being warmed’, ‘what is sick is being healed’: and in both these ways of
speaking we express the truth, since in one sense it is the ‘matter’, while
in another sense it is the ‘contrary’, which suffers action. (We make the
same distinction in speaking of the agent: for sometimes we say that ‘the
man’, (20) but at other times that ‘what is hot’, produces heat.) Now the
one group of thinkers supposed that agent and patient must possess
something identical, because they fastened their attention on the
substratum: while the other group maintained the opposite because their
attention was concentrated on the ‘contraries.’
We must conceive the same account to hold of action and passion as
that which is true of ‘being moved’ and ‘imparting motion’. (25) For the
‘mover’, like the ‘agent’, has two meanings. Both (a) that which contains
the originative source of the motion is thought to ‘impart motion’ (for
the originative source is first amongst the causes), and also (b) that
which is last, i. e. immediately next to the moved thing and to the
coming-to-be. A similar distinction holds also of the agent: for we speak
not only (a) of the doctor, (30) but also (b) of the wine, as healing. Now,
in motion, there is nothing to prevent the first mover being unmoved
(indeed, as regards some ‘first movers’ this is actually necessary)
although the last mover always imparts motion by being itself moved:
and, in action, there is nothing to prevent the first agent being unaffected,
while the last agent only acts by suffering action itself. For (a) if agent
and patient have not the same matter, (35) agent acts without being
affected: thus the art of healing produces health without itself being
acted upon in any way by that which is being healed. [324b] But (b)
the food, in acting, is itself in some way acted upon: for, in acting, it is
simultaneously heated or cooled or otherwise affected. Now the art of
healing corresponds to an ‘originative source’, while the food
corresponds to ‘the last’ (i. e. ‘contiguous’) mover. (5)
Those active powers, then, whose forms are not embodied in matter,
are unaffected: but those whose forms are in matter are such as to be
affected in acting. For we maintain that one and the same ‘matter’ is
equally, so to say, the basis of either of the two opposed things—being as
it were a ‘kind’;70 and that that which can be hot must be made hot,
provided the heating agent is there, i. e. comes near. (10) Hence (as we
have said) some of the active powers are unaffected while others are
such as to be affected; and what holds of motion is true also of the active
powers. For as in motion ‘the first mover’ is moved, so among the active
powers ‘the first agent’ is unaffected.
The active power is a ‘cause’ in the sense of that from which the
process originates: but the end, for the sake of which it takes place, (15) is
not ‘active’. (That is why health is not ‘active’, except metaphorically.)
For when the agent is there, the patient becomes something: but when
‘states’71 are there, the patient no longer becomes but already is—and
‘forms’ (i. e. ‘ends’) are a kind of ‘state’. As to the matter’, it (qua matter)
is passive. Now fire contains ‘the hot’ embodied in matter: but a ‘hot’
separate from matter (if such a thing existed) could not suffer any
action. (20) Perhaps, indeed, it is impossible that ‘the hot’ should exist in
separation from matter: but if there are any entities thus separable, what
we are saying would be true of them.
We have thus explained what action and passion are, what things
exhibit them, why they do so, and in what manner.

8 We must go on to discuss how it is possible for action and passion to

take place. (25)
Some philosophers think that the ‘last’ agent—the ‘agent’ in the
strictest sense—enters in through certain pores, and so the patient
suffers action. It is in this way, they assert, that we see and hear and
exercise all our other senses. Moreover, according to them, things are
seen through air and water and other transparent bodies, (30) because
such bodies possess pores, invisible indeed owing to their minuteness,
but close-set and arranged in rows: and the more transparent the body,
the more frequent and serial they suppose its pores to be.
Such was the theory which some philosophers (including Empedocles)
advanced in regard to the structure of certain bodies. They do not
restrict it to the bodies which act and suffer action: but ‘combination’
too, they say, takes place ‘only between bodies whose pores are in
reciprocal symmetry’. (35) The most systematic and consistent theory,
however, and one that applied to all bodies, was advanced by Leucippus
and Democritus: and, in maintaining it, they took as their starting-point
what naturally comes first. [325a]
For some of the older philosophers72 thought that ‘what is’ must of
necessity be ‘one’ and immovable. The void, they argue, (5) ‘is not’: but
unless there is a void with a separate being of its own, ‘what is’ cannot
be moved—nor again can it be ‘many’, since there is nothing to keep
things apart. And in this respect,73 they insist, the view that the universe
is not ‘continuous’ but ‘discretes-in-contact’74 is no better than the view
that there are ‘many’ (and not ‘one’) and a void.75 For <suppose that the
universe is discretes-in-contact. Then>, if it is divisible through and
through, there is no ‘one’, and therefore no ‘many’ either, but the Whole
is void; while to maintain that it is divisible at some points, (10) but not at
others, looks like an arbitrary fiction. For up to what limit is it divisible?
And for what reason is part of the Whole indivisible, i. e. a plenum, and
part divided? Further, they maintain, it is equally76 necessary to deny
the existence of motion.
Reasoning in this way, therefore, they were led to transcend sense-
perception, and to disregard it on the ground that ‘one ought to follow
the argument’: and so they assert that the universe is ‘one’ and
immovable. (15) Some of them add that it is ‘infinite’, since the limit (if it
had one) would be a limit against the void.
There were, then, certain thinkers who, for the reasons we have
stated, enunciated views of this kind as their theory of ‘The
Truth’.77 … Moreover, although these opinions appear to follow logically
in a dialectical discussion, yet to believe them seems next door to
madness when one considers the facts. (20) For indeed no lunatic seems to
be so far out of his senses as to suppose that fire and ice are ‘one’: it is
only between what is right, and what seems right from habit, that some
people are mad enough to see no difference.
Leucippus, however, thought he had a theory which harmonized with
sense-perception and would not abolish either coming-to-be and passing-
away or motion and the multiplicity of things. (25) He made these
concessions to the facts of perception: on the other hand, he conceded to
the Monists that there could be no motion without a void. The result is a
theory which he states as follows: ‘The void is a “not-being”, and no part
of “what is” is a “not-being”; for what “is” in the strict sense of the term
is an absolute plenum. This plenum, (30) however, is not “one”: on the
contrary, it is a “many” infinite in number and invisible owing to the
minuteness of their bulk. The “many” move in the void (for there is a
void): and by coming together they produce “coming-to-be”, while by
separating they produce “passing-away”. Moreover, they act and suffer
action where-ever they chance to be in contact (for there they are not
“one”), and they generate by being put together and becoming
intertwined. From the genuinely-one, on the other hand, (35) there never
could have come-to-be a multiplicity, nor from the genuinely-many a
“one”: that is impossible. [325b] But (just as Empedocles and some of
the other philosophers say that things suffer action through their pores,
so) all “alteration” and all “passion” take place in the way that has been
explained: breaking-up (i. e. passing-away) is effected by means of the
void, and so too is growth—solids creeping in to fill the void places.’ (5)
Empedocles too is practically bound to adopt the same theory as
Leucippus. For he must say that there are certain solids which, however,
are indivisible—unless there are continuous pores all through the body.
But this last alternative is impossible: for then there will be nothing solid
in the body (nothing beside the pores) but all of it will be void. It is
necessary, therefore, for his ‘contiguous discretes’ to be indivisible, while
the intervals between them—which he calls ‘pores’—must be void. (10)
But this is precisely Leucippus’s theory of action and passion.
Such, approximately, are the current explanations of the manner in
which some things ‘act’ while others ‘suffer action’. And as regards the
Atomists, it is not only clear what their explanation is: it is also obvious
that it follows with tolerable consistency from the assumptions they
employ. (15) But there is less obvious consistency in the explanation
offered by the other thinkers. It is not clear, for instance, how, on the
theory of Empedocles, there is to be ‘passing-away’ as well as
‘alteration’. For the primary bodies of the Atomists—the primary
constituents of which bodies are composed, and the ultimate elements
into which they are dissolved—are indivisible, differing from one
another only in figure. In the philosophy of Empedocles, on the other
hand, it is evident that all the other bodies down to the ‘elements’ have
their coming-to-be and their passing-away: but it is not clear how the
‘elements’ themselves, (20) severally in their aggregated masses, come-to-
be and pass-away. Nor is it possible for Empedocles to explain how they
do so, since he does not assert that Fire too78 (and similarly every one of
his other ‘elements’) possesses ‘elementary constituents’ of itself.
Such an assertion would commit him to doctrines like those which
Plato has set forth in the Timaeus.79 For although both Plato and
Leucippus postulate elementary constituents that are indivisible and
distinctively characterized by figures, (25) there is this great difference
between the two theories: the ‘indivisibles’ of Leucippus (i) are solids,
while those of Plato are planes, and (ii) are characterized by an infinite
variety of figures, while the characterizing figures employed by Plato are
limited in number. (30) Thus the ‘comings-to-be’ and the ‘dissociations’
result from the ‘indivisibles’ (a) according to Leucippus through the void
and through contact (for it is at the point of contact that each of the
composite bodies is divisible), but (b) according to Plato in virtue of
contact alone, since he denies there is a void.
Now we have discussed ‘indivisible planes’ in the preceding treatise.80
(35) But with regard to the assumption of ‘indivisible solids’, although we

must not now enter upon a detailed study of its consequences, the
following criticisms fall within the compass of a short digression:—
(I) The Atomists are committed to the view that every ‘indivisible’ is
incapable alike of receiving a sensible property (for nothing can ‘suffer
action’ except through the void) and of producing one—no ‘indivisible’
can be, e. g., either hard or cold. [326a] Yet it is surely a paradox that
an exception is made of ‘the hot’—‘the hot’ being assigned as peculiar to
the spherical figure: for, (5) that being so, its ‘contrary’ also (‘the cold’) is
bound to belong to another of the figures. If, however, these properties
(heat and cold) do belong to the ‘indivisibles’, it is a further paradox that
they should not possess heaviness and lightness, (10) and hardness and
softness. And yet Democritus says ‘the more any indivisible exceeds, the
heavier it is’—to which we must clearly add ‘and the hotter it is’. But if
that is their character, it is impossible they should not be affected by one
another: the ‘slightly-hot indivisible’, e. g., will inevitably suffer action
from one which far exceeds it in heat. Again, if any ‘indivisible’ is ‘hard’,
there must also be one which is ‘soft’: but ‘the soft’ derives its very name
from the fact that it suffers a certain action—for ‘soft’ is that which
yields to pressure. (II) But further, not only is it paradoxical (i) that no
property except figure should belong to the ‘indivisibles’: it is also
paradoxical (ii) that, (15) if other properties do belong to them, one only
of these additional properties should attach to each—e. g. that this
‘indivisible’ should be cold and that ‘indivisible’ hot. For, on that
supposition, their substance would not even be uniform.81 And it is
equally impossible (iii) that more than one of these additional properties
should belong to the single ‘indivisible’. For, being indivisible, it will
possess these properties in the same point82—so that, if it ‘suffers action’
by being chilled, it will also, qua chilled, ‘act’ or ‘suffer action’ in some
other way. (20) And the same line of argument applies to all the other
properties too: for the difficulty we have just raised confronts, as a
necessary consequence, all who advocate ‘indivisibles’ (whether solids or
planes), since their ‘indivisibles’ cannot become either ‘rarer’ or ‘denser’
inasmuch as there is no void in them. (III) It is a further paradox that
there should be small ‘indivisibles’, but not large ones. (25) For it is
natural enough, from the ordinary point of view, that the larger bodies
should be more liable to fracture than the small ones, since they (viz. the
large bodies) are easily broken up because they collide with many other
bodies. But why should indivisibility as such be the property of small,
rather than of large, bodies? (IV) Again, is the substance of all those
solids uniform, or do they fall into sets which differ from one another—
as if, (30) e. g., some of them, in their aggregated bulk, were ‘fiery’, others
‘earthy’? For (i) if all of them are uniform in substance, what is it that
separated one from another? Or why, when they come into contact, do
they not coalesce into one, as drops of water run together when drop
touches drop (for the two cases are precisely parallel)? On the other
hand (ii) if they fall into differing sets, how are these characterized? It is
clear, too, (35) that these,83 rather than the ‘figures’, ought to be
postulated as ‘original reals’, i. e. causes from which the phenomena
result. [326b] Moreover, if they differed in substance, they would both
act and suffer action on coming into reciprocal contact. (V) Again, what
is it which sets them moving? For if their ‘mover’ is other than
themselves, they are such as to ‘suffer action’. If, on the other hand, each
of them sets itself in motion, either (a) it will be divisible (‘imparting
motion’ qua this, ‘being moved’ qua that), (5) or (b) contrary properties
will attach to it in the same respect—i. e. ‘matter’ will be identical-in-
potentiality as well as numerically-identical.84
As to the thinkers who explain modification of property through the
movement facilitated by the pores, if this is supposed to occur
notwithstanding the fact that the pores are filled, their postulate of pores
is superfluous. For if the whole body suffers action under these
conditions, it would suffer action in the same way even if it had no pores
but were just its own continuous self. (10) Moreover, how can their
account of ‘vision through a medium’ be correct? It is impossible for
<the visual ray> to penetrate the transparent bodies at their ‘contacts’;
and impossible for it to pass through their pores if every pore be full. For
how will that85 differ from having no pores at all? The body will be
uniformly ‘full’ throughout. (15) But, further, even if these passages,
though they must contain bodies, are ‘void’, the same consequence will
follow once more.86 And if they are ‘too minute to admit any body’, it is
absurd to suppose there is a ‘minute’ void and yet to deny the existence
of a ‘big’ one (no matter how small the ‘big’ may be87), or to imagine
‘the void’ means anything else than a body’s place—whence it clearly
follows that to every body there will correspond a void of equal cubic
capacity. (20)
As a general criticism we must urge that to postulate pores is
superfluous. For if the agent produces no effect by touching the patient,
neither will it produce any by passing through its pores. On the other
hand, if it acts by contact, then—even without pores—some things will
‘suffer action’ and others will ‘act’, provided they are by nature adapted
for reciprocal action and passion. (25) Our arguments have shown that it
is either false or futile to advocate pores in the sense in which some
thinkers conceive them. But since bodies are divisible through and
through, the postulate of pores is ridiculous: for, qua divisible, a body
can fall into separate parts.

9 Let us explain the way in which things in fact possess the power of
generating, (30) and of acting and suffering action: and let us start from
the principle we have often enunciated. For, assuming the distinction
between (a) that which is potentially and (b) that which is actually such-
and-such, it is the nature of the first, precisely in so far as it is what it is,
to suffer action through and through, not merely to be susceptible in some
parts while insusceptible in others. But its susceptibility varies in degree,
according as it is more or less such-and-such, and one would be more
justified in speaking of ‘pores’ in this connexion88: for instance, (35) in the
metals there are veins of ‘the susceptible’ stretching continuously
through the substance. [327a]
So long, indeed, as any body is naturally coherent and one, it is
insusceptible. So, too, bodies are insusceptible so long as they are not in
contact either with one another or with other bodies which are by
nature such as to act and suffer action. (To illustrate my meaning: Fire
heats not only when in contact, but also from a distance. For the fire
heats the air, and the air—being by nature such as both to act and suffer
action—heats the body. (5)) But the supposition that a body is
‘susceptible in some parts, but insusceptible in others’ <is only possible
for those who hold an erroneous view concerning the divisibility of
magnitudes. For us> the following account results from the distinctions
we established at the beginning.89 For (i) if magnitudes are not divisible
through and through—if, on the contrary, there are indivisible solids or
planes—then indeed no body would be susceptible through and through:
but neither would any be continuous. Since, however, (ii) this is false,
i. e. since every body is divisible, (10) there is no difference between
‘having been divided into parts which remain in contact’ and ‘being
divisible’. For if a body ‘can be separated at the contacts’ (as some
thinkers express it), then, even though it has not yet been divided, it will
be in a state of dividedness—since, as it can be divided, nothing
inconceivable results.90 And (iii) the supposition is open to this general
objection—it is a paradox that ‘passion’ should occur in this manner
only, (15) viz. by the bodies being split. For this theory abolishes
‘alteration’: but we see the same body liquid at one time and solid at
another, without losing its continuity. It has suffered this change not by
‘division’ and ‘composition’, nor yet by ‘turning’ and ‘intercontact’ as
Democritus asserts; for it has passed from the liquid to the solid state
without any change of ‘grouping’ or ‘position’ in the constituents of its
substance. (20) Nor are there contained within it those ‘hard’ (i. e.
congealed) particles ‘indivisible in their bulk’: on the contrary, it is
liquid—and again, solid and congealed—uniformly all through. This
theory, it must be added, makes growth and diminution impossible also.
For if there is to be apposition (instead of the growing thing having
changed as a whole, either by the admixture of something or by its own
transformation), (25) increase of size will not have resulted in any and
every part.
So much, then, to establish that things generate and are generated, act
and suffer action, reciprocally; and to distinguish the way in which these
processes can occur from the (impossible) way in which some thinkers
say they occur.

10 But we have still to explain ‘combination’, for that was the third of
the subjects we originally91 proposed to discuss. (30) Our explanation will
proceed on the same method as before. We must inquire: What is
‘combination’, and what is that which can ‘combine’? Of what things,
and under what conditions, is ‘combination’ a property? And, further,
does ‘combination’ exist in fact, or is it false to assert its existence?
For, (35) according to some thinkers, it is impossible for one thing to be
combined with another. They argue that (i) if both the ‘combined’
constituents persist unaltered, they are no more ‘combined’ now than
they were before, but are in the same condition: while (ii) if one has
been destroyed, the constituents have not been ‘combined’—on the
contrary, one constituent is and the other is not, whereas ‘combination’
demands uniformity of condition in them both: and on the same
principle (iii) even if both the combining constituents have been
destroyed as the result of their coalescence, (5) they cannot ‘have been
combined’ since they have no being at all. [327b]
What we have in this argument is, it would seem, a demand for the
precise distinction of ‘combination’ from coming-to-be and passing-away
(for it is obvious that ‘combination’, if it exists, must differ from these
processes) and for the precise distinction of the ‘combinable’ from that
which is such as to come-to-be and pass-away. (10) As soon, therefore, as
these distinctions are clear, the difficulties raised by the argument would
be solved.
Now (i) we do not speak of the wood as ‘combined’ with the fire, nor
of its burning as a ‘combining’ either of its particles with one another or
of itself with the fire: what we say is that ‘the fire is coming-to-be, but
the wood is passing-away’. Similarly, (15) we speak neither (ii) of the food
as ‘combining’ with the body, nor (iii) of the shape as ‘combining’ with
the wax and thus fashioning the lump. Nor can body ‘combine’ with
white, nor (to generalize) ‘properties’ and ‘states’ with ‘things’: for we see
them persisting unaltered.92 But again (iv) white and knowledge cannot
be ‘combined’ either, (20) nor any other of the ‘adjectivals’. (Indeed, this
is a blemish in the theory of those who assert that ‘once upon a time all
things were together and combined’. For not everything can ‘combine’
with everything. On the contrary, both of the constituents that are
combined in the compound must originally have existed in separation:
but no property can have separate existence.)
Since, however, some things are-potentially while others are-actually,
the constituents combined in a compound can ‘be’ in a sense and yet
‘not-be’. The compound may be-actually other than the constituents from
which it has resulted; nevertheless each of them may still be-potentially
what it was before they were combined, (25) and both of them may
survive undestroyed. (For this was the difficulty that emerged in the
previous argument: and it is evident that the combining constituents not
only coalesce, having formerly existed in separation, but also can again
be separated out from the compound.) The constituents, therefore,
neither (a) persist actually, (30) as ‘body’ and ‘white’ persist: nor (b) are
they destroyed (either one of them or both), for their ‘power of action’ is
preserved. Hence these difficulties may be dismissed: but the problem
immediately connected with them—‘whether combination is something
relative to perception’—must be set out and discussed.
When the combining constituents have been divided into parts so
small, and have been juxtaposed in such a manner that perception fails
to discriminate them one from another, have they then ‘been combined’?
Or ought we to say ‘No, (35) not until any and every part of one
constituent is juxtaposed to a part of the other’? The term, no doubt, is
applied in the former sense: we speak, e. g., of wheat having been
‘combined’ with barley when each grain of the one is juxtaposed to a
grain of the other. [328a] But every body is divisible and therefore,
since body ‘combined’ with body is uniform in texture throughout, any
and every part of each constituent ought to be juxtaposed to a part of the
other. (5)
No body, however, can be divided into its ‘least’ parts: and
‘composition’ is not identical with ‘combination’, but other than it. From
these premises it clearly follows (i) that so long as the constituents are
preserved in small particles, we must not speak of them as ‘combined’.
(For this will be a ‘composition’ instead of a ‘blending’ or ‘combination’:
nor will every portion of the resultant exhibit the same ratio between its
constituents as the whole. But we maintain that, (10) if ‘combination’ has
taken place, the compound must be uniform in texture throughout—any
part of such a compound being the same as the whole, just as any part of
water is water: whereas, if ‘combination’ is ‘composition of the small
particles’, nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, the
constituents will only be ‘combined’ relatively to perception: and the
same thing will be ‘combined’ to one percipient, if his sight is not sharp,
<but not to another, (15)> while to the eye of Lynkeus nothing will be
‘combined’.) It clearly follows (ii) that we must not speak of the
constituents as ‘combined’ in virtue of a division such that any and every
part of each is juxtaposed to a part of the other: for it is impossible for
them to be thus divided. Either, then, there is no ‘combination’, or we
have still to explain the manner in which it can take place.
Now, as we maintain,93 some things are such as to act and others such
as to suffer action from them. Moreover, some things—viz. (20) those
which have the same matter—‘reciprocate’, i. e. are such as to act upon
one another and to suffer action from one another; while other things,
viz. agents which have not the same matter as their patients, act without
themselves suffering action. Such agents cannot ‘combine’—that is why
neither the art of healing nor health produces health by ‘combining’ with
the bodies of the patients. Amongst those things, however, which are
reciprocally active and passive, some are easily-divisible. Now (i) if a
great quantity (or a large bulk) of one of these easily-divisible
‘reciprocating’ materials be brought together with a little (or with a
small piece) of another, (25) the effect produced is not ‘combination’, but
increase of the dominant: for the other material is transformed into the
dominant. (That is why a drop of wine does not ‘combine’ with ten
thousand gallons of water: for its form is dissolved, and it94 is changed
so as to merge in the total volume of water.) On the other hand (ii)
when there is a certain equilibrium between their ‘powers of action’, (30)
then each of them changes out of its own nature towards the dominant:
yet neither becomes the other, but both become an intermediate with
properties common to both.95
Thus it is clear that only those agents are ‘combinable’ which involve
a contrariety—for these are such as to suffer action reciprocally. And,
further, they combine more freely if small pieces of each of them are
juxtaposed. For in that condition they change one another more easily
and more quickly; whereas this effect takes a long time when agent and
patient are present in bulk. [328b] (35)
Hence, amongst the divisible susceptible materials, those whose shape
is readily adaptable have a tendency to combine: for they are easily
divided into small particles, since that is precisely what ‘being readily
adaptable in shape’ implies. For instance, liquids are the most
‘combinable’ of all bodies—because, of all divisible materials, the liquid
is most readily adaptable in shape, unless it be viscous. Viscous liquids,
(5) it is true, produce no effect except to increase the volume and bulk.

But when one of the constituents is alone susceptible—or superlatively

susceptible, the other being susceptible in a very slight degree—the
compound resulting from their combination is either no greater in
volume or only a little greater. This is what happens when tin is
combined with bronze. For some things display a hesitating and
ambiguous attitude towards one another—showing a slight tendency to
combine and also an inclination to behave as ‘receptive matter’ and
‘form’ respectively. (10) The behaviour of these metals is a case in point.
For the tin almost vanishes, behaving as if it were an immaterial
property of the bronze: having been combined, it disappears, leaving no
trace except the colour it has imparted to the bronze. The same
phenomenon occurs in other instances too.
It is clear, then, from the foregoing account, that ‘combination’ occurs,
(15) what it is, to what it is due, and what kind of thing is ‘combinable’.

The phenomenon depends upon the fact that some things are such as to
be (a) reciprocally susceptible and (b) readily adaptable in shape, i. e.
easily divisible. For such things can be ‘combined’ without its being
necessary either that they should have been destroyed or that they should
survive absolutely unaltered: and their ‘combination’ need not be a
‘composition’, nor merely ‘relative to perception’. On the contrary:
anything is ‘combinable’ which, (20) being readily adaptable in shape, is
such as to suffer action and to act; and it is ‘combinable with’ another
thing similarly characterized (for the ‘combinable’ is relative to the
‘combinable’); and ‘combination’ is unification of the ‘combinables’,
resulting from their ‘alteration’.

1 i. e. as well as Anaxagoras: Cf. above, 314a 13–15.

2 i. e. as well as ordinary people: Cf. b 13 ff.

3 i. e. according to Empedocles.

4 i. e. at the period when Empedocles himself appears to recognize that his ‘elements’ come-to-
be.
5 i. e. the motion of dissociation initiated by Strife.

6 i. e. if we still wish to maintain that coming-to-be (though it actually occurs and is distinct from
‘alteration’) is not ‘association’.
7 Cf. e. g. de Caelo 299 a 6–11.

8 i. e. by progressive bisection ad infinitum.

9 i. e. ‘through and through’ division.

10 i. e. the sum of the now separated parts.

11 i. e. all the points into which the body has been dissolved by the ‘through and through’
division.
12 Cf. above, 316a 24–5.

13 i. e. points-of-division and quality.

14 Cf. Physics 231a 21 ff.; de Caelo 303a 3 ff.

15 i. e. every perceptible body: Cf. above, 316b 21.

16 i. e. all change ‘in what is continuous’.

17 i. e. a ‘formal’ factor.

18 Cf. 328a 23 ff.

19 The second main topic of investigation is formulated below, 317b 34–5.

20 Physics i. 6–9.

21 Cf. above, 317b 10–11.

22 ‘Unqualified coming-to-be’ = substantial change.

23 ‘Partial’ = ‘qualified’ coming-to-be, i. e. change of quality, quantity, or place.

24 Physics viii. 3 ff., especially 258b 10 ff.

25 Cf. below, II. 10.

26 i. e. the material cause.

27 i. e. not merely ‘this is passing-away and that is coming-to-be.’

28 The theory is put forward by Parmenides as the prevalent, but erroneous, view.
29 sc. as the things into which the unqualified changes take place.

30 i. e. one will be ‘a positive real’ and the other ‘a negative something’.

31 sc. between the unqualified and the qualified changes.

32 ‘In truth’, i. e. according to Aristotle’s own view which he has just stated (above, 318b 14–18).

33 sc. without qualification.

34 i. e. without qualification.

35 i. e. in the Column containing the positive terms: Cf. above, 318b 14–18.

36 Cf. above, 318a 13–23.

37 A ‘not-being’ in the popular sense of the term, i. e. an ‘imperceptible’. The imperceptibility of

the material is irrelevant to the question of its reality.
38 ‘what is not’ = what is imperceptible.

39 Cf. below, II. 1–3.

40 Aristotle is not saying that water and air are in fact ‘cold’, but is only quoting a common view
in illustration.
41 Cf. above, 315a 26–28.

42 i. e. the supposed incorporeal and sizeless matter.

43 It is clear from what follows that the incorporeal and sizeless matter is assumed to be
‘separate’—to be real independently of body—under both alternatives.
44 i. e. the supposed incorporeal and sizeless matter.

45 i. e. either as itself occupying a place, or as contained within a body which itself occupies a
place.
46 ‘inseparable’ from the actual body in which it is contained.

47 Cf. Physics i. 7; Metaph. 1032a 12 ff.

48 The efficient cause of the coming-to-be of a hard thing (e. g. of ice or terracotta) is something
cold or hot (a freezing wind or a baking fire). Such efficient causes are only generically, not
specifically, identical with their effects.
49 An ‘actuality’ or ‘form’: Cf. Metaph. 1032a 25 ff.

50 i. e. unless Qualities or Adjectivals are separable from Substances.

51 Cf. above, 320a 27–b 12.

52 Cf. Physics iv. 6–9.

53 Cf. above, 320a 27–b 25.

54 viz. the third characteristic—that the growing thing ‘persists’.

55 i. e. has ‘grown’.

56 i. e. the substance of the shin.

57 And therefore it is these which are said to grow or to be ‘altered’.

58 i. e. by an expansion of all parts of the ‘form’.

59 i. e. ‘been modified’ so as to be transformed into flesh.

60 i. e. ‘lays hold’ of it and converts it into fire.

61 i. e. ‘must be together with’ it when this conversion takes place.

62 i. e. an independent coming-to-be of flesh, not a growth of the already existing tissue.

63 i. e. what comes-to-be in growth is so-much flesh or bone, or a hand or arm of such and such a
size: not ‘quantum-in-general’, but a ‘quantified-something’.
64 i. e. the form which grows in every part of itself: Cf. above, 321b 22–34.

65 i. e. this form or power immersed in matter.

66 i. e. a diminution of the size of the tissue whose form it is.

67
i. e. are transformations of a single substratum, or ‘derived from one thing’ as Diogenes
maintained.
68 Cf. Physics 226b 21–23.

69 i. e. if A and B are in reciprocal contact, either A must be heavy and B light, or A light and B
heavy: or A and B must both be heavy, or both be light.
70 i. e. a kind, of which the two opposed things are contrasted species.

71 i. e. like ‘health’.

72 The reference is to Parmenides, Melissus, and (probably) Zeno.

73 i. e. for rendering intelligible the being of a ‘many’.

74 This appears to be the view of Empedocles, as Aristotle here expresses it: Cf. below, 325b 5–
10.
75 This appears to be the view of the Pythagoreans: Cf. Physics 213b 22–7.

76 i. e. the existence of motion is just as impossible on the hypothesis of Empedocles as on that of

the Pythagoreans.
77 These words seem to be intended to suggest ‘The Way of Truth’ in the poem of Parmenides.

78 i. e. as well as the composite bodies.

79 Cf. Timaeus 53 C ff.

80 Cf. de Caelo iii, 1, especially 298b 33 ff., iii. 7 and iv. 2.

81 The uniformity of the substance or ‘stuff’ of the atoms was a fundamental doctrine in the
theory.
82 i. e. in its single, indivisible, undifferentiated identity.

83 i. e. these qualitatively-distinct sets of atoms.

84 For the doctrine implied in this argument, Cf. Physics 190b 24, 192a 1 ff.

85 sc. having pores, all of which are ‘full’.

86 i. e. the body will still be impenetrable, even if the pores as such (as channels) are
distinguished in thought from what fills them. For in fact the pores are always ‘full’ and the body
is a plenum throughout—though perhaps not a ‘uniform’ plenum.
87 ‘Big’ is a relative term and may include a void in any degree bigger than the infinitesimal.

88 viz. to express such lines of greater susceptibility.

89 Cf. above, 316a 14–317a 17.

90 i. e. if this potentiality be realized: Cf. 316a 19.

91 Cf. above, 322b 5 ff.

92 sc. in the resulting complex (e. g. ‘white-body’ or ‘learned-man’).

93 Cf. above, I. 7.

94 sc. the drop of wine.

95 Each of the constituents, qua acting on the other, is relatively ‘dominant’. Neither of them is
absolutely ‘dominant’, for each ‘suffers action’ from the other. Hence each meets the other half-
way, and the resultant is a compromise between them.
 BOOK II

1 We have explained under what conditions ‘combination’, ‘contact’,

and ‘action-passion’ are attributable to the things which undergo natural
change. Further, we have discussed ‘unqualified’ coming-to-be and
passing-away, and explained under what conditions they are predicable,
of what subject, and owing to what cause. Similarly, (30) we have also
discussed ‘alteration’, and explained what ‘altering’ is and how it differs
from coming-to-be and passing-away. But we have still to investigate the
so-called ‘elements’ of bodies.
For the complex substances whose formation and maintenance are due
to natural processes all presuppose the perceptible bodies as the
condition of their coming-to-be and passing-away: but philosophers
disagree in regard to the matter which underlies these perceptible
bodies. Some maintain it is single, supposing it to be, e. g., Air or Fire, or
an ‘intermediate’ between these two (but still a body with a separate
existence). (35) Others, on the contrary, postulate two or more materials
—ascribing to their ‘association’ and ‘dissociation’, or to their
‘alteration’, the coming-to-be and passing-away of things. [329a]
(Some, for instance, postulate Fire and Earth: some add Air, making
three: and some, like Empedocles, reckon Water as well, thus postulating
four.) (5)
Now we may agree that the primary materials, whose change
(whether it be ‘association and dissociation’ or a process of another kind)
results in coming-to-be and passing-away, are rightly described as
‘originative sources, i. e. elements’. But (i) those thinkers are in error
who postulate, beside the bodies we have mentioned, (10) a single matter
—and that a corporeal and separable matter. For this ‘body’ of theirs
cannot possibly exist without a ‘perceptible contrariety’: this ‘Boundless’,
which some thinkers identify with the ‘original real’, must be either light
or heavy, either cold or hot.1 And (ii) what Plato has written in the
Timaeus is not based on any precisely-articulated conception. (15) For he
has not stated clearly whether his ‘Omnirecipient’2 exists in separation
from the ‘elements’; nor does he make any use of it. He says, indeed, that
it is a substratum prior to the so-called ‘elements’—underlying them, as
gold underlies the things that are fashioned of gold. (And yet this
comparison, if thus expressed, (20) is itself open to criticism. Things
which come-to-be, and pass-away cannot be called by the name of the
material out of which they have come-to-be: it is only the results of
‘alteration’ which retain the name of the substratum whose ‘alterations’
they are. However, he actually says3 that ‘far the truest account is to
affirm that each of them4 is “gold” ’.) Nevertheless he carries his analysis
of the ‘elements’—solids though they are—back to ‘planes’,5 and it is
impossible for ‘the Nurse’6 (i. e. the primary matter) to be identical with
the ‘planes’.
Our own doctrine is that although there is a matter of the perceptible
bodies (a matter out of which the so-called ’elements come-to-be), (25) it
has no separate existence, but is always bound up with a contrariety. A
more precise account of these presuppositions has been given in another
work7: we must, however, give a detailed explanation of the primary
bodies as well, (30) since they too are similarly derived from the matter.
We must reckon as an ‘originative source’ and as ‘primary’ the matter
which underlies, though it is inseparable from, the contrary qualities: for
‘the hot’ is not matter for ‘the cold’ nor ‘the cold’ for ‘the hot’, but the
substratum is matter for them both. We therefore have to recognize three
‘originative sources’: firstly that which is potentially perceptible body,
secondly the contrarieties (I mean, e. g., heat and cold), and thirdly Fire,
(35) Water, and the like. Only ‘thirdly’, however: for these bodies change

into one another (they are not immutable as Empedocles and other
thinkers assert, since ‘alteration’ would then have been impossible),
whereas the contrarieties do not change. [329b]
Nevertheless, even so8 the question remains: What sorts of
contrarieties, and how many of them, are to be accounted ‘originative
sources’ of body? For all the other thinkers assume and use them without
explaining why they are these or why they are just so many. (5)

2 Since, then, we are looking for ‘originative sources’ of perceptible

body; and since ‘perceptible’ is equivalent9 to ‘tangible’, and ‘tangible’ is
that of which the perception is touch; it is clear that not all the
contrarieties constitute ‘forms’ and ‘originative sources’ of body, but only
those which correspond to touch. For it is in accordance with a
contrariety—a contrariety, (10) moreover, of tangible qualities—that the
primary bodies are differentiated. That is why neither whiteness (and
blackness), nor sweetness (and bitterness), nor (similarly) any quality
belonging to the other10 perceptible contrarieties either, constitutes an
‘element’. And yet vision is prior to touch, so that its object also is prior
to the object of touch. The object of vision, (15) however, is a quality of
tangible body not qua tangible, but qua something else—qua something
which may well be naturally prior to the object of touch.
Accordingly, we must segregate the tangible differences and
contrarieties, and distinguish which amongst them are primary.
Contrarieties correlative to touch are the following: hot-cold, dry-moist,
heavy-light, hard-soft, viscous-brittle, rough-smooth, (20) coarse-fine. Of
these (i) heavy and light are neither active nor susceptible. Things are
not called ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ because they act upon, or suffer action
from, other things. But the ‘elements’ must be reciprocally active and
susceptible, since they ‘combine’ and are transformed into one another.
On the other hand (ii) hot and cold, and dry and moist, (25) are terms, of
which the first pair implies power to act and the second pair susceptibility.
‘Hot’ is that which ‘associates’ things of the same kind (for ‘dissociating’,
which people attribute to Fire as its function, is ‘associating’ things of the
same class, since its effect is to eliminate what is foreign), (30) while
‘cold’ is that which brings together, i. e. ‘associates’, homogeneous and
heterogeneous things alike. And ‘moist’ is that which, being readily
adaptable in shape, is not determinable by any limit of its own: while
‘dry’ is that which is readily determinable by its own limit, but not
readily adaptable in shape.
From moist and dry are derived (iii) the fine and coarse, viscous and
brittle, hard and soft, and the remaining tangible differences. (35) For (a)
since the moist has no determinate shape, but is readily adaptable and
follows the outline of that which is in contact with it, it is characteristic
of it to be ‘such as to fill up’. [330a] Now ‘the fine’ is ‘such as to fill
up.’ For ‘the fine’ consists of subtle particles; but that which consists of
small particles is ‘such as to fill up’, inasmuch as it is in contact11 whole
with whole—and ‘the fine’ exhibits this character12 in a superlative
degree. Hence it is evident that the fine derives from the moist, while
the coarse derives from the dry. Again (b) ‘the viscous’ derives from the
moist: (5) for ‘the viscous’ (e. g. oil) is a ‘moist’ modified in a certain way.
‘The brittle’, on the other hand, derives from the dry: for ‘brittle’ is that
which is completely dry—so completely, that its solidification has
actually been due to failure of moisture. Further (c) ‘the soft’ derives
from the moist. For ‘soft’ is that which yields to pressure by retiring into
itself, (10) though it does not yield by total displacement as the moist does
—which explains why the moist is not ‘soft’, although ‘the soft’ derives
from the moist. ‘The hard’, on the other hand, derives from the dry: for
‘hard’ is that which is solidified, and the solidified is dry.
The terms ‘dry’ and ‘moist’ have more senses than one. For ‘the damp’,
as well as the moist, is opposed to the dry: and again ‘the solidified’, as
well as the dry, is opposed to the moist. (15) But all these qualities derive
from the dry and moist we mentioned first.13 For (i) the dry is opposed
to the damp: i. e. ‘damp’ is that which has foreign moisture on its surface
(‘sodden’ being that which is penetrated to its core14), while ‘dry’15 is
that which has lost foreign moisture. Hence it is evident that the damp
will derive from the moist, and ‘the dry’ which is opposed to it will
derive from the primary dry. (20) Again (ii) the ‘moist’ and the solidified
derive in the same way from the primary pair. For ‘moist’16 is that which
contains moisture of its own deep within it (‘sodden’ being that which is
deeply penetrated by foreign moisture), whereas ‘solidified’ is that which
has lost this inner moisture. Hence these too derive from the primary
pair, the ‘solidified’ from the dry and the ‘liquefiable’ from the moist.
It is clear, then, that all the other differences reduce to the first four,
(25) but that these admit of no further reduction. For the hot is not

essentially moist or dry, nor the moist essentially hot or cold: nor are the
cold and the dry derivative forms, either of one another or of the hot
and the moist. Hence these must be four.

3 The elementary qualities are four, and any four terms can be
combined in six couples. (30) Contraries, however, refuse to be coupled:
for it is impossible for the same thing to be hot and cold, or moist and
dry. Hence it is evident that the ‘couplings’ of the elementary qualities
will be four: hot with dry and moist with hot, and again cold with dry
and cold with moist. [330b] And these four couples have attached
themselves to the apparently ‘simple’ bodies (Fire, Air, Water, and Earth)
in a manner consonant with theory. For Fire is hot and dry, whereas Air
is hot and moist (Air being a sort of aqueous vapour); and Water is cold
and moist, (5) while Earth is cold and dry. Thus the differences are
reasonably distributed among the primary bodies, and the number of the
latter is consonant with theory. For all who make the simple bodies
‘elements’ postulate either one, or two, or three, or four. Now (i) those
who assert there is one only, (10) and then generate everything else by
condensation and rarefaction, are in effect making their ‘originative
sources’ two, viz. the rare and the dense, or rather the hot and the cold:
for it is these which are the moulding forces, while the ‘one’ underlies
them as a ‘matter’. But (ii) those who postulate two from the start—as
Parmenides postulated Fire and Earth—make the intermediates (e. g. Air
and Water) blends of these. (15) The same course is followed (iii) by those
who advocate three. (We may compare what Plato does in ‘The
Divisions’: for he makes ‘the middle’ a blend.) Indeed, there is practically
no difference between those who postulate two and those who postulate
three, except that the former split the middle ‘element’ into two, while
the latter treat it as only one. But (iv) some advocate four from the start,
(20) e. g. Empedocles: yet he too draws them together so as to reduce

them to the two, for he opposes all the others to Fire.

In fact, however, fire and air, and each of the bodies we have
mentioned, are not simple, but blended. The ‘simple’ bodies are indeed
similar in nature to them, but not identical with them. Thus the ‘simple’
body corresponding to fire is ‘such-as-fire’, (25) not fire: that which
corresponds to air is ‘such-as-air’: and so on with the rest of them. But
fire is an excess of heat, just as ice is an excess of cold. For freezing and
boiling are excesses of heat and cold respectively. Assuming, therefore,
that ice is a freezing of moist and cold, fire analogously will be a boiling
of dry and hot: a fact, by the way, (30) which explains why nothing
comes-to-be either out of ice or out of fire.
The ‘simple’ bodies, since they are four, fall into two pairs which
belong to the two regions, each to each: for Fire and Air are forms of the
body moving towards the ‘limit’, while Earth and Water are forms of the
body which moves towards the ‘centre’. [331a] Fire and Earth,
moreover, are extremes and purest: Water and Air, on the contrary, are
intermediates and more like blends. And, further, the members of either
pair are contrary to those of the other, Water being contrary to Fire and
Earth to Air; for the qualities constituting Water and Earth are contrary
to those that constitute Fire and Air. Nevertheless, since they are four,
each of them is characterized par excellence by a single quality: Earth by
dry rather than by cold, (5) Water by cold rather than by moist, Air by
moist rather than by hot, and Fire by hot rather than by dry.

4 It has been established before17 that the coming-to-be of the ‘simple’

bodies is reciprocal. At the same time, it is manifest, even on the
evidence of perception, that they do come-to-be: for otherwise there
would not have been ‘alteration’, (10) since ‘alteration’ is change in
respect to the qualities of the objects of touch. Consequently, we must
explain (i) what is the manner of their reciprocal transformation, and (ii)
whether every one of them can come-to-be out of every one—or whether
some can do so, but not others.
Now it is evident that all of them are by nature such as to change into
one another: for coming-to-be is a change into contraries and out of
contraries, (15) and the ‘elements’ all involve a contrariety in their mutual
relations because their distinctive qualities are contrary. For in some of
them both qualities are contrary—e. g. in Fire and Water, the first of
these being dry and hot, and the second moist and cold: while in others
one of the qualities (though only one) is contrary—e. g. in Air and
Water, the first being moist and hot, and the second moist and cold. It is
evident, therefore, if we consider them in general, (20) that every one is
by nature such as to come-to-be out of every one; and when we come to
consider them severally, it is not difficult to see the manner in which
their transformation is effected. For, though all will result from all, both
the speed and the facility of their conversion will differ in degree.
Thus (i) the process of conversion will be quick between those which
have interchangeable ‘complementary factors’, (25) but slow between
those which have none. The reason is that it is easier for a single thing to
change than for many. Air, e. g., will result from Fire if a single quality
changes: for Fire, as we saw, is hot and dry while Air is hot and moist, so
that there will be Air if the dry be overcome by the moist. Again, Water
will result from Air if the hot be overcome by the cold: for Air, (30) as we
saw, is hot and moist while Water is cold and moist, so that, if the hot
changes, there will be Water. So too, in the same manner, Earth will
result from Water and Fire from Earth, since the two ‘elements’ in both
these couples have interchangeable ‘complementary factors’. For Water
is moist and cold while Earth is cold and dry—so that, if the moist be
overcome, (35) there will be Earth: and again, since Fire is dry and hot
while Earth is cold and dry, Fire will result from Earth, if the cold pass-
away. [331b]
It is evident, therefore, that the coming-to-be of the ‘simple’ bodies
will be cyclical; and that this cyclical method of transformation is the
easiest, because the consecutive ‘elements’ contain interchangeable
‘complementary factors’.18 On the other hand (ii) the transformation of
Fire into Water and of Air into Earth, and again of Water and Earth into
Fire and Air respectively, (5) though possible, is more difficult because it
involves the change of more qualities. For if Fire is to result from Water,
both the cold and the moist must pass-away: and again, both the cold
and the dry must pass-away if Air is to result from Earth. So, too, if
Water and Earth are to result from Fire and Air respectively—both
qualities must change. (10)
This second method of coming-to-be, then, takes a longer time. But
(iii) if one quality in each of two ‘elements’ pass-away, the
transformation, though easier, is not reciprocal. Still, from Fire plus
Water there will result Earth and19 Air, and from Air plus Earth, Fire
and20 Water. For there will be Air, when the cold of the Water and the
dry of the Fire have passed-away (since the hot of the latter and the
moist of the former are left): whereas, (15) when the hot of the Fire and
the moist of the Water have passed-away, there will be Earth, owing to
the survival of the dry of the Fire and the cold of the Water. So, too in
the same way, Fire and Water will result from Air plus Earth. (20) For
there will be Water, when the hot of the Air and the dry of the Earth
have passed-away (since the moist of the former and the cold of the
latter are left): whereas, when the moist of the Air and the cold of the
Earth have passed-away, there will be Fire, owing to the survival of the
hot of the Air and the dry of the Earth—qualities essentially constitutive
of Fire. Moreover, (25) this mode of Fire’s coming-to-be is confirmed by
perception. For flame is par excellence Fire: but flame is burning smoke,
and smoke consists of Air and Earth.
 No transformation, however, into any of the ‘simple’ bodies can result
from the passing-away of one elementary quality in each of two
‘elements’ when they are taken in their consecutive order, (30) because
either identical or contrary qualities are left in the pair: but no ‘simple’
body can be formed either out of identical, or out of contrary, qualities.
Thus no ‘simple’ body would result, if the dry of Fire and the moist of
Air were to pass-away: for the hot is left in both. On the other hand, if
the hot pass-away out of both, the contraries—dry and moist—are left. A
similar result will occur in all the others too: for all the consecutive
‘elements’ contain one identical, and one contrary, (35) quality.21 Hence,
too, it clearly follows that, when one of the consecutive ‘elements’ is
transformed into one, the coming-to-be is effected by the passing-away
of a single quality: whereas, when two of them are transformed into a
third, more than one quality must have passed-away.22
[332a] We have stated that all the ‘elements’ come-to-be out of any
one of them; and we have explained the manner in which their mutual
conversion takes place.

5 Let us nevertheless supplement our theory by the following

speculations concerning them.
If Water, Air, and the like are a ‘matter’ of which the natural bodies
consist, (5) as some thinkers in fact believe, these ‘elements’ must be
either one, or two, or more. Now they cannot all of them be one—they
cannot, e. g., all be Air or Water or Fire or Earth—because ‘Change is
into contraries’. For if they all were Air, then (assuming Air to persist)
there will be ‘alteration’ instead of coming-to-be. Besides, nobody
supposes a single ‘element’ to persist, as the basis of all, in such a way
that it is Water as well as Air (or any other ‘element’) at the same time.
(10) So there will be a certain contrariety, i. e. a differentiating quality:23

and the other member of this contrariety, e. g. heat, will belong to some
other ‘element’, e. g. to Fire. But Fire will certainly not be ‘hot Air’. For a
change of that kind24 (a) is ‘alteration’, and (b) is not what is observed.
Moreover (c) if Air is again to result out of the Fire, it will do so by the
conversion of the hot into its contrary: this contrary, (15) therefore, will
belong to Air, and Air will be a cold something: hence it is impossible for
Fire to be ‘hot Air’, since in that case the same thing will be
simultaneously hot and cold. Both Fire and Air, therefore, will be
something else which is the same; i. e. there will be some ‘matter’, other
than either, common to both.
The same argument applies to all the ‘elements’, proving that there is
no single one of them out of which they all originate. (20) But neither is
there, beside these four, some other body from which they originate—a
something intermediate, e. g., between Air and Water (coarser than Air,
but finer than Water), or between Air and Fire (coarser than Fire, but
finer than Air). For the supposed ‘intermediate’ will be Air and Fire
when a pair of contrasted qualities is added to it: but, since one of every
two contrary qualities is a ‘privation’, the ‘intermediate’ never can exist
—as some thinkers assert the ‘Boundless’ or the ‘Environing’ exists—in
isolation.25 (25) It is, therefore, equally and indifferently any one of the
‘elements’, or else it is nothing.
Since, then, there is nothing—at least, nothing perceptible—prior to
these,26 they must be all.27 That being so, either they must always
persist and not be transformable into one another: or they must undergo
transformation—either all of them, (30) or some only (as Plato wrote in
the Timaeus).28 Now it has been proved before29 that they must undergo
reciprocal transformation. It has also been proved30 that the speed with
which they come-to-be, one out of another, is not uniform—since the
process of reciprocal transformation is relatively quick between the
‘elements’ with a ‘complementary factor’, but relatively slow between
those which possess no such factor. Assuming, then, that the contrariety,
in respect to which they are transformed, (35) is one, the ‘elements’ will
inevitably be two: for it is ‘matter’ that is the ‘mean’ between the two
contraries, and matter is imperceptible and inseparable from them.
[332b] Since, however, the ‘elements’ are seen to be more than two,
the contrarieties must at the least be two. But the contrarieties being
two, the ‘elements’ must be four (as they evidently are) and cannot be
three: for the ‘couplings’ are four, since, though six are possible,31 the
two in which the qualities are contrary to one another cannot occur. (5)
These subjects have been discussed before:32 but the following
arguments will make it clear that, since the ‘elements’ are transformed
into one another, it is impossible for any one of them——whether it be
at the end or in the middle33—to be an ‘originative source’ of the rest.
There can be no such ‘originative element’ at the ends: for all of them
would then be Fire or Earth, and this theory amounts to the assertion
that all things are made of Fire or Earth. (10) Nor can a ‘middle-element’
be such an ‘originative source’—as some thinkers suppose that Air is
transformed both into Fire and into Water, and Water both into Air and
into Earth, while the ‘end-elements’ are not further transformed into one
another. For the process must come to a stop, and cannot continue ad
infinitum in a straight line in either direction, since otherwise an infinite
number of contrarieties would attach to the single ‘element’. (15) Let E
stand for Earth, W for Water, A for Air, and F for Fire. Then (i) since A is
transformed into F and W, there will be a contrariety belonging to A F.
Let these contraries be whiteness and blackness. Again (ii) since A is
transformed into W, there will be another contrariety34: for W is not the
same as F. Let this second contrariety be dryness and moistness, (20) D
being dryness and M moistness. Now if, when A is transformed into W,
the ‘white’ persists, Water will be moist and white: but if it does not
persist, Water will be black since change is into contraries. Water,
therefore, must be either white or black. Let it then be the first. On
similar grounds, therefore, D (dryness) will also belong to F.
Consequently F (Fire) as well as Air will be able to be transformed into
Water: for it has qualities contrary to those of Water, (25) since Fire was
first taken to be black and then to be dry, while Water was moist and
then showed itself white. Thus it is evident that all the ‘elements’ will be
able to be transformed out of one another; and that, in the instances we
have taken, E (Earth) also will contain the remaining two
‘complementary factors’, viz. the black and the moist (for these have not
yet been coupled). (30)
We have dealt with this last topic before the thesis we set out to
prove.35 That thesis—viz. that the process cannot continue ad infinitum—
will be clear from the following considerations. If Fire (which is
represented by F) is not to revert, but is to be transformed in turn into
some other ‘element’ (e. g. into Q), a new contrariety, other than those
mentioned, will belong to Fire and Q: for it has been assumed that Q is
not the same as any of the four, (35) E W A and F. [333a] Let K, then,
belong to F and Y to Q. Then K will belong to all four, E W A and F: for
they are transformed into one another. This last point, however, we may
admit, has not yet been proved: but at any rate it is clear that if Q is to
be transformed in turn into yet another ‘element’, yet another
contrariety will belong not only to Q but also to F (Fire). (5) And,
similarly, every addition of a new ‘element’ will carry with it the
attachment of a new contrariety to the preceding ‘elements’.
Consequently, if the ‘elements’ are infinitely many, there will also belong
to the single ‘element’ an infinite number of contrarieties. But if that be so,
it will be impossible to define any ‘element’: impossible also for any to
come-to-be. For if one is to result from another, it will have to pass
through such a vast number of contrarieties—and indeed even more
than any determinate number. (10) Consequently (i) into some ‘elements’
transformation will never be effected—viz. if the intermediates are
infinite in number, as they must be if the ‘elements’ are infinitely many:
further (ii) there will not even be a transformation of Air into Fire, if the
contrarieties are infinitely many: moreover (iii) all the ‘elements’
become one. For all the contrarieties of the ‘elements’ above F must
belong to those below F, and vice versa: hence they will all be one. (15)

6 As for those who agree with Empedocles that the ‘elements’ of body
are more than one, so that they are not transformed into one another36
—one may well wonder in what sense it is open to them to maintain that
the ‘elements’ are comparable. (20) Yet Empedocles says ‘For these are all
not only equal …’
If (i) it is meant that they are comparable in their amount, all the
‘comparables’ must possess an identical something whereby they are
measured. If, e. g., one pint of Water yields ten of Air, both are measured
by the same unit; and therefore both were from the first an identical
something. On the other hand, suppose (ii) they are not ‘comparable in
their amount’ in the sense that so-much of the one yields so-much of the
other, but comparable in ‘power of action’ (a pint of Water, (25) e. g.,
having a power of cooling equal to that of ten pints of Air); even so, they
are ‘comparable in their amount’, though not qua ‘amount’ but qua ‘so-
much power’.37 There is also (iii) a third possibility. Instead of
comparing their powers by the measure of their amount, they might be
compared as terms in a ‘correspondence’: e. g., ‘as x is hot, so
correspondingly y is white’. (30) But ‘correspondence’, though it means
equality in the quantum, means similarity38 in a quale. Thus it is
manifestly absurd that the ‘simple’ bodies, though they are not
transformable, are comparable not merely as ‘corresponding’, but by a
measure of their powers; i. e. that so-much Fire is comparable with
many-times-that-amount of Air, as being ‘equally’ or ‘similarly’ hot. For
the same thing, if it be greater in amount, will, since it belongs to the
same kind,39 have its ratio correspondingly increased. (35)
A further objection to the theory of Empedocles is that it makes even
growth impossible, unless it be increase by addition. [333b] For his Fire
increases by Fire: ‘And Earth increases its own frame and Ether increases
Ether.’ These, however, are cases of addition: but it is not by addition
that growing things are believed to increase. And it is far more difficult
for him to account for the coming-to-be which occurs in nature. (5) For the
things which come-to-be by natural process all exhibit, in their coming-
to-be, a uniformity either absolute or highly regular: while any
exceptions—any results which are in accordance neither with the
invariable nor with the general rule—are products of chance and luck.
Then what is the cause determining that man comes-to-be from man,
that wheat (instead of an olive) comes-to-be from wheat, either
invariably or generally? Are we to say ‘Bone comes-to-be if the
“elements” be put together in such-and-such a manner’? For, according
to his own statements, (10) nothing comes-to-be from their ‘fortuitous
consilience’, but only from their ‘consilience’ in a certain proportion.
What, then, is the cause of this proportional consilience? Presumably not
Fire or Earth. But neither is it Love and Strife: for the former is a cause
of ‘association’ only, and the latter only of ‘dissociation’. No: the cause in
question is the essential nature of each thing—not merely (to quote his
words) ‘a mingling and a divorce of what has been mingled’. And chance,
not proportion, (15) ‘is the name given to these occurrences’: for things can
be ‘mingled’ fortuitously.
The cause, therefore, of the coming-to-be of the things which owe
their existence to nature is that they are in such-and-such a determinate
condition:40 and it is this which constitutes the ‘nature’ of each thing—a
‘nature’ about which he says nothing. What he says, therefore, is no
explanation of ‘nature’. Moreover, it is this which is both ‘the excellence’
of each thing and its ‘good’: whereas he assigns the whole credit to the
‘mingling’. (And yet the ‘elements’ at all events are ‘dissociated’ not by
Strife, (20) but by Love: since the ‘elements’ are by nature prior to the
Deity, and they too are Deities.)
Again, his account of motion is vague. For it is not an adequate
explanation to say that ‘Love and Strife set things moving’, unless the
very nature of Love is a movement of this kind and the very nature of
Strife a movement of that kind. He ought, then, either to have defined or
to have postulated these characteristic movements, (25) or to have
demonstrated them—whether strictly or laxly or in some other fashion.
Moreover, since (a) the ‘simple’ bodies appear to move ‘naturally’ as well
as by compulsion, i. e. in a manner contrary to nature (fire, e. g., appears
to move upwards without compulsion, though it appears to move by
compulsion downwards); and since (b) what is ‘natural’ is contrary to
that which is due to compulsion, and movement by compulsion actually
occurs;41 it follows that ‘natural movement’ can also occur in fact. Is this,
then, the movement that Love sets going? No: for, on the contrary, (30)
the ‘natural movement’ moves Earth downwards and resembles
‘dissociation’, and Strife rather than Love is its cause—so that in general,
too, Love rather than Strife would seem to be contrary to nature. And
unless Love or Strife is actually setting them in motion, the ‘simple’
bodies themselves have absolutely no movement or rest. (35) But this is
paradoxical: and what is more, they do in fact obviously move.42
[334a] For though Strife ‘dissociated’,43 it was not by Strife that the
‘Ether’ was borne upwards. On the contrary, sometimes he attributes its
movement to something like chance (‘For thus, as it ran, it happened to
meet them then, though often otherwise’), while at other times he says it
is the nature of Fire to be borne upwards, but ‘the Ether’ (to quote his
words) ‘sank down upon the Earth with long roots’. (5) With such
statements, too, he combines the assertion that the Order of the World is
the same now, in the reign of Strife, as it was formerly in the reign of
Love. What, then, is the ‘first mover’ of the ‘elements’? What causes their
motion? Presumably not Love and Strife: on the contrary, these are
causes of a particular motion, if at least we assume that ‘first mover’ to
be an ‘originative source’.44
An additional paradox is that the soul should consist of the ‘elements’,
(10) or that it should be one of them. How are the soul’s ‘alterations’ to
take place? How, e. g., is the change from being musical to being
unmusical, or how is memory or forgetting, to occur? For clearly, if the
soul be Fire, only such modifications will happen to it as characterize
Fire qua Fire: while if it be compounded out of the ‘elements’, only the
corporeal modifications will occur in it. (15) But the changes we have
mentioned are none of them corporeal.

7 The discussion of these difficulties, however, is a task appropriate to

a different investigation:45 let us return to the ‘elements’ of which bodies
are composed. The theories that ‘there is something common to all the
“elements” ’, and that ‘they are reciprocally transformed’, are so related
that those who accept either are bound to accept the other as well. Those,
on the other hand, who do not make their coming-to-be reciprocal—who
refuse to suppose that any one of the ‘elements’ comes-to-be out of any
other taken singly, (20) except in the sense in which bricks come-to-be out
of a wall—are faced with a paradox. How, on their theory, are flesh and
bones or any of the other compounds to result from the ‘elements’ taken
together?
Indeed, the point we have raised constitutes a problem even for those
who generate the ‘elements’ out of one another. In what manner does
anything other than, and beside, the ‘elements’ come-to-be out of them?
Let me illustrate my meaning. Water can come-to-be out of Fire and Fire
out of Water; for their substratum is something common to them both.
But flesh too, presumably, and marrow come-to-be out of them. (25) How,
then, do such things come-to-be? For (a) how is the manner of their
coming-to-be to be conceived by those who maintain a theory like that
of Empedocles? They must conceive it as composition—just as a wall
comes-to-be out of bricks and stones: and the ‘Mixture’, of which they
speak, will be composed of the ‘elements’, these being preserved in it
unaltered but with their small particles juxtaposed each to each. That
will be the manner, presumably, (30) in which flesh and every other
compound results from the ‘elements’. Consequently, it follows that Fire
and Water do not come-to-be ‘out of any and every part of flesh’. For
instance, although a sphere might come-to-be out of this part of a lump
of wax and a pyramid out of some other part, it was nevertheless possible
for either figure to have come-to-be out of either part indifferently: that
is the manner of coming-to-be when ‘both Fire and Water come-to-be out
of any and every part of flesh’. (35) Those, however, who maintain the
theory in question, are not at liberty to conceive that ‘both come-to-be
out of flesh’ in that manner, but only as a stone and a brick ‘both come-
to-be out of a wall’—viz. [334b] each out of a different place or part.
Similarly (b) even for those who postulate a single matter of their
‘elements’ there is a certain difficulty in explaining how anything is to
result from two of them taken together—e. g. from ‘cold’ and ‘hot’, or
from Fire and Earth. For if flesh consists of both and is neither of them,
(5) nor again is a ‘composition’ of them in which they are preserved

unaltered, what alternative is left except to identify the resultant of the

two ‘elements’ with their matter? For the passing-away of either
‘element’ produces either the other or the matter.
Perhaps we may suggest the following solution. (i) There are
differences of degree in hot and cold. Although, therefore, when either is
fully real without qualification, the other will exist potentially; yet,
when neither exists in the full completeness of its being, (10) but both by
combining destroy one another’s excesses so that there exist instead a
hot which (for a ‘hot’) is cold and a cold which (for a ‘cold’) is hot; then
what results from these two contraries will be neither their matter, nor
either of them existing in its full reality without qualification. There will
result instead an ‘intermediate’: and this ‘intermediate’, according as it is
potentially more hot than cold or vice versa, (15) will possess a power-of-
heating that is double or triple its power-of-cooling, or otherwise related
thereto in some similar ratio. Thus all the other bodies will result from
the contraries, or rather from the ‘elements’, in so far as these have been
‘combined’: while the ‘elements’ will result from the contraries, in so far
as these ‘exist potentially’ in a special sense—not as matter ‘exists
potentially’, but in the sense explained above. And when a thing comes-
to-be in this manner, (20) the process is ‘combination’; whereas what
comes-to-be in the other manner46 is matter. Moreover (ii) contraries
also ‘suffer action’, in accordance with the disjunctively-articulated
definition established in the early part of this work.47 For the actually-
hot is potentially-cold and the actually-cold potentially-hot; so that hot
and cold, unless they are equally balanced, are transformed into one
another (and all the other contraries behave in a similar way). It is thus,
(25) then, that in the first place the ‘elements’ are transformed; and that
<in the second place>48 out of the ‘elements’ there come-to-be flesh and
bones and the like—the hot becoming cold and the cold becoming hot
when they have been brought to the ‘mean’. For at the ‘mean’ is neither
hot nor cold. The ‘mean’, however, is of considerable extent and not
indivisible.49 Similarly, it is qua reduced to a ‘mean’ condition that the
dry and the moist, as well as the contraries we have used as examples,
(30) produce flesh and bone and the remaining compounds.

8 All the compound bodies—all of which exist in the region belonging

to the central body—are composed of all the ‘simple’ bodies. For they all
contain Earth because every ‘simple’ body is to be found specially and
most abundantly in its own place. (35) And they all contain Water because
(a) the compound must possess a definite outline and Water, alone of the
‘simple’ bodies, is readily adaptable in shape: moreover (b) Earth has no
power of cohesion without the moist. [335a] On the contrary, the
moist is what holds it together; for it would fall to pieces if the moist
were eliminated from it completely.
They contain Earth and Water, then, for the reasons we have given:
and they contain Air and Fire, (5) because these are contrary to Earth and
Water (Earth being contrary to Air and Water to Fire, in so far as one
Substance can be ‘contrary’ to another). Now all compounds presuppose
in their coming-to-be constituents which are contrary to one another:
and in all compounds there is contained one set of the contrasted
extremes.50 Hence the other set51 must be contained in them also, so
that every compound will include all the ‘simple’ bodies.
Additional evidence seems to be furnished by the food each compound
takes. (10) For all of them are fed by substances which are the same as
their constituents, and all of them are fed by more substances than one.
Indeed, even the plants, though it might be thought they are fed by one
substance only, viz. by Water, are fed by more than one: for Earth has
been mixed with the Water. That is why farmers too endeavour to mix
before watering.52
Although food is akin to the matter, (15) that which is fed is the
‘figure’—i. e. the ‘form’—taken along with the matter. This fact enables
us to understand why, whereas all the ‘simple’ bodies come-to-be out of
one another, Fire is the only one of them which (as our predecessors also
assert) ‘is fed’. For Fire alone—or more than all the rest—is akin to the
‘form’ because it tends by nature to be borne towards the limit. Now
each of them naturally tends to be borne towards its own place: but the
‘figure’—i. e the ‘form’—of them all is at the limits. (20)
Thus we have explained that all the compound bodies are composed of
all the ‘simple’ bodies.

9 Since some things are such as to come-to-be and pass-away, (25) and
since coming-to-be in fact occurs in the region about the centre, we must
explain the number and the nature of the ‘originative sources’ of all
coming-to-be alike: for a grasp of the true theory of any universal
facilitates the understanding of its specific forms.
The ‘originative sources’, then, of the things which come-to-be are
equal in number to, and identical in kind with, those in the sphere of the
eternal and primary things. For there is one in the sense of ‘matter’, (30)
and a second in the sense of ‘form’: and, in addition, the third ‘originative
source’ must be present as well. For the two first are not sufficient to
bring things into being, any more than they are adequate to account for
the primary things.
Now cause, in the sense of material origin, for the things which are
such as to come-to-be is ‘that which can be-and-not-be’: and this is
identical with ‘that which can come-to-be-and-pass-away’, since the
latter, while it is at one time, at another time is not, (For whereas some
things are of necessity, viz. the eternal things, others of necessity are not.
And of these two sets of things, (35) since they cannot diverge from the
necessity of their nature, it is impossible for the first not to be and
impossible for the second to be. [335b] Other things, however, can
both be and not be.) Hence coming-to-be and passing-away must occur
within the field of ‘that which can be-and-not-be’. (5) This, therefore, is
cause in the sense of material origin for the things which are such as to
come-to-be; while cause, in the sense of their ‘end’, is their ‘figure’ or
‘form’—and that is the formula expressing the essential nature of each of
them.
But the third ‘originative source’ must be present as well—the cause
vaguely dreamed of by all our predecessors, definitely stated by none of
them. On the contrary (a) some amongst them thought the nature of ‘the
Forms’ was adequate to account for coming-to-be. (10) Thus Socrates in
the Phaedo first blames everybody else for having given no
explanation;53 and then lays it down that ‘some things are Forms, others
Participants in the Forms’, and that ‘while a thing is said to “be” in
virtue of the Form, it is said to “come-to-be” qua “sharing in”, to “pass-
away” qua “losing”, the Form’. (15) Hence he thinks that ‘assuming the
truth of these theses, the Forms must be causes both of coming-to-be and
of passing-away’.54 On the other hand (b) there were others who thought
‘the matter’ was adequate by itself to account for coming-to-be, since
‘the movement originates from the matter’.
Neither of these theories, however, is sound. For (a) if the Forms are
causes, why is their generating activity intermittent instead of perpetual
and continuous—since there always are Participants as well as Forms?
Besides, (20) in some instances we see that the cause is other than the
Form. For it is the doctor who implants health and the man of science
who implants science, although ‘Health itself’ and ‘Science itself’ are as
well as the Participants: and the same principle applies to everything
else that is produced in accordance with an art. (25) On the other hand (b)
to say that ‘matter generates owing to its movement’ would be, no
doubt, more scientific than to make such statements as are made by the
thinkers we have been criticizing. For what ‘alters’ and transfigures plays
a greater part55 in bringing things into being; and we are everywhere
accustomed, in the products of nature and of art alike, to look upon that
which can initiate movement as the producing cause. Nevertheless this
second theory is not right either. (30)
For, to begin with, it is characteristic of matter to suffer action, i. e. to
be moved: but to move, i. e. to act, belongs to a different ‘power’. This is
obvious both in the things that come-to-be by art and in those that
come-to-be by nature. Water does not of itself produce out of itself an
animal: and it is the art, not the wood, (35) that makes a bed. Nor is this
their only error. They make a second mistake in omitting the more
controlling cause: for they eliminate the essential nature, i. e. the ‘form’.
[336a] And what is more, since they remove the formal cause, they
invest the forces they assign to the ‘simple’ bodies—the forces which
enable these bodies to bring things into being—with too instrumental a
character. For ‘since’ (as they say) ‘it is the nature of the hot to
dissociate, of the cold to bring together, and of each remaining contrary
either to act or to suffer action’, (5) it is out of such materials and by their
agency (so they maintain) that everything else comes-to-be and passes-
away. Yet (a) it is evident that even Fire is itself moved, i. e. suffers
action. Moreover (b) their procedure is virtually the same as if one were
to treat the saw (and the various instruments of carpentry) as ‘the cause’
of the things that come-to-be: for the wood must be divided if a man
saws, must become smooth if he planes, (10) and so on with the remaining
tools. Hence, however true it may be that Fire is active, i. e. sets things
moving, there is a further point they fail to observe—viz. that Fire is
inferior to the tools or instruments in the manner in which it sets things
moving.
As to our own theory—we have given a general account of the causes
in an earlier work,56 and we have now explained and distinguished the
‘matter’ and the ‘form’.57

10 Further, since the change which is motion has been proved58 to be

eternal, (15) the continuity of the occurrence of coming-to-be follows
necessarily from what we have established: for the eternal motion, by
causing ‘the generator’59 to approach and retire, will produce coming-to-
be uninterruptedly. At the same time it is clear that we were also right
when, in an earlier work,60 we called motion (not coming-to-be) ‘the
primary form of change’. (20) For it is far more reasonable that what is
should cause the coming-to-be of what is not, than that what is not should
cause the being of what is. Now that which is being moved is, but that
which is coming-to-be is not: hence, also, motion is prior to coming-to-
be.
We have assumed, and have proved,61 that coming-to-be and passing-
away happen to things continuously; and we assert that motion causes
coming-to-be. (25) That being so, it is evident that, if the motion be
single, both processes cannot occur since they are contrary to one
another: for it is a law of nature that the same cause, provided it remain
in the same condition, always produces the same effect, so that, from a
single motion, either coming-to-be or passing-away will always result.
The movements must, on the contrary, be more than one, (30) and they
must be contrasted with one another either by the sense of their
motion62 or by its irregularity:63 for contrary effects demand contraries
as their causes.
This explains why it is not the primary motion that causes coming-to-
be and passing-away, but the motion along the inclined circle:64 for this
motion not only possesses the necessary continuity, but includes a
duality of movements as well. [336b] For if coming-to-be and passing-
away are always to be continuous, there must be some body always
being moved (in order that these changes may not fail) and moved with
a duality of movements (in order that both changes, not one only, may
result). Now the continuity of this movement is caused by the motion of
the whole: but the approaching and retreating of the moving body are
caused by the inclination.65 For the consequence of the inclination is
that the body becomes alternately remote and near; and since its
distance is thus unequal, (5) its movement will be irregular. Therefore, if
it generates by approaching and by its proximity, it—this very same
body—destroys by retreating and becoming remote: and if it generates
by many successive approaches, its also destroys by many successive
retirements. (10) For contrary effects demand contraries as their causes;
and the natural processes of passing-away and coming-to-be occupy
equal periods of time. Hence, too, the times—i. e the lives—of the
several kinds of living things have a number by which they are
distinguished: for there is an Order controlling all things, and every time
(i. e. every life) is measured by a period. Not all of them, however, are
measured by the same period, but some by a smaller and others by a
greater one: for to some of them the period, (15) which is their measure,
is a year, while to some it is longer and to others shorter.
And there are facts of observation in manifest agreement with our
theories. Thus we see that coming-to-be occurs as the sun approaches
and decay as it retreats; and we see that the two processes occupy equal
times. For the durations of the natural processes of passing-away and
coming-to-be are equal. (20) Nevertheless it often happens that things
pass-away in too short a time. This is due to the ‘intermingling’ by which
the things that come-to-be and pass-away are implicated with one
another. For their matter is ‘irregular’, i. e. is not everywhere the same:
hence the processes by which they come-to-be must be ‘irregular’ too,
i. e. some too quick and others too slow. Consequently the phenomenon
in question occurs, because the ‘irregular’ coming-to-be of these things is
the passing-away of other things.
Coming-to-be and passing-away will, as we have said, (25) always be
continuous, and will never fail owing to the cause we stated.66 And this
continuity has a sufficient reason on our theory. For in all things, as we
affirm, Nature always strives after ‘the better’. Now ‘being’ (we have
explained elsewhere67 the exact variety of meanings we recognize in this
term) is better than ‘not-being’: but not all things can possess ‘being’, (30)
since they are too far removed from the ‘originative source’. God
therefore adopted the remaining alternative, and fulfilled the perfection
of the universe by making coming-to-be uninterrupted: for the greatest
possible coherence would thus be secured to existence, because that
‘coming-to-be should itself come-to-be perpetually’ is the closest
approximation to eternal being.
The cause of this perpetuity of coming-to-be, as we have often said, is
circular motion: for that is the only motion which is continuous.
[337a] That, too, is why all the other things—the things, I mean,
which are reciprocally transformed in virtue of their ‘passions’ and their
‘powers of action’, e. g. the ‘simple’ bodies—imitate circular motion. For
when Water is transformed into Air, Air into Fire, (5) and the Fire back
into Water, we say the coming-to-be ‘has completed the circle’, because
it reverts again to the beginning. Hence it is by imitating circular motion
that rectilinear motion too is continuous.
These considerations serve at the same time to explain what is to some
people a baffling problem—viz. why the ‘simple’ bodies, since each of
them is travelling towards its own place, have not become dissevered
from one another in the infinite lapse of time. (10) The reason is their
reciprocal transformation. For, had each of them persisted in its own
place instead of being transformed by its neighbour, they would have
got dissevered long ago. They are transformed, however, owing to the
motion with its dual character:68 and because they are transformed,
none of them is able to persist in any place allotted to it by the Order.69
It is clear from what has been said (i) that coming-to-be and passing-
away actually occur, (15) (ii) what causes them, and (iii) what subject
undergoes them. But (a) if there is to be movement (as we have
explained elsewhere, in an earlier work70) there must be something
which initiates it; if there is to be movement always, there must always
be something which initiates it; if the movement is to be continuous, (20)
what initiates it must be single, unmoved, ungenerated, and incapable of
‘alteration’; and if the circular71 movements are more than one, their
initiating causes must all of them, in spite of their plurality, be in some
way subordinated to a single ‘originative source’. Further (b) since time
is continuous, movement must be continuous, inasmuch as there can be
no time without movement. Time, therefore, is a ‘number’72 of some
continuous movement—a ‘number’, (25) therefore, of the circular
movement, as was established in the discussions at the beginning.73 But
(c) is movement continuous because of the continuity of that which is
moved, or because that in which the movement occurs (I mean, e. g., the
place or the quality) is continuous? The answer must clearly be ‘because
that which is moved is continuous’. (For how can the quality be
continuous except in virtue of the continuity of the thing to which it
belongs? But if the continuity of ‘that in which’ contributes to make the
movement continuous, (30) this is true only of ‘the place in which’; for
that has ‘magnitude’ in a sense.) But (d) amongst continuous bodies
which are moved, only that which is moved in a circle is ‘continuous’ in
such a way that it preserves its continuity with itself throughout the
movement. The conclusion therefore is that this is what produces
continuous movement, viz. the body which is being moved in a circle;
and its movement makes time continuous.

11 Wherever there is continuity in any process (coming-to-be or

‘alteration’ or any kind of change whatever) we observe
‘consecutiveness’, (35) i. e. this coming-to-be after that without any
interval. [337b] Hence we must investigate whether, amongst the
consecutive members, there is any whose future being is necessary; or
whether, on the contrary, every one of them may fail to come-to-be. For
that some of them may fail to occur, is clear. (a) We need only appeal to
the distinction between the statements ‘x will be’ and ‘x is about to …’,
which depends upon this fact. For if it be true to say of x that it ‘will be’,
it must at some time be true to say of it that ‘it is’: whereas, (5) though it
be true to say of x now that ‘it is about to occur’, it is quite possible for it
not to come-to-be—thus a man might not walk, though he is now ‘about
to’ walk. And (b) since (to appeal to a general principle) amongst the
things which ‘are’ some are capable also of ‘not-being’, it is clear that the
same ambiguous character will attach to them no less when they are
coming-to-be: in other words, their coming-to-be will not be necessary.
Then are all the things that come-to-be of this contingent character?
Or, (10) on the contrary, is it absolutely necessary for some of them to
come-to-be? Is there, in fact, a distinction in the field of ‘coming-to-be’
corresponding to the distinction, within the field of ‘being’, between
things that cannot possibly ‘not-be’ and things that can ‘not-be’? For
instance, is it necessary that solstices shall come-to-be, i. e. impossible
that they should fail to be able to occur?
Assuming that the antecedent must have come-to-be if the consequent
is to be (e. g. that foundations must have come-to-be if there is to be a
house: clay, (15) if there are to be foundations), is the converse also true?
If foundations have come-to-be, must a house come-to-be? The answer
seems to be that the necessary nexus no longer holds, unless it is
‘necessary’ for the consequent (as well as for the antecedent)74 to come-
to-be—‘necessary’ absolutely. If that be the case, however, ‘a house must
come-to-be if foundations have come-to-be’, as well as vice versa. For the
antecedent was assumed to be so related to the consequent that, if the
latter is to be, the antecedent must have come-to-be before it. If, (20)
therefore, it is necessary that the consequent should come-to-be, the
antecedent also must have come-to-be: and if the antecedent has come-
to-be, then the consequent also must come-to-be—not, however, because
of the antecedent, but because the future being of the consequent was
assumed as necessary. Hence, in any sequence, when the being of the
consequent is necessary, the nexus is reciprocal—in other words, when
the antecedent has come-to-be the consequent must always come-to-be
too. (25)
Now (i) if the sequence of occurrences is to proceed ad infinitum
‘downwards’,75 the coming-to-be of any determinate ‘this’ amongst the
later members of the sequence will not be absolutely, but only
conditionally, necessary. For it will always be necessary that some other76
member shall have come-to-be before ‘this’ as the presupposed condition
of the necessity that ‘this’ should come-to-be: consequently, since what is
‘infinite’ has no ‘originative source’, neither will there be in the infinite
sequence any ‘primary’ member which will make it ‘necessary’ for the
remaining members to come-to-be. (30)
Nor again (ii) will it be possible to say with truth, even in regard to
the members of a limited sequence, that it is ‘absolutely necessary’ for
any one of them to come-to-be. We cannot truly say, e. g., that ‘it is
absolutely necessary for a house to come-to-be when foundations have
been laid’: for (unless it is always necessary for a house to be coming-to-
be) we should be faced with the consequence that, when foundations
have been laid, a thing which need not always be, must always be. No: if
its coming-to-be is to be ‘necessary’, (35) it must be ‘always’ in its coming-
to-be. For what is ‘of necessity’ coincides with what is ‘always’, since
that which ‘must be’ cannot possibly ‘not-be’. [338a] Hence a thing is
eternal if its ‘being’ is necessary: and if it is eternal, its ‘being’ is
necessary. And if, therefore, the ‘coming-to-be’ of a thing is necessary, its
‘coming-to-be’ is eternal; and if eternal, necessary.
It follows that the coming-to-be of anything, if it is absolutely
necessary, (5) must be cyclical—i. e. must return upon itself. For coming-
to-be must either be limited or not limited: and if not limited, it must be
either rectilinear or cyclical. But the first of these last two alternatives is
impossible if coming-to-be is to be eternal, because there could not be
any ‘originative source’ whatever in an infinite rectilinear sequence,
whether its members be taken ‘downwards’ (as future events) or
‘upwards’ (as past events). Yet coming-to-be must have an ‘originative
source’ <if it is to be necessary and therefore eternal>, (10) nor can it be
eternal if it is limited. Consequently it must be cyclical. Hence the nexus
must be reciprocal. By this I mean that the necessary occurrence of ‘this’
involves the necessary occurrence of its antecedent: and conversely that,
given the antecedent, it is also necessary for the consequent to come-to-
be. And this reciprocal nexus will hold continuously throughout the
sequence: for it makes no difference whether the reciprocal nexus, of
which we are speaking, is mediated by two, or by many, members. (15)
It is in circular movement; therefore, and in cyclical coming-to-be that
the ‘absolutely necessary’ is to be found. In other words, if the coming-
to-be of any things is cyclical, it is ‘necessary’ that each of them is
coming-to-be and has come-to-be: and if the coming-to-be of any things
is ‘necessary’, their coming-to-be is cyclical.
The result we have reached is logically concordant with the eternity of
circular motion, i. e. the eternity of the revolution of the heavens (a fact
which approved itself on other and independent evidence),77 since
precisely those movements which belong to, and depend upon, this
eternal revolution ‘come-to-be’ of necessity, and of necessity ‘will be’.
[338b] For since the revolving body is always setting something else in
motion, the movement of the things it moves must also be circular. Thus,
from the being of the ‘upper revolution’ it follows that the sun revolves
in this determinate manner; and since the sun revolves thus, the seasons
in consequence come-to-be in a cycle, i. e. return upon themselves; and
since they come-to-be-cyclically, (5) so in their turn do the things whose
coming-to-be the seasons initiate.
Then why do some things manifestly come-to-be in this cyclical
fashion (as, e. g., showers and air, so that it must rain if there is to be a
cloud and, conversely, there must be a cloud if it is to rain), while men
and animals do not ‘return upon themselves’ so that the same individual
comes-to-be a second time (for though your coming-to-be presupposes
your father’s, (10) his coming-to-be does not presuppose yours) ? Why, on
the contrary, does this coming-to-be seem to constitute a rectilinear
sequence?
In discussing this new problem, we must begin by inquiring whether
all things ‘return upon themselves’ in a uniform manner; or whether, on
the contrary, though in some sequences what recurs is numerically the
same, in other sequences it is the same only in species.78 In consequence
of this distinction, it is evident that those things, whose ‘substance’—that
which is undergoing the process—is imperishable, will be numerically,
as well as specifically, (15) the same in their recurrence: for the character
of the process is determined by the character of that which undergoes it.
Those things, on the other hand, whose ‘substance’ is perishable (not
imperishable) must ‘return upon themselves’ in the sense that what
recurs, though specifically the same, is not the same numerically. That is
why, when Water comes-to-be from Air and Air from Water, the Air is
the same ‘specifically’, not ‘numerically’: and if these too recur
numerically the same,79 at any rate this does not happen with things
whose ‘substance’ comes-to-be—whose ‘substance’ is such that it is
essentially capable of not-being.

1 Cf. below, 332a 20–6.

2 Cf. Timaeus 51 A.

3 Cf. Timaeus 49 D–50 C.

4 i. e. each of the things that are ‘fashioned of gold’.

5 Cf. Timaeus 53 C ff.

6 Cf. Timaeus, e. g. 49 A, 52 D.

7 Cf. Physics i. 6–9.

8 i. e. notwithstanding the sketch Aristotle has just given.

9 sc. in this connexion: the tangible qualities are the only qualities which characterize all
perceptible bodies.
10 sc. the other non-tangible perceptible contrarieties.

11 ‘in contact’ with the vessel which contains it.

12 The fine, owing to the subtlety (= the smallness) of its particles, leaves no corner of its
containing receptacle unfilled.
13 Cf. above, 329b 30–2.

14 sc. by foreign moisture: Cf. below, a 22.

15 i. e. the ‘dry’ which is contrasted with the damp: the ‘dried’.

16 i. e. the ‘moist’ which is contrasted with the solidified: the ‘liquefiable’.

17 The reference is probably neither to 314b 15–26 nor to 329a 35, but to de Caelo 304b 23 ff.

18 Aristotle has shown that, by the conversion of a single quality in each case, Fire is transformed
into Air, Air into Water, Water into Earth, and Earth into Fire. This is a cycle of transformations.
Moreover, the ‘elements’ have been taken in their natural consecutive series, according to their
order in the Cosmos.
19 sc. alternatively.

20 sc. alternatively.

21 If the ‘elements’ are taken in their natural order, Water (e. g.) is ‘consecutive’ to Earth, and Air
to Water. Water is moist and cold. It shares its ‘cold’ with Earth and its ‘moist’ with Air: its
‘moist’ is contrary to Earth’s ‘dry’, and its ‘cold’ is contrary to Air’s ‘hot’.
22 If, e. g., Fire plus Air are to be transformed into Water or into Earth, it is not enough that a
single quality should be eliminated from each of the generating pair: for this would leave either
two ‘hots’ or a ‘dry’ and a ‘moist’ (Cf. 331b 26–33). Either Fire’s ‘dry’ or Air’s ‘moist’ must be
eliminated: and, in addition, the ‘hot’ of one must be eliminated and the ‘hot’ of the other be
converted into ‘cold’.
23 If Air is to ‘alter’ into (e. g.) Fire, we must assume a pair of contrasted differentiating qualities,
and assign one to Fire and the other to Air.
24 i. e. Air becoming Fire by being heated.
25 i. e. bare of all qualities.

26 sc. Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.

27 i. e. all the ‘simple’ bodies there are.

28 Cf. Timaeus 54 b-d.

29 Cf. above, 331a 12–20.

30 Cf. above, 331a 22 ff.

31 i. e. mathematically ‘possible.’

32 Cf. above, II. 2 and 3.

33 i. e. at either end, or in the middle, of the ‘natural series’ of the ‘elements’.

34 sc. belonging to AW.

35 Cf. above, 332b 12–13.

36 i. e. so that the ‘elements’ are genuinely or irreducibly ‘many’.

37 i. e. we are comparing the amounts of cooling energy possessed by one pint of Water and ten
pints of Air respectively.
38 i. e. only ‘similarity’. Empedocles might have said the ‘elements’ were all analogous or similar
without inconsistency: but he asserts that they are equal, i. e. quantitatively comparable (and
therefore, ultimately, transformable).
39 sc. as the thing of less amount with which it is being compared.

40 i. e. that they are compounds produced by the consilience of their constituents in a certain
proportion.
41 i. e. according to Empedocles himself.

42 i. e. according to Empedocles’ own statements.

43 i. e. though Strife initiated the disintegration of the Sphere.

44 sc. a first cause of motion in general.

45 Cf. de Anima, i. 4 and 5.

46 sc. in the only manner which was taken into account in the formulation of the problem at 334b
6–7.
47 Cf. above, I. 7.

48 sc. these extremes, the completely-hot and the completely-cold.

49 i. e. the ‘mean’ is a stretch, not a point.

50 i. e. cold-dry (Earth) and cold-moist (Water).

51 i. e. hot-moist (Air) and hot-dry (Fire).

52 Plants are nourished naturally by water impregnated with earth and artificially by water mixed
with manure, which is a kind of earth.
53 Cf. Plato, Phaedo 96 A–99 C.

54 Cf. Plato, Phaedo 100 B–101 E.

55 sc. than the Forms.

56 Cf. Physics ii. 3–9.

57 Cf. above, 335a 32–b 7.

58 Cf. Physics viii. 7–9.

59 i. e. the sun, as will appear presently.

60 Cf. Physics 260a 26–261a 26.

61 Cf, above, 317b 33 ff.

62 Cf. de Caelo 270b 32–271a 33.

63 Cf. de Caelo 288a 13–27; Physics 228b 15–229a 6.

64 i. e. the annual movement of the sun in the ecliptic or zodiac circle.

65 i. e. the inclination of the ecliptic to the equator of the outermost sphere, which (on Aristotle’s
theory) is the equator of the universe and is in the same plane as the terrestrial equator.
66 Cf. above, 318a 9 ff.

67 Cf. e. g. Metaph. 1017a 7 ff.

68 The sun’s annual movement, by which it alternately approaches and retreats, causes the
alternate ascent and descent of Water, Air, and Fire. They are thus brought into contact, with the
result that their constitutive contrary qualities act and suffer action reciprocally, and the ‘simple’
bodies themselves are transformed.
69 Cf. above, 336b 12.

70 Physics 255b 31–260a 10. Cf. also Metaph. 1072a 19–1074b 14.

71 i. e. the supposed continuous movements which, qua continuous, must be circular.

72 i. e. time is that which is numerable in continuous movement: Cf. Physics 219b 1–8.

73 sc. at the beginning of Aristotle’s ‘Philosophy of Nature’: cf. Physics 217b 29–224a 17.

74 Cf. above, b 14–15: the coming-to-be of the antecedent was conditionally necessary, i. e.
necessarily presupposed in the being of the consequent.
75 i. e. so that effect will succeed effect endlessly.

76 i. e. some other still later member of the sequence.

77 Cf. Physics viii. 7–9.

78 i. e. in some cycles the same individual eternally recurs: in others the same species or specific
form is eternally represented in the succession of its perishing individual embodiments.
79 As, e. g., a follower of Empedocles would maintain.
 De Anima

Translated by J. A. Smith

 CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER
1. The dignity, usefulness, and difficulty of Psychology.
2. The opinions of early thinkers about the soul.
3. Refutation of the view which assigns movement to the soul.
4. 407b 27–408a 34. The soul not a harmony.
408a 34–408b 29. The soul not moved with non-local movement.
408b 30–5. 409b 18. The soul not a self-moving number.
5. 409b 19–411a 7. The soul not composed of elements.
411a 7–23. The soul not present in all things.
411a 24–411b 30. The unity of the soul.

BOOK II

1. First definition of soul.

2. Second definition of soul.
3. The faculties of the soul.
4. The nutritive faculty.
5. Sense-perception.
6. The different kinds of sensible object.
7. Sight and its object.
8. Hearing and its object.
9. Smell and its object.
10. Taste and its object.
11. Touch and its object.
12. General characteristics of the external senses.

BOOK III

1–2. 426b 7. The number of the external senses.

2. 426b 8–427a 16. Common sense.
3. 427a 17–427b 26. Thinking, perceiving, and imagining distinguished.
427b 27–429a 9. Imagination.
4. Passive mind.
 5. Active mind.
6. The double operation of mind.
7. The practical mind, and the difference between it and the contemplative.
8. Comparison of mind with sense and with imagination.
9. Problems about the motive faculty.
10, 11. The cause of the movement of living things.
12, 13. The mutual relations of the faculties of soul, and their fitness for the conditions of
life.
DE ANIMA

(On the Soul)

 BOOK I

1 [402a] Holding as we do that, while knowledge of any kind is a

thing to be honoured and prized, one kind of it may, either by reason of
its greater exactness or of a higher dignity and greater wonderfulness in
its objects, be more honourable and precious than another, on both
accounts we should naturally be led to place in the front rank the study
of the soul. The knowledge of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to
the advance of truth in general, and, above all, (5) to our understanding
of Nature, for the soul is in some sense the principle of animal life. Our
aim is to grasp and understand, first its essential nature, and secondly its
properties; of these some are thought to be affections proper to the soul
itself, while others are considered to attach to the animal1 owing to the
presence within it of soul.
To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most
difficult things in the world. (10) As the form of question which here
presents itself, viz. the question ‘What is it?’, recurs in other fields, it
might be supposed that there was some single method of inquiry
applicable to all objects whose essential nature we are endeavouring to
ascertain (as there is for derived properties the single method of
demonstration); in that case what we should have to seek for would be
this unique method. (15) But if there is no such single and general method
for solving the question of essence, our task becomes still more difficult;
in the case of each different subject we shall have to determine the
appropriate process of investigation. If to this there be a clear answer,
e. g. that the process is demonstration or division, or some other known
method, (20) difficulties and hesitations still beset us—with what facts
shall we begin the inquiry? For the facts which form the starting-points
in different subjects must be different, as e. g. in the case of numbers and
surfaces.
First, no doubt, it is necessary to determine in which of the summa
genera soul lies, what it is; is it ‘a this-somewhat’, a substance, or is it a
quale or a quantum, or some other of the remaining kinds of predicates
which we have distinguished? Further, (25) does soul belong to the class
of potential existents, or is it not rather an actuality? Our answer to this
question is of the greatest importance.
[402b] We must consider also whether soul is divisible or is without
parts, and whether it is everywhere homogeneous or not; and if not
homogeneous, whether its various forms are different specifically or
generically: up to the present time those who have discussed and
investigated soul seem to have confined themselves to the human soul.
(5) We must be careful not to ignore the question whether soul can be

defined in a single unambiguous formula, as is the case with animal, or

whether we must not give a separate formula for each sort of it, as we do
for horse, dog, man, god (in the latter case the ‘universal’ animal—and
so too every other ‘common predicate’—being treated either as nothing
at all or as a later product2). Further, if what exists is not a plurality of
souls, but a plurality of parts of one soul, (10) which ought we to
investigate first, the whole soul or its parts? (It is also a difficult problem
to decide which of these parts are in nature distinct from one another.)
Again, which ought we to investigate first, these parts or their functions,
mind or thinking, the faculty or the act of sensation, and so on? If the
investigation of the functions precedes that of the parts, the further
question suggests itself: ought we not before either to consider the
correlative objects, (15) e. g. of sense or thought? It seems not only useful
for the discovery of the causes of the derived properties of substances to
be acquainted with the essential nature of those substances (as in
mathematics it is useful for the understanding of the property of the
equality of the interior angles of a triangle to two right angles to know
the essential nature of the straight and the curved or of the line and the
plane) but also conversely, (20) for the knowledge of the essential nature
of a substance is largely promoted by an acquaintance with its
properties: for, when we are able to give an account conformable to
experience of all or most of the properties of a substance, we shall be in
the most favourable position to say something worth saying about the
essential nature of that subject; in all demonstration a definition of the
essence is required as a starting-point, (25) so that definitions which do
not enable us to discover the derived properties, or which fail to
facilitate even a conjecture about them, must obviously, one and all, be
dialectical and futile. [403a]
A further problem presented by the affections of soul is this: are they
all affections of the complex of body and soul, or is there any one among
them peculiar to the soul by itself? To determine this is indispensable
but difficult. If we consider the majority of them, (5) there seems to be no
case in which the soul can act or be acted upon without involving the
body; e. g. anger, courage, appetite, and sensation generally. Thinking
seems the most probable exception; but if this too proves to be a form of
imagination or to be impossible without imagination, it too requires a
body as a condition of its existence. (10) If there is any way of acting or
being acted upon proper to soul, soul will be capable of separate
existence; if there is none, its separate existence is impossible. In the
latter case, it will be like what is straight, which has many properties
arising from the straightness in it, e. g. that of touching a bronze sphere
at a point, though straightness divorced from the other constituents of
the straight thing cannot touch it in this way; it cannot be so divorced at
all, since it is always found in a body. (15) It therefore seems that all the
affections of soul involve a body—passion, gentleness, fear, pity,
courage, joy, loving, and hating; in all these there is a concurrent
affection of the body. In support of this we may point to the fact that,
while sometimes on the occasion of violent and striking occurrences
there is no excitement or fear felt, (20) on others faint and feeble
stimulations produce these emotions, viz. when the body is already in a
state of tension resembling its condition when we are angry. Here is a
still clearer case: in the absence of any external cause of terror we find
ourselves experiencing the feelings of a man in terror. From all this it is
obvious that the affections of soul are enmattered formulable essences.
Consequently their definitions ought to correspond, (25) e. g. anger
should be defined as a certain mode of movement of such and such a
body (or part or faculty of a body) by this or that cause and for this or
that end. That is precisely why the study of the soul must fall within the
science of Nature, at least so far as in its affections it manifests this
double character. Hence a physicist would define an affection of soul
differently from a dialectician; the latter would define e. g. (30) anger as
the appetite for returning pain for pain, or something like that, while the
former would define it as a boiling of the blood or warm substance
surrounding the heart. [403b] The latter assigns the material
conditions, the former the form or formulable essence; for what he states
is the formulable essence of the fact, though for its actual existence there
must be embodiment of it in a material such as is described by the other.
Thus the essence of a house is assigned in such a formula as ‘a shelter
against destruction by wind, rain, (5) and heat’; the physicist would
describe it as ‘stones, bricks, and timbers’; but there is a third possible
description which would say that it was that form in that material with
that purpose or end. Which, then, among these is entitled to be regarded
as the genuine physicist? The one who confines himself to the material,
or the one who restricts himself to the formulable essence alone? Is it
not rather the one who combines both in a single formula? If this is so,
how are we to characterize the other two? Must we not say that there is
no type of thinker who concerns himself with those qualities or
attributes of the material which are in fact inseparable from the
material, (10) and without attempting even in thought to separate them?
The physicist is he who concerns himself with all the properties active
and passive of bodies or materials thus or thus defined; attributes not
considered as being of this character he leaves to others, in certain cases
it may be to a specialist, e. g. a carpenter or a physician, in others (a)
where they are inseparable in fact, (15) but are separable from any
particular kind of body by an effort of abstraction, to the mathematician,
(b) where they are separate both in fact and in thought from body
altogether, to the First Philosopher or metaphysician. But we must
return from this digression, and repeat that the affections of soul are
inseparable from the material substratum of animal life, to which we
have seen that such affections, e. g. passion and fear, attach, and have
not the same mode of being as a line or a plane.

2 For our study of soul it is necessary, (20) while formulating the

problems of which in our further advance we are to find the solutions, to
call into council the views of those of our predecessors who have
declared any opinion on this subject, in order that we may profit by
whatever is sound in their suggestions and avoid their errors.
The starting-point of our inquiry is an exposition of those
characteristics which have chiefly been held to belong to soul in its very
nature. (25) Two characteristic marks have above all others been
recognized as distinguishing that which has soul in it from that which
has not—movement and sensation. It may be said that these two are
what our predecessors have fixed upon as characteristic of soul.
Some say that what originates movement is both pre-eminently and
primarily soul; believing that what is not itself moved cannot originate
movement in another, (30) they arrived at the view that soul belongs to
the class of things in movement. [404a] This is what led Democritus to
say that soul is a sort of fire or hot substance; his ‘forms’ or atoms are
infinite in number; those which are spherical he calls fire and soul, and
compares them to the motes in the air which we see in shafts of light
coming through windows; the mixture of seeds of all sorts he calls the
elements of the whole of Nature (Leucippus gives a similar account); the
spherical atoms are identified with soul because atoms of that shape are
most adapted to permeate everywhere, (5) and to set all the others
moving by being themselves in movement. This implies the view that
soul is identical with what produces movement in animals. That is why,
further, they regard respiration as the characteristic mark of life; as the
environment compresses the bodies of animals, (10) and tends to extrude
those atoms which impart movement to them, because they themselves
are never at rest, there must be a reinforcement of these by similar
atoms coming in from without in the act of respiration; for they prevent
the extrusion of those which are already within by counteracting the
compressing and consolidating force of the environment; and animals
continue to live only as long as they are able to maintain this resistance.
(15)

The doctrine of the Pythagoreans seems to rest upon the same ideas;
some of them declared the motes in air, others what moved them, to be
soul. These motes were referred to because they are seen always in
movement, even in a complete calm.
The same tendency is shown by those who define soul as that which
moves itself; all seem to hold the view that movement is what is closest
to the nature of soul, (20) and that while all else is moved by soul, it alone
moves itself. This belief arises from their never seeing anything
originating movement which is not first itself moved.
Similarly also Anaxagoras (and whoever agrees with him in saying
that mind set the whole in movement) declares the moving cause of
things to be soul. (25) His position must, however, be distinguished from
that of Democritus. Democritus roundly identifies soul and mind, for he
identifies what appears with what is true—that is why he commends
Homer for the phrase ‘Hector lay with thought distraught’3; he does not
employ mind as a special faculty dealing with truth, (30) but identifies
soul and mind. [404b] What Anaxagoras says about them is more
obscure; in many places he tells us that the cause of beauty and order is
mind, elsewhere that it is soul; it is found, he says, in all animals, great
and small, high and low, but mind (in the sense of intelligence) appears
not to belong alike to all animals, (5) and indeed not even to all human
beings.
All those, then, who had special regard to the fact that what has soul
in it is moved, adopted the view that soul is to be identified with what is
eminently originative of movement. All, on the other hand. who looked
to the fact that what has soul in it knows or perceives what is, identify
soul with the principle or principles of Nature. (10) according as they
admit several such principles or one only. Thus Empedocles declares that
it is formed out of all his elements, each of them also being soul; his
words are:

For ’tis by Earth we see Earth, by Water Water,

By Ether Ether divine, by Fire destructive Fire,
By Love Love, (15) and Hate by cruel Hate.

In the same way Plato in the Timaeus4 fashions the soul out of his
elements; for like, he holds, is known by like, and things are formed out
of the principles or elements, so that soul must be so too. (20) Similarly
also in his lectures ‘On Philosophy’ it was set forth that the Animal-itself
is compounded of the Idea itself of the One together with the primary
length, breadth, and depth, everything else, the objects of its perception,
being similarly constituted. Again he puts his view in yet other terms:
Mind is the monad, science or knowledge the dyad (because5 it goes
undeviatingly from one point to another), opinion the number of the
plane,6 sensation the number of the solid7; the numbers are by him
expressly identified with the Forms themselves or principles, and are
formed out of the elements; now things are apprehended either by mind
or science or opinion or sensation, (25) and these same numbers are the
Forms of things.
Some thinkers, accepting both premisses, viz. that the soul is both
originative of movement and cognitive, have compounded it of both and
declared the soul to be a self-moving number.
As to the nature and number of the first principles opinions differ. (30)
The difference is greatest between those who regard them as corporeal
and those who regard them as incorporeal, and from both dissent those
who make a blend and draw their principles from both sources. [405a]
The number of principles is also in dispute; some admit one only, others
assert several. There is a consequent diversity in their several accounts of
soul; they assume, naturally enough, (5) that what is in its own nature
originative of movement must be among what is primordial. That has led
some to regard it as fire, for fire is the subtlest of the elements and
nearest to incorporeality; further, in the most primary sense, fire both is
moved and originates movement in all the others.
Democritus has expressed himself more ingeniously than the rest on
the grounds for ascribing each of these two characters to soul; soul and
mind are, (10) he says, one and the same thing, and this thing must be
one of the primary and indivisible bodies, and its power of originating
movement must be due to its fineness of grain and the shape of its
atoms; he says that of all the shapes the spherical is the most mobile,
and that this is the shape of the particles of both fire and mind.
Anaxagoras, as we said above,8 seems to distinguish between soul and
mind, but in practice he treats them as a single substance, except that it
is mind that he specially posits as the principle of all things; at any rate
what he says is that mind alone of all that is is simple, (15) unmixed, and
pure. He assigns both characteristics, knowing and origination of
movement, to the same principle, when he says that it was mind that set
the whole in movement.
Thales, too, to judge from what is recorded about him, (20) seems to
have held soul to be a motive force, since he said that the magnet has a
soul in it because it moves the iron.
Diogenes (and others) held the soul to be air because he believed air
to be finest in grain and a first principle; therein lay the grounds of the
soul’s powers of knowing and originating movement. As the primordial
principle from which all other things are derived, it is cognitive; as finest
in grain, it has the power to originate movement.
Heraclitus too says that the first principle—the ‘warm exhalation’ of
which, (25) according to him, everything else is composed—is soul;
further, that this exhalation is most incorporeal and in ceaseless flux;
that what is in movement requires that what knows it should be in
movement; and that all that is has its being essentially in movement
(herein agreeing with the majority).
Alcmaeon also seems to have held a similar view about soul; he says
that it is immortal because it resembles ‘the immortals’, (30) and that this
immortality belongs to it in virtue of its ceaseless movement; for all the
‘things divine’, moon, sun, the planets, and the whole heavens, are in
perpetual movement.
[405b] Of more superficial writers, some, e. g. Hippo, have
pronounced it to be water; they seem to have argued from the fact that
the seed of all animals is fluid, for Hippo tries to refute those who say
that the soul is blood, on the ground that the seed, which is the
primordial soul, is not blood.
Another group (Critias, for example) did hold it to be blood; they take
perception to be the most characteristic attribute of soul, (5) and hold
that perceptiveness is due to the nature of blood.
Each of the elements has thus found its partisan, except earth—earth
has found no supporter unless we count as such those who have declared
soul to be, or to be compounded of, all the elements. All, (10) then, it may
be said, characterize the soul by three marks, Movement, Sensation,
Incorporeality, and each of these is traced back to the first principles.
That is why (with one exception) all those who define the soul by its
power of knowing make it either an element or constructed out of the
elements. The language they all use is similar; like, (15) they say, is
known by like; as the soul knows everything, they construct it out of all
the principles. Hence all those who admit but one cause or element,
make the soul also one (e. g. fire or air), while those who admit a
multiplicity of principles make the soul also multiple. (20) The exception
is Anaxagoras; he alone says that mind is impassible and has nothing in
common with anything else. But, if this is so, how or in virtue of what
cause can it know? That Anaxagoras has not explained, nor can any
answer be inferred from his words. All who acknowledge pairs of
opposites among their principles, construct the soul also out of these
contraries, (25) while those who admit as principles only one contrary of
each pair, e. g. either hot or cold, likewise make the soul some one of
these. That is why, also, they allow themselves to be guided by the
names; those who identify soul with the hot argue that zen (to live) is
derived from zein (to boil), while those who identify it with the cold say
that soul (psyche) is so called from the process of respiration and
refrigeration (katapsyxis).
Such are the traditional opinions concerning soul, (30) together with
the grounds on which they are maintained.

3 We must begin our examination with movement; for, doubtless, not

only is it false that the essence of soul is correctly described by those
who say that it is what moves (or is capable of moving) itself, but it is an
impossibility that movement should be even an attribute of it. [406a]
We have already9 pointed out that there is no necessity that what
originates movement should itself be moved. There are two senses in
which anything may be moved—either (a) indirectly, owing to
something other than itself, (5) or (b) directly, owing to itself. Things are
‘indirectly moved’ which are moved as being contained in something
which is moved, e. g. sailors in a ship, for they are moved in a different
sense from that in which the ship is moved; the ship is ‘directly moved’,
they are ‘indirectly moved’, because they are in a moving vessel. This is
clear if we consider their limbs; the movement proper to the legs (and so
to man) is walking, and in this case the sailors are not walking. (10)
Recognizing the double sense of ‘being moved’, what we have to
consider now is whether the soul is ‘directly moved’ and participates in
such direct movement.
There are four species of movement—locomotion, alteration,
diminution, growth; consequently if the soul is moved, it must be moved
with one or several or all of these species of movement. Now if its
movement is not incidental, there must be a movement natural to it, (15)
and, if so, as all the species enumerated involve place, place must be
natural to it. But if the essence of soul be to move itself, its being moved
cannot be incidental to it, as it is to what is white or three cubits long;
they too can be moved, but only incidentally—what is moved is that of
which ‘white’ and ‘three cubits long’ are the attributes, the body in
which they inhere; hence they have no place: but if the soul naturally
partakes in movement, (20) it follows that it must have a place.
Further, if there be a movement natural to the soul, there must be a
counter-movement unnatural to it, and conversely. The same applies to
rest as well as to movement; for the terminus ad quem of a thing’s natural
movement is the place of its natural rest, (25) and similarly the terminus
ad quem of its enforced movement is the place of its enforced rest. But
what meaning can be attached to enforced movements or rests of the
soul, it is difficult even to imagine.
Further, if the natural movement of the soul be upward, the soul must
be fire; if downward, it must be earth; for upward and downward
movements are the definitory characteristics of these bodies. The same
reasoning applies to the intermediate movements, termini, and bodies.
Further, since the soul is observed to originate movement in the body,
(30) it is reasonable to suppose that it transmits to the body the

movements by which it itself is moved, and so, reversing the order, we

may infer from the movements of the body back to similar movements of
the soul. Now the body is moved from place to place with movements of
locomotion. [406b] Hence it would follow that the soul too must in
accordance with the body change either its place as a whole or the
relative places of its parts. This carries with it the possibility that the
soul might even quit its body and re-enter it, and with this would be
involved the possibility of a resurrection of animals from the dead. But,
it may be contended, (5) the soul can be moved indirectly by something
else; for an animal can be pushed out of its course. Yes, but that to
whose essence belongs the power of being moved by itself, cannot be
moved by something else except incidentally,10 just as what is good by
or in itself cannot owe its goodness to something external to it or to
some end to which it is a means. (10)
If the soul is moved, the most probable view is that what moves it is
sensible things.11
We must note also that, if the soul moves itself, it must be the mover
itself that is moved, so that it follows that if movement is in every case a
displacement of that which is in movement, in that respect in which it is
said to be moved, the movement of the soul must be a departure from its
essential nature, at least if its self-movement is essential to it, not
incidental.
Some go so far as to hold that the movements which the soul imparts
to the body in which it is are the same in kind as those with which it
itself is moved. (15) An example of this is Democritus, who uses language
like that of the comic dramatist Philippus, who accounts for the
movements that Daedalus imparted to his wooden Aphrodite by saying
that he poured quicksilver into it; similarly Democritus says that the
spherical atoms which according to him constitute soul, (20) owing to
their own ceaseless movements draw the whole body after them and so
produce its movements. We must urge the question whether it is these
very same atoms which produce rest also—how they could do so, it is
difficult and even impossible to say. And, in general, we may object that
it is not in this way that the soul appears to originate movement in
animals—it is through intention or process of thinking. (25)
It is in the same fashion that the Timaeus12 also tries to give a physical
account of how the soul moves its body; the soul, it is here said, is in
movement, and so owing to their mutual implication moves the body
also. After compounding the soul-substance out of the elements and
dividing it in accordance with the harmonic numbers, (30) in order that it
may possess a connate sensibility for ‘harmony’ and that the whole may
move in movements well attuned, the Demiurge bent the straight line
into a circle; this single circle he divided into two circles united at two
common points; one of these he subdivided into seven circles. [407a]
All this implies that the movements of the soul are identified with the
local movements of the heavens.
Now, in the first place, it is a mistake to say that the soul is a spatial
magnitude. It is evident that Plato means the soul of the whole to be like
the sort of soul which is called mind—not like the sensitive or the
desiderative soul, (5) for the movements of neither of these are circular.
Now mind is one and continuous in the sense in which the process of
thinking is so, and thinking is identical with the thoughts which are its
parts; these have a serial unity like that of number, not a unity like that
of a spatial magnitude. Hence mind cannot have that kind of unity
either; mind is either without parts or is continuous in some other way
than that which characterizes a spatial magnitude. How, indeed, if it
were a spatial magnitude, (10) could mind possibly think? Will it think
with any one indifferently of its parts? In this case, the ‘part’ must be
understood either in the sense of a spatial magnitude or in the sense of a
point (if a point can be called a part of a spatial magnitude). If we accept
the latter alternative, the points being infinite in number, obviously the
mind can never exhaustively traverse them; if the former, the mind must
think the same thing over and over again, indeed an infinite number of
times (whereas it is manifestly possible to think a thing once only). If
contact of any part whatsoever of itself with the object is all that is
required, (15) why need mind move in a circle, or indeed possess
magnitude at all? On the other hand, if contact with the whole circle is
necessary, what meaning can be given to the contact of the parts?
Further, how could what has no parts think what has parts, or what has
parts think what has none?13 We must identify the circle referred to with
mind; for it is mind whose movement is thinking, and it is the circle
whose movement is revolution, (20) so that if thinking is a movement of
revolution, the circle which has this characteristic movement must be
mind.
If the circular movement is eternal, there must be something which
mind is always thinking—what can this be? For all practical processes of
thinking have limits—they all go on for the sake of something outside
the process, and all theoretical processes come to a close in the same
way as the phrases in speech which express processes and results of
thinking. Every such linguistic phrase is either definitory or
demonstrative. (25) Demonstration has both a starting-point and may be
said to end in a conclusion or inferred result; even if the process never
reaches final completion, at any rate it never returns upon itself again to
its starting-point, it goes on assuming a fresh middle term or a fresh
extreme, and moves straight forward, but circular movement returns to
its starting-point. Definitions, too, are closed groups of terms. (30)
Further, if the same revolution is repeated, mind must repeatedly
think the same object.
Further, thinking has more resemblance to a coming to rest or arrest
than to a movement; the same may be said of inferring.
It might also be urged that what is difficult and enforced is
incompatible with blessedness; if the movement of the soul is not of its
essence, movement of the soul must be contrary to its nature.14 [407b]
It must also be painful for the soul to be inextricably bound up with the
body; nay more, if, as is frequently said and widely accepted, it is better
for mind not to be embodied, the union must be for it undesirable.
Further, (5) the cause of the revolution of the heavens is left obscure. It
is not the essence of soul which is the cause of this circular movement—
that movement is only incidental to soul—nor is, a fortiori, the body its
cause. Again, it is not even asserted that it is better that soul should be
so moved; and yet the reason for which God caused the soul to move in
a circle can only have been that movement was better for it than rest, (10)
and movement of this kind better than any other. But since this sort of
consideration is more appropriate to another field of speculation, let us
dismiss it for the present.
The view we have just been examining, in company with most
theories about the soul, involves the following absurdity: they all join
the soul to a body, (15) or place it in a body, without adding any
specification of the reason of their union, or of the bodily conditions
required for it. Yet such explanation can scarcely be omitted; for some
community of nature is presupposed by the fact that the one acts and the
other is acted upon, the one moves and the other is moved; interaction
always implies a special nature in the two interagents. All, however, (20)
that these thinkers do is to describe the specific characteristics of the
soul; they do not try to determine anything about the body which is to
contain it, as if it were possible, as in the Pythagorean myths, that any
soul could be clothed upon with any body—an absurd view, for each
body seems to have a form and shape of its own. It is as absurd as to say
that the art of carpentry could embody itself in flutes; each art must use
its tools, (25) each soul its body.

4 There is yet another theory about soul, which has commended itself
to many as no less probable than any of those we have hitherto
mentioned, (30) and has rendered public account of itself in the court of
popular discussion. Its supporters say that the soul is a kind of harmony,
for (a) harmony is a blend or composition of contraries, and (b) the body
is compounded out of contraries. Harmony, however, is a certain
proportion or composition of the constituents blended, and soul can be
neither the one nor the other of these. Further, the power of originating
movement cannot belong to a harmony, while almost all concur in
regarding this as a principal attribute of soul. [408a] It is more
appropriate to call health (or generally one of the good states of the
body) a harmony than to predicate it of the soul. The absurdity becomes
most apparent when we try to attribute the active and passive affections
of the soul to a harmony; the necessary readjustment of their
conceptions is difficult. Further, in using the word ‘harmony’ we have
one or other of two cases in our mind; the most proper sense is in
relation to spatial magnitudes which have motion and position, (5) where
harmony means the disposition and cohesion of their parts in such a
manner as to prevent the introduction into the whole of anything
homogeneous with it, and the secondary sense, derived from the former,
is that in which it means the ratio between the constituents so blended;
in neither of these senses is it plausible to predicate it of soul. (10) That
soul is a harmony in the sense of the mode of composition of the parts of
the body is a view easily refutable; for there are many composite parts
and those variously compounded; of what bodily part is mind or the
sensitive or the appetitive faculty the mode of composition? And what is
the mode of composition which constitutes each of them? It is equally
absurd to identify the soul with the ratio of the mixture; for the mixture
which makes flesh has a different ratio between the elements from that
which makes bone. (15) The consequence of this view will therefore be
that distributed throughout the whole body there will be many souls,
since every one of the bodily parts is a different mixture of the elements,
and the ratio of mixture is in each case a harmony, i. e. a soul.
From Empedocles at any rate we might demand an answer to the
following question—for he says that each of the parts of the body is
what it is in virtue of a ratio between the elements: is the soul identical
with this ratio, (20) or is it not rather something over and above this
which is formed in the parts? Is love the cause of any and every mixture,
or only of those that are in the right ratio? Is love this ratio itself, or is
love something over and above this? Such are the problems raised by
this account. But, on the other hand, if the soul is different from the
mixture, why does it disappear at one and the same moment with that
relation between the elements which constitutes flesh or the other parts
of the animal body? Further, (25) if the soul is not identical with the ratio
of mixture, and it is consequently not the case that each of the parts has
a soul, what is that which perishes when the soul quits the body?
That the soul cannot either be a harmony, or be moved in a circle, is
clear from what we have said. Yet that it can be moved incidentally is,
(30) as we said above,15 possible, and even that in a sense it can move

itself, i. e. in the sense that the vehicle in which it is can be moved, and
moved by it; in no other sense can the soul be moved in space. More
legitimate doubts might remain as to its movement in view of the
following facts. [408b] We speak of the soul as being pained or
pleased, being bold or fearful, being angry, perceiving, thinking. All
these are regarded as modes of movement, and hence it might be
inferred that the soul is moved. This, however, does not necessarily
follow. (5) We may admit to the full that being pained or pleased, or
thinking, are movements (each of them a ‘being moved’), and that the
movement is originated by the soul. For example we may regard anger
or fear as such and such movements of the heart, and thinking as such
and such another movement of that organ, or of some other; these
modifications may arise either from changes of place in certain parts or
from qualitative alterations (the special nature of the parts and the
special modes of their changes being for our present purpose irrelevant).
(10) Yet to say that it is the soul which is angry is as inexact as it would be

to say that it is the soul that weaves webs or builds houses. It is

doubtless better to avoid saying that the soul pities or learns or thinks,
(15) and rather to say that it is the man who does this with his soul. What

we mean is not that the movement is in the soul, but that sometimes it
terminates in the soul and sometimes starts from it, sensation e. g.
coming from without inwards, and reminiscence starting from the soul
and terminating with the movements, actual or residual, in the sense
organs.
The case of mind is different; it seems to be an independent substance
implanted within the soul and to be incapable of being destroyed. If it
could be destroyed at all, it would be under the blunting influence of old
age. (20) What really happens in respect of mind in old age is, however,
exactly parallel to what happens in the case of the sense organs; if the
old man could recover the proper kind of eye, he would see just as well
as the young man. The incapacity of old age is due to an affection not of
the soul but of its vehicle, as occurs in drunkenness or disease. Thus it is
that in old age the activity of mind or intellectual apprehension declines
only through the decay of some other inward part; mind itself is
impassible. (25) Thinking, loving, and hating are affections not of mind,
but of that which has mind, so far as it has it. That is why, when this
vehicle decays, memory and love cease; they were activities not of mind,
but of the composite which has perished; mind is, no doubt, something
more divine and impassible. (30) That the soul cannot be moved is
therefore clear from what we have said, and if it cannot be moved at all,
manifestly it cannot be moved by itself.
Of all the opinions we have enumerated, by far the most unreasonable
is that which declares the soul to be a self-moving number; it involves in
the first place all the impossibilities which follow from regarding the
soul as moved, and in the second special absurdities which follow from
calling it a number. [409a] How are we to imagine a unit being
moved? By what agency? What sort of movement can be attributed to
what is without parts or internal differences? If the unit is both
originative of movement and itself capable of being moved, it must
contain difference.16
Further, since they say a moving line generates a surface and a moving
point a line, the movements of the psychic units must be lines (for a
point is a unit having position, (5) and the number of the soul is, of
course, somewhere and has position).
Again, if from a number a number or a unit is subtracted, the
remainder is another number; but plants and many animals when
divided continue to live, and each segment is thought to retain the same
kind of soul.
It must be all the same whether we speak of units or corpuscles; for if
the spherical atoms of Democritus became points, (10) nothing being
retained but their being a quantum, there must remain in each a moving
and a moved part, just as there is in what is continuous; what happens
has nothing to do with the size of the atoms, it depends solely upon their
being a quantum. That is why there must be something to originate
movement in the units. (15) If in the animal what originates movement is
the soul, so also must it be in the case of the number, so that not the
mover and the moved together, but the mover only, will be the soul. But
how is it possible for one of the units to fulfil this function of originating
movement? There must be some difference between such a unit and all
the other units, (20) and what difference can there be between one placed
unit and another except a difference of position? If then, on the other
hand, these psychic units within the body are different from the points of
the body, there will be two sets of units both occupying the same place;
for each unit will occupy a point. And yet, if there can be two, why
cannot there be an infinite number? For if things can occupy an
indivisible place, they must themselves be indivisible. If, on the other
hand, (25) the points of the body are identical with the units whose
number is the soul, or if the number of the points in the body is the soul,
why have not all bodies souls? For all bodies contain points or an
infinity of points.
Further, how is it possible for these points to be isolated or separated
from their bodies, seeing that lines cannot be resolved into points?

5 The result is, (30) as we have said,17 that this view, while on the one
side identical with that of those who maintain that soul is a subtle kind
of body,18 is on the other entangled in the absurdity peculiar to
Democritus’ way of describing the manner in which movement is
originated by soul. [409b] For if the soul is present throughout the
whole percipient body, there must, if the soul be a kind of body, be two
bodies in the same place; and for those who call it a number, (5) there
must be many points at one point, or every body must have a soul,
unless the soul be a different sort of number—other, that is, than the
sum of the points existing in a body. Another consequence that follows is
that the animal must be moved by its number precisely in the way that
Democritus explained its being moved by his spherical psychic atoms.
What difference does it make whether we speak of small spheres or of
large19 units, or, quite simply, (10) of units in movement? One way or
another, the movements of the animal must be due to their movements.
Hence those who combine movement and number in the same subject
lay themselves open to these and many other similar absurdities. It is
impossible not only that these characters should give the definition of
soul—it is impossible that they should even be attributes of it. The point
is clear if the attempt be made to start from this as the account of soul
and explain from it the affections and actions of the soul, (15) e. g.
reasoning, sensation, pleasure, pain, &c. For, to repeat what we have
said earlier,20 movement and number do not facilitate even conjecture
about the derivative properties of soul.
Such are the three ways in which soul has traditionally been defined;
one group of thinkers declared it to be that which is most originative of
movement because it moves itself, (20) another group to be the subtlest
and most nearly incorporeal of all kinds of body. We have now
sufficiently set forth the difficulties and inconsistencies to which these
theories are exposed. It remains now to examine the doctrine that soul is
composed of the elements.
The reason assigned for this doctrine is that thus the soul may
perceive or come to know everything that is, (25) but the theory
necessarily involves itself in many impossibilities. Its upholders assume
that like is known only by like, and imagine that by declaring the soul to
be composed of the elements they succeed in identifying the soul with
all the things it is capable of apprehending. But the elements are not the
only things it knows; there are many others, or, more exactly, an infinite
number of others, formed out of the elements. (30) [410a] Let us admit
that the soul knows or perceives the elements out of which each of these
composites is made up; but by what means will it know or perceive the
composite whole, e. g. what God, man, flesh, bone (or any other
compound) is? For each is, not merely the elements of which it is
composed, but those elements combined in a determinate mode or ratio,
as Empedocles himself says of bone,

The kindly Earth in its broad-bosomed moulds

Won of clear Water two parts out of eight
And four of Fire; and so white bones were formed. (5)

Nothing, therefore, will be gained by the presence of the elements in

the soul, unless there be also present there the various formulae of
proportion and the various compositions in accordance with them. Each
element will indeed know its fellow outside, but there will be no
knowledge of bone or man, unless they too are present in the
constitution of the soul. The impossibility of this needs no pointing out;
for who would suggest that stone or man could enter into the
constitution of the soul? The same applies to ‘the good’ and ‘the not-
good’, (10) and so on.
Further, the word ‘is’ has many meanings: it may be used of a ‘this’ or
substance, or of a quantum, or of a quale, or of any other of the kinds of
predicates we have distinguished. Does the soul consist of all of these or
not? It does not appear that all have common elements. (15) Is the soul
formed out of those elements alone which enter into substances? If so,
how will it be able to know each of the other kinds of thing? Will it be
said that each kind of thing has elements or principles of its own, and
that the soul is formed out of the whole of these? In that case, the soul
must be a quantum and a quale and a substance. (20) But all that can be
made out of the elements of a quantum is a quantum, not a substance.
These (and others like them) are the consequences of the view that the
soul is composed of all the elements.
It is absurd, also, to say both (a) that like is not capable of being
affected by like, and (b) that like is perceived or known by like, for
perceiving, and also both thinking and knowing, are, (25) on their own
assumption, ways of being affected or moved.
There are many puzzles and difficulties raised by saying, as
Empedocles does, that each set of things is known by means of its
corporeal elements and by reference to something in soul which is like
them, and additional testimony is furnished by this new consideration;
for all the parts of the animal body which consist wholly of earth such as
bones, (30) sinews, and hair seem to be wholly insensitive and
consequently not perceptive even of objects earthy like themselves, as
they ought to have been. [410b]
Further, each of the principles will have far more ignorance than
knowledge, for though each of them will know one thing, there will be
many of which it will be ignorant. (5) Empedocles at any rate must
conclude that his God is the least intelligent of all beings, for of him
alone is it true that there is one thing, Strife, which he does not know,
while there is nothing which mortal beings do not know, for there is
nothing which does not enter into their composition.
 In general, we may ask, Why has not everything a soul, since
everything either is an element, or is formed out of one or several or all
of the elements? Each must certainly know one or several or all.
The problem might also be raised, (10) What is that which unifies the
elements into a soul? The elements correspond, it would appear, to the
matter; what unites them, whatever it is, is the supremely important
factor. But it is impossible that there should be something superior to,
and dominant over, the soul (and a fortiori over the mind); it is
reasonable to hold that mind is by nature most primordial and
dominant, (15) while their statement is that it is the elements which are
first of all that is.
All, both those who assert that the soul, because of its knowledge or
perception of what is, is compounded out of the elements, and those
who assert that it is of all things the most originative of movement, fail
to take into consideration all kinds of soul. In fact (1) not all beings that
perceive can originate movement; there appear to be certain animals
which are stationary, (20) and yet local movement is the only one, so it
seems, which the soul originates in animals. And (2) the same objection
holds against all those who construct mind and the perceptive faculty
out of the elements; for it appears that plants live, and yet are not
endowed with locomotion or perception, while a large number of
animals are without discourse of reason. Even if these points were
waived and mind admitted to be a part of the soul (and so too the
perceptive faculty), (25) still, even so, there would be kinds and parts of
soul of which they had failed to give any account.
The same objection lies against the view expressed in the ‘Orphic’
poems: there it is said that the soul comes in from the whole when
breathing takes place, (30) being borne in upon the winds. Now this
cannot take place in the case of plants, nor indeed in the case of certain
classes of animal, for not all classes of animal breathe. [411a] This fact
has escaped the notice of the holders of this view.
If we must construct the soul out of the elements, there is no necessity
to suppose that all the elements enter into its construction; one element
in each pair of contraries will suffice to enable it to know both that
element itself and its contrary. By means of the straight line we know
both itself and the curved—the carpenter’s rule enables us to test both—
but what is curved does not enable us to distinguish either itself or the
straight. (5)
Certain thinkers say that soul is intermingled in the whole universe,
and it is perhaps for that reason that Thales came to the opinion that all
things are full of gods. This presents some difficulties: Why does the soul
when it resides in air or fire not form an animal, (10) while it does so
when it resides in mixtures of the elements, and that although it is held
to be of higher quality when contained in the former? (One might add
the question, why the soul in air is maintained to be higher and more
immortal than that in animals.) Both possible ways of replying to the
former question lead to absurdity or paradox; for it is beyond paradox to
say that fire or air is an animal, (15) and it is absurd to refuse the name of
animal to what has soul in it. The opinion that the elements have soul in
them seems to have arisen from the doctrine that a whole must be
homogeneous with its parts. If it is true that animals become animate by
drawing into themselves a portion of what surrounds them, the partisans
of this view are bound to say that the soul of the Whole too is
homogeneous with all its parts. If the air sucked in is homogeneous, but
soul heterogeneous, (20) clearly while some part of soul will exist in the
inbreathed air, some other part will not. The soul must either be
homogeneous, or such that there are some parts of the Whole in which it
is not to be found.
From what has been said it is now clear that knowing as an attribute
of soul cannot be explained by soul’s being composed of the elements,
and that it is neither sound nor true to speak of soul as moved. (25) But
since (a) knowing, perceiving, opining, and further (b) desiring, wishing,
and generally all other modes of appetition, belong to soul, and (c) the
local movements of animals, and (d) growth, maturity, (30) and decay are
produced by the soul, we must ask whether each of these is an attribute
of the soul as a whole, i. e. whether it is with the whole soul we think,
perceive, move ourselves, act or are acted upon, or whether each of
them requires a different part of the soul? So too with regard to life.
[411b] Does it depend on one of the parts of soul? Or is it dependent
on more than one? Or on all? Or has it some quite other cause?
Some hold that the soul is divisible, and that one part thinks, (5)
another desires. If, then, its nature admits of its being divided, what can
it be that holds the parts together? Surely not the body; on the contrary
it seems rather to be the soul that holds the body together; at any rate
when the soul departs the body disintegrates and decays. If, then, there
is something else which makes the soul one, (10) this unifying agency
would have the best right to the name of soul, and we shall have to
repeat for it the question: Is it one or multipartite? If it is one, why not at
once admit that ‘the soul’ is one? If it has parts, once more the question
must be put: What holds its parts together, and so ad infinitum?
The question might also be raised about the parts of the soul: What is
the separate rôle of each in relation to the body? For, (15) if the whole
soul holds together the whole body, we should expect each part of the
soul to hold together a part of the body. But this seems an impossibility;
it is difficult even to imagine what sort of bodily part mind will hold
together, or how it will do this.
It is a fact of observation that plants and certain insects go on living
when divided into segments; this means that each of the segments has a
soul in it identical in species, (20) though not numerically identical in the
different segments, for both of the segments for a time possess the power
of sensation and local movement. That this does not last is not
surprising, for they no longer possess the organs necessary for self-
maintenance. But, all the same, in each of the bodily parts there are
present all the parts of soul, (25) and the souls so present are
homogeneous with one another and with the whole; this means that the
several parts of the soul are indisseverable from one another, although
the whole soul is21 divisible. It seems also that the principle found in
plants is also a kind of soul; for this is the only principle which is
common to both animals and plants; and this exists in isolation from the
principle of sensation, (30) though there is nothing which has the latter
without the former.

1 i. e. the complex of soul and body.

2 i. e. as presupposing the various sorts instead of being presupposed by them.

3 II. xxiii. 698.

4 35 A ff.

5 Like the straight line, whose number is the dyad.

6 The triad.

7 The tetrad.

8 404b 1–6.

9 Phys. viii. 5, esp. 257a 31–258b 9.

10 i. e. so that what is moved is not it but something which ‘goes along with it’, e. g. a vehicle in
which it is contained.
11 sc. in which case the movement can only be ‘incidental’; for, as we shall see later, it is really
the bodily organ of sensation that then is ‘moved’.
12 35 A if.

13 sc. but mind in fact thinks or cognizes both.

14 sc. ‘and so a hindrance to its bliss’.

15 406a 30 ff., b5–8.

16 sc. ‘and so, be no unit’.

17 408b 33 ff.

18 e. g. Heraclitus, and Diogenes of Apollonia.

19 i. e. extended.

20 402b 25–403a 2.

21 sc. ‘in a sense, i. e. so as to preserve its homogeneity in even its smallest part’.
 BOOK II

1 [412a] Let the foregoing suffice as our account of the views

concerning the soul which have been handed on by our predecessors; let
us now dismiss them and make as it were a completely fresh start, (5)
endeavouring to give a precise answer to the question, What is soul? i. e.
to formulate the most general possible definition of it.
We are in the habit of recognizing, as one determinate kind of what is,
substance, and that in several senses, (a) in the sense of matter or that
which in itself is not ‘a this’, and (b) in the sense of form or essence,
which is that precisely in virtue of which a thing is called ‘a this’, and
thirdly (c) in the sense of that which is compounded of both (a) and (b).
Now matter is potentiality, (10) form actuality; of the latter there are two
grades related to one another as e. g. knowledge to the exercise of
knowledge.
Among substances are by general consent reckoned bodies and
especially natural bodies; for they are the principles of all other bodies.
Of natural bodies some have life in them, others not; by life we mean
self-nutrition and growth (with its correlative decay). (15) It follows that
every natural body which has life in it is a substance in the sense of a
composite.
But since it is also a body of such and such a kind, viz. having life, the
body cannot be soul; the body is the subject or matter, not what is
attributed to it. Hence the soul must be a substance in the sense of the
form of a natural body having life potentially within it. (20) But
substance1 is actuality, and thus soul is the actuality of a body as above
characterized. Now the word actuality has two senses corresponding
respectively to the possession of knowledge and the actual exercise of
knowledge. It is obvious that the soul is actuality in the first sense, viz.
that of knowledge as possessed, for both sleeping and waking presuppose
the existence of soul, and of these waking corresponds to actual
knowing, (25) sleeping to knowledge possessed but not employed, and, in
the history of the individual, knowledge comes before its employment or
exercise.
That is why the soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural body
having life potentially in it. The body so described is a body which is
organized. [412b] The parts of plants in spite of their extreme
simplicity are ‘organs’; e. g. the leaf serves to shelter the pericarp, the
pericarp to shelter the fruit, while the roots of plants are analogous to
the mouth of animals, both serving for the absorption of food. If, then,
we have to give a general formula applicable to all kinds of soul, we
must describe it as the first grade of actuality of a natural organized
body. (5) That is why we can wholly dismiss as unnecessary the question
whether the soul and the body are one: it is as meaningless as to ask
whether the wax and the shape given to it by the stamp are one, or
generally the matter of a thing and that of which it is the matter. Unity
has many senses (as many as ‘is’ has), but the most proper and
fundamental sense of both is the relation of an actuality to that of which
it is the actuality.
We have now given an answer to the question, What is soul?—an
answer which applies to it in its full extent. (10) It is substance in the
sense which corresponds to the definitive formula of a thing’s essence.
That means that it is ‘the essential whatness’ of a body of the character
just assigned.2 Suppose that what is literally an ‘organ’,3 like an axe,
were a natural body, its ‘essential whatness’, would have been its
essence, and so its soul; if this disappeared from it, it would have ceased
to be an axe, (15) except in name. As it is,4 it is just an axe; it wants the
character which is required to make its whatness or formulable essence a
soul; for that, it would have had to be a natural body of a particular
kind, viz. one having in itself the power of setting itself in movement and
arresting itself. Next, apply this doctrine in the case of the ‘parts’ of the
living body. Suppose that the eye were an animal—sight would have
been its soul, for sight is the substance or essence of the eye which
corresponds to the formula,5 (20) the eye being merely the matter of
seeing; when seeing is removed the eye is no longer an eye, except in
name—it is no more a real eye than the eye of a statue or of a painted
figure. We must now extend our consideration from the ‘parts’ to the
whole living body; for what the departmental sense is to the bodily part
which is its organ, that the whole faculty of sense is to the whole
sensitive body as such.
We must not understand by that which is ‘potentially capable of living’
what has lost the soul it had, (25) but only what still retains it; but seeds
and fruits are bodies which possess the qualification.6 Consequently,
while waking is actuality in a sense corresponding to the cutting and the
seeing,7 the soul is actuality in the sense corresponding to the power of
sight and the power in the tool;8 the body corresponds to what exists in
potentiality; as the pupil plus the power of sight constitutes the eye, so
the soul plus the body constitutes the animal. [413a]
From this it indubitably follows that the soul is inseparable from its
body, or at any rate that certain parts of it are (if it has parts)—for the
actuality of some of them is nothing but the actualities of their bodily
parts. (5) Yet some may be separable because they are not the actualities
of any body at all. Further, we have no light on the problem whether the
soul may not be the actuality of its body in the sense in which the sailor
is the actuality9 of the ship.
This must suffice as our sketch or outline determination of the nature
of soul. (10)

2 Since what is clear or logically more evident emerges from what in

itself is confused but more observable by us, we must reconsider our
results from this point of view. For it is not enough for a definitive
formula to express as most now do the mere fact; it must include and
exhibit the ground also. (15) At present definitions are given in a form
analogous to the conclusion of a syllogism; e. g. What is squaring? The
construction of an equilateral rectangle equal to a given oblong
rectangle. Such a definition is in form equivalent to a conclusion.10 One
that tells us that squaring is the discovery of a line which is a mean
proportional between the two unequal sides of the given rectangle
discloses the ground of what is defined.
We resume our inquiry from a fresh starting-point by calling attention
to the fact that what has soul in it differs from what has not in that the
former displays life. (20) Now this word has more than one sense, and
provided any one alone of these is found in a thing we say that thing is
living. Living, that is, may mean thinking or perception or local
movement and rest, or movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and
growth. Hence we think of plants also as living, (25) for they are observed
to possess in themselves an originative power through which they
increase or decrease in all spatial directions; they grow up and down,
and everything that grows increases its bulk alike in both directions or
indeed in all, and continues to live so long as it can absorb nutriment. (30)
This power of self-nutrition can be isolated from the other powers
mentioned, but not they from it—in mortal beings at least. The fact is
obvious in plants; for it is the only psychic power they possess.
This is the originative power the possession of which leads us to speak
of things as living at all, but it is the possession of sensation that leads us
for the first time to speak of living things as animals; for even those
beings which possess no power of local movement but do possess the
power of sensation we call animals and not merely living things.
[413b]
The primary form of sense is touch, which belongs to all animals. Just
as the power of self-nutrition can be isolated from touch and sensation
generally, (5) so touch can be isolated from all other forms of sense. (By
the power of self-nutrition we mean that departmental power of the soul
which is common to plants and animals: all animals whatsoever are
observed to have the sense of touch.) What the explanation of these two
facts is, we must discuss later.11 At present we must confine ourselves to
saying that soul is the source of these phenomena and is characterized
by them, (10) viz. by the powers of self-nutrition, sensation, thinking, and
motivity.
Is each of these a soul or a part of a soul? And if a part, a part in what
sense? A part merely distinguishable by definition or a part distinct in
local situation as well? In the case of certain of these powers, (15) the
answers to these questions are easy, in the case of others we are puzzled
what to say. Just as in the case of plants which when divided are
observed to continue to live though removed to a distance from one
another (thus showing that in their case the soul of each individual plant
before division was actually one, potentially many), so we notice a
similar result in other varieties of soul, (20) i. e. in insects which have
been cut in two; each of the segments possesses both sensation and local
movement; and if sensation, necessarily also imagination and appetition;
for, where there is sensation, there is also pleasure and pain, and, where
these, necessarily also desire.
We have no evidence as yet about mind or the power to think; it
seems to be a widely different kind of soul, (25) differing as what is
eternal from what is perishable; it alone is capable of existence in
isolation from all other psychic powers. All the other parts of soul, it is
evident from what we have said, are, in spite of certain statements to the
contrary, incapable of separate existence though, of course,
distinguishable by definition. If opining is distinct from perceiving, (30) to
be capable of opining and to be capable of perceiving must be distinct,
and so with all the other forms of living above enumerated. Further,
some animals possess all these parts of soul, some certain of them only,
others one only (this is what enables us to classify animals); the cause
must be considered later.12 [414a] A similar arrangement is found also
within the field of the senses; some classes of animals have all the
senses, some only certain of them, others only one, the most
indispensable, touch.
Since the expression ‘that whereby we live and perceive’ has two
meanings, (5) just like the expression ‘that whereby we know’—that may
mean either (a) knowledge or (b) the soul, for we can speak of knowing
by or with either, and similarly that whereby we are in health may be
either (a) health or (b) the body or some part of the body; and since of
the two terms thus contrasted knowledge or health is the name of a
form, essence, or ratio, or if we so express it an actuality of a recipient
matter—knowledge of what is capable of knowing, (10) health of what is
capable of being made healthy (for the operation of that which is
capable of originating change terminates and has its seat in what is
changed or altered); further, since it is the soul by or with which
primarily we live, perceive, and think:—it follows that the soul must be
a ratio or formulable essence, not a matter or subject. For, as we said,13
the word substance has three meanings—form, matter, and the complex
of both—and of these three what is called matter is potentiality, (15) what
is called form actuality. Since then the complex here is the living thing,
the body cannot be the actuality of the soul; it is the soul which is the
actuality of a certain kind of body. Hence the rightness of the view that
the soul cannot be without a body, while it cannot be a body; it is not a
body but something relative to a body. (20) That is why it is in a body,
and a body of a definite kind. It was a mistake, therefore, to do as
former thinkers did, merely to fit it into a body without adding a definite
specification of the kind or character of that body. Reflection confirms
the observed fact; the actuality of any given thing can only be realized in
what is already potentially that thing, (25) i. e. in a matter of its own
appropriate to it. From all this it follows that soul is an actuality or
formulable essence of something that possesses a potentiality of being
besouled.

3 Of the psychic powers above enumerated14 some kinds of living

things, as we have said,15 possess all, some less than all, others one only.
Those we have mentioned are the nutritive, the appetitive, (30) the
sensory, the locomotive, and the power of thinking. Plants have none but
the first, the nutritive, while another order of living things has this plus
the sensory. If any order of living things has the sensory, it must also
have the appetitive; for appetite is the genus of which desire, passion,
and wish are the species; now all animals have one sense at least, viz.
[414b] touch, and whatever has a sense has the capacity for pleasure
and pain and therefore has pleasant and painful objects present to it, and
wherever these are present, there is desire, for desire is just appetition of
what is pleasant. (5) Further, all animals have the sense for food (for
touch is the sense for food); the food of all living things consists of what
is dry, moist, hot, cold, and these are the qualities apprehended by
touch; all other sensible qualities are apprehended by touch only
indirectly. Sounds, colours, (10) and odours contribute nothing to
nutriment; flavours fall within the field of tangible qualities. Hunger and
thirst are forms of desire, hunger a desire for what is dry and hot, thirst
a desire for what is cold and moist; flavour is a sort of seasoning added
to both. We must later16 clear up these points, but at present it may be
enough to say that all animals that possess the sense of touch have also
appetition. (15) The case of imagination is obscure; we must examine it
later.17 Certain kinds of animals possess in addition the power of
locomotion, and still another order of animate beings, i. e. man and
possibly another order like man or superior to him, (20) the power of
thinking, i. e. mind. It is now evident that a single definition can be
given of soul only in the same sense as one can be given of figure. For, as
in that case there is no figure distinguishable and apart from triangle,
&c., so here there is no soul apart from the forms of soul just
enumerated. It is true that a highly general definition can be given for
figure which will fit all figures without expressing the peculiar nature of
any figure. So here in the case of soul and its specific forms. Hence it is
absurd in this and similar cases to demand an absolutely general
definition, (25) which will fail to express the peculiar nature of anything
that is, or again, omitting this, to look for separate definitions
corresponding to each infima species. The cases of figure and soul are
exactly parallel; for the particulars subsumed under the common name
in both cases—figures and living beings—constitute a series, (30) each
successive term of which potentially contains its predecessor, e. g. the
square the triangle, the sensory power the self-nutritive. Hence we must
ask in the case of each order of living things, What is its soul, i. e. What
is the soul of plant, animal, man? Why the terms are related in this serial
way must form the subject of later examination.18 [415a] But the facts
are that the power of perception is never found apart from the power of
self-nutrition, while—in plants—the latter is found isolated from the
former. Again, no sense is found apart from that of touch, (5) while touch
is found by itself; many animals have neither sight, hearing, nor smell.
Again, among living things that possess sense some have the power of
locomotion, some not. Lastly, certain living beings—a small minority—
possess calculation and thought, for (among mortal beings) those which
possess calculation have all the other powers above mentioned, (10) while
the converse does not hold—indeed some live by imagination alone,
while others have not even imagination. The mind that knows with
immediate intuition presents a different problem.19
It is evident that the way to give the most adequate definition of soul
is to seek in the case of each of its forms for the most appropriate
definition.

4 It is necessary for the student of these forms of soul first to find a

definition of each, (15) expressive of what it is, and then to investigate its
derivative properties, &c. But if we are to express what each is, viz. what
the thinking power is, or the perceptive, or the nutritive, we must go
farther back and first give an account of thinking or perceiving, for in
the order of investigation the question of what an agent does precedes
the question, what enables it to do what it does. If this is correct, we
must on the same ground go yet another step farther back and have
some clear view of the objects of each; thus we must start with these
objects, (20) e. g. with food, with what is perceptible, or with what is
intelligible.
It follows that first of all we must treat of nutrition and
reproduction,20 for the nutritive soul is found along with all the others
and is the most primitive and widely distributed power of soul, being
indeed that one in virtue of which all are said to have life. (25) The acts in
which it manifests itself are reproduction and the use of food—
reproduction, I say, because for any living thing that has reached its
normal development and which is unmutilated, and whose mode of
generation is not spontaneous, the most natural act is the production of
another like itself, an animal producing an animal, a plant a plant, in
order that, as far as its nature allows, it may partake in the eternal and
divine. [415b] That is the goal towards which all things strive, that for
the sake of which they do whatsoever their nature renders possible. The
phrase ‘for the sake of which’ is ambiguous; it may mean either (a) the
end to achieve which, or (b) the being in whose interest, the act is done.
Since then no living thing is able to partake in what is eternal and divine
by uninterrupted continuance (for nothing perishable can for ever
remain one and the same), it tries to achieve that end in the only way
possible to it, (5) and success is possible in varying degrees; so it remains
not indeed as the self-same individual but continues its existence in
something like itself—not numerically but specifically one.21
The soul is the cause or source of the living body. The terms cause and
source have many senses. But the soul is the cause of its body alike in all
three senses which we explicitly recognize. It is (a) the source or origin
of movement, (10) it is (b) the end, it is (c) the essence of the whole living
body.
That it is the last, is clear; for in everything the essence is identical
with the ground of its being, and here, in the case of living things, their
being is to live, and of their being and their living the soul in them is the
cause or source. Further, the actuality of whatever is potential is
identical with its formulable essence.
It is manifest that the soul is also the final cause of its body. (15) For
Nature, like mind, always does whatever it does for the sake of
something, which something is its end. To that something corresponds in
the case of animals the soul and in this it follows the order of nature; all
natural bodies are organs of the soul. This is true of those that enter into
the constitution of plants as well as of those which enter into that of
animals. This shows that that for the sake of which they are is soul. (20)
We must here recall the two senses of ‘that for the sake of which’, viz.
(a) the end to achieve which, and (b) the being in whose interest,
anything is or is done.
We must maintain, further, that the soul is also the cause of the living
body as the original source of local movement. The power of locomotion
is not found, however, in all living things. But change of quality and
change of quantity are also due to the soul. Sensation is held to be a
qualitative alteration, and nothing except what has soul in it is capable
of sensation. (25) The same holds of the quantitative changes which
constitute growth and decay; nothing grows or decays naturally22 except
what feeds itself, and nothing feeds itself except what has a share of soul
in it.
Empedocles is wrong in adding that growth in plants is to be
explained, the downward rooting by the natural tendency of earth to
travel downwards, and the upward branching by the similar natural
tendency of fire to travel upwards. [416a] For he misinterprets up and
down; up and down are not for all things what they are for the whole
Cosmos: if we are to distinguish and identify organs according to their
functions, (5) the roots of plants are analogous to the head in animals.
Further, we must ask what is the force that holds together the earth and
the fire which tend to travel in contrary directions; if there is no
counteracting force, they will be torn asunder; if there is, this must be
the soul and the cause of nutrition and growth. By some the element of
fire is held to be the cause of nutrition and growth, (10) for it alone of the
primary bodies or elements is observed to feed and increase itself. Hence
the suggestion that in both plants and animals it is it which is the
operative force. A concurrent cause in a sense it certainly is, but not the
principal cause; that is rather the soul; for while the growth of fire goes
on without limit so long as there is a supply of fuel, (15) in the case of all
complex wholes formed in the course of nature there is a limit or ratio
which determines their size and increase, and limit and ratio are marks
of soul but not of fire, and belong to the side of formulable essence
rather than that of matter.
Nutrition and reproduction are due to one and the same psychic
power. It is necessary first to give precision to our account of food, for it
is by this function of absorbing food that this psychic power is
distinguished from all the others. (20) The current view is that what
serves as food to a living thing is what is contrary to it—not that in
every pair of contraries each is food to the other: to be food a contrary
must not only be transformable into the other and vice versa, it must
also in so doing increase the bulk of the other. Many a contrary is
transformed into its other and vice versa, where neither is even a
quantum and so cannot increase in bulk, e. g. an invalid into a healthy
subject. (25) It is clear that not even those contraries which satisfy both
the conditions mentioned above are food to one another in precisely the
same sense; water may be said to feed fire, but not fire water. Where the
members of the pair are elementary bodies only one of the contraries, it
would appear, can be said to feed the other. But there is a difficulty
here. One set of thinkers assert that like is fed, (30) as well as increased in
amount, by like. Another set, as we have said, maintain the very reverse,
viz. that what feeds and what is fed are contrary to one another; like,
they argue, is incapable of being affected by like; but food is changed in
the process of digestion, and change is always to what is opposite or to
what is intermediate. Further, food is acted upon by what is nourished
by it, not the other way round, (35) as timber is worked by a carpenter
and not conversely; there is a change in the carpenter but it is merely a
change from not-working to working. [416b] In answering this
problem it makes all the difference whether we mean by ‘the food’ the
‘finished’ or the ‘raw’ product. If we use the word food of both, viz. of
the completely undigested and the completely digested matter, we can
justify both the rival accounts of it; taking food in the sense of
undigested matter, (5) it is the contrary of what is fed by it, taking it as
digested it is like what is fed by it. Consequently it is clear that in a
certain sense we may say that both parties are right, both wrong.
Since nothing except what is alive can be fed, what is fed is the
besouled body and just because it has soul in it. Hence food is essentially
related to what has soul in it. Food has a power which is other than the
power to increase the bulk of what is fed by it; so far forth as what has
soul in it is a quantum, (10) food may increase its quantity, but it is only
so far as what has soul in it is a ‘this-somewhat’ or substance that food
acts as food; in that case it maintains the being of what is fed, and that
continues to be what it is so long as the process of nutrition continues.
Further, it is the agent in generation, (15) i. e. not the generation of the
individual fed but the reproduction of another like it; the substance of
the individual fed is already in existence; the existence of no substance is
a self-generation but only a self-maintenance.
Hence the psychic power which we are now studying may be
described as that which tends to maintain whatever has this power in it
of continuing such as it was, and food helps it to do its work. That is
why, if deprived of food, it must cease to be.
The process of nutrition involves three factors, (20) (a) what is fed, (b)
that wherewith it is fed, (c) what does the feeding; of these (c) is the first
soul,23 (a) the body which has that soul in it, (b) the food. But since it is
right to call things after the ends they realize, and the end of this soul is
to generate another being like that in which it is, (25) the first soul ought
to be named the reproductive soul. The expression (b) ‘wherewith it is
fed’ is ambiguous just as is the expression ‘wherewith the ship is
steered’; that may mean either (i) the hand or (ii) the rudder, i. e. either
(i) what is moved and sets in movement, or (ii) what is merely moved.
We can apply this analogy here if we recall that all food must be capable
of being digested, and that what produces digestion is warmth; that is
why everything that has soul in it possesses warmth.
We have now given an outline account of the nature of food; further
details must be given in the appropriate place. (30)

5 Having made these distinctions let us now speak of sensation in the

widest sense. Sensation depends, as we have said,24 on a process of
movement or affection from without, for it is held to be some sort of
change of quality. (35) Now some thinkers assert that like is affected only
by like; in what sense this is possible and in what sense impossible, we
have explained in our general discussion of acting and being acted
upon.25 [417a]
Here arises a problem: why do we not perceive the senses themselves
as well as the external objects of sense, or why without the stimulation
of external objects do they not produce sensation, (5) seeing that they
contain in themselves fire, earth, and all the other elements, which are
the direct or indirect objects of sense? It is clear that what is sensitive is
so only potentially, not actually. The power of sense is parallel to what is
combustible, for that never ignites itself spontaneously, but requires an
agent which has the power of starting ignition; otherwise it could have
set itself on fire, and would not have needed actual fire to set it ablaze.
In reply we must recall that we use the word ‘perceive’ in two ways,
for we say (a) that what has the power to hear or see, (10) ‘sees’ or ‘hears’,
even though it is at the moment asleep, and also (b) that what is actually
seeing or hearing, ‘sees’ or ‘hears’. Hence ‘sense’ too must have two
meanings, sense potential, and sense actual. Similarly ‘to be a sentient’
means either (a) to have a certain power or (b) to manifest a certain
activity. To begin with, for a time, let us speak as if there were no
difference between (i) being moved or affected, (15) and (ii) being active,
for movement is a kind of activity—an imperfect kind, as has elsewhere
been explained.26 Everything that is acted upon or moved is acted upon
by an agent which is actually at work. Hence it is that in one sense, as
has already been stated,27 what acts and what is acted upon are like, in
another unlike, i. e. prior to and during the change the two factors are
unlike, after it like. (20)
But we must now distinguish not only between what is potential and
what is actual but also different senses in which things can be said to be
potential or actual; up to now we have been speaking as if each of these
phrases had only one sense. We can speak of something as ‘a knower’
either (a) as when we say that man is a knower, meaning that man falls
within the class of beings that know or have knowledge, or (b) as when
we are speaking of a man who possesses a knowledge of grammar; each
of these is so called as having in him a certain potentiality, (25) but there
is a difference between their respective potentialities, the one (a) being a
potential knower, because his kind or matter is such and such, the other
(b), because he can in the absence of any external counteracting cause
realize his knowledge in actual knowing at will. This implies a third
meaning of ‘a knower’ (c), one who is already realizing his knowledge—
he is a knower in actuality and in the most proper sense is knowing, (30)
e. g. this A. Both the former are potential knowers, who realize their
respective potentialities, the one (a) by change of quality, i. e. repeated
transitions from one state to its opposite28 under instruction, the other
(b) by the transition from the inactive possession of sense or grammar to
their active exercise. [417b] The two kinds of transition are distinct.
Also the expression ‘to be acted upon’ has more than one meaning; it
may mean either (a) the extinction of one of two contraries by the other,
or (b) the maintenance of what is potential by the agency of what is
actual and already like what is acted upon, with such likeness as is
compatible with one’s being actual and the other potential. (5) For what
possesses knowledge becomes an actual knower by a transition which is
either not an alteration of it at all (being in reality a development into
its true self or actuality) or at least an alteration in a quite different
sense from the usual meaning.
Hence it is wrong to speak of a wise man as being ‘altered’ when he
uses his wisdom, just as it would be absurd to speak of a builder as being
altered when he is using his skill in building a house.
What in the case of knowing or understanding leads from potentiality
to actuality ought not to be called teaching but something else. (10) That
which starting with the power to know learns or acquires knowledge
through the agency of one who actually knows and has the power of
teaching either (a) ought not to be said ‘to be acted upon’ at all or (b) we
must recognize two senses of alteration, (15) viz. (i) the substitution of
one quality for another, the first being the contrary of the second, or (ii)
the development of an existent quality from potentiality in the direction
of fixity or nature.
In the case of what is to possess sense, the first transition is due to the
action of the male parent and takes place before birth so that at birth the
living thing is, in respect of sensation, at the stage which corresponds to
the possession of knowledge. Actual sensation corresponds to the stage of
the exercise of knowledge. (20) But between the two cases compared there
is a difference; the objects that excite the sensory powers to activity, the
seen, the heard, &c., are outside. The ground of this difference is that
what actual sensation apprehends is individuals, while what knowledge
apprehends is universals, and these are in a sense within the soul. That is
why a man can exercise his knowledge when he wishes, but his
sensation does not depend upon himself—a sensible object must be
there. (25) A similar statement must be made about our knowledge of what
is sensible—on the same ground, viz. that the sensible objects are
individual and external.
A later more appropriate occasion may be found29 thoroughly to clear
up all this. (30) At present it must be enough to recognize the distinctions
already drawn; a thing may be said to be potential in either of two
senses, (a) in the sense in which we might say of a boy that he may
become a general or (b) in the sense in which we might say the same of
an adult, and there are two corresponding senses of the term ‘a potential
sentient’. [418a] There are no separate names for the two stages of
potentiality; we have pointed out that they are different and how they
are different. We cannot help using the incorrect terms ‘being acted upon
or altered’ of the two transitions involved. As we have said,30 what has
the power of sensation is potentially like what the perceived object is
actually; that is, (5) while at the beginning of the process of its being
acted upon the two interacting factors are dissimilar, at the end the one
acted upon is assimilated to the other and is identical in quality with it.

6 In dealing with each of the senses we shall have first to speak of the
objects which are perceptible by each. The term ‘object of sense’ covers
three kinds of objects, two kinds of which are, in our language, directly
perceptible, while the remaining one is only incidentally perceptible. Of
the first two kinds one (a) consists of what is perceptible by a single
sense, the other (b) of what is perceptible by any and all of the senses.31
(10) I call by the name of special object of this or that sense that which

cannot be perceived by any other sense than that one and in respect of
which no error is possible; in this sense colour is the special object of
sight, sound of hearing, flavour of taste. Touch, indeed, discriminates
more than one set of different qualities. Each sense has one kind of
object which it discerns, (15) and never errs in reporting that what is
before it is colour or sound (though it may err as to what it is that is
coloured or where that is, or what it is that is sounding or where that is).
Such objects are what we propose to call the special objects of this or
that sense.
‘Common sensibles’ are movement, rest, number, figure, magnitude;
these are not peculiar to any one sense, but are common to all. There are
at any rate certain kinds of movement which are perceptible both by
touch and by sight.
We speak of an incidental object of sense where e. g. the white object
which we see is the son of Diares; here because ‘being the son of Diares’
is incidental to the directly visible white patch we speak of the son of
Diares as being (incidentally) perceived or seen by us. (20) Because this is
only incidentally an object of sense, it in no way as such affects the
senses. Of the two former kinds, both of which are in their own nature
perceptible by sense, the first kind—that of special objects of the several
senses—constitute the objects of sense in the strictest sense of the term
and it is to them that in the nature of things the structure of each several
sense is adapted. (25)
7 The object of sight is the visible, and what is visible is (a) colour
and (b) a certain kind of object which can be described in words but
which has no single name; what we mean by (b) will be abundantly clear
as we proceed. Whatever is visible is colour and colour is what lies upon
what is in its own nature visible; ‘in its own nature’ here means not that
visibility is involved in the definition of what thus underlies colour, (30)
but that that substratum contains in itself the cause of visibility. Every
colour has in it the power to set in movement what is actually
transparent; that power constitutes its very nature. [418b] That is why
it is not visible except with the help of light; it is only in light that the
colour of a thing is seen. Hence our first task is to explain what light is.
Now there clearly is something which is transparent, (5) and by
‘transparent’ I mean what is visible, and yet not visible in itself, but
rather owing its visibility to the colour of something else; of this character
are air, water, and many solid bodies. Neither air nor water is
transparent because it is air or water; they are transparent because each
of them has contained in it a certain substance which is the same in both
and is also found in the eternal body which constitutes the uppermost
shell of the physical Cosmos. Of this substance light is the activity—the
activity of what is transparent so far forth as it has in it the determinate
power of becoming transparent; where this power is present, (10) there is
also the potentiality of the contrary, viz. darkness. Light is as it were the
proper colour of what is transparent, and exists whenever the potentially
transparent is excited to actuality by the influence of fire or something
resembling ‘the uppermost body’; for fire too contains something which
is one and the same with the substance in question.
We have now explained what the transparent is and what light is; light
is neither fire nor any kind whatsoever of body nor an efflux from any
kind of body (if it were, (15) it would again itself be a kind of body)—it is
the presence of fire or something resembling fire in what is transparent.
It is certainly not a body, for two bodies cannot be present in the same
place. The opposite of light is darkness; darkness is the absence from
what is tranparent of the corresponding positive state above
characterized; clearly therefore, light is just the presence of that.
Empedocles (and with him all others who used the same forms of
expression) was wrong in speaking of light as ‘travelling’ or being at a
given moment between the earth and its envelope, (20) its movement
being unobservable by us; that view is contrary both to the clear
evidence of argument and to the observed facts; if the distance traversed
were short, (25) the movement might have been unobservable, but where
the distance is from extreme East to extreme West, the draught upon our
powers of belief is too great.
What is capable of taking on colour is what in itself is colourless, as
what can take on sound is what is soundless; what is colourless includes
(a) what is transparent and (b) what is invisible or scarcely visible, (30)
i. e. what is ‘dark’. The latter (b) is the same as what is transparent,
when it is potentially, not of course when it is actually transparent; it is
the same substance which is now darkness, now light.
Not everything that is visible depends upon light for its visibility.
[419a] This is only true of the ‘proper’ colour of things. Some objects
of sight which in light are invisible, in darkness stimulate the sense; that
is, things that appear fiery or shining. This class of objects has no simple
common name, but instances of it are fungi, flesh, heads, scales, (5) and
eyes of fish. In none of these is what is seen their own ‘proper’ colour.
Why we see these at all is another question. At present what is obvious is
that what is seen in light is always colour. That is why without the help
of light colour remains invisible. Its being colour at all means precisely
its having in it the power to set in movement what is already actually
transparent, (10) and, as we have seen, the actuality of what is
transparent is just light.
The following experiment makes the necessity of a medium clear. If
what has colour is placed in immediate contact with the eye, it cannot
be seen. Colour sets in movement not the sense organ but what is
transparent, e. g. the air, and that, extending continuously from the
object of the organ, sets the latter in movement. (15) Democritus
misrepresents the facts when he expresses the opinion that if the
interspace were empty one could distinctly see an ant on the vault of the
sky; that is an impossibility. Seeing is due to an affection or change of
what has the perceptive faculty, and it cannot be affected by the seen
colour itself; it remains that it must be affected by what comes between.
Hence it is indispensable that there be something in between—if there
were nothing, so far from seeing with greater distinctness, (20) we should
see nothing at all.
We have now explained the cause why colour cannot be seen
otherwise than in light. Fire on the other hand is seen both in darkness
and in light; this double possibility follows necessarily from our theory,
for it is just fire that makes what is potentially transparent actually
transparent.
The same account holds also of sound and smell; if the object of either
of these senses is in immediate contact with the organ no sensation is
produced. (25) In both cases the object sets in movement only what lies
between, and this in turn sets the organ in movement: if what sounds or
smells is brought into immediate contact with the organ, no sensation
will be produced. The same, in spite of all appearances, (30) applies also
to touch and taste; why there is this apparent difference will be clear
later.32 What comes between in the case of sounds is air; the
corresponding medium in the case of smell has no name. But,
corresponding to what is transparent in the case of colour, there is a
quality found both in air and water, which serves as a medium for what
has smell—I say ‘in water’ because animals that live in water as well as
those that live on land seem to possess the sense of smell, (35) and ‘in air’
because man and all other land animals that breathe, perceive smells
only when they breathe air in. [419b] The explanation of this too will
be given later.33
8 Now let us, to begin with, make certain distinctions about sound
and hearing. (5)
Sound may mean either of two things—(a) actual, and (b) potential,
sound. There are certain things which, as we say, ‘have no sound’, e. g.
sponges or wool, others which have, e. g. bronze and in general all
things which are smooth and solid—the latter are said to have a sound
because they can make a sound, i. e. can generate actual sound between
themselves and the organ of hearing.
Actual sound requires for its occurrence (i, ii) two such bodies and (iii)
a space between them; for it is generated by an impact. (10) Hence it is
impossible for one body only to generate a sound—there must be a body
impinging and a body impinged upon; what sounds does so by striking
against something else, and this is impossible without a movement from
place to place.
As we have said, not all bodies can by impact on one another produce
sound; impact on wool makes no sound, (15) while the impact on bronze
or any body which is smooth and hollow does. Bronze gives out a sound
when struck because it is smooth; bodies which are hollow owing to
reflection repeat the original impact over and over again, the body
originally set in movement being unable to escape from the concavity.
Further, we must remark that sound is heard both in air and in water,
though less distinctly in the latter. Yet neither air nor water is the
principal cause of sound. (20) What is required for the production of
sound is an impact of two solids against one another and against the air.
The latter condition is satisfied when the air impinged upon does not
retreat before the blow, i. e. is not dissipated by it.
That is why it must be struck with a sudden sharp blow, if it is to
sound—the movement of the whip must outrun the dispersion of the air,
just as one might get in a stroke at a heap or whirl of sand as it was
travelling rapidly past.
An echo occurs, (25) when, a mass of air having been unified, bounded,
and prevented from dissipation by the containing walls of a vessel, the
air originally struck by the impinging body and set in movement by it
rebounds from this mass of air like a ball from a wall. It is probable that
in all generation of sound echo takes place, though it is frequently only
indistinctly heard. What happens here must be analogous to what
happens in the case of light; light is always reflected—otherwise it would
not be diffused and outside what was directly illuminated by the sun
there would be blank darkness; but this reflected light is not always
strong enough, (30) as it is when it is reflected from water, bronze, and
other smooth bodies, to cast a shadow, which is the distinguishing mark
by which we recognize light.
It is rightly said that an empty space plays the chief part in the
production of hearing, for what people mean by ‘the vacuum’ is the air,
which is what causes hearing, when that air is set in movement as one
continuous mass; but owing to its friability it emits no sound, (35) being
dissipated by impinging upon any surface which is not smooth. [420a]
When the surface on which it impinges is quite smooth, what is
produced by the original impact is a united mass, a result due to the
smoothness of the surface with which the air is in contact at the other
end.
What has the power of producing sound is what has the power of
setting in movement a single mass of air which is continuous from the
impinging body up to the organ of hearing. The organ of hearing is
physically united with air,34 and because it is in air, the air inside is
moved concurrently with the air outside. Hence animals do not hear
with all parts of their bodies, (5) nor do all parts admit of the entrance of
air; for even the part which can be moved and can sound has not air
everywhere in it. Air in itself is, owing to its friability, quite soundless;
only when its dissipation is prevented is its movement sound. The air in
the ear is built into a chamber just to prevent this dissipating movement,
in order that the animal may accurately apprehend all varieties of the
movements of the air outside. (10) That is why we hear also in water, viz.
because the water cannot get into the air chamber or even, owing to the
spirals, into the outer ear. If this does happen, hearing ceases, as it also
does if the tympanic membrane is damaged, just as sight ceases if the
membrane covering the pupil is damaged. It is also a test of deafness
whether the ear does or does not reverberate like a horn; the air inside
the ear has always a movement of its own, (15) but the sound we hear is
always the sounding of something else, not of the organ itself. That is
why we say that we hear with what is empty and echoes, viz. because
what we hear with is a chamber which contains a bounded mass of air.
 Which is it that ‘sounds’, the striking body or the struck? Is not the
answer ‘it is both, but each in a different way’? Sound is a movement of
what can rebound from a smooth surface when struck against it. (20) As
we have explained35 not everything sounds when it strikes or is struck,
e. g. if one needle is struck against another, (25) neither emits any sound.
In order, therefore, that sound may be generated, what is struck must be
smooth, to enable the air to rebound and be shaken off from it in one
piece.
The distinctions between different sounding bodies show themselves
only in actual sound;36 as without the help of light colours remain
invisible, so without the help of actual sound the distinctions between
acute and grave sounds remain inaudible. Acute and grave are here
metaphors, transferred from their proper sphere, viz. that of touch, (30)
where they mean respectively (a) what moves the sense much in a short
time, (b) what moves the sense little in a long time. Not that what is
sharp really moves fast, and what is grave, slowly, but that the
difference in the qualities of the one and the other movement is due to
their respective speeds. [420b] There seems to be a sort of parallelism
between what is acute or grave to hearing and what is sharp or blunt to
touch; what is sharp as it were stabs, while what is blunt pushes, the one
producing its effect in a short, the other in a long time, so that the one is
quick, the other slow.
Let the foregoing suffice as an analysis of sound. (5) Voice is a kind of
sound characteristic of what has soul in it; nothing that is without soul
utters voice, it being only by a metaphor that we speak of the voice of
the flute or the lyre or generally of what (being without soul) possesses
the power of producing a succession of notes which differ in length and
pitch and timbre. The metaphor is based on the fact that all these
differences are found also in voice. Many animals are voiceless, e. g. all
non-sanguineous animals and among sanguineous animals fish. (10) This
is just what we should expect, since voice is a certain movement of air.
The fish, like those in the Achelous, which are said to have voice, really
make the sounds with their gills or some similar organ. Voice is the
sound made by an animal, and that with a special organ. As we saw,
everything that makes a sound does so by the impact of something (a)
against something else, (b) across a space, (15) (c) filled with air; hence it
is only to be expected that no animals utter voice except those which
take in air. Once air is inbreathed, Nature uses it for two different
purposes, as the tongue is used both for tasting and for articulating; in
that case of the two functions tasting is necessary for the animal’s
existence (hence it is found more widely distributed), while articulate
speech is a luxury subserving its possessor’s well-being; similarly in the
former case Nature employs the breath both as an indispensable means
to the regulation of the inner temperature of the living body and also as
the matter of articulate voice, (20) in the interests of its possessor’s well-
being. Why its former use is indispensable must be discussed
elsewhere.37
The organ of respiration is the windpipe, and the organ to which this
is related as means to end is the lungs. The latter is the part of the body
by which the temperature of land animals is raised above that of all
others. But what primarily requires the air drawn in by respiration is not
only this but the region surrounding the heart. (25) That is why when
animals breathe the air must penetrate inwards.
Voice then is the impact of the inbreathed air against the ‘windpipe’,
and the agent that produces the impact is the soul resident in these parts
of the body. Not every sound, as we said, (30) made by an animal is voice
(even with the tongue we may merely make a sound which is not voice,
or without the tongue as in coughing); what produces the impact must
have soul in it and must be accompanied by an act of imagination, for
voice is a sound with a meaning, and is not merely the result of any
impact of the breath as in coughing; in voice the breath in the windpipe
is used as an instrument to knock with against the walls of the windpipe.
[421a] This is confirmed by our inability to speak when we are
breathing either out or in—we can only do so by holding our breath; we
make the movements with the breath so checked. It is clear also why fish
are voiceless; they have no windpipe. And they have no windpipe
because they do not breathe or take in air. (5) Why they do not is a
question belonging to another inquiry.38

9 Smell and its object are much less easy to determine than what we
have hitherto discussed; the distinguishing characteristic of the object of
smell is less obvious than those of sound or colour. The ground of this is
that our power of smell is less discriminating and in general inferior to
that of many species of animals; men have a poor sense of smell and our
apprehension of its proper objects is inseparably bound up with and so
confused by pleasure and pain, (10) which shows that in us the organ is
inaccurate. It is probable that there is a parallel failure in the perception
of colour by animals that have hard eyes: probably they discriminate
differences of colour only by the presence or absence of what excites
fear, and that it is thus that human beings distinguish smells. (15) It seems
that there is an analogy between smell and taste, and that the species of
tastes run parallel to those of smells—the only difference being that our
sense of taste is more discriminating than our sense of smell, because the
former is a modification of touch, which reaches in man the maximum of
discriminative accuracy. (20) While in respect of all the other senses we
fall below many species of animals, in respect of touch we far excel all
other species in exactness of discrimination. That is why man is the most
intelligent of all animals. This is confirmed by the fact that it is to
differences in the organ of touch and to nothing else that the differences
between man and man in respect of natural endowment are due; men
whose flesh is hard are ill-endowed by nature, (25) men whose flesh is
soft, well-endowed.
As flavours may be divided into (a) sweet, (b) bitter, so with smells. In
some things the flavour and the smell have the same quality, i. e. both
are sweet or both bitter, in others they diverge. Similarly a smell, (30) like
a flavour, may be pungent, astringent, acid, or succulent. But, as we
said, because smells are much less easy to discriminate than flavours, the
names of these varieties are applied to smells only metaphorically; for
example ‘sweet’ is extended from the taste to the smell of saffron or
honey, ‘pungent’ to that of thyme, and so on.39 [421b]
In the same sense in which hearing has for its object both the audible
and the inaudible, (5) sight both the visible and the invisible, smell has
for its object both the odorous and the inodorous. ‘Inodorous’ may be
either (a) what has no smell at all, or (b) what has a small or feeble
smell. The same ambiguity lurks in the word ‘tasteless’.
Smelling, like the operation of the senses previously examined, takes
place through a medium, i. e. through air or water—I add water, (10)
because water-animals too (both sanguineous and non-sanguineous)
seem to smell just as much as land-animals; at any rate some of them
make directly for their food from a distance if it has any scent. That is
why the following facts constitute a problem for us. All animals smell in
the same way, but man smells only when he inhales; if he exhales or
holds his breath, (15) he ceases to smell, no difference being made
whether the odorous object is distant or near, or even placed inside the
nose and actually on the wall of the nostril; it is a disability common to
all the senses not to perceive what is in immediate contact with the
organ of sense, but our failure to apprehend what is odorous without the
help of inhalation is peculiar (the fact is obvious on making the
experiment). Now since bloodless animals do not breathe, they must, it
might be argued, have some novel sense not reckoned among the usual
five. (20) Our reply must be that this is impossible, since it is scent that is
perceived; a sense that apprehends what is odorous and what has a good
or bad odour cannot be anything but smell. Further, they are observed to
be deleteriously affected by the same strong odours as man is, e. g.
bitumen, sulphur, and the like. (25) These animals must be able to smell
without being able to breathe. The probable explanation is that in man
the organ of smell has a certain superiority over that in all other animals
just as his eyes have over those of hard-eyed animals. Man’s eyes have in
the eyelids a kind of shelter or envelope, which must be shifted or drawn
back in order that we may see, while hard-eyed animals have nothing of
the kind, (30) but at once see whatever presents itself in the transparent
medium. Similarly in certain species of animals the organ of smell is like
the eye of hard-eyed animals, uncurtained, while in others which take in
air it probably has a curtain over it, which is drawn back in inhalation,
owing to the dilating of the veins or pores. [422a] That explains also
why such animals cannot smell under water; to smell they must first
inhale, (5) and that they cannot do under water.
Smells come from what is dry as flavours from what is moist.
Consequently the organ of smell is potentially dry.

10 What can be tasted is always something that can be touched, and

just for that reason it cannot be perceived through an interposed foreign
body, for touch means the absence of any intervening body. (10) Further,
the flavoured and tasteable body is suspended in a liquid matter, and
this is tangible. Hence, if we lived in water, we should perceive a sweet
object introduced into the water, but the water would not be the
medium through which we perceived; our perception would be due to the
solution of the sweet substance in what we imbibed, just as if it were
mixed with some drink. There is no parallel here to the perception of
colour, which is due neither to any blending of anything with anything,
nor to any efflux of anything from anything. In the case of taste, there is
nothing corresponding to the medium in the case of the senses
previously discussed; but as the object of sight is colour, (15) so the object
of taste is flavour. But nothing excites a perception of flavour without
the help of liquid; what acts upon the sense of taste must be either
actually or potentially liquid like what is saline; it must be both (a) itself
easily dissolved, and (b) capable of dissolving along with itself the
tongue. (20) Taste apprehends both (a) what has taste and (b) what has no
taste, if we mean by (b) what has only a slight or feeble flavour or what
tends to destroy the sense of taste. In this it is exactly parallel to sight,
which apprehends both what is visible and what is invisible (for
darkness is invisible and yet is discriminated by sight; so is, in a different
way, what is over-brilliant), and to hearing, which apprehends both
sound and silence, of which the one is audible and the other inaudible,
(25) and also over-loud sound. This corresponds in the case of hearing to

over-bright light in the case of sight. As a faint sound is ‘inaudible’, so in

a sense is a loud or violent sound. The word ‘invisible’ and similar
privative terms cover not only (a) what is simply without some power,
but also (b) what is adapted by nature to have it but has not it or has it
only in a very low degree, as when we say that a species of swallow is
‘footless’ or that a variety of fruit is ‘stoneless’. So too taste has as its
object both what can be tasted and the tasteless—the latter in the sense
of what has little flavour or a bad flavour or one destructive of taste. (30)
The difference between what is tasteless and what is not seems to rest
ultimately on that between what is drinkable and what is undrinkable—
both are tasteable, but the latter is bad and tends to destroy taste, while
the former is the normal stimulus of taste. What is drinkable is the
common object of both touch and taste. [422b]
Since what can be tasted is liquid, the organ for its perception cannot
be either (a) actually liquid or (b) incapable of becoming liquid. Tasting
means a being affected by40 what can be tasted as such; hence the organ
of taste must be liquefied, and so to start with must be non-liquid but
capable of liquefaction without loss of its distinctive nature. (5) This is
confirmed by the fact that the tongue cannot taste either when it is too
dry or when it is too moist; in the latter case what occurs is due to a
contact with the pre-existent moisture in the tongue itself, when after a
foretaste of some strong flavour we try to taste another flavour; it is in
this way that sick persons find everything they taste bitter, viz. because,
when they taste, their tongues are overflowing with bitter moisture.
The species of flavour are, (10) as in the case of colour, (a) simple, i. e.
the two contraries, the sweet and the bitter, (b) secondary, viz. (i) on the
side of the sweet, the succulent, (ii) on the side of the bitter, the saline,
(iii) between these come the pungent, the harsh, the astringent, and the
acid; these pretty well exhaust the varieties of flavour. (15) It follows that
what has the power of tasting is what is potentially of that kind, and that
what is tasteable is what has the power of making it actually what it
itself already is.

11 Whatever can be said of what is tangible, can be said of touch, and

vice versa; if touch is not a single sense but a group of senses, there must
be several kinds of what is tangible. It is a problem whether touch is a
single sense or a group of senses. It is also a problem, (20) what is the
organ of touch; is it or is it not the flesh (including what in certain
animals is homologous with flesh)? On the second view, flesh is ‘the
medium’ of touch, the real organ being situated farther inward. The
problem arises because the field of each sense is according to the
accepted view determined as the range between a single pair of
contraries, white and black for sight, acute and grave for hearing, bitter
and sweet for taste; but in the field of what is tangible we find several
such pairs, (25) hot cold, dry moist, hard soft, &c. This problem finds a
partial solution, when it is recalled that in the case of the other senses
more than one pair of contraries are to be met with, e. g. in sound not
only acute and grave but loud and soft, (30) smooth and rough, &c.; there
are similar contrasts in the field of colour. Nevertheless we are unable
clearly to detect in the case of touch what the single subject is which
underlies the contrasted qualities and corresponds to sound in the case
of hearing.
To the question whether the organ of touch lies inward or not (i. e.
whether we need look any farther than the flesh), no indication in
favour of the second answer can be drawn from the fact that if the object
comes into contact with the flesh it is at once perceived. [423a] For
even under present conditions if the experiment is made of making a
web and stretching it tight over the flesh, as soon as this web is touched
the sensation is reported in the same manner as before, yet it is clear
that the organ is not in this membrane. If the membrane could be grown
on to the flesh, the report would travel still quicker. (5) The flesh plays in
touch very much the same part as would be played in the other senses
by an air-envelope growing round our body; had we such an envelope
attached to us we should have supposed that it was by a single organ
that we perceived sounds, colours, and smells, and we should have taken
sight, hearing, and smell to be a single sense. But as it is, because that
through which the different movements are transmitted is not naturally
attached to our bodies, (10) the difference of the various sense-organs is
too plain to miss. But in the case of touch the obscurity remains.
There must be such a naturally attached ‘medium’ as flesh, for no
living body could be constructed of air or water; it must be something
solid. Consequently it must be composed of earth along with these,
which is just what flesh and its analogue in animals which have no true
flesh tend to be. (15) Hence of necessity the medium through which are
transmitted the manifoldly contrasted tactual qualities must be a body
naturally attached to the organism. That they are manifold is clear when
we consider touching with the tongue; we apprehend at the tongue all
tangible qualities as well as flavour. Suppose all the rest of our flesh was,
like the tongue, (20) sensitive to flavour, we should have identified the
sense of taste and the sense of touch; what saves us from this
identification is the fact that touch and taste are not always found
together in the same part of the body. The following problem might be
raised. Let us assume that every body has depth, i. e. has three
dimensions, and that if two bodies have a third body between them they
cannot be in contact with one another; let us remember that what is
liquid is a body and must be or contain water, (25) and that if two bodies
touch one another under water, their touching surfaces cannot be dry,
but must have water between, viz. the water which wets their bounding
surfaces; from all this it follows that in water two bodies cannot be in
contact with one another. The same holds of two bodies in air—air being
to bodies in air precisely what water is to bodies in water—but the facts
are not so evident to our observation, (30) because we live in air, just as
animals that live in water would not notice that the things which touch
one another in water have wet surfaces. [423b] The problem, then, is:
does the perception of all objects of sense take place in the same way, or
does it not, e. g. taste and touch requiring contact (as they are
commonly thought to do), while all other senses perceive over a
distance? The distinction is unsound; we perceive what is hard or soft, (5)
as well as the objects of hearing, sight, and smell, through a ‘medium’,
only that the latter are perceived over a greater distance than the former;
that is why the facts escape our notice. For we do perceive everything
through a medium; but in these cases the fact escapes us. Yet, to repeat
what we said before, if the medium for touch were a membrane
separating us from the object without our observing its existence, (10) we
should be relatively to it in the same condition as we are now to air or
water in which we are immersed; in their case we fancy we can touch
objects, nothing coming in between us and them. But there remains this
difference between what can be touched and what can be seen or can
sound; in the latter two cases we perceive because the medium produces
a certain effect upon us, whereas in the perception of objects of touch
we are affected not by but along with the medium; it is as if a man were
struck through his shield, (15) where the shock is not first given to the
shield and passed on to the man, but the concussion of both is
simultaneous.
In general, flesh and the tongue are related to the real organs of touch
and taste, as air and water are to those of sight, hearing, and smell.
Hence in neither the one case nor the other can there be any perception
of an object if it is placed immediately upon the organ, (20) e. g. if a
white object is placed on the surface of the eye. This again shows that
what has the power of perceiving the tangible is seated inside. Only so
would there be a complete analogy with all the other senses. In their
case if you place the object on the organ it is not perceived, here if you
place it on the flesh it is perceived; therefore flesh is not the organ but
the medium of touch. (25)
What can be touched are distinctive qualities of body as body; by such
differences I mean those which characterize the elements, viz. hot cold,
dry moist, of which we have spoken earlier in our treatise on the
elements.41 The organ for the perception of these is that of touch—that
part of the body in which primarily the sense of touch resides. (30) This is
that part which is potentially such as its object is actually: for all sense-
perception is a process of being so affected; so that that which makes
something such as it itself actually is makes the other such because the
other is already potentially such. [424a] That is why when an object of
touch is equally hot and cold or hard and soft we cannot perceive; what
we perceive must have a degree of the sensible quality lying beyond the
neutral point. This implies that the sense itself is a ‘mean’ between any
two opposite qualities which determine the field of that sense. It is to
this that it owes its power of discerning the objects in that field. (5) What
is ‘in the middle’ is fitted to discern; relatively to either extreme it can
put itself in the place of the other. As what is to perceive both white and
black must, to begin with, be actually neither but potentially either (and
so with all the other sense-organs), so the organ of touch must be neither
hot nor cold.
Further, as in a sense sight had42 for its object both what was visible
and what was invisible (and there was a parallel truth about all the
other senses discussed),43 (10) so touch has for its object both what is
tangible and what is intangible. Here by ‘intangible’ is meant (a) what
like air possesses some quality of tangible things in a very slight degree
and (b) what possesses it in an excessive degree, as destructive things do.
We have now given an outline account of each of the several senses.
(15)

12 The following results applying to any and every sense may now be
formulated.
(A) By a ‘sense’ is meant what has the power of receiving into itself
the sensible forms of things without the matter. This must be conceived
of as taking place in the way in which a piece of wax takes on the
impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold; we say that what
produces the impression is a signet of bronze or gold, (20) but its
particular metallic constitution makes no difference: in a similar way the
sense is affected by what is coloured or flavoured or sounding, but it is
indifferent what in each case the substance is; what alone matters is what
quality it has, i. e. in what ratio its constituents are combined.
(B) By ‘an organ of sense’ is meant that in which ultimately such a
power is seated.
The sense and its organ are the same in fact, (25) but their essence is
not the same. What perceives is, of course, a spatial magnitude, but we
must not admit that either the having the power to perceive or the sense
itself is a magnitude; what they are is a certain ratio or power in a
magnitude. This enables us to explain why objects of sense which
possess one of two opposite sensible qualities in a degree largely in
excess of the other opposite destroy the organs of sense; if the movement
set up by an object is too strong for the organ, (30) the equipoise of
contrary qualities in the organ, which just is its sensory power, is
disturbed; it is precisely as concord and tone are destroyed by too
violently twanging the strings of a lyre. This explains also why plants
cannot perceive, in spite of their having a portion of soul in them and
obviously being affected by tangible objects themselves; for undoubtedly
their temperature can be lowered or raised. [424b] The explanation is
that they have no mean of contrary qualities, and so no principle in
them capable of taking on the forms of sensible objects without their
matter; in the case of plants the affection is an affection by form-and-
matter together. The problem might be raised: Can what cannot smell be
said to be affected by smells or what cannot see by colours, (5) and so
on? It might be said that a smell is just what can be smelt, and if it
produces any effect it can only be so as to make something smell it, and
it might be argued that what cannot smell cannot be affected by smells
and further that what can smell can be affected by it only in so far as it
has in it the power to smell (similarly with the proper objects of all the
other senses). Indeed that this is so is made quite evident as follows.
Light or darkness, (10) sounds and smells leave bodies quite unaffected;
what does affect bodies is not these but the bodies which are their
vehicles, e. g. what splits the trunk of a tree is not the sound of the
thunder but the air which accompanies thunder. Yes, but, it may be
objected, bodies are affected by what is tangible and by flavours. If not,
by what are things that are without soul affected, i. e. altered in quality?
Must we not, then, admit that the objects of the other senses also may
affect them? Is not the true account this, that all bodies are capable of
being affected by smells and sounds, but that some on being acted upon,
(15) having no boundaries of their own, disintegrate, as in the instance of

air, which does become odorous, showing that some effect is produced
on it by what is odorous? But smelling is more than such an affection by
what is odorous—what more? Is not the answer that, while the air owing
to the momentary duration of the action upon it of what is odorous does
itself become perceptible to the sense of smell, smelling is an observing of
the result produced?

1 sc. in the sense of form.

2 viz. organized, or possessed potentially of life.

3 i. e. instrument.

4 Being an artificial, not a natural, body.

5 i. e. which states what it is to be an eye.

6 Though only potentially, i. e. they are at a further remove from actuality than the fully formed
and organized body.
7 i. e. to the second grade of actuality.

8 i. e. to the first grade of actuality.

9 i. e. actuator.

10 i. e. it has nothing in it corresponding to a middle term.

11 iii. 12, esp. 434a 22–30, b10 ff.

12 iii. 12, 13.

13 412a 7.

14 413a 23–5, b11–13, 21–4.

15 413b 32–414a 1.

16 c. 11. iii. 12. 434b 18–21.

17 iii. 3, 11. 433b 31–434a 7.

18 iii. 12, 13.

19 Cf. iii. 4–8.

20 sc. ‘which we shall see to be inseparable from nutrition’.

21 There is an unbroken current of the same specific life flowing through a discontinuous series
of individual beings of the same species united by descent.
22 i. e. of itself.
23 i. e. the earliest and most indispensable kind of soul.

24 415b 24, cf. 410a 25.

25 De Gen. et Corr. 323b 18 ff.

26 Phys. 201b 31, 257b 8.

27 416a 29–b9.

28 viz. from ignorance or error to knowledge or truth.

29 iii. 4, 5.

30 417a 12–20.

31 Really, it is enough if it is perceptible by more than one sense.

32 422b 34 ff.

33 421b 13–422a 6.

34 i. e. it has air incorporated in its structure.

35 419b 6, 13.

36 i. e. when these bodies, e. g. the strings of a lyre, are actually sounding.

37 De Resp. 478a 28; P. A. 642a 31–b 4.

38 Cf. De Resp. 474b 25–9, 476a 6–15; P. A. 669a 2–5.

39 Because of the felt likeness between the respective smells and the really sweet or pungent
tastes of the same herbs, &c.
40 sc. ‘and so, as we have seen, a being assimilated to’.

41 De Gen. et Corr. ii. 2, 3.

42 422a 20 ff.

43 421b 3–6, 422a 29.

 BOOK III

1 That there is no sixth sense in addition to the five enumerated—

sight, (20) hearing, smell, taste, touch—may be established by the
following considerations:
If we have actually sensation of everything of which touch can give us
sensation (for all the qualities of the tangible qua tangible are perceived
by us through touch); and if absence of a sense necessarily involves
absence of a sense-organ; and if (1) all objects that we perceive by
immediate contact with them are perceptible by touch, (25) which sense
we actually possess, and (2) all objects that we perceive through media,
i. e. without immediate contact, (30) are perceptible by or through the
simple elements, e. g. air and water (and this is so arranged that (a) if
more than one kind of sensible object is perceivable through a single
medium, the possessor of a sense-organ homogeneous with that medium
has the power of perceiving both kinds of objects; for example, if the
sense-organ is made of air, and air is a medium both for sound and for
colour; and that (b) if more than one medium can transmit the same
kind of sensible objects, as e. g. water as well as air can transmit colour,
both being transparent, then the possessor of either alone will be able to
perceive the kind of objects transmissible through both); and if of the
simple elements two only, air and water, go to form sense-organs (for
the pupil is made of water, the organ of hearing is made of air, and the
organ of smell of one or other of these two, while fire is found either in
none or in all—warmth being an essential condition of all sensibility—
and earth either in none or, (5) if anywhere, specially mingled with the
components of the organ of touch; wherefore it would remain that there
can be no sense-organ formed of anything except water and air); and if
these sense-organs are actually found in certain animals;—then all the
possible senses are possessed by those animals that are not imperfect or
mutilated (for even the mole is observed to have eyes beneath its skin);
so that, (10) if there is no fifth element and no property other than those
which belong to the four elements of our world, no sense can be wanting
to such animals. [425a]
Further, there cannot be a special sense-organ for the common
sensibles either, (15) i. e. the objects which we perceive incidentally
through this or that special sense, e. g. movement, rest, figure,
magnitude, number, unity; for all these we perceive by movement, e. g.
magnitude by movement, and therefore also figure (for figure is a
species of magnitude), what is at rest by the absence of movement:
number is perceived by the negation of continuity, and by the special
sensibles; for each sense perceives one class of sensible objects. (20) So
that it is clearly impossible that there should be a special sense for any
one of the common sensibles, e. g. movement; for, if that were so, our
perception of it would be exactly parallel to our present perception of
what is sweet by vision. That is so because we have a sense for each of
the two qualities, in virtue of which when they happen to meet in one
sensible object we are aware of both contemporaneously. (25) If it were
not like this our perception of the common qualities would always be
incidental, i. e. as is the perception of Cleon’s son, where we perceive
him not as Cleon’s son but as white, and the white thing which we really
perceive happens to be Cleon’s son.
But in the case of the common sensibles there is already in us a
general sensibility which enables us to perceive them directly; there is
therefore no special sense required for their perception: if there were,
our perception of them would have been exactly like what has been
above described.
The senses perceive each other’s special objects incidentally; not
because the percipient sense is this or that special sense, (30) but because
all form a unity: this incidental perception takes place whenever sense is
directed at one and the same moment to two disparate qualities in one
and the same object, e. g. to the bitterness and the yellowness of bile;
the assertion of the identity of both cannot be the act of either of the
senses; hence the illusion of sense, e. g. the belief that if a thing is yellow
it is bile. [425b]
It might be asked why we have more senses than one. (5) Is it to
prevent a failure to apprehend the common sensibles, e. g. movement,
magnitude, and number, which go along with the special sensibles? Had
we no sense but sight, and that sense no object but white, they would
have tended to escape our notice and everything would have merged for
us into an indistinguishable identity because of the concomitance of
colour and magnitude. As it is, the fact that the common sensibles are
given in the objects of more than one sense reveals their distinction from
each and all of the special sensibles. (10)

2 Since it is through sense that we are aware that we are seeing or

hearing, it must be either by sight that we are aware of seeing, or by
some sense other than sight. But the sense that gives us this new
sensation must perceive both sight and its object, viz. colour: so that
either (1) there will be two senses both percipient of the same sensible
object, or (2) the sense must be percipient of itself. Further, (15) even if
the sense which perceives sight were different from sight, we must either
fall into an infinite regress, or we must somewhere assume a sense which
is aware of itself. If so, we ought to do this in the first case.
This presents a difficulty: if to perceive by sight is just to see, and
what is seen is colour (or the coloured), then if we are to see that which
sees, that which sees originally must be coloured. It is clear therefore
that ‘to perceive by sight’ has more than one meaning; for even when we
are not seeing, (20) it is by sight that we discriminate darkness from light,
though not in the same way as we distinguish one colour from another.
Further, in a sense even that which sees is coloured; for in each case the
sense-organ is capable of receiving the sensible object without its matter.
That is why even when the sensible objects are gone the sensings and
imaginings continue to exist in the sense-organs. (25)
The activity of the sensible object and that of the percipient sense is
one and the same activity, and yet the distinction between their being
remains. Take as illustration actual sound and actual hearing: a man
may have hearing and yet not be hearing, and that which has a sound is
not always sounding. But when that which can hear is actively hearing
and that which can sound is sounding, (30) then the actual hearing and
the actual sound are merged in one (these one might call respectively
hearkening and sounding). [426a]
If it is true that the movement, both the acting and the being acted
upon, is to be found in that which is acted upon,1 both the sound and
the hearing so far as it is actual must be found in that which has the
faculty of hearing; for it is in the passive factor that the actuality of the
active or motive factor is realized; that is why that which causes
movement may be at rest. (5) Now the actuality of that which can sound
is just sound or sounding, and the actuality of that which can hear is
hearing or hearkening; ‘sound’ and ‘hearing’ are both ambiguous. The
same account applies to the other senses and their objects. (10) For as the-
acting-and-being-acted-upon is to be found in the passive, not in the
active factor, so also the actuality of the sensible object and that of the
sensitive subject are both realized in the latter. But while in some cases
each aspect of the total actuality has a distinct name, e. g. sounding and
hearkening, in some one or other is nameless, e. g. the actuality of sight
is called seeing, but the actuality of colour has no name: the actuality of
the faculty of taste is called tasting, (15) but the actuality of flavour has
no name. Since the actualities of the sensible object and of the sensitive
faculty are one actuality in spite of the difference between their modes of
being, actual hearing and actual sounding appear and disappear from
existence at one and the same moment, and so actual savour and actual
tasting, &c., (20) while as potentialities one of them may exist without the
other. The earlier students of nature were mistaken in their view that
without sight there was no white or black, without taste no savour. This
statement of theirs is partly true, partly false: ‘sense’ and ‘the sensible
object’ are ambiguous terms, i. e. may denote either potentialities or
actualities: the statement is true of the latter, (25) false of the former. This
ambiguity they wholly failed to notice.
If voice always implies a concord, and if the voice and the hearing of
it are in one sense one and the same, and if concord always implies a
ratio, hearing as well as what is heard must be a ratio. (30) That is why
the excess of either the sharp or the flat destroys the hearing. (So also in
the case of savours excess destroys the sense of taste, and in the case of
colours excessive brightness or darkness destroys the sight, and in the
case of smell excess of strength whether in the direction of sweetness or
bitterness is destructive.) [426b] This shows that the sense is a ratio.
That is also why the objects of sense are (1) pleasant when the
sensible extremes such as acid or sweet or salt being pure and unmixed
are brought into the proper ratio;2 then they are pleasant: and in general
what is blended is more pleasant than the sharp or the flat alone; or, (5)
to touch, that which is capable of being either warmed or chilled: the
sense and the ratio are identical: while (2) in excess the sensible
extremes are painful or destructive.
Each sense then is relative to its particular group of sensible qualities:
it is found in a sense-organ as such3 and discriminates the differences
which exist within that group; e. g. sight discriminates white and black,
taste sweet and bitter, and so in all cases. (10) Since we also discriminate
white from sweet, and indeed each sensible quality from every other,
with what do we perceive that they are different? It must be by sense;
for what is before us is sensible objects. (Hence it is also obvious that the
flesh cannot be the ultimate sense-organ: if it were, (15) the
discriminating power could not do its work without immediate contact
with the object.)
Therefore (1) discrimination between white and sweet cannot be
effected by two agencies which remain separate; both the qualities
discriminated must be present to something that is one and single. On
any other supposition even if I perceived sweet and you perceived white,
the difference between them would be apparent. (20) What says that two
things are different must be one; for sweet is different from white.
Therefore what asserts this difference must be self-identical, and as what
asserts, so also what thinks or perceives. That it is not possible by means
of two agencies which remain separate to discriminate two objects
which are separate is therefore obvious; and that (2) it is not possible to
do this in separate moments of time may be seen if we look at it as
follows. For as what asserts the difference between the good and the bad
is one and the same, so also the time at which it asserts the one to be
different and the other to be different is not accidental to the assertion
(as it is for instance when I now assert a difference but do not assert that
there is now a difference); it asserts thus—both now and that the objects
are different now; the objects therefore must be present at one and the
same moment. (25) Both the discriminating power and the time of its
exercise must be one and undivided.
But, it may be objected, it is impossible that what is self-identical
should be moved at one and the same time with contrary movements in
so far as it is undivided, (30) and in an undivided moment of time. For if
what is sweet be the quality perceived, it moves the sense or thought in
this determinate way, while what is bitter moves it in a contrary way,
and what is white in a different way. [427a] Is it the case then that
what discriminates, though both numerically one and indivisible, is at
the same time divided in its being? In one sense, it is what is divided
that perceives two separate objects at once, but in another sense it does
so qua undivided; for it is divisible in its being, but spatially and
numerically undivided.
But is not this impossible? For while it is true that what is self-
identical and undivided may be both contraries at once potentially, (5) it
cannot be self-identical in its being—it must lose its unity by being put
into activity. It is not possible to be at once white and black, and
therefore it must also be impossible for a thing to be affected at one and
the same moment by the forms of both, assuming it to be the case that
sensation and thinking are properly so described.4
The answer is that just as what is called a ‘point’ is, (10) as being at
once one and two, properly said to be divisible, so here, that which
discriminates is qua undivided one, and active in a single moment of
time, while so far forth as it is divisible it twice over uses the same dot
at one and the same time. So far forth then as it takes the limit as two, it
discriminates two separate objects with what in a sense is divided: while
so far as it takes it as one, it does so with what is one and occupies in its
activity a single moment of time.
About the principle in virtue of which we say that animals are
percipient, (15) let this discussion suffice.

3 There are two distinctive peculiarities by reference to which we

characterize the soul—(1) local movement and (2) thinking,
discriminating, and perceiving. Thinking, both speculative and practical,
is regarded as akin to a form of perceiving; for in the one as well as the
other the soul discriminates and is cognizant of something which is. (20)
Indeed the ancients go so far as to identify thinking and perceiving; e. g.
Empedocles says ‘For ’tis in respect of what is present that man’s wit is
increased’, and again ‘whence it befalls them from time to time to think
diverse thoughts’, and Homer’s phrase5 ‘For suchlike is man’s mind’
means the same. (25) They all look upon thinking as a bodily process like
perceiving, and hold that like is known as well as perceived by like, as I
explained at the beginning of our discussion.6 Yet they ought at the same
time to have accounted for error also; for it is more intimately connected
with animal existence and the soul continues longer in the state of error
than in that of truth. [427b] They cannot escape the dilemma: either
(1) whatever seems is true (and there are some who accept this) or (2)
error is contact with the unlike; for that is the opposite of the knowing
of like by like.
But it is a received principle that error as well as knowledge in respect
to contraries is one and the same. (5)
That perceiving and practical thinking are not identical is therefore
obvious; for the former is universal in the animal world, the latter is
found in only a small division of it. Further, speculative thinking is also
distinct from perceiving—I mean that in which we find rightness and
wrongness—rightness in prudence, knowledge, (10) true opinion,
wrongness in their opposites; for perception of the special objects of
sense is always free from error, and is found in all animals, while it is
possible to think falsely as well as truly, and thought is found only
where there is discourse of reason as well as sensibility. For imagination
is different from either perceiving or discursive thinking, (15) though it is
not found without sensation, or judgement without it. That this activity
is not the same kind of thinking as judgement is obvious. For imagining
lies within our own power whenever we wish (e. g. we can call up a
picture, as in the practice of mnemonics by the use of mental images),
but in forming opinions we are not free: we cannot escape the
alternative of falsehood or truth. (20) Further, when we think something
to be fearful or threatening, emotion is immediately produced, and so
too with what is encouraging; but when we merely imagine we remain
as unaffected as persons who are looking at a painting of some dreadful
or encouraging scene. Again within the field of judgement itself we find
varieties—knowledge, opinion, prudence, and their opposites; of the
differences between these I must speak elsewhere.7
Thinking is different from perceiving and is held to be in part
imagination, in part judgement: we must therefore first mark off the
sphere of imagination and then speak of judgement. [428a] If then
imagination is that in virtue of which an image arises for us, excluding
metaphorical uses of the term, is it a single faculty or disposition relative
to images, in virtue of which we discriminate and are either in error or
not? The faculties in virtue of which we do this are sense, opinion,
science, intelligence.
That imagination is not sense is clear from the following
considerations: (1) Sense is either a faculty or an activity, (5) e. g. sight or
seeing: imagination takes place in the absence of both, as e. g. in
dreams. (2) Again, sense is always present, imagination not. If actual
imagination and actual sensation were the same, imagination would be
found in all the brutes: this is held not to be the case; e. g. (10) it is not
found in ants or bees or grubs. (3) Again, sensations are always true,
imaginations are for the most part false. (4) Once more, even in ordinary
speech, we do not, when sense functions precisely with regard to its
object, say that we imagine it to be a man, but rather when there is some
failure of accuracy in its exercise. And (5), as we were saying before, (15)
visions appear to us even when our eyes are shut. Neither is imagination
any of the things that are never in error: e. g. knowledge or intelligence;
for imagination may be false.
It remains therefore to see if it is opinion, for opinion may be either
true or false.
But opinion involves belief (for without belief in what we opine we
cannot have an opinion), (20) and in the brutes though we often find
imagination we never find belief. Further, every opinion is accompanied
by belief, belief by conviction, and conviction by discourse of reason:
while there are some of the brutes in which we find imagination,
without discourse of reason. It is clear then that imagination cannot, (25)
again, be (1) opinion plus sensation, or (2) opinion mediated by
sensation, or (3) a blend of opinion and sensation;8 this is impossible
both for these reasons and because the content of the supposed opinion
cannot be different from that of the sensation (I mean that imagination
must be the blending of the perception of white with the opinion that it
is white: it could scarcely be a blend of the opinion that it is good with
the perception that it is white): to imagine is therefore (on this view)
identical with the thinking of exactly the same as what one in the
strictest sense perceives. [428b] (30) But what we imagine is sometimes
false though our contemporaneous judgement about it is true; e. g. we
imagine the sun to be a foot in diameter though we are convinced that it
is larger than the inhabited part of the earth, and the following dilemma
presents itself. Either (a) while the fact has not changed and the observer
has neither forgotten nor lost belief in the true opinion which he had, (5)
that opinion has disappeared, or (b) if he retains it then his opinion is at
once true and false. A true opinion, however, becomes false only when
the fact alters without being noticed.
Imagination is therefore neither any one of the states enumerated, nor
compounded out of them.
But since when one thing has been set in motion another thing may be
moved by it, (10) and imagination is held to be a movement and to be
impossible without sensation, i. e. to occur in beings that are percipient
and to have for its content what can be perceived, and since movement
may be produced by actual sensation and that movement is necessarily
similar in character to the sensation itself, (15) this movement must be (1)
necessarily (a) incapable of existing apart from sensation, (b) incapable
of existing except when we perceive, (2) such that in virtue of its
possession that in which it is found may present various phenomena
both active and passive, and (3) such that it may be either true or false.
The reason of the last characteristic is as follows. Perception (1) of the
special objects of sense is never in error or admits the least possible
amount of falsehood. (2) That of the concomitance of the objects
concomitant with the sensible qualities comes next: in this case certainly
we may be deceived; for while the perception that there is white before
us cannot be false, (20) the perception that what is white is this or that
may be false. (3) Third comes the perception of the universal attributes
which accompany the concomitant objects to which the special sensibles
attach (I mean e. g. of movement and magnitude); it is in respect of
these that the greatest amount of sense-illusion is possible.
The motion which is due to the activity of sense in these three modes
of its exercise will differ from the activity of sense; (1) the first kind of
derived motion is free from error while the sensation is present; (2) and
(3) the others may be erroneous whether it is present or absent, (25)
especially when the object of perception is far off. (30) If then imagination
presents no other features than those enumerated and is what we have
described, then imagination must be a movement resulting from an
actual exercise of a power of sense. [429a]
As sight is the most highly developed sense, the name phantasia
(imagination) has been formed from phaos (light) because it is not
possible to see without light.
And because imaginations remain in the organs of sense and resemble
sensations, animals in their actions are largely guided by them, (5) some
(i. e. the brutes) because of the non-existence in them of mind, others
(i. e. men) because of the temporary eclipse in them of mind by feeling
or disease or sleep.
About imagination, what it is and why it exists, let so much suffice.

4 Turning now to the part of the soul with which the soul knows and
thinks (whether this is separable from the others in definition only, (10)
or spatially as well) we have to inquire (1) what differentiates this part,
and (2) how thinking can take place.
If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process in which the
soul is acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or a process
different from but analogous to that. The thinking part of the soul must
therefore be, while impassible, (15) capable of receiving the form of an
object; that is, must be potentially identical in character with its object
without being the object. Mind must be related to what is thinkable, as
sense is to what is sensible.
Therefore, since everything is a possible object of thought, mind in
order, as Anaxagoras says, to dominate, that is, to know, (20) must be
pure from all admixture; for the co-presence of what is alien to its nature
is a hindrance and a block: it follows that it too, like the sensitive part,
can have no nature of its own, other than that of having a certain
capacity. Thus that in the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean
that whereby the soul thinks and judges) is, before it thinks, not actually
any real thing. For this reason it cannot reasonably be regarded as
blended with the body: if so, (25) it would acquire some quality, e. g.
warmth or cold, or even have an organ like the sensitive faculty: as it is,
it has none. It was a good idea to call the soul ‘the place of forms’,
though (1) this description holds only of the intellective soul, and (2)
even this is the forms only potentially, not actually.
Observation of the sense-organs and their employment reveals a
distinction between the impassibility of the sensitive and that of the
intellective faculty. (30) After strong stimulation of a sense we are less
able to exercise it than before, as e. g. in the case of a loud sound we
cannot hear easily immediately after, or in the case of a bright colour or
a powerful odour we cannot see or smell, but in the case of mind,
thought about an object that is highly intelligible renders it more and
not less able afterwards to think objects that are less intelligible: the
reason is that while the faculty of sensation is dependent upon the body,
mind is separable from it. [429b]
Once the mind has become each set of its possible objects, (5) as a man
of science has, when this phrase is used of one who is actually a man of
science (this happens when he is now able to exercise the power on his
own initiative), its condition is still one of potentiality, but in a different
sense from the potentiality which preceded the acquisition of knowledge
by learning or discovery: the mind too is then able to think itself.
Since we can distinguish between a spatial magnitude and what it is to
be such, (10) and between water and what it is to be water, and so in
many other cases (though not in all; for in certain cases the thing and its
form are identical), flesh and what it is to be flesh are discriminated
either by different faculties, or by the same faculty in two different
states: for flesh necessarily involves matter and is like what is snub-
nosed, a this in a this.9 Now it is by means of the sensitive faculty that we
discriminate the hot and the cold, (15) i. e. the factors which combined in
a certain ratio constitute flesh: the essential character of flesh is
apprehended by something different either wholly separate from the
sensitive faculty or related to it as a bent line to the same line when it
has been straightened out.
Again in the case of abstract objects what is straight is analogous to
what is snub-nosed; for it necessarily implies a continuum as its matter:
its constitutive essence is different, if we may distinguish between
straightness and what is straight: let us take it to be two-ness. (20) It must
be apprehended, therefore, by a different power or by the same power in
a different state. To sum up, in so far as the realities it knows are
capable of being separated from their matter, so it is also with the
powers of mind.
The problem might be suggested: if thinking is a passive affection,
then if mind is simple and impassible and has nothing in common with
anything else, as Anaxagoras says, how can it come to think at all? For
interaction between two factors is held to require a precedent
community of nature between the factors. Again it might be asked, is
mind a possible object of thought to itself? For if mind is thinkable per se
and what is thinkable is in kind one and the same, then either (a) mind
will belong to everything, or (b) mind will contain some element
common to it with all other realities which makes them all thinkable.
(1) Have not we already disposed of the difficulty about interaction
involving a common element, when we said10 that mind is in a sense
potentially whatever is thinkable, (30) though actually it is nothing until
it has thought? What it thinks must be in it just as characters may be
said to be on a writing-tablet on which as yet nothing actually stands
written: this is exactly what happens with mind. [430a]
(2) Mind is itself thinkable in exactly the same way as its objects are.
For (a) in the case of objects which involve no matter, what thinks and
what is thought are identical; for speculative knowledge and its object
are identical. (Why mind is not always thinking we must consider
later.)11 (5) (b) In the case of those which contain matter each of the
objects of thought is only potentially present. It follows that while they
will not have mind in them (for mind is a potentiality of them only in so
far as they are capable of being disengaged from matter) mind may yet
be thinkable.

5 Since in every class of things, as in nature as a whole, (10) we find

two factors involved, (1) a matter which is potentially all the particulars
included in the class, (2) a cause which is productive in the sense that it
makes them all (the latter standing to the former, as e. g. an art to its
material), these distinct elements must likewise be found within the soul.
And in fact mind as we have described it12 is what it is by virtue of
becoming all things, (15) while there is another which is what it is by
virtue of making all things: this is a sort of positive state like light; for in
a sense light makes potential colours into actual colours.
Mind in this sense of it is separable, impassible, unmixed, since it is in
its essential nature activity (for always the active is superior to the
passive factor, the originating force to the matter which it forms).
Actual knowledge is identical with its object: in the individual, (20)
potential knowledge is in time prior to actual knowledge, but in the
universe as a whole it is not prior even in time. Mind is not at one time
knowing and at another not. When mind is set free from its present
conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is
immortal and eternal (we do not, however, remember its former activity
because, while mind in this sense is impassible, (25) mind as passive is
destructible), and without it nothing thinks.

6 The thinking then of the simple objects of thought is found in those

cases where falsehood is impossible: where the alternative of true or
false applies, there we always find a putting together of objects of
thought in a quasi-unity. As Empedocles said that ‘where heads of many
a creature sprouted without necks’ they afterwards by Love’s power were
combined, (30) so here too objects of thought which were given separate
are combined, e. g. ‘incommensurate’ and ‘diagonal’: if the combination
be of objects past or future the combination of thought includes in its
content the date. [430b] For falsehood always involves a synthesis; for
even if you assert that what is white is not white you have included not-
white in a synthesis. It is possible also to call all these cases division as
well as combination. However that may be, there is not only the true or
false assertion that Cleon is white but also the true or false assertion that
he was or will be white. (5) In each and every case that which unifies is
mind.
Since the word ‘simple’ has two senses, i. e. may mean either (a) ‘not
capable of being divided’ or (b) ‘not actually divided’, there is nothing to
prevent mind from knowing what is undivided, e. g. when it apprehends
a length (which is actually undivided) and that in an undivided time; for
the time is divided or undivided in the same manner as the line. (10) It is
not possible, then, to tell what part of the line it was apprehending in
each half of the time: the object has no actual parts until it has been
divided: if in thought you think each half separately, then by the same
act you divide the time also, the half-lines becoming as it were new
wholes of length. But if you think it as a whole consisting of these two
possible parts, then also you think it in a time which corresponds to both
parts together. (But what is not quantitatively but qualitatively simple is
thought in a simple time and by a simple act of the soul. (15))
But that which mind thinks and the time in which it thinks are in this
case divisible only incidentally and not as such. For in them too there is
something indivisible (though, it may be, not isolable) which gives unity
to the time and the whole of length; and this is found equally in every
continuum whether temporal or spatial.
Points and similar instances of things that divide, (20) themselves being
indivisible, are realized in consciousness in the same manner as
privations.
A similar account may be given of all other cases, e. g. how evil or
black is cognized; they are cognized, in a sense, by means of their
contraries. That which cognizes must have an element of potentiality in
its being, and one of the contraries must be in it.13 But if there is
anything that has no contrary, then it knows itself and is actually and
possesses independent existence. (25)
Assertion is the saying of something concerning something, e. g.
affirmation, and is in every case either true or false: this is not always
the case with mind: the thinking of the definition in the sense of the
constitutive essence is never in error nor is it the assertion of something
concerning something, but, just as while the seeing of the special object
of sight can never be in error, the belief that the white object seen is a
man may be mistaken, so too in the case of objects which are without
matter. (30)

7 Actual knowledge is identical with its object: potential knowledge in

the individual is in time prior to actual knowledge but in the universe it
has no priority even in time; for all things that come into being arise
from what actually is. [431a] In the case of sense clearly the sensitive
faculty already was potentially what the object makes it to be actually;
the faculty is not affected or altered. (5) This must therefore be a different
kind from movement; for movement is, as we saw,14 an activity of what
is imperfect, activity in the unqualified sense, i. e. that of what has been
perfected, is different from movement.
To perceive then is like bare asserting or knowing; but when the
object is pleasant or painful, the soul makes a quasi-affirmation or
negation, and pursues or avoids the object. To feel pleasure or pain is to
act with the sensitive mean towards what is good or bad as such. (10)
Both avoidance and appetite when actual are identical with this: the
faculty of appetite and avoidance are not different, either from one
another or from the faculty of sense-perception; but their being is
different.
To the thinking soul images serve as if they were contents of
perception (and when it asserts or denies them to be good or bad it
avoids or pursues them). (15) That is why the soul never thinks without
an image. The process is like that in which the air modifies the pupil in
this or that way and the pupil transmits the modification to some third
thing (and similarly in hearing), while the ultimate point of arrival is
one, a single mean, with different manners of being. (20)
With what part of itself the soul discriminates sweet from hot15 I have
explained before16 and must now describe again as follows: That with
which it does so is a sort of unity, but in the way just mentioned,17 i. e.
as a connecting term. And the two faculties it connects,18 being one by
analogy and numerically, are each to each as the qualities discerned are
to one another (for what difference does it make whether we raise the
problem of discrimination between disparates or between contraries, (25)
e. g. white and black?). Let then C be to D as A is to B:19 it follows
alternando that C:A::D:B. If then C and D belong to one subject, the case
will be the same with them as with A and B; A and B form a single
identity with different modes of being; so too will the former pair.
[431b] The same reasoning holds if A be sweet and B white.
The faculty of thinking then thinks the forms in the images, and as in
the former case20 what is to be pursued or avoided is marked out for it,
so where there is no sensation and it is engaged upon the images it is
moved to pursuit or avoidance. (5) e. g. perceiving by sense that the
beacon is fire, it recognizes in virtue of the general faculty of sense that
it signifies an enemy, because it sees it moving; but sometimes by means
of the images or thoughts which are within the soul, just as if it were
seeing, it calculates and deliberates what is to come by reference to what
is present; and when it makes a pronouncement, as in the case of
sensation it pronounces the object to be pleasant or painful, in this case
it avoids or pursues; and so generally in cases of action.
That too which involves no action, i. e. that which is true or false, (10)
is in the same province with what is good or bad: yet they differ in this,
that the one set imply and the other do not a reference to a particular
person.
 The so-called abstract objects the mind thinks just as, if one had
thought of the snub-nosed not as snub-nosed but as hollow, one would
have thought of an actuality without the flesh in which it is embodied: it
is thus that the mind when it is thinking the objects of Mathematics
thinks as separate, (15) elements which do not exist separate. In every
case the mind which is actively thinking is the objects which it thinks.
Whether it is possible for it while not existing separate from spatial
conditions to think anything that is separate, or not, we must consider
later.21

8 Let us now summarize our results about soul, (20) and repeat that the
soul is in a way all existing things; for existing things are either sensible
or thinkable, and knowledge is in a way what is knowable, and sensation
is in a way what is sensible: in what way we must inquire.
Knowledge and sensation are divided to correspond with the realities,
potential knowledge and sensation answering to potentialities, (25) actual
knowledge and sensation to actualities. Within the soul the faculties of
knowledge and sensation are potentially these objects, the one what is
knowable, the other what is sensible. They must be either the things
themselves or their forms. The former alternative is of course impossible:
it is not the stone which is present in the soul but its form.
It follows that the soul is analogous to the hand; for as the hand is a
tool of tools,22 so the mind is the form of forms and sense the form of
sensible things. [432a]
Since according to common agreement there is nothing outside and
separate in existence from sensible spatial magnitudes, the objects of
thought are in the sensible forms, viz. (5) both the abstract objects and all
the states and affections of sensible things. Hence (1) no one can learn or
understand anything in the absence of sense, and (2) when the mind is
actively aware of anything it is necessarily aware of it along with an
image; for images are like sensuous contents except in that they contain
no matter.
Imagination is different from assertion and denial; for what is true or
false involves a synthesis of concepts. In what will the primary concepts
differ from images? Must we not say that neither these nor even our
other concepts are images, (10) though they necessarily involve them?
9 The soul of animals is characterized by two faculties, (15) (a) the
faculty of discrimination which is the work of thought and sense, and (b)
the faculty of originating local movement. Sense and mind we have now
sufficiently examined. Let us next consider what it is in the soul which
originates movement. Is it a single part of the soul separate either
spatially or in definition? Or is it the soul as a whole? If it is a part, (20) is
that part different from those usually distinguished or already mentioned
by us, or is it one of them? The problem at once presents itself, in what
sense we are to speak of parts of the soul, or how many we should
distinguish. For in a sense there is an infinity of parts: it is not enough to
distinguish, (25) with some thinkers,23 the calculative, the passionate, and
the desiderative, or with others24 the rational and the irrational; for if
we take the dividing lines followed by these thinkers we shall find parts
far more distinctly separated from one another than these, namely those
we have just mentioned: (1) the nutritive, which belongs both to plants
and to all animals, (30) and (2) the sensitive, which cannot easily be
classed as either irrational or rational; further (3) the imaginative, which
is, in its being, different from all, while it is very hard to say with which
of the others it is the same or not the same, supposing we determine to
posit separate parts in the soul; and lastly (4) the appetitive, which
would seem to be distinct both in definition and in power from all
hitherto enumerated. [432b]
It is absurd to break up the last-mentioned faculty: as these thinkers
do, (5) for wish is found in the calculative part and desire and passion in
the irrational;25 and if the soul is tripartite appetite will be found in all
three parts. Turning our attention to the present object of discussion, let
us ask what that is which originates local movement of the animal.
The movement of growth and decay, being found in all living things,
(10) must be attributed to the faculty of reproduction and nutrition, which

is common to all: inspiration and expiration, sleep and waking, we must

consider later:26 these too present much difficulty: at present we must
consider local movement, asking what it is that originates forward
movement in the animal.
That it is not the nutritive faculty is obvious; for this kind of
movement is always for an end and is accompanied either by
imagination or by appetite; for no animal moves except by compulsion
unless it has an impulse towards or away from an object. (15) Further, if it
were the nutritive faculty, even plants would have been capable of
originating such movement and would have possessed the organs
necessary to carry it out. Similarly it cannot be the sensitive faculty
either; for there are many animals which have sensibility but remain fast
and immovable throughout their lives. (20)
If then Nature never makes anything without a purpose and never
leaves out what is necessary (except in the case of mutilated or imperfect
growths; and that here we have neither mutilation nor imperfection may
be argued from the facts that such animals (a) can reproduce their
species and (b) rise to completeness of nature and decay to an end), it
follows that, had they been capable of originating forward movement,
(25) they would have possessed the organs necessary for that purpose.

Further, neither can the calculative faculty or what is called ‘mind’ be

the cause of such movement; for mind as speculative never thinks what
is practicable, it never says anything about an object to be avoided or
pursued, while this movement is always in something which is avoiding
or pursuing an object. No, not even when it is aware of such an object
does it at once enjoin pursuit or avoidance of it; e. g. the mind often
thinks of something terrifying or pleasant without enjoining the emotion
of fear. (30) It is the heart that is moved (or in the case of a pleasant
object some other part). [433a] Further, even when the mind does
command and thought bids us pursue or avoid something, sometimes no
movement is produced; we act in accordance with desire, as in the case
of moral weakness. And, generally, we observe that the possessor of
medical knowledge is not necessarily healing, which shows that
something else is required to produce action in accordance with
knowledge; the knowledge alone is not the cause. (5) Lastly, appetite too
is incompetent to account fully for movement; for those who successfully
resist temptation have appetite and desire and yet follow mind and
refuse to enact that for which they have appetite.

10 These two at all events appear to be sources of movement: appetite

and mind (if one may venture to regard imagination as a kind of
thinking; for many men follow their imaginations contrary to
knowledge, (10) and in all animals other than man there is no thinking or
calculation but only imagination).
Both of these then are capable of originating local movement, mind
and appetite: (1) mind, that is, which calculates means to an end, (15) i. e.
mind practical (it differs from mind speculative in the character of its
end); while (2) appetite is in every form of it relative to an end: for that
which is the object of appetite is the stimulant of mind practical; and
that which is last in the process of thinking is the beginning of the
action. It follows that there is a justification for regarding these two as
the sources of movement, i. e. appetite and practical thought; for the
object of appetite starts a movement and as a result of that thought gives
rise to movement, (20) the object of appetite being to it a source of
stimulation. So too when imagination originates movement, it
necessarily involves appetite.
That which moves therefore is a single faculty and the faculty of
appetite; for if there had been two sources of movement—mind and
appetite—they would have produced movement in virtue of some
common character. As it is, mind is never found producing movement
without appetite (for wish is a form of appetite; and when movement is
produced according to calculation it is also according to wish), (25) but
appetite can originate movement contrary to calculation, for desire is a
form of appetite. Now mind is always right, but appetite and
imagination may be either right or wrong. That is why, though in any
case it is the object of appetite which originates movement, this object
may be either the real or the apparent good. To produce movement the
object must be more than this: it must be good that can be brought into
being by action; and only what can be otherwise than as it is can thus be
brought into being. (30) That then such a power in the soul as has been
described, i. e. that called appetite, originates movement is clear.
[433b] Those who distinguish parts in the soul, if they distinguish and
divide in accordance with differences of power, find themselves with a
very large number of parts, a nutritive, a sensitive, an intellective, a
deliberative, and now an appetitive part; for these are more different
from one another than the faculties of desire and passion.
Since appetites run counter to one another, which happens when a
principle of reason and a desire are contrary and is possible only in
beings with a sense of time (for while mind bids us hold back because of
what is future, desire is influenced by what is just at hand: a pleasant
object which is just at hand presents itself as both pleasant and good,
without condition in either case, (10) because of want of foresight into
what is farther away in time), it follows that while that which originates
movement must be specifically one, viz. the faculty of appetite as such
(or rather farthest back of all the object of that faculty; for it is it that
itself remaining unmoved originates the movement by being
apprehended in thought or imagination), the things that originate
movement are numerically many.
All movement involves three factors, (1) that which originates the
movement, (2) that by means of which it originates it, and (3) that
which is moved. The expression ‘that which originates the movement’ is
ambiguous: it may mean either (a) something which itself is unmoved or
(b) that which at once moves and is moved. (15) Here that which moves
without itself being moved is the realizable good, that which at once
moves and is moved is the faculty of appetite (for that which is
influenced by appetite so far as it is actually so influenced is set in
movement, and appetite in the sense of actual appetite is a kind of
movement), while that which is in motion is the animal. The instrument
which appetite employs to produce movement is no longer psychical but
bodily: hence the examination of it falls within the province of the
functions common to body and soul.27 (20) To state the matter summarily
at present, that which is the instrument in the production of movement
is to be found where a beginning and an end coincide as e. g. in a ball
and socket joint; for there the convex and the concave sides are
respectively an end and a beginning (that is why while the one remains
at rest, the other is moved): they are separate in definition but not
separable spatially. For everything is moved by pushing and pulling.
Hence just as in the case of a wheel, (25) so here there must be a point
which remains at rest, and from that point the movement must originate.
To sum up, then, and repeat what I have said, inasmuch as an animal
is capable of appetite it is capable of self-movement; it is not capable of
appetite without possessing imagination; and all imagination is either
(1) calculative or (2) sensitive. In the latter all animals, (30) and not only
man, partake.
11 We must consider also in the case of imperfect animals, sc. those
which have no sense but touch, what it is that in them originates
movement. Can they have imagination or not? or desire? Clearly they
have feelings of pleasure and pain, and if they have these they must
have desire. [434a] But how can they have imagination? Must not we
say that, as their movements are indefinite, they have imagination and
desire, but indefinitely?
Sensitive imagination, as we have said,28 is found in all animals, (5)
deliberative imagination only in those that are calculative: for whether
this or that shall be enacted is already a task requiring calculation; and
there must be a single standard to measure by, for that is pursued which
is greater. It follows that what acts in this way must be able to make a
unity out of several images.
This is the reason why imagination is held not to involve opinion, (10)
in that it does not involve opinion based on inference, though opinion
involves imagination. Hence appetite contains no deliberative element.
Sometimes it overpowers wish and sets it in movement: at times wish
acts thus upon appetite, like one sphere imparting its movement to
another, or appetite acts thus upon appetite, i. e. in the condition of
moral weakness (though by nature the higher faculty is always more
authoritative and gives rise to movement). Thus three modes of
movement are possible. (15)
The faculty of knowing is never moved but remains at rest. Since the
one premiss or judgement is universal and the other deals with the
particular (for the first tells us that such and such a kind of man should
do such and such a kind of act, and the second that this is an act of the
kind meant, and I a person of the type intended), (20) it is the latter
opinion that really originates movement, not the universal; or rather it is
both, but the one does so while it remains in a state more like rest, while
the other partakes in movement.

12 The nutritive soul then must be possessed by everything that is

alive, and every such thing is endowed with soul from its birth to its
death. For what has been born must grow, reach maturity, (25) and decay
—all of which are impossible without nutrition. Therefore the nutritive
faculty must be found in everything that grows and decays.
 But sensation need not be found in all things that live. For it is
impossible for touch to belong either (1) to those whose body is
uncompounded or (2) to those which are incapable of taking in the
forms without their matter.
But animals must be endowed with sensation, (30) since Nature does
nothing in vain. For all things that exist by Nature are means to an end,
or will be concomitants of means to an end. Every body capable of
forward movement would, if unendowed with sensation, perish and fail
to reach its end, which is the aim of Nature; for how could it obtain
nutriment? Stationary living things, it is true, have as their nutriment
that from which they have arisen; but it is not possible that a body
which is not stationary but produced by generation should have a soul
and a discerning mind without also having sensation. [434b] (Nor yet
even if it were not produced by generation. Why should it not have
sensation? Because it were better so either for the body or for the soul?
But clearly it would not be better for either: the absence of sensation will
not enable the one to think better or the other to exist better.) (5)
Therefore no body which is not stationary has soul without sensation.
But if a body has sensation, it must be either simple or compound. And
simple it cannot be; for then it could not have touch, (10) which is
indispensable. This is clear from what follows. An animal is a body with
soul in it: every body is tangible, i. e. perceptible by touch; hence
necessarily, if an animal is to survive, its body must have tactual
sensation. All the other senses, e. g. smell, sight, hearing, (15) apprehend
through media; but where there is immediate contact the animal, if it
has no sensation, will be unable to avoid some things and take others,
and so will find it impossible to survive. That is why taste also is a sort
of touch; it is relative to nutriment, which is just tangible body; whereas
sound, colour, and odour are innutritious, and further neither grow nor
decay. Hence it is that taste also must be a sort of touch, (20) because it is
the sense for what is tangible and nutritious.
Both these senses, then, are indispensable to the animal, and it is clear
that without touch it is impossible for an animal to be. All the other
senses subserve well-being and for that very reason belong not to any
and every kind of animal, but only to some, (25) e. g. those capable of
forward movement must have them; for, if they are to survive, they must
perceive not only by immediate contact but also at a distance from the
object. This will be possible if they can perceive through a medium, the
medium being affected and moved by the perceptible object, and the
animal by the medium. Just as that which produces local movement
causes a change extending to a certain point, (30) and that which gave an
impulse causes another to produce a new impulse so that the movement
traverses a medium—the first mover impelling without being impelled,
the last moved being impelled without impelling, while the medium (or
media, for there are many) is both—so is it also in the case of alteration,
except that the agent produces it without the patient’s changing its
place. [435a] Thus if an object is dipped into wax, the movement goes
on until submersion has taken place, and in stone it goes no distance at
all, while in water the disturbance goes far beyond the object dipped: in
air the disturbance is propagated farthest of all, the air acting and being
acted upon, so long as it maintains an unbroken unity. That is why in
the case of reflection it is better, (5) instead of saying that the sight issues
from the eye and is reflected, to say that the air, so long as it remains
one, is affected by the shape and colour. On a smooth surface the air
possesses unity; hence it is that it in turn sets the sight in motion, (10) just
as if the impression on the wax were transmitted as far as the wax
extends.

13 It is clear that the body of an animal cannot be simple, i. e. consist

of one element such as fire or air. For without touch it is impossible to
have any other sense; for every body that has soul in it must, as we have
said,29 be capable of touch. All the other elements with the exception of
earth can constitute organs of sense, (15) but all of them bring about
perception only through something else, viz. through the media. Touch
takes place by direct contact with its objects, whence also its name. All
the other organs of sense, no doubt, perceive by contact, only the
contact is mediate: touch alone perceives by immediate contact.
Consequently no animal body can consist of these other elements.
Nor can it consist solely of earth. (20) For touch is as it were a mean
between all tangible qualities, and its organ is capable of receiving not
only all the specific qualities which characterize earth, but also the hot
and the cold and all other tangible qualities whatsoever. (25) That is why
we have no sensation by means of bones, hair, &c., because they consist
of earth. [435b] So too plants, because they consist of earth, have no
sensation. Without touch there can be no other sense, and the organ of
touch cannot consist of earth or of any other single element.
It is evident, therefore, that the loss of this one sense alone must bring
about the death of an animal. (5) For as on the one hand nothing which is
not an animal can have this sense, so on the other it is the only one
which is indispensably necessary to what is an animal. This explains,
further, the following difference between the other senses and touch. In
the case of all the others excess of intensity in the qualities which they
apprehend, i. e. excess of intensity in colour, sound, and smell, destroys
not the animal but only the organs of the sense (except incidentally, (10)
as when the sound is accompanied by an impact or shock, or where
through the objects of sight or of smell certain other things are set in
motion, which destroy by contact); flavour also destroys only in so far as
it is at the same time tangible. But excess of intensity in tangible
qualities, e. g. heat, cold, or hardness, (15) destroys the animal itself. As in
the case of every sensible quality excess destroys the organ, so here what
is tangible destroys touch, which is the essential mark of life; for it has
been shown that without touch it is impossible for an animal to be. That
is why excess in intensity of tangible qualities destroys not merely the
organ, but the animal itself, because this is the only sense which it must
have.
All the other senses are necessary to animals, as we have said,30 not
for their being, but for their well-being. Such, e. g., is sight, (20) which,
since it lives in air or water, or generally in what is pellucid, it must
have in order to see, and taste because of what is pleasant or painful to
it, in order that it may perceive these qualities in its nutriment and so
may desire to be set in motion, and hearing that it may have
communication made to it, and a tongue that it may communicate with
its fellows. (25)

1 Cf. Phys. iii. 3.

2 i. e. that which is involved in the structure of the sense-organ.

3 The qualification appears to mean that the sense-organ may in other respects have other
qualities. Thus the tongue can touch as well as taste.
4 i. e. as the being affected by the forms of sensible qualities.

5 Od. xviii. 136.

6 404b 8–18.

7 The reference is perhaps to E. N. 1139b 15 ff.

8 For these three views Cf. Pl. Tim. 52 A, Soph, A, B, Phil. 39 B.

9 i. e. a particular form in a particular matter.

10 a15–24.

11 Ch. 5.

12 In ch. 4.

13 i. e. it must be characterized actually by one and potentially by the other of the contraries.

14 Cf. 417b 2–16.

15 i. e. the sweetness and the heat in a sweet-hot object.

16 426b 12–427a 14.

17 i. e. as one thing with two aspects; cf. l. 19.

18 i. e. the faculty by which we discern sweet and that by which we discern hot.

19 i. e. let the faculty that discerns sweet be to that which discerns hot as sweet is to hot.

20 i. e. that of sense-data.

21 This promise does not seem to have been fulfilled.

22 i. e. a tool for using tools.

23 Pl. Rep. 435–41.

24 A popular view, Cf. E. N. 1102a 26–8.

25 All three being forms of appetite.

26 Cf. De Respiratione, De Somno.

27 Cf. De Motu An. 702a 21–703a 22.

28 433b 29.

29 434b 10–24.

30 434b 24.
 Parva Naturalia

(The Short Physical Treatises)

Translated by J. I. Beare
 DE MEMORIA ET REMINISCENTIA

(On Memory and Reminiscence)

1 [449b] We have, in the next place, to treat of Memory and

Remembering, considering its nature, its cause, and the part of the soul
to which this experience, as well as that of Recollecting, (5) belongs. For
the persons who possess a retentive memory are not identical with those
who excel in power of recollection; indeed, as a rule, slow people have a
good memory, whereas those who are quick-witted and clever are better
at recollecting.
We must first form a true conception of the objects of memory, a point
on which mistakes are often made. (10) Now to remember the future is
not possible, but this is an object of opinion or expectation (and indeed
there might be actually a science of expectation, like that of divination,
in which some believe); nor is there memory of the present, but only
sense-perception. For by the latter we know not the future, nor the past,
but the present only. But memory relates to the past. (15) No one would
say that he remembers the present, when it is present, e. g. a given white
object at the moment when he sees it; nor would one say that he
remembers an object of scientific contemplation at the moment when he
is actually contemplating it, and has it full before his mind;—of the
former he would say only that he perceives it, of the latter only that he
knows it. But when one has scientific knowledge, or perception, apart
from the actualizations of the faculty concerned, he thus ‘remembers’
[that the angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles]; as
to the former, (20) that he learned it, or thought it out for himself, as to
the latter, that he heard, or saw, it, or had some such sensible experience
of it. For whenever one exercises the faculty of remembering, he must
say within himself, ‘I formerly heard (or otherwise perceived) this,’ or ‘I
formerly had this thought’.
Memory is, therefore, neither Perception nor Conception, but a state
or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time. As already
observed, (25) there is no such thing as memory of the present while
present, for the present is object only of perception, and the future, of
expectation, but the object of memory is the past. All memory, therefore,
implies a time elapsed; consequently only those animals which perceive
time remember, and the organ whereby they perceive time is also that
whereby they remember. (30)
The subject of ‘presentation’ has been already considered in our work
de Anima.1 Without a presentation intellectual activity is impossible.
[450a] For there is in such activity an incidental affection identical
with one also incidental in geometrical demonstrations. For in the latter
case, though we do not for the purpose of the proof make any use of the
fact that the quantity in the triangle [for example, which we have
drawn] is determinate, we nevertheless draw it determinate in quantity.
So likewise when one exerts the intellect [e. g. on the subject of first
principles], (5) although the object may not be quantitative, one
envisages it as quantitative, though he thinks it in abstraction from
quantity; while, on the other hand, if the object of the intellect is
essentially of the class of things that are quantitative, but indeterminate,
one envisages it as if it had determinate quantity, though subsequently,
in thinking it, he abstracts from its determinateness. Why we cannot
exercise the intellect on any object absolutely apart from the continuous,
or apply it even to non-temporal things unless in connexion with time,
(10) is another question. Now, one must cognize magnitude and motion

by means of the same faculty by which one cognizes time [i. e. by that
which is also the faculty of memory], and the presentation [involved in
such cognition] is an affection of the sensus communis; whence this
follows, viz. that the cognition of these objects [magnitude, motion,
time] is effected by the [said sensus communis, i. e. the] primary faculty
of perception. Accordingly, memory [not merely of sensible, but] even of
intellectual objects involves a presentation: hence we may conclude that
it belongs to the faculty of intelligence only incidentally, while directly
and essentially it belongs to the primary faculty of sense-perception.
Hence not only human beings and the beings which possess opinion or
intelligence, (15) but also certain other animals, possess memory. If
memory were a function of [pure] intellect, it would not have been as it
is an attribute of many of the lower animals, but probably, in that case,
no mortal beings would have had memory; since, even as the case
stands, it is not an attribute of them all, just because all have not the
faculty of perceiving time. (20) Whenever one actually remembers having
seen or heard, or learned, something, he includes in this act (as we have
already observed) the consciousness of ‘formerly’; and the distinction of
‘former’ and ‘latter’ is a distinction in time.
Accordingly, if asked, of which among the parts of the soul memory is
a function, we reply: manifestly of that part to which ‘presentation’
appertains; and all objects capable of being presented [viz. sensibles] are
immediately and properly objects of memory, while those [viz.
intelligibles] which necessarily involve [but only involve] presentation
are objects of memory incidentally. (25)
One might ask how it is possible that though the affection [the
presentation] alone is present, and the [related] fact absent, the latter—
that which is not present—is remembered. [This question arises],
because it is clear that we must conceive that which is generated
through sense-perception in the sentient soul, and in the part of the body
which is its seat—viz. that affection the state whereof we call memory—
to be some such thing as a picture. (30) The process of movement [sensory
stimulation] involved in the act of perception stamps in, as it were, a
sort of impression of the percept, just as persons do who make an
impression with a seal. [450b] This explains why, in those who are
strongly moved owing to passion, or time of life, no mnemonic
impression is formed; just as no impression would be formed if the
movement of the seal were to impinge on running water; while there are
others in whom, owing to the receiving surface being frayed, as happens
to [the stucco on] old [chamber] walls, (5) or owing to the hardness of
the receiving surface, the requisite impression is not implanted at all.
Hence both very young and very old persons are defective in memory;
they are in a state of flux, the former because of their growth, the latter,
owing to their decay. In like manner, also, both those who are too quick
and those who are too slow have bad memories. The former are too soft,
(10) the latter too hard [in the texture of their receiving organs], so that

in the case of the former the presented image [though imprinted] does
not remain in the soul, while on the latter it is not imprinted at all.
But then, if this truly describes what happens in the genesis of
memory, [the question stated above arises:] when one remembers, is it
this impressed affection that he remembers, or is it the objective thing
from which this was derived? If the former, it would follow that we
remember nothing which is absent; if the latter, how is it possible that,
(15) though perceiving directly only the impression, we remember that

absent thing which we do not perceive? Granted that there is in us

something like an impression or picture, why should the perception of
the mere impression be memory of something else, instead of being
related to this impression alone? For when one actually remembers, this
impression is what he contemplates, and this is what he perceives. How
then does he remember what is not present? One might as well suppose
it possible also to see or hear that which is not present. (20) In reply, we
suggest that this very thing is quite conceivable, nay, actually occurs in
experience. A picture painted on a panel is at once a picture and a
likeness: that is, while one and the same, it is both of these, although the
‘being’ of both is not the same, and one may contemplate it either as a
picture, or as a likeness. Just in the same way we have to conceive that
the mnemonic presentation within us is something which by itself is
merely an object of contemplation, (25) while, in relation to something
else, it is also a presentation of that other thing. In so far as it is
regarded in itself, it is only an object of contemplation, or a
presentation; but when considered as relative to something else, e. g., as
its likeness, it is also a mnemonic token. Hence, whenever the residual
sensory process implied by it is actualized in consciousness, if the soul
perceives this in so far as it is something absolute, it appears to occur as
a mere thought or presentation; but if the soul perceives it qua related to
something else, then,—just as when one contemplates the painting in the
picture as being a likeness, (30) and without having [at the moment] seen
the actual Coriscus, contemplates it as a likeness of Coriscus, and in that
case the experience involved in this contemplation of it [as relative] is
different from what one has when he contemplates it simply as a painted
figure—[so in the case of memory we have the analogous difference,
for], of the objects in the soul, the one [the unrelated object] presents
itself simply as a thought, but the other [the related object], just
because, as in the painting, it is a likeness, presents itself as a mnemonic
token. [451a]
 We can now understand why it is that sometimes, when we have such
processes, based on some former act of perception, occurring in the soul,
we do not know whether this really implies our having had perceptions
corresponding to them, (5) and we doubt whether the case is or is not one
of memory. But occasionally it happens that [while thus doubting] we
get a sudden idea and recollect that we heard or saw something
formerly. This [occurrence of the ‘sudden idea’] happens whenever, from
contemplating a mental object as absolute, one changes his point of
view, and regards it as relative to something else.
The opposite [sc. to the case of those who at first do not recognize
their phantasms as mnemonic] also occurs, as happened in the cases of
Antipheron of Oreus and others suffering from mental derangement; for
they were accustomed to speak of their mere phantasms as facts of their
past experience, (10) and as if remembering them. This takes place
whenever one contemplates what is not a likeness as if it were a
likeness.
Mnemonic exercises aim at preserving one’s memory of something by
repeatedly reminding him of it; which implies nothing else [on the
learner’s part] than the frequent contemplation of something [viz. the
‘mnemonic’, whatever it may be] as a likeness, and not as out of
relation.
As regards the question, therefore, what memory or remembering is,
(15) it has now been shown that it is the state of a presentation, related as

a likeness to that of which it is a presentation; and as to the question of

which of the faculties within us memory is a function, [it has been
shown] that it is a function of the primary faculty of sense-perception,
i. e. of that faculty whereby we perceive time.

2 Next comes the subject of Recollection, in dealing with which we

must assume as fundamental the truths elicited above in our
introductory discussions. (20) For recollection is not the ‘recovery’ or
‘acquisition’ of memory; since at the instant when one at first learns [a
fact of science] or experiences [a particular fact of sense], he does not
thereby ‘recover’ a memory, inasmuch as none has preceded, nor does he
acquire one ab initio. It is only at the instant when the aforesaid state or
affection [of the perception or conception; see 449b 24] is implanted in
the soul that memory exists, and therefore memory is not itself
implanted concurrently with the continuous implantation of the
[original] sensory experience. (25)
Further: at the very individual and concluding instant when first [the
sensory experience or scientific knowledge] has been completely
implanted, there is then already established in the person affected the
[sensory] affection, or the scientific knowledge (if one ought to apply
the term ‘scientific knowledge’ to the [mnemonic] state or affection; and
indeed one may well remember, in the ‘incidental’ sense, some of the
things [i. e. universals] which are properly objects of scientific
knowledge); but to remember, strictly and properly speaking, is an
activity which will not be immanent until the original experience has
undergone lapse of time. (30) For one remembers now what one saw or
otherwise experienced formerly; the moment of the original experience
and the moment of the memory of it are never identical.
Again, [even when time has elapsed, and one can be said really to
have acquired memory, this is not necessarily recollection, for firstly] it
is obviously possible, without any present act of recollection, to
remember as a continued consequence of the original perception or
other experience; whereas when [after an interval of obliviscence] one
recovers some scientific knowledge which he had before, or some
perception, or some other experience, the state of which we above
declared to be memory, it is then, and then only, that this recovery may
amount to a recollection of any of the things aforesaid. [451b] (5) But,
[though, as observed above, remembering does not necessarily imply
recollecting], recollecting always implies remembering, and actualized
memory follows [upon the successful act of recollecting].
But secondly, even the assertion that recollection is the reinstatement
in consciousness of something which was there before but had
disappeared requires qualification. This assertion may be true, but it
may also be false; for the same person may twice learn [from some
teacher], or twice discover [i. e. excogitate], the same fact. Accordingly,
the act of recollecting ought [in its definition] to be distinguished from
these acts; i. e. recollecting must imply in those who recollect the
presence of some spring over and above that from which they originally
learn.
 Acts of recollection, (10) as they occur in experience, are due to the fact
that one movement has by nature another that succeeds it in regular
order.
If this order be necessary, whenever a subject experiences the former
of two movements thus connected, it will [invariably] experience the
latter; if, however, the order be not necessary, but customary, only in the
majority of cases will the subject experience the latter of the two
movements. But it is a fact that there are some movements, by a single
experience of which persons take the impress of custom more deeply
than they do by experiencing others many times; hence upon seeing
some things but once we remember them better than others which we
may have seen frequently. (15)
Whenever, therefore, we are recollecting, we are experiencing certain
of the antecedent movements until finally we experience the one after
which customarily comes that which we seek. This explains why we
hunt up the series [of movements], having started in thought either from
a present intuition or some other, and from something either similar, or
contrary, to what we seek, or else from that which is contiguous with it.
(20) Such is the empirical ground of the process of recollection; for the

mnemonic movements involved in these starting-points are in some

cases identical, in others, again, simultaneous, with those of the idea we
seek, while in others they comprise a portion of them, so that the
remnant which one experienced after that portion [and which still
requires to be excited in memory] is comparatively small.
Thus, then, it is that persons seek to recollect, and thus, too, it is that
they recollect even without the effort of seeking to do so, viz. when the
movement implied in recollection has supervened on some other which
is its condition. For, as a rule, (25) it is when antecedent movements of
the classes here described have first been excited, that the particular
movement implied in recollection follows. We need not examine a series
of which the beginning and end lie far apart, in order to see how [by
recollection] we remember; one in which they lie near one another will
serve equally well. For it is clear that the method is in each case the
same, that is, one hunts up the objective series, without any previous
search or previous recollection. For [there is, besides the natural order,
viz. the order of the things, or events of the primary experience, also a
customary order, and] by the effect of custom the mnemonic movements
tend to succeed one another in a certain order. Accordingly, therefore,
when one wishes to recollect, (30) this is what he will do: he will try to
obtain a beginning of movement whose sequel shall be the movement
which he desires to reawaken. This explains why attempts at recollection
succeed soonest and best when they start from a beginning [of some
objective series]. [452a] For, in order of succession, the mnemonic
movements are to one another as the objective facts [from which they
are derived]. Accordingly, things arranged in a fixed order, like the
successive demonstrations in geometry, are easy to remember [or
recollect], while badly arranged subjects are remembered with difficulty.
Recollecting differs also in this respect from relearning, that one who
recollects will be able, somehow, to move, solely by his own effort, (5) to
the term next after the starting-point. When one cannot do this of
himself, but only by external assistance, he no longer remembers [i. e. he
has totally forgotten, and therefore of course cannot recollect]. It often
happens that, though a person cannot recollect at the moment, yet by
seeking he can do so, and discovers what he seeks. This he succeeds in
doing by setting up many movements, until finally he excites one of a
kind which will have for its sequel the fact he wishes to recollect. For
remembering [which is the condicio sine qua non of recollecting] is the
existence, (10) potentially, in the mind of a movement capable of
stimulating it to the desired movement, and this, as has been said, in
such a way that the person should be moved [prompted to recollection]
from within himself, i. e. in consequence of movements wholly
contained within himself.
But one must get hold of a starting-point. This explains why it is that
persons are supposed to recollect sometimes by starting from mnemonic
loci. The cause is that they pass swiftly in thought from one point to
another, (15) e. g. from milk to white, from white to mist, and thence to
moist, from which one remembers Autumn [the ‘season of mists’], if this
be the season he is trying to recollect.
It seems true in general that the middle point also among all things is
a good mnemonic starting-point from which to reach any of them. (20)
For if one does not recollect before, he will do so when he has come to
this, or, if not, nothing can help him; as, e. g. if one were to have in
mind the numerical series denoted by the symbols 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
For, if he does not remember what he wants at 5, then at 5 he
remembers 9; because from 5 movement in either direction is possible,
to 4 or to 6. But, if it is not for one of these that he is searching, he will
remember [what he is searching for] when he has come to 3, if he is
searching for 8 or 7. But if [it is] not [for 8 or 7 that he is searching, but
for one of the terms that remain], he will remember by going to 1, and
so in all cases [in which one starts from a middle point]. (25) The cause of
one’s sometimes recollecting and sometimes not, though starting from
the same point, is, that from the same starting-point a movement can be
made in several directions, as, for instance, from 3 to 7 or to 4. If, then,
the mind has not [when starting from 5] moved in an old path [i. e. one
in which it moved when first having the objective experience, and that,
therefore, in which un-‘ethized’ nature would have it again move], it
tends to move to the more customary; for [the mind having, by chance
or otherwise, missed moving in the ‘old’ way] Custom now assumes the
rôle of Nature. Hence the rapidity with which we recollect what we
frequently think about. For as regular sequence of events is in
accordance with nature, so, too, regular sequence is observed in the
actualization of movements [in consciousness], (30) and here frequency
tends to produce [the regularity of] nature. [452b] And since in the
realm of nature occurrences take place which are even contrary to
nature, or fortuitous, the same happens a fortiori in the sphere swayed by
custom, since in this sphere natural law is not similarly established.
Hence it is that [from the same starting-point] the mind receives an
impulse to move sometimes in the required direction, and at other times
otherwise, [doing the latter] particularly when something else somehow
deflects the mind from the right direction and attracts it to itself. (5) This
last consideration explains too how it happens that, when we want to
remember a name, we remember one somewhat like it, indeed, but
blunder in reference to [i. e. in pronouncing] the one we intended.
Thus, then, recollection takes place.
But the point of capital importance is that [for the purpose of
recollection] one should cognize, determinately or indeterminately, the
time-relation [of that which he wishes to recollect]. There is—let it be
taken as a fact—something by which one distinguishes a greater and a
smaller time; and it is reasonable to think that one does this in a way
analogous to that in which one discerns [spatial] magnitudes. (10) For it
is not by the mind’s reaching out towards them, as some say a visual ray
from the eye does [in seeing], that one thinks of large things at a
distance in space (for even if they are not there, one may similarly think
them); but one does so by a proportionate mental movement. For there
are in the mind the like figures and movements [i. e. ‘like’ to those of
objects and events]. Therefore, when one thinks the greater objects, in
what will his thinking those differ from his thinking the smaller? [In
nothing,] because all the internal though smaller are as it were
proportional to the external. Now, as we may assume within a person
something proportional to the forms [of distant magnitudes], (15) so, too,
we may doubtless assume also something else proportional to their
distances. As, therefore, if one has [psychically] the movement in AB,
BE, he constructs in thought [i. e. knows objectively] CD, since AC and
CD bear equal ratios respectively [to AB and BE], [so he who recollects
also proceeds]. Why then does he construct CD rather than FG? Is it not
because as AC is to AB, so is H to I? These movements therefore [sc. in
AB, BE, and in H:I] he has simultaneously. (20) But if he wishes to
construct to thought FG, he has in mind BE in like manner as before
[when constructing CD], but now, instead of [the movements of the
ratio] H:I, he has in mind [those of the ratio] J:K; for J:K::FA: BA.

When, therefore, the ‘movement’ corresponding to the object and that

corresponding to its time concur, then one actually remembers. If one
supposes [himself to move in these different but concurrent ways]
without really doing so, he supposes himself to remember. (25) For one
may be mistaken, and think that he remembers when he really does not.
But it is not possible, conversely, that when one actually remembers he
should not suppose himself to remember, but should remember
unconsciously. For remembering, as we have conceived it, essentially
implies consciousness of itself. If, however, the movement corresponding
to the objective fact takes place without that corresponding to the time,
or, if the latter takes place without the former, one does not remember.
The movement answering to the time is of two kinds. (30) Sometimes in
remembering a fact one has no determinate time-notion of it, no such
notion as that, e. g., he did something or other on the day before
yesterday; while in other cases he has a determinate notion of the time.
[453a] Still, even though one does not remember with actual
determination of the time, he genuinely remembers, none the less.
Persons are wont to say that they remember [something], but yet do not
know when [it occurred, as happens] whenever they do not know
determinately the exact length of time implied in the ‘when’.
It has been already stated that those who have a good memory are not
identical with those who are quick at recollecting. (5) But the act of
recollecting differs from that of remembering, not only chronologically,
but also in this, that many also of the other animals [as well as man]
have memory, but, of all that we are acquainted with, none, we venture
to say, except man, shares in the faculty of recollection. (10) The cause of
this is that recollection is, as it were, a mode of inference. For he who
endeavours to recollect infers that he formerly saw, or heard, or had
some such experience, and the process [by which he succeeds in
recollecting] is, as it were, a sort of investigation. But to investigate in
this way belongs naturally to those animals alone which are also
endowed with the faculty of deliberation; [which proves what was said
above], for deliberation is a form of inference.
That the affection is corporeal, (15) i. e. that recollection is a searching
for an ‘image’ in a corporeal substrate, is proved by the fact that in some
persons, when, despite the most strenuous application of thought, they
have been unable to recollect, it [viz. the effort at recollection] excites a
feeling of discomfort, which, even though they abandon the effort at
recollection, persists in them none the less; and especially in persons of
melancholic temperament. (20) For these are most powerfully moved by
presentations. The reason why the effort of recollection is not under the
control of their will is that, as those who throw a stone cannot stop it at
their will when thrown, so he who tries to recollect and ‘hunts’ [after an
idea] sets up a process in a material part, [that] in which resides the
affection. Those who have moisture around that part which is the centre
of sense-perception suffer most discomfort of this kind. For when once
the moisture has been set in motion it is not easily brought to rest, until
the idea which was sought for has again presented itself, (25) and thus the
movement has found a straight course. For a similar reason bursts of
anger or fits of terror, when once they have excited such motions, are
not at once allayed, even though the angry or terrified persons [by
efforts of will] set up counter motions, but the passions continue to
move them on, in the same direction as at first, in opposition to such
counter motions. The affection resembles also that in the case of words,
tunes, or sayings, whenever one of them has become inveterate on the
lips. People give them up and resolve to avoid them; yet again and again
they find themselves humming the forbidden air, (30) or using the
prohibited word.
Those whose upper parts are abnormally large, as is the case with
dwarfs, have abnormally weak memory, as compared with their
opposites, because of the great weight which they have resting upon the
organ of perception, and because their mnemonic movements are, from
the very first, not able to keep true to a course, but are dispersed, and
because, in the effort at recollection, (5) these movements do not easily
find a direct onward path. [453b] Infants and very old persons have
bad memories, owing to the amount of movement going on within them;
for the latter are in process of rapid decay, the former in process of
vigorous growth; and we may add that children, until considerably
advanced in years, are dwarf-like in their bodily structure. Such then is
our theory as regards memory and remembering—their nature, and the
particular organ of the soul by which animals remember; also as regards
recollection, its formal definition, (10) and the manner and causes of its
performance.

1 Cf. 427b 29 seqq.

 DE SOMNIIS

(On Dreams)

1 [458b] We must, in the next place, investigate the subject of the

dream, and first inquire to which of the faculties of the soul it presents
itself, i. e. whether the affection is one which pertains to the faculty of
intelligence or to that of sense-perception; for these are the only faculties
within us by which we acquire knowledge.
If, then, the exercise of the faculty of sight is actual seeing, that of the
auditory faculty, hearing, and, in general that of the faculty of sense-
perception, perceiving; and if there are some perceptions common to the
senses, (5) such as figure, magnitude, motion, &c., while there are others,
as colour, sound, taste, peculiar [each to its own sense]; and further, if
all creatures, when the eyes are closed in sleep, are unable to see, and
the analogous statement is true of the other senses, so that manifestly we
perceive nothing when asleep; we may conclude that it is not by sense-
perception we perceive a dream.
But neither is it by opinion that we do so. For [in dreams] we not only
assert, (10) e. g., that some object approaching is a man or a horse [which
would be an exercise of opinion], but that the object is white or
beautiful, points on which opinion without sense-perception asserts
nothing either truly or falsely. It is, however, a fact that the soul makes
such assertions in sleep. We seem to see equally well that the
approaching figure is a man, and that it is white. [In dreams], (15) too,
we think something else, over and above the dream presentation, just as
we do in waking moments when we perceive something; for we often
also reason about that which we perceive. So, too, in sleep we sometimes
have thoughts other than the mere phantasms immediately before our
minds. This would be manifest to any one who should attend and try,
immediately on arising from sleep, (20) to remember [his dreaming
experiences]. There are cases of persons who have seen such dreams,
those, for example, who believe themselves to be mentally arranging a
given list of subjects according to the mnemonic rule. They frequently
find themselves engaged in something else besides the dream, viz. in
setting a phantasm which they envisage into its mnemonic position.
Hence it is plain that not every ‘phantasm’ in sleep is a mere dream-
image, (25) and that the further thinking which we perform then is due to
an exercise of the faculty of opinion.
So much at least is plain on all these points, viz. that the faculty by
which, in waking hours, we are subject to illusion when affected by
disease, is identical with that which produces illusory effects in sleep.
So, even when persons are in excellent health, and know the facts of the
case perfectly well, the sun, nevertheless, appears to them to be only a
foot wide. Now, whether the presentative faculty of the soul be identical
with, or different from, the faculty of sense-perception, (30) in either case
the illusion does not occur without our actually seeing or [otherwise]
perceiving something. Even to see wrongly or to hear wrongly can
happen only to one who sees or hears something real, though not exactly
what he supposes. But we have assumed that in sleep one neither sees,
nor hears, nor exercises any sense whatever. [459a] Perhaps we may
regard it as true that the dreamer sees nothing, yet as false that his
faculty of sense-perception is unaffected, the fact being that the sense of
seeing and the other senses may possibly be then in a certain way
affected, while each of these affections, as duly as when he is awake,
gives its impulse in a certain manner to his [primary] faculty of sense, (5)
though not in precisely the same manner as when he is awake.
Sometimes, too, opinion says [to dreamers] just as to those who are
awake, that the object seen is an illusion; at other times it is inhibited,
and becomes a mere follower of the phantasm.
It is plain therefore that this affection, which we name ‘dreaming’, is
no mere exercise of opinion or intelligence, but yet is not an affection of
the faculty of perception in the simple sense. (10) If it were the latter it
would be possible [when asleep] to hear and see in the simple sense.
How then, and in what manner, it takes place, is what we have to
examine. Let us assume, what is indeed clear enough, that the affection
[of dreaming] pertains to sense-perception as surely as sleep itself does.
For sleep does not pertain to one organ in animals and dreaming to
another; both pertain to the same organ.
 But since we have, in our work on the Soul,1 treated of presentation,
(15) and the faculty of presentation is identical with that of sense-

perception, though the essential notion of a faculty of presentation is

different from that of a faculty of sense-perception; and since
presentation is the movement set up by a sensory faculty when actually
discharging its function, while a dream appears to be a presentation (for
a presentation which occurs in sleep—whether simply or in some
particular way—is what we call a dream): it manifestly follows that
dreaming is an activity of the faculty of sense-perception, (20) but belongs
to this faculty qua presentative.

2 We can best obtain a scientific view of the nature of the dream and
the manner in which it originates by regarding it in the light of the
circumstances attending sleep. (25) The objects of sense-perception
corresponding to each sensory organ produce sense-perception in us, and
the affection due to their operation is present in the organs of sense not
only when the perceptions are actualized, but even when they have
departed.
What happens in these cases may be compared with what happens in
the case of projectiles moving in space. For in the case of these the
movement continues even when that which set up the movement is no
longer in contact [with the things that are moved]. (30) For that which set
them in motion moves a certain portion of air, and this, in turn, being
moved excites motion in another portion; and so, accordingly, it is in
this way that [the bodies], whether in air or in liquids, continue moving,
until they come to a standstill.
[459b] This we must likewise assume to happen in the case of
qualitative change,2 for that part which [for example] has been heated
by something hot, heats [in turn] the part next to it, and this propagates
the affection continuously onwards until the process has come round to
its point of origination. (5) This must also happen in the organ wherein
the exercise of sense-perception takes place, since sense-perception, as
realized in actual perceiving, is a mode of qualitative change. This
explains why the affection continues in the sensory organs, both in their
deeper and in their more superficial parts, not merely while they are
actually engaged in perceiving, but even after they have ceased to do so.
That they do this, indeed, is obvious in cases where we continue for
some time engaged in a particular form of perception, for then, when we
shift the scene of our perceptive activity, the previous affection remains;
for instance, when we have turned our gaze from sunlight into darkness.
For the result of this is that one sees nothing, (10) owing to the motion
excited by the light still subsisting in our eyes. Also, when we have
looked steadily for a long while at one colour, e. g. at white or green,
that to which we next transfer our gaze appears to be of the same colour.
Again if, after having looked at the sun or some other brilliant object, we
close the eyes, then, (15) if we watch carefully, it appears in a right line
with the direction of vision (whatever this may be), at first in its own
colour; then it changes to crimson, next to purple, until it becomes black
and disappears. And also when persons turn away from looking at
objects in motion, e. g. rivers, and especially those which flow very
rapidly, they find that the visual stimulations still present themselves, for
the things really at rest are then seen moving: persons become very deaf
after hearing loud noises, (20) and after smelling very strong odours their
power of smelling is impaired; and similarly in other cases. These
phenomena manifestly take place in the way above described.…
[460a] From this therefore it is plain that stimulatory motion is set
up even by slight differences, and that sense-perception is quick to
respond to it; and further that the organ which perceives colour is not
only affected by its object, but also reacts upon it. (25) Further evidence
to the same point is afforded by what takes place in wines, and in the
manufacture of unguents. For both oil, when prepared, and wine become
rapidly infected by the odours of the things near them; they not only
acquire the odours of the things thrown into or mixed with them, (30) but
also those of the things which are placed, or which grow, near the
vessels containing them.
In order to answer our original question, let us now, therefore, assume
one proposition, which is clear from what precedes, viz. [460b] that
even when the external object of perception has departed, the
impressions it has made persist, and are themselves objects of
perception; and [let us assume], besides, that we are easily deceived
respecting the operations of sense-perception when we are excited by
emotions, and different persons according to their different emotions; for
example, the coward when excited by fear, (5) the amorous person by
amorous desire; so that, with but little resemblance to go upon, the
former thinks he sees his foes approaching, the latter, that he sees the
object of his desire; and the more deeply one is under the influence of
the emotion, the less similarity is required to give rise to these illusory
impressions. Thus too, both in fits of anger, and also in all states of
appetite, all men become easily deceived, (10) and more so the more their
emotions are excited. This is the reason too why persons in the delirium
of fever sometimes think they see animals on their chamber walls, an
illusion arising from the faint resemblance to animals of the markings
thereon when put together in patterns; and this sometimes corresponds
with the emotional states of the sufferers, in such a way that, if the latter
be not very ill, they know well enough that it is an illusion; but if the
illness is more severe they actually move according to the appearances.
(15) The cause of these occurrences is that the faculty in virtue of which

the controlling sense judges is not identical with that in virtue of which
presentations come before the mind. A proof of this is, that the sun
presents itself as only a foot in diameter, though often something else
gainsays the presentation. (20) Again, when the fingers are crossed, the
one object [placed between them] is felt [by the touch] as two; but yet
we deny that it is two; for sight is more authoritative than touch. Yet, if
touch stood alone, we should actually have pronounced the one object to
be two. The ground of such false judgments is that any appearances
whatever present themselves, not only when its object stimulates a
sense, but also when the sense by itself alone is stimulated, (25) provided
only it be stimulated in the same manner as it is by the object. For
example, to persons sailing past the land seems to move, when it is
really the eye that is being moved by something else [the moving ship].

3 From this it is manifest that the stimulatory movements based upon

sensory impressions, whether the latter are derived from external objects
or from causes within the body, (30) present themselves not only when
persons are awake, but also then, when this affection which is called
sleep has come upon them, with even greater impressiveness. For by
day, while the senses and the intellect are working together, they (i. e.
such movements) are extruded from consciousness or obscured, just as a
smaller is beside a larger fire, or as small beside great pains or pleasures,
though, as soon as the latter have ceased, even those which are trifling
emerge into notice. [461a] But by night [i. e. in sleep] owing to the
inaction of the particular senses, and their powerlessness to realize
themselves, which arises from the reflux of the hot from the exterior
parts to the interior, (5) they [i. e. the above ‘movements’] are borne in to
the head quarters of sense-perception, and there display themselves as
the disturbance (of waking life) subsides. We must suppose that, like the
little eddies which are being ever formed in rivers, so the sensory
movements are each a continuous process, (10) often remaining like what
they were when first started, but often, too, broken into other forms by
collisions with obstacles. This [last mentioned point], moreover, gives
the reason why no dreams occur in sleep immediately after meals, or to
sleepers who are extremely young, e. g. to infants. The internal
movement in such cases is excessive, owing to the heat generated from
the food. Hence, (15) just as in a liquid, if one vehemently disturbs it,
sometimes no reflected image appears, while at other times one appears,
indeed, but utterly distorted, so as to seem quite unlike its original;
while, when once the motion has ceased, the reflected images are clear
and plain; in the same manner during sleep the phantasms, or residuary
movements, which are based upon the sensory impressions, (20) become
sometimes quite obliterated by the above described motion when too
violent; while at other times the sights are indeed seen, but confused and
weird, and the dreams [which then appear] are unhealthy, like those of
persons who are atrabilious, or feverish, or intoxicated with wine. For all
such affections, being spirituous, cause much commotion and
disturbance. In sanguineous animals, in proportion as the blood becomes
calm, (25) and as its purer are separated from its less pure elements, the
fact that the movement, based on impressions derived from each of the
organs of sense, is preserved in its integrity, renders the dreams healthy,
causes a [clear] image to present itself, and makes the dreamer think,
owing to the effects borne in from the organ of sight, that he actually
sees, and owing to those which come from the organ of hearing, that he
really hears; and so on with those also which proceed from the other
sensory organs. (30) For it is owing to the fact that the movement which
reaches the primary organ of sense comes from them, that one even
when awake believes himself to see, or hear, or otherwise perceive; just
as it is from a belief that the organ of sight is being stimulated,3 though
in reality not so stimulated, that we sometimes erroneously declare
ourselves to see, or that, from the fact that touch announces two
movements, we think that the one object is two. [461b] For, as a rule,
the governing sense affirms the report of each particular sense, unless
another particular sense, more authoritative, (5) makes a contradictory
report. In every case an appearance presents itself, but what appears
does not in every case seem real, unless when the deciding faculty is
inhibited, or does not move with its proper motion. Moreover, as we said
that different men are subject to illusions, each according to the different
emotion present in him, so it is that the sleeper, owing to sleep, and to
the movements then going on in his sensory organs, as well as to the
other facts of the sensory process, [is liable to illusion], so that the
dream presentation, though but little like it, (10) appears as some actual
given thing. For when one is asleep, in proportion as most of the blood
sinks inwards to its fountain [the heart], the internal [sensory]
movements, some potential, others actual4 accompany it inwards. They
are so related [in general] that, if anything move the blood, some one
sensory movement will emerge from it, while if this perishes another
will take its place; while to one another also they are related in the same
way as the artificial frogs in water which severally rise [in fixed
succession] to the surface in the order in which the salt [which keeps
them down] becomes dissolved. (15) The residuary movements are like
these: they are within the soul potentially, but actualize themselves only
when the impediment to their doing so has been relaxed; and according
as they are thus set free, they begin to move in the blood which remains
in the sensory organs, and which is now but scanty, (20) while they
possess verisimilitude after the manner of cloud-shapes, which in their
rapid metamorphoses one compares now to human beings and a moment
afterwards to centaurs. Each of them is however, as has been said, the
remnant of a sensory impression taken when sense was actualizing itself;
and when this, the true impression, has departed, its remnant is still
immanent, and it is correct to say of it, (25) that though not actually
Coriscus, it is like Coriscus. For when the person was actually perceiving,
his controlling and judging sensory faculty did not call it5 Coriscus, but,
prompted by this [impression], called the genuine person yonder
Coriscus. Accordingly, this sensory impulse, which, when actually
perceiving, it [the controlling faculty] so describes (unless completely
inhibited by the blood), it now [in dreams], when quasi-perceiving,
receives from the movements persisting in the sense-organs, and
mistakes it—an impulse that is merely like the true [objective]
impression—for the true impression itself, (30) while the effect of sleep is
so great that it causes this mistake to pass unnoticed. Accordingly, just
as if a finger be inserted beneath the eyeball without being observed,
one object will not only present two visual images, but will create an
opinion of its being two objects; while if it [the finger] be observed, the
presentation will be the same, but the same opinion will not be formed
of it; exactly so it is in states of sleep: if the sleeper perceives that he is
asleep, and is conscious of the sleeping state during which the
perception comes before his mind, (5) it presents itself still, but
something within him speaks to this effect: ‘the image of Coriscus
presents itself, but the real Coriscus is not present’; for often, when one
is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what
then presents itself is but a dream. [462a] If, however, he is not aware
of being asleep, there is nothing which will contradict the testimony of
the bare presentation.
That what we here urge is true, i. e. that there are such presentative
movements in the sensory organs, any one may convince himself, (10) if
he attends to and tries to remember the affections we experience when
sinking into slumber or when being awakened. He will sometimes, in the
moment of awakening, surprise the images which present themselves to
him in sleep, and find that they are really but movements lurking in the
organs of sense. And indeed some very young persons, if it is dark,
though looking with wide open eyes, see multitudes of phantom figures
moving before them, so that they often cover up their heads in terror.
From all this, then, the conclusion to be drawn is, (15) that the dream is
a sort of presentation, and, more particularly, one which occurs in sleep;
since the phantoms just mentioned are not dreams, nor is any other a
dream which presents itself when the sense-perceptions are in a state of
freedom. Nor is every presentation which occurs in sleep necessarily a
dream. For in the first place, some persons [when asleep] actually, in a
certain way, perceive sounds, light, savour, and contact; feebly, (20)
however, and, as it were, remotely. For there have been cases in which
persons while asleep, but with the eyes partly open, saw faintly in their
sleep (as they supposed) the light of a lamp, and afterwards, on being
awakened, straightway recognized it as the actual light of a real lamp;
while, in other cases, persons who faintly heard the crowing of cocks or
the barking of dogs identified these clearly with the real sounds as soon
as they awoke. (25) Some persons, too, return answers to questions put to
them in sleep. For it is quite possible that, of waking or sleeping, while
the one is present in the ordinary sense, the other also should be present
in a certain way. But none of these occurrences6 should be called a
dream. Nor should the true thoughts, as distinct from the mere
presentations, which occur in sleep [be called dreams]. The dream
proper is a presentation based on the movement of sense impressions,
when such presentation occurs during sleep, (30) taking sleep in the strict
sense of the term.
There are cases of persons who in their whole lives have never had a
dream, while others dream when considerably advanced in years, having
never dreamed before. [462b] The cause of their not having dreams
appears somewhat like that which operates in the case of infants, and
[that which operates] immediately after meals. It is intelligible enough
that no dream-presentation should occur to persons whose natural
constitution is such that in them copious evaporation is borne upwards,
(5) which, when borne back downwards, causes a large quantity of

motion. But it is not surprising that, as age advances, a dream should at

length appear to them. Indeed, it is inevitable that, (10) as a change is
wrought in them in proportion to age or emotional experience, this
reversal [from non-dreaming to dreaming] should occur also.

1 427b 27–429a 9.

2 Not merely, as with projectiles, in change of place.

3 By objective visual impressions.

4 The ‘actual’ are those in consciousness at the time when one is falling asleep: the potential,
those which had before that subsided into latency. Cf. 461a 1.
5 The impression synchronous with actual perception.
6 Those due to this ambiguous condition.
 DE DIVINATIONE PER SOMNUM

(On Prophesying by Dreams)

1 [462b] As to the divination which takes place in sleep, and is said

to be based on dreams, we cannot lightly either dismiss it with contempt
or give it implicit confidence. The fact that all persons, or many, suppose
dreams to possess a special significance, (15) tends to inspire us with
belief in it [such divination], as founded on the testimony of experience;
and indeed that divination in dreams should, as regards some subjects,
be genuine, is not incredible, for it has a show of reason; from which one
might form a like opinion also respecting all other dreams. Yet the fact
of our seeing no probable cause to account for such divination tends to
inspire us with distrust. (20) For, in addition to its further
unreasonableness, it is absurd to combine the idea that the sender of
such dreams should be God with the fact that those to whom he sends
them are not the best and wisest, but merely commonplace persons. If,
however, we abstract from the causality of God, none of the other causes
assigned appears probable. For that certain persons should have
foresight in dreams concerning things destined to take place at the
Pillars of Hercules, (25) or on the banks of the Borysthenes, seems to be
something to discover the explanation of which surpasses the wit of
man. Well then, the dreams in question must be regarded either as
causes, or as tokens, of the events, or else as coincidences; either as all, or
some, of these, or as one only. I use the word ‘cause’ in the sense in
which the moon is [the cause] of an eclipse of the sun, (30) or in which
fatigue is [a cause] of fever; ’token [in the sense in which] the entrance
of a star [into the shadow] is a token of the eclipse, or [in which]
roughness of the tongue [is a token] of fever; while by ‘coincidence’ I
mean, for example, the occurrence of an eclipse of the sun while some
one is taking a walk; for the walking is neither a token nor a cause of the
eclipse, nor the eclipse [a cause or token] of the walking. [463a] For
this reason no coincidence takes place according to a universal or
general rule. Are we then to say that some dreams are causes, others
tokens, e. g. of events taking place in the bodily organism? At all events,
even scientific physicians tell us that one should pay diligent attention to
dreams, (5) and to hold this view is reasonable also for those who are not
practitioners, but speculative philosophers. For the movements which
occur in the daytime [within the body] are, unless very great and
violent, lost sight of in contrast with the waking movements, which are
more impressive. In sleep the opposite takes place, (10) for then even
trifling movements seem considerable. This is plain in what often
happens during sleep; for example, dreamers fancy that they are affected
by thunder and lightning, when in fact there are only faint ringings in
their ears; or that they are enjoying honey or other sweet savours, when
only a tiny drop of phlegm is flowing down [the oesophagus]; or that
they are walking through fire, (15) and feeling intense heat, when there is
only a slight warmth affecting certain parts of the body. When they are
awakened, these things appear to them in this their true character. But
since the beginnings of all events are small, so, it is clear, are those also
of the diseases or other affections about to occur in our bodies. In
conclusion, (20) it is manifest that these beginnings must be more evident
in sleeping than in waking moments.
Nay, indeed, it is not improbable that some of the presentations which
come before the mind in sleep may even be causes of the actions cognate
to each of them. For as when we are about to act [in waking hours], or
are engaged in any course of action, or have already performed certain
actions, we often find ourselves concerned with these actions, (25) or
performing them, in a vivid dream; the cause whereof is that the dream-
movement has had a way paved for it from the original movements set
up in the daytime; exactly so, but conversely, it must happen that the
movements set up first in sleep should also prove to be starting-points of
actions to be performed in the daytime, since the recurrence by day of
the thought of these actions also has had its way paved for it in the
images before the mind at night. (30) Thus then it is quite conceivable
that some dreams may be tokens and causes [of future events].
Most [so-called prophetic] dreams are, however, to be classed as mere
coincidences, especially all such as are extravagant, and those in the
fulfilment of which the dreamers have no initiative, such as in the case
of a sea-fight, or of things taking place far away. [463b] As regards
these it is natural that the fact should stand as it does whenever a
person, on mentioning something, finds the very thing mentioned come
to pass. (5) Why, indeed, should this not happen also in sleep? The
probability is, rather, that many such things should happen. As, then,
one’s mentioning a particular person is neither token nor cause of this
person’s presenting himself, so, in the parallel instance, the dream is, to
him who has seen it, neither token nor cause of its [so-called] fulfilment,
but a mere coincidence. Hence the fact that many dreams have no
‘fulfilment’, (10) for coincidences do not occur according to any universal
or general law.

2 On the whole, forasmuch as certain of the lower animals also

dream, it may be concluded that dreams are not sent by God, nor are
they designed for this purpose [to reveal the future]. They have a divine
aspect, however, for Nature [their cause] is divinely planned, (15) though
not itself divine. A special proof [of their not being sent by God] is this:
the power of foreseeing the future and of having vivid dreams is found
in persons of inferior type, which implies that God does not send their
dreams; but merely that all those whose physical temperament is, as it
were, garrulous and excitable, see sights of all descriptions; for,
inasmuch as they experience many movements of every kind, they just
chance to have visions resembling objective facts, (20) their luck in these
matters being merely like that of persons who play at even and odd. For
the principle which is expressed in the gambler’s maxim: ‘If you make
many throws your luck must change,’ holds good in their case also.
That many dreams have no fulfilment is not strange, for it is so too
with many bodily symptoms and weather-signs, e. g., (25) those of rain or
wind. For if another movement occurs more influential than that from
which, while [the event to which it was pointed was] still future, the
given token was derived, the event [to which such token pointed] does
not take place. So, of the things which ought to be accomplished by
human agency, many, though well-planned, are by the operation of
other principles more powerful [than man’s agency] brought to nought.
For, speaking generally, that which was about to happen is not in every
case what now is happening; nor is that which shall hereafter be identical
with that which is now going to be. Still, (30) however, we must hold that
the beginnings from which, as we said, no consummation follows, are
real beginnings, and these constitute natural tokens of certain events,
even though the events do not come to pass.
As for [prophetic] dreams which involve not such beginnings [sc. of
future events] as we have here described, but such as are extravagant in
times, or places, or magnitudes; or those involving beginnings which are
not extravagant in any of these respects, while yet the persons who see
the dream hold not in their own hands the beginnings [of the event to
which it points]: unless the foresight which such dreams give is the
result of pure coincidence, the following would be a better explanation
of it than that proposed by Democritus, (5) who alleges ‘images’ and
‘emanations’ as its cause. [464a] As, when something has caused
motion in water or air, this [the portion moved] moves another [portion
of water or air], and, though the cause has ceased to operate, such
motion propagates itself to a certain point, though there the prime
movent is not present; just so it may well be that a movement and a
consequent sense-perception should reach sleeping souls from the objects
from which Democritus represents images’ and ‘emanations’ as coming;
that such movements, (10) in whatever way they arrive, should be more
perceptible at night [than by day], because when proceeding thus in the
daytime they are more liable to dissolution (since at night the air is less
disturbed, there being then less wind); and that they shall be perceived
within the body owing to sleep, (15) since persons are more sensitive even
to slight sensory movements when asleep than when awake. It is these
movements then that cause ‘presentations’, as a result of which sleepers
foresee the future even relatively to such events as those referred to
above. These considerations also explain why this experience befalls
commonplace persons and not the most intelligent. (20) For it would have
regularly occurred both in the daytime and to the wise had it been God
who sent it; but, as we have explained the matter, it is quite natural that
commonplace persons should be those who have foresight [in dreams].
For the mind of such persons is not given to thinking, but, as it were,
derelict, or totally vacant, and, when once set moving, is borne passively
on in the direction taken by that which moves it. With regard to the fact
that some persons who are liable to derangement have this foresight, (25)
its explanation is that their normal mental movements do not impede
[the alien movements], but are beaten off by the latter. Therefore it is
that they have an especially keen perception of the alien movements.
That certain persons in particular should have vivid dreams, e. g. that
familiar friends should thus have foresight in a special degree respecting
one another, is due to the fact that such friends are most solicitous on
one another’s behalf. For as acquaintances in particular recognize and
perceive one another a long way off, (30) so also they do as regards the
sensory movements respecting one another; for sensory movements
which refer to persons familiarly known are themselves more familiar.
Atrabilious persons, owing to their impetuosity, are, when they, as it
were, shoot from a distance, expert at hitting; while, owing to their
mutability, the series of movements deploys quickly before their minds.
[464b] For even as the insane recite, or con over in thought, the poems
of Philaegides, e. g. the Aphrodite, whose parts succeed in order of
similitude, just so do they [the ‘atrabilious’] go on and on stringing
sensory movements together. Moreover, owing to their aforesaid
impetuosity, (5) one movement within them is not liable to be knocked
out of its course by some other movement.
The most skilful interpreter of dreams is he who has the faculty of
observing resemblances. Any one may interpret dreams which are vivid
and plain. But, speaking of ‘resemblances’, I mean that dream
presentations are analogous to the forms reflected in water, (10) as indeed
we have already stated. In the latter case, if the motion in the water be
great, the reflexion has no resemblance to its original, nor do the forms
resemble the real objects. Skilful, indeed, would he be in interpreting
such reflexions who could rapidly discern, and at a glance comprehend,
the scattered and distorted fragments of such forms, so as to perceive
that one of them represents a man, or a horse, (15) or anything whatever.
Accordingly, in the other case also, in a similar way, some such thing as
this [blurred image] is all that a dream amounts to; for the internal
movement effaces the clearness of the dream.
The questions, therefore, which we proposed as to the nature of sleep
and the dream, and the cause to which each of them is due, and also as
to divination as a result of dreams, in every form of it, have now been
discussed.
 Historia Animalium

Translated by D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson

 CONTENTS

[Books I–IV omitted.]

BOOK V

CHAPTER
1. Of generation, spontaneous and hereditary.
[Chapters 2–34 of Book V and Books VI and VII omitted.]

BOOK VIII

1. Of the psychology of animals; of the principle of continuity in the scale of organisms;

and of the definition of plant and animal.
[Chapters 2–30 of Book VIII omitted.]

BOOK IX

1. Of the psychology of animals; of the psychological differentiation of the sexes; of the

sympathy and antipathy of various animals one to another; and of the habits of
the elephant.
[Chapters 2–50 of Book IX omitted.]
HISTORIA ANIMALIUM

(The History of Animals)

 BOOK V

1 [538b] As to the parts internal and external that all animals are
furnished withal, and further as to the senses, to voice, and sleep, and
the duality of sex, (30) all these topics have now been touched upon.
[539a] It now remains for us to discuss, duly and in order, their
several modes of propagation.
These modes are many and diverse, and in some respects are alike,
and in other respects are unlike to one another. As we carried on our
previous discussion genus by genus, so we must attempt to follow the
same divisions in our present argument; only that whereas in the former
case we started with a consideration of the parts of man, (5) in the
present case it behooves us to treat of man last of all because he involves
most discussion. We shall commence, then, with testaceans, (10) and then
proceed to crustaceans, and then to the other genera in due order; and
these other genera are, severally, molluscs, and insects, then fishes
viviparous and fishes oviparous, and next birds; and afterwards we shall
treat of animals provided with feet, both such as are oviparous and such
as are viviparous; and we may observe that some quadrupeds are
viviparous, but that the only viviparous biped is man. (15)
Now there is one property that animals are found to have in common
with plants. For some plants are generated from the seed of plants,
whilst other plants are self-generated through the formation of some
elemental principle similar to a seed; and of these latter plants some
derive their nutriment from the ground, whilst others grow inside other
plants, as is mentioned, by the way, (20) in my treatise on Botany. So with
animals, some spring from parent animals according to their kind, whilst
others grow spontaneously and not from kindred stock; and of these
instances of spontaneous generation some come from putrefying earth or
vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of insects, while others
are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals out of the
secretions of their several organs. (25)
In animals where generation goes by heredity, wherever there is
duality of sex generation is due to copulation. In the group of fishes,
however, there are some that are neither male nor female, and these,
while they are identical generically with other fish, differ from them
specifically; but there are others that stand altogether isolated and apart
by themselves. Other fishes there are that are always female and never
male, (30) and from them are conceived what correspond to the wind-eggs
in birds. Such eggs, by the way, in birds are all unfruitful; but it is their
nature to be independently capable of generation up to the egg-stage,
unless indeed there be some other mode than the one familiar to us of
intercourse with the male; but concerning these topics we shall treat
more precisely later on. [539b] In the case of certain fishes, however,
after they have spontaneously generated eggs, these eggs develop into
living animals; only that in certain of these cases development is
spontaneous, and in others is not independent of the male; and the
method of proceeding in regard to these matters will be set forth by and
by, (5) for the method is somewhat like to the method followed in the
case of birds. But whensoever creatures are spontaneously generated,
either in other animals, in the soil, or on plants, or in the parts of these,
and when such are generated male and female, then from the copulation
of such spontaneously generated males and females there is generated a
something—a something never identical in shape with the parents, (10)
but a something imperfect. For instance, the issue of copulation in lice is
nits; in flies, grubs; in fleas, grubs egg-like in shape; and from these
issues the parent-species is never reproduced, nor is any animal
produced at all, but the like nondescripts only.
First, then, we must proceed to treat of ‘covering’ in regard to such
animals as cover and are covered; and then after this to treat in due
order of other matters, (15) both the exceptional and those of general
occurrence. [Chapters 2–34 of Book V and Books VI and VII omitted.]
 BOOK VIII

1 [588a] We have now discussed the physical characteristics of

animals and their methods of generation. Their habits and their modes
of living vary according to their character and their food.
In the great majority of animals there are traces of psychical qualities
or attitudes, which qualities are more markedly differentiated in the case
of human beings. (20) For just as we pointed out resemblances in the
physical organs, so in a number of animals we observe gentleness or
fierceness, mildness or cross temper, courage or timidity, fear or
confidence, high spirit or low cunning, and, with regard to intelligence,
something equivalent to sagacity. Some of these qualities in man, as
compared with the corresponding qualities in animals, (25) differ only
quantitatively: that is to say, a man has more or less of this quality, and
an animal has more or less of some other; other qualities in man are
represented by analogous and not identical qualities: for instance, just as
in man we find knowledge, wisdom, and sagacity, so in certain animals
there exists some other natural potentiality akin to these. (30) The truth of
this statement will be the more clearly apprehended if we have regard to
the phenomena of childhood: for in children may be observed the traces
and seeds of what will one day be settled psychological habits, though
psychologically a child hardly differs for the time being from an animal;
so that one is quite justified in saying that, as regards man and animals,
certain psychical qualities are identical with one another, whilst others
resemble, and others are analogous to, each other.
[588b] Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal
life in such a way that it is impossible to determine the exact line of
demarcation, (5) nor on which side thereof an intermediate form should
lie. Thus, next after lifeless things in the upward scale comes the plant,
and of plants one will differ from another as to its amount of apparent
vitality; and, in a word, the whole genus of plants, whilst it is devoid of
life as compared with an animal, is endowed with life as compared with
other corporeal entities. (10) Indeed, as we just remarked, there is
observed in plants a continuous scale of ascent towards the animal. So,
in the sea, there are certain objects concerning which one would be at a
loss to determine whether they be animal or vegetable. For instance,
certain of these objects are fairly rooted, and in several cases perish if
detached; thus the pinna is rooted to a particular spot, (15) and the solen
(or razor-shell) cannot survive withdrawal from its burrow. Indeed,
broadly speaking, the entire genus of testaceans have a resemblance to
vegetables, if they be contrasted with such animals as are capable of
progression.
In regard to sensibility, some animals give no indication whatsoever of
it, whilst others indicate it but indistinctly. Further, the substance of
some of these intermediate creatures is fleshlike, as is the case with the
so-called tethya (or ascidians) and the acalephae (or sea-anemones); but
the sponge is in every respect like a vegetable. (20) And so throughout the
entire animal scale there is a graduated differentiation in amount of
vitality and in capacity for motion.
A similar statement holds good with regard to habits of life. Thus of
plants that spring from seed the one function seems to be the
reproduction of their own particular species, and the sphere of action
with certain animals is similarly limited. (25) The faculty of reproduction,
then, is common to all alike. If sensibility be superadded, then their lives
will differ from one another in respect to sexual intercourse through the
varying amount of pleasure derived therefrom, (30) and also in regard to
modes of parturition and ways of rearing their young. Some animals, like
plants, simply procreate their own species at definite seasons; other
animals busy themselves also in procuring food for their young, and
after they are reared quit them and have no further dealings with them;
other animals are more intelligent and endowed with memory, and they
live with their offspring for a longer period and on a more social footing.
[589a]
The life of animals, then, may be divided into two acts—procreation
and feeding; for on these two acts all their interests and life concentrate.
(5) Their food depends chiefly on the substance of which they are

severally constituted; for the source of their growth in all cases will be
this substance. And whatsoever is in conformity with nature is pleasant,
and all animals pursue pleasure in keeping with their nature. [Chapters
2–30 of Book VIII omitted.]
 BOOK IX

1 [608a] Of the animals that are comparatively obscure and short-

lived the characters or dispositions are not so obvious to recognition as
are those of animals that are longer-lived. These latter animals appear to
have a natural capacity corresponding to each of the passions: to
cunning or simplicity, (15) courage or timidity, to good temper or to bad,
and to other similar dispositions of mind.
Some also are capable of giving or receiving instruction—of receiving
it from one another or from man: those that have the faculty of hearing,
for instance; and, not to limit the matter to audible sound, (20) such as
can differentiate the suggested meanings of word and gesture.
In all genera in which the distinction of male and female is found,
Nature makes a similar differentiation in the mental characteristics of
the two sexes. This differentiation is the most obvious in the case of
human kind and in that of the larger animals and the viviparous
quadrupeds. (25) In the case of these latter the female is softer in
character, is the sooner tamed, admits more readily of caressing, is more
apt in the way of learning; as, for instance, in the Laconian breed of dogs
the female is cleverer than the male. Of the Molossian breed of dogs,
such as are employed in the chase are pretty much the same as those
elsewhere; but the sheep-dogs of this breed are superior to the others in
size, (30) and in the courage with which they face the attacks of wild
animals.
Dogs that are born of a mixed breed between these two kinds are
remarkable for courage and endurance of hard labour.
In all cases, excepting those of the bear and leopard, the female is less
spirited than the male; in regard to the two exceptional cases, the
superiority in courage rests with the female. With all other animals the
female is softer in disposition than the male, is more mischievous, less
simple, more impulsive, and more attentive to the nurture of the young;
the male, on the other hand, is more spirited than the female, more
savage, more simple and less cunning. [608b] The traces of these
differentiated characteristics are more or less visible everywhere, but
they are especially visible where character is the more developed, (5) and
most of all in man.
The fact is, the nature of man is the most rounded off and complete,
and consequently in man the qualities or capacities above referred to are
found in their perfection. Hence woman is more compassionate than
man, more easily moved to tears, at the same time is more jealous, more
querulous, more apt to scold and to strike. She is, (10) furthermore, more
prone to despondency and less hopeful than the man, more void of
shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, and of more
retentive memory. She is also more wakeful, more shrinking, more
difficult to rouse to action, and requires a smaller quantity of nutriment.
As was previously stated, the male is more courageous than the
female, (15) and more sympathetic in the way of standing by to help.
Even in the case of molluscs, when the cuttle-fish is struck with the
trident the male stands by to help the female; but when the male is
struck the female runs away.1
There is enmity between such animals as dwell in the same localities
or subsist on the same food. If the means of subsistence run short, (20)
creatures of like kind will fight together. Thus it is said that seals which
inhabit one and the same district will fight, male with male, and female
with female, until one combatant kills the other, or one is driven away
by the other; and their young do even in like manner. (25)
All creatures are at enmity with the carnivores, and the carnivores
with all the rest, for they all subsist on living creatures. Soothsayers take
notice of cases where animals keep apart from one another, and cases
where they congregate together; calling those that live at war with one
another ‘dissociates’, and those that dwell in peace with one another
‘associates’. One may go so far as to say that if there were no lack or
stint of food, (30) then those animals that are now afraid of man or are
wild by nature would be tame and familiar with him, and in like manner
with one another. This is shown by the way animals are treated in Egypt,
for owing to the fact that food is constantly supplied to them the very
fiercest creatures live peaceably together. The fact is they are tamed by
kindness, and in some places crocodiles are tame to their priestly keeper
from being fed by him. [609a] And elsewhere also the same
phenomenon is to be observd.
The eagle and the snake are enemies, for the eagle lives on snakes; so
are the ichneumon and the venom-spider, (5) for the ichneumon preys
upon the latter. In the case of birds, there is mutual enmity between the
poecilis, the crested lark, the woodpecker (?), and the chloreus, for they
devour one another’s eggs; so also between the crow and the owl; for,
owing to the fact that the owl is dim-sighted by day, (10) the crow at
midday preys upon the owl’s eggs, and the owl at night upon the crow’s,
each having the whip-hand of the other, turn and turn about, night and
day.
There is enmity also between the owl and the wren; for the latter also
devours the owl’s eggs. In the daytime all other little birds flutter round
the owl—a practice which is popularly termed ‘admiring him’—buffet
him, (15) and pluck out his feathers; in consequence of this habit, bird-
catchers use the owl as a decoy for catching little birds of all kinds.
The so-called presbys or ‘old man’ is at war with the weasel and the
crow, for they prey on her eggs and her brood; and so the turtle-dove
with the pyrallis, for they live in the same districts and on the same
food; and so with the green woodpecker and the libyus; and so with the
kite and the raven, (20) for, owing to his having the advantage from
stronger talons and more rapid flight the former can steal whatever the
latter is holding, so that it is food also that makes enemies of these. In
like manner there is war between birds that get their living from the sea,
as between the brenthus, the gull, and the harpe; and so between the
buzzard on one side and the toad and snake on the other, for the
buzzard preys upon the eggs of the two others; and so between the
turtle-dove and the chloreus; the chloreus kills the dove, (25) and the
crow kills the so-called drummer-bird.
The aegolius, and birds of prey in general, prey upon the calaris, and
consequently there is war between it and them; and so is there war
between the gecko-lizard and the spider, (30) for the former preys upon
the latter; and so between the woodpecker and the heron, for the former
preys upon the eggs and brood of the latter. And so between the aegithus
and the ass, owing to the fact that the ass, in passing a furze-bush, rubs
its sore and itching parts against the prickles; by so doing, and all the
more if it brays, it topples the eggs and the brood out of the nest, the
young ones tumble out in fright, and the mother-bird, to avenge this
wrong, flies at the beast and pecks at his sore places.
 The wolf is at war with the ass, the bull, and the fox, for as being a
carnivore, he attacks these other animals; and so for the same reason
with the fox and the circus, for the circus, being carnivorous and
furnished with crooked talons, attacks and maims the animal. [609b]
And so the raven is at war with the bull and the ass, for it flies at them,
(5) and strikes them, and pecks at their eyes; and so with the eagle and

the heron, for the former, having crooked talons, attacks the latter, and
the latter usually succumbs to the attack; and so the merlin with the
vulture; and the crex with the eleus-owl, the blackbird, and the oriole (of
this latter bird, by the way, the story goes that he was originally born
out of a funeral pyre): the cause of warfare is that the crex injures both
them and their young. (10) The nuthatch and the wren are at war with the
eagle; the nuthatch breaks the eagle’s eggs, so the eagle is at war with it
on special grounds, though, as a bird of prey, it carries on a general war
all round. The horse and the anthus are enemies, and the horse will
drive the bird out of the field where he is grazing: the bird feeds on
grass, (15) and sees too dimly to foresee an attack; it mimics the
whinnying of the horse, flies at him, and tries to frighten him away; but
the horse drives the bird away, and whenever he catches it he kills it:
this bird lives beside rivers or on marsh ground; it has pretty plumage,
and finds its food without trouble. The ass is at enmity with the lizard,
for the lizard sleeps in his manger, (20) gets into his nostril, and prevents
his eating.
Of herons there are three kinds: the ash-coloured, the white, and the
starry heron (or bittern). Of these the first mentioned submits with
reluctance to the duties of incubation, or to union of the sexes; in fact, it
screams during the union, and it is said drips blood from its eyes; it lays
its eggs also in an awkward manner, (25) not unattended with pain. It is
at war with certain creatures that do it injury: with the eagle for robbing
it, with the fox for worrying it at night, and with the lark for stealing its
eggs.
The snake is at war with the weasel and the pig; with the weasel when
they are both at home, for they live on the same food; with the pig for
preying on her kind. The merlin is at war with the fox; it strikes and
claws it, (30) and, as it has crooked talons, it kills the animal’s young. The
raven and the fox are good friends, for the raven is at enmity with the
merlin; and so when the merlin assails the fox the raven comes and helps
the animal. The vulture and the merlin are mutual enemies, as being
both furnished with crooked talons. [610a] The vulture fights with the
eagle, and so, by the way, does the swan; and the swan is often
victorious: moreover, of all birds swans are most prone to the killing of
one another.
In regard to wild creatures, some sets are at enmity with other sets at
all times and under all circumstances; others, as in the case of man and
man, at special times and under incidental circumstances. (5) The ass and
the acanthis are enemies; for the bird lives on thistles, and the ass
browses on thistles when they are young and tender. The anthus, the
acanthis, and the aegithus are at enemity with one another; it is said that
the blood of the anthus will not inter-commingle with the blood of the
aegithus. The crow and the heron are friends, as also are the sedge-bird
and lark, the laedus and the celeus or green woodpecker; the
woodpecker lives on the banks of rivers and beside brakes, (10) the laedus
lives on rocks and hills, and is greatly attached to its nesting-place. The
piphinx, the harpe, and the kite are friends; as are the fox and the snake,
for both burrow underground; so also are the blackbird and the turtle-
dove. The lion and the thos or civet are enemies, for both are
carnivorous and live on the same food.
Elephants fight fiercely with one another, (15) and stab one another
with their tusks; of two combatants the beaten one gets completely
cowed, and dreads the sound of his conqueror’s voice. These animals
differ from one another to an extraordinary extent in the way of
courage. Indians employ these animals for war purposes, (20) irrespective
of sex; the females, however, are less in size and much inferior in point
of spirit. An elephant by pushing with his big tusks can batter down a
wall, and will butt with his forehead at a palm until he brings it down,
when he stamps on it and lays it in orderly fashion on the ground. Men
hunt the elephant in the following way: they mount tame elephants of
approved spirit and proceed in quest of wild animals; when they come
up with these they bid the tame brutes to beat the wild ones until they
tire the latter completely. (25) Hereupon the driver, mounts a wild brute
and guides him with the application of his metal prong; after this the
creature soon becomes tame, (30) and obeys guidance. Now when the
driver is on their back they are all tractable, but after he has
dismounted, some are tame and others vicious; in the case of these
latter, they tie their front-legs with ropes to keep them quiet. The animal
is hunted whether young or full grown.
Thus we see that in the case of the creatures above mentioned their
mutual friendship or enmity is due to the food they feed on and the life
they lead. [Chapters 2–50 of Book IX omitted.]

1 Arist. ap. Athen. vii. 323 c.

 De Partibus Animalium

Translated by William Ogle

 CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER
1. Concerning the method of Natural Science.
2. Concerning Necessity and the Final Cause and their relative importance.
3. Concerning the Soul and how far it falls into the province of Natural Science.
4. Concerning Classification, dichotomous or other, and the insufficiency of the former.
5. A defense of the study of animal structure, as not ignoble.

BOOK III

1. Of the three degrees of composition and their mutual relations.

[Chapters 2–17 of Book II and Books III and IV omitted.]
DE PARTIBUS ANIMALIUM

(On the Parts of Animals)

 BOOK I

1 [639a] Every systematic science, the humblest and the noblest

alike, seems to admit of two distinct kinds of proficiency; one of which
may be properly called scientific knowledge of the subject, while the
other is a kind of educational acquaintance with it. (5) For an educated
man should be able to form a fair off-hand judgement as to the goodness
or badness of the method used by a professor in his exposition. To be
educated is in fact to be able to do this; and even the man of universal
education we deem to be such in virtue of his having this ability. It will,
however, of course, be understood that we only ascribe universal
education to one who in his own individual person is thus critical in all
or nearly all branches of knowledge, (10) and not to one who has a like
ability merely in some special subject. For it is possible for a man to
have this competence in some one branch of knowledge without having
it in all.
It is plain then that, as in other sciences, so in that which inquires into
nature, there must be certain canons, by reference to which a hearer
shall be able to criticize the method of a professed exposition, quite
independently of the question whether the statements made be true or
false. Ought we, for instance (to give an illustration of what I mean), (15)
to begin by discussing each separate species—man, lion, ox, and the like
—taking each kind in hand independently of the rest, or ought we rather
to deal first with the attributes which they have in common in virtue of
some common element of their nature, and proceed from this as a basis
for the consideration of them separately? For genera that are quite
distinct yet oftentimes present many identical phenomena, (20) sleep, for
instance, respiration, growth, decay, death, and other similar affections
and conditions, which may be passed over for the present, as we are not
yet prepared to treat of them with clearness and precision. Now it is
plain that if we deal with each species independently of the rest, we
shall frequently be obliged to repeat the same statements over and over
again; for horse and dog and man present, (25) each and all, every one of
the phenomena just enumerated. A discussion therefore of the attributes
of each such species separately would necessarily involve frequent
repetitions as to characters, (30) themselves identical but recurring in
animals specifically distinct. (Very possibly also there may be other
characters which, though they present specific differences, yet come
under one and the same category. [639b] For instance, flying,
swimming, walking, creeping, are plainly specifically distinct, but yet
are all forms of animal progression.) We must, then, have some clear
understanding as to the manner in which our investigation is to be
conducted; whether, (5) I mean, we are first to deal with the common or
generic characters, and afterwards to take into consideration special
peculiarities; or whether we are to start straight off with the ultimate
species. For as yet no definite rule has been laid down in this matter. So
also there is a like uncertainty as to another point now to be mentioned.
Ought the writer who deals with the works of nature to follow the plan
adopted by the mathematicians in their astronomical demonstrations,
and after considering the phenomena presented by animals, (10) and their
several parts, proceed subsequently to treat of the causes and the reason
why; or ought he to follow some other method? And when these
questions are answered, there yet remains another. The causes
concerned in the generation of the works of nature are, as we see, more
than one. There is the final cause and there is the motor cause. Now we
must decide which of these two causes comes first, which second.
Plainly, however, that cause is the first which we call the final one. (15)
For this is the Reason, and the Reason forms the starting-point, alike in
the works of art and in works of nature. For consider how the physician
or how the builder sets about his work. He starts by forming for himself
a definite picture, in the one case perceptible to mind, in the other to
sense, of his end—the physician of health, the builder of a house—and
this he holds forward as the reason and explanation of each subsequent
step that he takes, and of his acting in this or that way as the case may
be. (20) Now in the works of nature the good end and the final cause is
still more dominant than in works of art such as these, nor is necessity a
factor with the same significance in them all; though almost all writers,
while they try to refer their origin to this cause, do so without
distinguishing the various senses in which the term necessity is used. For
there is absolute necessity, (25) manifested in eternal phenomena; and
there is hypothetical necessity, manifested in everything that is
generated by nature as in everything that is produced by art, be it a
house or what it may. For if a house or other such final object is to be
realized, it is necessary that such and such material shall exist; and it is
necessary that first this and then that shall be produced, and first this
and then that set in motion, and so on in continuous succession, until the
end and final result is reached, (30) for the sake of which each prior thing
is produced and exists. As with these productions of art, so also is it with
the productions of nature. The mode of necessity, however, and the
mode of ratiocination are different in natural science from what they are
in the theoretical sciences; of which we have spoken elsewhere. [640a]
For in the latter the starting-point is that which is; in the former that
which is to be. For it is that which is yet to be—health, let us say, or a
man—that, (5) owing to its being of such and such characters,
necessitates the pre-existence or previous production of this and that
antecedent; and not this or that antecedent which, because it exists or
has been generated, makes it necessary that health or a man is in, or
shall come into, existence. Nor is it possible to trace back the series of
necessary antecedents to a starting-point, of which you can say that,
existing itself from eternity, it has determined their existence as its
consequent. These however, again, are matters that have been defalt
with in another treatise. (10) There too it was stated in what cases
absolute and hypothetical necessity exist; in what cases also the
proposition expressing hypothetical necessity is simply convertible, and
what cause it is that determines this convertibility.
Another matter which must not be passed over without consideration
is, whether the proper subject of our exposition is that with which the
ancient writers concerned themselves, namely, what is the process of
formation of each animal; or whether it is not rather, what are the
characters of a given creature when formed. For there is no small
difference between these two views. The best course appears to be that
we should follow the method already mentioned, and begin with the
phenomena presented by each group of animals, and, when this is done,
(15) proceed afterwards to state the causes of those phenomena, and to

deal with their evolution. For elsewhere, as for instance in house

building, this is the true sequence. The plan of the house, or the house,
has this and that form; and because it has this and that form, therefore is
its construction carried out in this or that manner. For the process of
evolution is for the sake of the thing finally evolved, and not this for the
sake of the process. Empedocles, then, was in error when he said that
many of the characters presented by animals were merely the results of
incidental occurrences during their development; for instance, (20) that
the backbone was divided as it is into vertebrae, because it happened to
be broken owing to the contorted position of the foetus in the womb. In
so saying he overlooked the fact that propagation implies a creative seed
endowed with certain formative properties. Secondly, he neglected
another fact, namely, that the parent animal pre-exists, (25) not only in
idea, but actually in time. For man is generated from man; and thus it is
the possession of certain characters by the parent that determines the
development of like characters in the child. The same statement holds
good also for the operations of art, and even for those which are
apparently spontaneous. For the same result as is produced by art may
occur spontaneously. Spontaneity, for instance, may bring about the
restoration of health. The products of art, (30) however, require the pre-
existence of an efficient cause homogeneous with themselves, such as
the statuary’s art, which must necessarily precede the statue; for this
cannot possibly be produced spontaneously. Art indeed consists in the
conception of the result to be produced before its realization in the
material. As with spontaneity, so with chance; for this also produces the
same result as art, and by the same process.
The fittest mode, then, of treatment is to say, a man has such and such
parts, because the conception of a man includes their presence, and
because they are necessary conditions of his existence, or, (35) if we
cannot quite say this, which would be best of all, then the next thing to
it, namely, that it is either quite impossible for him to exist without
them, or, at any rate, that it is better for him that they should be there;
and their existence involves the existence of other antecedents. [640b]
This we should say, because man is an animal with such and such
characters, therefore is the process of his development necessarily such
as it is; and therefore is it accomplished in such and such an order, this
part being formed first, that next, and so on in succession; and after a
like fashion should we explain the evolution of all other works of nature.
Now that with which the ancient writers, (5) who first philosophized
about Nature, busied themselves, was the material principle and the
material cause. They inquired what this is, and what its character; how
the universe is generated out of it, and by what motor influence,
whether, for instance, by antagonism or friendship, whether by
intelligence or spontaneous action, the substratum of matter being
assumed to have certain inseparable properties; fire, for instance, to
have a hot nature, (10) earth a cold one; the former to be light, the latter
heavy. For even the genesis of the universe is thus explained by them.
After a like fashion do they deal also with the development of plants and
of animals. They say, for instance, that the water contained in the body
causes by its currents the formation of the stomach and the other
receptacles of food or of excretion; and that the breath by its passage
breaks open the outlets of the nostrils; air and water being the materials
of which bodies are made; for all represent nature as composed of such
or similar substances. (15)
But if men and animals and their several parts are natural phenomena,
then the natural philosopher must take into consideration not merely the
ultimate substances of which they are made, but also flesh, bone, blood,
and all the other homogeneous parts; not only these, (20) but also the
heterogeneous parts, such as face, hand, foot; and must examine how
each of these comes to be what it is, and in virtue of what force. For to
say what are the ultimate substances out of which an animal is formed,
to state, for instance, that it is made of fire or earth, is no more sufficient
than would be a similar account in the case of a couch or the like. For
we should not be content with saying that the couch was made of bronze
or wood or whatever it might be, but should try to describe its design or
mode of composition in preference to the material; or, (25) if we did deal
with the material, it would at any rate be with the concretion of material
and form. For a couch is such and such a form embodied in this or that
matter, or such and such a matter with this or that form; so that its
shape and structure must be included in our description. For the formal
nature is of greater importance than the material nature.
Does, then, configuration and colour constitute the essence of the
various animals and of their several parts? For if so, (30) what Democritus
says will be strictly correct. For such appears to have been his notion. At
any rate he says that it is evident to every one what form it is that makes
the man, seeing that he is recognizable by his shape and colour. And yet
a dead body has exactly the same configuration as a living one; but for
all that is not a man. (35) So also no hand of bronze or wood or
constituted in any but the appropriate way can possibly be a hand in
more than name. For like a physician in a painting, or like a flute in a
sculpture, in spite of its name it will be unable to do the office which
that name implies. [641a] Precisely in the same way no part of a dead
body, such I mean as its eye or its hand, is really an eye or a hand. To
say, then, that shape and colour constitute the animal is an inadequate
statement, (5) and is much the same as if a woodcarver were to insist that
the hand he had cut out was really a hand. Yet the physiologists, when
they give an account of the development and causes of the animal form,
speak very much like such a craftsman. What, however, I would ask, are
the forces by which the hand or the body was fashioned into its shape?
The woodcarver will perhaps say, by the axe or the auger; the
physiologist, by air and by earth. (10) Of these two answers the artificer’s
is the better, but it is nevertheless insufficient. For it is not enough for
him to say that by the stroke of his tool this part was formed into a
concavity, that into a flat surface; but he must state the reasons why he
struck his blow in such a way as to effect this, and what his final object
was; namely, that the piece of wood should develop eventually into this
or that shape. It is plain, then, that the teaching of the old physiologists
is inadequate, (15) and that the true method is to state what the definitive
characters are that distinguish the animal as a whole; to explain what it
is both in substance and in form, and to deal after the same fashion with
its several organs; in fact, to proceed in exactly the same way as we
should do, were we giving a complete description of a couch.
If now this something that constitutes the form of the living being be
the soul, or part of the soul, or something that without the soul cannot
exist; as would seem to be the case, seeing at any rate that when the soul
departs, what is left is no longer a living animal, (20) and that none of the
parts remain what they were before, excepting in mere configuration,
like the animals that in the fable are turned into stone; if, I say, this be
so, then it will come within the province of the natural philosopher to
inform himself concerning the soul, and to treat of it, either in its
entirety, or, at any rate, of that part of it which constitutes the essential
character of an animal; and it will be his duty to say what this soul or
this part of a soul is; and to discuss the attributes that attach to this
essential character, (25) especially as nature is spoken of in two senses,
and the nature of a thing is either its matter or its essence; nature as
essence including both the motor cause and the final cause. Now it is in
the latter of these two senses that either the whole soul or some part of
it constitutes the nature of an animal; and inasmuch as it is the presence
of the soul that enables matter to constitute the animal nature, much
more than it is the presence of matter which so enables the soul, (30) the
inquirer into nature is bound on every ground to treat of the soul rather
than of the matter. For though the wood of which they are made
constitutes the couch and the tripod, it only does so because it is capable
of receiving such and such a form.
What has been said suggests the question, whether it is the whole soul
or only some part of it, the consideration of which comes within the
province of natural science. (35) Now if it be of the whole soul that this
should treat, then there is no place for any other philosophy beside it.
[641b] For as it belongs in all cases to one and the same science to
deal with correlated subjects—one and the same science, for instance,
deals with sensation and with the objects of sense—and as therefore the
intelligent soul and the objects of intellect, being correlated, must belong
to one and the same science, (5) it follows that natural science will have
to include the whole universe in its province. But perhaps it is not the
whole soul, nor all its parts collectively, that constitutes the source of
motion; but there may be one part, identical with that in plants, which is
the source of growth, another, namely the sensory part, which is the
source of change of quality, while still another, and this not the
intellectual part, is the source of locomotion. I say not the intellectual
part; for other animals than man have the power of locomotion, but in
none but him is there intellect. Thus then it is plain that it is not of the
whole soul that we have to treat. For it is not the whole soul that
constitutes the animal nature, but only some part or parts of it.
Moreover, it is impossible that any abstraction can form a subject of
natural science, (10) seeing that everything that Nature makes is means to
an end. For just as human creations are the products of art, so living
objects are manifestly the products of an analogous cause or principle,
not external but internal, (15) derived like the hot and the cold from the
environing universe. And that the heaven, if it had an origin, was
evolved and is maintained by such a cause, there is therefore even more
reason to believe, than that mortal animals so originated. For order and
definiteness are much more plainly manifest in the celestial bodies than
in our own frame; while change and chance are characteristic of the
perishable things of earth. (20) Yet there are some who, while they allow
that every animal exists and was generated by nature, nevertheless hold
that the heaven was constructed to be what it is by chance and
spontaneity; the heaven, in which not the faintest sign of hap-hazard or
of disorder is discernible! Again, whenever there is plainly some final
end, to which a motion tends should nothing stand in the way, we
always say that such final end is the aim or purpose of the motion; and
from this it is evident that there must be a something or other really
existing, (25) corresponding to what we call by the name of Nature. For a
given germ does not give rise to any chance living being, nor spring from
any chance one; but each germ springs from a definite parent and gives
rise to a definite progeny. And thus it is the germ that is the ruling
influence and fabricator of the offspring. For these it is by nature, (30) the
offspring being at any rate that which in nature will spring from it. At
the same time the offspring is anterior to the germ; for germ and
perfected progeny are related as the developmental process and the
result. Anterior, however, to both germ and product is the organism
from which the germ was derived. For every germ implies two
organisms, the parent and the progeny. For germ or seed is both the seed
of the organism from which it came, of the horse, for instance, from
which it was derived, (35) and the seed of the organism that will
eventually arise from it, of the mule, for example, which is developed
from the seed of the horse. The same seed then is the seed both of the
horse and of the mule, though in different ways as here set forth.
Moreover, the seed is potentially that which will spring from it, and the
relation of potentiality to actuality we know.
[642a] There are then two causes, namely, necessity and the final
end. For many things are produced, simply as the results of necessity. It
may, however, be asked, of what mode of necessity are we speaking
when we say this. (5) For it can be of neither of those two modes which
are set forth in the philosophical treatises. There is, however, the third
mode, in such things at any rate as are generated. For instance, we say
that food is necessary; because an animal cannot possibly do without it.
This third mode is what may be called hypothetical necessity. (10) Here is
another example of it. If a piece of wood is to be split with an axe, the
axe must of necessity be hard; and, if hard, must of necessity be made of
bronze or iron. Now exactly in the same way the body, which like the
axe is an instrument—for both the body as a whole and its several parts
individually have definite operations for which they are made—just in
the same way, I say, the body, if it is to do its work, must of necessity be
of such and such a character, and made of such and such materials.
It is plain then that there are two modes of causation, (15) and that
both of these must, so far as possible, be taken into account in
explaining the works of nature, or that at any rate an attempt must be
made to include them both; and that those who fail in this tell us in
reality nothing about nature. For primary cause constitutes the nature of
an animal much more than does its matter. There are indeed passages in
which even Empedocles hits upon this, and following the guidance of
fact, (20) finds himself constrained to speak of the ratio as constituting the
essence and real nature of things. Such, for instance, is the case when he
explains what is a bone. For he does not merely describe its material,
and say it is this one element, or those two or three elements, or a
compound of all the elements, but states the ratio of their combination.
As with a bone, so manifestly is it with the flesh and all other similar
parts.
The reason why our predecessors failed in hitting upon this method of
treatment was, (25) that they were not in possession of the notion of
essence, nor of any definition of substance. The first who came near it
was Democritus, and he was far from adopting it as a necessary method
in natural science, but was merely brought to it, spite of himself, by
constraint of facts. In the time of Socrates a nearer approach was made
to the method. But at this period men gave up inquiring into the works
of nature, and philosophers diverted their attention to political science
and to the virtues which benefit mankind. (30)
Of the method itself the following is an example. In dealing with
respiration we must show that it takes place for such or such a final
object; and we must also show that this and that part of the process is
necessitated by this and that other stage of it. By necessity we shall
sometimes mean hypothetical necessity, the necessity, that is, that the
requisite antecedents shall be there, if the final end is to be reached; and
sometimes absolute necessity, such necessity as that which connects
substances and their inherent properties and characters. For the
alternate discharge and re-entrance of heat and the inflow of air are
necessary if we are to live. (35) Here we have at once a necessity in the
former of the two senses. [642b] But the alternation of heat and
refrigeration produces of necessity an alternate admission and discharge
of the outer air, and this is a necessity of the second kind.
In the foregoing we have an example of the method which we must
adopt, and also an example of the kind of phenomena, the causes of
which we have to investigate.

2 Some writers propose to reach the definitions of the ultimate forms

of animal life by bipartite division. (5) But this method is often difficult,
and often impracticable.
Sometimes the final differentia of the subdivision is sufficient by itself,
and the antecedent differentiae are mere surplusage. Thus in the series
Footed, Two-footed, Cleft-footed, the last term is all-expressive by itself,
and to append the higher terms is only an idle iteration.
Again it is not permissible to break up a natural group, Birds for
instance, (10) by putting its members under different bifurcations, as is
done in the published dichotomies, where some birds are ranked with
animals of the water, and others placed in a different class. The group
Birds and the group Fishes happen to be named, while other natural
groups have no popular names; for instance, the groups that we may call
Sanguineous and Bloodless are not known popularly by any
designations. (15) If such natural groups are not to be broken up, the
method of Dichotomy cannot be employed, for it necessarily involves
such breaking up and dislocation. The group of the Many-footed, for
instance, would, under this method, have to be dismembered, and some
of its kinds distributed among land animals, others among water
animals. (20)
3 Again, privative terms inevitably form one branch of dichotomous
division, as we see in the proposed dichotomies. But privative terms in
their character of privatives admit of no subdivision. For there can be no
specific forms of a negation, of Featherless for instance or of Footless, as
there are of Feathered and of Footed. (25) Yet a generic differentia must
be subdivisible; for otherwise what is there that makes it generic rather
than specific? There are to be found generic, that is specifically
subdivisible, differentiae; Feathered for instance and Footed. For feathers
are divisible into Barbed and Unbarbed, and feet into Manycleft, and
Twocleft, like those of animals with bifid hoofs, and Uncleft or
Undivided, like those of animals with solid hoofs. (30) Now even with
differentiae capable of this specific subdivision it is difficult enough so to
make the classification, as that each animal shall be comprehended in
some one subdivision and in not more than one; but far more difficult,
nay impossible, is it to do this, (35) if we start with a dichotomy into two
contradictories. (Suppose for instance we start with the two
contradictories, Feathered and Unfeathered; we shall find that the ant,
the glow-worm, and some other animals fall under both divisions.) For
each differentia must be presented by some species. There must be some
species, therefore, under the privative heading. [643a] Now
specifically distinct animals cannot present in their essence a common
undifferentiated element, but any apparently common element must
really be differentiated. (Bird and Man for instance are both Two-footed,
but their two-footedness is diverse and differentiated. So any two
sanguineous groups must have some difference in their blood, if their
blood is part of their essence.) From this it follows that a privative term,
being insusceptible of differentiation, (5) cannot be a generic differentia;
for, if it were, there would be a common undifferentiated element in two
different groups.
Again, if the species are ultimate indivisible groups, that is, are groups
with indivisible differentiae, and if no differentia be common to several
groups, the number of differentiae must be equal to the number of
species. If a differentia though not divisible could yet be common to
several groups, (10) then it is plain that in virtue of that common
differentia specifically distinct animals would fall into the same division.
It is necessary then, if the differentiae, under which are ranged all the
ultimate and indivisible groups, are specific characters, that none of
them shall be common; for otherwise, as already said, specifically
distinct animals will come into one and the same division. But this
would violate one of the requisite conditions, which are as follows. No
ultimate group must be included in more than a single division; different
groups must not be included in the same division; and every group must
be found in some division. (15) It is plain then that we cannot get at the
ultimate specific forms of the animal, or any other, kingdom by bifurcate
division. If we could, the number of ultimate differentiae would equal
the number of ultimate animal forms. (20) For assume an order of beings
whose prime differentiae are White and Black. Each of these branches
will bifurcate, and their branches again, and so on till we reach the
ultimate differentiae, whose number will be four or some other power of
two, and will also be the number of the ultimate species comprehended
in the order.
(A species is constituted by the combination of differentia and matter.
For no part of an animal is purely material or purely immaterial; nor can
a body, (25) independently of its condition, constitute an animal or any of
its parts, as has repeatedly been observed.)
Further, the differentiae must be elements of the essence, and not
merely essential attributes. Thus if Figure is the term to be divided, it
must not be divided into figures whose angles are equal to two right
angles, and figures whose angles are together greater than two right
angles. For it is only an attribute of a triangle and not part of its essence
that its angles are equal to two right angles. (30)
Again, the bifurcations must be opposites, like White and Black,
Straight and Bent; and if we characterize one branch by either term, we
must characterize the other by its opposite, and not, for example,
characterize one branch by a colour, the other by a mode of progression,
swimming for instance.
Furthermore, living beings cannot be divided by the functions
common to body and soul, (35) by Flying, for instance, and Walking, as
we see them divided in the dichotomies already referred to. [643b] For
some groups, Ants for instance, fall under both divisions, some ants
flying while others do not. Similarly as regards the division into Wild
and Tame; for it also would involve the disruption of a species into
different groups. For in almost all species in which some members are
tame, (5) there are other members that are wild. Such, for example, is the
case with Men, Horses, Oxen, Dogs in India, Pigs, Goats, Sheep; groups
which, if double, ought to have what they have not, namely, different
appellations; and which, if single, prove that Wildness and Tameness do
not amount to specific differences. And whatever single element we take
as a basis of division the same difficulty will occur.
The method then that we must adopt is to attempt to recognize the
natural groups, (10) following the indications afforded by the instincts of
mankind, which led them for instance to form the class of Birds and the
class of Fishes, each of which groups combines a multitude of
differentiae, and is not defined by a single one as in dichotomy. The
method of dichotomy is either impossible (for it would put a single
group under different divisions or contrary groups under the same
division), (15) or it only furnishes a single ultimate differentia for each
species, which either alone or with its series of antecedents has to
constitute the ultimate species.
If, again, a new differential character be introduced at any stage into
the division, the necessary result is that the continuity of the division
becomes merely a unity and continuity of agglomeration, like the unity
and continuity of a series of sentences coupled together by conjunctive
particles. For instance, suppose we have the bifurcation Feathered and
Featherless, (20) and then divide Feathered into Wild and Tame, or into
White and Black. Tame and White are not a differentiation of Feathered,
but are the commencement of an independent bifurcation, and are
foreign to the series at the end of which they are introduced.
As we said then, we must define at the outset by a multiplicity of
differentiae. (25) If we do so, privative terms will be available, which are
unavailable to the dichotomist.
The impossibility of reaching the definition of any of the ultimate
forms by dichotomy of the larger group, as some propose, is manifest
also from the following considerations. It is impossible that a single
differentia, (30) either by itself or with its antecedents, shall express the
whole essence of a species. (In saying a single differentia by itself I mean
such an isolated differentia as Cleft-footed; in saying a single differentia
with antecedent I mean, to give an instance, Many-cleft-footed preceded
by Cleft-footed. The very continuity of a series of successive differentiae
in a division is intended to show that it is their combination that
expresses the character of the resulting unit, (35) or ultimate group. But
one is misled by the usages of language into imagining that it is merely
the final term of the series, Many-cleft-footed for instance, that
constitutes the whole differentia, and that the antecedent terms, Footed,
Cleft-footed, are superfluous. [644a] Now it is evident that such a
series cannot consist of many terms. For if one divides and subdivides,
one soon reaches the final differential term, but for all that will not have
got to the ultimate division, that is, to the species.) No single differentia,
I repeat, either by itself or with its antecedents, (5) can possibly express
the essence of a species. Suppose, for example, Man to be the animal to
be defined; the single differentia will be Cleft-footed, either by itself or
with its antecedents, Footed and Two-footed. Now if man was nothing
more than a Cleft-footed animal, this single differentia would duly
represent his essence. But seeing that this is not the case, more
differentiae than this one will necessarily be required to define him; and
these cannot come under one division; for each single branch of a
dichotomy ends in a single differentia, and cannot possibly include
several differentiae belonging to one and the same animal.
It is impossible then to reach any of the ultimate animal forms by
dichotomous division. (10)

4 It deserves inquiry why a single name denoting a higher group was

not invented by mankind, as an appellation to comprehend the two
groups of Water animals and Winged animals. For even these have
certain attributes in common. However, the present nomenclature is just.
(15) Groups that only differ in degree, and in the more or less of an

identical element that they possess, are aggregated under a single class;
groups whose attributes are not identical but analogous are separated.
For instance, bird differs from bird by gradation, (20) or by excess and
defect; some birds have long feathers, others short ones, but all are
feathered. Bird and Fish are more remote and only agree in having
analogous organs; for what in the bird is feather, in the fish is scale.
Such analogies can scarcely, however, serve universally as indications
for the formation of groups, for almost all animals present analogies in
their corresponding parts.
The individuals comprised within a species, such as Socrates and
Coriscus, are the real existences; but inasmuch as these individuals
possess one common specific form, it will suffice to state the universal
attributes of the species, (25) that is, the attributes common to all its
individuals, once for all, as otherwise there will be endless reiteration, as
has already been pointed out.1
But as regards the larger groups—such as Birds—which comprehend
many species, there may be a question. For on the one hand it may be
urged that as the ultimate species represent the real existences, it will be
well, if practicable, to examine these ultimate species separately, (30) just
as we examine the species Man separately; to examine, that is, not the
whole class Birds collectively, but the Ostrich, the Crane, and the other
indivisible groups or species belonging to the class.
On the other hand, however, this course would involve repeated
mention of the same attribute, as the same attribute is common to many
species, (35) and so far would be somewhat irrational and tedious.
[644b] Perhaps, then, it will be best to treat generically the universal
attributes of the groups that have a common nature and contain closely
allied subordinate forms, whether they are groups recognized by a true
instinct of mankind, such as Birds and Fishes, (5) or groups not popularly
known by a common appellation, but withal composed of closely allied
subordinate groups; and only to deal individually with the attributes of a
single species, when such species—man, for instance, and any other
such, if such there be—stands apart from others, and does not constitute
with them a larger natural group.
It is generally similarity in the shape of particular organs, or of the
whole body, that has determined the formation of the larger groups. (10)
It is in virtue of such a similarity that Birds, Fishes, Cephalopoda, and
Testacea have been made to form each a separate class. For within the
limits of each such class, the parts do not differ in that they have no
nearer resemblance than that of analogy—such as exists between the
bone of man and the spine of fish—but differ merely in respect of such
corporeal conditions as largeness smallness, softness hardness, (15)
smoothness roughness, and other similar oppositions, or, in one word, in
respect of degree.
 We have now touched upon the canons for criticizing the method of
natural science, and have considered what is the most systematic and
easy course of investigation; we have also dealt with division, and the
mode of conducting it so as best to attain the ends of science, and have
shown why dichotomy is either impracticable or inefficacious for its
professed purposes.
Having laid this foundation, (20) let us pass on to our next topic.

5 Of things constituted by nature some are ungenerated, imperishable,

and eternal, while others are subject to generation and decay. (25) The
former are excellent beyond compare and divine, but less accessible to
knowledge. The evidence that might throw light on them, and on the
problems which we long to solve respecting them, is furnished but
scantily by sensation; whereas respecting perishable plants and animals
we have abundant information, living as we do in their midst, (30) and
ample data may be collected concerning all their various kinds, if only
we are willing to take sufficient pains. Both departments, however, have
their special charm. The scanty conceptions to which we can attain of
celestial things give us, from their excellence, more pleasure than all our
knowledge of the world in which we live; just as a half glimpse of
persons that we love is more delightful than a leisurely view of other
things, (35) whatever their number and dimensions. [645a] On the other
hand, in certitude and in completeness our knowledge of terrestrial
things has the advantage. Moreover, their greater nearness and affinity
to us balances somewhat the loftier interest of the heavenly things that
are the objects of the higher philosophy. (5) Having already treated of the
celestial world, as far as our conjectures could reach, we proceed to treat
of animals, without omitting, to the best of our ability, any member of
the kingdom, however ignoble. For if some have no graces to charm the
sense, yet even these, by disclosing to intellectual perception the artistic
spirit that designed them, give immense pleasure to all who can trace
links of causation, (10) and are inclined to philosophy. Indeed, it would be
strange if mimic representations of them were attractive, because they
disclose the mimetic skill of the painter or sculptor, and the original
realities themselves were not more interesting, to all at any rate who
have eyes to discern the reasons that determined their formation. (15) We
therefore must not recoil with childish aversion from the examination of
the humbler animals. Every realm of nature is marvellous: and as
Heraclitus, when the strangers who came to visit him found him
warming himself at the furnace in the kitchen and hesitated to go in, is
reported to have bidden them not to be afraid to enter, as even in that
kitchen divinities were present, (20) so we should venture on the study of
every kind of animal without distaste; for each and all will reveal to us
something natural and something beautiful. Absence of haphazard and
conduciveness of everything to an end are to be found in Nature’s works
in the highest degree, and the resultant end of her generations and
combinations is a form of the beautiful. (25)
If any person thinks the examination of the rest of the animal kingdom
an unworthy task, he must hold in like disesteem the study of man. For
no one can look at the primordia of the human frame—blood, flesh,
bones, vessels, and the like—without much repugnance. (30) Moreover,
when any one of the parts or structures, be it which it may, is under
discussion, it must not be supposed that it is its material composition to
which attention is being directed or which is the object of the discussion,
but the relation of such part to the total form. Similarly, the true object
of architecture is not bricks, mortar, or timber, but the house; and so the
principal object of natural philosophy is not the material elements, (35)
but their composition, and the totality of the form, independently of
which they have no existence.
The course of exposition must be first to state the attributes common
to whole groups of animals, and then to attempt to give their
explanation. [645b] Many groups, as already noticed,2 present
common attributes, that is to say, in some cases absolutely identical
affections, (5) and absolutely identical organs—feet, feathers, scales, and
the like; while in other groups the affections and organs are only so far
identical as that they are analogous. For instance, some groups have
lungs, others have no lung, but an organ analogous to a lung in its place;
some have blood, others have no blood, but a fluid analogous to blood,
and with the same office. To treat of the common attributes in connexion
with each individual group would involve, (10) as already suggested,
useless iteration. For many groups have common attributes. So much for
this topic.
 As every instrument and every bodily member subserves some partial
end, (15) that is to say, some special action, so the whole body must be
destined to minister to some plenary sphere of action. Thus the saw is
made for sawing, for sawing is a function, and not sawing for the saw.
Similarly, the body too must somehow or other be made for the soul,
and each part of it for some subordinate function, to which it is adapted.
We have, (20) then, first to describe the common functions, common,
that is, to the whole animal kingdom, or to certain large groups, or to
the members of a species. In other words, we have to describe the
attributes common to all animals, or to assemblages, (25) like the class of
Birds, of closely allied groups differentiated by gradation, or to groups
like Man not differentiated into subordinate groups. In the first case the
common attributes may be called analogous, in the second generic, in
the third specific.
When a function is ancillary to another, a like relation manifestly
obtains between the organs which discharge these functions; and
similarly, (30) if one function is prior to and the end of another, their
respective organs will stand to each other in the same relation. Thirdly,
the existence of these parts involves that of other things as their
necessary consequents.
Instances of what I mean by functions and affections are
Reproduction, (35) Growth, Copulation, Waking, Sleep, Locomotion, and
other similar vital actions. Instances of what I mean by parts are Nose,
Eye, Face, and other so-called members or limbs, and also the more
elementary parts of which these are made. [646a] So much for the
method to. be pursued. Let us now try to set forth the causes of all vital
phenomena, whether universal or particular, and in so doing let us
follow that order of exposition which conforms, (5) as we have indicated,
to the order of nature.

1 Cf. i. 1. 639a 27.

2 Cf. i. 1. 639a 18 and 27.

 BOOK II

1 The nature and the number of the parts of which animals are
severally composed are matters which have already been set forth in
detail in the book of Researches about Animals. (10) We have now to
inquire what are the causes that in each case have determined this
composition, a subject quite distinct from that dealt with in the
Researches.
Now there are three degrees of composition; and of these the first in
order, as all will allow, is composition out of what some call the
elements, such as earth, air, water, fire. Perhaps, however, (15) it would
be more accurate to say composition out of the elementary forces; nor
indeed out of all of these, but out of a limited number of them, as
defined in previous treatises. For fluid and solid, hot and cold, form the
material of all composite bodies; and all other differences are secondary
to these, such differences, that is, as heaviness or lightness, density or
rarity, roughness or smoothness, and any other such properties of matter
as there may be. The second degree of composition is that by which the
homogeneous parts of animals, (20) such as bone, flesh, and the like, are
constituted out of the primary substances. The third and last stage is the
composition which forms the heterogeneous parts, such as face, hand,
and the rest.
Now the order of actual development and the order of logical
existence are always the inverse of each other. (25) For that which is
posterior in the order of development is antecedent in the order of
nature, and that is genetically last which in nature is first.
(That this is so is manifest by induction; for a house does not exist for
the sake of bricks and stones, but these materials for the sake of the
house; and the same is the case with the materials of other bodies. Nor is
induction required to show this. It is included in our conception of
generation. (30) For generation is a process from a something to a
something; that which is generated having a cause in which it originates
and a cause in which it ends. The originating cause is the primary
efficient cause, which is something already endowed with tangible
existence, while the final cause is some definite form or similar end; for
man generates man, and plant generates plant, (35) in each case out of the
underlying material.)
In order of time, then, the material and the generative process must
necessarily be anterior to the being that is generated; but in logical order
the definitive character and form of each being precedes the material.
[646b] This is evident if one only tries to define the process of
formation. For the definition of house-building includes and presupposes
that of the house; but the definition of the house does not include nor
presuppose that of house-building; and the same is true of all other
productions. So that it must necessarily be that the elementary material
exists for the sake of the homogeneous parts, (5) seeing that these are
genetically posterior to it, just as the heterogeneous parts are posterior
genetically to them. For these heterogeneous parts have reached the end
and goal, having the third degree of composition, in which degree
generation or development often attains its final term. (10)
Animals, then, are composed of homogeneous parts, and are also
composed of heterogeneous parts. The former, however, exist for the
sake of the latter. For the active functions and operations of the body are
carried on by these; that is, by the heterogeneous parts, such as the eye,
the nostril, the whole face, the fingers, the hand, (15) and the whole arm.
But inasmuch as there is a great variety in the functions and motions not
only of aggregate animals but also of the individual organs, it is
necessary that the substances out of which these are composed shall
present a diversity of properties. For some purposes softness is
advantageous, for others hardness; some parts must be capable of
extension, others of flexion. Such properties, then, (20) are distributed
separately to the different homogeneous parts, one being soft another
hard, one fluid another solid, one viscous another brittle; whereas each
of the heterogeneous parts presents a combination of multifarious
properties. For the hand, to take an example, requires one property to
enable it to effect pressure, (25) and another and different property for
simple prehension. For this reason the active or executive parts of the
body are compounded out of bones, sinews, flesh, and the like, but not
these latter out of the former.
So far, then, as has yet been stated, the relations between these two
orders of parts are determined by a final cause. We have, however, to
inquire whether necessity may not also have a share in the matter; and it
must be admitted that these mutual relations could not from the very
beginning have possibly been other than they are. (30) For heterogeneous
parts can be made up out of homogeneous parts, either from a plurality
of them, or from a single one, as is the case with some of the viscera
which, varying in configuration, are yet, (35) to speak broadly, formed
from a single homogeneous substance; but that homogeneous substances
should be formed out of a combination of heterogeneous parts is clearly
an impossibility. [647a] For these causes, then, some parts of animals
are simple and homogeneous, while others are composite and
heterogeneous; and dividing the parts into the active or executive and
the sensitive, each one of the former is, (5) as before said, heterogeneous,
and each one of the latter homogeneous. For it is in homogeneous parts
alone that sensation can occur, as the following considerations show.
Each sense is confined to a single order of sensibles, and its organ
must be such as to admit the action of that kind or order. But it is only
that which is endowed with a property in posse that is acted on by that
which has the like property in esse, so that the two are the same in kind,
(10) and if the latter is single so also is the former. Thus it is that while no

physiologists ever dream of saying of the hand or face or other such part
that one is earth, another water, another fire, they couple each separate
sense-organ with a separate element, asserting this one to be air and that
other to be fire.
Sensation, then, is confined to the simple or homogeneous parts. (15)
But, as might reasonably be expected, the organ of touch, though still
homogeneous, is yet the least simple of all the sense-organs. For touch
more than any other sense appears to be correlated to several distinct
kinds of objects, and to recognize more than one category of contrasts,
heat and cold, for instance, solidity and fluidity, and other similar
oppositions. Accordingly, the organ which deals with these varied
objects is of all the sense-organs the most corporeal, (20) being either the
flesh, or the substance which in some animals takes the place of flesh.
Now as there cannot possibly be an animal without sensation, it
follows as a necessary consequence that every animal must have some
homogeneous parts; for these alone are capable of sensation, the
heterogeneous parts serving for the active functions. Again, as the
sensory faculty, the motor faculty, and the nutritive faculty are all
lodged in one and the same part of the body, (25) as was stated in a
former treatise, it is necessary that the part which is the primary seat of
these principles shall on the one hand, in its character of general sensory
recipient, be one of the simple parts; and on the other hand shall, in its
motor and active character, be one of the heterogeneous parts. (30) For
this reason it is the heart which in sanguineous animals constitutes this
central part, and in bloodless animals it is that which takes the place of a
heart. For the heart, like the other viscera, is one of the homogeneous
parts; for, if cut up, its pieces are homogeneous in substance with each
other. But it is at the same time heterogeneous in virtue of its definite
configuration. And the same is true of the other so-called viscera, (35)
which are indeed formed from the same material as the heart. For all
these viscera have a sanguineous character owing to their being situated
upon vascular ducts and branches. [647b] For just as a stream of water
deposits mud, so the various viscera, the heart excepted, are, as it were,
deposits from the stream of blood in the vessels. And as to the heart, the
very starting-point of the vessels, (5) and the actual seat of the force by
which the blood is first fabricated, it is but what one would naturally
expect, that out of the selfsame nutriment of which it is the recipient its
own proper substance shall be formed. Such, then, are the reasons why
the viscera are of sanguineous aspect; and why in one point of view they
are homogeneous, in another heterogeneous. [Chapters 2–17 of Book II
and Books III and IV omitted.]
 De Generatione Animalium

Translated by Arthur Platt

 CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER
1. Introduction.
[Chapters 2–16 omitted.]
17, 18. Semen. Criticism of the Hippocratic theory of pangenesis.
[Chapter 19 and part of 20 omitted.]
20. The catamenia.
21, 22. The Aristotelian theory of sexual generation.
23. Conclusion.
[Books II–V omitted.]
DE GENERATIONE ANIMALIUM

(On the Generation of Animals)

 BOOK I

1 [715a] We have now discussed the other parts of animals, both

generally and with reference to the peculiarities of each kind, explaining
how each part exists on account of such a cause, and I mean by this the
final cause.
There are four causes underlying everything: first, the final cause, that
for the sake of which a thing exists; secondly, the formal cause, the
definition of its essence (and these two we may regard pretty much as
one and the same); thirdly, the material; and fourthly, (5) the moving
principle or efficient cause.
We have then already discussed the other three causes, for the
definition and the final cause are the same, and the material of animals
is their parts—of the whole animal the non-homogeneous parts, (10) of
these again the homogeneous, and of these last the so-called elements of
all matter. It remains to speak of those parts which contribute to the
generation of animals and of which nothing definite has yet been said,
and to explain what is the moving or efficient cause. To inquire into this
last and to inquire into the generation of each animal is in a way the
same thing; and, therefore, my plan has united them together, (15)
arranging the discussion of these parts last, and the beginning of the
question of generation next to them.
Now some animals come into being from the union of male and
female, i. e. all those kinds of animal which possess the two sexes. (20)
This is not the case with all of them; though in the sanguinea with few
exceptions the creature, when its growth is complete, is either male or
female, and though some bloodless animals have sexes so that they
generate offspring of the same kind, yet other bloodless animals generate
indeed, but not offspring of the same kind; such are all that come into
being not from a union of the sexes, but from decaying earth and
excrements. (25) To speak generally, if we take all animals which change
their locality, some by swimming, others by flying, others by walking,
we find in these the two sexes, not only in the sanguinea but also in
some of the bloodless animals; and this applies in the case of the latter
sometimes to the whole class, as the cephalopoda and crustacea, but in
the class of insects only to the majority. [715b] Of these, all which are
produced by union of animals of the same kind generate also after their
kind, but all of which are not produced by animals, (5) but from decaying
matter, generate indeed, but produce another kind, and the offspring is
neither male nor female; such are some of the insects. This is what might
have been expected, for if those animals which are not produced by
parents had themselves united and produced others, then their offspring
must have been either like or unlike to themselves. (10) If like, then their
parents ought to have come into being in the same way; this is only a
reasonable postulate to make, for it is plainly the case with other
animals. If unlike, and yet able to copulate, then there would have come
into being again from them another kind of creature and again another
from these, and this would have gone on to infinity. (15) But Nature flies
from the infinite, for the infinite is unending or imperfect, and Nature
ever seeks amend.
But all those creatures which do not move, as the testacea and animals
that live by clinging to something else, inasmuch as their nature
resembles that of plants, have no sex any more than plants have, (20) but
as applied to them the word is only used in virtue of a similarity and
analogy. For there is a slight distinction of this sort, since even in plants
we find in the same kind some trees which bear fruit and others which,
while bearing none themselves, (25) yet contribute to the ripening of the
fruits of those which do, as in the case of the fig-tree and caprifig.
The same holds good also in plants, some coming into being from seed
and others, as it were, by the spontaneous action of Nature, arising
either from decomposition of the earth or of some parts in other plants,
for some are not formed by themselves separately but are produced upon
other trees, as the mistletoe. [716a] Plants, however, must be
investigated separately. [Chapters 2–16 omitted.]

17 [721a] Some animals manifestly emit semen, as all the

sanguinea, (30) but whether the insects and cephalopoda do so is
uncertain. Therefore this is a question to be considered, whether all
males do so, or not all; and if not all, why some do and some not; and
whether the female also contributes any semen or not; and, if not semen,
whether she does not contribute anything else either, or whether she
contributes something else which is not semen. [721b] We must also
inquire what those animals which emit semen contribute by means of it
to generation, (5) and generally what is the nature of semen, and of the
so-called catamenia in all animals which discharge this liquid.
Now it is thought that all animals are generated out of semen, and
that the semen comes from the parents. Wherefore it is part of the same
inquiry to ask whether both male and female produce it or only one of
them, and to ask whether it comes from the whole of the body or not
from the whole; for if the latter is true it is reasonable to suppose that it
does not come from both parents either. (10) Accordingly, since some say
that it comes from the whole of the body, we must investigate this
question first.
The proofs from which it can be argued that the semen comes from
each and every part of the body may be reduced to four. First, the
intensity of the pleasure of coition; for the same state of feeling is more
pleasant if multiplied, (15) and that which affects all the parts is
multiplied as compared with that which affects only one or a few.
Secondly, the alleged fact that mutilations are inherited, for they argue
that since the parent is deficient in this part the semen does not come
from thence, and the result is that the corresponding part is not formed
in the offspring. (20) Thirdly, the resemblances to the parents, for the
young are born like them part for part as well as in the whole body; if
then the coming of the semen from the whole body is cause of the
resemblance of the whole, so the parts would be like because it comes
from each of the parts. Fourthly, it would seem to be reasonable to say
that as there is some first thing from which the whole arises, (25) so it is
also with each of the parts, and therefore if semen or seed is cause of the
whole so each of the parts would have a seed peculiar to itself. And
these opinions are plausibly supported by such evidence as that children
are born with a likeness to their parents, (30) not only in congenital but
also in acquired characteristics; for before now, when the parents have
had scars, the children have been born with a mark in the form of the
scar in the same place, and there was a case at Chalcedon where the
father had a brand on his arm and the letter was marked on the child,
only confused and not clearly articulated. That is pretty much the
evidence on which some believe that the semen comes from all the body.
[722a]

18 On examining the question, however, the opposite appears more

likely, for it is not hard to refute the above arguments and the view
involves impossibilities. First, then, the resemblance of children to
parents is no proof that the semen comes from the whole body, (5)
because the resemblance is found also in voice, nails, hair, and way of
moving, from which nothing comes. And men generate before they yet
have certain characters, such as a beard or grey hair. Further, children
are like their more remote ancestors from whom nothing has come, for
the resemblances recur at an interval of many generations, (10) as in the
case of the woman in Elis who had intercourse with the Aethiop; her
daughter was not an Aethiop but the son of that daughter was. The same
thing applies also to plants, for it is clear that if this theory were true the
seed would come from all parts of plants also; but often a plant does not
possess one part, and another part may be removed, and a third grows
afterwards. Besides, (15) the seed does not come from the pericarp, and
yet this also comes into being with the same form as in the parent plant.
We may also ask whether the semen comes from each of the
homogeneous parts only, such as flesh and bone and sinew, or also from
the heterogeneous, such as face and hands. For if (1) from the former
only, (20) we object that the resemblance exists rather in the
heterogeneous parts, such as face and hands and feet; if then it is not
because of the semen coming from all parts that children resemble their
parents in these, what is there to stop the homogeneous parts also from
being like for some other reason than this? If (2) the semen comes from
the heterogeneous alone, then it does not come from all parts; but it is
more fitting that it should come from the homogeneous parts, (25) for
they are prior to the heterogeneous which are composed of them; and as
children are born like their parents in face and hands, so they are,
necessarily, in flesh and nails. If (3) the semen comes from both, what
would be the manner of generation? For the heterogeneous parts are
composed of the homogeneous, (30) so that to come from the former
would be to come from the latter and from their composition. To make
this clearer by an illustration, take a written name; if anything came
from the whole of it, it would be from each of the syllables, and if from
these, from the letters and their composition. So that if really flesh and
bones are composed of fire and the like elements, the semen would come
rather from the elements than anything else, for how can it come from
their composition? Yet without this composition there would be no
resemblance. [722b] If again something creates this composition later,
it would be this that would be the cause of the resemblance, not the
coming of the semen from every part of the body.
Further, if the parts of the future animal are separated in the semen,
how do they live? and if they are connected, they would form a small
animal.
And what about the generative parts? For that which comes from the
male is not similar to what comes from the female. (5)
Again, if the semen comes from all parts of both parents alike, the
result is two animals, for the offspring will have all the parts of both.
Wherefore Empedocles seems to say what agrees pretty well with this
view (if we are to adopt it), to a certain extent at any rate, (10) but to be
wrong if we think otherwise. What he says agrees with it when he
declares that there is a sort of tally in the male and female, and that the
whole offspring does not come from either, ‘but sundered is the fashion
of limbs, some in man’s …’ For why does not the female generate from
herself if the semen comes from all parts alike and she has a receptacle
ready in the uterus? But, it seems, (15) either it does not come from all
the parts, or if it does it is in the way Empedocles says, not the same
parts coming from each parent, which is why they need intercourse with
each other.
Yet this also is impossible, just as much as it is impossible for the parts
when full grown to survive and have life in them when torn apart, as
Empedocles accounts for the creation of animals; in the time of his
‘Reign of Love’, says he, ‘many heads sprang up without necks,’ (20) and
later on these isolated parts combined into animals. Now that this is
impossible is plain, for neither would the separate parts be able to
survive without having any soul or life in them, nor if they were living
things, so to say, could several of them combine so as to become one
animal again. Yet those who say that semen comes from the whole of the
body really have to talk in that way, (25) and as it happened then in the
earth during the ‘Reign of Love’, so it happens according to them in the
body. Now it is impossible that the parts should be united together when
they come into being and should come from different parts of the parent,
meeting together in one place. Then how can the upper and lower, right
and left, front and back parts have been ‘sundered’? All these points are
unintelligible. (30) Further, some parts are distinguished by possessing a
faculty, others by being in certain states or conditions; the
heterogeneous, as tongue and hand, by the faculty of doing something,
the homogeneous by hardness and softness and the other similar states.
Blood, then, will not to be blood, nor flesh flesh, in any and every state.
It is clear, then, that that which comes from any part, as blood from
blood or flesh from flesh, will not be identical with that part. [723a]
But if it is something different from which the blood of the offspring
comes, the coming of the semen from all the parts will not be the cause
of the resemblance, as is held by the supporters of this theory. For if
blood is formed from something which is not blood, it is enough that the
semen come from one part only, (5) for why should not all the other parts
of the offspring as well as blood be formed from one part of the parent?
Indeed, this theory seems to be the same as that of Anaxagoras, that
none of the homogeneous parts come into being, except that these
theorists assume, in the case of the generation of animals, what he
assumed of the universe.
Then, again, how will these parts that came from all the body of the
parent be increased or grow? It is true that Anaxagoras plausibly says
that particles of flesh out of the food are added to the flesh. (10) But if we
do not say this (while saying that semen comes from all parts of the
body), how will the foetus become greater by the addition of something
else if that which is added remain unchanged? But if that which is added
can change, (15) then why not say that the semen from the very first is of
such a kind that blood and flesh can be made out of it, instead of saying
that it itself is blood and flesh? Nor is there any other alternative, for
surely we cannot say that it is increased later by a process of mixing, as
wine when water is poured into it. For in that case each element of the
mixture would be itself at first while still unmixed, (20) but the fact rather
is that flesh and bone and each of the other parts is such later. And to say
that some part of the semen is sinew and bone is quite above us, as the
saying is.
Besides all this there is a difficulty if the sex is determined in
conception (as Empedocles says: ‘it is shed in clean vessels; some wax
female, (25) if they fall in with cold’). Anyhow, it is plain that both men
and women change not only from infertile to fertile, but also from
bearing female to bearing male offspring, which looks as if the cause
does not lie in the semen coming from all the parent or not, (30) but in
the mutual proportion or disproportion of that which comes from the
woman and the man, or in something of this kind. It is clear, then, if we
are to put this down as being so, that the female sex is not determined
by the semen coming from any particular part, and consequently neither
is the special sexual part so determined (if really the same semen can
become either a male or female child, which shows that the sexual part
does not exist in the semen). Why, then, should we assert this of this part
any more than of the others? For if semen does not come from this part,
the uterus, the same account may be given of the others. [723b]
Again, some creatures come into being neither from parents of the
same kind nor from parents of a different kind, (5) as flies and the various
kinds of what are called fleas; from these are produced animals indeed,
but not in this case of similar nature, but a kind of scolex. It is plain in
this case that the young of a different kind are not produced by semen
coming from all parts of the parent, for they would then resemble them,
if indeed resemblance is a sign of its coming from all parts.
Further, even among animals some produce many young from a single
coition (and something like this is universal among plants, (10) for it is
plain that they bear all the fruit of a whole season from a single
movement). And yet how would this be possible if the semen were
secreted from all the body? For from a single coition and a single
segregation of the semen scattered throughout the body must needs
follow only a single secretion. Nor is it possible for it to be separated in
the uterus, for this would no longer be a mere separation of semen, but,
as it were, a severance from a new plant or animal. (15)
Again, the cuttings from a plant bear seed; clearly, therefore, even
before they were cut from the parent plant, they bore their fruit from
their own mass alone, and the seed did not come from all the plant.
But the greatest proof of all is derived from observations we have
sufficiently established on insects. For, if not in all, at least in most of
these, (20) the female in the act of copulation inserts a part of herself into
the male. This, as we said before, is the way they copulate, for the
females manifestly insert this from below into the males above, not in all
cases, but in most of those observed. Hence it seems clear that, (25) when
the males do emit semen, then also the cause of the generation is not its
coming from all the body, but something else which must be
investigated hereafter. For even if it were true that it comes from all the
body, as they say, they ought not to claim that it comes from all parts of
it, but only from the creative part—from the workman, so to say, not the
material he works in. Instead of that, (30) they talk as if one were to say
that the semen comes from the shoes, for, generally speaking, if a son is
like his father, the shoes he wears are like his father’s shoes.
As to the vehemence of pleasure in sexual intercourse, it is not
because the semen comes from all the body, but because there is a
strong friction (wherefore if this intercourse is often repeated the
pleasure is diminished in the persons concerned). [724a] Moreover,
the pleasure is at the end of the act, but it ought, on the theory, to be in
each of the parts, and not at the same time, but sooner in some and later
in others.
If mutilated young are born of mutilated parents, it is for the same
reason as that for which they are like them. And the young of mutilated
parents are not always mutilated, just as they are not always like their
parents; the cause of this must be inquired into later, (5) for this problem
is the same as that.
Again, if the female does not produce semen, it is reasonable to
suppose it does not come from all the body of the male either.
Conversely, if it does not come from all the male it is not unreasonable
to suppose that it does not come from the female, (10) but that the female
is cause of the generation in some other way. Into this we must next
inquire, since it is plain that the semen is not secreted from all the parts.
In this investigation and those which follow from it, (15) the first thing
to do is to understand what semen is, for then it will be easier to inquire
into its operations and the phenomena connected with it. Now the object
of semen is to be of such a nature that from it as their origin come into
being those things which are naturally formed, not because there is any
agent which makes them from it as … but simply because this is the
semen. (20) Now we speak of one thing coming from another in many
senses; it is one thing when we say that night comes from day or a man
becomes man from boy, meaning that A follows B; it is another if we say
that a statute is made from bronze and a bed from wood, and so on in all
the other cases where we say that the thing made is made from a
material, (25) meaning that the whole is formed from something pre-
existing which is only put into shape. In a third sense a man becomes
unmusical from being musical, sick from being well, and generally in this
sense contraries arise from contraries. Fourthly, as in the ‘climax’ of
Epicharmus; thus from slander comes railing and from this fighting, (30)
and all these are from something in the sense that it is the efficient
cause. In this last class sometimes the efficient cause is in the things
themselves, as in the last mentioned (for the slander is a part of the
whole trouble), and sometimes external, (35) as the art is external to the
work of art or the torch to the burning house.
Now the offspring comes from the semen, and it is plainly in one of the
two following senses that it does so—either the semen is the material
from which it is made, or it is the first efficient cause. [724b] For
assuredly it is not in the sense of A being after B, as the voyage comes
from, i. e. after, the Panathenaea; nor yet as contraries come from
contraries, for then one of the two contraries ceases to be, and a third
substance must exist as an immediate underlying basis from which the
new thing comes into being. (5) We must discover, then, in which of the
two other classes the semen is to be put, whether it is to be regarded as
matter, and therefore acted upon by something else, or as a form, and
therefore acting upon something else, or as both at once. For perhaps at
the same time we shall see clearly also how all the products of semen
come into being from contraries, since coming into being from contraries
is also a natural process, for some animals do so, (10) i. e. from male and
female, others from only one parent, as is the case with plants and all
those animals in which male and female are not separately
differentiated. Now that which comes from the generating parent is
called the seminal fluid, being that which first has in it a principle of
generation, in the case of all animals whose nature it is to unite; semen
is that which has in it the principles from both united parents, as the first
mixture which arises from the union of male and female, (15) be it a
foetus or an ovum, for these already have in them that which comes
from both. (Semen, or seed, and grain differ only in the one being earlier
and the other later, grain in that it comes from something else, i. e. the
seed, and seed in that something else, (20) the grain, comes from it, for
both are really the same thing.)
We must again take up the question what the primary nature of what
is called semen is. Needs must everything which we find in the body
either be (1) one of the natural parts, whether homogeneous or
heterogeneous, or (2) an unnatural part such as a growth, (25) or (3) a
secretion or excretion, or (4) waste-product, or (5) nutriment. (By
secretion or excretion I mean the residue of the nutriment, by waste-
product that which is given off from the tissues by an unnatural
decomposition.)
Now that semen cannot be a part of the body is plain, for it is
homogeneous, and from the homogeneous nothing is composed, e. g.
from only sinew or only flesh; nor is it separated as are all the other
parts. (30) But neither is it contrary to Nature nor a defect, for it exists in
all alike, and the development of the young animal comes from it.
Nutriment, again, is obviously introduced from without.
It remains, then, that it must be either a waste-product or a secretion
or excretion. (35) Now the ancients seem to think that it is a waste-
product, for when they say that it comes from all the body by reason of
the heat of the movement of the body in copulation, they imply that it is
a kind of waste-product. [725a] But these are contrary to Nature, and
from such arises nothing according to Nature. So then it must be a
secretion or excretion.
But, to go further into it, every secretion or excretion is either of
useless or useful nutriment; by ‘useless’ I mean that from which nothing
further is contributed to natural growth, (5) but which is particularly
mischievous to the body if too much of it is consumed; by ‘useful’ I mean
the opposite. Now it is evident that it cannot be of the former character,
for such is most abundant in persons of the worst condition of body
through age or sickness; semen, on the contrary, is least abundant in
them, for either they have none at all or it is not fertile, (10) because a
useless and morbid secretion is mingled with it.
 Semen, then, is part of a useful secretion. But the most useful is the
last and that from which finally is formed each of the parts of the body.
For secretions are either earlier or later; of the nutriment in the first
stage the secretion is phlegm and the like, (15) for phlegm also is a
secretion of the useful nutriment, an indication of this being that if it is
mixed with pure nutriment it is nourishing, and that it is used up in
cases of illness. The final secretion is the smallest in proportion to the
quantity of nutriment. But we must reflect that the daily nutriment by
which animals and plants grow is but small, (20) for if a very little be
added continually to the same thing the size of it will become excessive.
So we must say the opposite of what the ancients said. For whereas
they said that semen is that which comes from all the body, we shall say
it is that whose nature is to go to all of it, and what they thought a
waste-product seems rather to be a secretion. For it is more reasonable
to suppose that the last extract of the nutriment which goes to all parts
resembles that which is left over from it, (25) just as part of a painter’s
colour is often left over resembling that which he has used up. Waste-
products, on the contrary, are always due to corruption or decay and to
a departure from Nature.
A further proof that it is not a waste-product, but rather a secretion, is
the fact that the large animals have few young, (30) the small many. For
the large must have more waste and less secretion, since the great size of
the body causes most of the nutriment to be used up, so that the residue
or secretion is small.
Again, no place has been set apart by Nature for waste-products but
they flow wherever they can find an easy passage in the body, but a
place has been set apart for all the natural secretions; thus the lower
intestine serves for the excretion of the solid nutriment, the bladder for
that of the liquid; for the useful part of the nutriment we have the upper
intestine, for the spermatic secretions the uterus and pudenda and
breasts, for it is collected and flows together into them. [725b]
And the resulting phenomena are evidence that semen is what we
have said, (5) and these result because such is the nature of the secretion.
For the exhaustion consequent on the loss of even a very little of the
semen is conspicuous because the body is deprived of the ultimate gain
drawn from the nutriment. With some few persons, it is true, during a
short time in the flower of their youth the loss of it, (10) if it be excessive
in quantity, is an alleviation (just as in the case of the nutriment in its
first stage, if too much have been taken, since getting rid of this also
makes the body more comfortable), and so it may be also when other
secretions come away with it, for in that case it is not only semen that is
lost but also other influences come away mingled with it, (15) and these
are morbid. Wherefore, with some men at least, that which comes from
them proves sometimes incapable of procreation because the seminal
element in it is so small. But still in most men and as a general rule the
result of intercourse is exhaustion and weakness rather than relief, for
the reason given. Moreover, semen does not exist in them either in
childhood or in old age or in sickness—in the last case because of
weakness, (20) in old age because they do not sufficiently concoct their
food, and in childhood because they are growing and so all the
nutriment is used up too soon, for in about five years, in the case of
human beings at any rate, the body seems to gain half the height that is
gained in all the rest of life. (25)
In many animals and plants we find a difference in this connexion not
only between kinds as compared with kinds, but also between similar
individuals of the same kind as compared with each other, e. g. man
with man or vine with vine. Some have much semen, others little, others
again none at all, not through weakness but the contrary, (30) at any rate
in some cases. This is because the nutriment is used up to form the body,
as with some human beings, who, being in good condition and
developing much flesh or getting rather too fat, produce less semen and
are less desirous of intercourse. Like this is what happens with those
vines which ‘play the goat’, that is, luxuriate wantonly through too much
nutrition, for he-goats when fat are less inclined to mount the female; for
which reason they thin them before breeding from them, and say that
the vines ‘play the goat’, so calling it from the condition of the goats.
[726a] And fat people, women as well as men, appear to be less fertile
than others from the fact that the secretion when in process of
concoction turns to fat with those who are too well-nourished. (5) For fat
also is a healthy secretion due to good living.
In some cases no semen is produced at all, as by the willow and
poplar. This condition is due to each of the two causes, weakness and
strength; the former prevents concoction of the nutriment, the latter
causes it to be all consumed, as said above. In like manner other animals
produce much semen through weakness as well as through strength, (10)
when a great quantity of a useless secretion is mixed with it; this
sometimes results in actual disease when a passage is not found to carry
off the impurity, and though some recover of this, others actually die of
it. For corrupt humours collect here as in the urine, (15) which also has
been known to cause disease.…
From what has been said, it is clear that semen is a secretion of useful
nutriment, (26) and that in its last stage, whether it is produced by all or
no. [Chapter 19 and most of chapter 20 omitted.]
[20] … That, then, the female does not contribute semen to generation,
(22) but does contribute something, and that this is the matter of the

catamenia, or that which is analogous to it in bloodless animals, (25) is

clear from what has been said, and also from a general and abstract
survey of the question. [729a] For there must needs be that which
generates and that from which it generates; even if these be one, still
they must be distinct in form and their essence must be different; and in
those animals that have these powers separate in two sexes the body and
nature of the active and the passive sex must also differ. If, then, the
male stands for the effective and active, and the female, (30) considered
as female, for the passive, it follows that what the female would
contribute to the semen of the male would not be semen but material for
the semen to work upon. This is just what we find to be the case, for the
catamenia have in their nature an affinity to the primitive matter.

21 So much for the discussion of this question. At the same time the
answer to the next question we have to investigate is clear from these
considerations, I mean how it is that the male contributes to generation
and how it is that the semen from the male is the cause of the offspring.
[729b] Does it exist in the body of the embryo as a part of it from the
first, mingling with the material which comes from the female? Or does
the semen communicate nothing to the material body of the embryo but
only to the power and movement in it? For this power is that which acts
and makes, (5) while that which is made and receives the form is the
residue of the secretion in the female. Now the latter alternative appears
to be the right one both a priori and in view of the facts. For, if we
consider the question on general grounds, (10) we find that, whenever one
thing is made from two of which one is active and the other passive, the
active agent does not exist in that which is made; and, still more
generally, the same applies when one thing moves and another is moved;
the moving thing does not exist in that which is moved. But the female,
as female, is passive, and the male, as male, is active, and the principle
of the movement comes from him. Therefore, if we take the highest
genera under which they each fall, (15) the one being active and motive
and the other passive and moved, that one thing which is produced
comes from them only in the sense in which a bed comes into being from
the carpenter and the wood, or in which a ball comes into being from
the wax and the form. It is plain then that it is not necessary that
anything at all should come away from the male, and if anything does
come away it does not follow that this gives rise to the embryo as being
in the embryo, but only as that which imparts the motion and as the
form; so the medical art cures the patient. (20)
This a priori argument is confirmed by the facts. For it is for this
reason that some males which unite with the female do not, it appears,
insert any part of themselves into the female, but on the contrary the
female inserts a part of herself into the male; this occurs in some insects.
(25) For the effect produced by the semen in the female (in the case of

those animals whose males do insert a part) is produced in the case of

these insects by the heat and power in the male animal itself when the
female inserts that part of herself which receives the secretion. And
therefore such animals remain united a long time, and when they are
separated the young are produced quickly. (30) For the union lasts until
that which is analogous to the semen has done its work, and when they
separate the female produces the embryo quickly; for the young is
imperfect inasmuch as all such creatures give birth to scoleces.
What occurs in birds and oviparous fishes is the greatest proof that
neither does the semen come from all parts of the male nor does he emit
anything of such a nature as to exist within that which is generated, as
part of the material embryo, but that he only makes a living creature by
the power which resides in the semen (as we said in the case of those
insects whose females insert a part of themselves into the male).
[730a] For if a hen-bird is in process of producing wind-eggs and is
then trodden by the cock before the egg has begun to whiten and while
it is all still yellow, (5) then they become fertile instead of being wind-
eggs. And if while it is still yellow she be trodden by another cock, the
whole brood of chicks turn out like the second cock. Hence some of
those who are anxious to rear fine birds act thus; they change the cocks
for the first and second treading, (10) not as if they thought that the
semen is mingled with the egg or exists in it, or that it comes from all
parts of the cock; for if it did it would have come from both cocks, so
that the chick would have all its parts doubled. But it is by its force that
the semen of the male gives a certain quality to the material and the
nutriment in the female, (15) for the second semen added to the first can
produce this effect by heat and concoction, as the egg acquires
nutriment so long as it is growing.
The same conclusion is to be drawn from the generation of oviparous
fishes. When the female has laid her eggs, (20) the male sprinkles the milt
over them, and those eggs are fertilized which it reaches, but not the
others; this shows that the male does not contribute anything to the
quantity but only to the quality of the embryo.
From what has been said it is plain that the semen does not come from
the whole of the body of the male in those animals which emit it, (25) and
that the contribution of the female to the generative product is not the
same as that of the male, but the male contributes the principle of
movement and the female the material. This is why the female does not
produce offspring by herself, for she needs a principle, i. e. something to
begin the movement in the embryo and to define the form it is to
assume. (30) Yet in some animals, as birds, the nature of the female
unassisted can generate to a certain extent, for they do form something,
only it is incomplete; I mean the so-called wind-eggs.

22 For the same reason the development of the embryo takes place in
the female; neither the male himself nor the female emits semen into the
male, but the female receives within herself the share contributed by
both, because in the female is the material from which is made the
resulting product. [730b] Not only must the mass of material exist
there from which the embryo is formed in the first instance, but further
material must constantly be added that it may increase in size. (5)
Therefore the birth must take place in the female. For the carpenter must
keep in close connexion with his timber and the potter with his clay, and
generally all workmanship and the ultimate movement imparted to
matter must be connected with the material concerned, as, for instance,
architecture is in the buildings it makes.
From these considerations we may also gather how it is that the male
contributes to generation. (10) The male does not emit semen at all in
some animals, and where he does this is no part of the resulting embryo;
just so no material part comes from the carpenter to the material, i. e.
the wood in which he works, nor does any part of the carpenter’s art
exist within what he makes, but the shape and the form are imparted
from him to the material by means of the motion he sets up. (15) It is his
hands that move his tools, his tools that move the material; it is his
knowledge of his art, and his soul, in which is the form, that move his
hands or any other part of him with a motion of some definite kind, a
motion varying with the varying nature of the object made. In like
manner, in the male of those animals which emit semen, (20) Nature uses
the semen as a tool and as possessing motion in actuality, just as tools
are used in the products of any art, for in them lies in a certain sense the
motion of the art. Such, then, is the way in which these males contribute
to generation. (25) But when the male does not emit semen, but the
female inserts some part of herself into the male, this is parallel to a case
in which a man should carry the material to the workman. For by reason
of weakness in such males Nature is not able to do anything by any
secondary means, but the movements imparted to the material are
scarcely strong enough when Nature herself watches over them. Thus
here she resembles a modeller in clay rather than a carpenter, for she
does not touch the work she is forming by means of tools, (30) but, as it
were, with her own hands.

23 In all animals which can move about, the sexes are separated, one
individual being male and one female, though both are the same in
species, as with man and horse. [731a] But in plants these powers are
mingled, female not being separated from male. Wherefore they generate
out of themselves, and do not emit semen but produce an embryo, what
is called the seed. Empedocles puts this well in the line: ‘and thus the tall
trees oviposit; first olives …’ For as the egg is an embryo, a certain part
of it giving rise to the animal and the rest being nutriment, (5) so also
from a part of the seed springs the growing plant, and the rest is
nutriment for the shoot and the first root.
In a certain sense the same thing happens also in those animals which
have the sexes separate. For when there is need for them to generate the
sexes are no longer separated any more than in plants, (10) their nature
desiring that they shall become one; and this is plain to view when they
copulate and are united, that one animal is made out of both.
It is the nature of those creatures which do not emit semen to remain
united a long time until the male element has formed the embryo, (15) as
with those insects which copulate. The others so remain only until the
male has discharged from the parts of himself introduced something
which will form the embryo in a longer time, as among the sanguinea.
For the former remain paired some part of a day, while the semen forms
the embryo in several days. (20) And after emitting this they cease their
union.
And animals seem literally to be like divided plants, as though one
should separate and divide them, when they bear seed, into the male
and female existing in them.
In all this Nature acts like an intelligent workman. For to the essence
of plants belongs no other function or business than the production of
seed; since, (25) then, this is brought about by the union of male and
female, Nature has mixed these and set them together in plants, so that
the sexes are not divided in them. Plants, however, have been
investigated elsewhere. But the function of the animal is not only to
generate (which is common to all living things), (30) but they all of them
participate also in a kind of knowledge, some more and some less, and
some very little indeed. For they have sense-perception, and this is a
kind of knowledge. (If we consider the value of this we find that it is of
great importance compared with the class of lifeless objects, but of little
compared with the use of the intellect. [731b] For against the latter
the mere participation in touch and taste seems to be practically
nothing, but beside absolute insensibility it seems most excellent; for it
would seem a treasure to gain even this kind of knowledge rather than
to lie in a state of death and nonexistence.) Now it is by sense-perception
that an animal differs from those organisms which have only life. (5) But
since, if it is a living animal, it must also live; therefore, when it is
necessary for it to accomplish the function of that which has life, it
unites and copulates, becoming like a plant, as we said before.
Testaceous animals, being intermediate between animals and plants,
perform the function of neither class as belonging to both. (10) As plants
they have no sexes, and one does not generate in another; as animals
they do not bear fruit from themselves like plants; but they are formed
and generated from a liquid and earthy concretion. However, we must
speak later of the generation of these animals.

[Books II–V omitted.]

 Metaphysica

Translated by W. D. Ross

 CONTENTS

A. (I)

CHAPTER
1. The advance from sensation through memory, experience, and art, to theoretical
knowledge.
2. Characteristics of ‘wisdom’ (philosophy).
3. The successive recognition by earlier philosophers of the material, efficient, and final
causes.
4. Inadequacy of the treatment of these causes.
5. The Pythagorean and Eleatic schools; the former recognizes vaguely the formal cause.
6. The Platonic philosophy; it uses only the material and formal causes.
7. The relation of the various systems to the four causes.
8. Criticism of the pre-Platonic philosophers.
9. Criticism of the doctrine of Ideas.
10. The history of philosophy reveals no causes other than the four.

α. (II)

1. General considerations about the study of philosophy.

2. There cannot be an infinite series, nor an infinite variety of kinds, of causes.
3. Different methods are appropriate to different studies.

B. (III)

1. Sketch of the main problems of philosophy.

2. Fuller statement of the problems:—
(i) Can one science treat of all the four causes?
(ii) Are the primary axioms treated of by the science of substance, and if not, by what
science?
(iii) Can one science treat of all substances?
(iv) Does the science of substance treat also of its attributes?
(v) Are there any non-sensible substances, and if so, of how many kinds?
3. (vi) Are the genera, or the constituent parts, of things their first principles?
(vii) If the genera, is it the highest genera or the lowest?
4. (viii) Is there anything apart from individual things?
 (ix) Is each of the first principles one in kind, or in number?
(x) Are the principles of perishable and of imperishable things the same?
(xi) Are being and unity substances or attributes?
5. (xii) Are the objects of mathematics substances?
6. (xiii) Do Ideas exist, as well as sensible things and the objects of mathematics?
(xiv) Do the first principles exist potentially or actually?
(xv) Are the first principles universal or individual?

Γ. (iv)

1. Our object is the study of being as such.

2. We must therefore study primary being (viz. substance), unity and plurality, and the
derivative contraries, and the attributes of being and of substance.
3. We must study also the primary axioms, and especially the law of contradiction.
4. Fatal difficulties involved in the denial of this law.
5. The connexion of such denial with Protagoras’ doctrine of relativity; the doctrine
refuted.
6. Further refutation of Protagoras.
7. The law of excluded middle defended.
8. All judgments are not true, nor are all false; all things are not at rest, nor are all in
motion.

Δ. (V)

Philosophical Lexicon.

1. ‘Beginning.’
2. ‘Cause.’
3. ‘Element.’
4. ‘Nature.’
5. ‘Necessary.’
6. ‘One.’ ‘Many.’
7. ‘Being.’
8. ‘Substance.’
9. ‘The same.’ ‘Other.’ ‘Different.’ ‘Like.’ ‘Unlike.’
10. ‘Opposite.’ ‘Contrary.’ ‘Other in species.’ ‘The same in species.’
11. ‘Prior.’ ‘Posterior.’
12. ‘Potency.’ ‘Capable.’ ‘Incapacity.’ ‘Possible.’ ‘Impossible.’
13. ‘Quantum.’
14. ‘Quality.’
15. ‘Relative.’
16. ‘Complete.’
17. ‘Limit.’
18. ‘That in virtue of which.’ ‘In virtue of itself.’
19. ‘Disposition.’
20. ‘Having’ or ‘habit’ ( ).
21. ‘Affection.’
22. ‘Privation.’
23. ‘Have’ or ‘hold’ ( ). ‘Be in.’
24. ‘From.’
25. ‘Part.’
26. ‘Whole.’ ‘Total.’ ‘All.’
27. ‘Mutilated.’
28. ‘Race’ or ‘genus’ ( ). ‘Other in genus.’
29. ‘False.’
30. ‘Accident.’

E. (VI)

1. Distinction of ‘theology’, the science of being as such, from the other theoretical
sciences, mathematics and physics.
2. Four senses of ‘being’. Of these (i) accidental being is the object of no science.
3. The nature and origin of accident.
4. (ii) Being as truth is not primary being.

Z. (VII)

1. The study of being is primarily the study of substance.

2. Various opinions on the question, what things are substances?
3. Four things are commonly held to be substantial—the essence, the universal, the genus,
the substratum. The last may be conceived as matter, form, or the concrete
individual. Reasons why matter and the concrete individual cannot be primary
substance. Form to be studied first in sensible things.
4. What is essence and to what does it belong, i. e. what things can be defined? Primarily
substance.
 5. Combinations of a subject with one of its proper attributes have no definition nor
essence.
6. Is a thing the same as its essence? Yes, if it is a substance.
7. Analysis of generation, whether by nature, art, or spontaneity.
8. Form is not generated, but put into matter; yet it did not previously exist apart—the
agent in generation is form embodied in another individual of the same species.
9. Why spontaneous generation sometimes takes place. The conditions of generation in the
categories other than substance.)
10. When are definitions of the parts included in the definition of the whole? When the
parts are parts of the form.
11. Which parts are parts of the form, which of the concrete individual?
12. Wherein consists the unity of an object of definition? In the appropriateness of the
differentia to the genus.
13. A universal cannot be either the substance or an element in the substance of anything
(yet how else can a thing be defined ?).
14. Hence it is fatal to make Ideas substances and yet hold that they are composed of other
Ideas.
15. No individual can be defined, whether sensible or, like the Ideas, intelligible.
16. The parts of sensible things are only potencies. Unity and being are not the substance of
things.
17. Substance is the cause or form which puts matter into a determinate state; it is that in a
thing which is distinct from its material elements.

H. (VIII)

1. The discussion of sensible substances continued. Their matter is itself substance.

2. The main types of form or actuality. Definitions of matter, of form, and of the concrete
individual distinguished.
3. Form distinguished from the material elements; Antisthenes’ attack on definition;
definition analogous to number.
4. Remote and proximate matter; the substratum of attributes not matter but the concrete
individual.
5. The relation of matter to its contrary states.
6. What gives unity to a definition? The fact that the genus is simply the potency of the
differentia, the differentia the actuality of the genus.

Θ. (IX)
 1. Being as potency and actuality. Potency in the strict sense, as potency of motion, active
or passive.
2. Non-rational potencies are single, rational potencies twofold.
3. Potency defended against the attack of the Megaric school.
4. Potency as possibility.
5. How potency is acquired, and the conditions of its actualization.
6. Actuality distinguished from potency; a special type of potency described; actuality
distinguished from movement.
7. When one thing may be called the potency or matter of another; how things are
described by names derived from their matter or their accidents.
8. Actuality prior to potency in definition, time, and substantiality; nothing eternal or
necessary is a mere potency.
9. Good actuality better than potency, and bad actuality worse; therefore no separate evil
principle in the universe. Geometrical truths found by actualization of potencies.
10. Being as truth, with regard to both composite and simple objects.

I. (X)

1. Four kinds of unit; the essence of a unit is to be a measure of quantity or of quality;

various types of measure.
2. Unity not a substance but a universal predicate; its denotation the same as that of being.
3. Unity and plurality; identity; likeness; otherness; difference.
4. Contrariety is complete difference; how related to privation and contradiction.
5. The opposition of the equal to the great and the small.
6. The opposition of the one to the many.
7. Intermediates are homogeneous with each other and with the extremes, stand between
contraries, and are compounded out of these contraries.
8. Otherness in species is otherness of the genus and is contrariety; its nature further
described.
9. What contrarieties constitute otherness in species.
10. The perishable and the imperishable differ in kind.

K. (XI)

1. Shorter form of B. 2, 3,
2. “ B. 4–6.
3. “ Γ. 1, 2.
4, 5. “ Γ. 3, 4.
 6. “ Γ. 5–8.
7. “ E. 1.
8. “ E. 2–4.
Extracts from Physics:
8. II. 5, 6, on luck.
9. III. 1–3, on potency, actuality, and movement.
10. III. 4, 5, 7, on the infinite; there is no actual infinite, and especially no infinite body.
11. V. 1, on change and movement.
12. V. 2, on the three kinds of movement.
V. 3, definitions of ‘together in place’, ‘apart’, ‘touch’, ‘between’, ‘contrary in place’,
‘successive’, ‘contiguous’, ‘continuous’.

Λ. (XII)

1. Substance the primary subject of inquiry. Three kinds of substance—perishable sensible,

eternal sensible, and unmovable (non-sensible).
2. Change implies not only form and privation but matter.
3. Neither matter nor form comes into being. Whatever comes into being comes from a
substance of the same kind. If form ever exists apart from the concrete individual,
it is in the case of natural objects.
4. Different things have elements numerically different but the same in kind; they all have
form, privation, and matter. They also have a proximate and an ultimate moving
cause.
5. Again actuality and potency are principles common to all things, though they apply
differently in different cases. The principles of all things are only analogous, not
identical.
6. Since movement must be eternal, there must be an eternal mover, and one whose
essence is actuality (actuality being prior to potency). To account for the uniform
change in the universe, there must be one principle which acts always alike, and
one whose action varies.
7. The eternal mover originates motion by being the primary object of desire (as it is of
thought); being thoroughly actual, it cannot change or move; it is a living being,
perfect, separate from sensible things, and without parts.
8. Besides the first mover there must be as many unmoved movers as there are simple
motions involved in the motions of the planets. The number is probably either 55
or 47. As there is but one prime mover, there must be but one heaven.
9. The divine thought must be concerned with the most divine object, which is itself.
Thought and the object of thought are never different when the object is
 immaterial.
10. How the good is present in the universe both as the order of the parts and (more
primarily) as their ruler. Difficulties which attend the views of other philosophers.

M. (XIII)

1. We pass to immaterial substance. Two kinds of immaterial substances have been

believed in, mathematical objects and Ideas. We shall discuss first the former,
then the latter, then the view that numbers and Ideas are the substance of sensible
things.
2. (i) Mathematical objects cannot exist as distinct substances either in or apart from
sensible things.
3. They can be separated only in thought. Mathematics is not entirely divorced from
consideration of the beautiful, as is sometimes alleged.
4. (ii) Arguments which led to the belief in Ideas. Some prove too little, others too much.
5. Even if there were Ideas, they would not explain the changes in the sensible world.
6. (iii) Various ways in which numbers may be conceived as the substance of things.
7. (a) If all units are associable, this gives only mathematical, not ideal number, (b) If all
units are inassociable, this gives neither mathematical nor ideal number. (c) If
only the units in the same number are associable, this leads to equal difficulties;
units must have no difference of kind.
8. The views of Platonists who disagree with Plato, and those of the Pythagoreans, lead to
equal difficulties. Further objections to ideal numbers: (a) How are the units
derived from the indefinite dyad? (b) Is the series of numbers infinite or finite;
and if finite, what is its limit? (c) What sort of principle is the One?
9. Discussion of the principles of geometrical objects. Criticism of the generation of
numbers from unity and plurality, and of spatial magnitudes from similar
principles. The criticism of ideal numbers summed up. The upholders of Ideas
make them at once universal and individual.
10. Are the first principles of substances individual or universal?

N. (XIV)

1. The principles cannot be contraries. The Platonists in making them contraries treated
one of the contraries as matter. Various forms of this theory. The nature of unity
and plurality expounded.
2. Eternal substances cannot be compounded out of elements. The object of the Platonists
is to explain the presence of plurality in the world, but in this they do not
 succeed. What justifies the belief in the separate existence of numbers?
3. Difficulties in the various theories of number. The Pythagoreans ascribe generation to
numbers, which are eternal.
4. The relation between the first principles and the good.
5. How is number supposed to be derived from its elements? How is it the cause of
substances?
6. The causal agency ascribed to numbers is purely fanciful.
METAPHYSICA

(Metaphysics)
 BOOK A (I)

1 All men by nature desire to know. [980a] An indication of this is

the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness
they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight.
For not only with a view to action, but even when we are not going to
do anything, (25) we prefer seeing (one might say) to everything else. The
reason is that this, most of all the senses, makes us know and brings to
light many differences between things.
By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from
sensation memory is produced in some of them, though not in others.
And therefore the former are more intelligent and apt at learning than
those which cannot remember; those which are incapable of hearing
sounds are intelligent though they cannot be taught, e. g. the bee, and
any other race of animals that may be like it; and those which besides
memory have this sense of hearing can be taught. [980b]
The animals other than man live by appearances and memories, (25)
and have but little of connected experience; but the human race lives
also by art and reasonings. Now from memory experience is produced in
men; for the several memories of the same thing produce finally the
capacity for a single experience. [981a] And experience seems pretty
much like science and art, but really science and art come to men
through experience; for ‘experience made art’, as Polus says,1 ‘but
inexperience luck’. Now art arises when from many notions gained by
experience one universal judgement about a class of objects is produced.
(5) For to have a judgement that when Callias was ill of this disease this

did him good, and similarly in the case of Socrates and in many
individual cases, is a matter of experience; but to judge that it has done
good to all persons of a certain constitution, (10) marked off in one class,
when they were ill of this disease, e. g. to phlegmatic or bilious people
when burning with fever—this is a matter of art.
With a view to action experience seems in no respect inferior to art,
and men of experience succeed even better than those who have theory
without experience. (15) (The reason is that experience is knowledge of
individuals, art of universals, and actions and productions are all
concerned with the individual; for the physician does not cure man,
except in an incidental way, but Callias or Socrates or some other called
by some such individual name, who happens to be a man. (20) If, then, a
man has the theory without the experience, and recognizes the universal
but does not know the individual included in this, he will often fail to
cure; for it is the individual that is to be cured.) But yet we think that
knowledge and understanding belong to art rather than to experience, (25)
and we suppose artists to be wiser than men of experience (which
implies that Wisdom depends in all cases rather on knowledge); and this
because the former know the cause, but the latter do not. For men of
experience know that the thing is so, (30) but do not know why, while the
others know the ‘why’ and the cause. [981b] Hence we think also that
the master-workers in each craft are more honourable and know in a
truer sense and are wiser than the manual workers, because they know
the causes of the things that are done (we think the manual workers are
like certain lifeless things which act indeed, but act without knowing
what they do, as fire burns—but while the lifeless things perform each of
their functions by a natural tendency, (5) the labourers perform them
through habit); thus we view them as being wiser not in virtue of being
able to act, but of having the theory for themselves and knowing the
causes. And in general it is a sign of the man who knows and of the man
who does not know, that the former can teach, and therefore we think
art more truly knowledge than experience is; for artists can teach, and
men of mere experience cannot.
Again, (10) we do not regard any of the senses as Wisdom; yet surely
these give the most authoritative knowledge of particulars. But they do
not tell us the ‘why’ of anything—e. g. why fire is hot; they only say that
it is hot.
At first he who invented any art whatever that went beyond the
common perceptions of man was naturally admired by men, (15) not only
because there was something useful in the inventions, but because he
was thought wise and superior to the rest. But as more arts were
invented, and some were directed to the necessities of life, others to
recreation, the inventors of the latter were naturally always regarded as
wiser than the inventors of the former, because their branches of
knowledge did not aim at utility. (20) Hence when all such inventions
were already established, the sciences which do not aim at giving
pleasure or at the necessities of life were discovered, and first in the
places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the
mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was
allowed to be at leisure.
We have said in the Ethics2 what the difference is between art and
science and the other kindred faculties; but the point of our present
discussion is this, (25) that all men suppose what is called Wisdom to deal
with the first causes and the principles of things; so that, as has been
said before, the man of experience is thought to be wiser than the
possessors of any sense-perception whatever, (30) the artist wiser than the
men of experience, the master-worker than the mechanic, and the
theoretical kinds of knowledge to be more of the nature of Wisdom than
the productive. [982a] Clearly then Wisdom is knowledge about
certain principles and causes.

2 Since we are seeking this knowledge, we must inquire of what kind

are the causes and the principles, (5) the knowledge of which is Wisdom.
If one were to take the notions we have about the wise man, this might
perhaps make the answer more evident. We suppose first, then, that the
wise man knows all things, as far as possible, although he has not
knowledge of each of them in detail; secondly, (10) that he who can learn
things that are difficult, and not easy for man to know, is wise (sense-
perception is common to all, and therefore easy and no mark of
Wisdom); again, that he who is more exact and more capable of teaching
the causes is wiser, in every branch of knowledge; and that of the
sciences, also, that which is desirable on its own account and for the
sake of knowing it is more of the nature of Wisdom than that which is
desirable on account of its results, (15) and the superior science is more of
the nature of Wisdom than the ancillary; for the wise man must not be
ordered but must order, and he must not obey another, but the less wise
must obey him.
Such and so many are the notions, then, (20) which we have about
Wisdom and the wise. Now of these characteristics that of knowing all
things must belong to him who has in the highest degree universal
knowledge; for he knows in a sense all the instances that fall under the
universal. And these things, the most universal, are on the whole the
hardest for men to know; for they are farthest from the senses. And the
most exact of the sciences are those which deal most with first
principles; for those which involve fewer principles are more exact than
those which involve additional principles, (25) e. g. arithmetic than
geometry. But the science which investigates causes is also instructive, in
a higher degree, for the people who instruct us are those who tell the
causes of each thing. (30) And understanding and knowledge pursued for
their own sake are found most in the knowledge of that which is most
knowable (for he who chooses to know for the sake of knowing will
choose most readily that which is most truly knowledge, and such is the
knowledge of that which is most knowable); and the first principles and
the causes are most know-able; for by reason of these, and from these,
all other things come to be known, and not these by means of the things
subordinate to them. [982b] And the science which knows to what end
each thing must be done is the most authoritative of the sciences, (5) and
more authoritative than any ancillary science; and this end is the good of
that thing, and in general the supreme good in the whole of nature.
Judged by all the tests we have mentioned, then, the name in question
falls to the same science; this must be a science that investigates the first
principles and causes; for the good, (10) i. e. the end, is one of the causes.
That it is not a science of production is clear even from the history of
the earliest philosophers. For it is owing to their wonder that men both
now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally
at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated
difficulties about the greater matters, (15) e. g. about the phenomena of
the moon and those of the sun and of the stars, and about the genesis of
the universe. And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself
ignorant (whence even the lover of myth is in a sense a lover of Wisdom,
for the myth is composed of wonders); therefore since they
philosophized in order to escape from ignorance, (20) evidently they were
pursuing science in order to know, and not for any utilitarian end. And
this is confirmed by the facts; for it was when almost all the necessities
of life and the things that make for comfort and recreation had been
secured, that such knowledge began to be sought. Evidently then we do
not seek it for the sake of any other advantage; but as the man is free, (25)
we say, who exists for his own sake and not for another’s, so we pursue
this as the only free science, for it alone exists for its own sake.
Hence also the possession of it might be justly regarded as beyond
human power; for in many ways human nature is in bondage, (30) so that
according to Simonides ‘God alone can have this privilege’, and it is
unfitting that man should not be content to seek the knowledge that is
suited to him. If, then, there is something in what the poets say, and
jealousy is natural to the divine power, it would probably occur in this
case above all, and all who excelled in this knowledge would be
unfortunate. [983a] But the divine power cannot be jealous (nay,
according to the proverb, ‘bards tell many a lie’), (5) nor should any other
science be thought more honourable than one of this sort. For the most
divine science is also most honourable; and this science alone must be,
in two ways, most divine. For the science which it would be most meet
for God to have is a divine science, and so is any science that deals with
divine objects; and this science alone has both these qualities; for (1)
God is thought to be among the causes of all things and to be a first
principle, and (2) such a science either God alone can have, or God
above all others. All the sciences, (10) indeed, are more necessary than
this, but none is better.
Yet the acquisition of it must in a sense end in something which is the
opposite of our original inquiries. For all men begin, as we said, by
wondering that things are as they are, as they do about self-moving
marionettes, (15) or about the solstices or the incommensurability of the
diagonal of a square with the side; for it seems wonderful to all who
have not yet seen the reason, that there is a thing which cannot be
measured even by the smallest unit. But we must end in the contrary
and, according to the proverb, the better state, as is the case in these
instances too when men learn the cause; for there is nothing which
would surprise a geometer so much as if the diagonal turned out to be
commensurable. (20)
We have stated, then, what is the nature of the science we are
searching for, and what is the mark which our search and our whole
investigation must reach.
3 Evidently we have to acquire knowledge of the original causes (for
we say we know each thing only when we think we recognize its first
cause), (25) and causes are spoken of in four senses. In one of these we
mean the substance, i. e. the essence (for the ‘why’ is reducible finally to
the definition, and the ultimate ‘why’ is a cause and principle); in
another the matter or substratum, in a third the source of the change, (30)
and in a fourth the cause opposed to this, the purpose and the good (for
this is the end of all generation and change). [983b] We have studied
these causes sufficiently in our work on nature,3 but yet let us call to our
aid those who have attacked the investigation of being and
philosophized about reality before us. For obviously they too speak of
certain principles and causes; to go over their views, then, will be of
profit to the present inquiry, for we shall either find another kind of
cause, (5) or be more convinced of the correctness of those which we now
maintain.
Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles which were
of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things. That of
which all things that are consist, the first from which they come to be,
the last into which they are resolved (the substance remaining, (10) but
changing in its modifications), this they say is the element and this the
principle of things, and therefore they think nothing is either generated
or destroyed, since this sort of entity is always conserved, as we say
Socrates neither comes to be absolutely when he comes to be beautiful
or musical, nor ceases to be when he loses these characteristics, (15)
because the substratum, Socrates himself, remains. Just so they say
nothing else comes to be or ceases to be; for there must be some entity—
either one or more than one—from which all other things come to be, it
being conserved.
Yet they do not all agree as to the number and the nature of these
principles. (20) Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says the
principle is water (for which reason he declared that the earth rests on
water), getting the notion perhaps from seeing that the nutriment of all
things is moist, and that heat itself is generated from the moist and kept
alive by it (and that from which they come to be is a principle of all
things). (25) He got his notion from this fact, and from the fact that the
seeds of all things have a moist nature, and that water is the origin of
the nature of moist things.
Some4 think that even the ancients who lived long before the present
generation, and first framed accounts of the gods, (30) had a similar view
of nature; for they made Ocean and Tethys the parents of creation,5 and
described the oath of the gods as being by water,6 to which they give the
name of Styx; for what is oldest is most honourable, and the most
honourable thing is that by which one swears. [984a] It may perhaps
be uncertain whether this opinion about nature is primitive and ancient,
but Thales at any rate is said to have declared himself thus about the
first cause. Hippo no one would think fit to include among these
thinkers, because of the paltriness of his thought.
Anaximenes and Diogenes make air prior to water, (5) and the most
primary of the simple bodies, while Hippasus of Metapontium and
Heraclitus of Ephesus say this of fire, and Empedocles says it of the four
elements (adding a fourth—earth—to those which have been named);
for these, he says, always remain and do not come to be, (10) except that
they come to be more or fewer, being aggregated into one and
segregated out of one.
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who, though older than Empedocles, was
later in his philosophical activity, says the principles are infinite in
number; for he says almost all the things that are made of parts like
themselves, in the manner of water or fire, are generated and destroyed
in this way, only by aggregation and segregation, (15) and are not in any
other sense generated or destroyed, but remain eternally.
From these facts one might think that the only cause is the so-called
material cause; but as men thus advanced, the very facts opened the way
for them and joined in forcing them to investigate the subject. However
true it may be that all generation and destruction proceed from some
one or (for that matter) from more elements, (20) why does this happen
and what is the cause? For at least the substratum itself does not make
itself change; e. g. neither the wood nor the bronze causes the change of
either of them, nor does the wood manufacture a bed and the bronze a
statue, (25) but something else is the cause of the change. And to seek this
is to seek the second cause, as we should say—that from which comes
the beginning of the movement. Now those who at the very beginning
set themselves to this kind of inquiry, and said the substratum was one,7
were not at all dissatisfied with themselves; but some at least of those
who maintain it to be one8—as though defeated by this search for the
second cause—say the one and nature as a whole is unchangeable not
only in respect of generation and destruction (for this is a primitive
belief, (30) and all agreed in it), but also of all other change; and this view
is peculiar to them. Of those who said the universe was one, then, none
succeeded in discovering a cause of this sort, except perhaps Parmenides,
and he only inasmuch as he supposes that there is not only one but also
in some sense two causes. [984b] But for those who make more
elements9 it is more possible to state the second cause, (5) e. g. for those
who make hot and cold, or fire and earth, the elements; for they treat
fire as having a nature which fits it to move things, and water and earth
and such things they treat in the contrary way.
When these men and the principles of this kind had had their day, as
the latter were found inadequate to generate the nature of things men
were again forced by the truth itself, as we said,10 to inquire into the
next kind of cause. (10) For it is not likely either that fire or earth or any
such element should be the reason why things manifest goodness and
beauty both in their being and in their coming to be, or that those
thinkers should have supposed it was; nor again could it be right to
entrust so great a matter to spontaneity and chance. When one man11
said, then, that reason was present—as in animals, (15) so throughout
nature—as the cause of order and of all arrangement, he seemed like a
sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors. We
know that Anaxagoras certainly adopted these views, but Hermotimus of
Clazomenae is credited with expressing them earlier. (20) Those who
thought thus stated that there is a principle of things which is at the
same time the cause of beauty, and that sort of cause from which things
acquire movement.

4 One might suspect that Hesiod was the first to look for such a thing
—or some one else who put love or desire among existing things as a
principle, (25) as Parmenides, too, does; for he, in constructing the genesis
of the universe, says:—

Love first of all the Gods she planned.

And Hesiod says:—

First of all things was chaos made, and then

Broad-breasted earth,…
And love, ’mid all the gods pre-eminent,

which implies that among existing things there must be from the first a
cause which will move things and bring them together. (30) How these
thinkers should be arranged with regard to priority of discovery let us be
allowed to decide later;12 but since the contraries of the various forms of
good were also perceived to be present in nature—not only order and
the beautiful, but also disorder, and the ugly, and bad things in greater
number than good, and ignoble things than beautiful—therefore another
thinker introduced friendship and strife, each of the two the cause of one
of these two sets of qualities. [985a] For if we were to follow out the
view of Empedocles, (5) and interpret it according to its meaning and not
to its lisping expression, we should find that friendship is the cause of
good things, and strife of bad. Therefore, if we said that Empedocles in a
sense both mentions, and is the first to mention, the bad and the good as
principles, we should perhaps be right, since the cause of all goods is the
good itself.
These thinkers, (10) as we say, evidently grasped, and to this extent,
two of the causes which we distinguished in our work on nature13—the
matter and the source of the movement—vaguely, however, and with no
clearness, but as untrained men behave in fights; for they go round their
opponents and often strike fine blows, (15) but they do not fight on
scientific principles, and so too these thinkers do not seem to know what
they say; for it is evident that, as a rule, they make no use of their causes
except to a small extent. For Anaxagoras uses reason as a deus ex
machina for the making of the world, and when he is at a loss to tell
from what cause something necessarily is, (20) then he drags reason in,
but in all other cases ascribes events to anything rather than to reason.14
And Empedocles, though he uses the causes to a greater extent than this,
neither does so sufficiently nor attains consistency in their use. At least,
in many cases he makes love segregate things, and strife aggregate them.
For whenever the universe is dissolved into its elements by strife, (25) fire
is aggregated into one, and so is each of the other elements; but
whenever again under the influence of love they come together into one,
the parts must again be segregated out of each element.
Empedocles, then, in contrast with his predecessors, was the first to
introduce the dividing of this cause, not positing one source of
movement, (30) but different and contrary sources. Again, he was the first
to speak of four material elements; yet he does not use four, but treats
them as two only; he treats fire by itself, and its opposites—earth, air,
and water—as one kind of thing. [985b] We may learn this by study of
his verses.
This philosopher then, as we say, has spoken of the principles in this
way, and made them of this number. Leucippus and his associate
Democritus say that the full and the empty are the elements, (5) calling
the one being and the other non-being—the full and solid being being,
the empty non-being (whence they say being no more is than non-being,
because the solid no more is than the empty); and they make these the
material causes of things. And as those who make the underlying
substance one generate all other things by its modifications, (10)
supposing the rare and the dense to be the sources of the modifications,
in the same way these philosophers say the differences in the elements
are the causes of all other qualities. These differences, they say, are three
—shape and order and position. (15) For they say the real is differentiated
only by ‘rhythm’ and ‘inter-contact’ and ‘turning’; and of these rhythm is
shape, inter-contact is order, and turning is position; for A differs from N
in shape, AN from NA in order, from H in position. The question of
movement—whence or how it is to belong to things—these thinkers, like
the others, lazily neglected.
Regarding the two causes, then, as we say, (20) the inquiry seems to
have been pushed thus far by the early philosophers.

5 Contemporaneously with these philosophers and before them, the

so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, (25)
not only advanced this study, but also having been brought up in it they
thought its principles were the principles of all things. Since of these
principles numbers are by nature the first, and in numbers they seemed
to see many resemblances to the things that exist and come into being—
more than in fire and earth and water (such and such a modification of
numbers being justice, another being soul and reason, (30) another being
opportunity—and similarly almost all other things being numerically
expressible); since, again, they saw that the modifications and the ratios
of the musical scales were expressible in numbers;—since, then, all other
things seemed in their whole nature to be modelled on numbers, and
numbers seemed to be the first things in the whole of nature, they
supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, and
the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number. [986a] And all
the properties of numbers and scales which they could show to agree
with the attributes and parts and the whole arrangement of the heavens,
(5) they collected and fitted into their scheme; and if there was a gap

anywhere, they readily made additions so as to make their whole theory

coherent. e. g. as the number 10 is thought to be perfect and to comprise
the whole nature of numbers, (10) they say that the bodies which move
through the heavens are ten, but as the visible bodies are only nine, to
meet this they invent a tenth—the ‘counter-earth’. We have discussed
these matters more exactly elsewhere.15
But the object of our review is that we may learn from these
philosophers also what they suppose to be the principles and how these
fall under the causes we have named. (15) Evidently, then, these thinkers
also consider that number is the principle both as matter for things and
as forming both their modifications and their permanent states, and hold
that the elements of number are the even and the odd, and that of these
the latter is limited, and the former unlimited; and that the One proceeds
from both of these (for it is both even and odd), (20) and number from the
One; and that the whole heaven, as has been said, is numbers.
Other members of this same school say there are ten principles, which
they arrange in two columns of cognates—limit and unlimited, (25) odd
and even, one and plurality, right and left, male and female, resting and
moving, straight and curved, light and darkness, good and bad, square
and oblong. In this way Alcmaeon of Croton seems also to have
conceived the matter, and either he got this view from them or they got
it from him; for he expressed himself similarly to them. (30) For he says
most human affairs go in pairs, meaning not definite contrarieties such
as the Pythagoreans speak of, but any chance contrarieties, e. g. white
and black, sweet and bitter, good and bad, great and small. He threw out
indefinite suggestions about the other contrarieties, but the
Pythagoreans declared both how many and which their contrarieties are.
[986b]
From both these schools, then, we can learn this much, that the
contraries are the principles of things; and how many these principles
are and which they are, we can learn from one of the two schools. But
how these principles can be brought together under the causes we have
named has not been clearly and articulately stated by them; they seem,
(5) however, to range the elements under the head of matter; for out of

these as immanent parts they say substance is composed and moulded.

From these facts we may sufficiently perceive the meaning of the
ancients who said the elements of nature were more than one; but there
are some who spoke of the universe as if it were one entity, (10) though
they were not all alike either in the excellence of their statement or in its
conformity to the facts of nature. The discussion of them is in no way
appropriate to our present investigation of causes, for they do not, like
some of the natural philosophers, assume being to be one and yet
generate it out of the one as out of matter, (15) but they speak in another
way; those others add change, since they generate the universe, but
these thinkers say the universe is unchangeable. Yet this much is
germane to the present inquiry: Parmenides seems to fasten on that
which is one in definition, Melissus on that which is one in matter, for
which reason the former says that it is limited, (20) the latter that it is
unlimited; while Xenophanes, the first of these partisans of the One (for
Parmenides is said to have been his pupil), gave no clear statement, nor
does he seem to have grasped the nature of either of these causes, but
with reference to the whole material universe he says the One is God.
Now these thinkers, as we said, (25) must be neglected for the purposes of
the present inquiry—two of them entirely, as being a little too naïve, viz.
Xenophanes and Melissus; but Parmenides seems in places to speak with
more insight. For, claiming that, besides the existent, nothing non-
existent exists, he thinks that of necessity one thing exists, viz. the
existent and nothing else (on this we have spoken more clearly in our
work on nature),16 but being forced to follow the observed facts, (30) and
supposing the existence of that which is one in definition, but more than
one according to our sensations, he now posits two causes and two
principles, calling them hot and cold, i. e. fire and earth; and of these he
ranges the hot with the existent, [987a] and the other with the
nonexistent.
From what has been said, then, and from the wise men who have now
sat in council with us, we have got thus much—on the one hand from
the earliest philosophers, who regard the first principle as corporeal (for
water and fire and such things are bodies), (5) and of whom some
suppose that there is one corporeal principle, others that there are more
than one, but both put these under the head of matter; and on the other
hand from some who posit both this cause and besides this the source of
movement, which we have got from some as single and from others as
twofold.
Down to the Italian school, then, and apart from it, (10) philosophers
have treated these subjects rather obscurely, except that, as we said,
they have in fact used two kinds of cause, and one of these—the source
of movement—some treat as one and others as two. But the
Pythagoreans have said in the same way that there are two principles,
(15) but added this much, which is peculiar to them, that they thought

that finitude and infinity were not attributes of certain other things, e. g.
of fire or earth or anything else of this kind, but that infinity itself and
unity itself were the substance of the things of which they are
predicated. This is why number was the substance of all things. (20) On
this subject, then, they expressed themselves thus; and regarding the
question of essence they began to make statements and definitions, but
treated the matter too simply. For they both defined superficially and
thought that the first subject of which a given definition was predicable
was the substance of the thing defined, as if one supposed that ‘double’
and ‘2’ were the same, (25) because 2 is the first thing of which ‘double’ is
predicable. But surely to be double and to be 2 are not the same; if they
are, one thing will be many17—a consequence which they actually
drew.18 From the earlier philosophers, then, and from their successors
we can learn thus much.

6 After the systems we have named came the philosophy of Plato, (30)
which in most respects followed these thinkers, but had peculiarities that
distinguished it from the philosophy of the Italians. For, having in his
youth first become familiar with Cratylus and with the Heraclitean
doctrines (that all sensible things are ever in a state of flux and there is
no knowledge about them), these views he held even in later years.
[987b] Socrates, however, was busying himself about ethical matters
and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal
in these ethical matters, and, fixed thought for the first time on
definitions; Plato accepted his teaching, but held that the problem
applied not to sensible things but to entities of another kind—for this
reason, (5) that the common definition could not be a definition of any
sensible thing, as they were always changing. Things of this other sort,
then, he called Ideas, and sensible things, he said, were all named after
these, and in virtue of a relation to these; for the many existed by
participation in the Ideas that have the same name as they. Only the
name ‘participation’ was new; for the Pythagoreans say that things exist
by ‘imitation’ of numbers, (10) and Plato says they exist by participation,
changing the name. But what the participation or the imitation of the
Forms could be they left an open question.
Further, besides sensible things and Forms he says there are the
objects of mathematics, which occupy an intermediate position, (15)
differing from sensible things in being eternal and unchangeable, from
Forms in that there are many alike, while the Form itself is in each case
unique.
Since the Forms were the causes of all other things, he thought their
elements were the elements of all things. As matter, (20) the great and the
small were principles; as essential reality, the One; for from the great
and the small, by participation in the One, come the Numbers.
But he agreed with the Pythagoreans in saying that the One is
substance and not a predicate of something else; and in saying that the
Numbers are the causes of the reality of other things he agreed with
them; but positing a dyad and constructing the infinite out of great and
small, (25) instead of treating the infinite as one, is peculiar to him; and
so is his view that the Numbers exist apart from sensible things, while
they say that the things themselves are Numbers, and do not place the
objects of mathematics between Forms and sensible things. His
divergence from the Pythagoreans in making the One and the Numbers
separate from things, (30) and his introduction of the Forms, were due to
his inquiries in the region of definitions (for the earlier thinkers had no
tincture of dialectic), and his making the other entity besides the One a
dyad was due to the belief that the numbers, except those which were
prime, could be neatly produced out of the dyad as out of some plastic
material.
[988a] Yet what happens is the contrary; the theory is not a
reasonable one. For they make many things out of the matter, and the
form generates only once, but what we observe is that one table is made
from one matter, while the man who applies the form, though he is one,
(5) makes many tables. And the relation of the male to the female is

similar; for the latter is impregnated by one copulation, but the male
impregnates many females; yet these are analogues of those first
principles.
Plato, then, declared himself thus on the points in question; it is
evident from what has been said that he has used only two causes, that
of the essence and the material cause (for the Forms are the causes of the
essence of all other things, (10) and the One is the cause of the essence of
the Forms); and it is evident what the underlying matter is, of which the
Forms are predicated in the case of sensible things, and the One in the
case of Forms, viz. that this is a dyad, the great and the small. Further,
he has assigned the cause of good and that of evil to the elements, one to
each of the two, (15) as we say19 some of his predecessors sought to do,
e. g. Empedocles and Anaxagoras.

7 Our review of those who have spoken about first principles and
reality and of the way in which they have spoken, (20) has been concise
and summary; but yet we have learnt this much from them, that of those
who speak about ‘principle’ and ‘cause’ no one has mentioned any
principle except those which have been distinguished in our work on
nature,20 but all evidently have some inkling of them, though only
vaguely. For some speak of the first principle as matter, whether they
suppose one or more first principles, (25) and whether they suppose this
to be a body or to be incorporeal; e. g. Plato spoke of the great and the
small, the Italians of the infinite, Empedocles of fire, earth, water, and
air, Anaxagoras of the infinity of things composed of similar parts.
These, then, have all had a notion of this kind of cause, (30) and so have
all who speak of air or fire or water, or something denser than fire and
rarer than air; for some have said the prime element is of this kind.
These thinkers grasped this cause only; but certain others have
mentioned the source of movement, e. g. those who make friendship and
strife, or reason, or love, a principle.
The essence, i. e. the substantial reality, no one has expressed
distinctly. (35) It is hinted at chiefly by those who believe in the Forms;
for they do not suppose either that the Forms are the matter of sensible
things, and the One the matter of the Forms, or that they are the source
of movement (for they say these are causes rather of immobility and of
being at rest), but they furnish the Forms as the essence of every other
thing, and the One as the essence of the Forms. [988b]
That for whose sake actions and changes and movements take place,
(5) they assert to be a cause in a way, but not in this way, i. e. not in the

way in which it is its nature to be a cause. For those who speak of reason
or friendship class these causes as goods; they do not speak, however, as
if anything that exists either existed or came into being for the sake of
these, but as if movements started from these. (10) In the same way those
who say the One or the existent is the good, say that it is the cause of
substance, but not that substance either is or comes to be for the sake of
this. Therefore it turns out that in a sense they both say and do not say
the good is a cause; for they do not call it a cause qua good but only
incidentally. (15)
All these thinkers, then, as they cannot pitch on another cause, seem
to testify that we have determined rightly both how many and of what
sort the causes are. Besides this it is plain that when the causes are being
looked for, either all four must be sought thus or they must be sought in
one of these four ways. Let us next discuss the possible difficulties with
regard to the way in which each of these thinkers has spoken, (20) and
with regard to his situation relatively to the first principles.

8 Those, then, who say the universe is one and posit one kind of thing
as matter, and as corporeal matter which has spatial magnitude,
evidently go astray in many ways. For they posit the elements of bodies
only, not of incorporeal things, though there are also incorporeal things.
 And in trying to state the causes of generation and destruction, and in
(25)

giving a physical account of all things, they do away with the cause of
movement. Further, they err in not positing the substance, i. e. the
essence, as the cause of anything, and besides this in lightly calling any
of the simple bodies except earth the first principle, (30) without inquiring
how they are produced out of one another,—I mean fire, water, earth,
and air. For some things are produced out of each other by combination,
others by separation, and this makes the greatest difference to their
priority and posteriority. For (1) in a way the property of being most
elementary of all would seem to belong to the first thing from which
they are produced by combination, (35) and this property would belong to
the most fine-grained and subtle of bodies. [989a] For this reason
those who make fire the principle would be most in agreement with this
argument. But each of the other thinkers agrees that the element of
corporeal things is of this sort. (5) At least none of those who named one
element claimed that earth was the element, evidently because of the
coarseness of its grain. (Of the other three elements each has found some
judge on its side; for some maintain that fire, others that water, others
that air is the element. Yet why, after all, do they not name earth also, as
most men do? For people say all things are earth. (10) And Hesiod says
earth was produced first of corporeal things; so primitive and popular
has the opinion been.) According to this argument, then, no one would
be right who either says the first principle is any of the elements other
than fire, or supposes it to be denser than air but rarer than water. (15)
But (2) if that which is later in generation is prior in nature, and that
which is concocted and compounded is later in generation, the contrary
of what we have been saying must be true—water must be prior to air,
and earth to water.
So much, then, for those who posit one cause such as we mentioned;
but the same is true if one supposes more of these, (20) as Empedocles
says the matter of things is four bodies. For he too is confronted by
consequences some of which are the same as have been mentioned,
while others are peculiar to him. For we see these bodies produced from
one another, which implies that the same body does not always remain
fire or earth (we have spoken about this in our works on nature21); and
regarding the cause of movement and the question whether we must
posit one or two, (25) he must be thought to have spoken neither correctly
nor altogether plausibly. And in general, change of quality is necessarily
done away with for those who speak thus, for on their view cold will not
come from hot nor hot from cold. For if it did there would be something
that accepted the contraries themselves, and there would be some one
entity that became fire and water, which Empedocles denies.
As regards Anaxagoras, (30) if one were to suppose that he said there
were two elements, the supposition would accord thoroughly with an
argument which Anaxagoras himself did not state articulately, but which
he must have accepted if any one had led him on to it. True, to say that
in the beginning all things were mixed is absurd both on other grounds
and because it follows that they must have existed before in an unmixed
form, and because nature does not allow any chance thing to be mixed
with any chance thing, and also because on this view modifications and
accidents could be separated from substances (for the same things which
are mixed can be separated); yet if one were to follow him up, piecing
together what he means, he would perhaps be seen to be somewhat
modern in his views. [989b] For when nothing was separated out,
evidently nothing could be truly asserted of the substance that then
existed. (5) I mean, e. g., that it was neither white nor black, nor grey nor
any other colour, but of necessity colourless; for if it had been coloured,
it would have had one of these colours. And similarly, by this same
argument, (10) it was flavourless, nor had it any similar attribute; for it
could not be either of any quality or of any size, nor could it be any
definite kind of thing. For if it were, one of the particular forms would
have belonged to it, and this is impossible, since all were mixed
together; for the particular form would necessarily have been already
separated out, but he says all were mixed except reason, and this alone
was unmixed and pure. (15) From this it follows, then, that he must say
the principles are the One (for this is simple and unmixed) and the
Other, which is of such a nature as we suppose the indefinite to be
before it is defined and partakes of some form. Therefore, while
expressing himself neither rightly nor clearly, he means something like
what the later thinkers say and what is now more clearly seen to be the
case. (20)
But these thinkers are, after all, at home only in arguments about
generation and destruction and movement; for it is practically only of
this sort of substance that they seek the principles and the causes. But
those who extend their vision to all things that exist, (25) and of existing
things suppose some to be perceptible and others not perceptible
evidently study both classes, which is all the more reason why one
should devote some time to seeing what is good in their views and what
bad from the standpoint of the inquiry we have now before us.
The ‘Pythagoreans’ treat of principles and elements stranger than
those of the physical philosophers (the reason is that they got the
principles from non-sensible things, (30) for the objects of mathematics,
except those of astronomy, are of the class of things without movement)
; yet their discussions and investigations are all about nature; for they
generate the heavens, and with regard to their parts and attributes and
functions they observe the phenomena, and use up the principles and the
causes in explaining these, which implies that they agree with the
others, the physical philosophers, that the real is just all that which is
perceptible and contained by the so-called ‘heavens’. [990a] But the
causes and the principles which they mention are, as we said, sufficient
to act as steps even up to the higher realms of reality, (5) and are more
suited to these than to theories about nature. They do not tell us at all,
however, how there can be movement if limit and unlimited and odd
and even are the only things assumed, (10) or how without movement and
change there can be generation and destruction, or the bodies that move
through the heavens can do what they do.
Further, if one either granted them that spatial magnitude consists of
these elements, or this were proved, still how would some bodies be
light and others have weight? To judge from what they assume and
maintain they are speaking no more of mathematical bodies than of
perceptible; hence they have said nothing whatever about fire or earth
or the other bodies of this sort, (15) I suppose because they have nothing
to say which applies peculiarly to perceptible things.
Further, how are we to combine the beliefs that the attributes of
number, (20) and number itself, are causes of what exists and happens in
the heavens both from the beginning and now, and that there is no other
number than this number out of which the world is composed? When in
one particular region they place opinion and opportunity, and, a little
above or below, injustice and decision or mixture, and allege, as proof,
that each of these is a number, (25) and that there happens to be already
in this place a plurality of the extended bodies composed of numbers,
because these attributes of number attach to the various places—this
being so, is this number, which we must suppose each of these
abstractions to be, the same number which is exhibited in the material
universe, or is it another than this? Plato says it is different; yet even he
thinks that both these bodies and their causes are numbers, (30) but that
the intelligible numbers are causes, while the others are sensible.

9 Let us leave the Pythagoreans for the present; for it is enough to

have touched on them as much as we have done. [990b] But as for
those who posit the Ideas as causes, firstly, in seeking to grasp the causes
of the things around us, they introduced others equal in number to
these, as if a man who wanted to count things thought he would not be
able to do it while they were few, but tried to count them when he had
added to their number. For the Forms are practically equal to—or not
fewer than—the things, (5) in trying to explain which these thinkers
proceeded from them to the Forms. For to each thing there answers an
entity which has the same name and exists apart from the substances,
and so also in the case of all other groups there is a one over many,
whether the many are in this world or are eternal.
Further, of the ways in which we prove that the Forms exist, (10) none
is convincing; for from some no inference necessarily follows, and from
some arise Forms even of things of which we think there are no Forms.
For according to the arguments from the existence of the sciences there
will be Forms of all things of which there are sciences, and according to
the ‘one over many’ argument there will be Forms even of negations, and
according to the argument that there is an object for thought even when
the thing has perished, there will be Forms of perishable things; for we
have an image of these. Further, of the more accurate arguments, (15)
some lead to Ideas of relations, of which we say there is no independent
class, and others introduce the ‘third man’.
And in general the arguments for the Forms destroy the things for
whose existence we are more zealous than for the existence of the Ideas;
for it follows that not the dyad but number is first, i. e. that the relative
is prior to the absolute—besides all the other points on which certain
people by following out the opinions held about the Ideas have come
into conflict with the principles of the theory. (20)
Further, according to the assumption on which our belief in the Ideas
rests, there will be Forms not only of substances but also of many other
things (for the concept is single not only in the case of substances but
also in the other cases, (25) and there are sciences not only of substance
but also of other things, and a thousand other such difficulties confront
them). But according to the necessities of the case and the opinions held
about the Forms, if Forms can be shared in there must be Ideas of
substances only. For they are not shared in incidentally, but a thing must
share in its Form as in something not predicated of a subject (by ‘being
shared in incidentally’ I mean that e. g. if a thing shares in ‘double itself’,
(30) it shares also in ‘eternal’, but incidentally; for ‘eternal’ happens to be

predicable of the ‘double’). Therefore the Forms will be substance; but

the same terms indicate substance in this and in the ideal world (or what
will be the meaning of saying that there is something apart from the
particulars—the one over many?). [991a] And if the Ideas and the
particulars that share in them have the same form, there will be
something common to these; for why should ‘2’ be one and the same in
the perishable 2’s or in those which are many but eternal, and not the
same in the ‘2 itself’ as in the particular 2? But if they have not the same
form, (5) they must have only the name in common, and it is as if one
were to call both Callias and a wooden image a ‘man’, without observing
any community between them.22
Above all one might discuss the question what on earth the Forms
contribute to sensible things, either to those that are eternal or to those
that come into being and cease to be. (10) For they cause neither
movement nor any change in them. But again they help in no wise either
towards the knowledge of the other things (for they are not even the
substance of these, else they would have been in them), or towards their
being, if they are not in the particulars which share in them; though if
they were, they might be thought to be causes, as white causes
whiteness in a white object by entering into its composition. (15) But this
argument, which first Anaxagoras and later Eudoxus and certain others
used, is very easily upset; for it is not difficult to collect many
insuperable objections to such a view.
But, further, all other things cannot come from the Forms in any of the
usual senses of ‘from’. (20) And to say that they are patterns and the other
things share in them is to use empty words and poetical metaphors. For
what is it that works, looking to the Ideas? And anything can either be,
or become, like another without being copied from it, (25) so that
whether Socrates exists or not a man like Socrates might come to be; and
evidently this might be so even if Socrates were eternal. And there will
be several patterns of the same thing, and therefore several Forms; e. g.
‘animal’ and ‘two-footed’ and also ‘man himself’ will be Forms of man.
Again, the Forms are patterns not only of sensible things, (30) but of
Forms themselves also; i. e. the genus, as genus of various species, will
be so; therefore the same thing will be pattern and copy. [991b]
Again, it would seem impossible that the substance and that of which
it is the substance should exist apart; how, therefore, could the Ideas,
being the substances of things, exist apart? In the Phaedo23 the case is
stated in this way—that the Forms are causes both of being and of
becoming; yet when the Forms exist, (5) still the things that share in them
do not come into being, unless there is something to originate
movement; and many other things come into being (e. g. a house or a
ring) of which we say there are no Forms. Clearly, therefore, even the
other things can both be and come into being owing to such causes as
produce the things just mentioned.24
Again, if the Forms are numbers, how can they be causes? Is it because
existing things are other numbers, (10) e. g. one number is man, another
is Socrates, another Callias? Why then are the one set of numbers causes
of the other set? It will not make any difference even if the former are
eternal and the latter are not. But if it is because things in this sensible
world (e. g. harmony) are ratios of numbers, evidently the things
between which they are ratios are some one class of things. (15) If, then,
this—the matter—is some definite thing, evidently the numbers
themselves too will be ratios of something to something else. e. g. if
Callias is a numerical ratio between fire and earth and water and air, his
Idea also will be a number of certain other underlying things; and man-
himself, whether it is a number in a sense or not, will still be a
numerical ratio of certain things and not a number proper, (20) nor will it
be a kind of number merely because it is a numerical ratio.
Again, from many numbers one number is produced, but how can one
Form come from many Forms? And if the number comes not from the
many numbers themselves but from the units in them, e. g. in 10,000,
how is it with the units? If they are specifically alike, numerous
absurdities will follow, and also if they are not alike (neither the units in
one number being themselves like one another nor those in other
numbers being all like to all); for in what will they differ, (25) as they are
without quality? This is not a plausible view, nor is it consistent with our
thought on the matter.
Further, they must set up a second kind of number (with which
arithmetic deals), and all the objects which are called ‘intermediate’ by
some thinkers; and how do these exist or from what principles do they
proceed? Or why must they be intermediate between the things in this
sensible world and the things-themselves?
Further, (30) the units in 2 must each come from a prior 2; but this is
impossible.
Further, why is a number, when taken all together, one?
[992a] Again, besides what has been said, if the units are diverse the
Platonists should have spoken like those who say there are four, or two,
elements; for each of these thinkers gives the name of element not to
that which is common, e. g. to body, but to fire and earth, (5) whether
there is something common to them, viz. body, or not. But in fact the
Platonists speak as if the One were homogeneous like fire or water; and if
this is so, the numbers will not be substances. Evidently, if there is a
One-itself and this is a first principle, ‘one’ is being used in more than
one sense; for otherwise the theory is impossible.
When we wish to reduce substances to their principles, (10) we state
that lines come from the short and long (i. e. from a kind of small and
great), and the plane from the broad and narrow, and body from the
deep and shallow. Yet how then can either the plane contain a line, or
the solid a line or a plane? For the broad and narrow is a different class
from the deep and shallow. Therefore, just as number is not present in
these, (15) because the many and few are different from these, evidently
no other of the higher classes will be present in the lower. But again the
broad is not a genus which includes the deep, for then the solid would
have been a species of plane.25 Further, from what principle will the
presence of the points in the line be derived? Plato even used to object to
this class of things as being a geometrical fiction. (20) He gave the name
of principle of the line—and this he often posited—to the indivisible
lines. Yet these must have a limit; therefore the argument from which
the existence of the line follows proves also the existence of the point.
In general, though philosophy seeks the cause of perceptible things, (25)
we have given this up (for we say nothing of the cause from which
change takes its start), but while we fancy we are stating the substance
of perceptible things, we assert the existence of a second class of
substances, while our account of the way in which they are the
substances of perceptible things is empty talk; for ‘sharing’, as we said
before,26 means nothing.
Nor have the Forms any connexion with what we see to be the cause
in the case of the arts, (30) that for whose sake both all mind and the
whole of nature are operative27—with this cause which we assert to be
one of the first principles; but mathematics has come to be identical with
philosophy for modern thinkers, though they say that it should be
studied for the sake of other things.28
[992b] Further, one might suppose that the substance which
according to them underlies as matter is too mathematical, and is a
predicate and differentia of the substance, i. e. of the matter, rather than
than matter itself; i. e. the great and the small are like the rare and the
dense which the physical philosophers speak of, (5) calling these the
primary differentiae of the substratum; for these are a kind of excess and
defect. And regarding movement, if the great and the small are to be
movement, evidently the Forms will be moved; but if they are not to be
movement, whence did movement come? The whole study of nature has
been annihilated.
And what is thought to be easy—to show that all things are one—is
not done; for what is proved by the method of setting out instances29 is
not that all things are one but that there is a One-itself, (10)—if we grant
all the assumptions. And not even this follows, if we do not grant that
the universal is a genus; and this in some cases it cannot be.
Nor can it be explained either how the lines and planes and solids that
come after the numbers exist or can exist, (15) or what significance they
have; for these can neither be Forms (for they are not numbers), nor the
intermediates (for those are the objects of mathematics), nor the
perishable things. This is evidently a distinct fourth class.
In general, if we search for the elements of existing things without
distinguishing the many senses in which things are said to exist, we
cannot find them, especially if the search for the elements of which
things are made is conducted in this manner. (20) For it is surely
impossible to discover what ‘acting’ or ‘being acted on’, or ‘the straight’,
is made of, but if elements can be discovered at all, it is only the
elements of substances; therefore either to seek the elements of all
existing things or to think one has them is incorrect.
And how could we learn the elements of all things? Evidently we
cannot start by knowing anything before. For as he who is learning
geometry, (25) though he may know other things before, knows none of
the things with which the science deals and about which he is to learn,
so is it in all other cases. Therefore if there is a science of all things, such
as some assert to exist, he who is learning this will know nothing before.
Yet all learning is by means of premisses which are (either all or some of
them) known before—whether the learning be by demonstration or by
definitions; for the elements of the definition must be known before and
be familiar; and learning by induction proceeds similarly. (30) But again,
if the science were actually innate, it were strange that we are unaware
of our possession of the greatest of sciences. [993a]
Again, how is one to come to know what all things are made of, and
how is this to be made evident? This also affords a difficulty; for there
might be a conflict of opinion, as there is about certain syllables; some
say za is made out of s and d and a, (5) while others say it is a distinct
sound and none of those that are familiar.
Further, how could we know the objects of sense without having the
sense in question? Yet we ought to, if the elements of which all things
consist, as complex sounds consist of the elements proper to sound, (10)
are the same.

10 It is evident, then, even from what we have said before, that all
men seem to seek the causes named in the Physics,30 and that we cannot
name any beyond these; but they seek these vaguely; and though in a
sense they have all been described before, in a sense they have not been
described at all. For the earliest philosophy is, (15) on all subjects, like
one who lisps, since it is young and in its beginnings. For even
Empedocles says bone exists by virtue of the ratio in it. Now this is the
essence and the substance of the thing. But it is similarly necessary that
flesh and each of the other tissues should be the ratio of its elements, or
that not one of them should; for it is on account of this that both flesh
and bone and everything else will exist, (20) and not on account of the
matter, which he names—fire and earth and water and air. But while he
would necessarily have agreed if another had said this, he has not said it
clearly.
On these questions our views have been expressed before; but let us
return to enumerate the difficulties that might be raised on these same
points;31 for perhaps we may get from them some help towards our later
difficulties. (25)

1 Cf. Pl. Gorg. 448 C, 462 BC.

2 1139b 14–1141b 8.

3 Phys. ii. 3, 7.

4 The reference is probably to Plato (Crat. 402 B, Theaet. 152 E, 162 D, 180 C).

5 Hom. Il. xiv, 201, 246.

6 Ibid. ii. 755, xiv. 271, xv. 37.

7 Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus.

8 The Eleatics.

9 The reference is probably to Empedocles.

10 a18

11 Anaxagoras.

12 The promise is not fulfilled.

13 Phys. ii. 3, 7.

14 Cf. Pl. Phaedo, 98 BC, Laws, 967 B–D.

15 De Caelo, ii. 13.

16 Phys. i. 3.

17 i. e. 2 will be each of several things whose definition is predicable of it.

18 e. g. 2 was identified both with opinion and with daring.

19 Cf. 984b 15–19, 32–b 10.

20 Phys. ii. 3, 7.

21 De Caelo, iii. 7.

22 With 990b 2–991a 8 Cf. xiii. 1078b 34–1079b 3.

23 100 C–E.

24 With 991a 8–b 9 Cf. xiii. 1079b 12–1080a 8.

25 With 992a 10–19 Cf. xiii. 1085a 9–19.

26 991a 20–22.

27 sc. the final cause.

28 Cf. Plato, Rep. vii. 531 D, 533 B–E.

29 For this Platonic method Cf. vii. 1031b 21, xiii. 1086b 9, xiv. 1090a 17.

30 ii. 3, 7.

31 The reference is to Bk. iii.

 BOOK α (II)

1 The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, (30) 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. [993b]
Therefore, since the truth seems to be like the proverbial door, which no
one can fail to hit, (5) 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, (10) 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, (15) 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. (20) 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
which causes derivative truths to be true is most true. (25) 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. (30)

2 [994a] But evidently there is a first principle, and the causes of

things are neither an infinite series nor infinitely various in kind. For (1)
neither can one thing proceed from another, as from matter, ad infinitum
(e. g. flesh from earth, earth from air, air from fire, (5) 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,1 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. (10) 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. (15) (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, (20) 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, (25)
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,
(30) 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. [994b] But in both
cases it is impossible that the number of terms should be infinite. For
terms of the former kind, (5) 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, (10) 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, (15) 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.2 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, (20) 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?3 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), (25) 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.4
But (2) 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, but that which is infinite by
addition cannot be gone through in a finite time. (30)

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. [995a] 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, (5) 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. (10) 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, (15) but only in the case of things which have no matter. Hence its
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]. (20)

1 The illustration is taken from the cosmology of Empedocles.

2 i. e. one can reduce the definition of man as ‘rational animal’ to ‘rational sensitive living
substance’, but one cannot carry on this process ad infinitum.
3 i. e. actually infinite.

4 i. e. does not contain an infinite number of marks.

 BOOK B (II)

1 We must, with a view to the science which we are seeking, first

recount the subjects that should be first discussed. These include both
the other opinions that some have held on the first principles, (25) and
any point besides these that happens to have been overlooked. For those
who wish to get clear of difficulties it is advantageous to discuss the
difficulties well; for the subsequent free play of thought implies the
solution of the previous difficulties, and it is not possible to untie a knot
of which one does not know. (30) But the difficulty of our thinking points
to a ‘knot’ in the object; for in so far as our thought is in difficulties, it is
in like case with those who are bound; for in either case it is impossible
to go forward. Hence one should have surveyed all the difficulties
beforehand, both for the purposes we have stated and because people
who inquire without first stating the difficulties are like those who do
not know where they have to go; besides, (35) a man does not otherwise
know even whether he has at any given time found what he is looking
for or not; for the end is not clear to such a man, while to him who has
first discussed the difficulties it is clear. [995b] Further, he who has
heard all the contending arguments, as if they were the parties to a case,
must be in a better position for judging.
The first problem concerns the subject1 which we discussed in our
prefatory remarks. (5) It is this—(1) whether the investigation of the
causes belongs to one or to more sciences,2 and (2) whether such a
science should survey only the first principles of substance, or also the
principles on which all men base their proofs, e. g. whether it is possible
at the same time to assert and deny one and the same thing or not, (10)
and all other such questions;3 and (3) if the science in question deals
with substance, whether one science deals with all substances, or more
than one,4 and if more, whether all are akin, or some of them must be
called forms of Wisdom and the others something else. And (4) this itself
is also one of the things that must be discussed—whether sensible
substances alone should be said to exist or others also besides them, (15)
and whether these others are of one kind or there are several classes of
substances, as is supposed by those who believe both in Form and in
mathematical objects intermediate between these and sensible things.5
Into these questions, then, as we say, we must inquire, and also (5)
whether our investigation is concerned only with substances or also with
the essential attributes of substances.6 Further, (20) with regard to the
same and other and like and unlike and contrariety, and with regard to
prior and posterior and all other such terms about which the
dialecticians try to inquire, starting their investigation from probable
premises only—whose business is it to inquire into all these? Further, (25)
we must discuss the essential attributes of these themselves; and we
must ask not only what each of these is, but also whether one thing
always has one contrary.7 Again (6), are the principles and elements of
things the genera, or the parts present in each thing, into which it is
divided;8 and (7) if they are the genera, are they the genera that are
predicated proximately of the individuals, or the highest genera, e. g. is
animal or man the first principle and the more independent of the
individual instance?9 And (8) we must inquire and discuss especially
whether there is, (30) besides the matter, any thing that is a cause in itself
or not, and whether this can exist apart or not, and whether it is one or
more in number, and whether there is something apart from the concrete
thing (by the concrete thing I mean the matter with something already
predicated of it), (35) or there is nothing apart, or there is something in
some cases though not in others, and what sort of cases these are.10
Again (9) we ask whether the principles are limited in number or in
kind, both those in the definitions and those in the substratum;11 and
(10) whether the principles of perishable and of imperishable things are
the same or different; and whether they are all imperishable or those of
perishable things are perishable.12 [996a] Further (11) there is the
question which is hardest of all and most perplexing, whether unity and
being, (5) as the Pythagoreans and Plato said, are not attributes of
something else but the substance of existing things, or this is not the
case, but the substratum is something else—as Empedocles says, love; as
some one else13 says, fire; while another14 says water or air.15 Again
(12) we ask whether the principles are universal or like individual
things,16 and (13) whether they exist potentially or actually,17 and
further, (10) whether they are potential or actual in any other sense than
in reference to movement;18 for these questions also would present much
difficulty. Further (14), are numbers and lines and figures and points a
kind of substance or not, and if they are substances are they separate
from sensible things or present in them?19 With regard to all these
matters not only is it hard to get possession of the truth, (15) but it is not
easy even to think out the difficulties well.

2 (1) First then with regard to what we mentioned first, does it

belong to one or to more sciences to investigate all the kinds of causes?
How could it belong to one science to recognize the principles if these
are not contrary?
Further, (20) there are many things to which not all the principles
pertain. For how can a principle of change or the nature of the good
exist for unchangeable things, since everything that in itself and by its
own nature is good is an end, (25) and a cause in the sense that for its
sake the other things both come to be and are, and since an end or
purpose is the end of some action, and all actions imply change? So in
the case of unchangeable things this principle could not exist, nor could
there be a good-itself. This is why in mathematics nothing is proved by
means of this kind of cause, (30) nor is there any demonstration of this
kind—‘because it is better, or worse’; indeed no one even mentions
anything of the kind. And so for this reason some of the Sophists, e. g.
Aristippus, used to ridicule mathematics; for in the arts (he maintained),
even in the industrial arts, e. g. in carpentry and cobbling, (35) the reason
always given is ‘because it is better, or worse’, but the mathematical
sciences take no account of goods and evils. [996b]
But if there are several sciences of the causes, and a different science
for each different principle, which of these sciences should be said to be
that which we seek, or which of the people who possess them has the
most scientific knowledge of the object in question? The same thing may
have all the kinds of causes, (5) e. g. the moving cause of a house is the
art or the builder, the final cause is the function it fulfils, the matter is
earth and stones, and the form is the definition. To judge from our
previous discussion20 of the question which of the sciences should be
called Wisdom, there is reason for applying the name to each of them.
(10) For inasmuch as it is most architectonic and authoritative and the
other sciences, like slave-women, may not even contradict it, the science
of the end and of the good is of the nature of Wisdom (for the other
things are for the sake of the end). But inasmuch as it was described21 as
dealing with the first causes and that which is in the highest sense object
of knowledge, the science of substance22 must be of the nature of
Wisdom. (15) For since men may know the same thing in many ways, we
say that he who recognizes what a thing is by its being so and so knows
more fully than he who recognizes it by its not being so and so, and in
the former class itself one knows more fully than another, and he knows
most fully who knows what a thing is, not he who knows its quantity or
quality or what it can by nature do or have done to it. And further in all
other cases also we think that the knowledge of each even of the things
of which demonstration is possible is present only when we know what
the thing is, (20) e. g. what squaring a rectangle is, viz. that it is the
finding of a mean; and similarly in all other cases. And we know about
becomings and actions and about every change when we know the
source of the movement; and this is other than and opposed to the end.
Therefore it would seem to belong to different sciences to investigate
these causes severally.23 (25)
But (2), taking the starting-points of demonstration as well as the
causes, it is a disputable question whether they are the object of one
science or of more (by the starting-points of demonstration I mean the
common beliefs, on which all men base their proofs); e. g. that
everything must be either affirmed or denied, and that a thing cannot at
the same time be and not be, and all other such premisses:—the question
is whether the same science deals with them as with substance, (30) or a
different science, and if it is not one science, which of the two must be
identified with that which we now seek.—It is not reasonable that these
topics should be the object of one science; for why should it be
peculiarly appropriate to geometry or to any other science to understand
these matters? If then it belongs to every science alike, (35) and cannot
belong to all, it is not peculiar to the science which investigates
substances, any more than to any other science, to know about these
topics. [997a]—And, at the same time, in what way can there be a
science of the first principles? For we are aware even now what each of
them in fact is (at least even other sciences use them as familiar); but if
there is a demonstrative science which deals with them, (5) there will
have to be an underlying kind, and some of them must be demonstrable
attributes and others must be axioms (for it is impossible that there
should be demonstration about all of them); for the demonstration must
start from certain premisses and be about a certain subject and prove
certain attributes. Therefore it follows that all attributes that are proved
must belong to a single class; for all demonstrative sciences use the
axioms. (10)
But if the science of substance and the science which deals with the
axioms are different, which of them is by nature more authoritative and
prior? The axioms are most universal and are principles of all things.
And if it is not the business of the philosopher, to whom else will it
belong to inquire what is true and what is untrue about them?24
(3) In general, do all substances fall under one science or under more
than one? If the latter, (15) to what sort of substance is the present science
to be assigned?—On the other hand, it is not reasonable that one science
should deal with all. For then there would be one demonstrative science
dealing with all attributes. For every demonstrative science investigates
with regard to some subject its essential attributes, (20) starting from the
common beliefs.25 Therefore to investigate the essential attributes of one
class of things, starting from one set of beliefs, is the business of one
science. For the subject belongs to one science, and the premisses belong
to one, whether to the same or to another; so that the attributes do so
too, whether they are investigated by these sciences or by one
compounded out of them.26
(4)27 Further, (25) does our investigation deal with substances alone or
also with their attributes? I mean for instance, if the solid is a substance
and so are lines and planes, is it the business of the same science to
know these and to know the attributes of each of these classes (the
attributes about which the mathematical sciences offer proofs), (30) or of
a different science? If of the same, the science of substance also must be
a demonstrative science; but it is thought that there is no demonstration
of the essence of things. And if of another, what will be the science that
investigates the attributes of substance? This is a very difficult
question.28
(5) Further, must we say that sensible substances alone exist, (35) or
that there are others besides these? And are substances of one kind or
are there in fact several kinds of substances, as those say who assert the
existence both of the Forms and of the intermediates, with which they
say the mathematical sciences deal?—The sense in which we say the
Forms are both causes and self-dependent substances has been explained
in our first remarks about them;29 while the theory presents difficulties
in many ways, (5) the most paradoxical thing of all is the statement that
there are certain things besides those in the material universe, and that
these are the same as sensible things except that they are eternal while
the latter are perishable. [997b] For they say there is a man-himself
and a horse-itself and health-itself, with no further qualification—a
procedure like that of the people who said there are gods, (10) but in
human form. For they were positing nothing but eternal men, nor are
the Platonists making the Forms anything other than eternal sensible
things.
Further, if we are to posit besides the Forms and the sensibles the
intermediates between them, we shall have many difficulties. For clearly
on the same principle there will be lines besides the lines-themselves and
the sensible lines, and so with each of the other classes of things; so that
since astronomy is one of these mathematical sciences there will also be
a heaven besides the sensible heaven, (15) and a sun and a moon (and so
with the other heavenly bodies) besides the sensible. Yet how are we to
believe in these things? It is not reasonable even to suppose such a body
immovable, but to suppose it moving is quite impossible.—And similarly
with the things of which optics and mathematical harmonics treat; for
these also cannot exist apart from the sensible things, (20) for the same
reasons. For if there are sensible things and sensations intermediate
between Form and individual, evidently there will also be animals
intermediate between animals-themselves and the perishable animals.—
We might also raise the question, (25) with reference to which kind of
existing things we must look for these sciences of intermediates. If
geometry is to differ from mensuration only in this, that the latter deals
with things that we perceive, and the former with things that are not
perceptible, evidently there will also be a science other than medicine,
intermediate between medical-science-itself and this individual medical
science, and so with each of the other sciences. Yet how is this possible?
There would have to be also healthy things besides the perceptible
healthy things and the healthy-itself. (30)—And at the same time not even
this is true, that mensuration deals with perceptible and perishable
magnitudes; for then it would have perished when they perished.
But on the other hand astronomy cannot be dealing with perceptible
magnitudes nor with this heaven above us. (35) For neither are
perceptible lines such lines as the geometer speaks of (for no perceptible
thing is straight or round in the way in which he defines ‘straight’ and
‘round’; for a hoop touches a straight edge not at a point, but as
Protagoras used to say it did, in his refutation of the geometers), nor are
the movements and spiral orbits in the heavens like those of which
astronomy treats, (5) nor have geometrical points the same nature as the
actual stars. [998a]—Now there are some who say that these so-called
intermediates between the Forms and the perceptible things exist, not
apart from the perceptible things, however, but in these; the impossible
results of this view would take too long to enumerate, (10) but it is
enough to consider even such points as the following:—It is not
reasonable that this should be so only in the case of these intermediates,
but clearly the Forms also might be in the perceptible things; for both
statements are parts of the same theory. Further, it follows from this
theory that there are two solids in the same place, and that the
intermediates are not immovable, since they are in the moving
perceptible things. And in general to what purpose would one suppose
them to exist indeed, (15) but to exist in perceptible things? For the same
paradoxical results will follow which we have already mentioned; there
will be a heaven besides the heaven, only it will be not apart but in the
same place; which is still more impossible.30

3 (6) Apart from the great difficulty of stating the case truly with
regard to these matters, (20) it is very hard to say, with regard to the first
principles, whether it is the genera that should be taken as elements and
principles, or rather the primary constituents of a thing; e. g. it is the
primary parts of which articulate sounds consist that are thought to be
elements and principles of articulate sound, (25) not the common genus—
articulate sound; and we give the name of ‘elements’ to those
geometrical propositions, the proofs of which are implied in the proofs
of the others, either of all or of most. Further, both those who say there
are several elements of corporeal things and those who say there is one,
(30) say the parts of which bodies are compounded and consist are

principles; e. g. Empedocles says fire and water and the rest are the
constituent elements of things, but does not describe these as genera of
existing things. [998b] Besides this, if we want to examine the nature
of anything else, we examine the parts of which, e. g., a bed consists and
how they are put together, and then we know its nature.
To, judge from these arguments, then, the principles of things would
not be the genera; but if we know each thing by its definition, (5) and the
genera are the principles or starting-points of definitions, the genera
must also be the principles of definable things. And if to get the
knowledge of the species according to which things are named is to get
the knowledge of things, the genera are at least starting-points of the
species. And some also of those who say unity or being,31 or the great
and the small,32 (10) are elements of things, seem to treat them as genera.
But, again, it is not possible to describe the principles in both ways.
For the formula of the essence is one; but definition by genera will be
different from that which states the constituent parts of a thing.33
(7) Besides this, even if the genera are in the highest degree principles,
(15) should one regard the first of the genera as principles, or those which

are predicated directly of the individuals? This also admits of dispute.

For if the universals are always more of the nature of principles,
evidently the uppermost of the genera are the principles; for these are
predicated of all things. There will, then, be as many principles of things
as there are primary genera, so that both being and unity will be
principles and substances; for these are most of all predicated of all
existing things. (20) But it is not possible that either unity or being should
be a single genus of things; for the differentiae of any genus must each of
them both have being and be one, but it is not possible for the genus
taken apart from its species (any more than for the species of the genus)
to be predicated of its proper differentiae; so that if unity or being is a
genus, (25) no differentia will either have being or be one. But if unity
and being are not genera, neither will they be principles, if the genera
are the principles.—Again, the intermediate kinds, in whose nature the
differentiae are included, will on this theory be genera, down to the
indivisible species; but as it is, some are thought to be genera and others
are not thought to be so. Besides this, (30) the differentiae are principles
even more than the genera; and if these also are principles, there comes
to be practically an infinite number of principles, especially if we
suppose the highest genus to be a principle.—But again, if unity is more
of the nature of a principle, and the indivisible is one, and everything
indivisible is so either in quantity or in species, and that which is so in
species is the prior, and genera are divisible into species (for man is not
the genus of individual men), that which is predicated directly of the
individuals will have more unity. [999a] (5)—Further, in the case of
things in which the distinction of prior and posterior is present, that
which is predicable of these things cannot be something apart from them
(e. g. if two is the first of numbers, there will not be a Number apart
from the kinds of numbers; and similarly there will not be a Figure apart
from the kinds of figures; and if the genera of these things do not exist
apart from the species, (10) the genera of other things will scarcely do so;
for genera of these things are thought to exist if any do). But among the
individuals one is not prior and another posterior. Further, where one
thing is better and another worse, the better is always prior; so that of
these also no genus can exist.
From these considerations, then, the species predicated of individuals
seem to be principles rather than the genera. (15) But again, it is not easy
to say in what sense these are to be taken as principles. For the principle,
and must be capable of existing in separation from the principle, and
must be capable of existing in separation from them; but for what reason
should we suppose any such thing to exist alongside of the individual,
except that it is predicated universally and of all? But if this is the
reason, (20) the things that are more universal must be supposed to be
more of the nature of principles; so that the highest genera would be the
principles.34

4 (8) There is a difficulty connected with these, (25) the hardest of all
and the most necessary to examine, and of this the discussion now
awaits us. If, on the one hand, there is nothing apart from individual
things, and the individuals are infinite in number, how then is it possible
to get knowledge of the infinite individuals? For all things that we come
to know, we come to know in so far as they have some unity and
identity, and in so far as some attribute belongs to them universally.
But if this is necessary, and there must be something apart from the
individuals, (30) it will be necessary that the genera exist apart from the
individuals—either the lowest or the highest genera; but we found by
discussion just now that this is impossible.35
Further, if we admit in the fullest sense that something exists apart
from the concrete thing, whenever something is predicated of the
matter, must there, if there is something apart, be something apart from
each set of individuals, or from some and not from others, or from none?
(A) If there is nothing apart from individuals, there will be no object of
thought, but all things will be objects of sense, and there will not be
knowledge of anything, unless we say that sensation is knowledge.36
[999b] Further, nothing will be eternal or unmovable; for all
perceptible things perish and are in movement. (5) But if there is nothing
eternal, neither can there be a process of coming to be; for there must be
something that comes to be, i. e. from which something comes to be, and
the ultimate term in this series cannot have come to be, since the series
has a limit and since nothing can come to be out of that which is not.
Further, if generation and movement exist there must also be a limit; for
no movement is infinite, (10) but every movement has an end, and that
which is incapable of completing its coming to be cannot be in process
of coming to be; and that which has completed its coming to be must be
as soon as it has come to be.37 Further, since the matter exists, because it
is ungenerated, it is a fortiori reasonable that the substance or essence,
that which the matter is at any time coming to be, should exist; for if
neither essence nor matter is to be, (15) nothing will be at all, and since
this is impossible there must be something besides the concrete thing,
viz. the shape or form.
But again (B) if we are to suppose this, it is hard to say in which cases
we are to suppose it and in which not. For evidently it is not possible to
suppose it in all cases; we could not suppose that there is a house besides
the particular houses.—Besides this, (20) will the substance of all the
individuals, e. g. of all men, be one? This is paradoxical, for all the
things whose substance is one are one. But are the substances many and
different? This also is unreasonable.—At the same time, how does the
matter become each of the individuals, and how is the concrete thing
these two elements?38
(9) Again, one might ask the following question also about the first
principles. If they are one in kind only, nothing will be numerically one,
(25) not even unity-itself and being-itself; and how will knowing exist, if

there is not to be something common to a whole set of individuals?

But if there is a common element which is numerically one, and each of
the principles is one, and the principles are not as in the case of
perceptible things different for different things (e. g. since this particular
syllable is the same in kind whenever it occurs, the elements of it are
also the same in kind; only in kind, for these also, (30) like the syllable,
are numerically different in different contexts),—if it is not like this but
the principles of things are numerically one, there will be nothing else
besides the elements (for there is no difference of meaning between
‘numerically one’ and ‘individual’; for this is just what we mean by the
individual—the numerically one, and by the universal we mean that
which is predicable of the individuals). [1000a] Therefore it will be
just as if the elements of articulate sound were limited in number; all the
language in the world would be confined to the ABC, since there could
not be two or more letters of the same kind.39
(10) One difficulty which is as great as any has been neglected both by
modern philosophers and by their predecessors—whether the principles
of perishable and those of imperishable things are the same or different.
(5) If they are the same, how are some things perishable and others

imperishable, and for what reason? The school of Hesiod and all the
theologians thought only of what was plausible to themselves, and had
no regard to us. For, asserting the first principles to be gods and born of
gods, (10) they say that the beings which did not taste of nectar and
ambrosia became mortal; and clearly they are using words which are
familiar to themselves, yet what they have said about the very
application of these causes is above our comprehension. For if the gods
taste of nectar and ambrosia for their pleasure, (15) these are in no wise
the causes of their existence; and if they taste them to maintain their
existence, how can gods who need food be eternal?—But into the
subtleties of the mythologists it is not worth our while to inquire
seriously; those, however, who use the language of proof we must cross-
examine and ask why, (20) after all, things which consist of the same
elements are, some of them, eternal in nature, while others perish. Since
these philosophers mention no cause, and it is unreasonable that things
should be as they say, evidently the principles or causes of things cannot
be the same. Even the man whom one might suppose to speak most
consistently—Empedocles—even he has made the same mistake; for he
maintains that strife is a principle that causes destruction, (25) but even
strife would seem no less to produce everything, except the One; for all
things excepting God proceed from strife. At least he says:—

From which all that was and is and will be hereafter—

Trees, (30) and men and women, took their growth,
And beasts and birds and water-nourished fish,
And long-aged gods.

The implication is evident even apart from these words; for if strife had
not been present in things, all things would have been one, according to
him; for when they have come together, ‘then strife stood outermost.’
[1000b] Hence it also follows on his theory that God most blessed is
less wise than all others; for he does not know all the elements; for he
has in him no strife, (5) and knowledge is of the like by the like. ‘For by
earth,’ he says,

we see earth, by water water,

By ether godlike ether, by fire wasting fire,
Love by love, and strife by gloomy strife.

But—and this is the point we started from—this at least is evident, (10)

that on his theory it follows that strife is as much the cause of existence
as of destruction. And similarly love is not specially the cause of
existence; for in collecting things into the One it destroys all other
things. And at the same time Empedocles mentions no cause of the
change itself, except that things are so by nature.

But when strife at last waxed great in the limbs of the Sphere,
And sprang to assert its rights as the time was fulfilled
 Which is fixed for them in turn by a mighty oath. (15)

This implies that change was necessary; but he shows no cause of the
necessity. But yet so far at least he alone speaks consistently; for he does
not make some things perishable and others imperishable, but makes all
perishable except the elements. The difficulty we are speaking of now is,
(20) why some things are perishable and others are not, if they consist of

the same principles.

Let this suffice as proof of the fact that the principles cannot be the
same. But if there are different principles, one difficulty is whether these
also will be imperishable or perishable. For if they are perishable,
evidently these also must consist of certain elements (for all things that
perish, (25) perish by being resolved into the elements of which they
consist); so that it follows that prior to the principles there are other
principles. But this is impossible, whether the process has a limit or
proceeds to infinity. Further, how will perishable things exist, if their
principles are to be annulled? But if the principles are imperishable, why
will things composed of some imperishable principles be perishable,
while those composed of the others are imperishable? This is not
probable, (30) but is either impossible or needs much proof. Further, no
one has even tried to maintain different principles; they maintain the
same principles for all things. But they swallow the difficulty we stated
first40 as if they took it to be something trifling.41 [1001a]
(11) The inquiry that is both the hardest of all and the most necessary
for knowledge of the truth is whether being and unity are the substances
of things, (5) and whether each of them, without being anything else, is
being or unity respectively, or we must inquire what being and unity are,
with the implication that they have some other underlying nature. For
some people think they are of the former, others think they are of the
latter character. Plato and the Pythagoreans thought being and unity
were nothing else, but this was their nature, (10) their essence being just
unity and being. But the natural philosophers take a different line; e. g.
Empedocles—as though reducing it to something more intelligible—says
what unity is; for he would seem to say it is love: at least, this is for all
things the cause of their being one. Others say this unity and being, (15)
of which things consist and have been made, is fire,42 and others say it is
air.43 A similar view is expressed by those who make the elements more
than one; for these also must say that unity and being are precisely all
the things which they say are principles.
(A) If we do not suppose unity and being to be substances, it follows
that none of the other universals is a substance; for these are most
universal of all, (20) and if there is no unity-itself or being-itself, there
will scarcely be in any other case anything apart from what are called the
individuals. (25) Further, if unity is not a substance, evidently number
also will not exist as an entity separate from the individual things; for
number is units, and the unit is precisely a certain kind of one.
But (B) if there is a unity-itself and a being-itself, unity and being must
be their substance; for it is not something else that is predicated
universally of the things that are and are one, but just unity and being.
(30) But if there is to be a being-itself and a unity-itself, there is much

difficulty in seeing how there will be anything else besides these—I

mean, how things will be more than one in number. For what is different
from being does not exist, so that it necessarily follows, according to the
argument of Parmenides, that all things that are are one and this is
being.
[1001b] There are objections to both views. For whether unity is not
a substance or there is a unity-itself, number cannot be a substance. We
have already44 said why this result follows if unity is not a substance;
and if it is, the same difficulty arises as arose45 with regard to being. (5)
For whence is there to be another one besides unity-itself? It must be
not-one; but all things are either one or many, and of the many each is
one.
Further, if unity-itself is indivisible, according to Zeno’s postulate it
will be nothing. For that which neither when added makes a thing
greater nor when subtracted makes it less, he asserts to have no being,
(10) evidently assuming that whatever has being is a spatial magnitude.

And if it is a magnitude, it is corporeal; for the corporeal has being in

every dimension, while the other objects of mathematics, e. g. a plane or
a line, added in one way will increase what they are added to, but in
another way will not do so,46 and a point or a unit does so in no way.
But, since his theory is of a low order, (15) and an indivisible thing can
exist in such a way as to have a defence even against him (for the
indivisible when added will make the number, though not the size,
greater)—yet how can a magnitude proceed from one such indivisible or
from many? It is like saying that the line is made out of points.
But even if one supposes the case to be such that, (20) as some say,
number proceeds from unity-itself and something else which is not one,
none the less we must inquire why and how the product will be
sometimes a number and sometimes a magnitude, if the not-one was
inequality47 and was the same principle in either case. For it is not
evident how magnitudes could proceed either from the one and this
principle, or from some number and this principle.48

5 (14) A question connected with these is whether numbers and

bodies and planes and points are substances of a kind, (25) or not. If they
are not, it baffles us to say what being is and what the substances of
things are. For modifications and movements and relations and
dispositions and ratios do not seem to indicate the substance of
anything; for all are predicated of a subject, (30) and none is a ‘this’. And
as to the things which might seem most of all to indicate substance,
water and earth and fire and air, of which composite bodies consist, heat
and cold and the like are modifications of these, not substances, and the
body which is thus modified alone persists as something real and as a
substance. [1002a] But, on the other hand, the body is surely less of a
substance than the surface, and the surface than the line, (5) and the line
than the unit and the point. For the body is bounded by these; and they
are thought to be capable of existing without body, but body incapable
of existing without these. This is why, while most of the philosophers
and the earlier among them thought that substance and being were
identical with body, and that all other things were modifications of this,
so that the first principles of bodies were the first principles of being, (10)
the more recent and those who were held to be wiser thought numbers
were the first principles. As we said, then, if these are not substance,
there is no substance and no being at all; for the accidents of these it
cannot be right to call beings.
But if this is admitted, that lines and points are substance more than
bodies, (15) but we do not see to what sort of bodies these could belong
(for they cannot be in perceptible bodies), there can be no substance.—
Further, these are all evidently divisions of body—one in breadth,
another in depth, another in length.—Besides this, (20) no sort of shape is
present in the solid more than any other; so that if the Hermes is not in
the stone, neither is the half of the cube in the cube as something
determinate; therefore the surface is not in it either; for if any sort of
surface were in it, the surface which marks off the half of the cube
would be in it too. And the same account applies to the line and to the
point and the unit. (25) Therefore, if on the one hand body is in the
highest degree substance, and on the other hand these things are so
more than body, but these are not even instances of substance,49 it
baffles us to say what being is and what the substance of things is.—For
besides what has been said, (30) the questions of generation and
destruction confront us with further paradoxes. For if substance, not
having existed before, now exists, or having existed before, afterwards
does not exist, this change is thought to be accompanied by a process of
becoming or perishing; but points and lines and surfaces cannot be in
process either of becoming or of perishing, when they at one time exist
and at another do not. [1002b] For when bodies come into contact or
are divided, their boundaries simultaneously become one in the one case
—when they touch, and two in the other—when they are divided; so
that when they have been put together one boundary does not exist but
has perished, and when they have been divided the boundaries exist
which before did not exist (for it cannot be said that the point, which is
indivisible, was divided into two). And if the boundaries come into being
and cease to be, (5) from what do they come into being? A similar
account may also be given of the ‘now’ in time; for this also cannot be in
process of coming into being or of ceasing to be, but yet seems to be
always different, which shows that it is not a substance. And evidently
the same is true of points and lines and planes; for the same argument
applies, (10) since they are all alike either limits or divisions.50

6 In general one might raise the question why after all, besides
perceptible things and the intermediates,51 we have to look for another
class of things, i. e. the Forms which we posit. If it is for this reason,
because the objects of mathematics, while they differ from the things in
this world in some other respect, (15) differ not at all in that there are
many of the same kind, so that their first principles cannot be limited in
number (just as the elements of all the language in this sensible world
are not limited in number, but in kind, (20) unless one takes the elements
of this individual syllable or of this individual articulate sound—whose
elements will be limited even in number; so is it also in the case of the
intermediates; for there also the members of the same kind are infinite in
number), so that if there are not—besides perceptible and mathematical
objects—others such as some maintain the Forms to be, there will be no
substance which is one in number, but only in kind, nor will the first
principles of things be determinate in number, (25) but only in kind:—if
then this must be so, the Forms also must therefore be held to exist.
Even if those who support this view do not express it articulately, still
this is what they mean, and they must be maintaining the Forms just
because each of the Forms is a substance and none is by accident.
But if we are to suppose both that the Forms exist and that the
principles are one in number, (30) not in kind, we have mentioned52 the
impossible results that necessarily follow.53
(13) Closely connected with this is the question whether the elements
exist potentially or in some other manner. If in some other way, there
will be something else prior to the first principles; for the potency is
prior to the actual cause, and it is not necessary for everything potential
to be actual. [1003a]—But if the elements exist potentially, it is
possible that everything that is should not be. For even that which is not
yet is capable of being; for that which is not comes to be, but nothing
that is incapable of being comes to be.54
(12) We must not only raise these questions about the first principles,
(5) but also ask whether they are universal or what we call individuals. If

they are universal, they will not be substances; for everything that is
common indicates not a ‘this’ but a ‘such’, but substance is a ‘this’. And if
we are to be allowed to lay it down that a common predicate is a ‘this’
and a single thing, (10) Socrates will be several animals—himself and
‘man’ and ‘animal’, if each of these indicates a ‘this’ and a single thing.
If, then, the principles are universals, these results follow; if they are
not universals but of the nature of individuals, they will not be
knowable; for the knowledge of anything is universal. Therefore if there
is to be knowledge of the principles there must be other principles prior
to them, (15) namely those that are universally predicated of them.55

1 sc. the four causes.

2 Cf. 996a 18–b 26.

3 Cf. 996b 26–997a 15.

4 Cf. 997a 15–25.

5 Cf. 997a 34–998a 19. The reference is to Plato.

6 Cf. 997a 25–34.

7 Cf. iv. 1003b 22–1005a 18.

8 Cf. 998a 20–b 14.

9 Cf. 998b 14–999a 23.

10 Cf. 999a 24–b 24.

11 Cf. 999b 24–1000a 4.

12 Cf. 1000a 5–1001a 3.

13 Hippasus and Heraclitus.

14 Thales (water); Anaximenes and Diogenes of Apollonia (air).

15 Cf. 1001a 4–b 25.

16 Cf. 1003a 5–17.

17 Cf. 1002b 32–1003a 5.

18 Cf. ix. 6.

19 Cf. 1001b 26–1002b 11.

20 Cf. i. 982a 8–19.

21 ib. 30–b 2.

22 i. e. essence.

23 With 996a 18–b 26 Cf. 995b 4–6, xi. 1059a 20–23 (with 996a 21–b 1 Cf. 1059a 34–8).

24 With 996b 26–997a 15 Cf. 995b 6–10, 1059a 23–6. For the answer Cf. iv. 3.

25 Cf. 996b 28.

26 With 997a 15–25 Cf. 995b 10–13, 1059a 26–9. For the answer Cf. iv. 1004a 2–9, vi. 1.

27 I number the problems as in ch. 1.

28 With 997a 25–34 Cf. 995b 18–20, 1059a 29–34. For the answer Cf. iv. 1003b 22–1005a 18.

29 Cf. i. 6 and 9.

30 With 997a 34–998a 19 Cf. 995b 13–18, 1059a 38–b 21. For the answer Cf. xii. 6–10, xiii, xiv.

31 The reference is to the Pythagoreans and Plato (Cf. 996a 6).

32 The reference is to Plato (Cf. i. 987b 20).

33 With 998a 20–b 14 Cf. 995b 27–9. For the answer Cf. vii. 10, 13.
34 With 998b 14–999a 23 Cf. 995b 29–31. For the answer Cf. vii. 12. 1038a 19, and 13. With this
and the previous problem Cf. 1059b 21–1060a 1.
35 Ch. 3.

36 The reference is to Protagoras (Cf. Pl. Theaet. 152–E–153 A).

37 sc. and thus there is a limit to its coming to be.

38 With 999a 24–b 24 Cf. 995b 31–6, 1060a 3–27, b 23–8. For the answer Cf. vii. 8, 13, 14, xii. 6–
10, xiii. 10.
39 With 999b 24–1000a 4 Cf. 996a 1–2, 1060 b 28–30. For the answer Cf. vii. 14, xii. 4, 5, xiii.
10.
40 1000a 5–b 21.

41 With 1000a 5–1001a 3 Cf. 996a 2–4, 1060a 27–36. For the answer Cf. vii. 7–10.

42 Hippasus and Heraclitus.

43 Anaximenes and Diogenes of Apollonia.

44 a 24–27.

45 a 31–b 1.

46 e. g. a line added to another at the end makes it longer, but one which lies beside another
makes it no broader.
47 The reference is to Plato’s theory (Cf. xiii. 1081a 24).

48 With 1001a 4–b 25 Cf. 996a 4–9. For the answer Cf. vii. 1040b 16–24, I. 2.

49 sc. not to speak of their being the most real substances.

50 For the answer Cf. xiii. 1–3 (esp. 1000b 5–13) 6–9, xiv. 1–3, 5, 6. With problems (11), (14) Cf.
1060a 36–b 19.
51 For these Cf. i. 987b 14–18.

52 999b 27–1000a 4.

53 (15) is a question not raised in ch. 1 but akin to problems (4), (8), (14).

54 With 1002b 32–1003a 5 Cf. 996a 10–11. For the answer Cf. ix. 8, xii. 6, 7.

55 With 1003a 5–17 Cf. 996a 9–10, 1060b 19–23. For the answer Cf. vii. 13, 15, xiii. 10.
 BOOK Γ (IV)

1 There is a science which investigates being as being and the

attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature. Now this is
not the same as any of the so-called special sciences; for none of these
others treats universally of being as being. They cut off a part of being
and investigate the attribute of this part; this is what the mathematical
sciences for instance do. (25) Now since we are seeking the first principles
and the highest causes, clearly there must be some thing to which these
belong in virtue of its own nature. If then those who sought the elements
of existing things were seeking these same principles, (30) it is necessary
that the elements must be elements of being not by accident but just
because it is being. Therefore it is of being as being that we also must
grasp the first causes.

2 There are many senses in which a thing may be said to ‘be’, but all
that ‘is’ is related to one central point, one definite kind of thing, and is
not said to ‘be’ by a mere ambiguity. (35) Everything which is healthy is
related to health, one thing in the sense that it preserves health, another
in the sense that it produces it, another in the sense that it is a symptom
of health, another because it is capable of it. [1003b] And that which
is medical is relative to the medical art, one thing being called medical
because it possesses it, another because it is naturally adapted to it,
another because it is a function of the medical art. (5) And we shall find
other words used similarly to these. So, too, there are many senses in
which a thing is said to be, but all refer to one starting-point; some
things are said to be because they are substances, others because they
are affections of substance, others because they are a process towards
substance, or destructions or privations or qualities of substance, or
productive or generative of substance, or of things which are relative to
substance, (10) or negations of one of these things or of substance itself. It
is for this reason that we say even of non-being that it is non-being. As,
then, there is one science which deals with all healthy things, the same
applies in the other cases also. For not only in the case of things which
have one common notion does the investigation belong to one science,
but also in the case of things which are related to one common nature;
for even these in a sense have one common notion. (15) It is clear then
that it is the work of one science also to study the things that are, qua
being.—But everywhere science deals chiefly with that which is primary,
and on which the other things depend, and in virtue of which they get
their names. If, then, this is substance, it will be of substances that the
philosopher must grasp the principles and the causes.
Now for each one class of things, as there is one perception, (20) so
there is one science, as for instance grammar, being one science,
investigates all articulate sounds. Hence to investigate all the species of
being qua being is the work of a science which is generically one, and to
investigate the several species is the work of the specific parts of the
science.
If, now, being and unity are the same and are one thing in the sense
that they are implied in one another as principle and cause are, not in
the sense that they are explained by the same definition (though it
makes no difference even if we suppose them to be like that—in fact this
would even strengthen our case); for ‘one man’ and ‘man’ are the same
thing, (25) and so are ‘existent man’ and ‘man’, and the doubling of the
words in ‘one man and one existent man’ does not express anything
different (it is clear that the two things are not separated either in
coming to be or in ceasing to be); and similarly ‘one existent man’ adds
nothing to ‘existent man’, (30) so that it is obvious that the addition in
these cases means the same thing, and unity is nothing apart from being;
and if, further, the substance of each thing is one in no merely accidental
way, and similarly is from its very nature something that is:—all this
being so, there must be exactly as many species of being as of unity. And
to investigate the essence of these is the work of a science which is
generically one—I mean, (35) for instance, the discussion of the same and
the similar and the other concepts of this sort; and nearly all contraries
may be referred to this origin; let us take them as having been
investigated in the ‘Selection of Contraries’. [1004a]
And there are as many parts of philosophy as there are kinds of
substance, so that there must necessarily be among them a first
philosophy and one which follows this. For being falls immediately into
genera; for which reason the sciences too will correspond to these
genera. (5) For the philosopher is like the mathematician, as that word is
used; for mathematics also has parts, and there is a first and a second
science and other successive ones within the sphere of mathematics.1
Now since it is the work of one science to investigate opposites, and
plurality is opposed to unity—and it belongs to one science to
investigate the negation and the privation because in both cases we are
really investigating the one thing of which the negation or the privation
is a negation or privation (for we either say simply that that thing is not
present, (10) or that it is not present in some particular class; in the latter
case difference is present over and above what is implied in negation; for
negation means just the absence of the thing in question, (15) while in
privation there is also employed an underlying nature of which the
privation is asserted):—in view of all these facts, the contraries of the
concepts we named above, the other and the dissimilar and the unequal,
and everything else which is derived either from these or from plurality
and unity, must fall within the province of the science above named.
And contrariety is one of these concepts; for contrariety is a kind of
difference, (20) and difference is a kind of otherness. Therefore, since
there are many senses in which a thing is said to be one, these terms also
will have many senses, but yet it belongs to one science to know them
all; for a term belongs to different sciences not if it has different senses,
but if it has not one meaning and its definitions cannot be referred to
one central meaning. (25) And since all things are referred to that which
is primary, as for instance all things which are called one are referred to
the primary one, we must say that this holds good also of the same and
the other and of contraries in general; so that after distinguishing the
various senses of each, we must then explain by reference to what is
primary in the case of each of the predicates in question, (30) saying how
they are related to it; for some will be called what they are called
because they possess it, others because they produce it, and others in
other such ways.
It is evident, then, that it belongs to one science to be able to give an
account of these concepts as well as of substance (this was one of the
questions in our book of problems),2 and that it is the function of the
philosopher to be able to investigate all things. [1004b] For if it is not
the function of the philosopher, who is it who will inquire whether
Socrates and Socrates seated are the same thing, or whether one thing
has one contrary, or what contrariety is, or how many meanings it has?
And similarly with all other such questions. Since, (5) then, these are
essential modifications of unity qua unity and of being qua being, not
qua numbers or lines or fire, it is clear that it belongs to this science to
investigate both the essence of these concepts and their properties. And
those who study these properties err not by leaving the sphere of
philosophy,3 but by forgetting that substance, of which they have no
correct idea, is prior to these other things. (10) For number qua number
has peculiar attributes, such as oddness and evenness, commensurability
and equality, excess and defect, and these belong to numbers either in
themselves or in relation to one another. And similarly the solid and the
motionless and that which is in motion and the weightless and that
which has weight have other peculiar properties. (15) So too there are
certain properties peculiar to being as such, and it is about these that the
philosopher has to investigate the truth.—An indication of this may be
mentioned:—dialecticians and sophists assume the same guise as the
philosopher, for sophistic is Wisdom which exists only in semblance, (20)
and dialecticians embrace all things in their dialectic, and being is
common to all things; but evidently their dialectic embraces these
subjects because these are proper to philosophy.—For sophistic and
dialectic turn on the same class of things as philosophy, but this differs
from dialectic in the nature of the faculty required and from sophistic in
respect of the purpose of the philosophic life. (25) Dialectic is merely
critical where philosophy claims to know, and sophistic is what appears
to be philosophy but is not.
Again, in the list of contraries one of the two columns is privative, and
all contraries are reducible to being and non-being, and to unity and
plurality, as for instance rest belongs to unity and movement to
plurality. And nearly all thinkers agree that being and substance are
composed of contraries; at least all name contraries as their first
principles—some name odd and even,4 (30) some hot and cold,5 some
limit and the unlimited,6 some love and strife.7 And all the others as well
are evidently reducible to unity and plurality (this reduction we must
take for granted), and the principles stated by other thinkers fall entirely
under these as their genera. [1005a] It is obvious then from these
considerations too that it belongs to one science to examine being qua
being. For all things are either contraries or composed of contraries, and
unity and plurality are the starting-points of all contraries. And these
belong to one science, (5) whether they have or have not one single
meaning. Probably the truth is that they have not; yet even if ‘one’ has
several meanings, the other meanings will be related to the primary
meaning (and similarly in the case of the contraries), even if being or
unity is not a universal and the same in every instance or is not
separable from the particular instances (as in fact it probably is not; the
unity is in some cases that of common reference, (10) in some cases that
of serial succession). And for this reason it does not belong to the
geometer to inquire what is contrariety or completeness or unity or
being or the same or the other, but only to presuppose these concepts
and reason from this starting-point.—Obviously then it is the work of
one science to examine being qua being, and the attributes which belong
to it qua being, and the same science will examine not only substances
but also their attributes, (15) both those above named and the concepts
‘prior’ and ‘posterior’, ‘genus’ and ‘species’, ‘whole’ and ‘part’, and the
others of this sort.8

3 We must state whether it belongs to one or to different sciences to

inquire into the truths which are in mathematics called axioms, and into
substance. Evidently, the inquiry into these also belongs to one science,
(20) and that the science of the philosopher; for these truths hold good for

everything that is, and not for some special genus apart from others. And
all men use them, because they are true of being qua being and each
genus has being. (25) But men use them just so far as to satisfy their
purposes; that is, as far as the genus to which their demonstrations refer
extends. Therefore since these truths clearly hold good for all things qua
being (for this is what is common to them), to him who studies being
qua being belongs the inquiry into these as well. And for this reason no
one who is conducting a special inquiry tries to say anything about their
truth or falsity—neither the geometer nor the arithmetician. (30) Some
natural philosophers indeed have done so, and their procedure was
intelligible enough; for they thought that they alone were inquiring
about the whole of nature and about being. But since there is one kind of
thinker who is above even the natural philosopher (for nature is only
one particular genus of being), (35) the discussion of these truths also will
belong to him whose inquiry is universal and deals with primary
substance. [1005b] Physics also is a kind of Wisdom, but it is not the
first kind.9—And the attempts of some of those who discuss the terms on
which truth should be accepted,10 are due to a want of training in logic;
for they should know these things already when they come to a special
study, (5) and not be inquiring into them while they are listening to
lectures on it.
Evidently then it belongs to the philosopher, i. e. to him who is
studying the nature of all substance, to inquire also into the principles of
syllogism. But he who knows best about each genus must be able to state
the most certain principles of his subject, so that he whose subject is
existing things qua existing must be able to state the most certain
principles of all things. (10) This is the philosopher, and the most certain
principle of all is that regarding which it is impossible to be mistaken;
for such a principle must be both the best known (for all men may be
mistaken about things which they do not know), and non-hypothetical.
(15) For a principle which every one must have who understands anything

that is, is not a hypothesis; and that which every one must know who
knows anything, he must already have when he comes to a special study.
Evidently then such a principle is the most certain of all; which principle
this is, let us proceed to say. It is, that the same attribute cannot at the
same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same
respect; we must presuppose, (20) to guard against dialectical objections,
any further qualifications which might be added. This, then, is the most
certain of all principles, since it answers to the definition given above.
For it is impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not
to be, as some think Heraclitus says. For what a man says, he does not
necessarily believe; and if it is impossible that contrary attributes should
belong at the same time to the same subject (the usual qualifications
must be presupposed in this premiss too), (25) and if an opinion which
contradicts another is contrary to it, obviously it is impossible for the
same man at the same time to believe the same thing to be and not to
be; for if a man were mistaken on this point he would have contrary
opinions at the same time. (30) It is for this reason that all who are
carrying out a demonstration reduce it to this as an ultimate belief; for
this is naturally the starting-point even for all the other axioms.11

4 There are some who, as we said,12 both themselves assert that it is

possible for the same thing to be and not to be, (35) and say that people
can judge this to be the case.13 And among others many writers about
nature use this language. [1006a] But we have now posited that it is
impossible for anything at the same time to be and not to be, and by this
means have shown that this is the most indisputable of all principles.—
Some indeed demand that even this shall be demonstrated, (5) but this
they do through want of education, for not to know of what things one
should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want
of education. For it is impossible that there should be demonstration of
absolutely everything (there would be an infinite regress, so that there
would still be no demonstration); but if there are things of which one
should not demand demonstration, (10) these persons could not say what
principle they maintain to be more self-evident than the present one.
We can, however, demonstrate negatively even that this view is
impossible, if our opponent will only say something; and if he says
nothing, it is absurd to seek to give an account of our views to one who
cannot give an account of anything, in so far as he cannot do so. For
such a man, as such, is from the start no better than a vegetable. (15) Now
negative demonstration I distinguish from demonstration proper,
because in a demonstration one might be thought to be begging the
question, but if another person is responsible for the assumption we shall
have negative proof, not demonstration.14 The starting-point for all such
arguments is not the demand that our opponent shall say that something
either is or is not (for this one might perhaps take to be a begging of the
question), (20) but that he shall say something which is significant both for
himself and for another; for this is necessary, if he really is to say
anything. For, if he means nothing, such a man will not be capable of
reasoning, either with himself or with another. But if any one grants
this, demonstration will be possible; for we shall already have something
definite. (25) The person responsible for the proof, however, is not he who
demonstrates but he who listens; for while disowning reason he listens to
reason. And again he who admits this has admitted that something is
true apart from demonstration [so that not everything will be ‘so and not
so’].
First then this at least is obviously true, that the word ‘be’ or ‘not be’
has a definite meaning, (30) so that not everything will be ‘so and not
so’.15—Again, if ‘man’ has one meaning, let this be ‘two-footed animal’;
by having one meaning I understand this:—if ‘man’ means ‘X’, then if A
is a man ‘X’ will be what ‘being a man’ means for him. (It makes no
difference even if one were to say a word has several meanings, if only
they are limited in number; for to each definition there might be
assigned a different word. [1006b] For instance, we might say that
‘man’ has not one meaning but several, one of which would have one
definition, viz. ‘two-footed animal’, while there might be also several
other definitions if only they were limited in number; for a peculiar
name might be assigned to each of the definitions. (5) If, however, they
were not limited but one were to say that the word has an infinite
number of meanings, obviously reasoning would be impossible; for not
to have one meaning is to have no meaning, and if words have no
meaning our reasoning with one another, and indeed with ourselves, (10)
has been annihilated; for it is impossible to think of anything if we do
not think of one thing; but if this is possible, one name might be assigned
to this thing.)
Let it be assumed then, as was said at the beginning,16 that the name
has a meaning and has one meaning; it is impossible, then, that ‘being a
man’ should mean precisely ‘not being a man’, (15) if ‘man’ not only
signifies something about one subject but also has one significance (for
we do not identify ‘having one significance’ with ‘signifying something
about one subject’, since on that assumption even ‘musical’ and ‘white’
and ‘man’ would have had one significance, so that all things would
have been one; for they would all have had the same significance).
And it will not be possible to be and not to be the same thing, except
in virtue of an ambiguity, just as if one whom we call ‘man’, (20) others
were to call ‘not-man’; but the point in question is not this, whether the
same thing can at the same time be and not be a man in name, but
whether it can in fact.—Now if ‘man’ and ‘not-man’ mean nothing
different, obviously ‘not being a man’ will mean nothing different from
‘being a man’; so that ‘being a man’ will be ‘not being a man’; for they
will be one. For being one means this—being related as ‘raiment’ and
‘dress’ are, (25) if their definition is one. And if ‘being a man’ and ‘being a
not-man’ are to be one, they must mean one thing. But it was shown
earlier17 that they mean different things.—Therefore, if it is true to say
of anything that it is a man, it must be a two-footed animal (for this was
what ‘man’ meant18); and if this is necessary, it is impossible that the
same thing should not at that time be a two-footed animal; for this is
what ‘being necessary’ means—that it is impossible for the thing not to
be. (30) It is, then, impossible that it should be at the same time true to
say the same thing is a man and is not a man.
The same account holds good with regard to ‘not being a man’, for
‘being a man’ and ‘being a not-man’ mean different things, since even
‘being white’ and ‘being a man’ are different; for the former terms are
much more opposed, so that they must a fortiori mean different things.
[1007a] And if any one says that ‘white’ means one and the same thing
as ‘man’, again we shall say the same as what was said before,19 (5) that
it would follow that all things are one, and not only opposites. But if this
is impossible, then what we have maintained will follow, if our opponent
will only answer our question.
And if, when one asks the question simply, he adds the
contradictories, he is not answering the question. For there is nothing to
prevent the same thing from being both a man and white and countless
other things: but still, (10) if one asks whether it is or is not true to say
that this is a man, our opponent must give an answer which means one
thing, and not add that ‘it is also white and large’. For, besides other
reasons, it is impossible to enumerate its accidental attributes, (15) which
are infinite in number; let him, then, enumerate either all or none.
Similarly, therefore, even if the same thing is a thousand times a man
and a not-man, he must not, in answering the question whether this is a
man, add that it is also at the same time a not-man, unless he is bound
to add also all the other accidents, all that the subject is or is not; and if
he does this, he is not observing the rules of argument.20
And in general those who say this do away with substance and
essence. (20) For they must say that all attributes are accidents, and that
there is no such thing as ‘being essentially a man’ or ‘an animal’. For if
there is to be any such thing as ‘being essentially a man’ this will not be
‘being a not-man’ or ‘not being a man’ (yet these are negations of it21);
for there was one thing which it meant, (25) and this was the substance of
something. And denoting the substance of a thing means that the essence
of the thing is nothing else. But if its being essentially a man is to be the
same as either being essentially a not-man or essentially not being a
man, then its essence will be something else. Therefore our opponents
must say that there cannot be such a definition of anything, (30) but that
all attributes are accidental; for this is the distinction between substance
and accident—‘white’ is accidental to man, because though he is white,
whiteness is not his essence. But if all statements are accidental, there
will be nothing primary about which they are made, (35) if the accidental
always implies predication about a subject. [1007b] The predication,
then, must go on ad infinitum. But this is impossible; for not even more
than two terms can be combined in accidental predication. For (1) an
accident is not an accident of an accident, unless it be because both are
accidents of the same subject. I mean, for instance, that the white is
musical and the latter is white, (5) only because both are accidental to
man. But (2) Socrates is musical, not in this sense, that both terms are
accidental to something else. Since then some predicates are accidental
in this and some in that sense, (a) those which are accidental in the
latter sense, in which white is accidental to Socrates, cannot form an
infinite series in the upward direction;22 e. g. Socrates the white has not
yet another accident; for no unity can be got out of such a sum. (10) Nor
again (b) will ‘white’ have another term accidental to it, e. g. ‘musical’.
For this is no more accidental to that than that is to this; and at the same
time we have drawn the distinction, that while some predicates are
accidental in this sense, others are so in the sense in which ‘musical’ is
accidental to Socrates; and the accident is an accident of an accident not
in cases of the latter kind, (15) but only in cases of the other kind, so that
not all terms will be accidental.23 There must, then, even so be
something which denotes substance. And if this is so, it has been shown
that contradictories cannot be predicated at the same time.
Again, if all contradictory statements are true of the same subject at
the same time, evidently all things will be one. For the same thing will
be a trireme, a wall, and a man, if of everything it is possible either to
affirm or to deny anything (and this premiss must be accepted by those
who share the views of Protagoras). (20) For if any one thinks that the
man is not a trireme, evidently he is not a trireme; so that he also is a
trireme, if, as they say, (25) contradictory statements are both true. And
we thus get the doctrine of Anaxagoras, that all things are mixed
together; so that nothing really exists. They seem, then, to be speaking of
the indeterminate, and, while fancying themselves to be speaking of
being, they are speaking about non-being; for it is that which exists
potentially and not in complete reality that is indeterminate. But they
must predicate of every subject the affirmation or the negation of every
attribute. For it is absurd if of each subject its own negation is to be
predicable, (30) while the negation of something else which cannot be
predicated of it is not to be predicable of it; for instance, if it is true to
say of a man that he is not a man, evidently it is also true to say that he
is either a trireme or not a trireme. If, then, the affirmative24 can be
predicated, the negative must be predicable too; and if the affirmative is
not predicable, (35) the negative, at least, will be more predicable than
the negative of the subject itself. [1008a] If, then, even the latter
negative is predicable, the negative of ‘trireme’ will be also predicable;
and, if this is predicable, the affirmative will be so too.25
Those, then, who maintain this view are driven to this conclusion, and
to the further conclusion that it is not necessary either to assert or to
deny. For if it is true that a thing is a man and a not-man, (5) evidently
also it will be neither a man nor a not-man. For to the two assertions
there answer two negations, and if the former26 is treated as a single
proposition compounded out of two, the latter also is a single
proposition opposite to the former.27
Again, either the theory is true in all cases, and a thing is both white
and not-white, and existent and non-existent, and all other assertions,
and negations are similarly compatible, or the theory is true of some
statements and not of others. (10) And if not of all, the exceptions will be
contradictories of which admittedly only one is true; but if of all, again
either the negation will be true wherever the assertion is, and the
assertion true wherever the negation is, or the negation will be true
where the assertion is, but the assertion not always true where the
negation is. (15) And (a) in the latter case there will be something which
fixedly is not, and this will be an indisputable belief; and if non-being is
something indisputable and knowable, the opposite assertion will be
more knowable. But (b) if it is equally possible also to assert all that it is
possible to deny, one must either be saying what is true when one
separates the predicates (and says, for instance, that a thing is white, (20)
and again that it is not-white), or not. And if (i) it is not true to apply
the predicates separately, our opponent is not saying what he professes
to say, and also nothing at all exists, but how could nonexistent things
speak or walk, as he does? Also all things would on this view be one, as
has been already said,28 and man and God and trireme and their
contradictories will be the same. (25) For if contradictories can be
predicated alike of each subject, one thing will in no wise differ from
another; for if it differ, this difference will be something true and
peculiar to it. And (ii) if one may with truth apply the predicates
separately, the above-mentioned result follows none the less, and,
further, it follows that all would then be right and all would be in error,
and our opponent himself confesses himself to be in error. (30)—And at
the same time our discussion with him is evidently about nothing at all;
for he says nothing. For he says neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’, but ‘yes and no’;
and again he denies both of these and says ‘neither yes nor no’; for
otherwise there would already be something definite.
Again, if when the assertion is true, the negation is false, (35) and when
this is true, the affirmation is false, it will not be possible to assert and
deny the same thing truly at the same time. [1008b] But perhaps they
might say this was the very question at issue.
Again, is he in error who judges either that the thing is so or that it is
not so, and is he right who judges both? If he is right, (5) what can they
mean by saying that the nature of existing things is of this kind? And if
he is not right, but more right than he who judges in the other way,
being will already be of a definite nature, and this will be true, and not
at the same time also not true. But if all are alike both wrong and right,
one who is in this condition will not be able either to speak or to say
anything intelligible; for he says at the same time both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. (10)
And if he makes no judgement but ‘thinks’ and ‘does not think’,
indifferently, what difference will there be between him and a
vegetable?—Thus, then, it is in the highest degree evident that neither
any one of those who maintain this view nor any one else is really in this
position. For why does a man walk to Megara and not stay at home, (15)
when he thinks he ought to be walking there? Why does he not walk
early some morning into a well or over a precipice, if one happens to be
in his way? Why do we observe him guarding against this, evidently
because he does not think that falling in is alike good and not good?
Evidently, then, he judges one thing to be better and another worse. And
if this is so, he must also judge one thing to be a man and another to be
not-a-man, one thing to be sweet and another to be not-sweet. (20) For he
does not aim at and judge all things alike, when, thinking it desirable to
drink water or to see a man, he proceeds to aim at these things; yet he
ought, if the same thing were alike a man and not-a-man. But, as was
said, there is no one who does not obviously avoid some things and not
others. Therefore, as it seems, (25) all men make unqualified judgements,
if not about all things, still about what is better and worse.29 And if this
is not knowledge but opinion, they should be all the more anxious about
the truth, as a sick man should be more anxious about his health than
one who is healthy; for he who has opinions is, (30) in comparison with
the man who knows, not in a healthy state as far as the truth is
concerned.
Again, however much all things may be ‘so and not so’, still there is a
more and a less in the nature of things; for we should not say that two
and three are equally even, nor is he who thinks four things are five
equally wrong with him who thinks they are a thousand. (35) If then they
are not equally wrong, obviously one is less wrong and therefore more
right. If then that which has more of any quality is nearer the norm,
there must be some truth to which the more true is nearer. [1009a]
And even if there is not, still there is already something better founded
and liker the truth, and we shall have got rid of the unqualified doctrine
which would prevent us from determining anything in our thought. (5)

5 From the same opinion proceeds the doctrine of Protagoras, and

both doctrines must be alike true or alike untrue. For on the one hand, if
all opinions and appearances are true, all statements must be at the same
time true and false. For many men hold beliefs in which they conflict
with one another, and think those mistaken who have not the same
opinions as themselves; so that the same thing must both be and not be.
(10) And on the other hand, if this is so, all opinions must be true; for

those who are mistaken and those who are right are opposed to one
another in their opinions; if, then, reality is such as the view in question
supposes, all will be right in their beliefs.
Evidently, then, both doctrines proceed from the same way of
thinking. (15) But the same method of discussion must not be used with
all opponents; for some need persuasion, and others compulsion. Those
who have been driven to this position by difficulties in their thinking can
easily be cured of their ignorance; for it is not their expressed argument
but their thought that one has to meet. (20) But those who argue for the
sake of argument can be cured only by refuting the argument as
expressed in speech and in words.30
Those who really feel the difficulties have been led to this opinion by
observation of the sensible world. (1) They think that contradictories or
contraries are true at the same time, (25) because they see contraries
coming into existence out of the same thing. If, then, that which is not
cannot come to be, the thing must have existed before as both contraries
alike, as Anaxagoras says all is mixed in all, and Democritus too; for he
says the void and the full exist alike in every part, (30) and yet one of
these is being, and the other non-being.31 To those, then, whose belief
rests on these grounds, we shall say that in a sense they speak rightly
and in a sense they err. For ‘that which is’ has two meanings, so that in
some sense a thing can come to be out of that which is not, while in
some sense it cannot, and the same thing can at the same time be in
being and not in being—but not in the same respect. (35) For the same
thing can be potentially at the same time two contraries, but it cannot
actually.32 And again we shall ask them to believe that among existing
things there is also another kind of substance to which neither
movement nor destruction nor generation at all belongs. [1009b]
And (2) similarly some have inferred from observation of the sensible
world the truth of appearances. For they think that the truth should not
be determined by the large or small number of those who hold a belief,
and that the same thing is thought sweet by some when they taste it, (5)
and bitter by others, so that if all were ill or all were mad, and only two
or three were well or sane, these would be thought ill and mad, and not
the others.
And again, they say that many of the other animals receive
impressions contrary to ours; and that even to the senses of each
individual, things do not always seem the same. Which, (10) then, of these
impressions are true and which are false is not obvious; for the one set is
no more true than the other, but both are alike. And this is why
Democritus, at any rate, says that either there is no truth or to us at least
it is not evident.
And in general it is because these thinkers suppose knowledge to be
sensation, and this to be a physical alteration, (15) that they say that what
appears to our senses must be true; for it is for these reasons that both
Empedocles and Democritus and, one may almost say, all the others
have fallen victims to opinions of this sort. For Empedocles says that
when men change their condition they change their knowledge;
For wisdom increases in men according to what is before them.
And elsewhere he says that

So far as their nature changed, so far to them always

Came changed thoughts into mind. (20)

And Parmenides also expresses himself in the same way:

For as at each time the much-bent limbs are composed,

So is the mind of men; for in each and all men
’Tis one thing thinks—the substance of their limbs:
For that of which there is more is thought.

A saying of Anaxagoras to some of his friends is also related—that things

would be for them such as they supposed them to be. (25) And they say
that Homer also evidently had this opinion, because he made Hector,
when he was unconscious from the blow, lie ‘thinking other thoughts’—
which implies that even those who are bereft of thought have thoughts,
(30) though not the same thoughts. Evidently, then, if both are forms of

knowledge, the real things also are at the same time ‘both so and not
so’.33 And it is in this direction that the consequences are most difficult.
For if those who have seen most of such truth as is possible for us (and
these are those who seek and love it most)—if these have such opinions
and express these views about the truth, (35) is it not natural that
beginners in philosophy should lose heart? For to seek the truth would
be to follow flying game.
[1010a] But the reason why these thinkers held this opinion is that
while they were inquiring into the truth of that which is, they thought
‘that which is’ was identical with the sensible world; in this, however,
there is largely present the nature of the indeterminate—of that which
exists in the peculiar sense which we have explained;34 and therefore,
while they speak plausibly, they do not say what is true (for it is fitting
to put the matter so rather than as Epicharmus put it against
Xenophanes35). (5) And again, because they saw that all this world of
nature is in movement, and that about that which changes no true
statement can be made, they said that of course, regarding that which
everywhere in every respect is changing, nothing could truly be
affirmed. It was this belief that blossomed into the most extreme of the
views above mentioned, (10) that of the professed Heracliteans, such as
was held by Cratylus, who finally did not think it right to say anything
but only moved his finger, and criticized Heraclitus for saying that it is
impossible to step twice into the same river; for he thought one could
not do it even once.
But we shall say in answer to this argument also, (15) that while there
is some justification for their thinking that the changing, when it is
changing, does not exist, yet it is after all disputable; for that which is
losing a quality has something of that which is being lost, and of that
which is coming to be, something must already be. And in general if a
thing is perishing, there will be present something that exists; and if a
thing is coming to be, (20) there must be something from which it comes
to be and something by which it is generated, and this process cannot go
on ad infinitum.—But, leaving these arguments, let us insist on this, that
it is not the same thing to change in quantity and in quality. Grant that
in quantity a thing is not constant; still it is in respect of its form that we
know each thing.36 (25)—And again, it would be fair to criticize those
who hold this view for asserting about the whole material universe what
they saw only in a minority even of sensible things. For only that region
of the sensible world which immediately surrounds us is always in
process of destruction and generation; but this is—so to speak—not even
a fraction of the whole, (30) so that it would have been juster to acquit
this part of the world because of the other part, than to condemn the
other because of this.37—And again, obviously we shall make to them
also the same reply that we made long ago;38 we must show them and
persuade them that there is something whose nature is changeless. (35)
Indeed, those who say that things at the same time are and are not,
should in consequence say that all things are at rest rather than that they
are in movement; for there is nothing into which they can change, since
all attributes belong already to all subjects.
[1010b] Regarding the nature of truth, we must maintain that not
everything which appears is true; firstly, because even if sensation—at
least of the object peculiar to the sense in question—is not false, still
appearance is not the same as sensation.—Again, it is fair to express
surprise at our opponents’ raising the question whether magnitudes are
as great, (5) and colours are of such a nature, as they appear to people at
a distance, or as they appear to those close at hand, and whether they
are such as they appear to the healthy or to the sick, and whether those
things are heavy which appear so to the weak or those which appear so
to the strong, and those things true which appear to the sleeping or to
the waking. For obviously they do not think these to be open questions;
no one, (10) at least, if when he is in Libya he has fancied one night that
he is in Athens, starts for the concert hall.—And again with regard to the
future, as Plato says,39 surely the opinion of the physician and that of
the ignorant man are not equally weighty, for instance, on the question
whether a man will get well or not.—And again, among sensations
themselves the sensation of a foreign object and that of the appropriate
object, (15) or that of a kindred object and that of the object of the sense
in question,40 are not equally authoritative, but in the case of colour
sight, not taste, has the authority, and in the case of flavour taste, not
sight; each of which senses never says at the same time of the same
object that it simultaneously is ‘so and not so’.—But not even at different
times does one sense disagree about the quality, (20) but only about that
to which the quality belongs. I mean, for instance, that the same wine
might seem, if either it or one’s body changed, at one time sweet and at
another time not sweet; but at least the sweet, such as it is when it
exists, has never yet changed, but one is always right about it, (25) and
that which is to be sweet is of necessity of such and such a nature.41 Yet
all these views destroy this necessity, leaving nothing to be of necessity,
as they leave no essence of anything; for the necessary cannot be in this
way and also in that, so that if anything is of necessity, it will not be
‘both so and not so’.
And, in general, if only the sensible exists, (30) there would be nothing
if animate things were not; for there would be no faculty of sense. Now
the view that neither the sensible qualities nor the sensations would
exist is doubtless true (for they are affections of the perceiver), but that
the substrata which cause the sensation should not exist even apart from
sensation is impossible. For sensation is surely not the sensation of itself,
(35) but there is something beyond the sensation, which must be prior to

the sensation; for that which moves is prior in nature to that which is
moved, and if they are correlative terms, this is no less the case.
[1011a]

6 There are, both among those who have these convictions and among
those who merely profess these views, some who raise a difficulty by
asking, who is to be the judge of the healthy man, (5) and in general who
is likely to judge rightly on each class of questions. But such inquiries
are like puzzling over the question whether we are now asleep or awake.
And all such questions have the same meaning. These people demand
that a reason shall be given for everything;42 for they seek a starting-
point, and they seek to get this by demonstration, (10) while it is obvious
from their actions that they have no conviction. But their mistake is
what we have stated it to be; they seek a reason for things for which no
reason can be given; for the starting-point of demonstration is not
demonstration.
These, then, might be easily persuaded of this truth, (15) for it is not
difficult to grasp; but those who seek merely compulsion in argument
seek what is impossible; for they demand to be allowed to contradict
themselves—a claim which contradicts itself from the very first.43—But
if not all things are relative, but some are self-existent, not everything
that appears will be true; for that which appears is apparent to some
one; so that he who says all things that appear are true, (20) makes all
things relative. And, therefore, those who ask for an irresistible
argument, and at the same time demand to be called to account for their
views, must guard themselves by saying that the truth is not that what
appears exists, but that what appears exists for him to whom it appears,
and when, and to the sense to which, and under the conditions under which
it appears. And if they give an account of their view, but do not give it in
this way, they will soon find themselves contradicting themselves. (25)
For it is possible that the same thing may appear to be honey to the
sight, but not to the taste, and that, since we have two eyes, things may
not appear the same to each, if their sight is unlike. For to those who for
the reasons named some time ago44 say that what appears is true, (30)
and therefore that all things are alike false and true, for things do not
appear either the same to all men or always the same to the same man,
but often have contrary appearances at the same time (for touch says
there are two objects when we cross our fingers, while sight says there is
one),45—to these we shall say ‘yes, (35) but not to the same sense and in
the same part of it and under the same conditions and at the same time’,
so that what appears will be with these qualifications true. [1011b]
But perhaps for this reason those who argue thus not because they feel a
difficulty but for the sake of argument, should say that this is not true,
but true for this man. And as has been said46 before, they must make
everything relative—relative to opinion and perception, (5) so that
nothing either has come to be or will be without some one’s first
thinking so. But if things have come to be or will be,47 evidently not all
things will be relative to opinion.—Again, if a thing is one, it is in
relation to one thing or to a definite number of things; and if the same
thing is both half and equal, it is not to the double that the equal is
correlative.48 If, then, in relation to that which thinks, man and that
which is thought are the same, man will not be that which thinks, (10) but
only that which is thought. And if each thing is to be relative to that
which thinks, that which thinks will be relative to an infinity of
specifically different things.
Let this, then, suffice to show (1) that the most indisputable of all
beliefs is that contradictory statements are not at the same time true,
and (2) what consequences follow from the assertion that they are, and
(3) why people do assert this. Now since it is impossible that
contradictories should be at the same time true of the same thing, (15)
obviously contraries also cannot belong at the same time to the same
thing. For of contraries, one is a privation no less than it is a contrary—
and a privation of the essential nature; and privation is the denial of a
predicate to a determinate genus. If, then, it is impossible to affirm and
deny truly at the same time, (20) it is also impossible that contraries
should belong to a subject at the same time, unless both belong to it in
particular relations, or one in a particular relation and one without
qualification.49

7 But on the other hand there cannot be an intermediate between

contradictories, but of one subject we must either affirm or deny any one
predicate. This is clear, in the first place, if we define what the true and
the false are. (25) To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it
is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is
not, is true; so that he who says of anything that it is, or that it is not,
will say either what is true or what is false; but neither what is nor what
is not is said to be or not to be.50—Again, the intermediate between the
contradictories will be so either in the way in which grey is between
black and white,51 (30) or as that which is neither man nor horse is
between man and horse. (a) If it were of the latter kind, it could not
change into the extremes (for change is from not-good to good, or from
good to not-good), but as a matter of fact when there is an intermediate
it is always observed to change into the extremes. For there is no change
except to opposites52 and to their intermediates. (35) (b) But if it is really
intermediate,53 in this way too there would have to be a change to
white, which was not from not-white; but as it is, this is never seen.
[1012a]—Again, every object of understanding or reason the
understanding either affirms or denies—this is obvious from the
definition—whenever it says what is true or false. When it connects in
one way by assertion or negation, it says what is true, (5) and when it
does so in another way, what is false.—Again, there must be an
intermediate between all contradictories, if one is not arguing merely for
the sake of argument; so that it will be possible for a man to say what is
neither true nor untrue, and there will be a middle between that which
is and that which is not, so that there will also be a kind of change
intermediate between generation and destruction.—Again, in all classes
in which the negation of an attribute involves the assertion of its
contrary, (10) even in these there will be an intermediate; for instance, in
the sphere of numbers there will be number which is neither odd nor
not-odd. But this is impossible, as is obvious from the definition.—Again,
the process will go on ad infinitum, and the number of realities will be
not only half as great again, but even greater. For again it will be
possible to deny this intermediate with reference both to its assertion
and to its negation,54 and this new term will be some definite thing; for
its essence is something different. (15)—Again, when a man, on being
asked whether a thing is white, says ‘no’, he has denied nothing except
that it is; and its not being is a negation.
Some people have acquired this opinion as other paradoxical opinions
have been acquired; when men cannot refute eristical arguments, (20)
they give in to the argument and agree that the conclusion is true. This,
then, is why some express this view; others do so because they demand a
reason for everything.55 And the starting-point in dealing with all such
people is definition. Now the definition rests on the necessity of their
meaning something; for the form of words of which the word is a sign
will be its definition.56—While the doctrine of Heraclitus, (25) that all
things are and are not, seems to make everything true, that of
Anaxagoras, that there is an intermediate between the terms of a
contradiction, seems to make everything false; for when things are
mixed, the mixture is neither good nor not-good, so that one cannot say
anything that is true.

8 In view of these distinctions it is obvious that the one-sided theories

which some people express about all things cannot be valid—on the one
hand the theory that nothing is true (for, (30) say they, there is nothing to
prevent every statement from being like the statement ‘the diagonal of a
square is commensurate with the side’), on the other hand the theory
that everything is true. These views are practically the same as that of
Heraclitus; for he who says that ‘all things are true and all are false’ also
makes each of these statements separately, (35) so that since they are
impossible, the double statement must be impossible too. [1012b]—
Again, there are obviously contradictories which cannot be at the same
time true—nor on the other hand can all statements be false; yet this
would seem more possible in the light of what has been said.—But
against all such views we must postulate, as we said above,57 not that
something is or is not, (5) but that something has a meaning, so that we
must argue from a definition, viz. by assuming what falsity or truth
means. If that which it is true to affirm is nothing other than that which
it is false to deny, it is impossible that all statements should be false; for
one side of the contradiction must be true. Again, (10) if it is necessary
with regard to everything either to assert or to deny it, it is impossible
that both should be false; for it is one side of the contradiction that is
false.—Therefore all such views are also exposed to the often expressed
objection, that they destroy themselves. For he who says that everything
is true makes even the statement contrary to his own true, (15) and
therefore his own not true (for the contrary statement denies that it is
true), while he who says everything is false makes himself also false.58—
And if the former person excepts the contrary statement, saying it alone
is not true, while the latter excepts his own as being not false, none the
less they are driven to postulate the truth or falsity of an infinite number
of statements; for that which says the true statement is true is true, (20)
and this process will go on to infinity.
Evidently, again, those who say all things are at rest are not right, nor
are those who say all things are in movement. For if all things are at
rest, the same statements will always be true and the same always false
—but this obviously changes; for he who makes a statement, (25) himself
at one time was not and again will not be. And if all things are in
motion, nothing will be true; everything therefore will be false. But it
has been shown that this is impossible. Again, it must be that which is
that changes; for change is from something to something. But again it is
not the case that all things are at rest or in motion sometimes, and
nothing for ever; for there is something which always moves the things
that are in motion, (30) and the first mover is itself unmoved.

1 With 1004a 2–9 Cf. iii. 995b 10–13, 997a 15–25, vi. 1.

2 i. e. iii. 995b 18–27, 997a 25–34.

3 sc. which they do not do.

4 The Pythagoreans.

5 Parmenides in the ‘Way of Opinion’.

6 The Platonists.

7 Empedocles.

8 With 1003b 22–1005a 18 Cf. iii. 995b 18–27, 997a 25–34. With the whole ch. Cf. xi. 3.

9 With 1005a 19–b2 Cf. xi. 4.

10 The reference may be to Antisthenes.

11 With ch. 3 Cf. iii. 995b 6–10, 996b 26–997a 15. With 1005b 8–34 Cf. xi. 1061b 34–1062a 2
(with 1005b 23–6 Cf. 1002a 31–5).
12 Apparently a loose reference to 1005b 23–5.

13 The Megaric school may be referred to.

14 With ll. 5–18 Cf. xi. 1062a 2–5.

15 For ‘so and not so’ Cf. Pl. Theaet. 183 A.

16 a21, 31.

17 ll. 11–15.

18 in a 31 f.

19 1006b 17.

20 With 1006a 18–1007a Cf. xi. 1062a 5–20 (with 1006b 28–34 Cf. 1062a 20–3).

21 sc. and hence (on the view attacked) should be compatible with it.

22 i. e. in the direction of predicates, which are naturally wider or higher than the subject.

23 Sense (1) reduces to sense (2), and in this an infinite number of accidents combined together
is impossible; there must be substance somewhere.
24 sc. ‘trireme’.

25 With 1007b 18–1008a 2 Cf. xi. 1062a 23–30.

26 sc. that the thing is a man and a not-man.

27 With ll. 6–7 Cf. xi. 1062a 36–b 7.

28 1006b 17, 1007a 6.

29 With ll. 12–27 Cf. xi. 1063a 28–35.

30 With ll. 16–22 Cf. xi. 1063b 7–16.

31 With ll. 6–16, 22–30 Cf. xi. 1062b 12–24.

32 With ll. 30–6 Cf. xi. 1062b 24–33.

33 With a38–b 33 Cf. xi. 1063a 35–b 7.

34 Cf. 1009a 32.

35 Epicharmus may have said that Xenophanes’ views were ‘neither plausible nor true’, or that
they were ‘true but not plausible’.
36 With ll. 22–5 Cf. xi. 1063a 22–8.
37 With ll. 25–32 Cf. xi. 1063a 10–17.

38 Cf. 1009a 36–8.

39 Cf. Theaetetus 178 B–179 A.

40 e. g. the awareness which smell gives us of savour and of odour respectively.

41 With ll. 1–26 Cf. xi. 1062b 33–1063a 10.

42 The reference may be to Antisthenes.

43 With ll. 3–16 Cf. xi. 1063b 7–16.

44 Cf. 1009a 38–1010a 15.

45 With ll. 31–4 Cf. xi. 1062b 33–1063a 10.

46 a 19 f.

47 sc. without some one’s first thinking so.

48 sc. but the equal to the equal, the half to the double.

49 With ll. 17–22 Cf. xi. 1063b 17–19.

50 sc. by those who say there is an intermediate between contradictories. Hence such a statement
is neither true nor false, which is absurd.
51 Though of course it differs from this case in being between contradictories, not contraries.

52 sc. contrary, not contradictory opposites.

53 sc. as grey is between black and white.

54 i. e. if there is a term B which is neither A nor not-A, there will be a new term C which is
neither B nor not-B.
55 The reference may be to Antisthenes.

56 With 1011b 23–1012a 24 Cf. xi. 1063b 19–24.

57 Cf. 1006a 18–22.

58 With a 24–b 18 Cf. xi. 1063b 24–35 (with b 13–18 Cf. 1062b 7–9).
 BOOK Δ (V)

1 ‘Beginning’ means (1) that part of a thing from which one would
start first, (35) e. g. a line or a road has a beginning in either of the
contrary directions. [1013a] (2) That from which each thing would
best be originated, e. g. even in learning we must sometimes begin not
from the first point and the beginning of the subject, but from the point
from which we should learn most easily. (3) That from which, as an
immanent part, a thing first comes to be, e. g. as the keel of a ship and
the foundation of a house, (5) while in animals some suppose the heart,
others the brain, others some other part, to be of this nature. (4) That
from which, not as an immanent part, a thing first comes to be, and from
which the movement or the change naturally first begins, as a child
comes from its father and its mother, and a fight from abusive language.
(10) (5) That at whose will that which is moved is moved and that which

changes changes, e. g. the magistracies in cities, and oligarchies and

monarchies and tyrannies, are called archai and so are the arts, and of
these especially the architectonic arts. (15) (6) That from which a thing
can first be known—this also is called the beginning of the thing, e. g.
the hypotheses are the beginnings of demonstrations. (Causes are spoken
of in an equal number of senses; for all causes are beginnings.) It is
common, then, to all beginnings to be the first point from which a thing
either is or comes to be or is known; but of these some are immanent in
the thing and others are outside. (20) Hence the nature of a thing is a
beginning, and so is the element of a thing, and thought and will, and
essence, and the final cause—for the good and the beautiful are the
beginning both of the knowledge and of the movement of many things.

2 ‘Cause’ means (1) that from which, as immanent material, (25) a

thing comes into being, e. g. the bronze is the cause of the statue and the
silver of the saucer, and so are the classes which include these. (2) The
form or pattern, i. e. the definition of the essence, and the classes which
include this (e. g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general are causes of the
octave), and the parts included in the definition. (3) That from which
the change or the resting from change first begins; e. g. the adviser is a
cause of the action, (30) and the father a cause of the child, and in general
the maker a cause of the thing made and the change-producing of the
changing. (4) The end, i. e. that for the sake of which a thing is; e. g.
health is the cause of walking. For ‘Why does one walk?’ we say; ‘that
one may be healthy’; and in speaking thus we think we have given the
cause. (35) The same is true of all the means that intervene before the
end, when something else has put the process in motion, as e. g. thinning
or purging or drugs or instruments intervene before health is reached;
for all these are for the sake of the end, though they differ from one
another in that some are instruments and others are actions. [1013b]
These, then, are practically all the senses in which causes are spoken
of, and as they are spoken of in several senses it follows both that there
are several causes of the same thing, (5) and in no accidental sense (e. g.
both the art of sculpture and the bronze are causes of the statue not in
respect of anything else but qua statue; not, however, in the same way,
but the one as matter and the other as source of the movement), and
that things can be causes of one another (e. g. exercise of good
condition, and the latter of exercise; not, however, in the same way, but
the one as end and the other as source of movement). (10)—Again, the
same thing is the cause of contraries; for that which when present causes
a particular thing, we sometimes charge, when absent, with the contrary,
e. g. we impute the shipwreck to the absence of the steersman, whose
presence was the cause of safety; and both—the presence and the
privation—are causes as sources of movement. (15)
All the causes now mentioned fall under four senses which are the
most obvious. For the letters are the cause of syllables, and the material
is the cause of manufactured things, and fire and earth and all such
things are the causes of bodies, and the parts are causes of the whole,
and the hypotheses are causes of the conclusion, (20) in the sense that
they are that out of which these respectively are made; but of these some
are cause as the substratum (e. g. the parts), others as the essence (the
whole, the synthesis, and the form). The semen, the physician, the
adviser, and in general the agent, are all sources of change or of rest. The
remainder are causes as the end and the good of the other things; for
that for the sake of which other things are tends to be the best and the
end of the other things; let us take it as making no difference whether
we call it good or apparent good. (25)
These, then, are the causes, and this is the number of their kinds, but
the varieties of causes are many in number, though when summarized
these also are comparatively few. Causes are spoken of in many senses,
(30) and even of those which are of the same kind some are causes in a

prior and others in a posterior sense, e. g. both ‘the physician’ and ‘the
professional man’ are causes of health, and both ‘the ratio 2:1’ and
‘number’ are causes of the octave, and the classes that include any
particular cause are always causes of the particular effect. Again, there
are accidental causes and the classes which include these; e. g. while in
one sense ‘the sculptor’ causes the statue, (35) in another sense ‘Polyclitus’
causes it, because the sculptor happens to be Polyclitus; and the classes
that include the accidental cause are also causes, e. g. ‘man’—or in
general ‘animal’—is the cause of the statue, because Polyclitus is a man,
and man is an animal. [1014a] (5) Of accidental causes also some are
more remote or nearer than others, as, for instance, if ‘the white’ and
‘the musical’ were called causes of the statue, and not only ‘Polyclitus’ or
‘man’. But besides all these varieties of causes, whether proper or
accidental, some are called causes as being able to act, others as acting;
e. g. the cause of the house’s being built is a builder, or a builder who is
building. (10)—The same variety of language will be found with regard to
the effects of causes; e. g. a thing may be called the cause of this statue
or of a statue or in general of an image, and of this bronze or of bronze
or of matter in general; and similarly in the case of accidental effects.
Again, both accidental and proper causes may be spoken of in
combination; e. g. we may say not ‘Polyclitus’ nor ‘the sculptor’, but
‘Polyclitus the sculptor’.
Yet all these are but six in number, (15) while each is spoken of in two
ways; for (A) they are causes either as the individual, or as the genus, or
as the accidental, or as the genus that includes the accidental, and these
either as combined, or as taken simply; and (B) all may be taken as
acting or as having a capacity. (20) But they differ inasmuch as the acting
causes, i. e. the individuals, exist, or do not exist, simultaneously with
the things of which they are causes, e. g. this particular man who is
healing, with this particular man who is recovering health, and this
particular builder with this particular thing that is being built; but the
potential causes are not always in this case; for the house does not perish
at the same time as the builder. (25)

3 ‘Element’ means (1) the primary component immanent in a thing,

and indivisible in kind into other kinds; e. g. the elements of speech are
the parts of which speech consists and into which it is ultimately
divided, while they are no longer divided into other forms of speech
different in kind from them. (30) If they are divided, their parts are of the
same kind, as a part of water is water (while a part of the syllable is not
a syllable). Similarly those who speak of the elements of bodies mean
the things into which bodies are ultimately divided, while they are no
longer divided into other things differing in kind; and whether the things
of this sort are one or more, (35) they call these elements. The so-called
elements of geometrical proofs, and in general the elements of
demonstrations, have a similar character; for the primary
demonstrations, each of which is implied in many demonstrations, are
called elements of demonstrations; and the primary syllogisms, which
have three terms and proceed by means of one middle, are of this
nature. [1014b] (2) People also transfer the word ‘element’ from this
meaning and apply it to that which, being one and small, is useful for
many purposes; for which reason what is small and simple and
indivisible is called an element. (5) Hence come the facts that the most
universal things are elements (because each of them being one and
simple is present in a plurality of things, either in all or in as many as
possible), and that unity and the point are thought by some to be first
principles. Now, since the so-called genera are universal and indivisible
(for there is no definition of them), some say the genera are elements, (10)
and more so than the differentia, because the genus is more universal;
for where the differentia is present, the genus accompanies it, but where
the genus is present, the differentia is not always so. It is common to all
the meanings that the element of each thing is the first component
immanent in each. (15)

4 ‘Nature’ means (1) the genesis of growing things—the meaning

which would be suggested if one were to pronounce the y in physis long.1
(2) That immanent part of a growing thing, from which its growth first
proceeds. (3) The source from which the primary movement in each
natural object is present in it in virtue of its own essence. (20) Those
things are said to grow which derive increase from something else by
contact and either by organic unity, or by organic adhesion as in the
case of embryos. Organic unity differs from contact; for in the latter case
there need not be anything besides the contact, but in organic unities
there is something identical in both parts, which makes them grow
together instead of merely touching, (25) and be one in respect of
continuity and quantity, though not of quality.—(4) ‘Nature’ means the
primary material of which any natural object consists or out of which it
is made, which is relatively unshaped and cannot be changed from its
own potency, as e. g. bronze is said to be the nature of a statue and of
bronze utensils, and wood the nature of wooden things; and so in all
other cases; for when a product is made out of these materials, (30) the
first matter is preserved throughout. For it is in this way that people call
the elements of natural objects also their nature, some naming fire,
others earth, others air, others water, others something else of the sort,
(35) and some naming more than one of these, and others all of them.—

(5) ‘Nature’ means the essence of natural objects, as with those who say
the nature is the primary mode of composition, or as Empedocles says:—
[1015a]
Nothing that is has a nature,
But only mixing and parting of the mixed,
And nature is but a name given them by men.

Hence as regards the things that are or come to be by nature, though

that from which they naturally come to be or are is already present, we
say they have not their nature yet, (5) unless they have their form or
shape. That which comprises both of these2 exists by nature, e. g. the
animals and their parts; and not only is the first matter nature (and this
in two senses, either the first, counting from the thing, or the first in
general; e. g. in the case of works in bronze, bronze is first with
reference to them, but in general perhaps water is first, if all things that
can be melted are water), but also the form or essence, (10) which is the
end of the process of becoming.—(6) By an extension of meaning from
this sense of ‘nature’ every essence in general has come to be called a
‘nature’, because the nature of a thing is one kind of essence.
From what has been said, then, it is plain that nature in the primary
and strict sense is the essence of things which have in themselves, (15) as
such, a source of movement; for the matter is called the nature because
it is qualified to receive this, and processes of becoming and growing are
called nature because they are movements proceeding from this. And
nature in this sense is the source of the movement of natural objects,
being present in them somehow, either potentially or in complete
reality.

5 We call ‘necessary’ (1) (a) that without which, (20) as a condition, a

thing cannot live; e. g. breathing and food are necessary for an animal;
for it is incapable of existing without these; (b) the conditions without
which good cannot be or come to be, or without which we cannot get rid
or be freed of evil; e. g. drinking the medicine is necessary in order that
we may be cured of disease, (25) and a man’s sailing to Aegina is
necessary in order that he may get his money.—(2) The compulsory and
compulsion, i. e. that which impedes and tends to hinder, contrary to
impulse and purpose. For the compulsory is called necessary (whence
the necessary is painful, as Evenus says: ‘For every necessary thing is
ever irksome’), and compulsion is a form of necessity, (30) as Sophocles
says: ‘But force necessitates me to this act.’ And necessity is held to be
something that cannot be persuaded—and rightly, for it is contrary to
the movement which accords with purpose and with reasoning.—(3) We
say that that which cannot be otherwise is necessarily as it is. And from
this sense of ‘necessary’ all the others are somehow derived; for a thing
is said to do or suffer what is necessary in the sense of compulsory, (35)
only when it cannot act according to its impulse because of the
compelling force—which implies that necessity is that because of which
a thing cannot be otherwise; and similarly as regards the conditions of
life and of good; for when in the one case good, in the other life and
being, are not possible without certain conditions, (5) these are necessary,
and this kind of cause is a sort of necessity. [1015b] Again,
demonstration is a necessary thing because the conclusion cannot be
otherwise, if there has been demonstration in the unqualified sense; and
the causes of this necessity are the first premisses, i. e. the fact that the
propositions from which the syllogism proceeds cannot be otherwise.
Now some things owe their necessity to something other than
themselves; others do not, but are themselves the source of necessity in
other things. (10) Therefore the necessary in the primary and strict sense
is the simple; for this does not admit of more states than one, so that it
cannot even be in one state and also in another; for if it did it would
already be in more than one. If, then, there are any things that are
eternal and unmovable, nothing compulsory or against their nature
attaches to them. (15)

6 ‘One’ means (1) that which is one by accident, (2) that which is one
by its own nature. (1) Instances of the accidentally one are ‘Coriscus and
what is musical’, and ‘musical Coriscus’ (for it is the same thing to say
‘Coriscus and what is musical’, and ‘musical Coriscus’), and ‘what is
musical and what is just’, and ‘musical Coriscus and just Coriscus’. For
all of these are called one by virtue of an accident, (20) ‘what is just and
what is musical’ because they are accidents of one substance, ‘what is
musical and Coriscus’ because the one is an accident of the other; and
similarly in a sense ‘musical Coriscus’ is one with ‘Coriscus’ because one
of the parts of the phrase is an accident of the other, (25) i. e. ‘musical’ is
an accident of Coriscus; and ‘musical Coriscus’ is one with ‘just Coriscus’
because one part of each is an accident of one and the same subject. The
case is similar if the accident is predicated of a genus or of any universal
name, e. g. if one says that man is the same as ‘musical man’; for this is
either because ‘musical’ is an accident of man, (30) which is one
substance, or because both are accidents of some individual, e. g.
Coriscus. Both, however, do not belong to him in the same way, but one
presumably as genus and included in his substance, the other as a state
or affection of the substance.
The things, (35) then, that are called one in virtue of an accident, are
called so in this way. (2) Of things that are called one in virtue of their
own nature some (a) are so called because they are continuous, e. g. a
bundle is made one by a band, and pieces of wood are made one by
glue; and a line, even if it is bent, is called one if it is continuous, as each
part of the body is, e. g. the leg or the arm. [1016a] Of these
themselves, the continuous by nature are more one than the continuous
by art. (5) A thing is called continuous which has by its own nature one
movement and cannot have any other; and the movement is one when it
is indivisible, and it is indivisible in respect of time. Those things are
continuous by their own nature which are one not merely by contact; for
if you put pieces of wood touching one another, you will not say these
are one piece of wood or one body or one continuum of any other sort.
Things, then, that are continuous in any way are called one, (10) even if
they admit of being bent, and still more those which cannot be bent;
e. g. the shin or the thigh is more one than the leg, because the
movement of the leg need not be one. And the straight line is more one
than the bent; but that which is bent and has an angle we call both one
and not one, because its movement may be either simultaneous or not
simultaneous; but that of the straight line is always simultaneous, (15)
and no part of it which has magnitude rests while another moves, as in
the bent line.
(b) (i) Things are called one in another sense because their substratum
does not differ in kind; it does not differ in the case of things whose kind
is indivisible to sense. The substratum meant is either the nearest to, (20)
or the farthest from, the final state. For, on the one hand, wine is said to
be one and water is said to be one, qua indivisible in kind; and, on the
other hand, all juices, e. g. oil and wine, are said to be one, and so are all
things that can be melted, because the ultimate substratum of all is the
same; for all of these are water or air.
(ii) Those things also are called one whose genus is one though
distinguished by opposite differentiae—these too are all called one
because the genus which underlies the differentiae is one (e. g. horse, (25)
man, and dog form a unity, because all are animals), and indeed in a
way similar to that in which the matter is one. These are sometimes
called one in this way, but sometimes it is the higher genus that is said
to be the same (if they are infimae species of their genus)—the genus
above the proximate genera; e. g. the isosceles and the equilateral are
one and the same figure because both are triangles; but they are not the
same triangles. (30)
(c) Two things are called one, when the definition which states the
essence of one is indivisible from another definition which shows us the
other (though in itself every definition is divisible). (35) Thus even that
which has increased or is diminishing is one, because its definition is
one, as, in the case of plane figures, is the definition of their form.
[1016b] In general those things the thought of whose essence is
indivisible, and cannot separate them either in time or in place or in
definition, are most of all one, and of these especially those which are
substances. For in general those things that do not admit of division are
called one in so far as they do not admit of it; e. g. if two things are
indistinguishable qua man, (5) they are one kind of man; if qua animal,
one kind of animal; if qua magnitude, one kind of magnitude.—Now
most things are called one because they either do or have or suffer or are
related to something else that is one, but the things that are primarily
called one are those whose substance is one—and one either in
continuity or in form or in definition; for we count as more than one
either things that are not continuous, or those whose form is not one, (10)
or those whose definition is not one.
While in a sense we call anything one if it is a quantity and
continuous, in a sense we do not unless it is a whole, i. e. unless it has
unity of form; e. g. if we saw the parts of a shoe put together anyhow we
should not call them one all the same (unless because of their
continuity); we do this only if they are put together so as to be a shoe
and to have already a certain single form. (15) This is why the circle is of
all lines most truly one, because it is whole and complete.
(3) The essence of what is one is to be some kind of beginning of
number; for the first measure is the beginning, since that by which we
first know each class is the first measure of the class; the one, then, (20) is
the beginning of the knowable regarding each class. But the one is not
the same in all classes. For here it is a quarter-tone, and there it is the
vowel or the consonant; and there is another unit of weight and another
of movement. But everywhere the one is indivisible either in quantity or
in kind. Now that which is indivisible in quantity is called a unit if it is
not divisible in any dimension and is without position, (25) a point if it is
not divisible in any dimension, and has position, a line if it is divisible in
one dimension, a plane if in two, a body if divisible in quantity in all—
i. e. in three—dimensions. And, reversing the order, that which is
divisible in two dimensions is a plane, that which is divisible in one a
line, that which is in no way divisible in quantity is a point or a unit—
that which has not position a unit, (30) that which has position a point.
Again, some things are one in number, others in species, others in
genus, others by analogy; in number those whose matter is one, in
species those whose definition is one, in genus those to which the same
figure of predication applies,3 by analogy those which are related as a
third thing is to a fourth. (35) The latter kinds of unity are always found
when the former are; e. g. things that are one in number are also one in
species, while things that are one in species are not all one in number;
but things that are one in species are all one in genus, while things that
are so in genus are not all one in species but are all one by analogy;
while things that are one by analogy are not all one in genus. [1017a]
Evidently ‘many’ will have meanings opposite to those of ‘one’; some
things are many because they are not continuous, (5) others because their
matter—either the proximate matter or the ultimate—is divisible in
kind, others because the definitions which state their essence are more
than one.

7 Things are said to ‘be’ (1) in an accidental sense, (2) by their own
nature.
(I) In an accidental sense, e. g., we say ‘the righteous doer is musical’,
and ‘the man is musical’, and ‘the musician is a man’, (10) just as we say
‘the musician builds’, because the builder happens to be musical or the
musician to be a builder; for here ‘one thing is another’ means ‘one is an
accident of another’. So in the cases we have mentioned; for when we
say ‘the man is musical’ and ‘the musician is a man’, (15) or ‘he who is
pale is musical’ or ‘the musician is pale’, the last two mean that both
attributes are accidents of the same thing; the first that the attribute is
an accident of that which is; while ‘the musical is a man’ means that
‘musical’ is an accident of a man. (In this sense, too, the not-pale is said
to be, because that of which it is an accident is.) Thus when one thing is
said in an accidental sense to be another, (20) this is either because both
belong to the same thing, and this is, or because that to which the
attribute belongs is, or because the subject which has as an attribute that
of which it is itself predicated, itself is.
(2) The kinds of essential being are precisely those that are indicated
by the figures of predication;4 for the senses of ‘being’ are just as many
as these figures. (25) Since, then, some predicates indicate what the
subject is, others its quality, others quantity, others relation, others
activity or passivity, others its ‘where’, others its ‘when’, ‘being’ has a
meaning answering to each of these. For there is no difference between
‘the man is recovering’ and ‘the man recovers’, nor between ‘the man is
walking’ or ‘cutting’ and ‘the man walks’ or ‘cuts’; and similarly in all
other cases. (30)
(3) Again, ‘being’ and ‘is’ mean that a statement is true, ‘not being’
that it is not true but false—and this alike in the case of affirmation and
of negation; e. g. ’Socrates is ‘musical’ means that this is true, or
‘Socrates is not-pale’ means that this is true; but ‘the diagonal of the
square is not commensurate with the side’ means that it is false to say it
is.
(4) Again, ‘being’ and ‘that which is’ mean that some of the things we
have mentioned ‘are’ potentially, (35) others in complete reality.
[1017b] For we say both of that which sees potentially and of that
which sees actually, that it is ‘seeing’, and both of that which can
actualize its knowledge and of that which is actualizing it, that it knows,
(5) and both of that to which rest is already present and of that which can

rest, that it rests. And similarly in the case of substances; we say the
Hermes is in the stone, and the half of the line is in the line, and we say
of that which is not yet ripe that it is corn. When a thing is potential and
when it is not yet potential must be explained elsewhere.5

8 We call ‘substance’ (1) the simple bodies, (10) i. e. earth and fire and
water and everything of the sort, and in general bodies and the things
composed of them, both animals and divine beings, and the parts of
these. All these are called substance because they are not predicated of a
subject but everything else is predicated of them.—(2) That which, being
present in such things as are not predicated of a subject, (15) is the cause
of their being, as the soul is of the being of an animal.—(3) The parts
which are present in such things, limiting them and marking them as
individuals, and by whose destruction the whole is destroyed, as the
body is by the destruction of the plane, as some6 say, and the plane by
the destruction of the line; and in general number is thought by some6 to
be of this nature; for if it is destroyed, (20) they say, nothing exists, and it
limits all things.—(4) The essence, the formula of which is a definition,
is also called the substance of each thing.
It follows, then, that ‘substance’ has two senses, (A) the ultimate
substratum, which is no longer predicated of anything else, and (B) that
which, being a ‘this’, is also separable7—and of this nature is the shape
or form of each thing. (25)

9 ‘The same’ means (1) that which is the same in an accidental sense,
e. g. ‘the pale’ and ‘the musical’ are the same because they are accidents
of the same thing, and ‘a man’ and ‘musical’ because the one is an
accident of the other; and ‘the musical’ is ‘a man’ because it is an
accident of the man. (30) (The complex entity is the same as either of the
simple ones and each of these is the same as it; for both ‘the man’ and
‘the musical’ are said to be the same as ‘the musical man’, and this the
same as they.) This is why all of these statements are made not
universally; for it is not true to say that every man is the same as ‘the
musical’ (for universal attributes belong to things in virtue of their own
nature, (35) but accidents do not belong to them in virtue of their own
nature); but of the individuals the statements are made without
qualification. [1018a] For ‘Socrates’ and ‘musical Socrates’ are thought
to be the same; but ‘Socrates’ is not predicable of more than one subject,
and therefore we do not say ‘every Socrates’ as we say ‘every man’.
Some things are said to be the same in this sense, (5) others (2) are the
same by their own nature, in as many senses as that which is one by its
own nature is so; for both the things whose matter is one either in kind
or in number, and those whose essence is one, are said to be the same.
Clearly, therefore, sameness is a unity of the being either of more than
one thing or of one thing when it is treated as more than one, i. e. when
we say a thing is the same as itself; for we treat it as two.
Things are called ‘other’ if either their kinds or their matters or the
definitions of their essence are more than one; and in general ‘other’ has
meanings opposite to those of ‘the same’. (10)
‘Different’ is applied (1) to those things which though other are the
same in some respect, only not in number but either in species or in
genus or by analogy; (2) to those whose genus is other, and to
contraries, and to all things that have their otherness in their essence.
Those things are called ‘like’ which have the same attributes in every
respect, (15) and those which have more attributes the same than
different, and those whose quality is one; and that which shares with
another thing the greater number or the more important of the attributes
(each of them one of two contraries) in respect of which things are
capable of altering, is like that other thing.8 The senses of ‘unlike’ are
opposite to those of ‘like’.

10 The term ‘opposite’ is applied to contradictories, (10) and to

contraries, and to relative terms, and to privation and possession, and to
the extremes from which and into which generation and dissolution take
place; and the attributes that cannot be present at the same time in that
which is receptive of both, are said to be opposed—either themselves or
their constituents. Grey and white colour do not belong at the same time
to the same thing; hence their constituents are opposed.9
The term ‘contrary’ is applied (1) to those attributes differing in genus
which cannot belong at the same time to the same subject, (25) (2) to the
most different of the things in the same genus, (3) to the most different
of the attributes in the same recipient subject, (4) to the most different
of the things that fall under the same faculty, (30) (5) to the things whose
difference is greatest either absolutely or in genus or in species. The
other things that are called contrary are so called, some because they
possess contraries of the above kind, some because they are receptive of
such, some because they are productive of or susceptible to such, or are
producing or suffering them, or are losses or acquisitions, or possessions
or privations, of such. Since ‘one’ and ‘being’ have many senses, (35) the
other terms which are derived from these, and therefore ‘same’, ‘other’,
and ‘contrary’, must correspond, so that they must be different for each
category.
The term ‘other in species’ is applied to things which being of the
same genus are not subordinate the one to the other, or which being in
the same genus have a difference,10 or which have a contrariety in their
substance; and contraries are other than one another in species (either
all contraries or those which are so called in the primary sense11), and so
are those things whose definitions differ in the infima species of the genus
(e. g. man and horse are indivisible in genus but their definitions are
different), (5) and those which being in the same substance have a
difference. [1018b] ‘The same in species’ has the various meanings
opposite to these.

11 The words ‘prior’ and ‘posterior’ are applied (1) to some things (on
the assumption that there is a first, i. e. a beginning, in each class)
because they are nearer some beginning determined either absolutely
and by nature, (10) or by reference to something or in some place or by
certain people; e. g. things are prior in place because they are nearer
either to some place determined by nature (e. g. the middle or the last
place), or to some chance object; and that which is farther is posterior.
(15) —Other things are prior in time; some by being farther from the

present, i. e. in the case of past events (for the Trojan war is prior to the
Persian, because it is farther from the present), others by being nearer
the present, i. e. in the case of future events (for the Nemean games are
prior to the Pythian, if we treat the present as beginning and first point,
because they are nearer the present).—Other things are prior in
movement; (20) for that which is nearer the first mover is prior (e. g. the
boy is prior to the man); and the prime mover also is a beginning
absolutely.—Others are prior in power; for that which exceeds in power,
i. e. the more powerful, is prior; and such is that according to whose will
the other—i. e. the posterior—must follow, so that if the prior does not
set it in motion the other does not move, (25) and if it sets it in motion it
does move; and here will is a beginning.—Others are prior in
arrangement; these are the things that are placed at intervals in
reference to some one definite thing according to some rule, e. g. in the
chorus the second man is prior to the third, and in the lyre the second
lowest string is prior to the lowest; for in the one case the leader and in
the other the middle string is the beginning.
These, (30) then, are called prior in this sense, but (2) in another sense
that which is prior for knowledge is treated as also absolutely prior; of
these, the things that are prior in definition do not coincide with those
that are prior in relation to perception. For in definition universals are
prior, in relation to perception individuals. And in definition also the
accident is prior to the whole, e. g. ‘musical’ to ‘musical man’, (35) for the
definition cannot exist as a whole without the part; yet musicalness
cannot exist unless there is some one who is musical.
(3) The attributes of prior things are called prior, e. g. straightness is
prior to smoothness; for one is an attribute of a line as such, and the
other of a surface.
[1019a] Some things then are called prior and posterior in this
sense, others (4) in respect of nature and substance, i. e. those which can
be without other things, while the others cannot be without them—a
distinction which Plato used. (5) (If we consider the various senses of
‘being’, firstly the subject is prior, so that substance is prior; secondly,
according as potency or complete reality is taken into account, different
things are prior, for some things are prior in respect of potency, others in
respect of complete reality, e. g. in potency the half line is prior to the
whole line, and the part to the whole, and the matter to the concrete
substance, but in complete reality these are posterior; for it is only when
the whole has been dissolved that they will exist in complete reality. (10))
In a sense, therefore, all things that are called prior and posterior are so
called with reference to this fourth sense; for some things can exist
without others in respect of generation, e. g. the whole without the
parts, and others in respect of dissolution, e. g. the part without the
whole. And the same is true in all other cases.

12 ‘Potency’ means (1) a source of movement or change, (15) which is

in another thing than the thing moved or in the same thing qua other;
e. g. the art of building is a potency which is not in the thing built, while
the art of healing, which is a potency, may be in the man healed, but not
in him qua healed. ‘Potency’ then means the source, in general, of
change or movement in another thing or in the same thing qua other,
and also (2) the source of a thing’s being moved by another thing or by
itself qua other. (20) For in virtue of that principle, in virtue of which a
patient suffers anything, we call it ‘capable’ of suffering; and this we do
sometimes if it suffers anything at all, sometimes not in respect of
everything it suffers, but only if it suffers a change for the better.—(3)
The capacity of performing this well or according to intention; for
sometimes we say of those who merely can walk or speak but not well or
not as they intend, that they cannot speak or walk. (25) So too (4) in the
case of passivity.—(5) The states in virtue of which things are absolutely
impassive or unchangeable, or not easily changed for the worse, are
called potencies; for things are broken and crushed and bent and in
general destroyed not by having a potency but by not having one and by
lacking something, (30) and things are impassive with respect to such
processes if they are scarcely and slightly affected by them, because of a
‘potency’ and because they ‘can’ do something and are in some positive
state.
‘Potency’ having this variety of meanings, so too the ‘potent’ or
‘capable’ in one sense will mean that which can begin a movement (or a
change in general, for even that which can bring things to rest is a
‘potent’ thing) in another thing or in itself qua other; and in one sense
that over which something else has such a potency; and in one sense that
which has a potency of changing into something, (35) whether for the
worse or for the better (for even that which perishes is thought to be
‘capable’ of perishing, for it would not have perished if it had not been
capable of it; [1019b] but, as a matter of fact, it has a certain
disposition and cause and principle which fits it to suffer this; sometimes
it is thought to be of this sort because it has something, (5) sometimes
because it is deprived of something; but if privation is in a sense ‘having’
or ‘habit’, everything will be capable by having something, so that things
are capable both by having a positive habit and principle, and by having
the privation of this, if it is possible to have a privation; and if privation
is not in a sense ‘habit’, ‘capable’ is used in two distinct senses); and a
thing is capable in another sense because neither any other thing, (10) nor
itself qua other, has a potency or principle which can destroy it. Again,
all of these are capable either merely because the thing might chance to
happen or not to happen, or because it might do so well. This sort of
potency is found even in lifeless things, e. g. in instruments; for we say
one lyre can speak, and another cannot speak at all, if it has not a good
tone.
Incapacity is privation of capacity—i. e. of such a principle as has
been described—either in general or in the case of something that would
naturally have the capacity, (15) or even at the time when it would
naturally already have it; for the senses in which we should call a boy
and a man and a eunuch ‘incapable of begetting’ are distinct.—Again, to
either kind of capacity there is an opposite incapacity—both to that
which only can produce movement and to that which can produce it
well. (20)
Some things, then, are called adunata in virtue of this kind of
incapacity, while others are so in another sense; i. e. both dunaton and
adunaton are used as follows. The impossible is that of which the
contrary is of necessity true, e. g. that the diagonal of a square is
commensurate with the side is impossible, (25) because such a statement
is a falsity of which the contrary is not only true but also necessary; that
it is commensurate, then, is not only false but also of necessity false. The
contrary of this, the possible, is found when it is not necessary that the
contrary is false, e. g. that a man should be seated is possible; for that he
is not seated is not of necessity false. (30) The possible, then, in one sense,
as has been said, means that which is not of necessity false; in one, that
which is true; in one, that which may be true.—A ‘potency’ or ‘power’12
in geometry is so called by a change of meaning. (35)—These senses of
‘capable’ or ‘possible’ involve no reference to potency. But the senses
which involve a reference to potency all refer to the primary kind of
potency; and this is a source of change in another thing or in the same
thing qua other. [1020a] For other things are called ‘capable’, some
because something else has such a potency over them, some because it
has not, some because it has it in a particular way. The same is true of
the things that are incapable. (5) Therefore the proper definition of the
primary kind of potency will be ‘a source of change in another thing or
in the same thing qua other’.

13 ‘Quantum’ means that which is divisible into two or more

constituent parts of which each is by nature a ‘one’ and a ‘this’. (10) A
quantum is a plurality if it is numerable, a magnitude if it is measurable.
‘Plurality’ means that which is divisible potentially into non-continuous
parts, ‘magnitude’ that which is divisible into continuous parts; of
magnitude, that which is continuous in one dimension is length, in two
breadth, in three depth. Of these, limited plurality is number, limited
length is a line, breadth a surface, depth a solid.
Again, some things are called quanta in virtue of their own nature,
others incidentally; e. g. the line is a quantum by its own nature, (15) the
musical is one incidentally. Of the things that are quanta by their own
nature some are so as substances, e. g. the line is a quantum (for ‘a
certain kind of quantum’ is present in the definition which states what it
is), and others are modifications and states of this kind of substance,
e. g. much and little, long and short, broad and narrow, (20) deep and
shallow, heavy and light, and all other such attributes. And also great
and small, and greater and smaller, both in themselves and when taken
relatively to each other, are by their own nature attributes of what is
quantitative; but these names are transferred to other things also. (25) Of
things that are quanta incidentally, some are so called in the sense in
which it was said that the musical and the white were quanta, viz.
because that to which musicalness and whiteness belong is a quantum,
and some are quanta in the way in which movement and time are so; for
these also are called quanta of a sort and continuous because the things
of which these are attributes are divisible. (30) I mean not that which is
moved, but the space through which it is moved; for because that is a
quantum movement also is a quantum, and because this is a quantum
time is one.

14 ‘Quality’ means (1) the differentia of the essence, e. g. man is an

animal of a certain quality because he is two-footed, and the horse is so
because it is four-footed; (35) and a circle is a figure of particular quality
because it is without angles—which shows that the essential differentia
is a quality. [1020b] —This, then, is one meaning of quality—the
differentia of the essence, but (2) there is another sense in which it
applies to the unmovable objects of mathematics, the sense in which the
numbers have a certain quality, e. g. the composite numbers which are
not in one dimension only, but of which the plane and the solid are
copies (these are those which have two or three factors); and in general
that which exists in the essence of numbers besides quantity is quality;
for the essence of each is what it is once, (5) e. g. that of 6 is not what it
is twice or thrice, but what it is once; for 6 is once 6.
(3) All the modifications of substances that move (e. g. heat and cold,
whiteness and blackness, heaviness and lightness, (10) and the others of
the sort) in virtue of which, when they change, bodies are said to alter.
(4) Quality in respect of virtue and vice and, in general, of evil and
good.
Quality, then, seems to have practically two meanings, and one of
these is the more proper. The primary quality is the differentia of the
essence, (15) and of this the quality in numbers is a part; for it is a
differentia of essences, but either not of things that move or not of them
qua moving. Secondly, there are the modifications of things that move,
qua moving, and the differentiae of movements. Virtue and vice fall
among these modifications; for they indicate differentiae of the
movement or activity, (20) according to which the things in motion act or
are acted on well or badly; for that which can be moved or act in one
way is good, and that which can do so in another—the contrary—way is
vicious. Good and evil indicate quality especially in living things, (25) and
among these especially in those which have purpose.

15 Things are ‘relative’ (1) as double to half, and treble to a third, and
in general that which contains something else many times to that which
is contained many times in something else, and that which exceeds to
that which is exceeded; (2) as that which can heat to that which can be
heated, and that which can cut to that which can be cut, (30) and in
general the active to the passive; (3) as the measurable to the measure,
and the knowable to knowledge, and the perceptible to perception.
(I) Relative terms of the first kind are numerically related either
indefinitely or definitely, to numbers themselves or to 1. e. g. the double
is in a definite numerical relation to 1, and that which is ‘many times as
great’ is in a numerical, (35) but not a definite, relation to 1, i. e. not in
this or in that numerical relation to it; [1021a] the relation of that
which is half as big again as something else to that something is a
definite numerical relation to a number; that which is times
something else is in an indefinite relation to that something, as that
which is ‘many times as great’ is in an indefinite relation to 1; the
relation of that which exceeds to that which is exceeded is numerically
quite indefinite; for number is always commensurate, (5) and ‘number’ is
not predicated of that which is not commensurate, but that which
exceeds is, in relation to that which is exceeded, so much and something
more; and this something is indefinite; for it can, indifferently, be either
equal or not equal to that which is exceeded.—All these relations, then,
are numerically expressed and are determinations of number, and so in
another way are the equal and the like and the same. (10) For all refer to
unity. Those things are the same whose substance is one; those are like
whose quality is one; those are equal whose quantity is one; and 1 is the
beginning and measure of number, so that all these relations imply
number, though not in the same way.
(2) Things that are active or passive imply an active or a passive
potency and the actualizations of the potencies; e. g. that which is
capable of heating is related to that which is capable of being heated,
because it can heat it, (15) and, again, that which heats is related to that
which is heated and that which cuts to that which is cut, in the sense
that they actually do these things. But numerical relations are not
actualized except in the sense which has been elsewhere stated;
actualizations in the sense of movement they have not. (20) Of relations
which imply potency some further imply particular periods of time, e. g.
that which has made is relative to that which has been made, and that
which will make to that which will be made. For it is in this way that a
father is called the father of his son; for the one has acted and the other
has been acted on in a certain way. Further, (25) some relative terms
imply privation of potency, i. e. ‘incapable’ and terms of this sort, e. g.
‘invisible’.
Relative terms which imply number or potency, therefore, are all
relative because their very essence includes in its nature a reference to
something else, not because something else involves a reference to it; but
(3) that which is measurable or knowable or thinkable is called relative
because something else involves a reference to it. (30) For ‘that which is
thinkable’ implies that the thought of it is possible, but the thought is
not relative to ‘that of which it is the thought’; for we should then have
said the same thing twice. Similarly sight is the sight of something, not
‘of that of which it is the sight’ (though of course it is true to say this); in
fact it is relative to colour or to something else of the sort. [1021b]
But according to the other way of speaking the same thing would be said
twice—‘the sight is of that of which it is.’
Things that are by their own nature called relative are called so
sometimes in these senses, sometimes if the classes that include them are
of this sort; e. g. medicine is a relative term because its genus, (5) science,
is thought to be a relative term. Further, there are the properties in
virtue of which the things that have them are called relative, e. g.
equality is relative because the equal is, and likeness because the like is.
Other things are relative by accident; e. g. a man is relative because he
happens to be double of something and double is a relative term; or the
white is relative, (10) if the same thing happens to be double and white.

16 What is called ‘complete’ is (1) that outside which it is not possible

to find any, even one, of its parts; e. g. the complete time of each thing is
that outside which it is not possible to find any time which is a part
proper to it. (15)—(2) That which in respect of excellence and goodness
cannot be excelled in its kind; e. g. we have a complete doctor or a
complete flute-player, when they lack nothing in respect of the form of
their proper excellence. And thus, transferring the word to bad things,
we speak of a complete scandal-monger and a complete thief; indeed we
even call them good, (20) i. e. a good thief and a good scandalmonger.
And excellence is a completion; for each thing is complete and every
substance is complete, when in respect of the form of its proper
excellence it lacks no part of its natural magnitude.—(3) The things
which have attained their end, this being good, (25) are called complete;
for things are complete in virtue of having attained their end. Therefore,
since the end is something ultimate, we transfer the word to bad things
and say a thing has been completely spoilt, and completely destroyed,
when it in no wise falls short of destruction and badness, but is at its last
point. This is why death, too, is by a figure of speech called the end,
because both are last things. But the ultimate purpose is also an end. (30)
—Things, then, that are called complete in virtue of their own nature are
so called in all these senses, some because in respect of goodness they
lack nothing and cannot be excelled and no part proper to them can be
found outside them, others in general because they cannot be exceeded
in their several classes and no part proper to them is outside them; the
others presuppose these first two kinds, and are called complete because
they either make or have something of the sort or are adapted to it or in
some way or other involve a reference to the things that are called
complete in the primary sense. [1022a]

17 ‘Limit’ means (1) the last point of each thing, i. e. the first point
beyond which it is not possible to find any part, (5) and the first point
within which every part is; (2) the form, whatever it may be, of a spatial
magnitude or of a thing that has magnitude; (3) the end of each thing
(and of this nature is that towards which the movement and the action
are, not that from which they are—though sometimes it is both, that
from which and that to which the movement is, i. e. the final cause); (4)
the substance of each thing, and the essence of each; for this is the limit
of knowledge; and if of knowledge, (10) of the object also. Evidently,
therefore, ‘limit’ has as many senses as ‘beginning’, and yet more; for the
beginning is a limit, but not every limit is a beginning.

18 ‘That in virtue of which’ has several meanings:—(1) the form or

substance of each thing, e. g. that in virtue of which a man is good is the
good itself, (15) (2) the proximate subject in which it is the nature of an
attribute to be found, e. g. colour in a surface. ‘That in virtue of which’,
then, in the primary sense is the form, and in a secondary sense the
matter of each thing and the proximate substratum of each.—In general
‘that in virtue of which’ will be found in the same number of senses as
‘cause’; for we say indifferently (3) ‘in virtue of what has he come?’ or
‘for what end has he come?’; and (4) ‘in virtue of what has he inferred
wrongly, (20) or inferred?’ or ‘what is the cause of the inference, or of the
wrong inference?’—Further (5) kath’ho is used in reference to position,
e. g. ‘at which he stands’ or ‘along which he walks’; for all such phrases
indicate place and position.
Therefore ‘in virtue of itself’ must likewise have several meanings. The
following belong to a thing in virtue of itself:—(1) the essence of each
thing, (25) e. g. Callias is in virtue of himself Callias and what it was to be
Callias; (2) whatever is present in the ‘what’, e. g. Callias is in virtue of
himself an animal. For ‘animal’ is present in his definition; Callias is a
particular animal.—(3) Whatever attribute a thing receives in itself
directly or in one of its parts; e. g. a surface is white in virtue of itself,
and a man is alive in virtue of himself; for the soul, (30) in which life
directly resides, is a part of the man.—(4) That which has no cause other
than itself; man has more than one cause—animal, two-footed—but yet
man is man in virtue of himself.—(5) Whatever attributes belong to a
thing alone, (35) and in so far as they belong to it merely by virtue of
itself considered apart by itself.

19 ‘Disposition’ means the arrangement of that which has parts, in

respect either of place or of potency or of kind; for there must be a
certain position, as even the word ‘disposition’ shows. [1022b]

20 ‘Having’ means (1) a kind of activity of the haver and of what he

has—something like an action or movement. For when one thing makes
and one is made, between them there is a making; so too between him
who has a garment and the garment which he has there is a having. (5)
This sort of having, then, evidently we cannot have; for the process will
go on to infinity, if it is to be possible to have the having of what we
have.—(2) ‘Having’ or ‘habit’ means a disposition according to which
that which is disposed is either well or ill disposed, (10) and either in
itself or with reference to something else; e. g. health is a ‘habit’; for it is
such a disposition.—(3) We speak of a ‘habit’ if there is a portion of such
a disposition; and so even the excellence of the parts is a ‘habit’ of the
whole thing.

21 ‘Affection’ means (1) a quality in respect of which a thing can be

altered, (15) e. g. white and black, sweet and bitter, heaviness and
lightness, and all others of the kind.—(2) The actualization of these—the
already accomplished alterations.—(3) Especially, (20) injurious
alterations and movements, and, above all, painful injuries.—(4)
Misfortunes and painful experiences when on a large scale are called
affections.
22 We speak of ‘privation’ (1) if something has not one of the
attributes which a thing might naturally have, even if this thing itself
would not naturally have it; e. g. a plant is said to be ‘deprived’ of eyes.
—(2) If, though either the thing itself or its genus would naturally have
an attribute, (25) it has it not; e. g. a blind man and a mole are in
different senses ‘deprived’ of sight; the latter in contrast with its genus,13
the former in contrast with his own normal nature.—(3) If, though it
would naturally have the attribute, and when it would naturally have it,
it has it not; for blindness is a privation, but one is not ‘blind’ at any and
every age, but only if one has not sight at the age at which one would
naturally have it. (30) Similarly a thing is called blind if it has not sight in
the medium in which, and in respect of the organ in respect of which,
and with reference to the object with reference to which, and in the
circumstances in which, it would naturally have it.—(4) The violent
taking away of anything is called privation.
Indeed there are just as many kinds of privations as there are of words
with negative prefixes; for a thing is called unequal because it has not
equality though it would naturally have it, (35) and invisible either
because it has no colour at all or because it has a poor colour, and
apodous either because it has no feet at all or because it has imperfect
feet. [1023a] Again, a privative term may be used because the thing
has little of the attribute (and this means having it in a sense
imperfectly), e. g. ‘kernel-less’; or because it has it not easily or not well
(e. g. we call a thing uncuttable not only if it cannot be cut but also if it
cannot be cut easily or well); or because it has not the attribute at all; for
it is not the one-eyed man but he who is sightless in both eyes that is
called blind. (5) This is why not every man is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, ‘just’ or
‘unjust’, but there is also an intermediate state.

23 To ‘have’ or ‘hold’ means many things:—(1) to treat a thing

according to one’s own nature or according to one’s own impulse; so that
fever is said to have a man, and tyrants to have their cities, (10) and
people to have the clothes they wear.—(2) That in which a thing is
present as in something receptive of it is said to have the thing; e. g. the
bronze has the form of the statue, and the body has the disease.—(3) As
that which contains holds the things contained; for a thing is said to be
held by that in which it is as in a container; e. g. we say that the vessel
holds the liquid and the city holds men and the ship sailors; and so too
that the whole holds the parts. (15)—(4) That which hinders a thing from
moving or acting according to its own impulse is said to hold it, as
pillars hold the incumbent weights, and as the poets make Atlas hold the
heavens, implying that otherwise they would collapse on the earth, (20) as
some of the natural philosophers also say. In this way also that which
holds things together is said to hold the things it holds together, since
they would otherwise separate, each according to its own impulse.
‘Being in something’ has similar and corresponding meanings to
‘holding’ or ‘having’. (25)

24 ‘To come from something’ means (1) to come from something as

from matter, and this in two senses, either in respect of the highest
genus or in respect of the lowest species; e. g. in a sense all things that
can be melted come from water, but in a sense the statue comes from
bronze.—(2) As from the first moving principle; e. g. (30) ‘what did the
fight come from?’ From abusive language, because this was the origin of
the fight—(3) From the compound of matter and shape, as the parts
come from the whole, and the verse from the Iliad, and the stones from
the house; [in every such case the whole is a compound of matter and
shape,] for the shape is the end, and only that which attains an end is
complete.—(4) As the form from its part, e. g. man from ‘two-footed’ and
syllable from ‘letter’; for this is a different sense from that in which the
statue comes from bronze; for the composite substance comes from the
sensible matter, (35) but the form also comes from the matter of the form.
[1023b]—Some things, then, are said to come from something else in
these senses; but (5) others are so described if one of these senses is
applicable to a part of that other thing; e. g. the child comes from its
father and mother, and plants come from the earth, because they come
from a part of those things.—(6) It means coming after a thing in time,
(5) e. g. night comes from day and storm from fine weather, because the

one comes after the other. Of these things some are so described because
they admit of change into one another, as in the cases now mentioned;
some merely because they are successive in time, e. g. the voyage took
place ‘from’ the equinox, (10) because it took place after the equinox, and
the festival of the Thargelia comes ‘from’ the Dionysia, because after the
Dionysia.

25 ‘Part’ means (1) (a) that into which a quantum can in any way be
divided; for that which is taken from a quantum qua quantum is always
called a part of it, (15) e. g. two is called in a sense a part of three. It
means (b), of the parts in the first sense, only those which measure the
whole; this is why two, though in one sense it is, in another is not, called
a part of three.—(2) The elements into which a kind might be divided
apart from the quantity are also called parts of it; for which reason we
say the species are parts of the genus.—(3) The elements into which a
whole is divided, (20) or of which it consists—the ‘whole’ meaning either
the form or that which has the form; e. g. of the bronze sphere or of the
bronze cube both the bronze—i. e. the matter in which the form is—and
the characteristic angle are parts.—(4) The elements in the definition
which explains a thing are also parts of the whole; this is why the genus
is called a part of the species, (25) though in another sense the species is
part of the genus.

26 ‘A whole’ means (1) that from which is absent none of the parts of
which it is said to be naturally a whole, and (2) that which so contains
the things it contains that they form a unity; and this in two senses—
either as being each severally one single thing, or as making up the unity
between them. For (a) that which is true of a whole class and is said to
hold good as a whole (which implies that it is a kind of whole) is true of
a whole in the sense that it contains many things by being predicated of
each, (30) and by all of them, e. g. man, horse, god, being severally one
single thing, because all are living things. But (b) the continuous and
limited is a whole, when it is a unity consisting of several parts,
especially if they are present only potentially,14 but, failing this, even if
they are present actually. Of these things themselves, those which are so
by nature are wholes in a higher degree than those which are so by art,
(35) as we said15 in the case of unity also, wholeness being in fact a sort

of oneness.
[1024a] Again (3), of quanta that have a beginning and a middle
and an end, those to which the position does not make a difference are
called totals, and those to which it does, wholes. Those which admit of
both descriptions are both wholes and totals. These are the things whose
nature remains the same after transposition, but whose form does not,
e. g. wax or a coat; they are called both wholes and totals; for they have
both characteristics. (5) Water and all liquids and number are called
totals, but ‘the whole number’ or ‘the whole water’ one does not speak
of, except by an extension of meaning. To things, to which qua one the
term ‘total’ is applied, the term ‘all’ is applied when they are treated as
separate; ‘this total number’, ‘all these units. (10)’

27 It is not any chance quantitative thing that can be said to be

‘mutilated’; it must be a whole as well as divisible. For not only is two
not ‘mutilated’ if one of the two ones is taken away (for the part
removed by mutilation is never equal to the remainder), but in general
no number is thus mutilated; for it is also necessary that the essence
remain; if a cup is mutilated, it must still be a cup; but the number is no
longer the same. (15) Further, even if things consist of unlike parts, not
even these things can all be said to be mutilated, for in a sense a number
has unlike parts (e. g. two and three) as well as like; but in general of the
things to which their position makes no difference, e. g. water or fire,
none can be mutilated; to be mutilated, things must be such as in virtue
of their essence have a certain position. Again, they must be continuous;
for a musical scale consists of unlike parts and has position, (20) but
cannot become mutilated. Besides, not even the things that are wholes
are mutilated by the privation of any part. For the parts removed must
be neither those which determine the essence nor any chance parts,
irrespective of their position; e. g. a cup is not mutilated if it is bored
through, but only if the handle or a projecting part is removed, (25) and a
man is mutilated not if the flesh or the spleen is removed, but if an
extremity is, and that not every extremity but one which when
completely removed cannot grow again. Therefore baldness is not a
mutilation.

28 The term ‘race’ or ‘genus’ is used (1) if generation of things which

have the same form is continuous, e. g. ‘while the race of men lasts’
means ‘while the generation of them goes on continuously’. (30)—(2) It is
used with reference to that which first brought things into existence; for
it is thus that some are called Hellenes by race and others Ionians,
because the former proceed from Hellen and the latter from Ion as their
first begetter. And the word is used in reference to the begetter more
than to the matter, though people also get a race-name from the female,
(35) e. g. ‘the descendants of Pyrrha’.—(3) There is genus in the sense in

which ‘plane’ is the genus of plane figures and ‘solid’ of solids; for each
of the figures is in the one case a plane of such and such a kind, and in
the other a solid of such and such a kind; and this is what underlies the
differentiae. [1024b] Again (4), in definitions the first constituent
element, (5) which is included in the ‘what’, is the genus, whose
differentiae the qualities are said to be.—‘Genus’ then is used in all these
ways, (1) in reference to continuous generation of the same kind, (2) in
reference to the first mover which is of the same kind as the things it
moves, (3) as matter; for that to which the differentia or quality belongs
is the substratum, which we call matter.
Those things are said to be ‘other in genus’ whose proximate
substratum is different, (10) and which are not analysed the one into the
other nor both into the same thing (e. g. form and matter are different in
genus); and things which belong to different categories of being (for
some of the things that are said to ‘be’ signify essence, others a quality,
(15) others the other categories we have before distinguished16); these

also are not analysed either into one another or into some one thing.

29 ‘The false’ means (1) that which is false as a thing, and that (a)
because it is not put together or cannot be put together, (20) e. g. ‘that the
diagonal of a square is commensurate with the side’ or ‘that you are
sitting’; for one of these is false always, and the other sometimes; it is in
these two senses that they are non-existent. (b) There are things which
exist, but whose nature it is to appear either not to be such as they are or
to be things that do not exist, e. g. a sketch or a dream; for these are
something, but are not the things the appearance of which they produce
in us. (25) We call things false in this way, then—either because they
themselves do not exist, or because the appearance which results from
them is that of something that does not exist.
(2) A false account is the account of non-existent objects, in so far as it
is false. Hence every account is false when applied to something other
than that of which it is true; e. g. the account of a circle is false when
applied to a triangle. In a sense there is one account of each thing, i. e.
the account of its essence, but in a sense there are many, (30) since the
thing itself and the thing itself with an attribute are in a sense the same,
e. g. Socrates and musical Socrates (a false account is not the account of
anything, except in a qualified sense). Hence Antisthenes was too simple-
minded when he claimed that nothing could be described except by the
account proper to it—one predicate to one subject; from which the
conclusion used to be drawn that there could be no contradiction, and
almost that there could be no error. But it is possible to describe each
thing not only by the account of itself, (35) but also by that of something
else. This may be done altogether falsely indeed, but there is also a way
in which it may be done truly; e. g. eight may be described as a double
number by the use of the definition of two.
[1025a] These things, then, are called false in these senses, but (3) a
false man is one who is ready at and fond of such accounts, not for any
other reason but for their own sake, and one who is good at impressing
such accounts on other people, just as we say things are false, (5) which
produce a false appearance. This is why the proof in the Hippias that the
same man is false and true is misleading. For it assumes that he is false
who can deceive17 (i. e. the man who knows and is wise); and further
that he who is willingly bad is better.18 This is a false result of induction
—for a man who limps willingly is better than one who does so
unwillingly—by ‘limping’ Plato means ‘mimicking a limp’, (10) for if the
man were lame willingly, he would presumably be worse in this case as
in the corresponding case of moral character.

30 ‘Accident’ means (1) that which attaches to something and can be

truly asserted, but neither of necessity nor usually, e. g. if some one in
digging a hole for a plant has found treasure. This—the finding of
treasure—is for the man who dug the hole an accident; for neither does
the one come of necessity from the other or after the other, (15) nor, if a
man plants, does he usually find treasure. And a musical man might be
pale; but since this does not happen of necessity nor usually, (20) we call
it an accident. Therefore since there are attributes and they attach to
subjects, and some of them attach to these only in a particular place and
at a particular time, whatever attaches to a subject, but not because it
was this subject, or the time this time, or the place this place, will be an
accident. Therefore, too, there is no definite cause for an accident, but a
chance cause, i. e. an indefinite one. Going to Aegina was an accident for
a man, if he went not in order to get there, (25) but because he was
carried out of his way by a storm or captured by pirates. The accident
has happened or exists—not in virtue of the subject’s nature, however,
but of something else; for the storm was the cause of his coming to a
place for which he was not sailing, and this was Aegina.
‘Accident’ has also (2) another meaning, i. e. (30) all that attaches to
each thing in virtue of itself but is not in its essence, as having its angles
equal to two right angles attaches to the triangle. And accidents of this
sort may be eternal, but no accident of the other sort is. This is explained
elsewhere.19

1 This (i. e. ‘growth’) is the etymological sense of physis. Phuesthai, ‘to grow’, has u long in most
of its forms.
2 Matter and form.

3 sc. the same category.

4 i. e. the categories.

5 ix. 7.

6 The Pythagoreans and Plato.

7 Cf. viii. 1042a 29.

8 Such attributes are hot and cold, wet and dry, rough and smooth, hard and soft, white and
black, sweet and bitter. The more important pairs of contraries, in Aristotle’s view, are the first
two.
9 We cannot say grey and white are opposites, but we say the constituents of grey (black and
white) are opposites.
10 This definition is wider than the previous one, since it includes species subordinate one to the
other.
11 Cf. a 25–31 in distinction from 31–35.

12 The reference is to squares and cubes.

13 i. e. ‘animal’.
14 i. e. if they are only distinguishable, not distinct.

15 Cf. 1016a 4.

16 1017a 24–27.

17 Hippias Minor 365–9.

18 Ib. 371–6.

19 An. Post. i. 75a 18–22, 39–41, 76b 11–16.

 BOOK E (VI)

1 [1025b] We are seeking the principles and the causes of the

things that are, and obviously of them qua being. For, while there is a
cause of health and of good condition, and the objects of mathematics
have first principles and elements and causes, (5) and in general every
science which is ratiocinative or at all involves reasoning deals with
causes and principles, more or less precise, all these sciences mark off
some particular being—some genus, (10) and inquire into this, but not
into being simply nor qua being, nor do they offer any discussion of the
essence of the things of which they treat; but starting from the essence—
some making it plain to the senses, others assuming it as a hypothesis—
they then demonstrate, more or less cogently, the essential attributes of
the genus with which they deal. It is obvious, therefore, (15) that such an
induction yields no demonstration of substance or of the essence, but
some other way of exhibiting it. And similarly the sciences omit the
question whether the genus with which they deal exists or does not exist,
because it belongs to the same kind of thinking to show what it is and
that it is.
And since natural science, like other sciences, is in fact about one class
of being, (20) i. e. to that sort of substance which has the principle of its
movement and rest present in itself, evidently it is neither practical nor
productive. For in the case of things made the principle is in the maker
—it is either reason or art or some faculty, while in the case of things
done it is in the doer—viz. will, for that which is done and that which is
willed are the same. (25) Therefore, if all thought is either practical or
productive or theoretical, physics must be a theoretical science, but it
will theorize about such being as admits of being moved, and about
substance-as-defined for the most part only as not separable from matter.
Now, we must not fail to notice the mode of being of the essence and of
its definition, for, without this, inquiry is but idle. Of things defined, (30)
i. e. of ‘whats’, some are like ‘snub’, and some like ‘concave’. And these
differ because ‘snub’ is bound up with matter (for what is snub is a
concave nose), while concavity is independent of perceptible matter.
[1026a] If then all natural things are analogous to the snub in their
nature—e. g. nose, eye, face, flesh, bone, and, in general, animal; leaf,
root, bark, and, in general, plant (for none of these can be defined
without reference to movement—they always have matter), it is clear
how we must seek and define the ‘what’ in the case of natural objects, (5)
and also that it belongs to the student of nature to study even soul in a
certain sense, i. e. so much of it as is not independent of matter.
That physics, then, is a theoretical science, is plain from these
considerations. Mathematics also, however, is theoretical; but whether
its objects are immovable and separable from matter, is not at present
clear; still, it is clear that some mathematical theorems consider them qua
immovable and qua separable from matter. But if there is something
which is eternal and immovable and separable, (10) clearly the knowledge
of it belongs to a theoretical science—not, however, to physics (for
physics deals with certain movable things) nor to mathematics, but to a
science prior to both. For physics deals with things which exist
separately but are not immovable, and some parts of mathematics deal
with things which are immovable but presumably do not exist
separately, but as embodied in matter; while the first science deals with
things which both exist separately and are immovable. (15) Now all
causes must be eternal, but especially these; for they are the causes that
operate on so much of the divine as appears to us.1 There must, then, be
three theoretical philosophies, mathematics, physics, and what we may
call theology, since it is obvious that if the divine is present anywhere, it
is present in things of this sort. And the highest science must deal with
the highest genus. (20) Thus, while the theoretical sciences are more to be
desired than the other sciences, this is more to be desired than the other
theoretical sciences. For one might raise the question whether first
philosophy is universal, or deals with one genus, i. e. some one kind of
being; for not even the mathematical sciences are all alike in this respect
—geometry and astronomy deal with a certain particular kind of thing,
(25) while universal mathematics applies alike to all. We answer that if

there is no substance other than those which are formed by nature,

natural science will be the first science; but if there is an immovable
substance, the science of this must be prior and must be first philosophy,
(30) and universal in this way, because it is first. And it will belong to this
to consider being qua being—both what it is and the attributes which
belong to it qua being.2

2 But since the unqualified term ‘being’ has several meanings, of

which one was seen3 to be the accidental, and another the true (‘non-
being’ being the false), while besides these there are the figures of
predication (e. g. the ‘what’, (35) quality, quantity, place, time, and any
similar meanings which ‘being’ may have), and again besides all these
there is that which ‘is’ potentially or actually:—since ‘being’ has many
meanings, we must first say regarding the accidental, that there can be
no scientific treatment of it. [1026b] This is confirmed by the fact that
no science—practical, (5) productive, or theoretical—troubles itself about
it. For on the one hand he who produces a house does not produce all
the attributes that come into being along with the house; for these are
innumerable; the house that has been made may quite well be pleasant
for some people, hurtful to some, and useful to others, and different—to
put it shortly—from all things that are; and the science of building does
not aim at producing any of these attributes. (10) And in the same way
the geometer does not consider the attributes which attach thus to
figures, nor whether ‘triangle’ is different from ‘triangle whose angles are
equal to two right angles’.—And this happens naturally enough; for the
accidental is practically a mere name. And so Plato4 was in a sense not
wrong in ranking sophistic as dealing with that which is not. (15) For the
arguments of the sophists deal, we may say, above all with the
accidental; e. g. the question whether ‘musical’ and ‘lettered’ are
different or the same, and whether ‘musical Coriscus’ and ‘Coriscus’ are
the same, and whether ‘everything which is, but is not eternal, has come
to be’, with the paradoxical conclusion that if one who was musical has
come to be lettered, he must also have been lettered and have come to
be musical—and all the other arguments of this sort; the accidental is
obviously akin to non-being. (20) And this is clear also from arguments
such as the following: things which are in another sense come into being
and pass out of being by a process, but things which are accidentally do
not. But still we must, as far as we can, say further, (25) regarding the
accidental, what its nature is and from what cause it proceeds; for it will
perhaps at the same time become clear why there is no science of it.
 Since, among things which are, some are always in the same state and
are of necessity (not necessity in the sense of compulsion but that which
we assert of things because they cannot be otherwise), (30) and some are
not of necessity nor always, but for the most part, this is the principle
and this the cause of the existence of the accidental; for that which is
neither always nor for the most part, we call accidental. For instance, if
in the dog-days there is wintry and cold weather, we say this is an
accident, but not if there is sultry heat, (35) because the latter is always or
for the most part so, but not the former. And it is an accident that a man
is pale (for this is neither always nor for the most part so), but it is not
by accident that he is an animal. [1027a] And that the builder
produces health is an accident, because it is the nature not of the builder
but of the doctor to do this—but the builder happened to be a doctor.
Again, a confectioner, aiming at giving pleasure, may make something
wholesome, but not in virtue of the confectioner’s art; and therefore we
say ‘it was an accident’, and while there is a sense in which he makes it,
in the unqualified sense he does not. For to other things answer faculties
productive of them, (5) but to accidental results there corresponds no
determinate art nor faculty; for of things which are or come to be by
accident, the cause also is accidental. Therefore, since not all things
either are or come to be of necessity and always, but the majority of
things are for the most part, the accidental must exist; for instance a pale
man is not always nor for the most part musical, (10) but since this
sometimes happens, it must be accidental (if not, everything will be of
necessity). The matter, therefore, which is capable of being otherwise
than as it usually is, must be the cause of the accidental. (15) And we
must take as our starting-point the question whether there is nothing
that is neither always nor for the most part. Surely this is impossible.
There is, then, besides these something which is fortuitous and
accidental. But while the usual exists, can nothing be said to be always,
or are there eternal things? This must be considered later,5 but that there
is no science of the accidental is obvious; for all science is either of that
which is always or of that which is for the most part. (20) (For how else is
one to learn or to teach another? The thing must be determined as
occurring either always or for the most part, e. g. that honey-water is
useful for a patient in a fever is true for the most part.) But that which is
contrary to the usual law science will be unable to state, i. e. when the
thing does not happen, e. g. ‘on the day of new moon’; for even that
which happens on the day of new moon happens then either always or
for the most part; but the accidental is contrary to such laws. (25) We
have stated, then, what the accidental is, and from what cause it arises,
and that there is no science which deals with it.

3 That there are principles and causes which are generable and
destructible without ever being in course of being generated or
destroyed, (30) is obvious. For otherwise all things will be of necessity,
since that which is being generated or destroyed must have a cause
which is not accidentally its cause. Will A exist or not? It will if B
happens; and if not, not. And B will exist if C happens. And thus if time
is constantly subtracted from a limited extent of time, one will obviously
come to the present. This man, then, will die by violence, if he goes out;
and he will do this if he gets thirsty; and he will get thirsty if something
else happens; and thus we shall come to that which is now present, or to
some past event. [1027b] For instance, he will go out if he gets thirsty;
and he will get thirsty if he is eating pungent food; and this is either the
case or not; so that he will of necessity die, (5) or of necessity not die.
And similarly if one jumps over to past events, the same account will
hold good; for this—I mean the past condition—is already present in
something. Everything, therefore, that will be, will be of necessity; e. g.
it is necessary that he who lives shall one day die; for already some
condition has come into existence, e. g. the presence of contraries in the
same body. (10) But whether he is to die by disease or by violence is not
yet determined, but depends on the happening of something else. Clearly
then the process goes back to a certain starting-point, but this no longer
points to something further. This then will be the starting-point for the
fortuitous, and will have nothing else as cause of its coming to be. (15)
But to what sort of starting-point and what sort of cause we thus refer
the fortuitous—whether to matter or to the purpose or to the motive
power, must be carefully considered.

4 Let us dismiss accidental being; for we have sufficiently determined

its nature. But since that which is in the sense of being true, or is not in
the sense of being false, depends on combination and separation, and
truth and falsity together depend on the allocation of a pair of
contradictory judgements (for the true judgement affirms where the
subject and predicate really are combined, (20) and denies where they are
separated, while the false judgement has the opposite of this allocation;
it is another question, how it happens that we think things together or
apart; by ‘together’ and ‘apart’ I mean thinking them so that there is no
succession in the thoughts but they become a unity); for falsity and truth
are not in things—it is not as if the good were true, (25) and the bad were
in itself false—but in thought; while with regard to simple concepts and
‘whats’ falsity and truth do not exist even in thought:—this being so, we
must consider later6 what has to be discussed with regard to that which
is or is not in this sense. (30) But since the combination and the separation
are in thought and not in the things, and that which is in this sense is a
different sort of ‘being’ from the things that are in the full sense (for the
thought attaches or removes either the subject’s ‘what’ or its having a
certain quality or quantity or something else), that which is accidentally
and that which is in the sense of being true must be dismissed. For the
cause of the former is indeterminate, and that of the latter is some
affection of the thought, and both are related to the remaining genus of
being, and do not indicate the existence of any separate class of being.
[1028a] Therefore let these be dismissed, and let us consider the
causes and the principles of being itself, qua being. [It was clear in our
discussion of the various meanings of terms, that ‘being’ has several
meanings.]7

1 i. e. produce the movements of the heavenly bodies.

2 With ch. 1 Cf. iii. 955b 10–13, 997a 15–25, xi. 7.

3 Cf. v. 7.

4 Cf. Sophistes 237 A, 254 A.

5 Cf. xii. 6–8.

6 Cf. ix. 10.

7 With chs. 2–4 Cf. xi. 1064b 15–1065a 26.

 BOOK Z (VII)

1 There are several senses in which a thing may be said to ‘be’, (10) as
we pointed out previously in our book on the various senses of words;1
for in one sense the ‘being’ meant is ‘what a thing is’ or a ‘this’, and in
another sense it means a quality or quantity or one of the other things
that are predicated as these are. While ‘being’ has all these senses,
obviously that which ‘is’ primarily is the ‘what’, which indicates the
substance of the thing. For when we say of what quality a thing is, (15)
we say that it is good or bad, not that it is three cubits long or that it is a
man; but when we say what it is, we do not say ‘white’ or ‘hot’ or ‘three
cubits long’, but ‘a man’ or ‘a god’. And all other things are said to be
because they are, some of them, quantities of that which is in this
primary sense, others qualities of it, others affections of it, and others
some other determination of it. And so one might even raise the question
whether the words ‘to walk’, (20) ‘to be healthy’, ‘to sit’ imply that each of
these things is existent, and similarly in any other case of this sort; for
none of them is either self-subsistent or capable of being separated from
substance, but rather, if anything, it is that which walks or sits or is
healthy that is an existent thing. (25) Now these are seen to be more real
because there is something definite which underlies them (i. e. the
substance or individual), which is implied in such a predicate; for we
never use the word ‘good’ or ‘sitting’ without implying this. Clearly then
it is in virtue of this category that each of the others also is. Therefore
that which is primarily, i. e. not in a qualified sense but without
qualification, must be substance. (30)
Now there are several senses in which a thing is said to be first; yet
substance is first in every sense—(1) in definition, (2) in order of
knowledge, (3) in time. For (3) of the other categories none can exist
independently, but only substance. And (1) in definition also this is first;
for in the definition of each term the definition of its substance must be
present. (35) And (2) we think we know each thing most fully, when we
know what it is, e. g. what man is or what fire is, rather than when we
know its quality, its quantity, or its place; since we know each of these
predicates also, only when we know what the quantity or the quality is.
[1028b]
And indeed the question which was raised of old and is raised now
and always, and is always the subject of doubt, viz. what being is, is just
the question, what is substance? For it is this that some2 assert to be one,
(5) others more than one, and that some3 assert to be limited in number,

others4 unlimited. And so we also must consider chiefly and primarily

and almost exclusively what that is which is in this sense.

2 Substance is thought to belong most obviously to bodies; and so we

say that not only animals and plants and their parts are substances, (10)
but also natural bodies such as fire and water and earth and everything
of the sort, and all things that are either parts of these or composed of
these (either of parts or of the whole bodies), e. g. the physical universe
and its parts, stars and moon and sun. But whether these alone are
substances, or there are also others, or only some of these, (15) or others
as well, or none of these but only some other things, are substances,
must be considered. Some5 think the limits of body, i. e. surface, line,
point, and unit, are substances, and more so than body or the solid.
Further, some do not think there is anything substantial besides
sensible things, but others think there are eternal substances which are
more in number and more real; e. g. Plato posited two kinds of substance
—the Forms and the objects of mathematics—as well as a third kind, (20)
viz. the substance of sensible bodies. And Speusippus made still more
kinds of substance, beginning with the One, and assuming principles for
each kind of substance, one for numbers, another for spatial magnitudes,
and then another for the soul; and by going on in this way he multiplies
the kinds of substance. (25) And some6 say Forms and numbers have the
same nature, and the other things come after them—lines and planes—
until we come to the substance of the material universe and to sensible
bodies.
Regarding these matters, then, we must inquire which of the common
statements are right and which are not right, and what substances there
are, and whether there are or are not any besides sensible substances, (30)
and how sensible substances exist, and whether there is a substance
capable of separate existence (and if so why and how) or no such
substance, apart from sensible substances; and we must first sketch the
nature of substance.

3 The word ‘substance’ is applied, if not in more senses, still at least to

four main objects; for both the essence and the universal and the genus
are thought to be the substance of each thing, (35) and fourthly the
substratum. Now the substratum is that of which everything else is
predicated, while it is itself not predicated of anything else. And so we
must first determine the nature of this; for that which underlies a thing
primarily is thought to be in the truest sense its substance. [1029a]
And in one sense matter is said to be of the nature of substratum, in
another, shape, and in a third, the compound of these. (By the matter I
mean, for instance, the bronze, by the shape the pattern of its form, and
by the compound of these the statue, (5) the concrete whole.) Therefore if
the form is prior to the matter and more real, it will be prior also to the
compound of both, for the same reason.
We have now outlined the nature of substance, showing that it is that
which is not predicated of a stratum, but of which all else is predicated.
But we must not merely state the matter thus; for this is not enough. The
statement itself is obscure, and further, on this view, matter becomes
substance. For if this is not substance, (10) it baffles us to say what else is.
When all else is stripped off evidently nothing but matter remains. For
while the rest are affections, products, and potencies of bodies, length,
breadth, and depth are quantities and not substances (for a quantity is
not a substance), (15) but the substance is rather that to which these
belong primarily. But when length and breadth and depth are taken
away we see nothing left unless there is something that is bounded by
these; so that to those who consider the question thus matter alone must
seem to be substance. By matter I mean that which in itself is neither a
particular thing nor of a certain quantity nor assigned to any other of the
categories by which being is determined. (20) For there is something of
which each of these is predicated, whose being is different from that of
each of the predicates (for the predicates other than substance are
predicated of substance, while substance is predicated of matter).
Therefore the ultimate substratum is of itself neither a particular thing
nor of a particular quantity nor otherwise positively characterized; nor
yet is it the negations of these, (25) for negations also will belong to it
only by accident.
If we adopt this point of view, then, it follows that matter is substance.
But this is impossible; for both separability and ‘thisness’ are thought to
belong chiefly to substance. And so form and the compound of form and
matter would be thought to be substance, (30) rather than matter. The
substance compounded of both, i. e. of matter and shape, may be
dismissed; for it is posterior and its nature is obvious. And matter also is
in a sense manifest. But we must inquire into the third kind of substance;
for this is the most perplexing.
Some of the sensible substances are generally admitted to be
substances, so that we must look first among these. For it is an
advantage to advance to that which is more knowable. [1029b] (3) For
learning proceeds for all in this way—through that which is less
knowable by nature to that which is more knowable; and just as in
conduct our task is to start from what is good for each and make what is
without qualification good good for each, (5) so it is our task to start from
what is more knowable to oneself and make what is knowable by nature
knowable to oneself. Now what is knowable and primary for particular
sets of people is often knowable to a very small extent, and has little or
nothing of reality. (10) But yet one must start from that which is barely
knowable but knowable to oneself, and try to know what is knowable
without qualification, passing, as has been said, by way of those very
things which one does know.

4 Since at the start7 we distinguished the various marks by which we

determine substance, (1) and one of these was thought to be the essence,
(13) we must investigate this. And first let us make some linguistic

remarks about it. The essence of each thing is what it is said to be propter
se.8 For being you is not being musical, since you are not by your very
nature musical. (15) What, then, you are by your very nature is your
essence.
Nor yet is the whole of this the essence of a thing; not that which is
propter se as white is to a surface, because being a surface is not identical
with being white. But again the combination of both—‘being a white
surface’—is not the essence of surface, because ‘surface’ itself is added.
The formula, therefore, in which the term itself is not present but its
meaning is expressed, (20) this is the formula of the essence of each thing.
Therefore if to be a white surface is to be a smooth surface,9 to be white
and to be smooth are one and the same.10
But since there are also compounds answering to the other categories
(for there is a substratum for each category, (25) e. g. for quality,
quantity, time, place, and motion), we must inquire whether there is a
formula of the essence of each of them, i. e. whether to these compounds
also there belongs an essence, e. g. to ‘white man’. Let the compound be
denoted by ‘cloak’. What is the essence of cloak? But, it may be said, this
also is not a propter se expression. We reply that there are just two ways
in which a predicate may fail to be true of a subject propter se, (30) and
one of these results from the addition, and the other from the omission,
of a determinant. One kind of predicate is not propter se because the term
that is being defined is combined with another determinant, e. g. if in
defining the essence of white one were to state the formula of white
man; the other because in the subject another determinant is combined
with that which is expressed in the formula, e. g. if ‘cloak’ meant ‘white
man’, and one were to define cloak as white; white man is white indeed,
but its essence is not to be white.
[1030a]But is being-a-cloak an essence at all? Probably not. For the
essence is precisely what something is; but when an attribute is asserted
of a subject other than itself, the complex is not precisely what some
‘this’ is, e. g. white man is not precisely what some ‘this’ is, (5) since
thisness belongs only to substances. Therefore there is an essence only of
those things whose formula is a definition. But we have a definition not
where we have a word and a formula identical in meaning (for in that
case all formulae or sets of words would be definitions; for there will be
some name for any set of words whatever, so that even the Iliad will be a
definition11), but where there is a formula of something primary; and
primary things are those which do not imply the predication of one
element in them of another element. (10) Nothing, then, which is not a
species of a genus will have an essence—only species will have it, for
these are thought to imply not merely that the subject participates in the
attribute and has it as an affection, or has it by accident; but for
everything else as well, if it has a name, there will be a formula of its
meaning—viz. that this attribute belongs to this subject; or instead of a
simple formula we shall be able to give a more accurate one; but there
will be no definition nor essence. (15)
Or has ‘definition’, like ‘what a thing is’, several meanings? ‘What a
thing is’ in one sense means substance and the ‘this’, in another one or
other of the predicates, quantity, quality, and the like. For as ‘is’ belongs
to all things, (20) not however in the same sense, but to one sort of thing
primarily and to others in a secondary way, so too ‘what a thing is’
belongs in the simple sense to substance, but in a limited sense to the
other categories. For even of a quality we might ask what it is, so that
quality also is a ‘what a thing is’—not in the simple sense, however, (25)
but just as, in the case of that which is not, some say,12 emphasizing the
linguistic form, that that which is not is—not is simply, but is
nonexistent; so too with quality.
We must no doubt inquire how we should express ourselves on each
point, but certainly not more than how the facts actually stand. And so
now also, since it is evident what language we use, essence will belong,
just as ‘what a thing is’ does, primarily and in the simple sense to
substance, (30) and in a secondary way to the other categories also—not
essence in the simple sense, but the essence of a quality or of a quantity.
For it must be either by an equivocation that we say these are, or by
adding to and taking from the meaning of ‘are’ (in the way in which that
which is not known may be said to be known13)—the truth being that
we use the word neither ambiguously nor in the same sense, (35) but just
as we apply the word ‘medical’ by virtue of a reference to one and the
same thing, not meaning one and the same thing, nor yet speaking
ambiguously; for a patient and an operation and an instrument are
called medical neither by an ambiguity nor with a single meaning, but
with reference to a common end. [1030b] But it does not matter at all
in which of the two ways one likes to describe the facts; this is evident,
(5) that definition and essence in the primary and simple sense belong to

substances. Still they belong to other things as well, only not in the
primary sense. For if we suppose this it does not follow that there is a
definition of every word which means the same as any formula; it must
mean the same as a particular kind of formula; and this condition is
satisfied if it is a formula of something which is one, not by continuity
like the Iliad or the things that are one by being bound together, (10) but
in one of the main senses of ‘one’, which answer to the senses of ‘is’; now
‘that which is’ in one sense denotes a ‘this’, in another a quantity, in
another a quality. And so there can be a formula or definition even of
white man, but not in the sense in which there is a definition either of
white or of a substance.

5 It is a difficult question, if one denies that a formula with an added

determinant is a definition, (15) whether any of the terms that are not
simple but coupled will be definable. For we must explain them by
adding a determinant. e. g. there is the nose, and concavity, and
snubness, which is compounded out of the two by the presence of the
one in the other, and it is not by accident that the nose has the attribute
either of concavity or of snubness, but in virtue of its nature; nor do they
attach to it as whiteness does to Callias, (20) or to man (because Callias,
who happens to be a man, is white), but as ‘male’ attaches to animal and
‘equal’ to quantity, and as all so-called ‘attributes propter se’ attach to
their subjects. And such attributes are those in which is involved either
the formula or the name of the subject of the particular attribute, (25) and
which cannot be explained without this; e. g. white can be explained
apart from man, but not female apart from animal. Therefore there is
either no essence and definition of any of these things, or if there is, it is
in another sense, as we have said.14
But there is also a second difficulty about them. For if snub nose and
concave nose are the same thing, snub and concave will be the same
thing; but if snub and concave are not the same (because it is impossible
to speak of snubness apart from the thing of which it is an attribute
propter se, (30) for snubness is concavity-in-a-nose), either it is impossible
to say ‘snub nose’ or the same thing will have been said twice, concave-
nose nose; for snub nose will be concave-nose nose. And so it is absurd
that such things should have an essence; if they have, (35) there will be an
infinite regress; for in snub-nose nose yet another ‘nose’ will be involved.
[1031a] Clearly, then, only substance is definable. For if the other
categories also are definable, it must be by addition of a determinant,
e. g. the qualitative is defined thus, and so is the odd, for it cannot be
defined apart from number; nor can female be defined apart from
animal. (When I say ‘by addition’ I mean the expressions in which it
turns out that we are saying the same thing twice, as in these instances.)
And if this is true, coupled terms also, like ‘odd number’, (5) will not be
definable (but this escapes our notice because our formulae are not
accurate). But if these also are definable, either it is in some other way
or, as we said,15 definition and essence must be said to have more than
one sense. Therefore in one sense nothing will have a definition and
nothing will have an essence, (10) except substances, but in another sense
other things will have them. Clearly, then, definition is the formula of
the essence, and essence belongs to substances either alone or chiefly
and primarily and in the unqualified sense.

6 We must inquire whether each thing and its essence are the same or
different. (15) This is of some use for the inquiry concerning substance;
for each thing is thought to be not different from its substance, and the
essence is said to be the substance of each thing.
Now in the case of accidental unities the two would be generally
thought to be different, e. g. white man would be thought to be different
from the essence of white man. (20) For if they are the same, the essence
of man and that of white man are also the same; for a man and a white
man are the same thing, as people say, so that the essence of white man
and that of man would be also the same. But perhaps it does not follow
that the essence of accidental unities should be the same as that of the
simple terms. For the extreme terms are not in the same way identical
with the middle term. But perhaps this might be thought to follow, (25)
that the extreme terms, the accidents, should turn out to be the same,
e. g. the essence of white and that of musical; but this is not actually
thought to be the case.
But in the case of so-called self-subsistent things, is a thing necessarily
the same as its essence? e. g. if there are some substances which have no
other substances nor entities prior to them—substances such as some
assert the Ideas to be?—If the essence of good is to be different from
good-itself, (30) and the essence of animal from animal-itself, and the
essence of being from being-itself, there will, firstly, be other substances
and entities and Ideas besides those which are asserted, and, secondly,
these others will be prior substances, if essence is substance. [1031b]
And if the posterior substances and the prior are severed from each
other, (a) there will be no knowledge of the former,16 and (b) the latter17
will have no being. (5) (By ‘severed’ I mean, if the good-itself has not the
essence of good, and the latter has not the property of being good.) For
(a) there is knowledge of each thing only when we know its essence.
And (b) the case is the same for other things as for the good; so that if
the essence of good is not good, neither is the essence of reality real, (10)
nor the essence of unity one. And all essences alike exist or none of them
does; so that if the essence of reality is not real, neither is any of the
others. Again, that to which the essence of good does not belong18 is not
good.—The good, then, must be one with the essence of good, and the
beautiful with the essence of beauty, and so with all things which do not
depend on something else but are self-subsistent and primary. For it is
enough if they are this, even if they are not Forms; or rather, (15)
perhaps, even if they are Forms. (At the same time it is clear that if there
are Ideas such as some people say there are, it will not be substratum
that is substance; for these must be substances, but not predicable of a
substratum; for if they were they would exist only by being participated
in.19)
Each thing itself, then, and its essence are one and the same in no
merely accidental way, as is evident both from the preceding arguments
and because to know each thing, (20) at least, is just to know its essence,
so that even by the exhibition of instances it becomes clear that both
must be one.
(But of an accidental term, e. g. ‘the musical’ or ‘the white’, since it
has two meanings, it is not true to say that it itself is identical with its
essence; for both that to which the accidental quality belongs, (25) and
the accidental quality, are white, so that in a sense the accident and its
essence are the same, and in a sense they are not; for the essence of
white is not the same as the man20 or the white man, but it is the same
as the attribute white.)
The absurdity of the separation would appear also if one were to
assign a name to each of the essences; for there would be yet another
essence besides the original one, e. g. to the essence of horse there will
belong a second essence.21 (30) Yet why should not some things be their
essences from the start, since essence is substance? But indeed not only
are a thing and its essence one, but the formula of them is also the same,
as is clear even from what has been said; for it is not by accident that the
essence of one, and the one, are one. [1032a] Further, if they are to be
different, the process will go on to infinity; for we shall have (1) the
essence of one, and (2) the one, so that to terms of the former kind the
same argument will be applicable.22
Clearly, then, each primary and self-subsistent thing is one and the
same as its essence. (5) The sophistical objections to this position, and the
question whether Socrates and to be Socrates are the same thing, are
obviously answered by the same solution; for there is no difference
either in the standpoint from which the question would be asked, or in
that from which one could answer it successfully. We have explained, (10)
then, in what sense each thing is the same as its essence and in what
sense it is not.

7 Of things that come to be, some come to be by nature, some by art,

some spontaneously. Now everything that comes to be comes to be by
the agency of something and from something and comes to be
something. And the something which I say it comes to be may be found
in any category; it may come to be either a ‘this’ or of some size or of
some quality or somewhere.
Now natural comings to be are the comings to be of those things
which come to be by nature; and that out of which they come to be is
what we call matter; and that by which they come to be is something
which exists naturally; and the something which they come to be is a
man or a plant or one of the things of this kind, (15) which we say are
substances if anything is—all things produced either by nature or by art
have matter; for each of them is capable both of being and of not being,
(20) and this capacity is the matter in each—and, in general, both that

from which they are produced is nature, and the type according to
which they are produced is nature (for that which is produced, e. g. a
plant or an animal, has a nature), and so is that by which they are
produced—the so-called ‘formal’ nature, which is specifically the same
(though this is in another individual); for man begets man. (25)
Thus, then, are natural products produced; all other productions are
called ‘makings’. And all makings proceed either from art or from a
faculty or from thought.23 Some of them happen also spontaneously or
by luck24 just as natural products sometimes do; for there also the same
things sometimes are produced without seed as well as from seed. (30)
Concerning these cases, then, we must inquire later,25 but from art
proceed the things of which the form is in the soul of the artist.
[1032b] (By form I mean the essence of each thing and its primary
substance.) For even contraries have in a sense the same form; for the
substance of a privation is the opposite substance, e. g. health is the
substance of disease (for disease is the absence of health); and health is
the formula in the soul or the knowledge of it. (5) The healthy subject is
produced as the result of the following train of thought:—since this is
health, if the subject is to be healthy this must first be present, e. g. a
uniform state of body, and if this is to be present, there must be heat;
and the physician goes on thinking thus until he reduces the matter to a
final something which he himself can produce. Then the process from
this point onward, (10) i. e. the process towards health, is called a
‘making’. Therefore it follows that in a sense health comes from health
and house from house, that with matter from that without matter; for
the medical art and the building art are the form of health and of the
house, and when I speak of substance without matter I mean the essence.
Of the productions or processes one part is called thinking and the
other making—that which proceeds from the starting-point and the form
is thinking, (15) and that which proceeds from the final step of the
thinking is making. And each of the other, intermediate, things is
produced in the same way. I mean, for instance, if the subject is to be
healthy his bodily state must be made uniform. What then does being
made uniform imply? This or that. And this depends on his being made
warm. (20) What does this imply? Something else. And this something is
present potentially; and what is present potentially is already in the
physician’s power.
The active principle then and the starting-point for the process of
becoming healthy is, if it happens by art, the form in the soul, and if
spontaneously, it is that, whatever it is, which starts the making,26 for
the man who makes by art, as in healing the starting-point is perhaps the
production of warmth (and this the physician produces by rubbing). (25)
Warmth in the body, then, is either a part of health or is followed (either
directly or through several intermediate steps) by something similar
which is a part of health; and this, viz. that which produces the part of
health, is the limiting-point27—and so too with a house (the stones are
the limiting-point here) and in all other cases.
Therefore, as the saying goes, it is impossible that anything should be
produced if there were nothing existing before. (30) Obviously then some
part of the result will pre-exist of necessity; for the matter is a part; for
this is present in the process and it is this that becomes something. But is
the matter an element even in the formula? We certainly describe in both
ways28 what brazen circles are; we describe both the matter by saying it
is brass, and the form by saying that it is such and such a figure; and
figure is the proximate genus in which it is placed. [1033a] The brazen
circle, then, has its matter in its formula.
As for that out of which as matter they are produced, (5) some things
are said, when they have been produced, to be not that but ‘thaten’; e. g.
the statue is not gold but golden. And a healthy man is not said to be
that from which he has come. The reason is that though a thing comes
both from its privation and from its substratum, which we call its matter
(e. g. what becomes healthy is both a man and an invalid), (10) it is said
to come rather from its privation (e. g. it is from an invalid rather than
from a man that a healthy subject is produced). And so the healthy
subject is not said to be an invalid, but to be a man, and the man is said
to be healthy. But as for the things whose privation is obscure and
nameless, e. g. in brass the privation of a particular shape or in bricks
and timber the privation of arrangement as a house, the thing is thought
to be produced from these materials, (15) as in the former case the healthy
man is produced from an invalid. And so, as there also a thing is not said
to be that from which it comes, here the statue is not said to be wood
but is said by a verbal change to be wooden, not brass but brazen, not
gold but golden, and the house is said to be not bricks but bricken
(though we should not say without qualification, (20) if we looked at the
matter carefully, even that a statue is produced from wood or a house
from bricks, because coming to be implies change in that from which a
thing comes to be, and not permanence). It is for this reason, then, that
we use this way of speaking.
8 Since anything which is produced is produced by something (and
this I call the starting-point of the production), (25) and from something
(and let this be taken to be not the privation but the matter; for the
meaning we attach to this has already29 been explained), and since
something is produced (and this is either a sphere or a circle or whatever
else it may chance to be), just as we do not make the substratum (the
brass), so we do not make the sphere, except incidentally, (30) because
the brazen sphere is a sphere and we make the former. For to make a
‘this’ is to make a ‘this’ out of the substratum in the full sense of the
word.30 (I mean that to make the brass round is not to make the round
or the sphere, but something else, i. e. to produce this form in something
different from itself. For if we make the form, we must make it out of
something else; for this was assumed.31 [1033b] e. g. we make a
brazen sphere; and that in the sense that out of this, which is brass, we
make this other, which is a sphere.) If, then, we also make the
substratum itself, clearly we shall make it in the same way, and the
processes of making will regress to infinity. (5) Obviously then the form
also,32 or whatever we ought to call the shape present in the sensible
thing, is not produced, nor is there any production of it, nor is the
essence produced; for this is that which is made to be in something else
either by art or by nature or by some faculty. But that there is a brazen
sphere, this we make. (10) For we make it out of brass and the sphere; we
bring the form into this particular matter, and the result is a brazen
sphere. But if the essence of sphere in general is to be produced,
something must be produced out of something. For the product will
always have to be divisible, and one part must be this and another that; I
mean the one must be matter and the other form. If, then, a sphere is
‘the figure whose circumference is at all points equidistant from the
centre’, (15) part of this will be the medium in which the thing made will
be, and part will be in that medium, and the whole will be the thing
produced, which corresponds to the brazen sphere. It is obvious, then,
from what has been said, that that which is spoken of as form or
substance is not produced, but the concrete thing which gets its name
from this is produced, and that in everything which is generated matter
is present, and one part of the thing is matter and the other form.
Is there, then, a sphere apart from the individual spheres or a house
apart from the bricks? Rather we may say that no ‘this’ would ever have
been coming to be, (20) if this had been so, but that the ‘form’ means the
‘such’, and is not a ‘this’—a definite thing; but the artist makes, or the
father begets, a ‘such’ out of a ‘this’; and when it has been begotten, it is
a ‘this such’.33 And the whole ‘this’, Callias or Socrates, is analogous to
‘this brazen sphere’, but man and animal to ‘brazen sphere’ in general.
(25) Obviously, then, the cause which consists of the Forms (taken in the

sense in which some maintain the existence of the Forms, i. e. if they are
something apart from the individuals) is useless, at least with regard to
comings-to-be and to substances; and the Forms need not, for this reason
at least, be self-subsistent substances. In some cases indeed it is even
obvious that the begetter is of the same kind as the begotten (not, (30)
however, the same nor one in number, but in form), i. e. in the case of
natural products (for man begets man), unless something happens
contrary to nature, e. g. the production of a mule by a horse. (And even
these cases are similar; for that which would be found to be common to
horse and ass, the genus next above them, has not received a name, but
it would doubtless be both, in fact something like a mule.) [1034a]
Obviously, therefore, it is quite unnecessary to set up a Form as a
pattern (for we should have looked for Forms in these cases if in any; for
these are substances if anything is so); the begetter is adequate to the
making of the product and to the causing of the form in the matter. And
when we have the whole, (5) such and such a form in this flesh and in
these bones, this is Callias or Socrates; and they are different in virtue of
their matter (for that is different), but the same in form; for their form is
indivisible.

9 The question might be raised, why some things are produced

spontaneously as well as by art, e. g. health, while others are not, e. g. a
house. The reason is that in some cases the matter which governs the
production in the making and producing of any work of art, (10) and in
which a part of the product is present—some matter is such as to be set
in motion by itself and some is not of this nature, and of the former kind
some can move itself in the particular way required, while other matter
is incapable of this; for many things can be set in motion by themselves
but not in some particular way, e. g. that of dancing. (15) The things,
then, whose matter is of this sort, e. g. stones, cannot be moved in the
particular way required,34 except by something else, but in another way
they can move themselves—and so it is with fire. Therefore some things
will not exist apart from some one who has the art of making them,
while others will; for motion will be started by these things which have
not the art but can themselves be moved by other things which have not
the art or with a motion starting from a part of the product.35 (20)
And it is clear also from what has been said that in a sense every
product of art is produced from a thing which shares its name (as natural
products are produced), or from a part of itself which shares its name
(e. g. the house is produced from a house, qua produced by reason; for
the art of building is the form of the house), or from something which
contains a part of it—if we exclude things produced by accident; for the
cause of the thing’s producing the product directly per se is a part of the
product. (25) The heat in the movement36 caused heat in the body, and
this is either health, or a part of health, or is followed by a part of health
or by health itself. And so it is said to cause, health, because it causes
that to which health attaches as a consequence.
Therefore, (30) as in syllogisms, substance37 is the starting-point of
everything. It is from ‘what a thing is’ that syllogisms start; and from it
also we now find processes of production to start.
Things which are formed by nature are in the same case as these
products of art. For the seed is productive in the same way as the things
that work by art; for it has the form potentially, and that from which the
seed comes has in a sense the same name as the offspring—only in a
sense, for we must not expect parent and offspring always to have
exactly the same name, as in the production of ‘human being’ from
‘human being’; for a ‘woman’ also can be produced by a ‘man’—unless
the offspring be an imperfect form; which is the reason why the parent
of a mule is not a mule.38 [1034b] The natural things which (like the
artificial objects previously considered39) can be produced
spontaneously are those whose matter can be moved even by itself in the
way in which the seed usually moves it; those things which have not
such matter cannot be produced except from the parent animals
themselves. (5)
But not only regarding substance does our argument prove that its
form does not come to be, but the argument applies to all the primary
classes alike, i. e. quantity, quality, and the other categories. (10) For as
the brazen sphere comes to be, but not the sphere nor the brass, and so
too in the case of brass itself, if it comes to be, it is its concrete unity
that comes to be (for the matter and the form must always exist before),
so is it both in the case of substance and in that of quality and quantity
and the other categories likewise; for the quality does not come to be,
but the wood of that quality, and the quantity does not come to be, but
the wood or the animal of that size. (15) But we may learn from these
instances a peculiarity of substance, that there must exist beforehand in
complete reality another substance which produces it, e. g. an animal if
an animal is produced; but it is not necessary that a quality or quantity
should pre-exist otherwise than potentially.

10 Since a definition is a formula, and every formula has parts, (20)

and as the formula is to the thing, so is the part of the formula to the
part of the thing, the question is already being asked whether the
formula of the parts must be present in the formula of the whole or not.
For in some cases the formulae of the parts are seen to be present, and in
some not. The formula of the circle does not include that of the
segments, but that of the syllable includes that of the letters; yet the
circle is divided into segments as the syllable is into letters. (25)—And
further if the parts are prior to the whole, and the acute angle is a part
of the right angle and the finger a part of the animal, the acute angle
will be prior to the right angle and the finger to the man. (30) But the
latter are thought to be prior; for in formula the parts are explained by
reference to them, and in respect also of the power of existing apart from
each other the wholes are prior to the parts.
Perhaps we should rather say that ‘part’ is used in several senses. One
of these is ‘that which measures another thing in respect of quantity’.
But let this sense be set aside; let us inquire about the parts of which
substance consists. [1035a] If then matter is one thing, form another,
the compound of these a third, and both the matter and the form and the
compound are substance, even the matter is in a sense called part of a
thing, while in a sense it is not, but only the elements of which the
formula of the form consists. e. g. of concavity flesh (for this is the
matter in which it is produced) is not a part, but of snubness it is a part;
and the bronze is a part of the concrete statue, (5) but not of the statue
when this is spoken of in the sense of the form. (For the form, or the
thing as having form, should be said to be the thing, but the material
element by itself must never be said to be so.) And so the formula of the
circle does not include that of the segments, but the formula of the
syllable includes that of the letters; for the letters are parts of the
formula of the form, (10) and not matter, but the segments are parts in the
sense of matter on which the form supervenes; yet they are nearer the
form than the bronze is when roundness is produced in bronze. But in a
sense not even every kind of letter will be present in the formula of the
syllable, (15) e. g. particular waxen letters or the letters as movements in
the air; for in these also we have already something that is part of the
syllable only in the sense that it is its perceptible matter. For even if the
line when divided passes away into its halves, or the man into bones and
muscles and flesh, it does not follow that they are composed of these as
parts of their essence, but rather as matter; and these are parts of the
concrete thing, (20) but not also of the form, i. e. of that to which the
formula refers; wherefore also they are not present in the formulae. In
one kind of formula, then, the formula of such parts will be present, but
in another it must not be present, where the formula does not refer to
the concrete object. For it is for this reason that some things have as
their constituent principles parts into which they pass away, while some
have not. Those things which are the form and the matter taken
together, (25) e. g. the snub, or the bronze circle, pass away into these
materials, and the matter is a part of them; but those things which do
not involve matter but are without matter, and whose formulae are
formulae of the form only, do not pass away—either not at all or at any
rate not in this way. (30) Therefore these materials are principles and
parts of the concrete things, while of the form they are neither parts nor
principles. And therefore the clay statue is resolved into clay and the ball
into bronze and Callias into flesh and bones, and again the circle into its
segments; for there is a sense of ‘circle’ in which it involves matter.
[1035b] For ‘circle’ is used ambiguously, meaning both the circle,
unqualified, and the individual circle, because there is no name peculiar
to the individuals.
 The truth has indeed now been stated, but still let us state it yet more
clearly, taking up the question again. The parts of the formula, (5) into
which the formula is divided, are prior to it, either all or some of them.
The formula of the right angle, however, does not include the formula of
the acute, but the formula of the acute includes that of the right angle;
for he who defines the acute uses the right angle; for the acute is ‘less
than a right angle’. The circle and the semicircle also are in a like
relation; for the semicircle is defined by the circle; and so is the finger by
the whole body, (10) for a finger is ‘such and such a part of a man’.
Therefore the parts which are of the nature of matter, and into which as
its matter a thing is divided, are posterior; but those which are of the
nature of parts of the formula, and of the substance according to its
formula, are prior, either all or some of them. And since the soul of
animals (for this is the substance of a living being) is their substance
according to the formula, (15) i. e. the form and the essence of a body of a
certain kind (at least we shall define each part, if we define it well, not
without reference to its function, and this cannot belong to it without
perception40), so that the parts of soul are prior, either all or some of
them, to the concrete ‘animal’, and so too with each individual animal;
and the body and its parts are posterior to this, (20) the essential
substance, and it is not the substance but the concrete thing that is
divided into these parts as its matter:—this being so, to the concrete
thing these are in a sense prior, but in a sense they are not. For they
cannot even exist if severed from the whole; for it is not a finger in any
and every state that is the finger of a living thing, but a dead finger is a
finger only in name. (25) Some parts are neither prior nor posterior to the
whole, i. e. those which are dominant and in which the formula, i. e. the
essential substance, is immediately present, e. g. perhaps the heart or the
brain; for it does not matter in the least which of the two has this
quality. But man and horse and terms which are thus applied to
individuals, but universally, are not substance but something composed
of this particular formula and this particular matter treated as universal;
and as regards the individual, (30) Socrates already includes in him
ultimate individual matter; and similarly in all other cases. ‘A part’ may
be a part either of the form (i. e. of the essence), or of the compound of
the form and the matter, or of the matter itself. But only the parts of the
form are parts of the formula, and the formula is of the universal; for
‘being a circle’ is the same as the circle, and ‘being a soul’ the same as
the soul. [1036a] But when we come to the concrete thing, e. g. this
circle, i. e. one of the individual circles, whether perceptible or
intelligible (I mean by intelligible circles the mathematical, and by
perceptible circles those of bronze and of wood)—of these there is no
definition, (5) but they are known by the aid of intuitive thinking or of
perception; and when they pass out of this complete realization it is not
clear whether they exist or not; but they are always stated and
recognized by means of the universal formula. But matter is unknowable
in itself. And some matter is perceptible and some intelligible,
perceptible matter being for instance bronze and wood and all matter
that is changeable, (10) and intelligible matter being that which is present
in perceptible things not qua perceptible, i. e. the objects of
mathematics.
We have stated, then, how matters stand with regard to whole and
part, and their priority and posteriority. But when any one asks whether
the right angle and the circle and the animal are prior, (15) or the things
into which they are divided and of which they consist, i. e. the parts, we
must meet the inquiry by saying that the question cannot be answered
simply. For if even bare soul is the animal or41 the living thing, or the
soul of each individual is the individual itself, and ‘being a circle’ is the
circle, and ‘being a right angle’ and the essence of the right angle is the
right angle, then the whole in one sense must be called posterior to the
part in one sense, (20) i. e. to the parts included in the formula and to the
parts of the individual right angle (for both the material right angle
which is made of bronze, and that which is formed by individual lines,
are posterior to their parts); while the immaterial right angle is posterior
to the parts included in the formula, but prior to those included in the
particular instance, and the question must not be answered simply. If,
however, the soul is something different and is not identical with the
animal, (25) even so some parts must, as we have maintained, be called
prior and others must not.

11 Another question is naturally raised, viz. what sort of parts belong

to the form and what sort not to the form, but to the concrete thing. Yet
if this is not plain it is not possible to define any thing; for definition is
of the universal and of the form. (30) If then it is not evident what sort of
parts are of the nature of matter and what sort are not, neither will the
formula of the thing be evident. In the case of things which are found to
occur in specifically different materials, as a circle may exist in bronze or
stone or wood, it seems plain that these, the bronze or the stone, are no
part of the essence of the circle, since it is found apart from them. (35) Of
things which are not seen to exist apart, there is no reason why the same
may not be true, just as if all circles that had ever been seen were of
bronze; for none the less the bronze would be no part of the form; but it
is hard to eliminate it in thought. [1036b] e. g. the form of man is
always found in flesh and bones and parts of this kind; are these then
also parts of the form and the formula? No, (5) they are matter; but
because man is not found also in other matters we are unable to perform
the abstraction.
Since this is thought to be possible, but it is not clear when it is the
case, some people,42 already raise the question even in the case of the
circle and the triangle, thinking that it is not right to define these by
reference to lines and to the continuous, (10) but that all these are to the
circle or the triangle as flesh and bones are to man, and bronze or stone
to the statue; and they reduce all things to numbers, and they say the
formula of ‘line’ is that of ‘two’. And of those who assert the Ideas
some43 make ‘two’ the line-itself, and others make it the Form of the
line; for in some cases they say the Form and that of which it is the Form
are the same, (15) e. g. ‘two’ and the Form of two; but in the case of ‘line’
they say this is no longer so.
It follows then that there is one Form for many things whose form is
evidently different (a conclusion which confronted the Pythagoreans
also); and it is possible to make one thing the Form-itself of all, and to
hold that the others are not Forms; but thus all things will be one. (20)
We have pointed out, then, that the question of definitions contains
some difficulty, and why this is so. And so to reduce all things thus to
Forms and to eliminate the matter is useless labour; for some things
surely are a particular form in a particular matter, or particular things in
a particular state. And the comparison which Socrates the younger44
used to make in the case of ‘animal’45 is not sound; for it leads away
from the truth, (25) and makes one suppose that man can possibly exist
without his parts, as the circle can without the bronze. But the case is
not similar; for an animal is something perceptible, and it is not possible
to define it without reference to movement—nor, therefore, without
reference to the parts’ being in a certain state. For it is not a hand in any
and every state that is a part of man, (30) but only when it can fulfil its
work, and therefore only when it is alive; if it is not alive it is not a part.
Regarding the objects of mathematics, why are the formulae of the
parts not parts of the formulae of the wholes; e. g. why are not the
semicircles included in the formula of the circle? It cannot be said,
‘because these parts are perceptible things’; for they are not. (35) But
perhaps this makes no difference; for even some things which are not
perceptible must have matter; indeed there is some matter in everything
which is not an essence and a bare form but a ‘this’. [1037a] The
semicircles, then, will not be parts of the universal circle, but will be
parts of the individual circles, as has been said before46; for while one
kind of matter is perceptible, there is another which is intelligible.
It is clear also that the soul is the primary substance and the body is
matter, (5) and man or animal is the compound of both taken universally;
and ‘Socrates’ or ‘Coriscus’, if even the soul of Socrates may be called
Socrates,47 has two meanings (for some mean by such a term the soul,
and others mean the concrete thing), but if ‘Socrates’ or ‘Coriscus’ means
simply this particular soul and this particular body, the individual is
analogous to the universal in its composition.48
Whether there is, (10) apart from the matter of such substances, another
kind of matter, and one should look for some substance other than these,
e. g. numbers or something of the sort, must be considered later.49 For it
is for the sake of this that we are trying to determine the nature of
perceptible substances as well, since in a sense the inquiry about
perceptible substances is the work of physics, (15) i. e. of second
philosophy; for the physicist must come to know not only about the
matter, but also about the substance expressed in the formula, and even
more than about the other. And in the case of definitions, how the
elements in the formula are parts of the definition, and why the
definition is one formula (for clearly the thing is one, (20) but in virtue of
what is the thing one, although it has parts?)—this must be considered
later.50
What the essence is and in what sense it is independent, has been
stated universally in a way which is true of every case,51 and also why
the formula of the essence of some things contains the parts of the thing
defined, while that of others does not. (25) And we have stated that in the
formula of the substance the material parts will not be present (for they
are not even parts of the substance in that sense, but of the concrete
substance; but of this there is in a sense a formula, and in a sense there is
not; for there is no formula of it with its matter, for this is indefinite, but
there is a formula of it with reference to its primary substance—e. g. in
the case of man the formula of the soul—for the substance is the
indwelling form, from which and the matter the so-called concrete
substance is derived;52 e. g. concavity is a form of this sort, for from this
and the nose arise ‘snub nose’ and ‘snubness’); but in the concrete
substance, (30) e. g. a snub nose or Callias, the matter also will be
present.53 And we have stated that the essence and the thing itself are in
some cases the same; i. e. in the case of primary substances, e. g.
curvature and the essence of curvature, if this is primary. [1037b] (By
a ‘primary’ substance I mean one which does not imply the presence of
something in something else, i. e. in something that underlies it which
acts as matter.) But things which are of the nature of matter, or of
wholes that include matter, (5) are not the same as their essences, nor are
accidental unities like that of ‘Socrates’ and ‘musical’; for these are the
same only by accident.54

12 Now let us treat first of definition, in so far as we have not treated

of it in the Analytics55; for the problem stated in them56 is useful for our
inquiries concerning substance. I mean this problem:—wherein can
consist the unity of that, the formula of which we call a definition, (10) as
for instance, in the case of man, ‘twofooted animal’; for let this be the
formula of man. Why, then, is this one, and not many, viz. ‘animal’ and
‘two-footed’? For in the case of ‘man’ and ‘pale’ there is a plurality when
one term does not belong to the other, (15) but a unity when it does
belong and the subject, man, has a certain attribute; for then a unity is
produced and we have ‘the pale man’. In the present case, on the other
hand,57 one does not share in the other; the genus is not thought to
share in its differentiae (for then the same thing would share in
contraries; for the differentiae by which the genus is divided are
contrary). And even if the genus does share in them, (20) the same
argument applies, since the differentiae present in man are many, e. g.
endowed with feet, two-footed, featherless. Why are these one and not
many? Not because they are present in one thing; for on this principle a
unity can be made out of all the attributes of a thing. But surely all the
attributes in the definition must be one; for the definition is a single
formula and a formula of substance, (25) so that it must be a formula of
some one thing; for substance means a ‘one’ and a ‘this’, as we maintain.
We must first inquire about definitions reached by the method of
divisions. There is nothing in the definition except the first-named genus
and the differentiae. The other genera are the first genus and along with
this the differentiae that are taken with it, (30) e. g. the first may be
‘animal’, the next ‘animal which is two-footed’, and again ‘animal which
is two-footed and featherless’, and similarly if the definition includes
more terms. [1038a] And in general it makes no difference whether it
includes many or few terms—nor, therefore, whether it includes few or
simply two; and of the two the one is differentia and the other genus;
e. g. in ‘two-footed animal’ ‘animal’ is genus, and the other is differentia.
If then the genus absolutely does not exist apart from the species-of-a-
genus, (5) or if it exists but exists as matter (for the voice is genus and
matter, but its differentiae make the species, i. e. the letters, out of it),
clearly the definition is the formula which comprises the differentiae.
But it is also necessary that the division be by the differentia of the
differentia; e. g. ‘endowed with feet’ is a differentia of ‘animal’; again the
differentia of ‘animal endowed with feet’ must be of it qua endowed with
feet. (10) Therefore we must not say, if we are to speak rightly, that of
that which is endowed with feet one part has feathers and one is
featherless (if we do this we do it through incapacity); we must divide it
only into cloven-footed and not-cloven; for these are differentiae in the
foot; cloven-footedness is a form of footedness. (15) And the process wants
always to go on so till it reaches the species that contain no differences.
And then there will be as many kinds of foot as there are differentiae,
and the kinds of animals endowed with feet will be equal in number to
the differentiae. If then this is so, clearly the last differentia will be the
substance of the thing and its definition, (20) since it is not right to state
the same things more than once in our definitions; for it is superfluous.
And this does happen; for when we say ‘animal endowed with feet and
two-footed’ we have said nothing other than ‘animal having feet, having
two feet’; and if we divide this by the proper division, we shall be saying
the same thing more than once—as many times as there are differentiae.
If then a differentia of a differentia be taken at each step, (25) one
differentia—the last—will be the form and the substance; but if we
divide according to accidental qualities, e. g. if we were to divide that
which is endowed with feet into the white and the black, there will be as
many differentiae as there are cuts. Therefore it is plain that the
definition is the formula which contains the differentiae, or, (30)
according to the right method, the last of these. This would be evident, if
we were to change the order of such definitions, e. g. of that of man,
saying ‘animal which is two-footed and endowed with feet’; for
‘endowed with feet’ is superfluous when ‘two-footed’ has been said. But
there is no order in the substance; for how are we to think the one
element posterior and the other prior? Regarding the definitions, then,
which are reached by the method of divisions, (35) let this suffice as our
first attempt at stating their nature.

13 [1038b] Let us return to the subject of our inquiry, which is

substance. As the substratum and the essence and the compound of these
are called substance, so also is the universal. About two of these we have
spoken; both about the essence58 and about the substratum,59 of which
we have said60 that it underlies in two senses, (5) either being a ‘this’—
which is the way in which an animal underlies its attributes—or as the
matter underlies the complete reality. The universal also is thought by
some to be in the fullest sense a cause, and a principle; therefore let us
attack the discussion of this point also. For it seems impossible that any
universal term should be the name of a substance. For firstly the
substance of each thing is that which is peculiar to it, which does not
belong to anything else; but the universal is common, (10) since that is
called universal which is such as to belong to more than one thing. Of
which individual then will this be the substance? Either of all or of none;
but it cannot be the substance of all. And if it is to be the substance of
one, this one will be the others also; for things whose substance is one
and whose essence is one are themselves also one.
Further, substance means that which is not predicable of a subject, (15)
but the universal is predicable of some subject always.
But perhaps the universal, while it cannot be substance in the way in
which the essence is so, can be present in this; e. g. animal’ can be
present in ‘man’ and ‘horse’. Then clearly it is a formula of the essence.
And it makes no difference even if it is not a formula of everything that
is in the substance; for none the less the universal will be the substance
of something, (20) as ‘man’ is the substance of the individual man in
whom it is present, so that the same result will follow once more; for the
universal, e. g. ‘animal’, will be the substance of that in which it is
present as something peculiar to it. And further it is impossible and
absurd that the ‘this’, i. e. the substance, if it consists of parts, should not
consist of substances nor of what is a ‘this’, (25) but of quality; for that
which is not substance, i. e. the quality, will then be prior to substance
and to the ‘this’. Which is impossible; for neither in formula nor in time
nor in coming to be can the modifications be prior to the substance; for
then they will also be separable from it. Further, Socrates will contain a
substance present in a substance, so that this will be the substance of
two things. And in general it follows, if man and such things are
substance, (30) that none of the elements in their formulae is the
substance of anything, nor does it exist apart from the species or in
anything else; I mean, for instance, that no ‘animal’ exists apart from the
particular kinds of animal, nor does any other of the elements present in
formulae exist apart.
If, then, we view the matter from these standpoints, it is plain that no
universal attribute is a substance, and this is plain also from the fact that
no common predicate indicates a ‘this’, (35) but rather a ‘such’. If not,
many difficulties follow and especially the ‘third man’.61 [1039a]
The conclusion is evident also from the following consideration. A
substance cannot consist of substances present in it in complete reality;
for things that are thus in complete reality two are never in complete
reality one, (5) though if they are potentially two, they can be one (e. g.
the double line consists of two halves—potentially; for the complete
realization of the halves divides them from one another); therefore if the
substance is one, it will not consist of substances present in it and
present in this way, which Democritus describes rightly; he says one
thing cannot be made out of two nor two out of one; for he identifies
substances with his indivisible magnitudes. (10) It is clear therefore that
the same will hold good of number, if number is a synthesis of units, as
is said by some;62 for two is either not one, or there is no unit present in
it in complete reality.
But our result involves a difficulty. (15) If no substance can consist of
universals because a universal indicates a ‘such’, not a ‘this’, and if no
substance can be composed of substances existing in complete reality,
every substance would be incomposite, so that there would not even be a
formula of any substance. But it is thought by all and was stated long
ago63 that it is either only, or primarily, (20) substance that can be
defined; yet now it seems that not even substance can. There cannot,
then, be a definition of anything; or in a sense there can be, and in a
sense there cannot. And what we are saying will be plainer from what
follows.64

14 It is clear also from these very facts what consequence confronts

those who say the Ideas are substances capable of separate existence, (25)
and at the same time make the Form consist of the genus and the
differentiae. For if the Forms exist and ‘animal’ is present in ‘man’ and
‘horse’, it is either one and the same in number, or different. (In formula
it is clearly one; for he who states the formula will go through the same
formula in either case. (30)) If then there is a ‘man-in-himself’ who is a
‘this’ and exists apart, the parts also of which he consists, e. g. ‘animal’
and ‘two-footed’, must indicate ‘thises’, and be capable of separate
existence, and substances; therefore ‘animal’, as well as ‘man’, must be of
this sort.
Now (1) if the ‘animal’ in ‘the horse’ and in ‘man’ is one and the same,
as you are with yourself, (a) how will the one in things that exist apart
be one, and how will this ‘animal’ escape being divided even from itself?
Further, (b) if it is to share in ‘two-footed’ and ‘many-footed’, an
impossible conclusion follows; for contrary attributes will belong at the
same time to it, although it is one and a ‘this’. [1039b] If it is not to
share in them, what is the relation implied when one says the animal is
two-footed or possessed of feet? But perhaps the two things are ‘put
together’ and are ‘in contact’, (5) or are ‘mixed’. Yet all these expressions
are absurd.
But (2) suppose the Form to be different in each species. Then there
will be practically an infinite number of things whose substance is
‘animal’; for it is not by accident that ‘man’ has ‘animal’ for one of its
elements. Further, many things will be ‘animal-itself’. For (i) the ‘animal’
in each species will be the substance of the species; for it is after nothing
else that the species is called; if it were, (10) that other would be an
element in ‘man’, i. e. would be the genus of man. And further, (ii) all
the elements of which ‘man’ is composed will be Ideas. None of them,
then, will be the Idea of one thing and the substance of another; this is
impossible. The ‘animal’, then, present in each species of animals will be
animal-itself. Further, from what is this ‘animal’ in each species derived,
and how will it be derived from animal-itself? Or how can this ‘animal’,
whose essence is simply animality, (15) exist apart from animal-itself?
Further, (3) in the case of sensible things both these consequences and
others still more absurd follow. If, then, these consequences are
impossible, clearly there are not Forms of sensible things in the sense in
which some maintain their existence.

15 Since substance is of two kinds, the concrete thing and the formula
(I mean that one kind of substance is the formula taken with the matter,
(20) while another kind is the formula in its generality), substances in the

former sense are capable of destruction (for they are capable also of
generation), but there is no destruction of the formula in the sense that it
is ever in course of being destroyed (for there is no generation of it
either; the being of house is not generated, but only the being of this
house), but without generation and destruction formulae are and are
not; for it has been shown65 that no one begets nor makes these. (25) For
this reason, also, there is neither definition of nor demonstration about
sensible individual substances, because they have matter whose nature is
such that they are capable both of being and of not being; for which
reason all the individual instances of them are destructible. (30) If then
demonstration is of necessary truths and definition is a scientific process,
and if, just as knowledge cannot be sometimes knowledge and
sometimes ignorance, but the state which varies thus is opinion, so too
demonstration and definition cannot vary thus, but it is opinion that
deals with that which can be otherwise than as it is, clearly there can
neither be definition of nor demonstration about sensible individuals.
[1040a] For perishing things are obscure to those who have the
relevant knowledge, when they have passed from our perception; and
though the formulae remain in the soul unchanged, there will no longer
be either definition or demonstration. (5) And so when one of the
definition-mongers defines any individual, he must recognize that his
definition may always be overthrown; for it is not possible to define such
things.
Nor is it possible to define any Idea. For the Idea is, as its supporters
say, an individual, and can exist apart; and the formula must consist of
words; and he who defines must not invent a word (for it would be
unknown), (10) but the established words are common to all the members
of a class; these then must apply to something besides the thing defined;
e. g. if one were defining you, he would say ‘an animal which is lean’ or
‘pale’, or something else which will apply also to some one other than
you. If any one were to say that perhaps all the attributes taken apart
may belong to many subjects, (15) but together they belong only to this
one, we must reply first that they belong also to both the elements; e. g.
‘two-footed animal’ belongs to animal and to the two-footed. (And in the
case of eternal entities66 this is even necessary, since the elements are
prior to and parts of the compound; nay more, they can also exist apart,
if ‘man’ can exist apart. (20) For either neither or both can. If, then,
neither can, the genus will not exist apart from the various species; but if
it does, the differentia will also.) Secondly, we must reply that ‘animal’
and ‘two-footed’ are prior in being to ‘two-footed animal’; and things
which are prior to others are not destroyed when the others are.
Again, if the Ideas consist of Ideas (as they must, since elements are
simpler than the compound), it will be further necessary that the
elements also of which the Idea consists, e. g. ‘animal’ and ‘two-footed’,
(25) should be predicated of many subjects. If not, how will they come to

be known? For there will then be an Idea which cannot be predicated of

more subjects than one. But this is not thought possible—every Idea is
thought to be capable of being shared.
 As has been said,67 then, the impossibility of defining individuals
escapes notice in the case of eternal things, especially those which are
unique, (30) like the sun or the moon. For people err not only by adding
attributes whose removal the sun would survive, e. g. ‘going round the
earth’ or ‘night-hidden’ (for from their view it follows that if it stands
still or is visible,68 it will no longer be the sun; but it is strange if this is
so; for ‘the sun’ means a certain substance); but also by the mention of
attributes which can belong to another subject; e. g. if another thing
with the stated attributes comes into existence, clearly it will be a sun;
the formula therefore is general. [1040b] But the sun was supposed to
be an individual, like Cleon or Socrates. After all, why does not one of
the supporters of the Ideas produce a definition of an Idea? It would
become clear, if they tried, that what has now been said is true.

16 Evidently even of the things that are thought to be substances, (5)

most are only potencies—both the parts of animals (for none of them
exists separately; and when they are separated, then too they exist, all of
them, merely as matter) and earth and fire and air; for none of them is a
unity, but as it were a mere heap, till they are worked up and some
unity is made out of them. (10) One might most readily suppose the parts
of living things and the parts of the soul nearly related to them to turn
out to be both, i. e. existent in complete reality as well as in potency,
because they have sources of movement in something in their joints; for
which reason some animals live when divided. Yet all the parts must
exist only potentially, when they are one and continuous by nature—not
by force or by growing into one, (15) for such a phenomenon is an
abnormality.
Since the term ‘unity’ is used like the term ‘being’, and the substance
of that which is one is one, and things whose substance is numerically
one are numerically one, evidently neither unity nor being can be the
substance of things, just as being an element or a principle cannot be the
substance, but we ask what, then, (20) the principle is, that we may
reduce the thing to something more knowable. Now of these concepts
‘being’ and ‘unity’ are more substantial than ‘principle’ or ‘element’ or
‘cause’, but not even the former are substance, since in general nothing
that is common is substance; for substance does not belong to anything
but to itself and to that which has it, of which it is the substance.
Further, that which is one cannot be in many places at the same time, (25)
but that which is common is present in many places at the same time; so
that clearly no universal exists apart from its individuals.
But those who say the Forms exist, in one respect are right, in giving
the Forms separate existence, if they are substances; but in another
respect they are not right, because they say the one over many is a Form.
(30) The reason for their doing this is that they cannot declare what are

the substances of this sort, the imperishable substances which exist apart
from the individual and sensible substances. They make them, then, the
same in kind as the perishable things (for this kind of substance we
know)—‘man-himself’ and ‘horse-itself’, adding to the sensible things the
word ‘itself’. Yet even if we had not seen the stars, none the less, I
suppose, would they have been eternal substances apart from those
which we knew; so that now also if we do not know what non-sensible
substances there are, yet it is doubtless necessary that there should be
some. [1041a]—Clearly, then, (5) no universal term is the name of a
substance, and no substance is composed of substances.

17 Let us state what, i. e. what kind of thing, substance should be said

to be, taking once more another starting-point; for perhaps from this we
shall get a clear view also of that substance which exists apart from
sensible substances. Since, then, substance is a principle and a cause, (10)
let us pursue it from this starting-point. The ‘why’ is always sought in
this form—‘why does one thing attach to some other?’ For to inquire
why the musical man is a musical man, is either to inquire—as we have
said—why the man is musical, or it is something else. (15) Now ‘why a
thing is itself’ is a meaningless inquiry (for [to give meaning to the
question ‘why’] the fact or the existence of the thing must already be
evident—e. g. that the moon is eclipsed—but the fact that a thing is
itself is the single reason and the single cause to be given in answer to
all such questions as ‘why the man is man, or the musician musical’,69
unless one were to answer ‘because each thing is inseparable from itself,
and its being one just meant this’; this, however, is common to all things
and is a short and easy way with the question). (20) But we can inquire
why man is an animal of such and such a nature. This, then, is plain,
that we are not inquiring why he who is a man is a man. We are
inquiring, then, why something is predicable of something (that it is
predicable must be clear; for if not, the inquiry is an inquiry into
nothing). e. g. why does it thunder? This is the same as ‘why is sound
produced in the clouds?’ Thus the inquiry is about the predication of one
thing of another. (25) And why are these things, i. e. bricks and stones, a
house? Plainly we are seeking the cause. And this is the essence (to
speak abstractly), which in some cases is the end, e. g. perhaps in the
case of a house or a bed, (30) and in some cases is the first mover; for this
also is a cause. But while the efficient cause is sought in the case of
genesis and destruction, the final cause is sought in the case of being
also.
[1041b] The object of the inquiry is most easily overlooked where
one term is not expressly predicated of another (e. g. when we inquire
‘what man is’), because we do not distinguish and do not say definitely
that certain elements make up a certain whole. But we must articulate
our meaning before we begin to inquire; if not, the inquiry is on the
border-line between being a search for something and a search for
nothing. Since we must have the existence of the thing as something
given, clearly the question is why the matter is some definite thing; e. g.
why are these materials a house? Because that which was the essence of
a house is present. And why is this individual thing, (5) or this body
having this form, a man? Therefore what we seek is the cause, i. e. the
form, by reason of which the matter is some definite thing; and this is
the substance of the thing. Evidently, then, in the case of simple terms no
inquiry nor teaching is possible; our attitude towards such things is other
than that of inquiry. (10)
Since that which is compounded out of something so that the whole is
one, not like a heap but like a syllable—now the syllable is not its
elements, ba is not the same as b and a, nor is flesh fire and earth (for
when these are separated the wholes, i. e. the flesh and the syllable, no
longer exist, but the elements of the syllable exist, and so do fire and
earth); the syllable, (15) then, is something—not only its elements (the
vowel and the consonant) but also something else, and the flesh is not
only fire and earth or the hot and the cold, but also something else:—if,
then, that something must itself be either an element or composed of
elements, (1) if it is an element the same argument will again apply; for
flesh will consist of this and fire and earth and something still further,
(20) so that the process will go on to infinity. But (2) if it is a compound,

clearly it will be a compound not of one but of more than one (or else
that one will be the thing itself), so that again in this case we can use the
same argument as in the case of flesh or of the syllable. But it would
seem that this ‘other’ is something, and not an element, (25) and that it is
the cause which makes this thing flesh and that a syllable. And similarly
in all other cases. And this is the substance of each thing (for this is the
primary cause of its being); and since, while some things are not
substances, as many as are substances are formed in accordance with a
nature of their own and by a process of nature, their substance would
seem to be this kind of ‘nature’,70 which is not an element but a
principle. (30) An element, on the other hand, is that into which a thing is
divided and which is present in it as matter; e. g. a and b are the
elements of the syllable.

1 Cf. v. 7.

2 The schools of Miletus and Elea.

3 The Pythagoreans and Empedocles.

4 Anaxagoras and the Atomists.

5 The Pythagoreans.

6 The school of Xenocrates.

7 1028b 33–6.

8 It seems convenient here to translate thus the phrase translated in v. 18 as ‘in virtue of itself’.

9 i. e. this identification does not give the essence of ‘surface’ (for ‘surface’ is repeated) but it
gives the essence of ‘white’, since this is not repeated but replaced by an equivalent.
10 i. e. compounds of substance with the other categories.

11 sc. of the word ‘Iliad’.

12 Cf. Pl. Soph. 237, 256 ff.

13 i. e. it is known to be unknown.

14 a 17-b13.

15 1030 a17-b13.

16 The Ideas or things-themselves.

17 The essences.
18 i. e. the Idea of good (l. 5).

19 i. e. as immanent in particulars.

20 sc. who is white.

21 sc. and so ad infinitum. As an infinite process is absurd, why take the first step that commits
you to it—why say that the essence of horse is separate from the horse?
22 i. e. if the essence of one is different from the one, the essence of the essence of one is different
from the essence of one.
23 Cf. vi. 1025b 22.

24 For the theory of these Cf. Phys. ii. 5, 6.

25 Cf. b23–30, 1034a 9–21, b 4–7.

26 sc. not the thinking, Cf. ll. 15–17.

27 i. e. the minimum necessary basis.

28 From the proportion established, warmth : health :: stones : house, and from the next
paragraph, it would appear that warmth is treated as the matter which when specialized in a
particular way becomes health.
29 Cf. 1032a 17.

30 i. e. including form as well as matter (Cf. 1029a 3).

31 a 25.

32 sc. as well as the matter.

33 i. e. the artist, or the father, turns a mere piece of matter into a qualified piece of matter.

34 sc. for building.

35 i. e. an element of it pre-existing in the things themselves (Cf. 1032b 26–1033a I, 1034a 12).

36 sc. of the rubber’s hand.

37 i. e. essence.

38 Cf. 1033b 33.

39 Cf. a9–32.

40 And therefore not without soul.

41 sc. to put it more widely so as to include the vegetable world.

42 Aristotle is thinking of Pythagoreans.

43 This probably includes Plato himself.

44 Cf. Pl. Theaet. 147 D; Soph. 218 B; Pol 257 C; Epp. 358 D.

45 Cf. a 34–b 7.

46 1035a 30–b 3.

47 Cf. 1036a 16–17, viii. 1043b 2–4.

48 i. e. as man = soul + body, Socrates = this soul + this body.

49 Cf. xiii, xiv.

50 Cf. vii. 12, viii. 6.

51 Ch. 4.

52 Chs. 10, 11.

53 Ch. 5.

54 Ch. 6.

55 Cf. An. Post. ii. 3–10, 13.

56 Cf. ib. 97a 29.

57 That of ‘animal’ and ‘two-footed’.

58 Chs. 4–6, 10–12.

59 Ch. 3.

60 1029a 2–3, 23–4.

61 Cf. i. 990b 17.

62 Thales is said to have defined number as ‘a system of units’.

63 Cf. 1031a 11–14.

64 Cf. vii. 15, viii. 6.

65 Ch. 8.

66 i. e. the Ideas.

67 Cf. l. 17.

68 sc. at night.

69 sc. and therefore in this case, when the fact is known, there is no question as to the ‘why’.

70 sc. the formal cause. Cf. v. 1014b 36 in contrast with ib. 27.
 BOOK H (VIII)

1 [1042a] We must reckon up the results arising from what has

been said, and compute the sum of them, and put the finishing touch to
our inquiry. (5) We have said that the causes, principles, and elements of
substances are the object of our search.1 And some substances are
recognized by every one, but some have been advocated by particular
schools. Those generally recognized are the natural substances, i. e. fire,
earth, water, air, &c., the simple bodies; secondly, plants and their parts,
(10) and animals and the parts of animals; and finally the physical

universe and its parts; while some particular schools say that Forms and
the objects of mathematics are substances.2 But there are arguments
which lead to the conclusion that there are other substances, the essence
and the substratum. Again, in another way the genus seems more
substantial than the various species, (15) and the universal than the
particulars.3 And with the universal and the genus the Ideas are
connected; it is in virtue of the same argument that they are thought to
be substances. And since the essence is substance, and the definition is a
formula of the essence, for this reason we have discussed definition and
essential predication.4 Since the definition is a formula, and a formula
has parts, (20) we had to consider also with respect to the notion of ‘part’,
what are parts of the substance and what are not, and whether the parts
of the substance are also parts of the definition.5 Further, too, neither
the universal nor the genus is a substance;6 we must inquire later into
the Ideas and the objects of mathematics;7 for some say these are
substances as well as the sensible substances.
But now let us resume the discussion of the generally recognized
substances. (25) These are the sensible substances, and sensible substances
all have matter. The substratum is substance, and this is in one sense the
matter (and by matter I mean that which, not being a ‘this’ actually, is
potentially a ‘this’), and in another sense the formula or shape (that
which being a ‘this’ can be separately formulated), (30) and thirdly the
complex of these two, which alone is generated and destroyed, and is,
without qualification, capable of separate existence; for of substances
completely expressible in a formula some are separable and some are
not.
But clearly matter also is substance; for in all the opposite changes
that occur there is something which underlies the changes, e. g. in
respect of place that which is now here and again elsewhere, (35) and in
respect of increase that which is now of one size and again less or
greater, and in respect of alteration that which is now healthy and again
diseased; and similarly in respect of substance there is something that is
now being generated and again being destroyed, and now8 underlies the
process as a ‘this’ and again9 underlies it in respect of a privation of
positive character. [1042b] And in this change the others are involved.
But in either one or two of the others this is not involved; for it is not
necessary if a thing has matter for change of place that it should also
have matter for generation and destruction. (5)
The difference between becoming in the full sense and becoming in a
qualified sense has been stated in our physical works.10

2 Since the substance which exists as underlying and as matter is

generally recognized, and this is that which exists potentially, (10) it
remains for us to say what is the substance, in the sense of actuality, of
sensible things. Democritus seems to think there are three kinds of
difference between things; the underlying body, the matter, is one and
the same, but they differ either in rhythm, i. e. shape, or in turning, i. e.
position, or in inter-contact, i. e. order.11 But evidently there are many
differences; for instance, some things are characterized by the mode of
composition of their matter, (15) e. g. the things formed by blending, such
as honey-water; and others by being bound together, e. g. a bundle; and
others by being glued together, e. g. a book; and others by being nailed
together, e. g. a casket; and others in more than one of these ways; and
others by position, e. g. threshold and lintel (for these differ by being
placed in a certain way); and others by time, (20) e. g. dinner and
breakfast; and others by place, e. g. the winds; and others by the
affections proper to sensible things, e. g. hardness and softness, density
and rarity, dryness and wetness; and some things by some of these
qualities, others by them all, and in general some by excess and some by
defect. Clearly, then, the word ‘is’ has just as many meanings; a thing is a
threshold because it lies in such and such a position, (25) and its being
means its lying in that position, while being ice means having been
solidified in such and such a way. And the being of some things will be
defined by all these qualities, because some parts of them are mixed,
others are blended, others are bound together, others are solidified, (30)
and others use the other differentiae; e. g. the hand or the foot requires
such complex definition. We must grasp, then, the kinds of differentiae
(for these will be the principles of the being of things), e. g. the things
characterized by the more and the less, or by the dense and the rare, and
by other such qualities; for all these are forms of excess and defect. (35)
And anything that is characterized by shape or by smoothness and
roughness is characterized by the straight and the curved. [1043a]
And for other things their being will mean their being mixed, and their
not being will mean the opposite.
It is clear, then, from these facts that, since its substance is the cause
of each thing’s being, we must seek in these differentiae what is the
cause of the being of each of these things. Now none of these differentiae
is substance, even when coupled with matter, (5) yet it is what is
analogous to substance in each case; and as in substances that which is
predicated of the matter is the actuality itself, in all other definitions
also it is what most resembles full actuality. e. g. if we had to define a
threshold, we should say ‘wood or stone in such and such a position’,
and a house we should define as ‘bricks and timbers in such and such a
position’ (or a purpose may exist as well in some cases), and if he had to
define ice we should say ‘water frozen or solidified in such and such a
way’, (10) and harmony is ‘such and such a blending of high and low’; and
similarly in all other cases.
Obviously, then, the actuality or the formula is different when the
matter is different; for in some cases it is the composition, in others the
mixing, and in others some other of the attributes we have named. And
so, of the people who go in for defining, those who define a house as
stones, (15) bricks, and timbers are speaking of the potential house, for
these are the matter; but those who propose ‘a receptacle to shelter
chattels and living beings’, or something of the sort, speak of the
actuality. Those who combine both of these speak of the third kind of
substance, which is composed of matter and form (for the formula that
gives the differentiae seems to be an account of the form or actuality, (20)
while that which gives the components is rather an account of the
matter); and the same is true of the kind of definitions which Archytas
used to accept; they are accounts of the combined form and matter. e. g.
what is still weather? Absence of motion in a large expanse of air; air is
the matter, and absence of motion is the actuality and substance. (25)
What is a calm? Smoothness of sea; the material substratum is the sea,
and the actuality or shape is smoothness. It is obvious then, from what
has been said, what sensible substance is and how it exists—one kind of
it as matter, another as form or actuality, while the third kind is that
which is composed of these two.

3 We must not fail to notice that sometimes it is not clear whether a

name means the composite substance, (30) or the actuality or form, e. g.
whether ‘house’ is a sign for the composite thing, ‘a covering consisting
of bricks and stones laid thus and thus’, or for the actuality or form, ‘a
covering’, and whether a line is ‘twoness in length’ or ‘twoness’, and
whether an animal is ‘a soul in a body’ or ‘a soul’; for soul is the
substance or actuality of some body. (35) ‘Animal’ might even be applied
to both, not as something definable by one formula, but as related to a
single thing. But this question,12 while important for another purpose, is
of no importance for the inquiry into sensible substance; for the essence
certainly attaches to the form and the actuality. [1043b] For ‘soul’ and
‘to be soul’ are the same, but ‘to be man’ and ‘man’ are not the same,
unless even the bare soul is to be called man; and thus on one
interpretation the thing is the same as its essence, and on another it is
not.
If we examine13 we find that the syllable does not consist of the letters
+ juxtaposition, (5) nor is the house bricks + juxtaposition. And this is
right; for the juxtaposition or mixing does not consist of those things of
which it is the juxtaposition or mixing. And the same is true in all other
cases; e. g. if the threshold is characterized by its position, the position is
not constituted by the threshold, but rather the latter is constituted by
the former. Nor is man animal + biped, (10) but there must be something
besides these, if these are matter—something which is neither an
element in the whole nor a compound, but is the substance; but this
people eliminate, and state only the matter. If, then, this is the cause of
the thing’s being, and if the cause of its being is its substance,14 they will
not be stating the substance itself.
(This, then, must either be eternal or it must be destructible without
being ever in course of being destroyed, (15) and must have come to be
without ever being in course of coming to be. But it has been proved and
explained elsewhere15 that no one makes or begets the form, but it is the
individual that is made, i. e. the complex of form and matter that is
generated. Whether the substances of destructible things can exist apart,
is not yet at all clear; except that obviously this is impossible in some
cases—in the case of things which cannot exist apart from the individual
instances, (20) e. g. house or utensil. Perhaps, indeed, neither these things
themselves, nor any of the other things which are not formed by nature,
are substances at all; for one might say that the nature in natural objects
is the only substance to be found in destructible things.)
Therefore the difficulty which used to be raised by the school of
Antisthenes and other such uneducated people has a certain timeliness.
They said that the ‘what’ cannot be defined (for the definition so called
is a ‘long rigmarole’16) but of what sort a thing, (25) e. g. silver, is, they
thought it possible actually to explain, not saying what it is, but that it is
like tin. Therefore one kind of substance can be defined and formulated,
i. e. the composite kind, whether it be perceptible or intelligible; but the
primary parts of which this consists cannot be defined, (30) since a
definitory formula predicates something of something, and one part of
the definition must play the part of matter and the other that of form.
It is also obvious that, if substances are in a sense numbers, they are so
in this sense and not, as some say,17 as numbers of units. (35) For a
definition is a sort of number; for (1) it is divisible, and into indivisible
parts (for definitory formulae are not infinite), and number also is of this
nature. And (2) as, when one of the parts of which a number consists has
been taken from or added to the number, it is no longer the same
number, but a different one, even if it is the very smallest part that has
been taken away or added, so the definition and the essence will no
longer remain when anything has been taken away or added. [1044a]
And (3) the number must be something in virtue of which it is one, and
this these thinkers cannot state, what makes it one, if it is one (for either
it is not one but a sort of heap, or if it is, (5) we ought to say what it is
that makes one out of many); and the definition is one, but similarly
they cannot say what makes it one. And this is a natural result; for the
same reason is applicable, and substance is one in the sense which we
have explained, and not, as some say, by being a sort of unit or point;
each is a complete reality and a definite nature. (10) And (4) as number
does not admit of the more and the less, neither does substance, in the
sense of form, but if any substance does, it is only the substance which
involves matter. Let this, then, suffice for an account of the generation
and destruction of so-called substances—in what sense it is possible and
in what sense impossible—and of the reduction of things to number.

4 Regarding material substance we must not forget that even if all

things come from the same first cause18 or have the same things for their
first causes, (15) and if the same matter serves as starting-point for their
generation, yet there is a matter proper to each, e. g. for phlegm the
sweet or the fat, and for bile the bitter, (20) or something else; though
perhaps these come from the same original matter. And there come to be
several matters for the same thing, when the one matter is matter for the
other; e. g. phlegm comes from the fat and from the sweet, if the fat
comes from the sweet; and it comes from bile by analysis of the bile into
its ultimate matter. For one thing comes from another in two senses,
either because it will be found at a later stage, or because it is produced
if the other is analysed into its original constituents. (25) When the matter
is one, different things may be produced owing to difference in the
moving cause; e. g. from wood may be made both a chest and a bed. But
some different things must have their matter different; e. g. a saw could
not be made of wood, nor is this in the power of the moving cause; for it
could not make a saw of wool or of wood. But if, as a matter of fact, the
same thing can be made of different material, clearly the art, i. e. the
moving principle, (30) is the same; for if both the matter and the moving
cause were different, the product would be so too.
When one inquires into the cause of something, one should, since
‘causes’ are spoken of in several senses, state all the possible causes. e. g.
what is the material cause of man? Shall we say ‘the menstrual fluid’?
What is the moving cause? Shall we say ‘the seed’? The formal cause?
His essence. (35) The final cause? His end. But perhaps the latter two are
the same.—It is the proximate causes we must state. [1044b] What is
the material cause? We must name not fire or earth, but the matter
peculiar to the thing.
Regarding the substances that are natural and generable, if the causes
are really these and of this number and we have to learn the causes, we
must inquire thus, if we are to inquire rightly. (5) But in the case of
natural but eternal substances another account must be given. For
perhaps some have no matter, or not matter of this sort but only such as
can be moved in respect of place. Nor does matter belong to those things
which exist by nature but are not substances; their substratum is the
substance. e. g. what is the cause of eclipse? What is its matter? There is
none; the moon is that which suffers eclipse.19 (10) What is the moving
cause which extinguished the light? The earth. The final cause perhaps
does not exist. The formal principle is the definitory formula, but this is
obscure if it does not include the cause.20 e. g. what is eclipse?
Deprivation of light. But if we add ‘by the earth’s coming in between’,
this is the formula which includes the cause. (15) In the case of sleep it is
not clear what it is that proximately has this affection. Shall we say that
it is the animal? Yes, but the animal in virtue of what, i. e. what is the
proximate subject? The heart or some other part. Next, by what is it
produced? Next, what is the affection—that of the proximate subject, not
of the whole animal? Shall we say that it is immobility of such and such
a kind? Yes, but to what process in the proximate subject is this due?

5 Since some things are and are not, (20) without coming to be and
ceasing to be, e. g. points, if they can be said to be, and in general forms
(for it is not ‘white’ that comes to be, but the wood comes to be white, if
everything that comes to be comes from something and comes to be
something), (25) not all contraries can come from one another, but it is in
different senses that a pale man comes from a dark man, and pale comes
from dark. Nor has everything matter, but only those things which come
to be and change into one another. Those things which, without ever
being in course of changing, are or are not, have no matter.
There is difficulty in the question how the matter of each thing is
related to its contrary states. (30) e. g. if the body is potentially healthy,
and disease is contrary to health, is it potentially both healthy and
diseased? And is water potentially wine and vinegar? We answer that it
is the matter of one in virtue of its positive state and its form, and of the
other in virtue of the privation of its positive state and the corruption of
it contrary to its nature. It is also hard to say why wine is not said to be
the matter of vinegar nor potentially vinegar (though vinegar is
produced from it), (35) and why a living man is not said to be potentially
dead. In fact they are not, but the corruptions in question are accidental,
and it is the matter of the animal that is itself in virtue of its corruption
the potency and matter of a corpse, and it is water that is the matter of
vinegar. [1045a] For the corpse comes from the animal, and vinegar
from wine, as night from day. And all the things which change thus into
one another must go back to their matter; e. g. if from a corpse is
produced an animal, the corpse first goes back to its matter, (5) and only
then becomes an animal; and vinegar first goes back to water, and only
then becomes wine.

6 To return to the difficulty which has been stated21 with respect both
to definitions and to numbers, what is the cause of their unity? In the
case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is
not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the
parts, (10) there is a cause; for even in bodies contact is the cause of unity
in some cases, and in others viscosity or some other such quality. And a
definition is a set of words which is one not by being connected
together, like the Iliad, but by dealing with one object.—What, then, is it
that makes man one; why is he one and not many, (15) e. g. animal +
biped, especially if there are, as some say, an animal-itself and a biped-
itself? Why are not those Forms themselves the man, so that men would
exist by participation not in man, nor in one Form, but in two, animal
and biped, and in general man would be not one but more than one
thing, animal and biped?
Clearly, then, if people proceed thus in their usual manner of
definition and speech, (20) they cannot explain and solve the difficulty.
But if, as we say, one element is matter and another is form, and one is
potentially and the other actually, the question will no longer be thought
a difficulty. (25) For this difficulty is the same as would arise if ‘round
bronze’ were the definition of ‘cloak’;22 for this word would be a sign of
the definitory formula, so that the question is, what is the cause of the
unity of ‘round’ and ‘bronze’? The difficulty disappears, because the one
is matter, the other form. What, then, causes this—that which was
potentially to be actually—except, (30) in the case of things which are
generated, the agent? For there is no other cause of the potential
sphere’s becoming actually a sphere, but this was the essence of either.23
Of matter some is intelligible, some perceptible, and in a formula there
is always an element of matter as well as one of actuality; e. g. the circle
is ‘a plane figure’.24 (35) But of the things which have no matter, either
intelligible or perceptible, each is by its nature essentially a kind of
unity, as it is essentially a kind of being—individual substance, quality,
or quantity (and so neither ‘existent’ nor ‘one’ is present in their
definitions), and the essence of each of them is by its very nature a kind
of unity as it is a kind of being—and so none of these has any reason
outside itself for being one, nor for being a kind of being; [1045b] for
each is by its nature a kind of being and a kind of unity, (5) not as being
in the genus ‘being’ or ‘one’ nor in the sense that being and unity can
exist apart from particulars.
Owing to the difficulty about unity some speak of ‘participation’, and
raise the question, what is the cause of participation and what is it to
participate; and others speak of ‘communion’, (10) as Lycophron says
knowledge is a communion of knowing with the soul; and others say life
is a ‘composition’ or ‘connexion’ of soul with body. Yet the same account
applies to all cases; for being healthy, too, will on this showing be either
a ‘communion’ or a ‘connexion’ or a ‘composition’ of soul and health,
and the fact that the bronze is a triangle will be a ‘composition’ of
bronze and triangle, and the fact that a thing is white will be a
‘composition’ of surface and whiteness. (15) The reason is that people look
for a unifying formula, and a difference, between potency and complete
reality. But, as has been said,25 the proximate matter and the form are
one and the same thing, the one potentially, and the other actually.
Therefore it is like asking what in general is the cause of unity and of a
thing’s being one; for each thing is a unity, (20) and the potential and the
actual are somehow one. Therefore there is no other cause here unless
there is something which caused the movement from potency into
actuality. And all things which have no matter are without qualification
essentially unities.

1 Cf. vii. 1.

2 Cf. vii. 2.

3 Cf. vii. 3. 1028b 33–6.

4 Cf. vii. 4–6, 12, 15.

5 Cf. vii. 10, 11.

6 Cf. vii. 13, 14, 16. 1040b 16–1041a 5.

7 Cf. xiii and xiv.

8 sc. in the case of destruction.

9 sc. in the case of generation.

10 Cf. Phys. 225a 12–20, De Gen, et Corr. 317a 17–31.

11 Cf. i. 985b 13–19.

12 sc. whether the name means the form or the concrete thing.

13 Aristotle returns to the subject discussed in ch. 2.

14 Cf. v. 1017b 14–15.

15 Cf. vii. 8.

16 sc. and therefore cannot give the essence, which is simple.

17 The Pythagoreans and Platonists (Cf. xiii. 6, 7).

18 sc. material cause.

19 i. e. the substratum of a substance is bare matter, but the substratum of an attribute is a

determinate substance such as the moon.
20 sc. the efficient cause.

21 Cf. vii. 12, viii. 1044a 2–6.

22 Cf. vii. 1029b 28, de Int. 18a 19.

23 i. e. it was the essence of the potential ball to become an actual ball, and of the actual ball to
be produced from a potential ball.
24 Aristotle does not give the whole definition, but only the genus, or ‘material’ element.

25 Cf. a23–33.
 BOOK Θ (IX)

1 We have treated1 of that which is primarily and to which all the

other categories of being are referred—i. e. of substance. (30) For it is in
virtue of the concept of substance that the others also are said to be—
quantity and quality and the like; for all will be found to involve the
concept of substance, as we said in the first part of our work.2 And since
‘being’ is in one way divided into individual thing, quality, and quantity,
and is in another way distinguished in respect of potency and complete
reality, (35) and of function, let us now add a discussion of potency and
complete reality. And first let us explain potency in the strictest sense,
which is, however, not the most useful for our present purpose.
[1046a] For potency and actuality extend beyond the cases that
involve a reference to motion. But when we have spoken of this first
kind, we shall in our discussions of actuality3 explain the other kinds of
potency as well.
We have pointed out elsewhere4 that ‘potency’ and the word ‘can’
have several senses. (5) Of these we may neglect all the potencies that are
so called by an equivocation. For some are called so by analogy, as in
geometry we say one thing is or is not a ‘power’ of another by virtue of
the presence or absence of some relation between them. But all potencies
that conform to the same type are originative sources of some kind, (10)
and are called potencies in reference to one primary kind of potency,
which is an originative source of change in another thing or in the thing
itself qua other. For one kind is a potency of being acted on, i. e. the
originative source, in the very thing acted on, of its being passively
changed by another thing or by itself qua other; and another kind is a
state of insusceptibility to change for the worse and to destruction by
another thing or by the thing itself qua other by virtue of an originative
source of change. In all these definitions is implied the formula of
potency in the primary sense. (15)—And again these so-called potencies
are potencies either of merely acting or being acted on, or of acting or
being acted on well, so that even in the formulae of the latter the
formulae of the prior kinds of potency are somehow implied.
Obviously, then, in a sense the potency of acting and of being acted on
is one (for a thing may be ‘capable’ either because it can itself be acted
on or because something else can be acted on by it), (20) but in a sense
the potencies are different. For the one is in the thing acted on; it is
because it contains a certain originative source, and because even the
matter is an originative source, that the thing acted on is acted on, and
one thing by one, another by another; for that which is oily can be
burnt, and that which yields in a particular way can be crushed;5 and
similarly in all other cases. (25) But the other potency is in the agent, e. g.
heat and the art of building are present, one in that which can produce
heat and the other in the man who can build. And so, in so far as a thing
is an organic unity, it cannot be acted on by itself; for it is one and not
two different things. And ‘impotence’ and ‘impotent’ stand for the
privation which is contrary to potency of this sort, (30) so that every
potency belongs to the same subject and refers to the same process as a
corresponding impotence. Privation has several senses; for it means (1)
that which has not a certain quality and (2) that which might naturally
have it but has not it, either (a) in general or (b) when it might naturally
have it, and either (α) in some particular way, e. g. when it has not it
completely, or (β) when it has not it at all. And in certain cases if things
which naturally have a quality lose it by violence, (35) we say they have
suffered privation.

2 Since some such originative sources are present in soulless things,

and others in things possessed of soul, and in soul, and in the rational
part of the soul, clearly some potencies will be non-rational and some
will be accompanied by a rational formula. [1046b] This is why all
arts, i. e. all productive forms of knowledge, are potencies; they are
originative sources of change in another thing or in the artist himself
considered as other.
And each of those which are accompanied by a rational formula is
alike capable of contrary effects, (5) but one non-rational power produces
one effect; e. g. the hot is capable only of heating, but the medical art
can produce both disease and health. The reason is that science is a
rational formula, and the same rational formula explains a thing and its
privation, only not in the same way; and in a sense it applies to both, (10)
but in a sense it applies rather to the positive fact. Therefore such
sciences must deal with contraries, but with one in virtue of their own
nature and with the other not in virtue of their nature; for the rational
formula applies to one object in virtue of that object’s nature, and to the
other, in a sense, accidentally. For it is by denial and removal that it
exhibits the contrary; for the contrary is the primary privation, (15) and
this is the removal of the positive term. Now since contraries do not
occur in the same thing, but science is a potency which depends on the
possession of a rational formula, and the soul possesses an originative
source of movement; therefore, while the wholesome produces only
health and the calorific only heat and the frigorific only cold, (20) the
scientific man produces both the contrary effects. For the rational
formula is one which applies to both, though not in the same way, and it
is in a soul which possesses an originative source of movement; so that
the soul will start both processes from the same originative source,
having linked them up with the same thing.6 And so the things whose
potency is according to a rational formula act contrariwise to the things
whose potency is non-rational; for the products of the former are
included under one originative source, the rational formula. (25)
It is obvious also that the potency of merely doing a thing or having it
done to one is implied in that of doing it or having it done well, but the
latter is not always implied in the former: for he who does a thing well
must also do it, but he who does it merely need not also do it well.

3 There are some who say, as the Megaric school does, that a thing
‘can’ act only when it is acting, and when it is not acting it ‘cannot’ act,
(30) e. g. that he who is not building cannot build, but only he who is

building, when he is building; and so in all other cases. It is not hard to

see the absurdities that attend this view.
For it is clear that on this view a man will not be a builder unless he is
building (for to be a builder is to be able to build), and so with the other
arts. (35) If, then, it is impossible to have such arts if one has not at some
time learnt and acquired them, and it is then impossible not to have
them if one has not sometime lost them (either by forgetfulness or by
some accident or by time; for it cannot be by the destruction of the
object,7 for that lasts for ever), a man will not have the art when he has
ceased to use it, and yet he may immediately build again; how then will
he have got the art? And similarly with regard to lifeless things; nothing
will be either cold or hot or sweet or perceptible at all if people are not
perceiving it; so that the upholders of this view will have to maintain the
doctrine of Protagoras.8 [1047a] But, (5) indeed, nothing will even
have perception if it is not perceiving, i. e. exercising its perception. If,
then, that is blind which has not sight though it would naturally have it,
when it would naturally have it and when it still exists, the same people
will be blind many times in the day—and deaf too.
Again, if that which is deprived of potency is incapable, (10) that which
is not happening will be incapable of happening; but he who says of that
which is incapable of happening either that it is or that it will be will say
what is untrue; for this is what incapacity meant. Therefore these views
do away with both movement and becoming. (15) For that which stands
will always stand, and that which sits will always sit, since if it is sitting
it will not get up; for that which, as we are told, cannot get up will be
incapable of getting up. But we cannot say this, so that evidently
potency and actuality are different (but these views make potency and
actuality the same, and so it is no small thing they are seeking to
annihilate), so that it is possible that a thing may be capable of being
and not be, (20) and capable of not being and yet be, and similarly with
the other kinds of predicate; it may be capable of walking and yet not
walk, or capable of not walking and yet walk. And a thing is capable of
doing something if there will be nothing impossible in its having the
actuality of that of which it is said to have the capacity. (25) I mean, for
instance, if a thing is capable of sitting and it is open to it to sit, there
will be nothing impossible in its actually sitting; and similarly if it is
capable of being moved or moving, or of standing or making to stand, or
of being or coming to be, or of not being or not coming to be.
The word ‘actuality’, which we connect with ‘complete reality’, (30)
has, in the main, been extended from movements to other things; for
actuality in the strict sense is thought to be identical with movement.
And so people do not assign movement to non-existent things, though
they do assign some other predicates. e. g. they say that nonexistent
things are objects of thought and desire, but not that they are moved;
and this because, while ex hypothesi they do not actually exist, (35) they
would have to exist actually if they were moved. For of non-existent
things some exist potentially; but they do not exist, because they do not
exist in complete reality. [1047b]

4 If what we have described9 is identical with the capable or

convertible with it, evidently it cannot be true to say ‘this is capable of
being but will not be’, (5) which would imply that the things incapable of
being would on this showing vanish. Suppose, for instance, that a man—
one who did not take account of that which is incapable of being—were
to say that the diagonal of the square is capable of being measured but
will not be measured, because a thing may well be capable of being or
coming to be, and yet not be or be about to be. But from the premises
this necessarily follows, (10) that if we actually supposed that which is
not, but is capable of being, to be or to have come to be, there will be
nothing impossible in this; but the result will be impossible, for the
measuring of the diagonal is impossible. For the false and the impossible
are not the same; that you are standing now is false, but that you should
be standing is not impossible.
At the same time it is clear that if, when A is real, B must be real, (15)
then, when A is possible, B also must be possible. For if B need not be
possible, there is nothing to prevent its not being possible. Now let A be
supposed possible. Then, when A was possible, we agreed that nothing
impossible followed if A were supposed to be real; and then B must of
course be real. (20) But we supposed B to be impossible. Let it be
impossible, then. If, then, B is impossible, A also must be so. But the first
was supposed impossible; therefore the second also is impossible. If,
then, A is possible, B also will be possible, if they were so related that if
A is real, B must be real. If, then, A and B being thus related,10 B is not
possible on this condition,11 (25) A and B will not be related as was
supposed.12 And if when A is possible, B must be possible, then if A is
real, B also must be real. For to say that B must be possible, if A is
possible, means this, that if A is real both at the time when and in the
way in which it was supposed capable of being real, B also must then
and in that way be real. (30)

5 As all potencies are either innate, like the senses, or come by

practice, like the power of playing the flute, or by learning, like artistic
power, those which come by practice or by rational formula we must
acquire by previous exercise but this is not necessary with those which
are not of this nature and which imply passivity.
Since that which is ‘capable’ is capable of something and at some time
and in some way (with all the other qualifications which must be present
in the definition), (35) and since some things can produce change
according to a rational formula and their potencies involve such a
formula, while other things are non-rational and their potencies are non-
rational, and the former potencies must be in a living thing, while the
latter can be both in the living and in the lifeless; as regards potencies of
the latter kind, when the agent and the patient meet in the way
appropriate to the potency in question, the one must act and the other
be acted on, but with the former kind of potency this is not necessary.
[1048a] For the non-rational potencies are all productive of one effect
each, but the rational produce contrary effects, (5) so that if they
produced their effects necessarily they would produce contrary effects at
the same time; but this is impossible. There must, then, (10) be something
else that decides; I mean by this, desire or will. For whichever of two
things the animal desires decisively, it will do, when it is present, and
meets the passive object, in the way appropriate to the potency in
question. Therefore everything which has a rational potency, when it
desires that for which it has a potency and in the circumstances in which
it has the potency, must do this. (15) And it has the potency in question
when the passive object is present and is in a certain state; if not it will
not be able to act. (To add the qualification ‘if nothing external prevents
it’ is not further necessary; for it has the potency on the terms on which
this is a potency of acting, and it is this not in all circumstances but on
certain conditions, among which will be the exclusion of external
hindrances; for these are barred by some of the positive qualifications.
(20)) And so even if one has a rational wish, or an appetite, to do two

things or contrary things at the same time, one will not do them; for it is
not on these terms that one has the potency for them, nor is it a potency
of doing both at the same time, since one will do the things which it is a
potency of doing, on the terms on which one has the potency.
6 Since we have treated13 of the kind of potency which is related to
movement, (25) let us discuss actuality—what, and what kind of thing,
actuality is. For in the course of our analysis it will also become clear,
with regard to the potential, that we not only ascribe potency to that
whose nature it is to move something else, or to be moved by something
else, either without qualification or in some particular way, but also use
the word in another sense, which is the reason of the inquiry in the
course of which we have discussed these previous senses also. (30)
Actuality, then, is the existence of a thing not in the way which we
express by ‘potentially’; we say that potentially, for instance, a statue of
Hermes is in the block of wood and the half-line is in the whole, because
it might be separated out, and we call even the man who is not studying
a man of science, if he is capable of studying; the thing that stands in
contrast to each of these exists actually. (35) Our meaning can be seen in
the particular cases by induction, and we must not seek a definition of
everything but be content to grasp the analogy, that it is as that which is
building is to that which is capable of building, and the waking to the
sleeping, and that which is seeing to that which has its eyes shut but has
sight, and that which has been shaped out of the matter to the matter,
and that which has been wrought up to the unwrought. [1048b] Let
actuality be defined by one member of this antithesis, (5) and the
potential by the other. But all things are not said in the same sense to
exist actually, but only by analogy—as A is in B or to B, C is in D or to D;
for some are as movement to potency, and the others as substance to
some sort of matter.
But also the infinite and the void and all similar things are said to
exist potentially and actually in a different sense from that which applies
to many other things, (10) e. g. to that which sees or walks or is seen. For
of the latter class these predicates can at some time be also truly asserted
without qualification; for the seen is so called sometimes because it is
being seen, sometimes because it is capable of being seen. But the
infinite does not exist potentially in the sense that it will ever actually
have separate existence; it exists potentially only for knowledge. (15) For
the fact that the process of dividing never comes to an end ensures that
this activity exists potentially, but not that the infinite exists separately.
Since of the actions which have a limit none is an end but all are
relative to the end, e. g. the removing of fat, or fat-removal, (20) and the
bodily parts themselves when one is making them thin are in movement
in this way (i. e. without being already that at which the movement
aims), this is not an action or at least not a complete one (for it is not an
end); but that movement in which the end is present is an action. e. g. at
the same time we are seeing and have seen, are understanding and have
understood, are thinking and have thought (while it is not true that at
the same time we are learning and have learnt, (25) or are being cured
and have been cured). At the same time we are living well and have
lived well, and are happy and have been happy. If not, the process
would have had sometime to cease, as the process of making thin ceases:
but, as things are, it does not cease; we are living and have lived. Of
these processes, then, we must call the one set movements, and the other
actualities. For every movement is incomplete—making thin, learning,
walking, building; these are movements, and incomplete at that. For it is
not true that at the same time a thing is walking and has walked, (30) or
is building and has built, or is coming to be and has come to be, or is
being moved and has been moved, but what is being moved is different
from what has been moved, and what is moving from what has moved.
But it is the same thing that at the same time has seen and is seeing, or is
thinking and has thought. The latter sort of process, then, I call an
actuality, and the former a movement.

7 What, and what kind of thing, the actual is, (35) may be taken as
explained by these and similar considerations. But we must distinguish
when a thing exists potentially and when it does not; for it is not at any
and every time. [1049a] e. g. is earth potentially a man? No—but
rather when it has already become seed, and perhaps not even then. It is
just as it is with being healed; not everything can be healed by the
medical art or by luck, but there is a certain kind of thing which is
capable of it, and only this is potentially healthy. And (1) the delimiting
mark of that which as a result of thought comes to exist in complete
reality from having existed potentially is that if the agent has willed it it
comes to pass if nothing external hinders, (5) while the condition on the
other side—viz. in that which is healed—is that nothing in it hinders the
result. It is on similar terms that we have what is potentially a house; if
nothing in the thing acted on—i. e. in the matter—prevents it from
becoming a house, (10) and if there is nothing which must be added or
taken away or changed, this is potentially a house; and the same is true
of all other things the source of whose becoming is external. And (2) in
the cases in which the source of the becoming is in the very thing which
comes to be, a thing is potentially all those things which it will be of
itself if nothing external hinders it. e. g. the seed is not yet potentially a
man; for it must be deposited in something other than itself and undergo
a change. But when through its own motive principle it has already got
such and such attributes, (15) in this state it is already potentially a man;
while in the former state it needs another motive principle, just as earth
is not yet potentially a statue (for it must first change in order to become
brass).
It seems that when we call a thing not something else but ‘thaten’—
e. g. a casket is not ‘wood’ but ‘wooden’, and wood is not ‘earth’ but
‘earthen’, (20) and again earth will illustrate our point if it is similarly not
something else but ‘thaten’—that other thing is always potentially (in
the full sense of that word) the thing which comes after it in this series.
e. g. a casket is not ‘earthen’ nor ‘earth’, but ‘wooden’; for this is
potentially a casket and this is the matter of a casket, wood in general of
a casket in general, and this particular wood of this particular casket.
And if there is a first thing, which is no longer, in reference to something
else, called ‘thaten’, (25) this is prime matter; e. g. if earth is ‘airy’ and air
is not ‘fire’ but ‘fiery’, fire is prime matter, which is not a ‘this’. For the
subject or substratum is differentiated by being a ‘this’ or not being one;
i. e. the substratum of modifications is, e. g., a man, i. e. a body and a
soul, (30) while the modification is ‘musical’ or ‘pale’. (The subject is
called, when music comes to be present in it, not ‘music’ but ‘musical’,
and the man is not ‘paleness’ but ‘pale’, and not ‘ambulation’ or
‘movement’ but ‘walking’ or ‘moving’—which is akin to the ‘thaten’.)
Wherever this is so, then, the ultimate subject is a substance; but when
this is not so but the predicate is a form and a ‘this’, (35) the ultimate
subject is matter and material substance. And it is only right that ‘thaten’
should be used with reference both to the matter and to the accidents;
for both are indeterminates. [1049b]
We have stated, then, when a thing is to be said to exist potentially
and when it is not.

8 From our discussion of the various senses of ‘prior’,14 it is clear that

actuality is prior to potency. (5) And I mean by potency not only that
definite kind which is said to be a principle of change in another thing
or in the thing itself regarded as other, but in general every principle of
movement or of rest. For nature also is in the same genus as potency; for
it is a principle of movement—not, (10) however, in something else but in
the thing itself qua itself. To all such potency, then, actuality is prior
both in formula and in substantiality; and in time it is prior in one sense,
and in another not.
(1) Clearly it is prior in formula; for that which is in the primary sense
potential is potential because it is possible for it to become active; e. g. I
mean by ‘capable of building’ that which can build, (15) and by ‘capable
of seeing’ that which can see, and by ‘visible’ that which can be seen.
And the same account applies to all other cases, so that the formula and
the knowledge of the one must precede the knowledge of the other.
(2) In time it is prior in this sense: the actual which is identical in
species though not in number with a potentially existing thing is prior to
it. I mean that to this particular man who now exists actually and to the
corn and to the seeing subject the matter and the seed and that which is
capable of seeing, (20) which are potentially a man and corn and seeing,
but not yet actually so, are prior in time; but prior in time to these are
other actually existing things, from which they were produced. For from
the potentially existing the actually existing is always produced by an
actually existing thing, e. g. man from man, musician by musician; there
is always a first mover, (25) and the mover already exists actually. We
have said in our account of substance15 that everything that is produced
is something produced from something and by something, and that the
same in species as it.
This is why it is thought impossible to be a builder if one has built
nothing or a harper if one has never played the harp; for he who learns
to play the harp learns to play it by playing it, (30) and all other learners
do similarly. And thence arose the sophistical quibble, that one who does
not possess a science will be doing that which is the object of the
science; for he who is learning it does not possess it. But since, of that
which is coming to be, some part must have come to be, (35) and, of that
which, in general, is changing, some part must have changed (this is
shown in the treatise on movement16), he who is learning must, it would
seem, possess some part of the science. [1050a] But here too, then, it is
clear that actuality is in this sense also, viz. in order of generation and of
time, prior to potency.
But (3) it is also prior in substantiality; firstly, (a) because the things
that are posterior in becoming are prior in form and in substantiality
(e. g. man is prior to boy and human being to seed; for the one already
has its form, (5) and the other has not), and because everything that
comes to be moves towards a principle, i. e. an end (for that for the sake
of which a thing is, is its principle, and the becoming is for the sake of
the end), and the actuality is the end, and it is for the sake of this that
the potency is acquired. (10) For animals do not see in order that they
may have sight, but they have sight that they may see. And similarly
men have the art of building that they may build, and theoretical science
that they may theorize; but they do not theorize that they may have
theoretical science, except those who are learning by practice; and these
do not theorize except in a limited sense, or because they have no need
to theorize. Further, (15) matter exists in a potential state, just because it
may come to its form; and when it exists actually, then it is in its form.
And the same holds good in all cases, even those in which the end is a
movement. And so, as teachers think they have achieved their end when
they have exhibited the pupil at work, nature does likewise. For if this is
not the case, (20) we shall have Pauson’s Hermes over again, since it will
be hard to say about the knowledge, as about the figure in the picture,
whether it is within or without.17 For the action is the end, and the
actuality is the action. And so even the word ‘actuality’ is derived from
‘action’, and points to the complete reality.
And while in some cases the exercise is the ultimate thing (e. g. in
sight the ultimate thing is seeing, and no other product besides this
results from sight), (25) but from some things a product follows (e. g.
from the art of building there results a house as well as the act of
building), yet none the less the act is in the former case the end and in
the latter more of an end than the potency is. For the act of building is
realized in the thing that is being built, and comes to be, and is, at the
same time as the house.
Where, (30) then, the result is something apart from the exercise, the
actuality is in the thing that is being made, e. g. the act of building is in
the thing that is being built and that of weaving in the thing that is
being woven, and similarly in all other cases, and in general the
movement is in the thing that is being moved; but where there is no
product apart from the actuality, (35) the actuality is present in the
agents, e. g. the act of seeing is in the seeing subject and that of
theorizing in the theorizing subject and the life is in the soul (and
therefore well-being also; for it is a certain kind of life). [1050b]
Obviously, therefore, the substance or form is actuality. According to
this argument, then, it is obvious that actuality is prior in substantial
being to potency; and as we have said,18 one actuality always precedes
another in time right back to the actuality of the eternal prime mover. (5)
But (b) actuality is prior in a stricter sense also; for eternal things are
prior in substance to perishable things, and no eternal thing exists
potentially. The reason is this. Every potency is at one and the same time
a potency of the opposite; for, while that which is not capable of being
present in a subject cannot be present, (10) everything that is capable of
being may possibly not be actual. That, then, which is capable of being
may either be or not be; the same thing, then, is capable both of being
and of not being. And that which is capable of not being may possibly
not be; and that which may possibly not be is perishable, either in the
full sense, or in the precise sense in which it is said that it possibly may
not be, (15) i. e. in respect either of place or of quantity or quality; ‘in the
full sense’ means ‘in respect of substance’. Nothing, then, which is in the
full sense imperishable is in the full sense potentially existent (though
there is nothing to prevent its being so in some respect, e. g. potentially
of a certain quality or in a certain place); all imperishable things, then,
exist actually. Nor can anything which is of necessity exist potentially;
yet these things are primary; for if these did not exist, nothing would
exist. Nor does eternal movement, if there be such, exist potentially; and,
(20) if there is an eternal mobile, it is not in motion in virtue of a

potentiality, except in respect of ‘whence’ and ‘whither’ (there is nothing

to prevent its having matter which makes it capable of movement in
various directions). And so the sun and the stars and the whole heaven
are ever active, and there is no fear that they may sometime stand still,
as the natural philosophers fear they may.19 Nor do they tire in this
activity; for movement is not for them, as it is for perishable things,
connected with the potentiality for opposites, (25) so that the continuity
of the movement should be laborious; for it is that kind of substance
which is matter and potency, not actuality, that causes this.
Imperishable things20 are imitated by those that are involved in
change, e. g. earth and fire. For these also are ever active; for they have
their movement of themselves and in themselves.21 But the other
potencies, (30) according to our previous discussion,22 are all potencies
for opposites; for that which can move another in this way can also
move it not in this way, i. e. if it acts according to a rational formula;
and the same non-rational potencies will produce opposite results by
their presence or absence.
If, then, there are any entities or substances such as the dialecticians23
say the Ideas are, (35) there must be something much more scientific than
science-itself and something more mobile than movement-itself; for these
will be more of the nature of actualities, while science-itself and
movement-itself are potencies for these.24 [1051a]
Obviously, then, actuality is prior both to potency and to every
principle of change.

9 That the actuality is also better and more valuable than the good
potency is evident from the following argument. (5) Everything of which
we say that it can do something, is alike capable of contraries, e. g. that
of which we say that it can be well is the same as that which can be ill,
and has both potencies at once; for the same potency is a potency of
health and illness, of rest and motion, of building and throwing down, of
being built and being thrown down. The capacity for contraries, (10) then,
is present at the same time; but contraries cannot be present at the same
time, and the actualities also cannot be present at the same time, e. g.
health and illness. Therefore, while the good must be one of them, the
capacity is both alike, or neither; the actuality, (15) then, is better. Also in
the case of bad things the end or actuality must be worse than the
potency; for that which ‘can’ is both contraries alike. Clearly, then, the
bad does not exist apart from bad things; for the bad is in its nature
posterior to the potency.25 And therefore we may also say that in the
things which are from the beginning, (20) i. e. in eternal things, there is
nothing bad, nothing defective, nothing perverted (for perversion is
something bad).26

It is by an activity also that geometrical constructions are discovered;

for we find them by dividing. If the figures had been already divided, the
constructions would have been obvious; but as it is they are present only
potentially. Why are the angles of the triangle equal to two right angles?
Because the angles about one point are equal to two right angles. If,
then, the line parallel to the side had been already drawn upwards, (25)
the reason would have been evident to any one as soon as he saw the
figure. Why is the angle in a semicircle in all cases a right angle? If three
lines are equal—the two which form the base, and the perpendicular
from the centre—the conclusion is evident at a glance to one who knows
the former proposition. Obviously, therefore, the potentially existing
constructions are discovered by being brought to actuality; the reason is
that the geometer’s thinking is an actuality; so that the potency proceeds
from an actuality; and therefore it is by making constructions that
people come to know them (though the single actuality is later in
generation than the corresponding potency). (30)

10 The terms ‘being’ and ‘non-being’ are employed firstly with

reference to the categories, and secondly with reference to the potency
or actuality of these or their non-potency or non-actuality, (35) and
thirdly in the sense of true and false. [1051b] This depends, on the
side of the objects, on their being combined or separated, so that he who
thinks the separated to be separated and the combined to be combined
has the truth, while he whose thought is in a state contrary to that of the
objects is in error. This being so, (5) when is what is called truth or falsity
present, and when is it not? We must consider what we mean by these
terms. It is not because we think truly that you are pale, that you are
pale, but because you are pale we who say this have the truth. If, then,
some things are always combined and cannot be separated, and others
are always separated and cannot be combined, (10) while others are
capable either of combination or of separation, ‘being’ is being combined
and one, and ‘not being’ is being not combined but more than one.
Regarding contingent facts, then, the same opinion or the same
statement comes to be false and true, and it is possible for it to be at one
time correct and at another erroneous; but regarding things that cannot
be otherwise opinions are not at one time true and at another false, (15)
but the same opinions are always true or always false.
But with regard to incomposites, what is being or not being, and truth
or falsity? A thing of this sort is not composite, so as to ‘be’ when it is
compounded, and not to ‘be’ if it is separated, (20) like ‘that the wood is
white’ or ‘that the diagonal is incommensurable’; nor will truth and
falsity be still present in the same way as in the previous cases. In fact,
as truth is not the same in these cases, so also being is not the same; but
(a) truth or falsity is as follows—contact and assertion are truth
(assertion not being the same as affirmation), (25) and ignorance is non-
contact. For it is not possible to be in error regarding the question what a
thing is, save in an accidental sense; and the same holds good regarding
non-composite substances (for it is not possible to be in error about
them). And they all exist actually, not potentially; for otherwise they
would have come to be and ceased to be; but, as it is, being itself does
not come to be (nor cease to be); for if it had done so it would have had
to come out of something. (30) About the things, then, which are essences
and actualities, it is not possible to be in error, but only to know them or
not to know them. But we do inquire what they are, viz. whether they
are of such and such a nature or not.
(b) As regards the ‘being’ that answers to truth and the ‘non-being’ that
answers to falsity, in one case there is truth if the subject and the
attribute are really combined, and falsity if they are not combined; in the
other case, (35) if the object is existent it exists in a particular way, and if
it does not exist in this way it does not exist at all.27 [1052a] And
truth means knowing these objects, and falsity does not exist, nor error,
but only ignorance—and not an ignorance which is like blindness; for
blindness is akin to a total absence of the faculty of thinking.
It is evident also that about unchangeable things there can be no error
in respect of time, (5) if we assume them to be unchangeable. e. g. if we
suppose that the triangle does not change, we shall not suppose that at
one time its angles are equal to two right angles while at another time
they are not (for that would imply change). It is possible, however, to
suppose that one member of such a class has a certain attribute and
another has not; e. g. while we may suppose that no even number is
prime, we may suppose that some are and some are not. But regarding a
numerically single number not even this form of error is possible; for we
cannot in this case suppose that one instance has an attribute and
another has not, (10) but whether our judgement be true or false, it is
implied that the fact is eternal.

1 Cf. vii, viii.

2 Cf. vii. 1.

3 Cf. ix. 1048a 27–b 6.

4 Cf. v. 12.

5 i. e. the event would not happen if the passive factor were different. What is oily cannot
necessarily be crushed, nor what is yielding burnt.
6 i. e. with the rational formula.

7 The object of knowledge is always a form, which is eternal. The matter which makes things
perishable is no object for knowledge.
8 Cf. iv. 5, 6.

9 Cf. 1047a 24–26.

10 sc. so related that if the reality of A implies the reality of B the possibility of A implies the
possibility of B.
11 sc. if A is possible.
12 sc. so related that the reality of A implies the reality of B.

13 Cf. ix. 1–5.

14 Cf. v. 11.

15 Cf. vii. 7, 8.

16 Cf. Phys. vi. 6.

17 The reference is apparently to a tricky painting in which the figure was painted so as to stand
out in high relief.
18 1049b 17–29.

19 e. g. Empedocles (Cf. De Caelo, 284a 24–6).

20 sc. the heavenly bodies.

21 i. e. they are both movers and moved.

22 Cf. b 8–12.

23 The Platonists are meant; Cf. i. 987b 31.

24 The Idea, being the universal apart from its special manifestations, will be a potentiality, and
will therefore be inferior to the corresponding particulars—e. g. the Idea of science will be
inferior to particular acts of scientific thought.
25 sc. while the eternal and substantial must be better than the potency.

26 The paragraph seems to be directed against Plato: Cf. Rep. 402 C, 476 A, Theaet. 176 E, Laws
896 E, 898 C.
27 i. e. we have not here A and B, which may or may not be combined, but A, which if it exists at
all exists as A.
 BOOK I (X)

1 We have said previously, (15) in our distinction of the various

meanings of words,1 that ‘one’ has several meanings; the things that are
directly and of their own nature and not accidentally called one may be
summarized under four heads, though the word is used in more senses.
(1) There is the continuous, either in general, or especially that which is
continuous by nature and not by contact nor by being tied together; and
of these, that has more unity and is prior, (20) whose movement2 is more
indivisible and simpler. (2) That which is a whole and has a certain
shape and form is one in a still higher degree; and especially if a thing is
of this sort by nature, and not by force like the things which are unified
by glue or nails or by being tied together, i. e. if it has in itself the cause
of its continuity. (25) A thing is of this sort because its movement is one
and indivisible in place and time; so that evidently if a thing has by
nature a principle of movement that is of the first kind (i. e. local
movement) and the first in that kind (i. e. circular movement), this is in
the primary sense one extended thing. Some things, then, are one in this
way, qua continuous or whole, and the other things that are one are
those whose definition is one. Of this sort are the things the thought of
which is one, (30) i. e. those the thought of which is indivisible; and it is
indivisible if the thing is indivisible in kind or in number. (3) In number,
then, the individual is indivisible, and (4) in kind, that which in
intelligibility and in knowledge is indivisible, so that that which causes
substances to be one3 must be one in the primary sense. ‘One’, then, has
all these meanings—the naturally continuous and the whole, and the
individual and the universal. (35) And all these are one because in some
cases the movement, in others the thought or the definition is
indivisible.
But it must be observed that the questions, what sort of things are said
to be one, and what it is to be one and what is the definition of it, should
not be assumed to be the same. [1052b] ‘One’ has all these meanings,
and each of the things to which one of these kinds of unity belongs will
be one; but ‘to be one’ will sometimes mean being one of these things, (5)
and sometimes being something else which is even nearer to the
meaning of the word ‘one’ while these other things approximate to its
application. This is also true of ‘element’ or ‘cause’, if one had both to
specify the things of which it is predicable and to render the definition
of the word. For in a sense fire is an element (and doubtless also ‘the
indefinite’ or something else of the sort is by its own nature the
element), (10) but in a sense it is not; for it is not the same thing to be fire
and to be an element, but while as a particular thing with a nature of its
own fire is an element, the name ‘element’ means that it has this
attribute, that there is something which is made of it as a primary
constituent. And so with ‘cause’ and ‘one’ and all such terms. (15) For this
reason, too, ‘to be one’ means ‘to be indivisible, being essentially a “this”
and capable of being isolated either in place, or in form or thought’; or
perhaps ‘to be whole and indivisible’; but it means especially ‘to be the
first measure of a kind’, and most strictly of quantity; for it is from this
that it has been extended to the other categories. (20) For measure is that
by which quantity is known; and quantity qua quantity is known either
by a ‘one’ or by a number, and all number is known by a ‘one’. Therefore
all quantity qua quantity is known by the one, and that by which
quantities are primarily known is the one itself; and so the one is the
starting-point of number qua number. And hence in the other classes too
‘measure’ means that by which each is first known, (25) and the measure
of each is a unit—in length, in breadth, in depth, in weight, in speed.
(The words ‘weight’ and ‘speed’ are common to both contraries;4 for
each of them has two meanings—‘weight’ means both that which has
any amount of gravity and that which has an excess of gravity, and
‘speed’ both that which has any amount of movement and that which
has an excess of movement; for even the slow has a certain speed and
the comparatively light a certain weight. (30))
In all these, then, the measure and starting-point is something one and
indivisible, since even in lines we treat as indivisible the line a foot long.
For everywhere we seek as the measure something one and indivisible;
and this is that which is simple either in quality or in quantity. (35) Now
where it is thought impossible to take away or to add, there the measure
is exact (hence that of number is most exact; for we posit the unit as
indivisible in every respect); but in all other cases we imitate this sort of
measure. [1053a] For in the case of a furlong or a talent or of
anything comparatively large any addition or subtraction might more
easily escape our notice than in the case of something smaller; so that
the first thing from which, (5) as far as our perception goes, nothing can
be subtracted, all men make the measure, whether of liquids or of solids,
whether of weight or of size; and they think they know the quantity
when they know it by means of this measure. And indeed they know
movement too by the simple movement and the quickest; for this
occupies least time. (10) And so in astronomy a ‘one’ of this sort is the
starting-point and measure (for they assume the movement of the
heavens to be uniform and the quickest, and judge the others by
reference to it), and in music the quarter-tone (because it is the least
interval), and in speech the letter. And all these are ones in this sense—
not that ‘one’ is something predicable in the same sense of all of these,
but in the sense we have mentioned.
But the measure is not always one in number—sometimes there are
several; e. g. the quarter-tones (not to the ear, (15) but as determined by
the ratios) are two, and the articulate sounds by which we measure are
more than one, and the diagonal of the square and its side are measured
by two quantities, and all spatial magnitudes reveal similar varieties of
unit. Thus, then, the one is the measure of all things, because we come
to know the elements in the substance by dividing the things either in
respect of quantity or in respect of kind. (20) And the one is indivisible
just because the first of each class of things is indivisible. But it is not in
the same way that every ‘one’ is indivisible, e. g. a foot and a unit; the
latter is indivisible in every respect, while the former must be placed
among things which are undivided to perception, as has been said
already5—only to perception, for doubtless every continuous thing is
divisible.
The measure is always homogeneous with the thing measured; the
measure of spatial magnitudes is a spatial magnitude, (25) and in
particular that of length is a length, that of breadth a breadth, that of
articulate sound an articulate sound, that of weight a weight, that of
units a unit. (For we must state the matter so, and not say that the
measure of numbers is a number; we ought indeed to say this if we were
to use the corresponding form of words, but the claim does not really
correspond—it is as if one claimed that the measure of units is units, (30)
and not a unit; number is a plurality of units.)
Knowledge, also, and perception, we call the measure of things for the
same reason, because we come to know something by them—while as a
matter of fact they are measured rather than measure other things. But it
is with us as if some one else measured us and we came to know how big
we are by seeing that he applied the cubit-measure to such and such a
fraction of us. But Protagoras says ‘man is the measure of all things’, (35)
as if he had said ‘the man who knows’ or ‘the man who perceives’; and
these because they have respectively knowledge and perception, which
we say are the measures of objects. [1053b] Such thinkers are saying
nothing, then, while they appear to be saying something remarkable.
Evidently, then, unity in the strictest sense, if we define it according to
the meaning of the word, is a measure, and most properly of quantity, (5)
and secondly of quality. And some things will be one if they are
indivisible in quantity, and others if they are indivisible in quality; and
so that which is one is indivisible, either absolutely or qua one.

2 With regard to the substance and nature of the one we must ask in
which of two ways it exists. (10) This is the very question that we
reviewed6 in our discussion of problems, viz. what the one is and how
we must conceive of it, whether we must take the one itself as being a
substance (as both the Pythagoreans say in earlier and Plato in later
times), or there is, rather, an underlying nature and the one should be
described more intelligibly and more in the manner of the physical
philosophers, (15) of whom one says the one is love, another says it is air,
and another the indefinite.7
If, then, no universal can be a substance, as has been said8 in our
discussion of substance and being, and if being itself cannot be a
substance in the sense of a one apart from the many (for it is common to
the many), (20) but is only a predicate, clearly unity also cannot be a
substance; for being and unity are the most universal of all predicates.
Therefore, on the one hand, genera are not certain entities and
substances separable from other things; and on the other hand the one
cannot be a genus, for the same reasons for which being and substance
cannot be genera.
 Further, the position must be similar in all the kinds of unity. Now
‘unity’ has just as many meanings as ‘being’; so that since in the sphere
of qualities the one is something definite—some particular kind of thing
—and similarly in the sphere of quantities, (25) clearly we must in every
category ask what the one is, as we must ask what the existent is, since it
is not enough to say that its nature is just to be one or existent. But in
colours the one is a colour, e. g. white, and then the other colours are
observed to be produced out of this and black, (30) and black is the
privation of white, as darkness of light. Therefore if all existent things
were colours, existent things would have been a number, indeed, but of
what? Clearly of colours; and the ‘one’ would have been a particular
‘one’, i. e. white. And similarly if all existing things were tunes, they
would have been a number, (35) but a number of quarter-tones, and their
essence would not have been number; and the one would have been
something whose substance was not to be one but to be the quarter-tone.
[1054a] And similarly if all existent things had been articulate sounds,
they would have been a number of letters, and the one would have been
a vowel. And if all existent things were rectilinear figures, they would
have been a number of figures, and the one would have been the
triangle. And the same argument applies to all other classes. Since,
therefore, while there are numbers and a one both in affections and in
qualities and in quantities and in movement, (5) in all cases the number is
a number of particular things and the one is one something, and its
substance is not just to be one, the same must be true of substances also;
for it is true of all cases alike.
That the one, then, in every class is a definite thing, (10) and in no case
is its nature just this, unity, is evident; but as in colours the one-itself
which we must seek is one colour, so too in substance the one-itself is
one substance. That in a sense unity means the same as being is clear
from the facts that its meanings correspond to the categories one to one,
and it is not comprised within any category (e. g. it is comprised neither
in ‘what a thing is’ nor in quality, (15) but is related to them just as being
is); that in ‘one man’ nothing more is predicated than in ‘man’ (just as
being is nothing apart from substance or quality or quantity); and that to
be one is just to be a particular thing.
3 The one and the many are opposed in several ways, (20) of which one
is the opposition of the one and plurality as indivisible and divisible; for
that which is either divided or divisible is called a plurality, and that
which is indivisible or not divided is called one. Now since opposition is
of four kinds, and one of these two terms is privative in meaning, they
must be contraries, and neither contradictory nor correlative in
meaning.9 (25) And the one derives its name and its explanation from its
contrary, the indivisible from the divisible, because plurality and the
divisible is more perceptible than the indivisible, so that in definition
plurality is prior to the indivisible, because of the conditions of
perception.
To the one belong, as we indicated graphically in our distinction of the
contraries,10 (30) the same and the like and the equal, and to plurality
belong the other and the unlike and the unequal. ‘The same’ has several
meanings; (1) we sometimes mean ‘the same numerically’; again, (2) we
call a thing the same if it is one both in definition and in number, e. g.
you ate one with yourself both in form and in matter; and again, (35) (3)
if the definition of its primary essence is one; e. g. equal straight lines
are the same, and so are equal and equal-angled quadrilaterals; there are
many such, but in these equality constitutes unity. [1054b]
Things are like if, not being absolutely the same, nor without
difference in respect of their concrete substance, (5) they are the same in
form; e. g. the larger square is like the smaller, and unequal straight
lines are like; they are like, but not absolutely the same. Other things are
like, if, having the same form, and being things in which difference of
degree is possible, they have no difference of degree. Other things, if
they have a quality that is in form one and the same—e. g. whiteness—
in a greater or less degree, (10) are called like because their form is one.
Other things are called like if the qualities they have in common are
more numerous than those in which they differ—either the qualities in
general or the prominent qualities; e. g. tin is like silver, qua white, and
gold is like fire, qua yellow and red.
Evidently, then, ‘other’ and ‘unlike’ also have several meanings. And
the other in one sense is the opposite of the same (so that everything is
either the same as or other than everything else). (15) In another sense
things are other unless both their matter and their definition are one (so
that you are other than your neighbour). The other in the third sense is
exemplified in the objects of mathematics. ‘Other or the same’ can
therefore be predicated of everything with regard to everything else—
but only if the things are one and existent, for ‘other’ is not the
contradictory of ‘the same’; which is why it is not predicated of non-
existent things (while ‘not the same’ is so predicated). (20) It is predicated
of all existing things; for everything that is existent and one is by its very
nature either one or not one with anything else.
The other, then, and the same are thus opposed. But difference is not
the same as otherness. For the other and that which it is other than need
not be other in some definite respect (for everything that is existent is
either other or the same), (25) but that which is different is different from
some particular thing in some particular respect, so that there must be
something identical whereby they differ. And this identical thing is
genus or species; for everything that differs differs either in genus or in
species, in genus if the things have not their matter in common and are
not generated out of each other (i. e. if they belong to different figures of
predication), and in species if they have the same genus (‘genus’
meaning that identical thing which is essentially predicated of both the
different things). (30)
Contraries are different, and contrariety is a kind of difference. That
we are right in this supposition is shown by induction. (35) For all of
these too are seen to be different; they are not merely other, but some
are other in genus, and others are in the same line of predication, and
therefore in the same genus, and the same in genus. [1055a] We have
distinguished11 elsewhere what sort of things are the same or other in
genus.

4 Since things which differ may differ from one another more or less,
there is also a greatest difference, and this I call contrariety. (5) That
contrariety is the greatest difference is made clear by induction. For
things which differ in genus have no way to one another, but are too far
distant and are not comparable; and for things that differ in species the
extremes from which generation takes place are the contraries, and the
distance between extremes—and therefore that between the contraries—
is the greatest.
 But surely that which is greatest in each class is complete. (10) For that
is greatest which cannot be exceeded, and that is complete beyond
which nothing can be found. For the complete difference marks the end
of a series (just as the other things which are called complete are so
called because they have attained an end), and beyond the end there is
nothing; for in everything it is the extreme and includes all else, (15) and
therefore there is nothing beyond the end, and the complete needs
nothing further. From this, then, it is clear that contrariety is complete
difference; and as contraries are so called in several senses, their modes
of completeness will answer to the various modes of contrariety which
attach to the contraries.
This being so, it is clear that one thing cannot have more than one
contrary (for neither can there be anything more extreme than the
extreme, (20) nor can there be more than two extremes for the one
interval), and, to put the matter generally, this is clear if contrariety is a
difference, and if difference, and therefore also the complete difference,
must be between two things.
And the other commonly accepted definitions of contraries are also
necessarily true. For not only is (1) the complete difference the greatest
difference (for we can get no difference beyond it of things differing
either in genus or in species; for it has been shown12 that there is no
‘difference’ between anything and the things outside its genus, (25) and
among the things which differ in species the complete difference is the
greatest); but also (2) the things in the same genus which differ most are
contrary (for the complete difference is the greatest difference between
species of the same genus); and (3) the things in the same receptive
material which differ most are contrary (for the matter is the same for
contraries); and (4) of the things which fall under the same faculty the
most different are contrary (for one science deals with one class of
things, (30) and in these the complete difference is the greatest).
The primary contrariety is that between positive state and privation—
not every privation, however (for ‘privation’ has several meanings), (35)
but that which is complete. And the other contraries must be called so
with reference to these, some because they possess these, others because
they produce or tend to produce them, others because they are
acquisitions or losses of these or of other contraries. Now if the kinds of
opposition are contradiction and privation and contrariety and relation,
and of these the first is contradiction, and contradiction admits of no
intermediate, while contraries admit of one, clearly contradiction and
contrariety are not the same. [1055b] But privation is a kind of
contradiction; for what suffers privation, either in general or in some
determinate way, is either that which is quite incapable of having some
attribute or that which, (5) being of such a nature as to have it, has it not;
here we have already a variety of meanings, which have been
distinguished13 elsewhere. Privation, therefore, is a contradiction or
incapacity which is determinate or taken along with the receptive
material. This is the reason why, (10) while contradiction does not admit
of an intermediate, privation sometimes does; for everything is equal or
not equal, but not everything is equal or unequal, or if it is, it is only
within the sphere of that which is receptive of equality. If, then, the
comings-to-be which happen to the matter start from the contraries, and
proceed either from the form and the possession of the form or from a
privation of the form or shape, clearly all contrariety must be privation,
(15) but presumably not all privation is contrariety (the reason being that

that which has suffered privation may have suffered it in several ways);
for it is only the extremes from which changes proceed that are
contraries.
And this is obvious also by induction. For every contrariety involves,
as one of its terms, a privation, but not all cases are alike; inequality is
the privation of equality and unlikeness of likeness, (20) and on the other
hand vice is the privation of virtue. But the cases differ in a way already
described;14 in one case we mean simply that the thing has suffered
privation, in another case that it has done so either at a certain time or
in a certain part (e. g. at a certain age or in the dominant part), or
throughout. This is why in some cases there is a mean (there are men
who are neither good nor bad), and in others there is not (a number
must be either odd or even). Further, (25) some contraries have their
subject defined, others have not.—Therefore it is evident that one of the
contraries is always privative; but it is enough if this is true of the first—
i. e. the generic—contraries, e. g. the one and the many; for the others
can be reduced to these.
5 Since one thing has one contrary, we might raise the question how
the one is opposed to the many, (30) and the equal to the great and the
small. For if we use the word ‘whether’ only in an antithesis such as
‘whether it is white or black’, or ‘whether it is white or not white’ (we do
not ask ‘whether it is a man or white’), unless we are proceeding on a
prior assumption and asking something such as ‘whether it was Cleon or
Socrates that came’—but this is not a necessary disjunction in any class
of things; yet even this is an extension from the case of opposites; for
opposites alone cannot be present together; and we assume this
incompatibility here too in asking which of the two came; for if they
might both have come, (35) the question would have been absurd; but if
they might, even so this falls just as much into an antithesis, that of the
‘one or many’, i. e. ‘whether both came or one of the two’:—if, then, the
question ‘whether’ is always concerned with opposites, and we can ask
‘whether it is greater or less or equal’, what is the opposition of the
equal to the other two? It is not contrary either to one alone or to both;
for why should it be contrary to the greater rather than to the less?
[1056a] Further, (5) the equal is contrary to the unequal. Therefore if it
is contrary to the greater and the less, it will be contrary to more things
than one. But if the unequal means the same as both the greater and the
less together, the equal will be opposite to both (and the difficulty
supports those who say the unequal is a ‘two’15), (10) but it follows that
one thing is contrary to two others, which is impossible. Again, the equal
is evidently intermediate between the great and the small, but no
contrariety is either observed to be intermediate, or, from its definition,
can be so; for it would not be complete16 if it were intermediate between
any two things, but rather it always has something intermediate between
its own terms.
It remains, then, that it is opposed either as negation or as privation.
(15) It cannot be the negation or privation of one of the two; for why of

the great rather than of the small? It is, then, the privative negation of
both. This is why ‘whether’ is said with reference to both, not to one of
the two (e. g. ‘whether it is greater or equal’ or ‘whether it is equal or
less’); there are always three cases. But it is not a necessary privation; for
not everything which is not greater or less is equal, (20) but only the
things which are of such a nature as to have these attributes.
 The equal, then, is that which is neither great nor small but is
naturally fitted to be either great or small; and it is opposed to both as a
privative negation (and therefore is also intermediate). (25) And that
which is neither good nor bad is opposed to both, but has no name; for
each of these has several meanings and the recipient subject is not one;
but that which is neither white nor black has more claim to unity. Yet
even this has not one name, though the colours of which this negation is
privately predicated are in a way limited; for they must be either grey or
yellow or something else of the kind. (30) Therefore it is an incorrect
criticism that is passed by those who think that all such phrases are used
in the same way, so that that which is neither a shoe nor a hand would
be intermediate between a shoe and a hand, since that which is neither
good nor bad is intermediate between the good and the bad—as if there
must be an intermediate in all cases. (35) But this does not necessarily
follow. For the one phrase is a joint denial of opposites between which
there is an intermediate and a certain natural interval; but between the
other two there is no ‘difference’; for the things, the denials of which are
combined, belong to different classes, so that the substratum is not one.
[1056b]

6 We might raise similar questions about the one and the many. For if
the many are absolutely opposed to the one, (5) certain impossible results
follow. One will then be few, whether few be treated here as singular or
plural; for the many are opposed also to the few. Further, two will be
many, since the double is multiple and ‘double’ derives its meaning from
‘two’; therefore one will be few; for what is that in comparison with
which two are many, except one, which must therefore be few? For
there is nothing fewer. Further, (10) if the much and the little are in
plurality what the long and the short are in length, and whatever is
much is also many, and the many are much (unless, indeed, there is a
difference in the case of an easily-bounded continuum),17 the little (or
few) will be a plurality. Therefore one is a plurality if it is few; and this
it must be, if two are many. But perhaps, while the ‘many’ are in a sense
said to be also ‘much’, (15) it is with a difference; e. g. water is much but
not many. But ‘many’ is applied to the things that are divisible; in one
sense it means a plurality which is excessive either absolutely or
relatively (while ‘few’ is similarly a plurality which is deficient), and in
another sense it means number, in which sense alone it is opposed to the
one. (20) For we say ‘one or many’, just as if one were to say ‘one and
ones’ or ‘white thing and white things’, or to compare the things that
have been measured with the measure. It is in this sense also that
multiples are so called. For each number is said to be many because it
consists of ones and because each number is measurable by one; and it is
‘many’ as that which is opposed to one, not to the few. In this sense,
then, even two is many—not, however, in the sense of a plurality which
is excessive either relatively or absolutely; it is the first plurality. (25) But
without qualification two is few; for it is the first plurality which is
deficient (for this reason Anaxagoras was not right in leaving the subject
with the statement that ‘all things were together, boundless both in
plurality and in smallness’—where for ‘and in smallness’ he should have
said ‘and in fewness’; for they could not have been boundless in
fewness), (30) since it is not one, as some say, but two, that make a few.
The one is opposed then to the many in numbers as measure to thing
measurable; and these are opposed as are the relatives which are not
from their very nature relatives. We have distinguished18 elsewhere the
two senses in which relatives are so called:—(1) as contraries; (2) as
knowledge to thing known, (35) a term being called relative because
another is relative to it. [1057a] There is nothing to prevent one from
being fewer than something, e. g. than two; for if it is fewer, it is not
therefore few. Plurality is as it were the class to which number belongs;
for number is plurality measurable by one, and one and number are in a
sense opposed, not as contrary, but as we have said some relative terms
are opposed; for inasmuch as one is measure and the other measurable,
(5) they are opposed. This is why not everything that is one is a number;

i. e. if the thing is indivisible it is not a number. But though knowledge

is similarly spoken of as relative to the knowable, the relation does not
work out similarly; for while knowledge might be thought to be the
measure, and the knowable the thing measured, the fact is that all
knowledge is knowable, (10) but not all that is knowable is knowledge,
because in a sense knowledge is measured by the knowable.—Plurality is
contrary neither to the few (the many being contrary to this as excessive
plurality to plurality exceeded), nor to the one in every sense; but in one
sense these are contrary, as has been said, because the former is divisible
and the latter indivisible, while in another sense they are relative as
knowledge is to knowable, (15) if plurality is number and the one is a
measure.

7 Since contraries admit of an intermediate and in some cases have it,

intermediates must be composed of the contraries. For (1) all
intermediates are in the same genus as the things between which they
stand. (20) For we call those things intermediates, into which that which
changes must change first; e. g. if we were to pass from the highest
string to the lowest by the smallest intervals, we should come sooner to
the intermediate notes, and in colours if we were to pass from white to
black, (25) we should come sooner to crimson and grey than to black; and
similarly in all other cases. But to change from one genus to another
genus is not possible except in an incidental way, as from colour to
figure. Intermediates, then, must be in the same genus both as one
another and as the things they stand between.
But (2) all intermediates stand between opposites of some kind; for
only between these can change take place in virtue of their own nature
(so that an intermediate is impossible between things which are not
opposite; for then there would be change which was not from one
opposite towards the other). (30) Of opposites, contradictories admit of no
middle term; for this is what contradiction is—an opposition, one or
other side of which must attach to anything whatever, i. e. which has no
intermediate. (35) Of other opposites, some are relative, others privative,
others contrary. Of relative terms, those which are not contrary have no
intermediate; the reason is that they are not in the same genus. For what
intermediate could there be between knowledge, and knowable? But
between great and small there is one. [1057b]
(3) If intermediates are in the same genus, as has been shown, and
stand between contraries, they must be composed of these contraries.
For either there will be a genus including the contraries or there will be
none. And if (a) there is to be a genus in such a way that it is something
prior to the contraries, (5) the differentiae which constituted the contrary
species-of-a-genus will be contraries prior to the species; for species are
composed of the genus and the differentiae. (e. g. if white and black are
contraries, and one is a piercing colour and the other a compressing
colour, these differentiae—‘piercing’ and ‘compressing’—are prior; so
that these are prior contraries of one another.) (10) But, again, the species
which differ contrary wise are the more truly contrary species. And the
other species, i. e. the intermediates, must be composed of their genus
and their differentiae. (e. g. all colours which are between white and
black must be said to be composed of the genus, (15) i. e. colour, and
certain differentiae. But these differentiae will not be the primary
contraries; otherwise every colour would be either white or black. They
are different, then, from the primary contraries; and therefore they will
be between the primary contraries; the primary differentiae are
‘piercing’ and ‘compressing’.)
Therefore it is (b) with regard to these contraries which do not fall
within a genus that we must first ask of what their intermediates are
composed. (20) (For things which are in the same genus must be
composed of terms in which the genus is not an element, or else be
themselves incomposite.) Now contraries do not involve one another in
their composition, and are therefore first principles; but the
intermediates are either all incomposite, or none of them. But there is
something compounded out of the contraries, so that there can be a
change from a contrary to it sooner than to the other contrary; for it will
have less of the quality in question than the one contrary and more than
the other. (25) This also,19 then, will come between the contraries. All the
other intermediates also, therefore, are composite; for that which has
more of a quality than one thing and less than another is compounded
somehow out of the things than which it is said to have more and less
respectively of the quality. And since there are no other things prior to
the contraries and homogeneous with the intermediates, (30) all
intermediates must be compounded out of the contraries. Therefore also
all the inferior classes, both the contraries and their intermediates, will
be compounded out of the primary contraries. Clearly, then,
intermediates are (1) all in the same genus and (2) intermediate between
contraries, and (3) all compounded out of the contraries.

8 That which is other in species is other than something in something,

(35) and this must belong to both; e. g. if it is an animal other in species,
both are animals. The things, then, which are other in species must be in
the same genus. For by genus I mean that one identical thing which is
predicated of both and is differentiated in no merely accidental way,
whether conceived as matter or otherwise. [1058a] For not only must
the common nature attach to the different things, e. g. not only must
both be animals, but this very animality must also be different for each
(e. g. in the one case equinity, in the other humanity), and so this
common nature is specifically different for each from what it is for the
other. One, then, will be in virtue of its own nature one sort of animal, (5)
and the other another, e. g. one a horse and the other a man. This
difference, then, must be an otherness of the genus. For I give the name
of ‘difference in the genus’ to an otherness which makes the genus itself
other.
This, then, will be a contrariety (as can be shown also by induction).
For all things are divided by opposites, and it has been proved that
contraries are in the same genus.20 (10) For contrariety was seen21 to be
complete difference; and all difference in species is a difference from
something in something; so that this is the same for both and is their
genus. (Hence also all contraries which are different in species and not
in genus are in the same line of predication, (15) and other than one
another in the highest degree—for the difference is complete—and
cannot be present along with one another.) The difference, then, is a
contrariety.
This, then, is what it is to be ‘other in species’—to have a contrariety,
being in the same genus and being indivisible22 (and those things are the
same in species which have no contrariety, being indivisible23); we say
‘being indivisible’, for in the process of division contrarieties arise even
in the intermediate stages before we come to the indivisibles. (20)22
Evidently, therefore, with reference to that which is called the genus,
none of the species-of-a-genus is either the same as it or other than it in
species (and this is fitting; for the matter is indicated by negation,24 and
the genus is the matter of that of which it is called the genus, not in the
sense in which we speak of the genus or family of the Heraclidae, but in
that in which the genus is an element in a thing’s nature), nor is it so
with reference to things which are not in the same genus, (25) but it will
differ in genus from them, and in species from things in the same genus.
For a thing’s difference from that from which it differs in species must be
a contrariety; and this belongs only to things in the same genus.

9 One might raise the question, why woman does not differ from man
in species, (30) when female and male are contrary and their difference is
a contrariety; and why a female and a male animal are not different in
species, though this difference belongs to animal in virtue of its own
nature, and not as paleness or darkness does; both ‘female’ and ‘male’
belong to it qua animal. This question is almost the same as the other,
why one contrariety makes things different in species and another does
not, (35) e. g. ‘with feet’ and ‘with wings’ do, but paleness and darkness
do not. Perhaps it is because the former are modifications peculiar to the
genus, and the latter are less so. [1058b] And since one element is
definition and one is matter, contrarieties which are in the definition
make a difference in species, but those which are in the thing taken as
including its matter do not make one. And so paleness in a man, or
darkness, does not make one, nor is there a difference in species between
the pale man and the dark man, not even if each of them be denoted by
one word. For man is here being considered on his material side, (5) and
matter does not create a difference; for it does not make individual men
species of man, though the flesh and the bones of which this man and
that man consist are other. The concrete thing is other, but not other in
species, because in the definition there is no contrariety. This25 is the
ultimate indivisible kind. Callias is definition + matter; the pale man,
then, is so also, (10) because it is the individual Callias that is pale; man,
then, is pale only incidentally. Neither do a brazen and a wooden circle,
then, differ in species; and if a brazen triangle and a wooden circle differ
in species, it is not because of the matter, but because there is a
contrariety in the definition. But does the matter not make things other
in species, (15) when it is other in a certain way, or is there a sense in
which it does? For why is this horse other than this man in species,
although their matter is included with their definitions? Doubtless
because there is a contrariety in the definition. For while there is a
contrariety also between pale man and dark horse, and it is a contrariety
in species, it does not depend on the paleness of the one and the
darkness of the other, (20) since even if both had been pale, yet they
would have been other in species. But male and female, while they are
modifications peculiar to ‘animal’, are so not in virtue of its essence but
in the matter, i. e. the body. This is why the same seed becomes female
or male by being acted on in a certain way. We have stated, then, what
it is to be other in species, and why some things differ in species and
others do not. (25)

10 Since contraries are other in form, and the perishable and the
imperishable are contraries (for privation is a determinate incapacity),
the perishable and the imperishable must be different in kind.
Now so far we have spoken of the general terms themselves, so that it
might be thought not to be necessary that every imperishable thing
should be different from every perishable thing in form, (30) just as not
every pale thing is different in form from every dark thing. For the same
thing can be both, and even at the same time if it is a universal (e. g.
man can be both pale and dark), and if it is an individual it can still be
both; for the same man can be, though not at the same time, (35) pale and
dark. Yet pale is contrary to dark.
But while some contraries belong to certain things by accident (e. g.
both those now mentioned and many others), others cannot, and among
these are ‘perishable’ and ‘imperishable’. For nothing is by accident
perishable. [1059a] For what is accidental is capable of not being
present, but perishableness is one of the attributes that belong of
necessity to the things to which they belong; or else one and the same
thing may be perishable and imperishable, (5) if perishableness is capable
of not belonging to it. Perishableness then must either be the essence or
be present in the essence of each perishable thing. The same account
holds good for imperishableness also; for both are attributes which are
present of necessity. The characteristics, then, in respect of which and in
direct consequence of which one thing is perishable and another
imperishable, are opposite, so that the things must be different in kind.
Evidently, (10) then, there cannot be Forms such as some maintain, for
then one man26 would be perishable and another27 imperishable. Yet the
Forms are said to be the same in form with the individuals and not
merely to have the same name; but things which differ in kind28 are
farther apart than those which differ in form.
1 v. 6.

2 Nature is defined (v. 1015a 13) as ‘the essence of things which have in themselves, as such, a
source of movement’.
3 sc. the form.

4 sc. heavy and light, fast and slow.

5 Cf. 1052b 33, 1053a 5.

6 iii. 1001a 4–b25.

7 The three thinkers referred to are Empedocles, Anaximenes, Anaximander.

8 vii. 13.

9 Two of the kinds, contrariety and privation, are not mutually exclusive, for contrariety is the
relation between a form and its complete privation. Cf. iv. 1004b 27, x. 1055b 26.
10 Cf. iv. 1004a 2.

11 v. 9.

12 Cf. a6.

13 v. 22.

14 1055b 4–6.

15 This is a Platonic doctrine; Cf. xiv. 1087b 7.

16 Cf. 1055a 16.

17 i. e. a fluid. Cf. l. 16.

18 v. 1021a 26–30.

19 i. e. this intermediate differentia comes between the extreme differentiae, as the intermediate
species comes between the extreme species.
20 Ch. 4.

21 1055a 16.

22 sc. individuals or infimae species.

23 sc. individuals.

24 i. e. by eliminating the form which characterizes the concrete thing.

25 i. e. that in whose definition no contrarieties are included.

26 The sensible individual.

27 The ideal man.

28 As the perishable and the imperishable have been shown to do.

 BOOK K (XI)

1 That Wisdom is a science of first principles is evident from the

introductory chapters,1 in which we have raised objections to the
statements of others about the first principles; but one might ask the
question whether Wisdom is to be conceived as one science or as several.
(20) If as one, it may be objected that one science always deals with

contraries, but the first principles are not contrary. If it is not one, what
sort of sciences are those with which it is to be identified?2
Further, is it the business of one science, or of more than one, to
examine the first principles of demonstration? If of one, (25) why of this
rather than of any other? If of more, what sort of sciences must these be
said to be?3
Further, does Wisdom investigate all substances or not? If not all, it is
hard to say which; but if, being one, it investigates them all, it is
doubtful how the same science can embrace several subject-matters.4
Further, does it deal with substances only or also with their attributes?
If in the case of attributes demonstration is possible, (30) in that of
substances it is not. But if the two sciences are different, what is each of
them and which is Wisdom? If we think of it as demonstrative, the
science of the attributes is Wisdom, but if as dealing with what is
primary, the science of substances claim the title.5
But again the science we are looking for must not be supposed to deal
with the causes which have been mentioned in the Physics.6 For (A) it
does not deal with the final cause (for that is the nature of the good, (35)
and this is found in the field of action and movement; and it is the first
mover—for that is the nature of the end—but in the case of things
unmovable there is nothing that moved them first),7 and (B) in general it
is hard to say whether perchance the science we are now looking for
deals with perceptible substances or not with them, but with certain
others. [1059b] If with others, it must deal either with the Forms or
with the objects of mathematics. Now (a) evidently the Forms do not
exist. (But it is hard to say, even if one suppose them to exist, why in the
world the same is not true of the other things of which there are Forms,
as of the objects of mathematics. I mean that these thinkers place the
objects of mathematics between the Forms and perceptible things, (5) as a
kind of third set of things apart both from the Forms and from the things
in this world; but there is not a third man or horse besides the ideal and
the individuals. If on the other hand it is not as they say, with what sort
of things must the mathematician be supposed to deal? Certainly not
with the things in this world; for none of these is the sort of thing which
the mathematical sciences demand. (10)) Nor (b) does the science which
we are now seeking treat of the objects of mathematics; for none of them
can exist separately. But again it does not deal with perceptible
substances; for they are perishable.8
In general one might raise the question, to what kind of science it
belongs to discuss the difficulties about the matter of the objects of
mathematics. (15) Neither to physics (because the whole inquiry of the
physicist is about the things that have in themselves a principle of
movement and rest), nor yet to the science which inquires into
demonstration and science; for this is just the subject which it
investigates. It remains then that it is the philosophy which we have set
before ourselves that treats of those subjects. (20)
One might discuss the question whether the science we are seeking
should be said to deal with the principles which are by some called
elements; all men suppose these to be present in composite things. But it
might be thought that the science we seek should treat rather of
universals; for every definition and every science is of universals and not
of infimae species,9 (25) so that as far as this goes it would deal with the
highest genera. These would turn out to be being and unity; for these
might most of all be supposed to contain all things that are, and to be
most like principles because they are first by nature; for if they perish all
other things are destroyed with them; for everything is and is one. (30)
But inasmuch as, if one is to suppose them to be genera, they must be
predicable of their differentiae, and no genus is predicable of any of its
differentiae, in this way it would seem that we should not make them
genera nor principles. Further, if the simpler is more of a principle than
the less simple, (35) and the ultimate members of the genus are simpler
than the genera (for they are indivisible, but the genera are divided into
many and differing species), the species might seem to be the principles,
rather than the genera. But inasmuch as the species are involved in the
destruction of the genera, the genera are more like principles; for that
which involves another in its destruction is a principle of it.10 These and
others of the kind are the subjects that involve difficulties. [1060a]

2 Further, must we suppose something apart from individual things,

or is it these that the science we are seeking treats of? But these are
infinite in number. (5) Yet the things that are apart from the individuals
are genera or species; but the science we now seek treats of neither of
these. The reason why this is impossible has been stated.11 Indeed, it is
in general hard to say whether one must assume that there is a separable
substance besides the sensible substances (i. e. the substances in this
world), or that these are the real things and Wisdom is concerned with
them. (10) For we seem to seek another kind of substance, and this is our
problem, i. e. to see if there is something which can exist apart by itself
and belongs to no sensible thing.—Further, if there is another substance
apart from and corresponding to sensible substances, which kinds of
sensible substance must be supposed to have this corresponding to
them? Why should one suppose men or horses to have it, (15) more than
either the other animals or even all lifeless things? On the other hand to
set up other and eternal substances equal in number to the sensible and
perishable substances would seem to fall beyond the bounds of
probability.—But if the principle we now seek is not separable from
corporeal things, what has a better claim to the name than matter? This,
(20) however, does not exist in actuality, but exists in potency. And it

would seem rather that the form or shape is a more important principle
than this; but the form is perishable,12 so that there is no eternal
substance at all which can exist apart and independent. But this is
paradoxical; for such a principle and substance seems to exist and is
sought by nearly all the most refined thinkers as something that exists;
for how is there to be order unless there is something eternal and
independent and permanent?13
Further, (25) if there is a substance or principle of such a nature as that
which we are now seeking, and if this is one for all things, and the same
for eternal and for perishable things, it is hard to say why in the world,
if there is the same principle, some of the things that fall under the
principle are eternal, and others are not eternal; this is paradoxical. (30)
But if there is one principle of perishable and another of eternal things,
we shall be in a like difficulty if the principle of perishable things, as
well as that of eternal, is eternal; for why, if the principle is eternal, are
not the things that fall under the principle also eternal? But if it is
perishable another principle is involved to account for it, and another to
account for that, and this will go on to infinity.14
If on the other hand we are to set up what are thought to be the most
unchangeable principles, (35) being and unity, firstly, if each of these does
not indicate a ‘this’ or substance, how will they be separable and
independent? Yet we expect the eternal and primary principles to be so.
[1060b] But if each of them does signify a ‘this’ or substance, all
things that are are substances; for being is predicated of all things (and
unity also of some); but that all things that are are substance is false. (5)
Further, how can they15 be right who say that the first principle is unity
and this is substance, and generate number as the first product from
unity and from matter, (10) and assert that number is substance? How are
we to think of ‘two’, and each of the other numbers composed of units,
as one? On this point neither do they say anything nor is it easy to say
anything. But if we are to suppose lines or what comes after these (I
mean the primary surfaces) to be principles, these at least are not
separable substances, but sections and divisions—the former of surfaces,
the latter of bodies (while points are sections and divisions of lines); and
further they are limits of these same things; and all these are in other
things and none is separable. (15) Further, how are we to suppose that
there is a substance of unity and the point? Every substance comes into
being by a gradual process, but a point does not; for the point is a
division.16
A further difficulty is raised by the fact that all knowledge is of
universals and of the ‘such’, (20) but substance is not a universal, but is
rather a ‘this’—a separable thing, so that if there is knowledge about the
first principles, the question arises, how are we to suppose the first
principle to be substance?17
Further, is there anything apart from the concrete thing (by which I
mean the matter and that which is joined with it), or not? If not, (25) we
are met by the objection that all things that are in matter are perishable.
But if there is something, it must be the form or shape. Now it is hard to
determine in which cases this exists apart and in which it does not; for in
some cases the form is evidently not separable, e. g. in the case of a
house.18
Further, are the principles the same in kind or in number? If they are
one in number, (30) all things will be the same.19

3 Since the science of the philosopher treats of being qua being

universally and not in respect of a part of it, and ‘being’ has many senses
and is not used in one only, it follows that if the word is used
equivocally and in virtue of nothing common to its various uses, being
does not fall under one science (for the meanings of an equivocal term
do not form one genus); but if the word is used in virtue of something
common, (35) being will fall under one science. The term seems to be
used in the way we have mentioned, like ‘medical’ and ‘healthy’. For
each of these also we use in many senses. [1061a] Terms are used in
this way by virtue of some kind of reference, in the one case to medical
science, in the other to health, in others to something else, but in each
case to one identical concept. For a discussion and a knife are called
medical because the former proceeds from medical science, (5) and the
latter is useful to it. And a thing is called healthy in a similar way; one
thing because it is indicative of health, another because it is productive
of it. And the same is true in the other cases. Everything that is, then, is
said to ‘be’ in this same way; each thing that is is said to ‘be’ because it
is a modification of being qua being or a permanent or a transient state
or a movement of it, (10) or something else of the sort. And since
everything that is may be referred to something single and common,
each of the contrarieties also may be referred to the first differences and
contrarieties of being, whether the first differences of being are plurality
and unity, or likeness and unlikeness, or some other differences; let these
be taken as already discussed. It makes no difference whether that which
is be referred to being or to unity. (15) For even if they are not the same
but different, at least they are convertible; for that which is one is also
somehow being, and that which is being is one.
But since every pair of contraries falls to be examined by one and the
same science, and in each pair one term is the privative of the other—
though one might regarding some contraries raise the question, (20) how
they can be privately related, viz. those which have an intermediate,
e. g. unjust and just—in all such cases one must maintain that the
privation is not of the whole definition, but of the infima species. e. g. if
the just man is ‘by virtue of some permanent disposition obedient to the
laws’, the unjust man will not in every case have the whole definition
denied of him, (25) but may be merely ‘in some respect deficient in
obedience to the laws’, and in this respect the privation will attach to
him; and similarly in all other cases.
As the mathematician investigates abstractions (for before beginning
his investigation he strips off all the sensible qualities, e. g. (30) weight
and lightness, hardness and its contrary, and also heat and cold and the
other sensible contrarieties, and leaves only the quantitative and
continuous, sometimes in one, sometimes in two, sometimes in three
dimensions, and the attributes of these qua quantitative and continuous,
(35) and does not consider them in any other respect, and examines the

relative positions of some and the attributes of these, and the

commensurabilities and incommensurabilities of others, and the ratios of
others; but yet we posit one and the same science of all these things—
geometry)—the same is true with regard to being. [1061b] For the
attributes of this in so far as it is being, (5) and the contrarieties in it qua
being, it is the business of no other science than philosophy to
investigate; for to physics one would assign the study of things not qua
being, but rather qua sharing in movement; while dialectic and sophistic
deal with the attributes of things that are, but not of things qua being,
and not with being itself in so far as it is being; therefore it remains that
it is the philosopher who studies the things we have named, (10) in so far
as they are being. Since all that is is said to ‘be’ in virtue of something
single and common, though the term has many meanings, and contraries
are in the same case (for they are referred to the first contrarieties and
differences of being), and things of this sort can fall under one science,
(15) the difficulty we stated at the beginning20 appears to be solved—I

mean the question how there can be a single science of things which are
many and different in genus.

4 Since even the mathematician uses the common axioms only in a

special application, it must be the business of first philosophy to
examine the principles of mathematics also. That when equals are taken
from equals the remainders are equal, is common to all quantities, (20)
but mathematics studies a part of its proper matter which it has
detached, e. g. lines or angles or numbers or some other kind of quantity
—not, however, qua being but in so far as each of them is continuous in
one or two or three dimensions; but philosophy does not inquire about
particular subjects in so far as each of them has some attribute or other,
(25) but speculates about being, in so far as each particular thing is.—

Physics is in the same position as mathematics; for physics studies the

attributes and the principles of the things that are, (30) qua moving and
not qua being (whereas the primary science, we have said, deals with
these, only in so far as the underlying subjects are existent, and not in
virtue of any other character); and so both physics and mathematics
must be classed as parts of Wisdom.21

5 There is a principle in things, about which we cannot be deceived,

(35) but must always, on the contrary, recognize the truth—viz. that the

same thing cannot at one and the same time be and not be, or admit any
other similar pair of opposites.22 [1062a] About such matters there is
no proof in the full sense, though there is proof ad hominem. For it is not
possible to infer this truth itself from a more certain principle, yet this is
necessary if there is to be completed proof of it in the full sense.23 (5) But
he who wants to prove to the asserter of opposites that he is wrong must
get from him an admission which shall be identical with the principle
that the same thing cannot be and not be at one and the same time, but
shall not seem to be identical; for thus alone can his thesis be
demonstrated to the man who asserts that opposite statements can be
truly made about the same subject. (10) Those, then, who are to join in
argument with one another must to some extent understand one another;
for if this does not happen how are they to join in argument with one
another? Therefore every word must be intelligible and indicate
something, and not many things but only one; and if it signifies more
than one thing, (15) it must be made plain to which of these the word is
being applied. He, then, who says ‘this is and is not’ denies what he
affirms, so that what the word signifies, he says it does not signify; and
this is impossible. Therefore if ‘this is’ signifies something, one cannot
truly assert its contradictory.24
Further, if the word signifies something and this is asserted truly,25
this connexion must be necessary; and it is not possible that that which
necessarily is should ever not be; it is not possible therefore to make the
opposed affirmations and negations truly of the same subject.26 (20)
Further, if the affirmation is no more true than the negation, he who
says ‘man’ will be no more right than he who says ‘not-man’. It would
seem also that in saying the man is not a horse one would be either more
or not less right than in saying he is not a man, (25) so that one will also
be right in saying that the same person is a horse; for it was assumed to
be possible to make opposite statements equally truly. It follows then
that the same person is a man and a horse, or any other animal.27
While, then, there is no proof of these things in the full sense, (30) there
is a proof which may suffice against one who will make these
suppositions. And perhaps if one had questioned Heraclitus himself in
this way one might have forced him to confess that opposite statements
can never be true of the same subjects. But, as it is, he adopted this
opinion without understanding what his statement involves.28 But in any
case if what is said by him is true, (35) not even this itself will be true—
viz. that the same thing can at one and the same time both be and not
be. [1062b] For as, when the statements are separated, the affirmation
is no more true than the negation, in the same way—the combined and
complex statement being like a single affirmation—the whole taken as
an affirmation will be no more true than the negation.29 (5) Further, if it
is not possible to affirm anything truly, this itself will be false—the
assertion that there is no true affirmation.30 But if a true affirmation
exists, this appears to refute what is said by those who raise such
objections and utterly destroy rational discourse. (10)

6 The saying of Protagoras is like the views we have mentioned; he

said that man is the measure of all things, meaning simply that that
which seems to each man also assuredly is. If this is so, (15) it follows that
the same thing both is and is not, and is bad and good, and that the
contents of all other opposite statements are true, because often a
particular thing appears beautiful to some and the contrary of beautiful
to others, and that which appears to each man is the measure. (20) This
difficulty may be solved by considering the source of this opinion. It
seems to have arisen in some cases from the doctrine of the natural
philosophers, and in others from the fact that all men have not the same
views about the same things, but a particular thing appears pleasant to
some and the contrary of pleasant to others.31
That nothing comes to be out of that which is not, (25) but everything
out of that which is, is a dogma common to nearly all the natural
philosophers. Since, then, white cannot come to be if the perfectly white
and in no respect not-white existed before, that which becomes white
must come from that which is not white; so that it must come to be out
of that which is not (so they argue), (30) unless the same thing was at the
beginning white and not-white. But it is not hard to solve this difficulty;
for we have said in our works on physics32 in what sense things that
come to be come to be from that which is not, and in what sense from
that which is.33
But to attend equally to the opinions and the fancies of disputing
parties is childish; for clearly one of them must be mistaken. (35) And this
is evident from what happens in respect of sensation; for the same thing
never appears sweet to some and the contrary of sweet to others, unless
in the one case the sense-organ which discriminates the aforesaid
flavours has been perverted and injured. [1063a] And if this is so the
one party must be taken to be the measure, and the other must not. (5)
And I say the same of good and bad, and beautiful and ugly, and all
other such qualities. For to maintain the view we are opposing is just
like maintaining that the things that appear to people who put their
finger under their eye and make the object appear two instead of one
must be two (because they appear to be of that number) and again one
(for to those who do not interfere with their eye the one object appears
one).34
In general, (10) it is absurd to make the fact that the things of this earth
are observed to change and never to remain in the same state, the basis
of our judgment about the truth. For in pursuing the truth one must start
from the things that are always in the same state and suffer no change.
Such are the heavenly bodies; for these do not appear to be now of one
nature and again of another, (15) but are manifestly always the same and
share in no change.35
Further, if there is movement, there is also something moved, and
everything is moved out of something and into something; it follows that
that which is moved must first be in that out of which it is to be moved,
and then not be in it, and move into the other and come to be in it, (20)
and that the contradictory statements are not true at the same time, as
these thinkers assert they are.
And if the things of this earth continuously flow and move in respect
of quantity—if one were to suppose this, although it is not true—why
should they not endure in respect of quality? For the assertion of
contradictory statements about the same thing seems to have arisen
largely from the belief that the quantity of bodies does not endure, (25)
which, our opponents hold, justifies them in saying that the same thing
both is and is not four cubits long. But essence depends on quality, and
this is of determinate nature, though quantity is of indeterminate.36
Further, when the doctor orders people to take some particular food,
why do they take it? In what respect is ‘this is bread’ truer than ‘this is
not bread’? And so it would make no difference whether one ate or not.
(30) But as a matter of fact they take the food which is ordered, assuming

that they know the truth about it and that it is bread. Yet they should
not, if there were no fixed constant nature in sensible things, but all
natures moved and flowed for ever.37
Again, if we are always changing and never remain the same, (35) what
wonder is it if to us, as to the sick, things never appear the same? (For to
them also, because they are not in the same condition as when they were
well, sensible qualities do not appear alike; yet, for all that, the sensible
things themselves need not share in any change, though they produce
different, and not identical, sensations in the sick. [1063b] And the
same must surely happen to the healthy if the aforesaid38 change takes
place. (5)) But if we do not change but remain the same, there will be
something that endures.39
As for those to whom the difficulties mentioned are suggested by
reasoning, it is not easy to solve the difficulties to their satisfaction,
unless they will posit something and no longer demand a reason for it;
for it is only thus that all reasoning and all proof is accomplished; if they
posit nothing, (10) they destroy discussion and all reasoning. Therefore
with such men there is no reasoning. But as for those who are perplexed
by the traditional difficulties, it is easy to meet them and to dissipate the
causes of their perplexity. This is evident from what has been said.40
It is manifest, (15) therefore, from these arguments that contradictory
statements cannot be truly made about the same subject at one time,41
nor can contrary statements, because every contrariety depends on
privation. This is evident if we reduce the definitions of contraries to
their principle.42
Similarly, no intermediate between contraries can be predicated of one
and the same subject, of which one of the contraries is predicated. (20) If
the subject is white we shall be wrong in saying it is neither black nor
white, for then it follows that it is and is not white; for the second of the
two terms we have put together43 is true of it, and this is the
contradictory of white.44
We could not be right, then, in accepting the views either of
Heraclitus45 or of Anaxagoras. (25) If we were, it would follow that
contraries would be predicated of the same subject; for when
Anaxagoras says that in everything there is a part of everything, he says
nothing is sweet any more than it is bitter, and so with any other pair of
contraries, since in everything everything is present not potentially only,
(30) but actually and separately. And similarly all statements cannot be

false nor all true, both because of many other difficulties which might be
adduced as arising from this position, and because if all are false it will
not be true to say even this, and if all are true it will not be false to say
all are false.46 (35)

7 [1064a] Every science seeks certain principles and causes for each
of its objects—e. g. medicine and gymnastics and each of the other
sciences, whether productive or mathematical. For each of these marks
off a certain class of things for itself and busies itself about this as about
something existing and real—not however qua real; the science that does
this is another distinct from these. (5) Of the sciences mentioned each gets
somehow the ‘what’ in some class of things and tries to prove the other
truths, with more or less precision. Some get the ‘what’ through
perception, others by hypothesis; so that it is clear from an induction of
this sort that there is no demonstration of the substance or ‘what’.
There is a science of nature, and evidently it must be different both
from practical and from productive science. (10) For in the case of
productive science the principle of movement is in the producer and not
in the product, and is either an art or some other faculty. And similarly
in practical science the movement is not in the thing done, but rather in
the doers. But the science of the natural philosopher deals with the
things that have in themselves a principle of movement. (15) It is clear
from these facts, then, that natural science must be neither practical nor
productive, but theoretical (for it must fall into some one of these
classes). And since each of the sciences must somehow know the ‘what’
and use this as a principle, we must not fail to observe how the natural
philosopher should define things and how he should state the definition
of the essence—whether as akin to ‘snub’ or rather to ‘concave’. (20) For
of these the definition of ‘snub’ includes the matter of the thing, but that
of ‘concave’ is independent of the matter; for snubness is found in a
nose, (25) so that we look for its definition without eliminating the nose,
for what is snub is a concave nose. Evidently then the definition of flesh
also and of the eye and of the other parts must always be stated without
eliminating the matter.
Since there is a science of being qua being and capable of existing
apart, we must consider whether this is to be regarded as the same as
physics or rather as different. Physics deals with the things that have a
principle of movement in themselves; mathematics is theoretical, (30) and
is a science that deals with things that are at rest, but its subjects cannot
exist apart. Therefore about that which can exist apart and is unmovable
there is a science different from both of these, if there is a substance of
this nature (I mean separable and unmovable), (35) as we shall try to
prove there is.47 And if there is such a kind of thing in the world, here
must surely be the divine, and this must be the first and most dominant
principle. [1064b] Evidently, then, there are three kinds of theoretical
sciences—physics, mathematics, theology. The class of theoretical
sciences is the best, and of these themselves the last named is best; for it
deals with the highest of existing things, (5) and each science is called
better or worse in virtue of its proper object.
 One might raise the question whether the science of being qua being is
to be regarded as universal or not. Each of the mathematical sciences
deals with some one determinate class of things, but universal
mathematics applies alike to all. Now if natural substances are the first
of existing things, (10) physics must be the first of sciences; but if there is
another entity and substance, separable and unmovable, the knowledge
of it must be different and prior to physics and universal because it is
prior.48

8 Since ‘being’ in general has several senses, (15) of which one is ‘being
by accident’, we must consider first that which ‘is’ in this sense.
Evidently none of the traditional sciences busies itself about the
accidental. For neither does architecture consider what will happen to
those who are to use the house (e. g. whether they will have a painful
life in it or not), (20) nor does weaving, or shoemaking, or the
confectioner’s art, do the like; but each of these sciences considers only
what is peculiar to it, i. e. its proper end. And as for the argument that
‘when he who is musical becomes lettered he will be both at once, (25)
not having been both before; and that which is, not always having been,
must have come to be; therefore he must have at once become musical
and lettered’—this none of the recognized sciences considers, but only
sophistic; for this alone busies itself about the accidental, so that Plato is
not far wrong when he says49 that the sophist spends his time on non-
being.
That a science of the accidental is not even possible will be evident if
we try to see what the accidental really is. (30) We say that everything
either is always and of necessity (necessity not in the sense of violence,
(35) but that which we appeal to in demonstrations), or is for the most

part, or is neither for the most part, nor always and of necessity, but
merely as it chances; e. g. there might be cold in the dog-days, but this
occurs neither always and of necessity, nor for the most part, though it
might happen sometimes. [1065a] The accidental, then, is what
occurs, but not always nor of necessity, nor for the most part. Now we
have said what the accidental is, and it is obvious why there is no
science of such a thing; for all science is of that which is always or for
the most part, (5) but the accidental is in neither of these classes.
 Evidently there are not causes and principles of the accidental, of the
same kind as there are of the essential; for if there were, everything
would be of necessity. If A is when B is, and B is when C is, and if C
exists not by chance but of necessity, (10) that also of which C was cause
will exist of necessity, down to the last causatum as it is called (but this
was supposed to be accidental). Therefore all things will be of necessity,
and chance and the possibility of a thing’s either occurring or not
occurring are removed entirely from the range of events. And if the
cause be supposed not to exist but to be coming to be, the same results
will follow; everything will occur of necessity. For to-morrow’s eclipse
will occur if A occurs, (15) and A if B occurs, and B if C occurs; and in this
way if we subtract time from the limited time between now and to-
morrow we shall come sometime to the already existing condition.
Therefore since this exists, everything after this will occur of necessity,
(20) so that all things occur of necessity.

As to that which ‘is’ in the sense of being true or of being by accident,

the former depends on a combination in thought and is an affection of
thought (which is the reason why it is the principles, not of that which
‘is’ in this sense, but of that which is outside and can exist apart, that are
sought); and the latter is not necessary but indeterminate (I mean the
accidental) ; and of such a thing the causes are unordered and
indefinite.50 (25)
Adaptation to an end is found in events that happen by nature or as
the result of thought. It is ‘luck’ when one of these events51 happens by
accident. For as a thing may exist, so it may be a cause, either by its own
nature or by accident.52 Luck is an accidental cause at work in such
events adapted to an end as are usually effected in accordance with
purpose. (30) And so luck and thought are concerned with the same
sphere; for purpose cannot exist without thought. The causes from which
lucky results might happen are indeterminate; (35) and so luck is obscure
to human calculation and is a cause by accident, but in the unqualified
sense a cause of nothing.53 It is good or bad luck when the result is good
or evil; and prosperity or misfortune when the scale of the results is
large. [1065b]54
Since nothing accidental is prior to the essential, neither are accidental
causes prior. If, then, luck or spontaneity is a cause of the material
universe, reason and nature are causes before it.55

9 Some things are only actually, some potentially, (5) some potentially
and actually, what they are, viz. in one case a particular reality, in
another, characterized by a particular quantity, or the like.56 There is no
movement apart from things; for change is always according to the
categories of being, and there is nothing common to these and in no one
category. But each of the categories belongs to all its subjects in either of
two ways (e. g. ‘this-ness’—for one kind of it is ‘positive form’, (10) and
the other is ‘privation’; and as regards quality one kind is ‘white’ and the
other ‘black’, and as regards quantity one kind is ‘complete’ and the
other ‘incomplete’, and as regards spatial movement one is ‘upwards’
and the other ‘downwards’, or one thing is ‘light’ and another ‘heavy’);
so that there are as many kinds of movement and change as of being. (15)
There being a distinction in each class of things between the potential
and the completely real, I call the actuality of the potential as such,
movement. That what we say is true, is plain from the following facts.
When the ‘buildable’, in so far as it is what we mean by ‘buildable’,57
exists actually, it is being built, and this is the process of building.
Similarly with learning, healing, walking, (20) leaping, ageing, ripening.58
Movement takes place when the complete reality itself exists, and
neither earlier nor later.59 The complete reality, then, of that which
exists potentially, when it is completely real and actual, not qua itself,
but qua movable, is movement. By qua I mean this: bronze is potentially
a statue; but yet it is not the complete reality of bronze qua bronze that
is movement. (25) For it is not the same thing to be bronze and to be a
certain potency. If it were absolutely the same in its definition, the
complete reality of bronze would have been a movement. But it is not
the same. (This is evident in the case of contraries; for to be capable of
being well and to be capable of being ill are not the same—for if they
were, being well and being ill would have been the same—it is that
which underlies and is healthy or diseased, (30) whether it is moisture or
blood, that is one and the same.) And since it is not the same, as colour
and the visible are not the same, it is the complete reality of the
potential, and as potential, (35) that is movement. That it is this, and that
movement takes place when the complete reality itself exists, and
neither earlier nor later, is evident. [1066a] For each thing is capable
of being sometimes actual, sometimes not, e. g. the buildable qua
buildable; and the actuality of the buildable qua buildable is building.
For the actuality is either this—the act of building—or the house. But
when the house exists, it is no longer buildable; the buildable is what is
being built. (5) The actuality, then, must be the act of building, and this is
a movement. And the same account applies to all other movements.
That what we have said is right is evident from what all others say
about movement, and from the fact that it is not easy to define it
otherwise. For firstly one cannot put it in any other class. (10) This is
evident from what people say. Some call it otherness and inequality and
the unreal;60 none of these, however, is necessarily moved, and further,
change is not either to these or from these any more than from their
opposites. The reason why people put movement in these classes is that
it is thought to be something indefinite, and the principles in one of the
two ‘columns of contraries’ are indefinite because they are privative, (15)
for none of them is either a ‘this’ or a ‘such’ or in any of the other
categories. And the reason why movement is thought to be indefinite is
that it cannot be classed either with the potency of things or with their
actuality; for neither that which is capable of being of a certain quantity,
nor that which is actually of a certain quantity, is of necessity moved,
and movement is thought to be an actuality, (20) but incomplete; the
reason is that the potential, whose actuality it is, is incomplete. And
therefore it is hard to grasp what movement is; for it must be classed
either under privation or under potency or under absolute actuality, but
evidently none of these is possible. Therefore what remains is that it
must be what we said—both actuality and the actuality we have
described—which is hard to detect but capable of existing.61 (25)
And evidently movement is in the movable; for it is the complete
realization of this by that which is capable of causing movement. And
the actuality of that which is capable of causing movement is no other
than that of the movable. For it must be the complete reality of both. For
while a thing is capable of causing movement because it can do this, it is
a mover because it is active; but it is on the movable that it is capable of
acting, (30) so that the actuality of both is one, just as there is the same
interval from one to two as from two to one, and as the steep ascent and
the steep descent are one, but the being of them is not one; the case of
the mover and the moved is similar.62

10 The infinite is either that which is incapable of being traversed

because it is not its nature to be traversed (this corresponds to the sense
in which the voice is ‘invisible’), (35) or that which admits only of
incomplete traverse or scarcely admits of traverse, or that which, though
it naturally admits of traverse, is not traversed or limited; further, a
thing may be infinite in respect of addition or of subtraction, or both.
The infinite cannot be a separate, independent thing. [1066b] For if it
is neither a spatial magnitude nor a plurality, but infinity itself is its
substance and not an accident of it, it will be indivisible; for the divisible
is either magnitude or plurality. But if indivisible, it is not infinite,
except as the voice is invisible; but people do not mean this, (5) nor are
we examining this sort of infinite, but the infinite as untraversable.63
Further, how can an infinite exist by itself, unless number and
magnitude also exist by themselves—since infinity is an attribute of
these?64 Further, if the infinite is an accident of something else, (10) it
cannot be qua infinite an element in things, as the invisible is not an
element in speech, though the voice is invisible.65 And evidently the
infinite cannot exist actually. For then any part of it that might be taken
would be infinite (for ‘to be infinite’ and ‘the infinite’ are the same, if the
infinite is substance and not predicated of a subject). Therefore it is
either indivisible, or if it is partible, (15) it is divisible into infinites; but
the same thing cannot be many infinites (as a part of air is air, so a part
of the infinite would be infinite, if the infinite is a substance and a
principle). Therefore it must be impartible and indivisible. But the
actually infinite cannot be indivisible; for it must be of a certain
quantity. Therefore infinity belongs to its subject incidentally. (20) But if
so, then (as we have said66) it cannot be it that is a principle, but that of
which it is an accident—the air or the even number.67
This inquiry is universal; but that the infinite is not among sensible
things, is evident from the following argument. If the definition of a body
is ‘that which is bounded by planes’, there cannot be an infinite body
either sensible or intelligible; nor a separate and infinite number, (25) for
number or that which has a number is numerable.68 Concretely, the
truth is evident from the following argument. The infinite can neither be
composite nor simple. For (a) it cannot be a composite body, since the
elements are limited in multitude. For the contraries must be equal and
no one of them must be infinite; for if one of the two bodies falls at all
short of the other in potency, (30) the finite will be destroyed by the
infinite. And that each should be infinite is impossible. For body is that
which has extension in all directions, and the infinite is the boundlessly
extended, so that if the infinite is a body it will be infinite in every
direction. Nor (b) can the infinite body be one and simple—neither, (35)
as some say,69 something apart from the elements, from which they
generate these70 (for there is no such body apart from the elements; for
everything can be resolved into that of which it consists, but no such
product of analysis is observed except the simple bodies), nor fire nor
any other of the elements. [1067a] For apart from the question how
any of them could be infinite, the All, even if it is finite, cannot either be
or become any one of them, as Heraclitus says all things sometimes
become fire. The same argument applies to this as to the One which the
natural philosophers posit besides the elements. (5) For everything
changes from contrary to contrary, e. g. from hot to cold.71
Further, a sensible body is somewhere, and whole and part have the
same proper place, e. g. the whole earth and part of the earth. Therefore
if (a) the infinite body is homogeneous, it will be unmovable or it will be
always moving. But this is impossible; for why should it rather rest, (10)
or move, down, up, or anywhere, rather than anywhere else? e. g. if
there were a clod which were part of an infinite body, where will this
move or rest? The proper place of the body which is homogeneous with
it is infinite. Will the clod occupy the whole place, then? And how? [This
is impossible.] What then is its rest or its movement? It will either rest
everywhere, and then it cannot move; or it will move everywhere, and
then it cannot be still. But (b) if the All has unlike parts, (15) the proper
places of the parts are unlike also, and, firstly, the body of the All is not
one except by contact, and, secondly, the parts will be either finite or
infinite in variety of kind. Finite they cannot be; for then those of one
kind will be infinite in quantity and those of another will not (if the All
is infinite), e. g. fire or water would be infinite, but such an infinite
element would be destruction to the contrary elements. But if the parts
are infinite and simple, (20) their places also are infinite and there will be
an infinite number of elements; and if this is impossible, and the places
are finite, the All also must be limited.72
In general, there cannot be an infinite body and also a proper place for
bodies, if every sensible body has either weight or lightness. For it must
move either towards the middle or upwards, (25) and the infinite—either
the whole or the half of it—cannot do either; for how will you divide it?
Or how will part of the infinite be down and part up, or part extreme
and part middle? Further, every sensible body is in a place, and there are
six kinds of place,73 but these cannot exist in an infinite body. In
general, if there cannot be an infinite place, (30) there cannot be an
infinite body; [and there cannot be an infinite place,] for that which is in
a place is somewhere, and this means either up or down or in one of the
other directions, and each of these is a limit.74
The infinite is not the same in the sense that it is a single thing
whether exhibited in distance or in movement or in time, but the
posterior among these is called infinite in virtue of its relation to the
prior; i. e. a movement is called infinite in virtue of the distance covered
by the spatial movement or alteration or growth, (35) and a time is called
infinite because of the movement which occupies it.75

11 [1067b] Of things which change, some change in an accidental

sense, like that in which ‘the musical’ may be said to walk, and others
are said, without qualification, to change, because something in them
changes, i. e. the things that change in parts; the body becomes healthy,
because the eye does. But there is something which is by its own nature
moved directly, (5) and this is the essentially movable. The same
distinction is found in the case of the mover; for it causes movement
either in an accidental sense or in respect of a part of itself or essentially.
There is something that directly causes movement; and there is
something that is moved, also the time in which it is moved, and that
from which and that into which it is moved.76 But the forms and the
affections and the place, which are the terminals of the movement of
moving things, (10) are unmovable, e. g. knowledge or heat; it is not heat
that is a movement, but heating.77 Change which is not accidental is
found not in all things, but between contraries, and their intermediates,
and between contradictories. We may convince ourselves of this by
induction.78
That which changes changes either from positive into positive, (15) or
from negative into negative, or from positive into negative, or from
negative into positive. (By positive I mean that which is expressed by an
affirmative term.) Therefore there must be three changes; for that from
negative into negative is not change, (20) because (since the terms are
neither contraries nor contradictories) there is no opposition. The change
from the negative into the positive which is its contradictory is
generation—absolute change absolute generation, and partial change
partial generation; and the change from positive to negative is
destruction—absolute change absolute destruction, and partial change
partial destruction. (25) If, then, ‘that which is not’ has several senses,79
and movement can attach neither to that which implies putting together
or separating,80 nor to that which implies potency and is opposed to that
which is in the full sense81 (true, the not-white or not-good can be
moved incidentally, for the not-white might be a man; but that which is
not a particular thing at all can in no wise be moved), that which is not
cannot be moved (and if this is so, (30) generation cannot be movement;
for that which is not is generated; for even if we admit to the full that its
generation is accidental, yet it is true to say that ‘not-being’ is predicable
of that which is generated absolutely).82 Similarly rest cannot belong to
that which is not. These consequences, then, turn out to be awkward,
and also this, that everything that is moved is in a place, (35) but that
which is not is not in a place; for then it would be somewhere. Nor is
destruction movement; for the contrary of movement is movement or
rest, but the contrary of destruction is generation. Since every movement
is a change, and the kinds of change are the three named above,83 and of
these those in the way of generation and destruction are not movements,
and these are the changes from a thing to its contradictory, it follows
that only the change from positive into positive is movement. [1068a]
And the positives are either contrary or intermediate (for even privation
must be regarded as contrary), (5) and are expressed by an affirmative
term, e. g. ‘naked’ or ‘toothless’ or ‘black’.

12 If the categories are classified as substance, quality, place, acting

or being acted on, relation, quantity, there must be three kinds of
movement—of quality, of quantity, of place. There is no movement in
respect of substance (because there is nothing contrary to substance), (10)
nor of relation (for it is possible that if one of two things in relation
changes, the relative term which was true of the other thing ceases to be
true, though this other does not change at all—so that their movement is
accidental), nor of agent and patient, or mover and moved, because
there is no movement of movement nor generation of generation, (15)
nor, in general, change of change. For there might be movement of
movement in two senses; (1) movement might be the subject moved, as
a man is moved because he changes from pale to dark—so that on this
showing movement, too, may be either heated or cooled or change its
place or increase. But this is impossible; for change is not a subject. Or
(2) some other subject might change from change into some other form
of existence (e. g. a man from disease into health). (20) But this also is not
possible except incidentally. For every movement is change from
something into something. (25) (And so are generation and destruction;
only, these are changes into things opposed in certain ways while the
other, movement, is into things opposed in another way.84) A thing
changes, then, at the same time from health into illness, and from this
changes itself into another. Clearly, then, if it has become ill, it will have
changed into whatever may be the other change concerned (though it
may be at rest85), and, further, into a determinate change each time; and
that new change will be from something definite into some other
definite thing; therefore it will be the opposite change, (30) that of
growing well. We answer that this happens only incidentally; e. g. there
is a change from the process of recollection to that of forgetting, only
because that to which the process attaches is changing, now into a state of
knowledge, now into one of ignorance.
Further, the process will go on to infinity, if there is to be change of
change and coming to be of coming to be. What is true of the later, (35)
then, must be true of the earlier; e. g. [1068b] if the simple coming to
be was once coming to be, that which comes to be something was also
once coming to be; therefore that which simply comes to be something
was not yet in existence, but something which was coming to be coming
to be something was already in existence. And this was once coming to
be, so that at that time it was not yet coming to be something else. Now
since of an infinite number of terms there is not a first, the first in this
series will not exist, and therefore no following term will exist. (5)
Nothing, then, can either come to be or move or change. Further, that
which is capable of a movement is also capable of the contrary
movement and rest, and that which comes to be also ceases to be.
Therefore that which is coming to be is ceasing to be when it has come
to be coming to be; for it cannot cease to be as soon as it is coming to be
coming to be, nor after it has come to be; for that which is ceasing to be
must be. (10) Further, there must be a matter underlying that which
comes to be and changes. What will this be, then—what is it that
becomes movement or becoming, as body or soul is that which suffers
alteration? And, again, what is it that they move into? For it must be the
movement or becoming of something from something into something.
How, then, can this condition be fulfilled? There can be no learning of
learning, and therefore no becoming of becoming.86
Since there is not movement either of substance or of relation or of
activity and passivity, (15) it remains that movement is in respect of
quality and quantity and place; for each of these admits of contrariety.
By quality I mean not that which is in the substance (for even the
differentia is a quality), but the passive quality, in virtue of which a
thing is said to be acted on or to be incapable of being acted on.87 The
immobile is either that which is wholly incapable of being moved, (20) or
that which is moved with difficulty in a long time or begins slowly, or
that which is of a nature to be moved and can be moved but is not
moved when and where and as it would naturally be moved. This alone
among immobiles I describe as being at rest; for rest is contrary to
movement, so that it must be a privation, in that which is receptive of
movement.88
Things which are in one proximate place are together in place, (25) and
things which are in different places are apart: things whose extremes are
together touch: that at which a changing thing, if it changes continuously
according to its nature, naturally arrives before it arrives at the extreme
into which it is changing, is between.89 That which is most distant in a
straight line is contrary in place. (30) That is successive which is after the
beginning (the order being determined by position or form or in some
other way) and has nothing of the same class between it and that which
it succeeds, e. g. lines in the case of a line, units in that of a unit, or a
house in that of a house. (There is nothing to prevent a thing of some
other class from being between.) For the successive succeeds something
and is something later; ‘one’ does not succeed ‘two’, (35) nor the first day
of the month the second. [1069a] That which, being successive,
touches, is contiguous. (Since all change is between opposites, and these
are either contraries or contradictories, and there is no middle term for
contradictories, clearly that which is between is between contraries.) The
continuous is a species of the contiguous. (5) I call two things continuous
when the limits of each, with which they touch and by which they are
kept together, become one and the same, so that plainly the continuous
is found in the things out of which a unity naturally arises in virtue of
their contact. And plainly the successive is the first of these concepts (for
the successive does not necessarily touch, but that which touches is
successive; and if a thing is continuous, (10) it touches, but if it touches, it
is not necessarily continuous; and in things in which there is no
touching, there is no organic unity); therefore a point is not the same as
a unit; for contact belongs to points, but not to units, which have only
succession; and there is something between two of the former, but not
between two of the latter.90

1 Cf. Bk. i. 3–10.

2 Cf. ii. 996a 18–b 26.

3 Cf. ii. 996b 26–997a 15.

4 Cf. ii. 997a 15–25.

5 Cf. ii. 997a 25–34.

6 The material, formal, efficient, and final causes (Phys. ii. 3).

7 Cf. ii. 996a 21–b 1.

8 Cf. ii. 997a 34–998a 19.

9 Cf. ii. 998b 15.

10 Cf. ii. 998a 20–999a 23.

11 1059b 24–38.

12 It must be remembered that A. is only stating common opinions and the consequent
difficulties.
13 Cf. ii. 999a 24–b 24.

14 Cf. ii. 1000a 5–1001a 3.

15 The Pythagoreans and Plato.

16 Cf. ii. 1001a 4–1002 b 11.

17 Cf. ii. 1003a 5–17.

18 Cf. ii. 999a 24–b 24.

19 Cf. ii. 999b 24–1000a 4.

20 1059a 20–23. Cf. iv. 2. The question raised in 1059a 29–34 has also incidentally been
answered.
21 Cf. iv. 1005a 19–b 2, xi. 1059a 23–26.

22 Cf. iv. 1005b 8–34.

23 Cf. iv. 1006a 5–18.

24 Cf. iv. 1006a 18–1007a 20.

25 sc. of that of which the word is asserted.

26 Cf. iv. 1006b 28–34.

27 Cf. iv. 1007b 18–1008a 2.

28 Cf. iv. 1005b 23–26.

29 Cf. iv. 1008a 6–7.

30 Cf. iv. 1012b 13–18.

31 Cf. iv. 1009a 6–16, 22–30.

32 Phys. i. 7–9, De Gen. et Corr. i. 317b 14–319b 5.

33 Cf. iv. 1009a 30–36.

34 Cf. iv. 1010b 1–26, 1011a 31–4.

35 Cf. iv. 1010a 25–32.

36 Cf. iv. 1010a 22–25.

37 Cf. iv. 1008b 12–27.

38 Cf. 1063a 35.

39 Cf. iv. 1009a 38–b 33.

40 In 1062b 20–1063b 7.

41 Cf. iv. 1009a 16–22, 1011a 3–16.

42 Cf. iv. 1011b 15–22.

43 sc. ‘not white’ and ‘not black’.

44 Cf. iv. 1011b 23–1012a 24.

45 Cf. 1062a 31–b 2.

46 Cf. iv. 1012a 24–b 18.

47 Cf. v. 6, 7.
48 Cf. vi. 1, xi. 1059a 26–29.

49 Cf. Sophistes 254 A.

50 Cf. vi. 2–4.

51 sc. which happen usually by nature or as the result of thought.

52 Cf. Phys. ii. 196b 21–25.

53 Cf. Phys. ii. 197a 5–14.

54 Cf. Phys. ii. 197a 25–27.

55 Cf. Phys. ii. 198a 5–13.

56 Cf. Phys. iii. 200b 26–28.

57 i. e. not as so much matter, but as matter capable of being made into a building.

58 Cf. Phys. iii. 200b 32–201a 19.

59 Cf. Phys. iii. 201b 6, 7.

60 The Pythagoreans and Platonists are meant; Cf. Pl. Soph. 256 D, Tim. 57 E ff.

61 With 1065b 22–1066a 27 cf. Phys. iii. 201a 27–202a 3.

62 Cf. Phys. iii. 202a 13–21.

63 Cf. Phys. iii. 204a 3–14.

64 Cf. Phys. iii. 204a 17–19.

65 Cf. Phys. iii. 204a 14–17.

66 l. 9.

67 Cf. Phys. iii. 204a 20–32.

68 Cf. Phys. iii. 204a 34–b 8.

69 Anaximander is meant.

70 Cf. Phys. iii. 204b 10–24.

71 Cf. Phys. iii. 204b 32–205a 7.

72 Cf. Phys. iii, 205a 29–32.

73 sc. up and down, right and left, before and behind.

74 Cf. Phys. iii. 205b 24–206a 7.

75 Cf. Phys. iii. 207b 21–25.

76 Cf. Phys. v. 224a 21–b 1.

77 Cf. Phys. v. 224b 11–16.

78 Cf. Phys. v. 224b 28–30.

79 Cf. vi. 1026a 33–b 2, 1027b 18–19.

80 i. e. to ‘that which is not’ in the sense of ‘the judgment which is false’.

81 i. e. a thing cannot be moved when it does not exist actually, but exists potentially.

82 i. e. even if the not-being (privation) which is the starting-point of generation can exist only as
an accident of prime matter, still not-being is the starting-point of absolute generation (i. e.
generation of a substance, not of a quality).
83 In 1067b 19.

84 Change between contraries is movement, change between contradictories is generation or

destruction.
85 This is possible, though excluded by the theory in question.

86 With 1067b 14–1068b 15 Cf. Phys. v. 225a 3–226a 16.

87 Cf. Phys. v. 226a 23–29.

88 Cf. Phys. v. 226b 10–16.

89 Cf. Phys. v. 226b 21–25.

90 Cf. Phys. v. 226b 32–227a 31.

 BOOK Λ (XII)

1 The subject of our inquiry is substance; for the principles and the
causes we are seeking are those of substances. For if the universe is of
the nature of a whole, (20) substance is its first part; and if it coheres
merely by virtue of serial succession, on this view also substance is first,
and is succeeded by quality, and then by quantity. At the same time
these latter are not even being in the full sense, but are qualities and
movements of it—or else even the not-white and the not-straight would
be being; at least we say even these are, e. g. ‘there is a not-white’.1
Further, (25) none of the categories other than substance can exist apart.
And the early philosophers also in practice testify to the primacy of
substance; for it was of substance that they sought the principles and
elements and causes. The thinkers of the present2 day tend to rank
universals as substances (for genera are universals, and these they tend
to describe as principles and substances, owing to the abstract nature of
their inquiry); but the thinkers of old ranked particular things as
substances, e. g. fire and earth, not what is common to both, body.
There are three kinds of substance—one that is sensible (of which one
subdivision is eternal and another is perishable; the latter is recognized
by all men, (30) and includes e. g. plants and animals), of which we must
grasp the elements, whether one or many; and another that is
immovable, and this certain thinkers assert to be capable of existing
apart, (35) some dividing it into two, others identifying the Forms and the
objects of mathematics, and others positing, of these two, only the
objects of mathematics.3 The former two kinds of substance are the
subject of physics (for they imply movement); but the third kind belongs
to another science, if there is no principle common to it and to the other
kinds. [1069b]

2 Sensible substance is changeable. Now if change proceeds from

opposites or from intermediates, and not from all opposites (for the
voice is not-white [but it does not therefore change to white]), (5) but
from the contrary, there must be something underlying which changes
into the contrary state; for the contraries do not change. Further,
something persists, but the contrary does not persist; there is, then, some
third thing besides the contraries, viz. the matter. Now since changes are
of four kinds—either in respect of the ‘what’ or of the quality or of the
quantity or of the place, (10) and change in respect of ‘thisness’ is simple
generation and destruction, and change in quantity is increase and
diminution, and change in respect of an affection is alteration, and
change of place is motion, changes will be from given states into those
contrary to them in these several respects. The matter, then, which
changes must be capable of both states. (15) And since that which ‘is’ has
two senses, we must say that everything changes from that which is
potentially to that which is actually, e. g. from potentially white to
actually white, and similarly in the case of increase and diminution.
Therefore not only can a thing come to be, incidentally, out of that
which is not, but also all things come to be out of that which is, but is
potentially, and is not actually. And this is the ‘One’ of Anaxagoras; for
instead of ‘all things were together’—and the ‘Mixture’ of Empedocles
and Anaximander and the account given by Democritus—it is better to
say ‘all things were together potentially but not actually’. (20) Therefore
these thinkers seem to have had some notion of matter. Now all things
that change have matter, (25) but different matter; and of eternal things
those which are not generable but are movable in space have matter—
not matter for generation, however, but for motion from one place to
another.
One might raise the question from what sort of non-being generation
proceeds; for ‘non-being’ has three senses. If, then, one form of nonbeing
exists potentially, still it is not by virtue of a potentiality for any and
every thing, but different things come from different things; nor is it
satisfactory to say that ‘all things were together’; for they differ in their
matter, (30) since otherwise why did an infinity of things come to be, and
not one thing? For ‘reason’ is one, so that if matter also were one, that
must have come to be in actuality which the matter was in potency.4
The causes and the principles, then, are three, two being the pair of
contraries of which one is definition and form and the other is privation,
and the third being the matter.
3 Note, next, that neither the matter nor the form comes to be—and I
mean the last matter and form. (35) For everything that changes is
something and is changed by something and into something. [1070a]
That by which it is changed is the immediate mover; that which is
changed, the matter; that into which it is changed, the form. The
process, then, will go on to infinity, if not only the bronze comes to be
round but also the round or the bronze comes to be; therefore there must
be a stop.
Note, next, that each substance comes into being out of something that
shares its name. (Natural objects and other things both rank as
substances.) (5) For things come into being either by art or by nature or
by luck or by spontaneity. Now art is a principle of movement in
something other than the thing moved, nature is a principle in the thing
itself (for man begets man), and the other causes are privations of these
two.
There are three kinds of substance—the matter, which is a ‘this’ in
appearance (for all things that are characterized by contact and not by
organic unity are matter and substratum, (10) e. g. fire, flesh, head; for
these are all matter, (19) and the last matter is the matter of that which is
in the full sense substance); the nature, (11) which is a ‘this’ or positive
state towards which movement takes place; and again, thirdly, the
particular substance which is composed of these two, e. g. Socrates or
Callias. Now in some cases the ‘this’ does not exist apart from the
composite substance, e. g. the form of house does not so exist, (15) unless
the art of building exists apart (nor is there generation and destruction
of these forms, but it is in another way that the house apart from its
matter, and health, and all ideals of art, exist and do not exist); but if the
‘this’ exists apart from the concrete thing, it is only in the case of natural
objects. And so Plato was not far wrong when he said that there are as
many Forms as there are kinds of natural object (if there are Forms
distinct from the things of this earth). (21) The moving causes exist as
things preceding the effects, but causes in the sense of definitions are
simultaneous with their effects. For when a man is healthy, then health
also exists; and the shape of a bronze sphere exists at the same time as
the bronze sphere. (25) (But we must examine whether any form also
survives afterwards. For in some cases there is nothing to prevent this;
e. g. the soul may be of this sort—not all soul but the reason; for
presumably it is impossible that all soul should survive.) Evidently then
there is no necessity, on this ground at least, for the existence of the
Ideas. For man is begotten by man, a given man by an individual father;
and similarly in the arts; for the medical art is the formal cause of
health. (30)

4 The causes and the principles of different things are in a sense

different, but in a sense, if one speaks universally and analogically, they
are the same for all. For one might raise the question whether the
principles and elements are different or the same for substances and for
relative terms, (35) and similarly in the case of each of the categories. But
it would be paradoxical if they were the same for all. For then from the
same elements will proceed relative terms and substances. [1070b]
What then will this common element be? For (1) (a) there is nothing
common to and distinct from substance and the other categories, viz.
those which are predicated; but an element is prior to the things of
which it is an element. But again (b) substance is not an element in
relative terms, nor is any of these an element in substance. Further, (2)
how can all things have the same elements? For none of the elements
can be the same as that which is composed of elements, (5) e. g. b or a
cannot be the same as ba. (None, therefore, of the intelligibles, e. g.
being or unity, is an element; for these are predicable of each of the
compounds as well.) None of the elements, then, will be either a
substance or a relative term; but it must be one or other. All things, then,
have not the same elements.
Or, as we are wont to put it, (10) in a sense they have and in a sense
they have not; e. g. perhaps the elements of perceptible bodies are, as
form, the hot, and in another sense the cold, which is the privation; and,
as matter, that which directly and of itself potentially has these
attributes; and substances comprise both these and the things composed
of these, of which these are the principles, or any unity which is
produced out of the hot and the cold, e. g. flesh or bone; for the product
must be different from the elements. (15) These things then have the same
elements and principles (though specifically different things have
specifically different elements); but all things have not the same
elements in this sense, but only analogically; i. e. one might say that
there are three principles—the form, the privation, and the matter. But
each of these is different for each class; e. g. in colour they are white, (20)
black, and surface, and in day and night they are light, darkness, and air.
Since not only the elements present in a thing are causes, but also
something external, i. e. the moving cause, clearly while ‘principle’ and
‘element’ are different both are causes, and ‘principle’ is divided into
these two kinds5 and that which acts as producing movement or rest is a
principle and a substance. Therefore analogically there are three
elements, (25) and four causes and principles; but the elements are
different in different things, and the proximate moving cause is different
for different things. Health, disease, body; the moving cause is the
medical art. Form, disorder of a particular kind, bricks; the moving cause
is the building art. And since the moving cause in the case of natural
things is—for man, (30) for instance, man, and in the products of thought
the form or its contrary, there will be in a sense three causes, while in a
sense there are four. For the medical art is in some sense health, and the
building art is the form of the house, and man begets man;6 further,
besides these there is that which as first of all things moves all things. (35)

5 Some things can exist apart and some cannot, and it is the former
that are substances. [1071a] And therefore all things have the same
causes,7 because, without substances, modifications and movements do
not exist. Further, these causes will probably be soul and body, or reason
and desire and body.
And in yet another way, (5) analogically identical things are principles,
i. e. actuality and potency; but these also are not only different for
different things but also apply in different ways to them. For in some
cases the same thing exists at one time actually and at another
potentially, e. g. wine or flesh or man does so. (And these two fall under
the above-named causes.8 For the form exists actually, if it can exist
apart, and so does the complex of form and matter, (10) and the privation,
e. g. darkness or disease; but the matter exists potentially; for this is that
which can become qualified either by the form or by the privation.) But
the distinction of actuality and potentiality applies in another way to
cases where the matter of cause and of effect is not the same, in some of
which cases the form is not the same but different; e. g. the cause of man
is (1) the elements in man (viz. fire and earth as matter, and the peculiar
form), and further (2) something else outside, (15) i. e. the father, and (3)
besides these the sun and its oblique course, which are neither matter
nor form nor privation of man nor of the same species with him, but
moving causes.
Further, one must observe that some causes can be expressed in
universal terms, and some cannot. The proximate principles of all things
are the ‘this’ which is proximate in actuality, and another which is
proximate in potentiality.9 The universal causes, then, (20) of which we
spoke10 do not exist. For it is the individual that is the originative
principle of the individuals. For while man is the originative principle of
man universally, there is no universal man, but Peleus is the originative
principle of Achilles, and your father of you, and this particular b of this
particular ba, though b in general is the originative principle of ba taken
without qualification.
Further, if the causes of substances are the causes of all things, yet
different things have different causes and elements, as was said11; the
causes of things that are not in the same class, (25) e. g. of colours and
sounds, of substances and quantities, are different except in an
analogical sense; and those of things in the same species are different,
not in species, but in the sense that the causes of different individuals
are different, your matter and form and moving cause being different
from mine, while in their universal definition they are the same. And if
we inquire what are the principles or elements of substances and
relations and qualities—whether they are the same or different—clearly
when the names of the causes are used in several senses the causes of
each are the same, (30) but when the senses are distinguished the causes
are not the same but different, except that in the following senses the
causes of all are the same. They are (1) the same or analogous in this
sense, that matter, form, privation, and the moving cause are common to
all things; and (2) the causes of substances may be treated as causes of
all things in this sense, that when substances are removed all things are
removed; further, (35) (3) that which is first in respect of complete reality
is the cause of all things. But in another sense there are different first
causes, viz. all the contraries which are neither generic nor ambiguous
terms; and, further, the matters of different things are different.
[1071b] We have stated, then, what are the principles of sensible
things and how many they are, and in what sense they are the same and
in what sense different.

6 Since there were12 three kinds of substance, two of them physical

and one unmovable, regarding the latter we must assert that it is
necessary that there should be an eternal unmovable substance. For
substances are the first of existing things, and if they are all destructible,
(5) all things are destructible. But it is impossible that movement should

either have come into being or cease to be (for it must always have
existed), or that time should. For there could not be a before and an
after if time did not exist. Movement also is continuous, then, in the
sense in which time is; for time is either the same thing as movement or
an attribute of movement. And there is no continuous movement except
movement in place, (10) and of this only that which is circular is
continuous.
But if there is something which is capable of moving things or acting
on them, but is not actually doing so, there will not necessarily be
movement; for that which has a potency need not exercise it. Nothing,
then, is gained even if we suppose eternal substances, as the believers in
the Forms do, unless there is to be in them some principle which can
cause change; nay, (15) even this is not enough, nor is another substance
besides the Forms enough; for if it is not to act, there will be no
movement. Further, even if it acts, this will not be enough, if its essence
is potency; for there will not be eternal movement, since that which is
potentially may possibly not be. There must, (20) then, be such a
principle, whose very essence is actuality. Further, then, these
substances must be without matter; for they must be eternal, if anything
is eternal. Therefore they must be actuality.
Yet there is a difficulty; for it is thought that everything that acts is
able to act, but that not everything that is able to act acts, (25) so that the
potency is prior. But if this is so, nothing that is need be; for it is possible
for all things to be capable of existing but not yet to exist.
Yet if we follow the theologians who generate the world from night, or
the natural philosophers who say that ‘all things were together’,13 the
same impossible result ensues. For how will there be movement, if there
is no actually existing cause? Wood will surely not move itself—the
carpenter’s art must act on it; nor will the menstrual blood nor the earth
set themselves in motion, (30) but the seeds must act on the earth and the
semen on the menstrual blood.
This is why some suppose eternal actuality—e. g. Leucippus14 and
Plato15; for they say there is always movement. But why and what this
movement is they do not say, nor, if the world moves in this way or that,
do they tell us the cause of its doing so. Now nothing is moved at
random, (35) but there must always be something present to move it; e. g.
as a matter of fact a thing moves in one way by nature, and in another
by force or through the influence of reason or something else. (Further,
what sort of movement is primary? This makes a vast difference.) But
again for Plato, at least, it is not permissible to name here that which he
sometimes supposes to be the source of movement—that which moves
itself;16 for the soul is later, and coeval with the heavens, according to
his account.17 [1072a] To suppose potency prior to actuality, then, is
in a sense right, and in a sense not; and we have specified these senses.18
That actuality is prior is testified by Anaxagoras (for his ‘reason’ is
actuality) and by Empedocles in his doctrine of love and strife, (5) and by
those who say that there is always movement, e. g. Leucippus. Therefore
chaos or night did not exist for an infinite time, but the same things have
always existed (either passing through a cycle of changes or obeying
some other law), since actuality is prior to potency. If, then, there is a
constant cycle, (10) something must always remain,19 acting in the same
way. And if there is to be generation and destruction, there must be
something else20 which is always acting in different ways. This must,
then, act in one way in virtue of itself, and in another in virtue of
something else—either of a third agent, therefore, or of the first. Now it
must be in virtue of the first. For otherwise this again causes the motion
both of the second agent and of the third. Therefore it is better to say
‘the first’. (15) For it was the cause of eternal uniformity; and something
else is the cause of variety, and evidently both together are the cause of
eternal variety. This, accordingly, is the character which the motions
actually exhibit. What need then is there to seek for other principles?
7 Since (1) this is a possible account of the matter, and (2) if it were
not true, the world would have proceeded out of night and ‘all things
together’ and out of non-being, these difficulties may be taken as solved.
(20) There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing

motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only
but in fact. Therefore the first heaven21 must be eternal. There is
therefore also something which moves it. And since that which is moved
and moves is intermediate, there is something which moves without
being moved, being eternal, substance, (25) and actuality. And the object
of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without
being moved. The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same.
For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the
primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion
rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point. (30)
And thought is moved by the object of thought, and one of the two
columns of opposites is in itself the object of thought; and in this,
substance is first, and in substance, that which is simple and exists
actually. (The one and the simple are not the same; for ‘one’ means a
measure, but ‘simple’ means that the thing itself has a certain nature.)
But the beautiful, also, and that which is in itself desirable are in the
same column; and the first in any class is always best, (35) or analogous to
the best.
[1072b] That a final cause may exist among unchangeable entities is
shown by the distinction of its meanings. For the final cause is (a) some
being for whose good an action is done, and (b) something at which the
action aims; and of these the latter exists among unchangeable entities
though the former does not. The final cause, then, produces motion as
being loved, but all other things move by being moved.
Now if something is moved it is capable of being otherwise than as it
is. (5) Therefore if its actuality is the primary form of spatial motion, then
in so far as it is subject to change, in this respect it is capable of being
otherwise—in place, even if not in substance. But since there is
something which moves while itself unmoved, existing actually, this can
in no way be otherwise than as it is. For motion in space is the first of
the kinds of change, and motion in a circle the first kind of spatial
motion; and this the first mover produces.22 (10) The first mover, then,
exists of necessity; and in so far as it exists by necessity, its mode of
being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle. For the necessary
has all these senses—that which is necessary perforce because it is
contrary to the natural impulse, that without which the good is
impossible, and that which cannot be otherwise but can exist only in a
single way.
On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of
nature. And it is a life such as the best which we enjoy, (15) and enjoy for
but a short time (for it is ever in this state, which we cannot be), since
its actuality is also pleasure. (And for this reason23 are waking,
perception, and thinking most pleasant, and hopes and memories are so
on account of these.) And thinking in itself deals with that which is best
in itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is
best in the fullest sense. And thought thinks on itself because it shares
the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes an object of thought
in coming into contact with and thinking its objects, (20) so that thought
and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of
receiving the object of thought, i. e. the essence, is thought. But it is
active when it possesses this object. Therefore the possession rather than
the receptivity is the divine element which thought seems to contain,
and the act of contemplation is what is most pleasant and best. If, then,
God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this
compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. (25) And
God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of
thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent
actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a
living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and
eternal belong to God; for this is God.
Those who suppose, as the Pythagoreans24 and Speusippus25 do, (30)
that supreme beauty and goodness are not present in the beginning,
because the beginnings both of plants and of animals are causes, but
beauty and completeness are in the effects of these,26 are wrong in their
opinion. For the seed comes from other individuals which are prior and
complete, (35) and the first thing is not seed but the complete being; e. g.
we must say that before the seed there is a man—not the man produced
from the seed, but another from whom the seed comes. [1073a]
 It is clear then from what has been said that there is a substance
which is eternal and unmovable and separate from sensible things. It has
been shown also that this substance cannot have any magnitude but is
without parts and indivisible (for it produces movement through infinite
time, (5) but nothing finite has infinite power; and, while every
magnitude is either infinite or finite, it cannot, for the above reason,
have finite magnitude, and it cannot have infinite magnitude because
there is no infinite magnitude at all). (10) But it has also been shown that
it is impassive and unalterable; for all the other changes are posterior
to27 change of place.

8 It is clear, then, why these things are as they are. But we must not
ignore the question whether we have to suppose one such substance or
more than one, and if the latter, how many; we must also mention, (15)
regarding the opinions expressed by others, that they have said nothing
about the number of the substances that can even be clearly stated. For
the theory of Ideas has no special discussion of the subject; for those
who speak of Ideas say the Ideas are numbers, and they speak of
numbers now as unlimited, now28 as limited by the number 10; but as
for the reason why there should be just so many numbers, (20) nothing is
said with any demonstrative exactness. We however must discuss the
subject, starting from the presuppositions and distinctions we have
mentioned. The first principle or primary being is not movable either in
itself or accidentally, (25) but produces the primary eternal and single
movement. But since that which is moved must be moved by something,
and the first mover must be in itself unmovable, and eternal movement
must be produced by something eternal and a single movement by a
single thing, and since we see that besides the simple spatial movement
of the universe, which we say the first and unmovable substance
produces, (30) there are other spatial movements—those of the planets—
which are eternal (for a body which moves in a circle is eternal and
unresting; we have proved these points in the physical treatises29), each
of these movements also must be caused by a substance both unmovable
in itself and eternal. For the nature of the stars30 is eternal just because
it is a certain kind of substance, (35) and the mover is eternal and prior to
the moved, and that which is prior to a substance must be a substance.
Evidently, then, there must be substances which are of the same number
as the movements of the stars, and in their nature eternal, and in
themselves unmovable, and without magnitude, for the reason before
mentioned.31
That the movers are substances, then, and that one of these is first and
another second according to the same order as the movements of the
stars, is evident. [1073b] But in the number of the movements we
reach a problem which must be treated from the standpoint of that one
of the mathematical sciences which is most akin to philosophy—viz. (5)
of astronomy; for this science speculates about substance which is
perceptible but eternal, but the other mathematical sciences, i. e.
arithmetic and geometry, treat of no substance. That the movements are
more numerous than the bodies that are moved is evident to those who
have given even moderate attention to the matter; for each of the planets
has more than one movement. (10) But as to the actual number of these
movements, we now—to give some notion of the subject—quote what
some of the mathematicians say, that our thought may have some
definite number to grasp; but, for the rest, we must partly investigate for
ourselves, (15) partly learn from other investigators, and if those who
study this subject form an opinion contrary to what we have now stated,
we must esteem both parties indeed, but follow the more accurate.
Eudoxus supposed that the motion of the sun or of the moon involves,
in either case, three spheres, of which the first is the sphere of the fixed
stars, and the second moves in the circle which runs along the middle of
the zodiac, (20) and the third in the circle which is inclined across the
breadth of the zodiac; but the circle in which the moon moves is inclined
at a greater angle than that in which the sun moves. And the motion of
the planets involves, in each case, four spheres, and of these also the first
and second are the same as the first two mentioned above (for the
sphere of the fixed stars is that which moves all the other spheres, (25)
and that which is placed beneath this and has its movement in the circle
which bisects the zodiac is common to all), but the poles of the third
sphere of each planet are in the circle which bisects the zodiac, and the
motion of the fourth sphere is in the circle which is inclined at an angle
to the equator of the third sphere; and the poles of the third sphere are
different for each of the other planets, (30) but those of Venus and
Mercury are the same.
Callippus made the position of the spheres the same as Eudoxus did,
but while he assigned the same number as Eudoxus did to Jupiter and to
Saturn, he thought two more spheres should be added to the sun and
two to the moon, (35) if one is to explain the observed facts; and one
more to each of the other planets.
But it is necessary, if all the spheres combined are to explain the
observed facts, that for each of the planets there should be other spheres
(one fewer than those hitherto assigned) which counteract those already
mentioned and bring back to the same position the outermost sphere of
the star which in each case is situated below32 the star in question; for
only thus can all the forces at work produce the observed motion of the
planets. [1074a] Since, then, the spheres involved in the movement of
the planets themselves are—eight for Saturn and Jupiter and twenty-five
for the others, (5) and of these only those involved in the movement of
the lowest-situated planet need not be counteracted, the spheres which
counteract those of the outermost two planets will be six in number, and
the spheres which counteract those of the next four planets will be
sixteen; therefore the number of all the spheres—both those which move
the planets and those which counteract these—will be fifty-five. (10) And
if one were not to add to the moon and to the sun the movements we
mentioned,33 the whole set of spheres will be forty-seven in number.
Let this, then, be taken as the number of the spheres, so that the
unmovable substances and principles also may probably be taken as just
so many; the assertion of necessity must be left to more powerful
thinkers. (15) But if there can be no spatial movement which does not
conduce to the moving of a star, and if further every being and every
substance which is immune from change and in virtue of itself has
attained to the best must be considered an end, there can be no other
being apart from these we have named, but this must be the number of
the substances. (20) For if there are others, they will cause change as
being a final cause of movement; but there cannot be other movements
besides those mentioned. And it is reasonable to infer this from a
consideration of the bodies that are moved; for if everything that moves
is for the sake of that which is moved, (25) and every movement belongs
to something that is moved, no movement can be for the sake of itself or
of another movement, but all the movements must be for the sake of the
stars. For if there is to be a movement for the sake of a movement, this
latter also will have to be for the sake of something else; so that since
there cannot be an infinite regress, (30) the end of every movement will
be one of the divine bodies which move through the heaven.
(Evidently there is but one heaven. For if there are many heavens as
there are many men, the moving principles, of which each heaven will
have one, will be one in form but in number many. But all things that are
many in number have matter; for one and the same definition, (35) e. g.
that of man, applies to many things, while Socrates is one. But the
primary essence has not matter; for it is complete reality. So the
unmovable first mover is one both in definition and in number; so too,
therefore, is that which is moved always and continuously; therefore
there is one heaven alone.) [1074b]
Our forefathers in the most remote ages have handed down to their
posterity a tradition, in the form of a myth, that these bodies are gods
and that the divine encloses the whole of nature. The rest of the
tradition has been added later in mythical form with a view to the
persuasion of the multitude and to its legal and utilitarian expediency;
they say these gods are in the form of men or like some of the other
animals, (5) and they say other things consequent on and similar to these
which we have mentioned. But if one were to separate the first point
from these additions and take it alone—that they thought the first
substances to be gods, (10) one must regard this as an inspired utterance,
and reflect that, while probably each art and each science has often been
developed as far as possible and has again perished, these opinions, with
others, have been preserved until the present like relics of the ancient
treasure. Only thus far, then, is the opinion of our ancestors and of our
earliest predecessors clear to us.

9 The nature of the divine thought involves certain problems; for

while thought is held to be the most divine of things observed by us, (15)
the question how it must be situated in order to have that character
involves difficulties. For if it thinks of nothing, what is there here of
dignity? It is just like one who sleeps. And if it thinks, but this depends
on something else, then (since that which is its substance is not the act
of thinking, but a potency) it cannot be the best substance; for it is
through thinking that its value belongs to it. (20) Further, whether its
substance is the faculty of thought or the act of thinking, what does it
think of? Either of itself or of something else; and if of something else,
either of the same thing always or of something different. Does it matter,
then, or not, whether it thinks of the good or of any chance thing? Are
there not some things about which it is incredible that it should think?
Evidently, (25) then, it thinks of that which is most divine and precious,
and it does not change; for change would be change for the worse, and
this would be already a movement. First, then, if ‘thought’ is not the act
of thinking but a potency, it would be reasonable to suppose that the
continuity of its thinking is wearisome to it. Secondly, there would
evidently be something else more precious than thought, viz. that which
is thought of. (30) For both thinking and the act of thought will belong
even to one who thinks of the worst thing in the world, so that if this
ought to be avoided (and it ought, for there are even some things which
it is better not to see than to see), the act of thinking cannot be the best
of things. Therefore it must be of itself that the divine thought thinks
(since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on
thinking.
But evidently knowledge and perception and opinion and
understanding have always something else as their object, (35) and
themselves only by the way. Further, if thinking and being thought of
are different, in respect of which does goodness belong to thought? For
to be an act of thinking and to be an object of thought are not the same
thing. We answer that in some cases the knowledge is the object.
[1075a] In the productive sciences it is the substance or essence of the
object, matter omitted, and in the theoretical sciences the definition or
the act of thinking is the object. Since, then, thought and the object of
thought are not different in the case of things that have not matter, the
divine thought and its object will be the same, i. e. the thinking will be
one with the object of its thought.
A further question is left—whether the object of the divine thought is
composite; for if it were, (5) thought would change in passing from part
to part of the whole. We answer that everything which has not matter is
indivisible—as human thought, or rather the thought of composite
beings, is in a certain period of time (for it does not possess the good at
this moment or at that, but its best, being something different from it, is
attained only in a whole period of time), (10) so throughout eternity is the
thought which has itself for its object.

10 We must consider also in which of two ways the nature of the

universe contains the good and the highest good, whether as something
separate and by itself, or as the order of the parts. Probably in both
ways, as an army does; for its good is found both in its order and in its
leader, (15) and more in the latter; for he does not depend on the order
but it depends on him. And all things are ordered together somehow, but
not all alike—both fishes and fowls and plants; and the world is not such
that one thing has nothing to do with another, but they are connected.
For all are ordered together to one end, (20) but it is as in a house, where
the freemen are least at liberty to act at random, but all things or most
things are already ordained for them, while the slaves and the animals
do little for the common good, and for the most part live at random; for
this is the sort of principle that constitutes the nature of each. I mean,
for instance, that all must at least come to be dissolved into their
elements,34 and there are other functions similarly in which all share for
the good of the whole.
We must not fail to observe how many impossible or paradoxical
results confront those who hold different views from our own, (25) and
what are the views of the subtler thinkers, and which views are attended
by fewest difficulties. All make all things out of contraries. But neither
‘all things’ nor ‘out of contraries’ is right; nor do these thinkers tell us
how all the things in which the contraries are present can be made out
of the contraries; for contraries are not affected by one another. (30) Now
for us this difficulty is solved naturally by the fact that there is a third
element.35 These thinkers however make one of the two contraries
matter; this is done for instance by those who make the unequal matter
for the equal, or the many matter for the one.36 But this also is refuted in
the same way; for the one matter which underlies any pair of contraries
is contrary to nothing. Further, all things, except the one, will, on the
view we are criticizing, (35) partake of evil; for the bad itself is one of the
two elements. But the other school37 does not treat the good and the bad
even as principles; yet in all things the good is in the highest degree a
principle. The school we first mentioned is right in saying that it is a
principle, but how the good is a principle they do not say—whether as
end or as mover or as form.
[1075b] Empedocles38 also has a paradoxical view; for he identifies
the good with love, but this is a principle both as mover (for it brings
things together) and as matter (for it is part of the mixture). (5) Now even
if it happens that the same thing is a principle both as matter and as
mover, still the being, at least, of the two is not the same. In which
respect then is love a principle? It is paradoxical also that strife should
be imperishable; the nature of his ‘evil’ is just strife.
Anaxagoras makes the good a motive principle; for his ‘reason’ moves
things. But it moves them for an end, which must be something other
than it, except according to our way of stating the case; for, on our view,
the medical art is in a sense health. (10) It is paradoxical also not to
suppose a contrary to the good, i. e. to reason. But all who speak of the
contraries make no use of the contraries, unless we bring their views into
shape. And why some things are perishable and others imperishable, no
one tells us; for they make all existing things out of the same principles.
Further, some make existing things out of the non-existent; and others to
avoid the necessity of this make all things one. (15)
Further, why should there always be becoming, and what is the cause
of becoming?—this no one tells us. And those who suppose two
principles must suppose another, a superior principle, and so must those
who believe in the Forms; for why did things come to participate, or
why do they participate, in the Forms? And all other thinkers39 are
confronted by the necessary consequence that there is something
contrary to Wisdom, (20) i. e. to the highest knowledge; but we are not.
For there is nothing contrary to that which is primary; for all contraries
have matter, and things that have matter exist only potentially; and the
ignorance which is contrary to any knowledge leads to an object
contrary to the object of the knowledge; but what is primary has no
contrary.
Again, if besides sensible things no others exist, there will be no first
principle, (25) no order, no becoming, no heavenly bodies, but each
principle will have a principle before it, as in the accounts of the
theologians and all the natural philosophers. But if the Forms or the
numbers are to exist, they will be causes of nothing; or if not that, at
least not of movement. Further, how is extension, i. e. a continuum, to be
produced out of unextended parts? For number will not, either as mover
or as form, produce a continuum. (30) But again there cannot be any
contrary that is also essentially a productive or moving principle; or it
would be possible not to be.40 Or at least its action would be posterior to
its potency. The world, then, would not be eternal. But it is; one of these
premisses, then, must be denied. And we have said how this must be
done.41 Further, in virtue of what the numbers, (35) or the soul and the
body, or in general the form and the thing, are one—of this no one tells
us anything; nor can any one tell, unless he says, as we do, that the
mover makes them one. And those who say42 mathematical number is
first and go on to generate one kind of substance after another and give
different principles for each, make the substance of the universe a mere
series of episodes (for one substance has no influence on another by its
existence or non-existence), and they give us many governing principles;
but the world refuses to be governed badly. [1076a]
‘The rule of many is not good; one ruler let there be.’43

1 This is an implication of the ordinary type of judgement, ‘x is not white’.

2 The Platonists.

3 The three views appear to have been held respectively by Plato, Xenocrates, and Speusippus.

4 sc. an undifferentiated unity.

5 i. e. the principles which are elements and those which are not.

6 i. e. the efficient cause is identical with the formal.

7 i. e. the causes of substance are the causes of all things.

8 i. e. the division into potency and actuality stands in a definite relation to the previous division
into matter, form, and privation.
9 e. g. the proximate causes of a child are the individual father (who on Aristotle’s view is the
efficient and contains the formal cause) and the germ contained in the individual mother (which
is the material cause).
10 In l. 17.

11 In 1070b 17.

12 Cf. 1069a 30.

13 Anaxagoras.
14 Cf. De Caelo, iii. 300b 8.

15 Cf. Timaeus, 30 A.

16 Cf. Phaedrus, 245 C; Laws, 894 E.

17 Cf. Timaeus, 34 B.

18 Cf. 1071b 22–26.

19 i. e. the sphere of the fixed stars.

20 i. e. the sun. Cf. De Gen. et Corr. ii. 336a 23 ff.

21 i. e. the outer sphere of the universe, that in which the fixed stars are set.

22 If it had any movement, it would have the first. But it produces this and therefore cannot
share in it; for if it did, we should have to look for something that is prior to the first mover and
imparts this motion to it.
23 sc. because they are activities or actualities.

24 Cf. 1075a 36.

25 Cf. vii. 1028b 21, xiv. 1091a 34, 1092a 11.

26 i. e. the animal or plant is more beautiful and perfect than the seed.

27 i. e. impossible without.

28 The reference is to Plato (Cf. Phys. 206b 32).

29 Cf. Phys. viii. 8, 9; De Caelo, i. 2, ii. 3–8.

30 This is to be understood as a general term including both fixed stars and planets.

31 Cf. ll. 5–11.

32 i. e. inwards from, the universe being thought of as a system of concentric spheres encircling
the earth.
33 In 1073b 35, 38–1074a 4.

34 sc. in order that higher forms of being may be produced by new combinations of the elements.

35 i. e. the substratum.

36 The reference is to Platonists.

37 The reference is to the Pythagoreans and Speusippus; Cf. xii. 1072b 31.

38 Cf. i. 985a 4.

39 The special reference is to Plato; Cf. Rep. 477.

40 Since contraries must contain matter, and matter implies potentiality and contingency.

41 Cf. 1071b 19, 20.

42 Speusippus is meant; Cf. vii. 1028b 21, xiv. 1090b 13–20.

43 Cf. Iliad, ii. 204.

 BOOK M (XIII)

1 We have stated what is the substance of sensible things, dealing in

the treatise on physics1 with matter, and later2 with the substance which
has actual existence. (10) Now since our inquiry is whether there is or is
not besides the sensible substances any which is immovable and eternal,
and, if there is, what it is, we must first consider what is said by others,
so that, if there is anything which they say wrongly, we may not be
liable to the same objections, while, if there is any opinion common to
them and us, we shall have no private grievance against ourselves on
that account; for one must be content to state some points better than
one’s predecessors, (15) and others no worse.
Two opinions are held on this subject; it is said that the objects of
mathematics—i. e. numbers and lines and the like—are substances, and
again that the Ideas are substances. (20) And since (1) some recognize
these as two different classes—the Ideas and the mathematical numbers,
and (2) some recognize both as having one nature, while (3) some others
say that the mathematical substances are the only substances,3 we must
consider first4 the objects of mathematics, not qualifying them by any
other characteristic—not asking, for instance, whether they are in fact
Ideas or not, or whether they are the principles and substances of
existing things or not, (25) but only whether as objects of mathematics
they exist or not, and if they exist, how they exist. Then after this we
must separately consider5 the Ideas themselves in a general way, and
only as far as the accepted mode of treatment demands; for most of the
points have been repeatedly made even by the discussions outside our
school, and, further, the greater part of our account must finish by
throwing light on that inquiry, (30) viz. when we examine6 whether the
substances and the principles of existing things are numbers and Ideas;
for after the discussion of the Ideas this remains as a third inquiry.
If the objects of mathematics exist, they must exist either in sensible
objects, as some say, or separate from sensible objects (and this also is
said by some); or if they exist in neither of these ways, (35) either they do
not exist, or they exist only in some special sense. So that the subject of
our discussion will be not whether they exist but how they exist.
2 That it is impossible for mathematical objects to exist in sensible
things, and at the same time that the doctrine in question is an artificial
one, has been said already in our discussion of difficulties7; we have
pointed out that it is impossible for two solids to be in the same place,
and also that according to the same argument the other powers and
characteristics also8 should exist in sensible things and none of them
separately. [1076b] This we have said already. But, further, it is
obvious that on this theory it is impossible for any body whatever to be
divided; for it would have to be divided at a plane, (5) and the plane at a
line, and the line at a point, so that if the point cannot be divided,
neither can the line, and if the line cannot, neither can the plane nor the
solid. What difference, then, does it make whether sensible things are
such indivisible entities, or, without being so themselves, have
indivisible entities in them? The result will be the same; if the sensible
entities are divided the others will be divided too, (10) or else not even
the sensible entities can be divided.
But, again, it is not possible that such entities should exist separately.
For if besides the sensible solids there are to be other solids which are
separate from them and prior to the sensible solids, it is plain that
besides the planes also there must be other and separate planes and
points and lines; for consistency requires this. (15) But if these exist, again
besides the planes and lines and points of the mathematical solid there
must be others which are separate. (For incomposites are prior to
compounds; and if there are, prior to the sensible bodies, bodies which
are not sensible, by the same argument the planes which exist by
themselves must be prior to those which are in the motionless solids. (20)
Therefore these will be planes and lines other than those that exist along
with the mathematical solids to which these thinkers assign separate
existence; for the latter exist along with the mathematical solids, while
the others are prior to the mathematical solids.) (25) Again, therefore,
there will be, belonging to these planes, lines, and prior to them there
will have to be, by the same argument, other lines and points; and prior
to these points in the prior lines there will have to be other points,
though there will be no others prior to these. Now (1) the accumulation
becomes absurd; for we find ourselves with one set of solids apart from
the sensible solids; three sets of planes apart from the sensible planes—
those which exist apart from the sensible planes, (30) and those in the
mathematical solids, and those which exist apart from those in the
mathematical solids; four sets of lines, and five sets of points. With
which of these, then, will the mathematical sciences deal? Certainly not
with the planes and lines and points in the motionless solid; for science
always deals with what is prior. (35) And (2) the same account will apply
also to numbers; for there will be a different set of units apart from each
set of points, and also apart from each set of realities, from the objects of
sense and again from those of thought; so that there will be various
classes of mathematical numbers.
Again, how is it possible to solve the questions which we have already
enumerated in our discussion of difficulties9? For the objects of
astronomy will exist apart from sensible things just as the objects of
geometry will; but how is it possible that a heaven and its parts—or
anything else which has movement—should exist apart? Similarly also
the objects of optics and of harmonics will exist apart; for there will be
both voice and sight besides the sensible or individual voices and sights.
[1077a] Therefore it is plain that the other senses as well, and the
other objects of sense, will exist apart; for why should one set of them do
so and another not? And if this is so, (5) there will also be animals
existing apart, since there will be senses.
Again, there are certain mathematical theorems that are universal, (10)
extending beyond these substances. Here then we shall have another
intermediate substance separate both from the Ideas and from the
intermediates—a substance which is neither number nor points nor
spatial magnitude nor time. And if this is impossible, plainly it is also
impossible that the former entities should exist separate from sensible
things.
And, in general, conclusions contrary alike to the truth and to the
usual views follow, if one is to suppose the objects of mathematics to
exist thus as separate entities. (15) For because they exist thus they must
be prior to sensible spatial magnitudes, but in truth they must be
posterior; for the incomplete spatial magnitude is in the order of
generation prior, but in the order of substance posterior, as the lifeless is
to the living.
Again, by virtue of what, and when, (20) will mathematical magnitudes
be one? For things in our perceptible world are one in virtue of soul, or
of a part of soul, or of something else that is reasonable enough; when
these are not present, the thing is a plurality, and splits up into parts.
But in the case of the subjects of mathematics, which are divisible and
are quantities, what is the cause of their being one and holding
together?.
Again, the modes of generation of the objects of mathematics show
that we are right. For the dimension first generated is length, then comes
breadth, lastly depth, and the process is complete. If, then. (25) that
which is posterior in the order of generation is prior in the order of
substantiality, the solid will be prior to the plane and the line. And in
this way also it is both more complete and more whole, because it can
become animate. How, on the other hand, could a line or a plane be
animate? The supposition passes the power of our senses. (30)
Again, the solid is a sort of substance; for it already has in a sense
completeness. But how can lines be substances? Neither as a form or
shape, as the soul perhaps is, nor as matter, like the solid; for we have
no experience of anything that can be put together out of lines or planes
or points, while if these had been a sort of material substance, (35) we
should have observed things which could be put together out of them.
Grant, then, that they are prior in definition. [1077b] Still not all
things that are prior in definition are also prior in substantiality. For
those things are prior in substantiality which when separated from other
things surpass them in the power of independent existence, but things
are prior in definition to those whose definitions are compounded out of
their definitions; and these two properties are not co-extensive. For if
attributes do not exist apart from their substances (e. g. (5) a ‘mobile’ or a
‘pale’), pale is prior to the pale man in definition, but not in
substantiality. For it cannot exist separately, but is always along with the
concrete thing; and by the concrete thing I mean the pale man.
Therefore it is plain that neither is the result of abstraction prior nor that
which is produced by adding determinants posterior; for it is by adding a
determinant to pale that we speak of the pale man. (10)

3 It has, then, been sufficiently pointed out that the objects of

mathematics are not substances in a higher degree than bodies are, and
that they are not prior to sensibles in being, but only in definition, and
that they cannot exist somewhere apart. But since it was not possible for
them to exist in sensibles either,10 (15) it is plain that they either do not
exist at all or exist in a special sense and therefore do not ‘exist’ without
qualification. For ‘exist’ has many senses. For just as the universal
propositions of mathematics deal not with objects which exist
separately, apart from extended magnitudes and from numbers, but with
magnitudes and numbers, not however qua such as to have magnitude or
to be divisible,11 (20) clearly it is possible that there should also be both
propositions and demonstrations about sensible magnitudes, not
however qua sensible but qua possessed of certain definite qualities. For
as there are many propositions about things merely considered as in
motion, apart from what each such thing is and from their accidents, (25)
and as it is not therefore necessary that there should be either a mobile
separate from sensibles, or a distinct mobile entity in the sensibles, so
too in the case of mobiles there will be propositions and sciences, which
treat them however not qua mobile but only qua bodies, or again only
qua planes, or only qua lines, (30) or qua divisibles, or qua indivisibles
having position, or only qua indivisibles. Thus since it is true to say
without qualification that not only things which are separable but also
things which are inseparable exist (for instance, that mobiles exist), it is
true also to say without qualification that the objects of mathematics
exist, and with the character ascribed to them by mathematicians. And
as it is true to say of the other sciences too, without qualification, (35)
that they deal with such and such a subject—not with what is accidental
to it (e. g. not with the pale, if the healthy thing is pale, and the science
has the healthy as its subject), but with that which is the subject of each
science—with the healthy if it treats its object qua healthy, with man if
qua man:—so too is it with geometry; [1078a] if its subjects happen to
be sensible, though it does not treat them qua sensible, the mathematical
sciences will not for that reason be sciences of sensibles—nor, (5) on the
other hand, of other things separate from sensibles. Many properties
attach to things in virtue of their own nature as possessed of each such
character; e. g. there are attributes peculiar to the animal qua female or
qua male (yet there is no ‘female’ nor ‘male’ separate from animals); so
that there are also attributes which belong to things merely as lengths or
as planes. And in proportion as we are dealing with things which are
prior in definition and simpler, our knowledge has more accuracy, (10)
i. e. simplicity. Therefore a science which abstracts from spatial
magnitude is more precise than one which takes it into account; and a
science is most precise if it abstracts from movement, but if it takes
account of movement, it is most precise if it deals with the primary
movement, for this is the simplest; and of this again uniform movement
is the simplest form.
The same account may be given of harmonics and optics; for neither
considers its objects qua sight or qua voice, but qua lines and numbers;
but the latter are attributes proper to the former. (15) And mechanics too
proceeds in the same way. Therefore if we suppose attributes separated
from their fellow-attributes and make any inquiry concerning them as
such, we shall not for this reason be in error, any more than when one
draws a line on the ground and calls it a foot long when it is not; for the
error is not included in the premisses. (20)
Each question will be best investigated in this way—by setting up by
an act of separation what is not separate, as the arithmetician and the
geometer do. For a man qua man is one indivisible thing; and the
arithmetician supposed one indivisible thing, and then considered
whether any attribute belongs to a man qua indivisible. (25) But the
geometer treats him neither qua man nor qua indivisible, but as a solid.
For evidently the properties which would have belonged to him even if
perchance he had not been indivisible, can belong to him even apart
from these attributes.12 Thus, then, geometers speak correctly; they talk
about existing things, and their subjects do exist; for being has two forms
—it exists not only in complete reality but also materially. (30)
Now since the good and the beautiful are different (for the former
always implies conduct as its subject, while the beautiful is found also in
motionless things), those who assert that the mathematical sciences say
nothing of the beautiful or the good13 are in error. For these sciences say
and prove a great deal about them; if they do not expressly mention
them, (35) but prove attributes which are their results or their definitions,
it is not true to say that they tell us nothing about them. The chief forms
of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness, which the
mathematical sciences demonstrate in a special degree. [1078b] And
since these (e. g. order and definiteness) are obviously causes of many
things, evidently these sciences must treat this sort of causative principle
also (i. e. the beautiful) as in some sense a cause. (5) But we shall speak
more plainly elsewhere14 about these matters.

4 So much then for the objects of mathematics; we have said that they
exist and in what sense they exist,15 and in what sense they are prior and
in what sense not prior.16 Now, regarding the Ideas, (10) we must first
examine the ideal theory itself, not connecting it in any way with the
nature of numbers, but treating it in the form in which it was originally
understood by those who first maintained the existence of the Ideas. The
supporters of the ideal theory were led to it because on the question
about the truth of things they accepted the Heraclitean sayings which
describe all sensible things as ever passing away, (15) so that if knowledge
or thought is to have an object, there must be some other and permanent
entities, apart from those which are sensible; for there could be no
knowledge of things which were in a state of flux. But when Socrates
was occupying himself with the excellences of character, and in
connexion with them became the first to raise the problem of universal
definition (for of the physicists Democritus only touched on the subject
to a small extent, (20) and defined, after a fashion, the hot and the cold;
while the Pythagoreans had before this treated of a few things, whose
definitions—e. g. those of opportunity, justice, or marriage—they
connected with numbers; but it was natural that Socrates should be
seeking the essence, for he was seeking to syllogize, and ‘what a thing is’
is the starting-point of syllogisms; for there was as yet none of the
dialectical power which enables people even without knowledge of the
essence to speculate about contraries and inquire whether the same
science deals with contraries; for two things may be fairly ascribed to
Socrates—inductive arguments and universal definition, (25) both of
which are concerned with the starting-point of science):—but Socrates
did not make the universals or the definitions exist apart; they, (30)
however, gave them separate existence, and this was the kind of thing
they called Ideas. Therefore it followed for them, almost by the same
argument, that there must be Ideas of all things that are spoken of
universally, and it was almost as if a. man wished to count certain
things, (35) and while they were few thought he would not be able to
count them, but made more of them and then counted them; for the
Forms are, one may say, more numerous than the particular sensible
things, yet it was in seeking the causes of these that they proceeded from
them to the Forms. [1079a] For to each thing there answers an entity
which has the same name and exists apart from the substances, and so
also in the case of all other groups there is a one over many, whether
these be of this world or eternal.
Again, of the ways in which it is proved that the Forms exist, none is
convincing; for from some no inference necessarily follows, (5) and from
some arise Forms even of things of which they think there are no Forms.
For according to the arguments from the sciences there will be Forms of
all things of which there are sciences, and according to the argument of
the ‘one over many’ there will be Forms even of negations, and
according to the argument that thought has an object when the
individual object has perished, (10) there will be Forms of perishable
things; for we have an image of these. Again, of the most accurate
arguments, some lead to Ideas of relations, of which they say there is no
independent class, and others introduce the ‘third man’.17
And in general the arguments for the Forms destroy things for whose
existence the believers in Forms are more zealous than for the existence
of the Ideas; for it follows that not the dyad but number is first, (15) and
that prior to number is the relative, and that this is prior to the
absolute18—besides all the other points on which certain people, by
following out the opinions held about the Forms, came into conflict with
the principles of the theory.
Again, according to the assumption on which the belief in the Ideas
rests, there will be Forms not only of substances but also of many other
things; for the concept is single not only in the case of substances, (20) but
also in that of non-substances, and there are sciences of other things
than substance; and a thousand other such difficulties confront them.
But according to the necessities of the case and the opinions about the
Forms, (25) if they can be shared in there must be Ideas of substances
only. For they are not shared in incidentally, but each Form must be
shared in as something not predicated of a subject. (By ‘being shared in
incidentally’ I mean that if a thing shares in ‘double itself’, it shares also
in ‘eternal’, but incidentally; for ‘the double’ happens to be eternal.)
Therefore the Forms will be substance. (30) But the same names indicate
substance in this and in the ideal world (or what will be the meaning of
saying that there is something apart from the particulars—the one over
many?). And if the Ideas and the things that share in them have the
same form, there will be something common: for why should ‘2’ be one
and the same in the perishable 2’s, (35) or in the 2’s which are many but
eternal, and not the same in the ‘2 itself’ as in the individual 2? But if
they have not the same form, they will have only the name in common,
and it is as if one were to call both Callias and a piece of wood a ‘man’,
without observing any community between them.19 [1079b]
But if we are to suppose that in other respects the common definitions
apply to the Forms, e. g. that ‘plane figure’ and the other parts of the
definition apply to the circle-itself, (5) but ‘what really is’ has to be
added, we must inquire whether this is not absolutely meaningless. For
to what is this to be added? To ‘centre’ or to ‘plane’ or to all the parts of
the definition? For all the elements in the essence are Ideas, e. g.
‘animal’ and ‘two-footed’.20 Further, (10) there must be some Idea
answering to ‘plane’ above, some nature which will be present in all the
Forms as their genus.

5 Above all one might discuss the question what in the world the
Forms contribute to sensible things, either to those that are eternal or to
those that come into being and cease to be; for they cause neither
movement nor any change in them. (15) But again they help in no wise
either towards the knowledge of other things (for they are not even the
substance of these, else they would have been in them), or towards their
being, if they are not in the individuals which share in them; though if
they were, they might be thought to be causes, as white causes
whiteness in a white object by entering into its composition. (20) But this
argument, which was used first by Anaxagoras, and later by Eudoxus in
his discussion of difficulties and by certain others, is very easily upset;
for it is easy to collect many and insuperable objections to such a view.
But, further, all other things cannot come from the Forms in any of the
usual senses of ‘from’. (25) And to say that they are patterns and the other
things share in them is to use empty words and poetical metaphors. For
what is it that works, looking to the Ideas? And any thing can both be
and come into being without being copied from something else, so that,
whether Socrates exists or not, (30) a man like Socrates might come to be.
And evidently this might be so even if Socrates were eternal. And there
will be several patterns of the same thing, and therefore several Forms;
e. g. ‘animal’ and ‘two-footed’, and also ‘man-himself’, will be Forms of
man. Again, the Forms are patterns not only of sensible things, but of
Forms themselves also; i. e. the genus is the pattern of the various forms-
of-a-genus; therefore the same thing will be pattern and copy.
Again, it would seem impossible that substance and that whose
substance it is should exist apart; how, (35) therefore, could the Ideas,
being the substances of things, exist apart?
In the Phaedo21 the case is stated in this way—that the Forms are
causes both of being and of becoming. [1080a] Yet though the Forms
exist, still things do not come into being, unless there is something to
originate movement; and many other things come into being (e. g. a
house or a ring) of which they say there are no Forms. (5) Clearly
therefore even the things of which they say there are Ideas can both be
and come into being owing to such causes as produce the things just
mentioned,22 and not owing to the Forms. But regarding the Ideas it is
possible, both in this way and by more abstract and accurate arguments,
(10) to collect many objections like those we have considered.

6 Since we have discussed these points, it is well to consider again the

results regarding numbers which confront those who say that numbers
are separable substances and first causes of things. If number is an entity
and its substance is nothing other than just number, (15) as some say, it
follows that either (1) there is a first in it and a second, each being
different in species—and either (a) this is true of the units without
exception, and any unit is inassociable with any unit, or (b) they are all
without exception successive, (20) and any of them are associable with
any, as they say is the case with mathematical number; for in
mathematical number no one unit is in any way different from another.
Or (c) some units must be associable and some not; e. g. suppose that 2
is first after 1, and then comes 3 and then the rest of the number series,
and the units in each number are associable, (25) e. g. those in the first 2
are associable with one another, and those in the first 3 with one
another, and so with the other numbers; but the units in the ‘2-itself’ are
inassociable with those in the ‘3-itself’; and similarly in the case of the
other successive numbers. (30) And so while mathematical number is
counted thus—after 1, 2 (which consists of another 1 besides the former
1), and 3 (which consists of another 1 besides these two), and the other
numbers similarly, ideal number is counted thus—after 1, a distinct 2
which does not include the first 1, and a 3 which does not include the 2,
and the rest of the number series similarly. Or (2) one kind of number
must be like the first that was named,23 (35) one like that which the
mathematicians speak of, and that which we have named last24 must be
a third kind.
Again, these kinds of numbers must either be separable from things, or
not separable but in objects of perception (not however in the way
which we first considered,25 but in the sense that objects of perception
consist of numbers which are present in them)—either one kind and not
another, or all of them. [1080b]
These are of necessity the only ways in which the numbers can exist.
(5) And of those who say that the 1 is the beginning and substance and

element of all things, and that number is formed from the 1 and
something else, almost every one has described number in one of these
ways; only no one has said all the units are inassociable. (10) And this has
happened reasonably enough; for there can be no way besides those
mentioned. Some26 say both kinds of number exist, that which has a
before and after27 being identical with the Ideas, and mathematical
number being different from the Ideas and from sensible things, and
both being separable from sensible things; and others28 say
mathematical number alone exists, (15) as the first of realities, separate
from sensible things. And the Pythagoreans, also, believe in one kind of
number—the mathematical; only they say it is not separate but sensible
substances are formed out of it. For they construct the whole universe
out of numbers—only not numbers consisting of abstract units; they
suppose the units to have spatial magnitude. (20) But how the first 1 was
constructed so as to have magnitude, they seem unable to say.
Another thinker29 says the first kind of number, that of the Forms,
alone exists, and some30 say mathematical number is identical with this.
The case of lines, planes, and solids is similar. For some think that
those which are the objects of mathematics are different from those
which come after the Ideas;31 and of those who express themselves
otherwise some speak of the objects of mathematics and in a
mathematical way—viz. (25) those who do not make the Ideas numbers
nor say that Ideas exist;32 and others speak of the objects of
mathematics, but not mathematically; for they say that neither is every
spatial magnitude divisible into magnitudes, nor do any two units taken
at random make 2.33 (30) All who say the 1 is an element and principle of
things suppose numbers to consist of abstract units, except the
Pythagoreans; but they suppose the numbers to have magnitude, as has
been said before.34 It is clear from this statement, then, in how many
ways numbers may be described, and that all the ways have been
mentioned; and all these views are impossible, but some perhaps more
than others. (35)

7 First, then, let us inquire if the units are associable or inassociable,

and if inassociable, in which of the two ways we distinguished.35 For it
is possible that any unit is inassociable with any, and it is possible that
those in the ‘2-itself’ are inassociable with those in the ‘3-itself’, and,
generally, that those in each ideal number are inassociable with those in
other ideal numbers. [1081a] Now (1) if all units are associable and
without difference, (5) we get mathematical number—only one kind of
number, and the Ideas cannot be the numbers. For what sort of number
will man-himself or animal-itself or any other Form be? There is one
Idea of each thing, e. g. one of man-himself and another one of animal-
itself; but the similar and undifferentiated numbers are infinitely many,
(10) so that any particular 3 is no more man-himself than any other 3. But

if the Ideas are not numbers, neither can they exist at all. For from what
principles will the Ideas come? It is number that comes from the 1 and
the indefinite dyad, (15) and the principles or elements are said to be
principles and elements of number, and the Ideas cannot be ranked as
either prior or posterior to the numbers.
But (2) if the units are inassociable, and inassociable in the sense that
any is inassociable with any other, number of this sort cannot be
mathematical number; for mathematical number consists of
undifferentiated units, and the truths proved of it suit this character. (20)
Nor can it be ideal number. For 2 will not proceed immediately from 1
and the indefinite dyad, and be followed by the successive numbers, as
they say ‘2, 3, 4’—for the units in the ideal 2 are generated at the same
time, whether, as the first holder of the theory36 said, from unequals
(coming into being when these were equalized) or in some other way—
since, if one unit is to be prior to the other, (25) it will be prior also to the
2 composed of these; for when there is one thing prior and another
posterior, the resultant of these will be prior to one and posterior to the
other.37
Again, (30) since the 1-itself is first, and then there is a particular 1
which is first among the others and next after the 1-itself, and again a
third which is next after the second and next but one after the first 1—so
the units must be prior to the numbers after which they are named when
we count them; e. g. there will be a third unit in 2 before 3 exists, and a
fourth and a fifth in 3 before the numbers 4 and 5 exist. (35)—Now none
of these thinkers has said the units are inassociable in this way, but
according to their principles it is reasonable that they should be so even
in this way, though in truth it is impossible. [1081b] For it is
reasonable both that the units should have priority and posteriority if
there is a first unit or first 1, and also that the 2’s should if there is a first
2; for after the first it is reasonable and necessary that there should be a
second, (5) and if a second, a third, and so with the others successively.
(And to say both things at the same time, that a unit is first and another
unit is second after the ideal 1, and that a 2 is first after it, is
impossible.) But they make a first unit or 1, but not also a second and a
third, and a first 2, but not also a second and a third.
Clearly, (10) also, it is not possible, if all the units are inassociable, that
there should be a 2-itself and a 3-itself; and so with the other numbers.
For whether the units are undifferentiated or different each from each,
number must be counted by addition, (15) e. g. 2 by adding another 1 to
the one, 3 by adding another 1 to the two, and 4 similarly. This being so,
numbers cannot be generated as they generate them, from the 2 and the
1; for 2 becomes part of 3, and 3 of 4, (20) and the same happens in the
case of the succeeding numbers, but they say 4 came from the first 2 and
the indefinite 2—which makes it two 2’s other than the 2-itself; if not,
the 2-itself will be a part of 4 and one other 2 will be added. And
similarly 2 will consist of the 1-itself and another 1; but if this is so, (25)
the other element cannot be an indefinite 2; for it generates one unit,
not, as the indefinite 2 does, a definite 2.
Again, besides the 3-itself and the 2-itself how can there be other 3’s
and 2’s? And how do they consist of prior and posterior units? All this is
absurd and fictitious, (30) and there cannot be a first 2 and then a 3-itself.
Yet there must, if the 1 and the indefinite dyad are to be the elements.
But if the results are impossible, it is also impossible that these are the
generating principles.
If the units, then, are differentiated, each from each, (35) these results
and others similar to these follow of necessity. But (3) if those in
different numbers are differentiated, but those in the same number are
alone undifferentiated from one another, even so the difficulties that
follow are no less. e. g. in the 10-itself there are ten units, and the 10 is
composed both of them and of two 5’s. [1082a] But since the 10-itself
is not any chance number nor composed of any chance 5’s—or, for that
matter, units—the units in this 10 must differ. For if they do not differ,
neither will the 5’s of which the 10 consists differ; but since these differ,
(5) the units also will differ. But if they differ, will there be no other 5’s in

the 10 but only these two, or will there be others? If there are not, this is
paradoxical; and if there are, what sort of 10 will consist of them? For
there is no other 10 in the 10 but itself. (10) But it is actually necessary on
their view that the 4 should not consist of any chance 2’s; for the
indefinite 2, as they say, received the definite 2 and made two 2’s; for its
nature was to double what it received.
Again, as to the 2 being an entity apart from its two units, (15) and the
3 an entity apart from its three units, how is this possible? Either by
one’s sharing in the other, as ‘pale man’ is different from ‘pale’ and ‘man’
(for it shares in these), or when one is a differentia of the other, as ‘man’
is different from ‘animal’ and ‘two-footed’.
Again, some things are one by contact, some by intermixture, (20) some
by position; none of which can belong to the units of which the 2 or the
3 consists; but as two men are not a unity apart from both, so must it be
with the units. And their being indivisible will make no difference to
them; for points too are indivisible, (25) but yet a pair of them is nothing
apart from the two.
But this consequence also we must not forget, that it follows that there
are prior and posterior 2’s, and similarly with the other numbers. For let
the 2’s in the 4 be simultaneous; yet these are prior to those in the 8, (30)
and as the 2 generated them, they generated the 4’s in the 8-itself.
Therefore if the first 2 is an Idea, these 2’s also will be Ideas of some
kind. And the same account applies to the units; for the units in the first
2 generate the four in 4, so that all the units come to be Ideas and an
Idea will be composed of Ideas. (35) Clearly therefore those things also of
which these happen to be the Ideas will be composite, e. g. one might
say that animals are composed of animals, if there are Ideas of them.
In general, to differentiate the units in any way is an absurdity and a
fiction; and by a fiction I mean a forced statement made to suit a
hypothesis. [1082b] For neither in quantity nor in quality do we see
unit differing from unit, (5) and number must be either equal or unequal
—all number but especially that which consists of abstract units—so that
if one number is neither greater nor less than another, it is equal to it;
but things that are equal and in no wise differentiated we take to be the
same when we are speaking of numbers. If not, not even the 2’s in the
10-itself will be undifferentiated, (10) though they are equal; for what
reason will the man who alleges that they are not differentiated be able
to give?
Again, if every unit + another unit makes two, a unit from the 2-itself
and one from the 3-itself will make a 2. Now (a) this will consist of
differentiated units; and (b) will it be prior to the 3 or posterior? It
rather seems that it must be prior; for one of the units is simultaneous
with the 3, (15) and the other is simultaneous with the 2. And we, for our
part, suppose that in general 1 and 1, whether the things are equal or
unequal, is 2, e. g. the good and the bad, or a man and a horse; but those
who hold these views say that not even two units are 2.
If the number of the 3-itself is not greater than that of the 2, (20) this is
surprising; and if it is greater, clearly there is also a number in it equal to
the 2, so that this is not different from the 2-itself. But this is not
possible, if there is a first and a second number.38
Nor will the Ideas be numbers. For in this particular point they are
right who claim that the units must be different, if there are to be Ideas;
as has been said before.39 (25) For the Form is unique; but if the units are
not different, the 2’s and the 3’s also will not be different. This is also the
reason why they must say that when we count thus—‘1, 2’—we do not
proceed by adding to the given number; for if we do, (30) neither will the
numbers be generated from the indefinite dyad, nor can a number be an
Idea; for then one Idea will be in another, and all the Forms will be parts
of one Form. And so with a view to their hypothesis their statements are
right, but as a whole they are wrong; for their view is very destructive,
since they will admit that this question itself affords some difficulty—
whether, (35) when we count and say ‘1, 2, 3,’ we count by addition or by
separate portions. But we do both; and so it is absurd to reason back
from this problem to so great a difference of essence.

8 [1083a] First of all it is well to determine what is the differentia

of a number—and of a unit, if it has a differentia. Units must differ
either in quantity or in quality; and neither of these seems to be possible.
But number qua number differs in quantity. And if the units also did
differ in quantity, (5) number would differ from number, though equal in
number of units. Again, are the first units greater or smaller, and do the
later ones increase or diminish? All these are irrational suppositions. But
neither can they differ in quality. For no attribute can attach to them; for
even to numbers quality is said to belong after quantity. (10) Again,
quality could not come to them either from the 1 or from the dyad; for
the former has no quality, and the latter gives quantity; for this entity is
what makes things to be many. If the facts are really otherwise, they
should state this quite at the beginning and determine if possible, (15)
regarding the differentia of the unit, why it must exist, and, failing this,
what differentia they mean.
Evidently then, if the Ideas are numbers, the units cannot all be
associable, nor can they be inassociable in either of the two ways.40 But
neither is the way in which some others speak about numbers correct.
(20) These are those who do not think there are Ideas, either without

qualification or as identified with certain numbers, but think the objects

of mathematics exist and the numbers are the first of existing things, and
the 1-itself is the starting-point of them. It is paradoxical that there
should be a 1 which is first of 1’s, as they say, (25) but not a 2 which is
first of 2’s, nor a 3 of 3’s; for the same reasoning applies to all. If, then,
the facts with regard to number are so, and one supposes mathematical
number alone to exist, the 1 is not the starting-point (for this sort of 1
must differ from the other units; and if this is so, (30) there must also be a
2 which is first of 2’s, and similarly with the other successive numbers).
But if the 1 is the starting-point, the truth about the numbers must
rather be what Plato used to say, and there must be a first 2 and 3, and
the numbers must not be associable with one another. But if on the other
hand one supposes this, many impossible results, as we have said,41
follow. (35) But either this or the other must be the case, so that if neither
is, number cannot exist separately.
It is evident, also, from this that the third version42 is the worst—the
view ideal and mathematical number is the same. [1083b] For two
mistakes must then meet in the one opinion. (1) Mathematical number
cannot be of this sort, but the holder of this view has to spin it out by
making suppositions peculiar to himself. (5) And (2) he must also admit
all the consequences that confront those who speak of number in the
sense of ‘Forms’.
The Pythagorean version in one way affords fewer difficulties than
those before named, but in another way has others peculiar to itself. (10)
For not thinking of number as capable of existing separately removes
many of the impossible consequences; but that bodies should be
composed of numbers, and that this should be mathematical number, is
impossible. For it is not true to speak of indivisible spatial magnitudes;
and however much there might be magnitudes of this sort, (15) units at
least have not magnitude; and how can a magnitude be composed of
indivisibles? But arithmetical number, at least, consists of units, while
these thinkers identify number with real things; at any rate they apply
their propositions to bodies as if they consisted of those numbers.
If, then, it is necessary, if number is a self-subsistent real thing, (20)
that it should exist in one of these ways which have been mentioned,43
and if it cannot exist in any of these, evidently number has no such
nature as those who make it separable set up for it.
Again, does each unit come from the great and the small, equalized, or
one from the small, another from the great? (a) If the latter, (25) neither
does each thing contain all the elements, nor are the units without
difference; for in one there is the great and in another the small, which
is contrary in its nature to the great. Again, how is it with the units in
the 3-itself? One of them is an odd unit. But perhaps it is for this reason
that they give 1-itself the middle place in odd numbers. (30) (b) But if
each of the two units consists of both the great and the small, equalized,
how will the 2, which is a single thing, consist of the great and the
small? Or how will it differ from the unit? Again, the unit is prior to the
2; for when it is destroyed the 2 is destroyed. It must, then, be the Idea
of an Idea since it is prior to an Idea, (35) and it must have come into
being before it. From what, then? Not from the indefinite dyad, for its
function was to double.
Again, number must be either infinite or finite; for these thinkers think
of number as capable of existing separately, so that it is not possible that
neither of those alternatives should be true. [1084a] Clearly it cannot
be infinite; for infinite number is neither odd nor even, but the
generation of numbers is always the generation either of an odd or of an
even number; in one way, when 1 operates on an even number, (5) an
odd number is produced; in another way, when 2 operates, the numbers
got from 1 by doubling are produced; in another way, when the odd
numbers operate, the other even numbers are produced. Again, if every
Idea is an Idea of something, and the numbers are Ideas, infinite number
itself will be an Idea of something, either of some sensible thing or of
something else. Yet this is not possible in view of their thesis any more
than it is reasonable in itself, at least if they arrange the Ideas as they
do.
But if number is finite, how far does it go? With regard to this not only
the fact but the reason should be stated. (10) But if number goes only up
to 10, as some say,44 firstly the Forms will soon run short; e. g. if 3 is
man-himself, what number will be the horse-itself? The series of the
numbers which are the several things-themselves goes up to 10. (15) It
must, then, be one of the numbers within these limits; for it is these that
are substances and Ideas. Yet they will run short; for the various forms of
animal will outnumber them. At the same time it is clear that if in this
way the 3 is man-himself, the other 3’s are so also (for those in identical
numbers are similar), (20) so that there will be an infinite number of men;
if each 3 is an Idea, each of the numbers will be man-himself, and if not,
they will at least be men. And if the smaller number is part of the
greater (being number of such a sort that the units in the same number
are associable), then if the 4-itself is an Idea of something, e. g. of ‘horse’
or of ‘white’, man will be a part of horse, if man is 2. It is paradoxical,
(25) also that there should be an Idea of 10, but not of 11, nor of the

succeeding numbers. Again, there both are and come to be certain things
of which there are no Forms; why, then, are there not Forms of them
also? We infer that the Forms are not causes. Again, it is paradoxical if
the number-series up to 10 is more of a real thing and a Form than 10
itself. (30) There is no generation of the former as one thing, and there is
of the latter. But they try to work on the assumption that the series of
numbers up to 10 is a complete series. At least they generate the
derivatives—e. g. the void, proportion, the odd, and the others of this
kind—within the decade. For some things, e. g. movement and rest,
good and bad, they assign to the originative principles, and the others to
the numbers. (35) This is why they identify the odd with 1; for if the odd
implied 3, how would 5 be odd?45 Again, spatial magnitudes and all
such things are explained without going beyond a definite number; e. g.
the first, the indivisible, line,46 then the 2, &c. [1084b] ; these entities
also extend only up to 10.47
Again, if number can exist separately, one might ask which is prior—
1, or 3 or 2? Inasmuch as the number is composite, 1 is prior, but
inasmuch as the universal and the form is prior, (5) the number is prior;
for each of the units is part of the number as its matter, and the number
acts as form. And in a sense the right angle is prior to the acute, because
it is determinate and in virtue of its definition; but in a sense the acute is
prior, because it is a part and the right angle is divided into acute angles.
As matter, then, the acute angle and the element and the unit are prior,
(10) but in respect of the form and of the substance as expressed in the

definition, the right angle, and the whole consisting of the matter and
the form, are prior; for the concrete thing is nearer to the form and to
what is expressed in the definition, though in generation it is later. How
then is 1 the starting-point? Because it is not divisible, they say; but both
the universal, and the particular or the element, (15) are indivisible. But
they are starting-points in different ways, one in definition and the other
in time. In which way, then, is 1 the starting-point? As has been said, the
right angle is thought to be prior to the acute, and the acute to the right,
and each is one. Accordingly they make 1 the starting-point in both
ways. But this is impossible. For the universal is one as form or
substance, (20) while the element is one as a part or as matter. For each of
the two is in a sense one—in truth each of the two units exists potentially
(at least if the number is a unity and not like a heap, i. e. if different
numbers consist of differentiated units, as they say), but not in complete
reality; and the cause of the error they fell into is that they were
conducting their inquiry at the same time from the standpoint of
mathematics and from that of universal definitions, (25) so that (1) from
the former standpoint they treated unity, their first principle, as a point;
for the unit is a point without position. They put things together out of
the smallest parts, as some others48 also have done. Therefore the unit
becomes the matter of numbers and at the same time prior to 2; and
again posterior, (30) 2 being treated as a whole, a unity, and a form. But
(2) because they were seeking the universal they treated the unity which
can be predicated of a number, as in this sense also49 a part of the
number. But these characteristics cannot belong at the same time to the
same thing.
If the 1-itself must be unitary (for it differs in nothing from other 1’s
except that it is the starting-point), and the 2 is divisible but the unit is
not, the unit must be liker the 1-itself than the 2 is. But if the unit is
liker it, it must be liker to the unit than to the 2; therefore each of the
units in 2 must be prior to the 2. (35) But they deny this; at least they
generate the 2 first. [1085a] Again, if the 2-itself is a unity and the 3-
itself is one also, both form a 2. From what, then, is this 2 produced?

9 Since there is not contact in numbers, but succession, viz. between

the units between which there is nothing, (5) e. g. between those in 2 or
in 3, one might ask whether these succeed the 1-itself or not, and
whether, of the terms that succeed it, 2 or either of the units in 2 is
prior.
Similar difficulties occur with regard to the classes of things posterior
to number—the line, the plane, and the solid. For some50 construct these
out of the species of the ‘great and small’; e. g. lines from the ‘long and
short’, (10) planes from the ‘broad and narrow’, masses from the ‘deep and
shallow’; which are species of the ‘great and small’. And the originative
principle of such things which answers to the 151 different thinkers
describe in different ways. And in these also the impossibilities, the
fictions, and the contradictions of all probability are seen to be
innumerable. (15) For (i) the geometrical classes are severed from one
another, unless the principles of these are implied in one another in such
a way that the ‘broad and narrow’ is also ‘long and short’ (but if this is
so, the plane will be a line and the solid a plane;52 again, how will
angles and figures and such things be explained?). And (ii) the same
happens as in regard to number; for ‘long and short’, (20) &c., are
attributes of magnitude, but magnitude does not consist of these, any
more than the line consists of ‘straight and curved’, or solids of ‘smooth
and rough’.53
(All these views share a difficulty which occurs with regard to species-
of-a-genus, when one posits the universals, viz. whether it is animal-
itself or something other than animal-itself that is in the particular
animal. (25) True, if the universal is not separable from sensible things,
this will present no difficulty; but if the 1 and the numbers are separable,
as those who express these views say, it is not easy to solve the
difficulty, if one may apply the words ‘not easy’ to the impossible. For
when we apprehend the unity in 2, or in general in a number, do we
apprehend a thing-itself or something else?)
Some, (30) then, generate spatial magnitudes from matter of this sort,
others54 from the point—and the point is thought by them to be not 1
but something like 1—and from other matter like plurality, (35) but not
identical with it; about which principles none the less the same
difficulties occur. For if the matter is one, line and plane and solid will
be the same; for from the same elements will come one and the same
thing. [1085b] But if the matters are more than one, and there is one
for the line and a second for the plane and another for the solid, they
either are implied in one another or not, so that the same results will
follow even so; for either the plane will not contain a line or it will be a
line.
Again, how number can consist of the one and plurality, (5) they make
no attempt to explain; but however they express themselves, the same
objections arise as confront those who construct number out of the one
and the indefinite dyad.55 For the one view generates number from the
universally predicated plurality, and not from a particular plurality; and
the other generates it from a particular plurality, but the first; for 2 is
said to be a ‘first plurality’. Therefore there is practically no difference,
(10) but the same difficulties will follow—is it intermixture or position or

blending or generation? and so on. Above all one might press the
question ‘if each unit is one, what does it come from?’ Certainly each is
not the one-itself. It must, then, come from the one-itself and plurality,
or a part of plurality. (15) To say that the unit is a plurality is impossible,
for it is indivisible; and to generate it from a part of plurality involves
many other objections; for (a) each of the parts must be indivisible (or it
will be a plurality and the unit will be divisible) and the elements will
not be the one and plurality; for the single units do not come from
plurality and the one. (20) Again, (b) the holder of this view does nothing
but presuppose another number; for his plurality of indivisibles is a
number. Again, we must inquire, in view of this theory also,56 whether
the number is infinite or finite. For there was at first, as it seems, a
plurality that was itself finite, (25) from which and from the one comes
the finite number of units. And there is another plurality that is
plurality-itself and infinite plurality; which sort of plurality, then, is the
element which co-operates with the one? One might inquire similarly
about the point, i. e. the element out of which they make spatial
magnitudes. For surely this is not the one and only point; at any rate,
then, let them say out of what each of the other points is formed.
Certainly not of some distance + the point-itself. Nor again can there be
indivisible parts of a distance, (30) as the elements out of which the units
are said to be made are indivisible parts of plurality; for number consists
of indivisibles, but spatial magnitudes do not.57
All these objections, then, and others of the sort make it evident that
number and spatial magnitudes cannot exist apart from things. (35) Again,
the discord about numbers between the various versions is a sign that it
is the incorrectness of the alleged facts themselves that brings confusion
into the theories. [1086a] For those who make the objects of
mathematics alone exist apart from sensible things,58 seeing the
difficulty about the Forms and their fictitiousness, abandoned ideal
number and posited mathematical. But those who wished to make the
Forms at the same time also numbers, (5) but did not see, if one assumed
these principles, how mathematical number was to exist apart from
ideal,59 made ideal and mathematical number the same—in words, since
in fact mathematical number has been destroyed; for they state
hypotheses peculiar to themselves and not those of mathematics. (10) And
he who first supposed that the Forms exist and that the Forms are
numbers and that the objects of mathematics exist,60 naturally separated
the two. Therefore it turns out that all of them are right in some respect,
but on the whole not right. And they themselves confirm this, for their
statements do not agree but conflict. (15) The cause is that their
hypotheses and their principles are false. And it is hard to make a good
case out of bad materials, according to Epicharmus: ‘as soon as ’tis said,
’tis seen to be wrong.’
But regarding numbers the questions we have raised and the
conclusions we have reached are sufficient (for while he who is already
convinced might be further convinced by a longer discussion, one not
yet convinced would not come any nearer to conviction); regarding the
first principles and the first causes and elements, (20) the views expressed
by those who discuss only sensible substance have been partly stated in
our works on nature,61 and partly do not belong to the present inquiry;
but the views of those who assert that there are other substances besides
the sensible must be considered next after those we have been
mentioning. (25) Since, then, some say that the Ideas and the numbers are
such substances, and that the elements of these are elements and
principles of real things, we must inquire regarding these what they say
and in what sense they say it.
Those who posit numbers only, and these mathematical, (30) must be
considered later;62 but as regards those who believe in the Ideas one
might survey at the same time their way of thinking and the difficulty
into which they fall. For they at the same time make the Ideas universal
and again treat them as separable and as individuals. (35) That this is not
possible has been argued before.63 The reason why those who described
their substances as universal combined these two characteristics in one
thing, is that they did not make substances identical with sensible things.
[1086b] They thought that the particulars in the sensible world were
in a state of flux and none of them remained, but that the universal was
apart from these and something different. And Socrates gave the impulse
to this theory, as we said in our earlier discussion,64 by reason of his
definitions, but he did not separate universals from individuals; and in
this he thought rightly, (5) in not separating them. This is plain from the
results; for without the universal it is not possible to get knowledge, but
the separation is the cause of the objections that arise with regard to the
Ideas. His successors, however, treating it as necessary, if there are to be
any substances besides the sensible and transient substances, that they
must be separable, had no others, but gave separate existence to these
universally predicated substances, (10) so that it followed that universals
and individuals were almost the same sort of thing. This in itself, then,
would be one difficulty in the view we have mentioned.

10 Let us now mention a point which presents a certain difficulty both

to those who believe in the Ideas and to those who do not, (15) and which
was stated before, at the beginning, among the problems.65 If we do not
suppose substances to be separate, and in the way in which individual
things are said to be separate, we shall destroy substance in the sense in
which we understand ‘substance’; but if we conceive substances to be
separable, how are we to conceive their elements and their principles?
If they are individual and not universal, (20) (a) real things will be just
of the same number as the elements, and (b) the elements will not be
knowable. For (a) let the syllables in speech be substances, and their
elements elements of substances; then there must be only one ba and one
of each of the syllables, (25) since they are not universal and the same in
form but each is one in number and a ‘this’ and not a kind possessed of a
common name (and again they suppose that the ‘just what a thing is’66 is
in each case one). And if the syllables are unique, so too are the parts of
which they consist; there will not, then, be more a’s than one, nor more
than one of any of the other elements, on the same principle on which
an identical syllable cannot exist in the plural number. (30) But if this is
so, there will not be other things existing besides the elements, but only
the elements. (b) Again, the elements will not be even knowable; for
they are not universal, and knowledge is of universals. This is clear from
demonstrations and from definitions; for we do not conclude that this
triangle has its angles equal to two right angles, unless every triangle has
its angles equal to two right angles, (35) nor that this man is an animal,
unless every man is an animal.
But if the principles are universal, either the substances composed of
them are also universal, or non-substance will be prior to substance; for
the universal is not a substance, but the element or principle is universal,
and the element or principle is prior to the things of which it is the
principle or element. [1087a]
All these difficulties follow naturally, when they make the Ideas out of
elements and at the same time claim that apart from the substances
which have the same form there are Ideas, (5) a single separate entity.
But if, e. g., in the case of the elements of speech, the a’s and the b’s may
quite well be many and there need be no a-itself and b-itself besides the
many, there may be, so far as this goes, an infinite number of similar
syllables. The statement that all knowledge is universal, (10) so that the
principles of things must also be universal and not separate substances,
presents indeed, of all the points we have mentioned, the greatest
difficulty, but yet the statement is in a sense true, although in a sense it
is not. For knowledge, like the verb ‘to know’, (15) means two things, of
which one is potential and one actual. The potency, being, as matter,
universal and indefinite, deals with the universal and indefinite; but the
actuality, being definite, deals with a definite object—being a ‘this’, it
deals with a ‘this’. But per accidens sight sees universal colour, because
this individual colour which it sees is colour; and this individual a which
the grammarian investigates is an a. (20) For if the principles must be
universal, what is derived from them must also be universal, as in
demonstrations67; and if this is so, there will be nothing capable of
separate existence—i. e. no substance. But evidently in a sense
knowledge is universal, and in a sense it is not. (25)

1 Phys. i.

2 Met. vii, viii, ix.

3 Plato, Xenocrates, and the Pythagoreans and Speusippus, respectively, are meant.
4 Cf. chs. 2, 3.

5 Cf. chs. 4, 5.

6 Cf. chs. 6–9.

7 Cf. iii. 998a 7–19.

8 Which nevertheless the theory in question represents as Ideas apart from sensible things.

9 iii. 997b 12–34.

10 Cf. 1076a 38–b 11.

11 Cf. vi. 1026a 25, xiii. 1077a 9.

12 sc. indivisibility and humanity.

13 The reference is apparently to Aristippus; Cf. iii. 996a 32.

14 Apparently an unfulfilled promise.

15 Chs. 2, 3.

16 1077a 17–20, 24–b 11.

17 Cf. vii. 1039a 2, Soph. El. 178b 36–179a 10, and Plato, Parmenides, 132 AB, D-133 A.

18 i. e. the relative in general is more general than, and therefore (on Platonic principles) prior
to, number. Number is similarly prior to the dyad. Therefore the relative is prior to the dyad,
which vet is held to be absolute.
19 With 1078b 34–1079b 3 Cf. i. 990b 2–991a 8.

20 sc. in the essence of man.

21 100 D.

22 With 1079b 12–1080a 8 Cf. i. 991a 8–b 9.

23 ll. 15–20.

24 ll. 23–35.

25 Cf. 1076a 38–b 11.

26 Plato is meant.

27 i. e. in which the numbers differ in kind.

28 Speusippus is meant.

29 Some unknown Platonist.

30 Xenocrates is meant.

31 This refers to Plato; Cf. i. 992b 13–18.

32 Speusippus is meant.

33 Xenocrates is meant.

34 l. 19.

35 Cf. 1080a 18–20, 23–35.

36 Plato.

37 The theory of ideal number holds that 2 comes next after the original 1, which with the
‘indefinite 2’ is the source of number. But if all units are different in species, one of the units in 2
is prior to the other and to 2, and comes next after the original 1. Similarly between 2 and 3
there will be the first unit in 3, and so on.
38 i. e. if there is a difference of kind between the numbers.

39 1081a 5–17.

40 Cf. 1080a 18–20, 23–35.

41 Cf. 1080b 37–1083a 17.

42 That of Xenocrates; Cf. 1080b 22.

43 1080a 15–b 36.

44 This includes Plato (Cf. Phys. 206b 32) and probably Speusippus.

45 i. e. to account for the oddness of odd numbers they identify the odd with the 1, which is a
principle present in all numbers, not with the 3, which on their theory is not present in other
numbers.
46 Cf. i. 992a 22.

47 Cf. xiv. 1090b 21–24. 1 answers to the point (the ‘indivisible line’), 2 to the line, 3 to the
plane, 4 to the solid, and 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10.
48 sc. the Atomists.

49 i. e. they treated the unity which is predicable of a number, as well as the unit in a number, as
a part of the number.
50 This probably includes Plato himself.

51 i. e. that which is to the geometrical forms as the primary 1 is (according to the Platonic
theory) to numbers.
52 With 1085a 7–19 Cf. i. 992a 10–19.

53 Cf. i. 992b 1–7, xiv. 1088a 15–21.

54 Speusippus is probably meant.

55 i. e. probably Plato and Xenocrates.

56 Cf. 1083b 36.

57 The point cannot have for an element of it (a) a distance, for this would destroy the simplicity
of the point; or (b) part of a distance, for any part of a distance must be a distance.
58 Speusippus is meant.

59 Xenocrates is meant.

60 Plato.

61 Phys. i. 4–6; De Caelo, iii. 3–4; De Gen. et Corr. i. 1.

62 Speusippus is meant; Cf. N. 1090 a 7–15, 20–b 20.

63 iii. 1003a 7–17.

64 1078b 17–30.

65 iii. 999b 24–1000a 4, 1003a 5–17.

66 i. e. the Idea; Cf, 1079b 6.

67 sc. universal premisses do not give singular conclusions.
 BOOK N (XIV)

1 Regarding this kind of substance, what we have said must be taken

as sufficient. All philosophers make the first principles contraries: as in
natural things, (30) so also in the case of unchangeable substances. But
since there cannot be anything prior to the first principle of all things,
the principle cannot be the principle and yet be an attribute of
something else. To suggest this is like saying that the white is a first
principle, not qua anything else but qua white, but yet that it is
predicable of a subject, i. e. that its being white presupposes its being
something else; this is absurd, (35) for then that subject will be prior. But
all things which are generated from their contraries involve an
underlying subject; a subject, then, must be present in the case of
contraries, if anywhere. [1087b] All contraries, then, are always
predicable of a subject, and none can exist apart, but just as appearances
suggest that there is nothing contrary to substance, argument confirms
this. No contrary, then, is the first principle of all things in the full sense;
the first principle is something different.
But these thinkers make one of the contraries matter, some1 making
the unequal—which they take to be the essence of plurality—matter for
the One, (5) and others2 making plurality matter for the One. (The former
generate numbers out of the dyad of the unequal, i. e. of the great and
small, and the other thinker we have referred to generates them out of
plurality, while according to both it is generated by the essence of the
One.) For even the philosopher who says the unequal and the One are
the elements, (10) and the unequal is a dyad composed of the great and
small, treats the unequal, or the great and the small, as being one, and
does not draw the distinction that they are one in definition, but not in
number. But they do not describe rightly even the principles which they
call elements, for some3 name the great and the small with the One and
treat these three as elements of numbers, (15) two being matter, one the
form; while others4 name the many and few, because the great and the
small are more appropriate in their nature to magnitude than to number;
and others5 name rather the universal character common to these—‘that
which exceeds and that which is exceeded’. None of these varieties of
opinion makes any difference to speak of, in view of some of the
consequences; they affect only the abstract objections, (20) which these
thinkers take care to avoid because the demonstrations they themselves
offer are abstract—with this exception, that if the exceeding and the
exceeded are the principles, and not the great and the small, consistency
requires that number should come from the elements before 2 does; for
number is more universal than 2, as the exceeding and the exceeded are
more universal than the great and the small. But as it is, (25) they say one
of these things but do not say the other. Others oppose the different and
the other to the One,6 and others oppose plurality to the One.7 But if, as
they claim, things consist of contraries, and to the One either there is
nothing contrary, or if there is to be anything it is plurality, and the
unequal is contrary to the equal, and the different to the same, and the
other to the thing itself, (30) those who oppose the One to plurality have
most claim to plausibility, but even their view is inadequate, for the One
would on their view be a few; for plurality is opposed to fewness, and
the many to the few.
‘The one’ evidently means a measure. And in every case there is some
underlying thing with a distinct nature of its own, (35) e. g. in the scale a
quarter-tone, in spatial magnitude a finger or a foot or something of the
sort, in rhythms a beat or a syllable; and similarly in gravity it is a
definite weight; and in the same way in all cases, in qualities a quality,
in quantities a quantity (and the measure is indivisible, in the former
case in kind, and in the latter to the sense); which implies that the one is
not in itself the substance of anything. [1088a] And this is reasonable;
for ‘the one’ means the measure of some plurality, and ‘number’ means a
measured plurality and a plurality of measures. (5) (Thus it is natural that
one is not a number; for the measure is not measures, but both the
measure and the one are starting-points.) The measure must always be
some identical thing predicable of all the things it measures, e. g. if the
things are horses, the measure is ‘horse’, and if they are men, ‘man’. If
they are a man, a horse, and a god, the measure is perhaps ‘living being’,
(10) and the number of them will be a number of living beings. If the

things are ‘man’ and ‘pale’ and ‘walking’, these will scarcely have a
number, because all belong to a subject which is one and the same in
number, yet the number of these will be a number of ‘kinds’ or of some
such term.
Those who treat the unequal as one thing, and the dyad as an
indefinite compound of great and small, (15) say what is very far from
being probable or possible. For (a) these are modifications and accidents,
rather than substrata, of numbers and magnitudes—the many and few of
number, and the great and small of magnitude—like even and odd, (20)
smooth and rough, straight and curved. Again, (b) apart from this
mistake, the great and the small, and so on, must be relative to
something; but what is relative is least of all things a kind of entity or
substance, and is posterior to quality and quantity; and the relative is an
accident of quantity, (25) as was said, not its matter, since something with
a distinct nature of its own must serve as matter both to the relative in
general and to its parts and kinds. For there is nothing either great or
small, many or few, or, in general, relative to something else, which
without having a nature of its own is many or few, great or small, or
relative to something else. A sign that the relative is least of all a
substance and a real thing is the fact that it alone has no proper
generation or destruction or movement, (30) as in respect of quantity
there is increase and diminution, in respect of quality alteration, in
respect of place locomotion, in respect of substance simple generation
and destruction. In respect of relation there is no proper change; for,
without changing, a thing will be now greater and now less or equal, if
that with which it is compared has changed in quantity. (35) And (c) the
matter of each thing, and therefore of substance, must be that which is
potentially of the nature in question; but the relative is neither
potentially nor actually substance. [1088b] It is strange, then, or
rather impossible, to make not-substance an element in, and prior to,
substance; for all the categories are posterior to substance. Again, (d)
elements are not predicated of the things of which they are elements, (5)
but many and few are predicated both apart and together of number,
and long and short of the line, and both broad and narrow apply to the
plane. If there is a plurality, then, of which the one term, viz. few, is
always predicated, e. g. 2 (which cannot be many, for if it were many,
(10) 1 would be few), there must be also one which is absolutely many,

e. g. 10 is many (if there is no number which is greater than 10), or

10,000. How then, in view of this, can number consist of few and many?
Either both ought to be predicated of it, or neither; but in fact only the
one or the other is predicated.

2 We must inquire generally, whether eternal things can consist of

elements. (15) If they do, they will have matter; for everything that
consists of elements is composite. Since, then, even if a thing exists for
ever, out of that of which it consists it would necessarily also, if it had
come into being, have come into being, and since everything comes to
be what it comes to be out of that which is it potentially (for it could not
have come to be out of that which had not this capacity, nor could it
consist of such elements), and since the potential can be either actual or
not—this being so, (20) however everlasting number or anything else that
has matter is, it must be capable of not existing, just as that which is any
number of years old is as capable of not existing as that which is a day
old; if this is capable of not existing, so is that which has lasted for a
time so long that it has no limit. They cannot, then, be eternal, since that
which is capable of not existing is not eternal, as we had occasion to
show in another context.8 If that which we are now saying is true
universally—that no substance is eternal unless it is actuality—and if the
elements are matter that underlies substance, (25) no eternal substance
can have elements present in it, of which it consists.
There are some9 who describe the element which acts with the One as
an indefinite dyad, and object to ‘the unequal’, reasonably enough,
because of the ensuing difficulties; but they have got rid only of those
objections which inevitably arise from the treatment of the unequal, (30)
i. e. the relative, as an element; those which arise apart from this
opinion must confront even these thinkers, whether it is ideal number,
or mathematical, that they construct out of those elements.
There are many causes which led them off into these explanations, (35)
and especially the fact that they framed the difficulty in an obsolete
form. [1089a] For they thought that all things that are would be one
(viz. Being itself), if one did not join issue with and refute the saying of
Parmenides:

‘For never will this be proved, that things that are not are.’
They thought it necessary to prove that that which is not is; for only thus
—of that which is and something else—could the things that are be
composed, (5) if they are many.
But, first, if ‘being’ has many senses (for it means sometimes
substance, sometimes that it is of a certain quality, sometimes that it is
of a certain quantity, and at other times the other categories), what sort
of ‘one’, then, are all the things that are, if non-being is to be supposed
not to be? Is it the substances that are one, (10) or the affections and
similarly the other categories as well, or all together—so that the ‘this’
and the ‘such’ and the ‘so much’ and the other categories that indicate
each some one class of being will all be one? But it is strange, or rather
impossible, that the coming into play of a single thing10 should bring it
about that part of that which is is a ‘this’, part a ‘such’, part a ‘so much’,
part a ‘here’.
Secondly, (15) of what sort of non-being and being do the things that
are consist? For ‘non-being’ also has many senses, since ‘being’ has; and
‘not being a man’ means not being a certain substance, ‘not being
straight’ not being of a certain quality, ‘not being three cubits long’ not
being of a certain quantity. What sort of being and non-being, then, by
their union pluralize the things that are? This thinker11 means by the
non-being, (20) the union of which with being pluralizes the things that
are, the false and the character of falsity. This is also why it used to be
said that we must assume something that is false, as geometers assume
the line which is not a foot long to be a foot long. But this cannot be so.
For neither do geometers assume anything false (for the enunciation is
extraneous to the inference), (25) nor is it non-being in this sense that the
things that are are generated from or resolved into. But since ‘non-being’
taken in its various cases12 has as many senses as there are categories,
and besides this the false is said not to be, and so is the potential, it is
from this that generation proceeds, man from that which is not man but
potentially man, (30) and white from that which is not white but
potentially white, and this whether it is some one thing that is generated
or many.
The question evidently is, how being, in the sense of ‘the substances’, is
many; for the things that are generated are numbers and lines and
bodies. Now it is strange to inquire how being in the sense of the ‘what’
is many, (35) and not how either qualities or quantities are many. For
surely the indefinite dyad or ‘the great and the small’ is not a reason
why there should be two kinds of white or many colours or flavours or
shapes; for then these also would be numbers and units. [1089b] But if
they had attacked these other categories, they would have seen the cause
of the plurality in substances also; for the same thing or something
analogous is the cause. (5) This aberration is the reason also why in
seeking the opposite of being and the one, from which with being and
the one the things that are proceed, they posited the relative term (i. e.
the unequal), which is neither the contrary nor the contradictory of
these, and is one kind of being as ‘what’ and quality also are.
They should have asked this question also, how relative terms are
many and not one. But as it is, they inquire how there are many units
besides the first 1, but do not go on to inquire how there are many
unequals besides the unequal. (10) Yet they use them and speak of great
and small, many and few (from which proceed numbers), long and short
(from which proceeds the line), broad and narrow (from which proceeds
the plane), deep and shallow (from which proceed solids); and they
speak of yet more kinds of relative term. What is the reason, then, why
there is a plurality of these?
It is necessary, then, as we say, to presuppose for each thing that
which is it potentially; and the holder of these views further declared
what that is which is potentially a ‘this’ and a substance but is not in
itself being—viz. (15) that it is the relative (as if he had said ‘the
qualitative’), which is neither potentially the one or being, nor the
negation of the one nor of being, but one among beings. (20) And it was
much more necessary, as we said,13 if he was inquiring how beings are
many, not to inquire about those in the same category—how there are
many substances or many qualities—but how beings as a whole are
many; for some are substances, some modifications, some relations. In
the categories other than substance there is yet another problem
involved in the existence of plurality. Since they are not separable from
substances, qualities and quantities are many just because their
substratum becomes and is many; yet there ought to be a matter for each
category; only it cannot be separable from substances. (25) But in the case
of ‘thises’, it is possible to explain how the ‘this’ is many things, unless a
thing is to be treated as both a ‘this’ and a general character.14 The
difficulty arising from the facts about substances is rather this, (30) how
there are actually many substances and not one.
But further, if the ‘this’ and the quantitative are not the same, we are
not told how and why the things that are are many, but how quantities
are many. For all ‘number’ means a quantity, (35) and so does the ‘unit’,
unless it means a measure or the quantitatively indivisible. If, then, the
quantitative and the ‘what’ are different, we are not told whence or how
the ‘what’ is many; but if any one says they are the same, he has to face
many inconsistencies. [1090a]
One might fix one’s attention also on the question, regarding the
numbers, what justifies the belief that they exist. To the believer in Ideas
they provide some sort of cause for existing things, (5) since each number
is an Idea, and the Idea is to other things somehow or other the cause of
their being; for let this supposition be granted them. But as for him who
does not hold this view because he sees the inherent objections to the
Ideas (so that it is not for this reason that he posits numbers), but who
posits mathematical number,15 why must we believe his statement that
such number exists, (10) and of what use is such number to other things?
Neither does he who says it exists maintain that it is the cause of
anything (he rather says it is a thing existing by itself), nor is it observed
to be the cause of anything; for the theorems of arithmeticians will all be
found true even of sensible things, (15) as was said before.16

3 As for those, then, who suppose the Ideas to exist and to be

numbers, by their assumption—in virtue of the method of setting out
each term apart from its instances—of the unity of each general term
they try at least to explain somehow why number must exist. Since their
reasons, however, are neither conclusive nor in themselves possible, one
must not, for these reasons at least, (20) assert the existence of number.
Again, the Pythagoreans, because they saw many attributes of numbers
belonging to sensible bodies, supposed real things to be numbers—not
separable numbers, however, but numbers of which real things consist.
But why? Because the attributes of numbers are present in a musical
scale and in the heavens and in many other things.17 (25) Those, however,
who say that mathematical number alone exists18 cannot according to
their hypotheses say anything of this sort, but it used to be urged that
these sensible things could not be the subject of the sciences. But we
maintain that they are, as we said before.19 And it is evident that the
objects of mathematics do not exist apart; for if they existed apart their
attributes would not have been present in bodies. (30) Now the
Pythagoreans in this point are open to no objection; but in that they
construct natural bodies out of numbers, things that have lightness and
weight out of things that have not weight or lightness, they seem to
speak of another heaven and other bodies, not of the sensible. (35) But
those who make number separable20 assume that it both exists and is
separable because the axioms would not be true of sensible things, while
the statements of mathematics are true and ‘greet the soul’; and similarly
with the spatial magnitudes of mathematics. [1090b] It is evident,
then, both that the rival theory21 will say the contrary of this, and that
the difficulty we raised just now,22 why if numbers are in no way
present in sensible things their attributes are present in sensible things,
has to be solved by those who hold these views.
There are some who, because the point is the limit and extreme of the
line, (5) the line of the plane, and the plane of the solid, think there must
be real things of this sort. We must therefore examine this argument too,
and see whether it is not remarkably weak. For (i) extremes are not
substances, but rather all these things are limits. (10) For even walking,
and movement in general, has a limit, so that on their theory this will be
a ‘this’ and a substance. But that is absurd. Not but what (ii) even if they
are substances, they will all be the substances of the sensible things in
this world; for it is to these that the argument applied. Why then should
they be capable of existing apart?
Again, if we are not too easily satisfied, we may, regarding all number
and the objects of mathematics, press this difficulty, that they contribute
nothing to one another, the prior to the posterior; for if number did not
exist, (15) none the less spatial magnitudes would exist for those who
maintain the existence of the objects of mathematics only,23 and if
spatial magnitudes did not exist, soul and sensible bodies would exist.
But the observed facts show that nature is not a series of episodes, (20)
like a bad tragedy. As for the believers in the Ideas, this difficulty misses
them; for they construct spatial magnitudes out of matter and number,
lines out of the number 2, planes doubtless out of 3, solids out of 4—or
they use other numbers, which makes no difference. But will these
magnitudes be Ideas, or what is their manner of existence, and what do
they contribute to things? These contribute nothing, (25) as the objects of
mathematics contribute nothing. But not even is any theorem true of
them, unless we want to change the objects of mathematics and invent
doctrines of our own. But it is not hard to assume any random
hypotheses and spin out a long string of conclusions. (30) These
thinkers,24 then, are wrong in this way, in wanting to unite the objects
of mathematics with the Ideas. And those who first posited two kinds of
number, that of the Forms and that which is mathematical, neither have
said nor can say how mathematical number is to exist and of what it is
to consist. For they place it between ideal and sensible number. (35) If (i)
it consists of the great and small, it will be the same as the other—ideal
—number (he25 makes spatial magnitudes out of some other small and
great26). [1091a] And if (ii) he names some other element, he will be
making his elements rather many. And if the principle of each of the two
kinds of number is a 1, unity will be something common to these, and
we must inquire how the one is these many things, while at the same
time number, according to him, cannot be generated except from one and
an indefinite dyad.
All this is absurd, (5) and conflicts both with itself and with the
probabilities, and we seem to see in it Simonides’ ‘long rigmarole’; for
the long rigmarole comes into play, like those of slaves, when men have
nothing sound to say. And the very elements—the great and the small—
seem to cry out against the violence that is done to them; for they
cannot in any way generate numbers other than those got from 1 by
doubling. (10)
It is strange also to attribute generation to things that are eternal, or
rather this is one of the things that are impossible. (15) There need be no
doubt whether the Pythagoreans attribute generation to them or not; for
they say plainly that when the one had been constructed, whether out of
planes or of surface or of seed or of elements which they cannot express,
immediately the nearest part of the unlimited began to be constrained
and limited by the limit. But since they are constructing a world and
wish to speak the language of natural science, it is fair to make some
examination of their physical theories, (20) but to let them off from the
present inquiry; for we are investigating the principles at work in
unchangeable things, so that it is numbers of this kind whose genesis we
must study.

4 These thinkers say there is no generation of the odd number, which

evidently implies that there is generation of the even; and some present
the even as produced first from unequals—the great and the small—
when these are equalized. (25) The inequality, then, must belong to them
before they are equalized. If they had always been equalized, they would
not have been unequal before; for there is nothing before that which is
always. Therefore evidently they are not giving their account of the
generation of numbers merely to assist contemplation of their nature.27
A difficulty, and a reproach to any one who finds it no difficulty, (30)
are contained in the question how the elements and the principles are
related to the good and the beautiful; the difficulty is this, whether any
of the elements is such a thing as we mean by the good itself and the
best, or this is not so, but these are later in origin than the elements. The
theologians seem to agree with some thinkers of the present day,28 who
answer the question in the negative, and say that both the good and the
beautiful appear in the nature of things only when that nature has made
some progress. (35) (This they do to avoid a real objection which
confronts those who say, as some do, that the one is a first principle.
[1091b] The objection arises not from their ascribing goodness to the
first principle as an attribute, but from their making the one a principle
—and a principle in the sense of an element—and generating number
from the one.) The old poets agree with this inasmuch as they say that
not those who are first in time, e. g. Night and Heaven or Chaos or
Ocean, (5) reign and rule, but Zeus. These poets, however, are led to
speak thus only because they think of the rulers of the world as changing;
for those of them who combine the two characters in that they do not
use mythical language throughout, e. g. Pherecydes and some others,
make the original generating agent the Best, and so do the Magi, (10) and
some of the later sages also, e. g. both Empedocles and Anaxagoras, of
whom one made love an element, and the other made reason a principle.
Of those who maintain the existence of the unchangeable substances
some say the One itself is the good itself; but they thought its substance
lay mainly in its unity.
This, then, is the problem—which of the two ways of speaking is right.
(15) It would be strange if to that which is primary and eternal and most

self-sufficient this very quality—self-sufficiency and self-maintenance—

belongs primarily in some other way than as a good. But indeed it can be
for no other reason indestructible or self-sufficient than because its
nature is good. Therefore to say that the first principle is good is
probably correct; but that this principle should be the One or, (20) if not
that, at least an element, and an element of numbers, is impossible.
Powerful objections arise, to avoid which some have given up the
theory29 (viz. those who agree that the One is a first principle and
element, but only of mathematical number). For on this view all the units
become identical with species of good, and there is a great profusion of
goods. (25) Again, if the Forms are numbers, all the Forms are identical
with species of good. But let a man assume Ideas of anything he pleases.
If these are Ideas only of goods, the Ideas will not be substances; but if
the Ideas are also Ideas of substances, all animals and plants and all
individuals that share in Ideas will be good.
These absurdities follow, and it also follows that the contrary element,
(30) whether it is plurality or the unequal, i. e. the great and small, is the

bad-itself. (Hence one thinker30 avoided attaching the good to the One,
because it would necessarily follow, since generation is from contraries,
that badness is the fundamental nature of plurality; while others31 say
inequality is the nature of the bad. (35)) It follows, then, that all things
partake of the bad except one—the One itself, and that numbers partake
of it in a more undiluted form than spatial magnitudes, and that the bad
is the space in which the good is realized,32 and that it partakes in and
desires that which tends to destroy it; for contrary tends to destroy
contrary. [1092a] And if, as we were saying,33 the matter is that
which is potentially each thing, e. g. that of actual fire is that which is
potentially fire, the bad will be just the potentially good.
All these objections, (5) then, follow, partly because they make every
principle an element, partly because they make contraries principles,
partly because they make the One a principle, partly because they treat
the numbers as the first substances, and as capable of existing apart, and
as Forms.

5 If, then, it is equally impossible not to put the good among the first
principles and to put it among them in this way, (10) evidently the
principles are not being correctly described, nor are the first substances.
Nor does any one conceive the matter correctly if he compares the
principles of the universe to that of animals and plants, on the ground
that the more complete always comes from the indefinite and incomplete
—which is what leads this thinker34 to say that this is also true of the
first principles of reality, so that the One itself is not even an existing
thing. (15) This is incorrect, for even in this world of animals and plants
the principles from which these come are complete; for it is a man that
produces a man, and the seed is not first.
It is out of place, also, to generate place simultaneously with the
mathematical solids (for place is peculiar to the individual things, (20)
and hence they are separate in place; but mathematical objects are
nowhere), and to say that they must be somewhere, but not say what
kind of thing their place is.
Those who say that existing things come from elements and that the
first of existing things are the numbers, should have first distinguished
the senses in which one thing comes from another, and then said in
which sense number comes from its first principles.
By intermixture? But (1) not everything is capable of intermixture, (25)
and (2) that which is produced by it is different from its elements, and
on this view the one will not remain separate or a distinct entity; but
they want it to be so.
By juxtaposition, like a syllable? But then (1) the elements must have
position; and (2) he who thinks of number will be able to think of the
unity and the plurality apart; number then will be this—a unit and
plurality, or the one and the unequal.
Again, coming from certain things means in one sense that these are
still to be found in the product, and in another that they are not; in
which sense does number come from these elements? Only things that
are generated can come from elements which are present in them. (30)
Does number come, then, from its elements as from seed? But nothing
can be excreted from that which is indivisible. Does it come from its
contrary, its contrary not persisting? But all things that come in this way
come also from something else which does persist.35 Since, then, (35) one
thinker36 places the 1 as contrary to plurality, and another37 places it as
contrary to the unequal, treating the 1 as equal, number must be being
treated as coming from contraries. [1092b] There is, then, something
else that persists, from which and from one contrary the compound is or
has come to be. Again, why in the world do the other things that come
from contraries, or that have contraries, perish (even when all of the
contrary is used to produce them), while number does not? Nothing is
said about this. Yet whether present or not present in the compound the
contrary destroys it, (5) e. g. ‘strife’ destroys the ‘mixture’38 (yet it should
not; for it is not to that that it is contrary).39
Once more, it has not been determined at all in which way numbers
are the causes of substances and of being—whether (1) as boundaries (as
points are of spatial magnitudes). This is how Eurytus decided what was
the number of what (e. g. one of man and another of horse), (10) viz. by
imitating the figures of living things with pebbles, as some people bring
numbers into the forms of triangle and square. Or (2) is it because
harmony is a ratio of numbers, and so is man and everything else? But
how are the attributes—white and sweet and hot—numbers? Evidently it
is not the numbers that are the essence or the causes of the form; for the
ratio is the essence, (15) while the number is the matter. e. g. the essence
of flesh or bone is number only in this way, ‘three parts of fire and two
of earth’.40 And a number, whatever number it is, is always a number of
certain things, either of parts of fire or earth or of units; but the essence
is that there is so much of one thing to so much of another in the
mixture; and this is no longer a number but a ratio of mixture of
numbers, (20) whether these are corporeal or of any other kind.
Number, then, whether it be number in general or the number which
consists of abstract units, is neither the cause as agent, nor the matter,
(25) nor the ratio and form of things. Nor, of course, is it the final cause.

6 One might also raise the question what the good is that things get
from numbers because their composition is expressible by a number,
either by one which is easily calculable or by an odd number. For in fact
honey-water is no more wholesome if it is mixed in the proportion of
three times three, but it would do more good if it were in no particular
ratio but well diluted than if it were numerically expressible but strong.
(30) Again, the ratios of mixtures are expressed by the adding of numbers,

not by mere numbers; e. g. it is ‘three parts to two’, not ‘three times

two’. For in any multiplication the genus of the things multiplied must
be the same; therefore the product 1 × 2 × 3 must be measurable by 1,
and 4 × 5 × 6 by 4, and therefore all products into which the same
factor enters must be measurable by that factor. (35) The number of fire,
then, cannot be 2 × 5 × 3 × 6, and at the same time that of water 2 ×
3. [1093a]
If all things must share in number, it must follow that many things are
the same, and the same number must belong to one thing and to
another. Is number the cause, then, and does the thing exist because of
its number, or is this not certain? e. g. the motions of the sun have a
number, (5) and again those of the moon—yes, and the life and prime of
each animal. Why, then, should not some of these numbers be squares,
some cubes, and some equal, others double? There is no reason why they
should not, and indeed they must move within these limits, since all
things were assumed to share in number. And it was assumed that things
that differed might fall under the same number. (10) Therefore if the same
number had belonged to certain things, these would have been the same
as one another, since they would have had the same form of number;
e. g. sun and moon would have been the same. But why need these
numbers be causes? There are seven vowels, the scale consists of seven
strings, the Pleiades are seven, (15) at seven animals lose their teeth (at
least some do, though some do not), and the champions who fought
against Thebes were seven. Is it then because the number is the kind of
number it is, that the champions were seven or the Pleiad consists of
seven stars? Surely the champions were seven because there were seven
gates or for some other reason, and the Pleiad we count as seven, as we
count the Bear as twelve, while other peoples count more stars in both.
Nay, they even say that , Ψ, and Z are concords, (20) and that because
there are three concords, the double consonants also are three. They
quite neglect the fact that there might be a thousand such letters; for one
symbol might be assigned to ΓP. But if they say that each of these three
is equal to two of the other letters, and no other is so, and if the cause is
that there are three parts of the mouth and one letter is in each applied
to sigma, it is for this reason that there are only three, not because the
concords are three; since as a matter of fact the concords are more than
three, (25) but of double consonants there cannot be more. These people
are like the old-fashioned Homeric scholars, who see small resemblances
but neglect great ones. Some say that there are many such cases, e. g.
that the middle strings are represented by nine and eight,41 (30) and that
the epic verse has seventeen syllables, which is equal in number to the
two strings, and that the scansion is, in the right,42 half of the line nine
syllables, and in the left eight. [1093b] And they say that the distance
in the letters from alpha to omega is equal to that from the lowest note
of the flute to the highest, and that the number of this note is equal to
that of the whole choir of heaven. (5) It may be suspected that no one
could find difficulty either in stating such analogies or in finding them in
eternal things, since they can be found even in perishable things.
But the lauded characteristics of numbers, and the contraries of these,
and generally the mathematical relations, as some describe them,
making them causes of nature, seem, when we inspect them in this way,
(10) to vanish; for none of them is a cause in any of the senses that have

been distinguished in reference to the first principles.43 In a sense,

however, they make it plain that goodness belongs to numbers, and that
the odd, the straight, the square, the potencies of certain numbers, are in
the column of the beautiful. For the seasons and a particular kind of
number go together; and the other agreements that they collect from the
theorems of mathematics all have this meaning.44 (15) Hence they are like
coincidences. For they are accidents, but the things that agree are all
appropriate to one another, and one by analogy. For in each category of
being an analogous term is found—as the straight is in length, (20) so is
the level in surface, perhaps the odd in number, and the white in colour.
Again, it is not the ideal numbers that are the causes of musical
phenomena and the like (for equal ideal numbers differ from one
another in form; for even the units do); so that we need not assume Ideas
for this reason at least.
These, then, are the results of the theory, and yet more might be
brought together. (25) The fact that our opponents have much trouble
with the generation of numbers and can in no way make a system of
them, seems to indicate that the objects of mathematics are not
separable from sensible things, as some say, and that they are not the
first principles.

1 Plato is meant.

2 Speusippus is probably referred to.

3 This includes Plato.

4 Unidentifiable Platonists.

5 Perhaps Pythagoreans.

6 Probably certain Pythagoreans are referred to.

7 Probably Speusippus is meant.

8 Cf. ix. 1050b 7 ff., De Caelo, i. 12.

9 Probably Xenocrates is meant.

10 i. e. non-being.

11 Plato; Cf. Soph. 237 A. 240.

12 Cf. ll. 16–19.

13 a34.

14 Which, Aristotle thinks, the Platonists assert the Idea to be.

15 Speusippus is meant.

16 Cf. xiii. 3, esp. 1077b 17–22.

17 Cf. i. 989b 29–990a 29.

18 Speusippus is meant.

19 Cf. xiii. 3.

20 The Platonists.

21 sc. of the Pythagoreans; Cf. ll. 20–25.

22 a29.

23 Speusippus is meant.

24 ll. 20–32 seem to refer to Xenocrates.

25 sc. Plato.

26 Cf. 1090b 21, 22.

27 Cf. De Caelo, i. 279b 32–280a 10.

28 Speusippus is meant; Cf. xii. 1072b 31.

29 i. e. Speusippus gave up the identity of the One with the Good.

30 Speusippus.
31 Plato and Xenocrates.

32 Cf. Pl. Tim. 52 A, B.

33 1088b 1.

34 Speusippus; Cf. xii. 1072b 30–34.

35 Cf. xii. 1069b 3–9, Phys. i. 7.

36 Speusippus.

37 Plato.

38 Empedocles.

39 a 17–b 8 seem to refer mainly to Speusippus.

40 Empedocles.

41 The ratios corresponding to the fourth and the fifth are respectively 8 to 6 and 9 to 6.

42 i. e. first.

43 Cf. v. 1, 2.

44 sc. that numerical relations are found in things, but are not the cause of anything that happens.
 Ethica Nicomachea

Translated by W. D. Ross

 CONTENTS

BOOK I. THE GOOD FOR MAN

A. Subject of our inquiry.

CHAPTER
1. All human activities aim at some good: some goods subordinate to others.
2. The science of the good for man is politics.

B. Nature of the science.

3. We must not expect more precision than the subject-matter admits. The student should
have reached years of discretion.

C. What is the good for man?

4. It is generally agreed to be happiness, but there are various views as to what happiness
is. What is required at the start is an unreasoned conviction about the facts, such
as is produced by a good upbringing.
5. Discussion of the popular views that the good is pleasure, honour, wealth; a fourth kind
of life, that of contemplation, deferred for future discussion.
6. Discussion of the philosophical view that there is an Idea of good.
7. The good must be something final and self-sufficient. Definition of happiness reached by
considering the characteristic function of man.
8. This definition is confirmed by current beliefs about happiness.
9. Is happiness acquired by learning or habituation, or sent by God or by chance?
10. Should no man be called happy while he lives?
11. Do the fortunes of the living affect the dead?
12. Virtue is praiseworthy, but happiness is above praise.

D. Kinds of virtue.

13. Division of the faculties, and resultant division of virtue into intellectual and moral.

BOOKS II–V. MORAL VIRTUE

II. 1—III. 5. GENERAL ACCOUNT

 A. Moral virtue, how produced, in what materials and in what manner
exhibited.

1. It, like the arts, is acquired by repetition of the corresponding acts.

2. These acts cannot be prescribed exactly, but must avoid excess and defect.
3. Pleasure in doing virtuous acts is a sign that the virtuous disposition has been acquired: a
variety of considerations show the essential connexion of moral virtue with
pleasure and pain.
4. The actions that produce moral virtue are not good in the same sense as those that flow
from it: the latter must fulfil certain conditions not necessary in the case of the
arts.

B. Definition of moral virtue.

5. Its genus: it is a state of character, not a passion nor a faculty.

6. Its differentia: it is a disposition to choose the mean.
7. This proposition illustrated by reference to the particular virtues.

C. Characteristics of the extreme and mean states: practical corollaries.

8. The extremes are opposed to each other and to the mean.

9. The mean is hard to attain, and is grasped by perception, not by reasoning.

D. Inner side of moral virtue: conditions of responsibility for action.

1. Praise and blame attach to voluntary actions, i. e. actions done (1) not under
compulsion, and (2) with knowledge of the circumstances.
2. Moral virtue implies that the action is done (3) by choice; the object of choice is the
result of previous deliberation.
3. The nature of deliberation and its objects: choice is deliberate desire of things in our
own power.
4. The object of rational wish is the end, i. e. the good or the apparent good.
5. We are responsible for bad as well as for good actions.

III. 6—V. 11. THE VIRTUES AND VICES.

A. Courage.
 6. Courage concerned with the feelings of fear and confidence—strictly speaking, with the
fear of death in battle.
7. The motive of courage is the sense of honour: characteristics of the opposite vices,
cowardice and rashness.
8. Five kinds of courage improperly so called.
9. Relation of courage to pain and pleasure.

B. Temperance.

10. Temperance is limited to certain pleasures of touch.

11. Characteristics of temperance and its opposites, self-indulgence and ‘insensibility’.
12. Self-indulgence more voluntary than cowardice: comparison of the self-indulgent man to
the spoilt child.

C. Virtues concerned with money.

1. Liberality, prodigality, meanness.

2. Magnificence, vulgarity, niggardliness.

D. Virtues concerned with honour.

3. Pride, vanity, humility.

4. Ambition, unambitiousness, and the mean between them.

E. The virtue concerned with anger.

5. Good temper, irascibility, inirascibility.

F. Virtues of social intercourse.

6. Friendliness, obsequiousness, churlishness.

7. Truthfulness, boastfulness, mock-modesty.
8. Ready wit, buffoonery, boorishness.

G. A quasi-virtue.

9. Shame, bashfulness, shamelessness.

H. Justice.
I. Its sphere and outer nature: in what sense it is a mean.
 I. Its sphere and outer nature: in what sense it is a mean.

1. The just as the lawful (universal justice) and the just as the fair and equal (particular
justice): the former considered.
2. The latter considered: divided into distributive and rectificatory justice.
3. Distributive justice, in accordance with geometrical proportion.
4. Rectificatory justice, in accordance with arithmetical progression.
5. Justice in exchange, reciprocity in accordance with proportion.
6. Political justice and analogous kinds of justice.
7. Natural and legal justice.

II. Its inner nature as involving choice.

8. The scale of degrees of wrongdoing.

9. Can a man be voluntarily treated unjustly? Is it the distributor or the recipient that is
guilty of injustice in distribution? Justice not so easy as it might seem, because it
is not a way of acting but an inner disposition.
10. Equity, a corrective of legal justice.
11. Can a man treat himself unjustly?

BOOK VI. INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE

A. Introduction.

1. Reasons for studying intellectual virtue: intellect divided into the contemplative and the
calculative.
2. The object of the former is truth, that of the latter truth corresponding with right desire.

B. The chief intellectual virtues.

3. Science—demonstrative knowledge of the necessary and eternal.

4. Art—knowledge of how to make things.
5. Practical wisdom—knowledge of how to secure the ends of human life.
6. Intuitive reason—knowledge of the principles from which science proceeds.
7. Philosophic wisdom—the union of intuitive reason and science.
8. Relations between practical wisdom and political science.

C. Minor intellectual virtues concerned with conduct.

 9. Goodness in deliberation, how related to practical wisdom.
10. Understanding—the critical quality answering to the imperative quality practical
wisdom.
11. Judgement—right discrimination of the equitable: the place of intuition in morals.

D. Relation of philosophic to practical wisdom.

12. What is the use of philosophic and of practical wisdom? Philosophic wisdom is the
formal cause of happiness; practical wisdom is what ensures the taking of proper
means to the proper ends desired by moral virtue.
13. Relation of practical wisdom to natural virtue, moral virtue, and the right rule.

BOOK VII. CONTINENCE AND INCONTINENCE. PLEASURE

A. Continence and incontinence.

1. Six varieties of character: method of treatment: current opinions.

2. Contradictions involved in these opinions.
3. Solution of the problem, in what sense the incontinent man acts against knowledge.
4. Solution of the problem, what is the sphere of incontinence: its proper and its extended
sense distinguished.
5. Incontinence in its extended sense includes a brutish and a morbid form.
6. Incontinence in respect of anger less disgraceful than incontinence proper.
7. Softness and endurance: two forms of incontinence—weakness and impetuosity.
8. Self-indulgence worse than incontinence.
9. Relation of continence to obstinacy, incontinence, ‘insensibility’, temperance.
10. Practical wisdom is not compatible with incontinence, but cleverness is.

B. Pleasure.

11. Three views hostile to pleasure, and the arguments for them.
12. Discussion of the view that pleasure is not a good.
13. Discussion of the view that pleasure is not the chief good.
14. Discussion of the view that most pleasures are bad, and of the tendency to identify
bodily pleasures with pleasure in general.

BOOKS VIII, IX. FRIENDSHIP

 A. Kinds of friendship.

1. Friendship both necessary and noble: main questions about it.

2. Three objects of love: implications of friendship.
3. Three corresponding kinds of friendship: superiority of friendship whose motive is the
good.
4. Contrast between the best and the inferior kinds.
5. The state of friendship distinguished from the activity of friendship and from the feeling
of friendliness.
6. Various relations between the three kinds.

B. Reciprocity of friendship.

7. In unequal friendships a proportion must be maintained.

8. Loving is more of the essence of friendship than being loved.

C. Relation of reciprocity in friendship to that involved in other forms of

community.

9. Parallelism of friendship and justice: the state comprehends all lesser communities.
10. Classification of constitutions: analogies with family relations.
11. Corresponding forms of friendship, and of justice.
12. Various forms of friendship between relations.

D. Casuistry of friendship.

13. Principles of interchange of services (a) in friendship between equals.

14. (b) In friendship between unequals.
1. (c) In friendship in which the motives on the two sides are different.
2. Conflict of obligations.
3. Occasions of breaking off friendship.

E. Internal nature of friendship.

4. Friendship is based on self-love.

5. Relation of friendship to goodwill.
6. Relation of friendship to unanimity.
7. The pleasure of beneficence.
 8. The nature of true self-love.

F. The need of friendship.

9. Why does the happy man need friends?

10. The limit to the number of friends.
11. Are friends more needed in good or in bad fortune?
12. The essence of friendship is living together.

BOOK X. PLEASURE. HAPPINESS

A. Pleasure.

1. Two opposed views about pleasure.

2. Discussion of the view that pleasure is the good.
3. Discussion of the view that pleasure is wholly bad.
4. Definition of pleasure.
5. Pleasures differ with the activities which they accompany and complete: criterion of the
value of pleasures.

B. Happiness.

6. Happiness is good activity, not amusement.

7. Happiness in the highest sense is the contemplative life.
8. Superiority of the contemplative life further considered.
9. Legislation is needed if the end is to be attained: transition to Politics.
ETHICA NICOMACHEA;

(Nicomachean Ethics)
 BOOK I

1 [1094a] Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action
and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good
has rightly been declared1 to be that at which all things aim. But a
certain difference is found among ends; some are activities, others are
products apart from the activities that produce them. (5) Where there are
ends apart from the actions, it is the nature of the products to be better
than the activities. Now, as there are many actions, arts, and sciences,
their ends also are many; the end of the medical art is health, that of
shipbuilding a vessel, that of strategy victory, that of economics wealth.
But where such arts fall under a single capacity—as bridle-making and
the other arts concerned with the equipment of horses fall under the art
of riding, (10) and this and every military action under strategy, in the
same way other arts fall under yet others—in all of these the ends of the
master arts are to be preferred to all the subordinate ends; for it is for
the sake of the former that the latter are pursued. (15) It makes no
difference whether the activities themselves are the ends of the actions,
or something else apart from the activities, as in the case of the sciences
just mentioned.

2 If, then, there is some end of the things we do, which we desire for
its own sake (everything else being desired for the sake of this), and if
we do not choose everything for the sake of something else (for at that
rate the process would go on to infinity, (20) so that our desire would be
empty and vain), clearly this must be the good and the chief good. Will
not the knowledge of it, then, have a great influence on life? Shall we
not, like archers who have a mark to aim at, be more likely to hit upon
what is right? If so, we must try, (25) in outline at least to determine what
it is, and of which of the sciences or capacities it is the object. It would
seem to belong to the most authoritative art and that which is most truly
the master art. And politics appears to be of this nature; [1094b] for it
is this that ordains which of the sciences should be studied in a state,
and which each class of citizens should learn and up to what point they
should learn them; and we see even the most highly esteemed of
capacities to fall under this, e. g. strategy, (5) economics, rhetoric; now,
since politics uses the rest of the sciences, and since, again, it legislates
as to what we are to do and what we are to abstain from, the end of this
science must include those of the others, so that this end must be the
good for man. For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a
state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more
complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to
attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain
it for a nation or for city-states. (10) These, then, are the ends at which
our inquiry aims, since it is political science, in one sense of that term.

3 Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the

subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all
discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts. (15) Now fine
and just actions, which political science investigates, admit of much
variety and fluctuation of opinion, so that they may be thought to exist
only by convention, and not by nature. And goods also give rise to a
similar fluctuation because they bring harm to many people; for before
now men have been undone by reason of their wealth, and others by
reason of their courage. We must be content, then, (20) in speaking of
such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and
in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part
true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are
no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be
received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in
each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is
evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a
mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs. (25)
Now each man judges well the things he knows, and of these he is a
good judge. And so the man who has been educated in a subject is a
good judge of that subject, and the man who has received an all-round
education is a good judge in general. [1095a] Hence a young man is
not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is
inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start
from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his
passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end aimed
at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is
young in years or youthful in character; the defect does not depend on
time, (5) but on his living, and pursuing each successive object, as passion
directs. For to such persons, as to the incontinent, knowledge brings no
profit; but to those who desire and act in accordance with a rational
principle knowledge about such matters will be of great benefit. (10)
These remarks about the student, the sort of treatment to be expected,
and the purpose of the inquiry, may be taken as our preface.

4 Let us resume our inquiry and state, in view of the fact that all
knowledge and every pursuit aims at some good, what it is that we say
political science aims at and what is the highest of all goods achievable
by action. (15) Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the
general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is
happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but
with regard to what happiness is they differ, (20) and the many do not
give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain
and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth, or honour; they differ,
however, from one another—and often even the same man identifies it
with different things, with health when he is ill, with wealth when he is
poor; but, conscious of their ignorance, (25) they admire those who
proclaim some great ideal that is above their comprehension. Now some2
thought that apart from these many goods there is another which is self-
subsistent and causes the goodness of all these as well. To examine all
the opinions that have been held were perhaps somewhat fruitless;
enough to examine those that are most prevalent or that seem to be
arguable.
Let us not fail to notice, however, that there is a difference between
arguments from and those to the first principles. (30) For Plato, too, was
right in raising this question and asking, as he used to do, ‘are we on the
way from or to the first principles?’3 There is a difference, as there is in
a race-course between the course from the judges to the turning-point
and the way back. [1095b] For, while we must begin with what is
known, things are objects of knowledge in two senses—some to us, some
without qualification. Presumably, then, we must begin with things
known to us. Hence any one who is to listen intelligently to lectures
about what is noble and just and, (5) generally, about the subjects of
political science must have been brought up in good habits. For the fact
is the starting-point, and if this is sufficiently plain to him, he will not at
the start need the reason as well; and the man who has been well
brought up has or can easily get starting-points. And as for him who
neither has nor can get them, let him hear the words of Hesiod:

Far best is he who knows all things himself;

Good, (10) he that hearkens when men counsel right;
But he who neither knows, nor lays to heart
Another’s wisdom, is a useless wight.

5 Let us, however, resume our discussion from the point at which we
digressed. To judge from the lives that men lead, most men, (15) and men
of the most vulgar type, seem (not without some ground) to identify the
good, or happiness, with pleasure; which is the reason why they love the
life of enjoyment. For there are, we may say, three prominent types of
life—that just mentioned, the political, and thirdly the contemplative
life. Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes,
(20) preferring a life suitable to beasts, but they get some ground for their

view from the fact that many of those in high places share the tastes of
Sardanapallus. A consideration of the prominent types of life shows that
people of superior refinement and of active disposition identify
happiness with honour; for this is, roughly speaking, the end of the
political life. But it seems too superficial to be what we are looking for,
since it is thought to depend on those who bestow honour rather than on
him who receives it, (25) but the good we divine to be something proper
to a man and not easily taken from him. Further, men seem to pursue
honour in order that they may be assured of their goodness; at least it is
by men of practical wisdom that they seek to be honoured, and among
those who know them, and on the ground of their virtue; clearly, then,
according to them, at any rate, (30) virtue is better. And perhaps one
might even suppose this to be, rather than honour, the end of the
political life. But even this appears somewhat incomplete; for possession
of virtue seems actually compatible with being asleep, or with lifelong
inactivity, and, further, with the greatest sufferings and misfortunes; but
a man who was living so no one would call happy, unless he were
maintaining a thesis at all costs. [1096a] But enough of this; for the
subject has been sufficiently treated even in the current discussions.
Third comes the contemplative life, which we shall consider later.4
The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, (5) and
wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful
and for the sake of something else. And so one might rather take the
aforenamed objects to be ends; for they are loved for themselves. But it
is evident that not even these are ends; yet many arguments have been
thrown away in support of them. Let us leave this subject, then. (10)

6 We had perhaps better consider the universal good and discuss

thoroughly what is meant by it, although such an inquiry is made an
uphill one by the fact that the Forms have been introduced by friends of
our own. Yet it would perhaps be thought to be better, indeed to be our
duty, for the sake of maintaining the truth even to destroy what touches
us closely, especially as we are philosophers or lovers of wisdom; for, (15)
while both are dear, piety requires us to honour truth above our friends.
The men who introduced this doctrine did not posit Ideas of classes
within which they recognized priority and posteriority (which is the
reason why they did not maintain the existence of an Idea embracing all
numbers); but the term ‘good’ is used both in the category of substance
and in that of quality and in that of relation, (20) and that which is per se,
i. e. substance, is prior in nature to the relative (for the latter is like an
offshoot and accident of being); so that there could not be a common
Idea set over all these goods. Further, since ‘good’ has as many senses as
‘being’ (for it is predicated both in the category of substance, as of God
and of reason, and in quality, i. e. of the virtues, (25) and in quantity, i. e.
of that which is moderate, and in relation, i. e. of the useful, and in time,
i. e. of the right opportunity, and in place, i. e. of the right locality and
the like), clearly it cannot be something universally present in all cases
and single; for then it could not have been predicated in all the
categories but in one only. Further, since of the things answering to one
Idea there is one science, (30) there would have been one science of all
the goods; but as it is there are many sciences even of the things that fall
under one category, e. g. of opportunity, for opportunity in war is
studied by strategics and in disease by medicine, and the moderate in
food is studied by medicine and in exercise by the science of gymnastics.
And one might ask the question, what in the world they mean by ‘a thing
itself’, if (as is the case) in ‘man himself’ and in a particular man the
account of man is one and the same. (35) For in so far as they are man,
they will in no respect differ; and if this is so, neither will ‘good itself’
and particular goods, in so far as they are good. [1096b] But again it
will not be good any the more for being eternal, since that which lasts
long is no whiter than that which perishes in a day. (5) The Pythagoreans
seem to give a more plausible account of the good, when they place the
one in the column of goods; and it is they that Speusippus seems to have
followed.
But let us discuss these matters elsewhere5; an objection to what we
have said, however, may be discerned in the fact that the Platonists have
not been speaking about all goods, (10) and that the goods that are
pursued and loved for themselves are called good by reference to a
single Form, while those which tend to produce or to preserve these
somehow or to prevent their contraries are called so by reference to
these, and in a secondary sense. Clearly, then, goods must be spoken of
in two ways, and some must be good in themselves, the others by reason
of these. Let us separate, then, things good in themselves from things
useful, (15) and consider whether the former are called good by reference
to a single Idea. What sort of goods would one call good in themselves?
Is it those that are pursued even when isolated from others, such as
intelligence, sight, and certain pleasures and honours? Certainly, if we
pursue these also for the sake of something else, yet one would place
them among things good in themselves. (20) Or is nothing other than the
Idea of good good in itself? In that case the Form will be empty. But if
the things we have named are also things good in themselves, the
account of the good will have to appear as something identical in them
all, as that of whiteness is identical in snow and in white lead. But of
honour, wisdom, and pleasure, just in respect of their goodness, (25) the
accounts are distinct and diverse. The good, therefore, is not some
common element answering to one Idea.
But what then do we mean by the good? It is surely not like the things
that only chance to have the same name. Are goods one, then, by being
derived from one good or by all contributing to one good, or are they
rather one by analogy? Certainly as sight is in the body, (30) so is reason
in the soul, and so on in other cases. But perhaps these subjects had
better be dismissed for the present; for perfect precision about them
would be more appropriate to another branch of philosophy.6 And
similarly with regard to the Idea; even if there is some one good which is
universally predicable of goods or is capable of separate and
independent existence, clearly it could not be achieved or attained by
man; but we are now seeking something attainable. (35) Perhaps,
however, some one might think it worth while to recognize this with a
view to the goods that are attainable and achievable; for having this as a
sort of pattern we shall know better the goods that are good for us, and
if we know them shall attain them. [1097a] This argument has some
plausibility, but seems to clash with the procedure of the sciences; for all
of these, though they aim at some good and seek to supply the
deficiency of it, (5) leave on one side the knowledge of the good. Yet that
all the exponents of the arts should be ignorant of, and should not even
seek, so great an aid is not probable. It is hard, too, to see how a weaver
or a carpenter will be benefited in regard to his own craft by knowing
this ‘good itself’, or how the man who has viewed the Idea itself will be a
better doctor or general thereby. (10) For a doctor seems not even to
study health in this way, but the health of man, or perhaps rather the
health of a particular man; it is individuals that he is healing. But
enough of these topics.

7 Let us again return to the good we are seeking, and ask what it can
be. (15) It seems different in different actions and arts; it is different in
medicine, in strategy, and in the other arts likewise. What then is the
good of each? Surely that for whose sake everything else is done. In
medicine this is health, in strategy victory, in architecture a house, (20) in
any other sphere something else, and in every action and pursuit the
end; for it is for the sake of this that all men do whatever else they do.
Therefore, if there is an end for all that we do, this will be the good
achievable by action, and if there are more than one, these will be the
goods achievable by action.
 So the argument has by a different course reached the same point; but
we must try to state this even more clearly. Since there are evidently
more than one end, and we choose some of these (e. g. wealth, (25) flutes,
and in general instruments) for the sake of something else, clearly not all
ends are final ends; but the chief good is evidently something final.
Therefore, if there is only one final end, this will be what we are
seeking, and if there are more than one, the most final of these will be
what we are seeking. Now we call that which is in itself worthy of
pursuit more final than that which is worthy of pursuit for the sake of
something else, (30) and that which is never desirable for the sake of
something else more final than the things that are desirable both in
themselves and for the sake of that other thing, and therefore we call
final without qualification that which is always desirable in itself and
never for the sake of something else.
[1097b] Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be;
for this we choose always for itself and never for the sake of something
else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for
themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose
each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, (5)
judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the
other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for
anything other than itself.
From the point of view of self-sufficiency the same result seems to
follow; for the final good is thought to be self-sufficient. Now by self-
sufficient we do not mean that which is sufficient for a man by himself,
(10) for one who lives a solitary life, but also for parents, children, wife,

and in general for his friends and fellow citizens, since man is born for
citizenship. But some limit must be set to this; for if we extend our
requirement to ancestors and descendants and friends’ friends we are in
for an infinite series. Let us examine this question, however, on another
occasion;7 the self-sufficient we now define as that which when isolated
makes life desirable and lacking in nothing; and such we think happiness
to be; and further we think it most desirable of all things, (15) without
being counted as one good thing among others—if it were so counted it
would clearly be made more desirable by the addition of even the least
of goods; for that which is added becomes an excess of goods, (20) and of
goods the greater is always more desirable. Happiness, then, is
something final and self-sufficient, and is the end of action.
Presumably, however, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a
platitude, and a clearer account of what it is is still desired. This might
perhaps be given, (25) if we could first ascertain the function of man. For
just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or any artist, and, in general, for all
things that have a function or activity, the good and the ‘well’ is thought
to reside in the function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a
function. Have the carpenter, then, and the tanner certain functions or
activities, (30) and has man none? Is he born without a function? Or as
eye, hand, foot, and in general each of the parts evidently has a function,
may one lay it down that man similarly has a function apart from all
these? What then can this be? Life seems to be common even to plants,
but we are seeking what is peculiar to man. [1098a] Let us exclude,
therefore, the life of nutrition and growth. Next there would be a life of
perception, but it also seems to be common even to the horse, the ox,
and every animal. There remains, then, an active life of the element that
has a rational principle; of this, one part has such a principle in the sense
of being obedient to one, the other in the sense of possessing one and
exercising thought. (5) And, as ‘life of the rational element’ also has two
meanings, we must state that life in the sense of activity is what we
mean; for this seems to be the more proper sense of the term. Now if the
function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational
principle, and if we say ‘a so-and-so’ and ‘a good so-and-so’ have a
function which is the same in kind, e. g. a lyre-player and a good lyre-
player, and so without qualification in all cases, eminence in respect of
goodness being added to the name of the function (for the function of a
lyre-player is to play the lyre, (10) and that of a good lyre-player is to do
so well): if this is the case, [and we state the function of man to be a
certain kind of life, and this to be an activity or actions of the soul
implying a rational principle, and the function of a good man to be the
good and noble performance of these, and if any action is well
performed when it is performed in accordance with the appropriate
excellence: if this is the case, (15)] human good turns out to be activity of
soul in accordance with virtue, and if there are more than one virtue, in
accordance with the best and most complete.
 But we must add ‘in a complete life’. For one swallow does not make a
summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not
make a man blessed and happy.
Let this serve as an outline of the good; for we must presumably first
sketch it roughly, (20) and then later fill in the details. But it would seem
that any one is capable of carrying on and articulating what has once
been well outlined, and that time is a good discoverer or partner in such
a work; to which facts the advances of the arts are due; for any one can
add what is lacking. And we must also remember what has been said
before,8 (25) and not look for precision in all things alike, but in each
class of things such precision as accords with the subject-matter, and so
much as is appropriate to the inquiry. For a carpenter and a geometer
investigate the right angle in different ways; the former does so in so far
as the right angle is useful for his work, (30) while the latter inquires
what it is or what sort of thing it is; for he is a spectator of the truth. We
must act in the same way, then, in all other matters as well, that our
main task may not be subordinated to minor questions. Nor must we
demand the cause in all matters alike; it is enough in some cases that the
fact be well established, as in the case of the first principles; the fact is
the primary thing or first principle. [1098b] Now of first principles we
see some by induction, some by perception, some by a certain
habituation, and others too in other ways. But each set of principles we
must try to investigate in the natural way, and we must take pains to
state them definitely, (5) since they have a great influence on what
follows. For the beginning is thought to be more than half of the whole,
and many of the questions we ask are cleared up by it.

8 We must consider it, however, in the light not only of our

conclusion and our premisses, (10) but also of what is commonly said
about it; for with a true view all the data harmonize, but with a false one
the facts soon clash. Now goods have been divided into three classes,9
and some are described as external, others as relating to soul or to body;
we call those that relate to soul most properly and truly goods, (15) and
physical actions and activities we class as relating to soul. Therefore our
account must be sound, at least according to this view, which is an old
one and agreed on by philosophers. It is correct also in that we identify
the end with certain actions and activities; for thus it falls among goods
of the soul and not among external goods. (20) Another belief which
harmonizes with our account is that the happy man lives well and does
well; for we have practically defined happiness as a sort of good life and
good action. The characteristics that are looked for in happiness seem
also, all of them, to belong to what we have defined happiness as being.
For some identify happiness with virtue, some with practical wisdom,
others with a kind of philosophic wisdom, (25) others with these, or one
of these, accompanied by pleasure or not without pleasure; while others
include also external prosperity. Now some of these views have been
held by many men and men of old, others by a few eminent persons; and
it is not probable that either of these should be entirely mistaken, but
rather that they should be right in at least some one respect or even in
most respects.
With those who identify happiness with virtue or some one virtue our
account is in harmony; for to virtue belongs virtuous activity. (30) But it
makes, perhaps, no small difference whether we place the chief good in
possession or in use, in state of mind or in activity. [1099a] For the
state of mind may exist without producing any good result, as in a man
who is asleep or in some other way quite inactive, but the activity
cannot; for one who has the activity will of necessity be acting, and
acting well. And as in the Olympic Games it is not the most beautiful
and the strongest that are crowned but those who compete (for it is
some of these that are victorious), (5) so those who act win, and rightly
win, the noble and good things in life.
Their life is also in itself pleasant. For pleasure is a state of soul, and to
each man that which he is said to be a lover of is pleasant; e. g. not only
is a horse pleasant to the lover of horses, (10) and a spectacle to the lover
of sights, but also in the same way just acts are pleasant to the lover of
justice and in general virtuous acts to the lover of virtue. Now for most
men their pleasures are in conflict with one another because these are
not by nature pleasant, but the lovers of what is noble find pleasant the
things that are by nature pleasant; and virtuous actions are such, so that
these are pleasant for such men as well as in their own nature. Their life,
therefore, has no further need of pleasure as a sort of adventitious
charm, (15) but has its pleasure in itself. For, besides what we have said,
the man who does not rejoice in noble actions is not even good; since no
one would call a man just who did not enjoy acting justly, nor any man
liberal who did not enjoy liberal actions; and similarly in all other cases.
If this is so, (20) virtuous actions must be in themselves pleasant. But they
are also good and noble, and have each of these attributes in the highest
degree, since the good man judges well about these attributes; his
judgement is such as we have described.10 Happiness then is the best,
noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and these attributes are
not severed as in the inscription at Delos—

Most noble is that which is justest, (25) and best is health;

But pleasantest is it to win what we love.

For all these properties belong to the best activities; and these, or one—
the best—of these, we identify with happiness. (30)
Yet evidently, as we said,11 it needs the external goods as well; for it is
impossible, or not easy, to do noble acts without the proper equipment.
[1099b] In many actions we use friends and riches and political power
as instruments; and there are some things the lack of which takes the
lustre from happiness, as good birth, goodly children, beauty; for the
man who is very ugly in appearance or ill-born or solitary and childless
is not very likely to be happy, and perhaps a man would be still less
likely if he had thoroughly bad children or friends or had lost good
children or friends by death. (5) As we said, then, happiness seems to
need this sort of prosperity in addition; for which reason some identify
happiness with good fortune, though others identify it with virtue.

9 For this reason also the question is asked, whether happiness is to

be acquired by learning or by habituation or some other sort of training,
or comes in virtue of some divine providence or again by chance. (10)
Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that
happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human
things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be
more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, (15) however, even
if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of
learning or training, to be among the most god-like things; for that
which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the
world, and something godlike and blessed.
It will also on this view be very generally shared; for all who are not
maimed as regards their potentiality for virtue may win it by a certain
kind of study and care. (20) But if it is better to be happy thus than by
chance, it is reasonable that the facts should be so, since everything that
depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be, and
similarly everything that depends on art or any rational cause, and
especially if it depends on the best of all causes. To entrust to chance
what is greatest and most noble would be a very defective arrangement.
(25)

The answer to the question we are asking is plain also from the
definition of happiness; for it has been said12 to be a virtuous activity of
soul, of a certain kind. Of the remaining goods, some must necessarily
pre-exist as conditions of happiness, and others are naturally co-
operative and useful as instruments. And this will be found to agree with
what we said at the outset;13 for we stated the end of political science to
be the best end, (30) and political science spends most of its pains on
making the citizens to be of a certain character, viz. good and capable of
noble acts.
It is natural, then, that we call neither ox nor horse nor any other of
the animals happy; for none of them is capable of sharing in such
activity. [1100a] For this reason also a boy is not happy; for he is not
yet capable of such acts, owing to his age; and boys who are called
happy are being congratulated by reason of the hopes we have for them.
For there is required, as we said,14 not only complete virtue but also a
complete life, (5) since many changes occur in life, and all manner of
chances, and the most prosperous may fall into great misfortunes in old
age, as is told of Priam in the Trojan Cycle; and one who has
experienced such chances and has ended wretchedly no one calls happy.

10 Must no one at all, (10) then, be called happy while he lives; must
we, as Solon says, see the end? Even if we are to lay down this doctrine,
is it also the case that a man is happy when he is dead? Or is not this
quite absurd, especially for us who say that happiness is an activity? But
if we do not call the dead man happy, (15) and if Solon does not mean
this, but that one can then safely call a man blessed as being at last
beyond evils and misfortunes, this also affords matter for discussion; for
both evil and good are thought to exist for a dead man, (20) as much as
for one who is alive but not aware of them; e. g. honours and dishonours
and the good or bad fortunes of children and in general of descendants.
And this also presents a problem; for though a man has lived happily up
to old age and has had a death worthy of his life, many reverses may
befall his descendants—some of them may be good and attain the life
they deserve, while with others the opposite may be the case; and clearly
too the degrees of relationship between them and their ancestors may
vary indefinitely. (25) It would be odd, then, if the dead man were to
share in these changes and become at one time happy, at another
wretched; while it would also be odd if the fortunes of the descendants
did not for some time have some effect on the happiness of their
ancestors. (30)
But we must return to our first difficulty; for perhaps by a
consideration of it our present problem might be solved. Now if we must
see the end and only then call a man happy, not as being happy but as
having been so before, surely this is a paradox, that when he is happy
the attribute that belongs to him is not to be truly predicated of him
because we do not wish to call living men happy, (35) on account of the
changes that may befall them, and because we have assumed happiness
to be something permanent and by no means easily changed, while a
single man may suffer many turns of fortune’s wheel. [1100b] For
clearly if we were to keep pace with his fortunes, (5) we should often call
the same man happy and again wretched, making the happy man out to
be a ‘chameleon and insecurely based’. Or is this keeping pace with his
fortunes quite wrong? Success or failure in life does not depend on these,
but human life, as we said,15 needs these as mere additions, while
virtuous activities or their opposites are what constitute happiness or the
reverse. (10)
The question we have now discussed confirms our definition. For no
function of man has so much permanence as virtuous activities (these
are thought to be more durable even than knowledge of the sciences),
and of these themselves the most valuable are more durable because
those who are happy spend their life most readily and most continuously
in these; for this seems to be the reason why we do not forget them. (15)
The attribute in question,16 then, will belong to the happy man, and he
will be happy throughout his life; for always, or by preference to
everything else, he will be engaged in virtuous action and
contemplation, and he will bear the chances of life most nobly and
altogether decorously, (20) if he is ‘truly good’ and ‘foursquare beyond
reproach’.17
Now many events happen by chance, and events differing in
importance; small pieces of good fortune or of its opposite clearly do not
weigh down the scales of life one way or the other, (25) but a multitude of
great events if they turn out well will make life happier (for not only are
they themselves such as to add beauty to life, but the way a man deals
with them may be noble and good), while if they turn out ill they crush
and maim happiness; for they both bring pain with them and hinder
many activities. (30) Yet even in these nobility shines through, when a
man bears with resignation many great misfortunes, not through
insensibility to pain but through nobility and greatness of soul.
If activities are, as we said,18 what gives life its character, no happy
man can become miserable; for he will never do the acts that are hateful
and mean. (35) For the man who is truly good and wise, we think, bears
all the chances of life becomingly and always makes the best of
circumstances, as a good general makes the best military use of the army
at his command and a good shoemaker makes the best shoes out of the
hides that are given him; and so with all other craftsmen. [1101a] And
if this is the case, the happy man can never become miserable—though
he will not reach blessedness, if he meet with fortunes like those of
Priam. (5)
Nor, again, is he many-coloured and changeable; for neither will he be
moved from his happy state easily or by any ordinary misadventures, (10)
but only by many great ones, nor, if he has had many great
misadventures, will he recover his happiness in a short time, but if at all,
only in a long and complete one in which he has attained many splendid
successes.
Why then should we not say that he is happy who is active in
accordance with complete virtue and is sufficiently equipped with
external goods, (15) not for some chance period but throughout a
complete life? Or must we add ‘and who is destined to live thus and die
as befits his life’? Certainly the future is obscure to us, while happiness,
we claim, is an end and something in every way final. If so, we shall call
happy those among living men in whom these conditions are, (20) and are
to be, fulfilled—but happy men. So much for these questions.

11 19That the fortunes of descendants and of all a man’s friends

should not affect his happiness at all seems a very unfriendly doctrine,
and one opposed to the opinions men hold; but since the events that
happen are numerous and admit of all sorts of difference, (25) and some
come more near to us and others less so, it seems a long—nay, an
infinite—task to discuss each in detail; a general outline will perhaps
suffice. If, then, as some of a man’s own misadventures have a certain
weight and influence on life while others are, as it were, lighter, so too
there are differences among the misadventures of our friends taken as a
whole, (30) and it makes a difference whether the various sufferings befall
the living or the dead (much more even than whether lawless and
terrible deeds are presupposed in a tragedy or done on the stage), this
difference also must be taken into account; or rather, perhaps, the fact
that doubt is felt whether the dead share in any good or evil. (35) For it
seems, from these considerations, that even if anything whether good or
evil penetrates to them, it must be something weak and negligible, either
in itself or for them, or if not, at least it must be such in degree and kind
as not to make happy those who are not happy nor to take away their
blessedness from those who are. [1101b] The good or bad fortunes of
friends, then, seem to have some effects on the dead, (5) but effects of
such a kind and degree as neither to make the happy unhappy nor to
produce any other change of the kind.

12 These questions having been definitely answered, (10) let us

consider whether happiness is among the things that are praised or
rather among the things that are prized; for clearly it is not to be placed
among potentialities.20 Everything that is praised seems to be praised
because it is of a certain kind and is related somehow to something else;
for we praise the just or brave man and in general both the good man
and virtue itself because of the actions and functions involved, (15) and
we praise the strong man, the good runner, and so on, because he is of a
certain kind and is related in a certain way to something good and
important. This is clear also from the praises of the gods; for it seems
absurd that the gods should be referred to our standard, but this is done
because praise involves a reference, as we said, (20) to something else.
But if praise is for things such as we have described, clearly what applies
to the best things is not praise, but something greater and better, as is
indeed obvious; for what we do to the gods and the most godlike of men
is to call them blessed and happy. And so too with good things; no one
praises happiness as he does justice, (25) but rather calls it blessed, as
being something more divine and better.
Eudoxus also seems to have been right in his method of advocating the
supremacy of pleasure; he thought that the fact that, though a good, it is
not praised indicated it to be better than the things that are praised, and
that this is what God and the good are; for by reference to these all other
things are judged. (30) Praise is appropriate to virtue, for as a result of
virtue men tend to do noble deeds; but encomia are bestowed on acts,
whether of the body or of the soul. (35) But perhaps nicety in these
matters is more proper to those who have made a study of encomia; to
us it is clear from what has been said that happiness is among the things
that are prized and perfect. [1102a] It seems to be so also from the
fact that it is a first principle; for it is for the sake of this that we all do
all that we do, and the first principle and cause of goods is, we claim,
something prized and divine.

13 Since happiness is an activity of soul in accordance with perfect

virtue, (5) we must consider the nature of virtue; for perhaps we shall
thus see better the nature of happiness. The true student of politics, too,
is thought to have studied virtue above all things; for he wishes to make
his fellow citizens good and obedient to the laws. (10) As an example of
this we have the lawgivers of the Cretans and the Spartans, and any
others of the kind that there may have been. And if this inquiry belongs
to political science, clearly the pursuit of it will be in accordance with
our original plan. But clearly the virtue we must study is human virtue;
for the good we were seeking was human good and the happiness human
happiness. (15) By human virtue we mean not that of the body but that of
the soul; and happiness also we call an activity of soul. But if this is so,
clearly the student of politics must know somehow the facts about soul,
as the man who is to heal the eyes or the body as a whole must know
about the eyes or the body; and all the more since politics is more prized
and better than medicine; but even among doctors the best educated
spend much labour on acquiring knowledge of the body. (20) The student
of politics, then, must study the soul, and must study it with these
objects in view, and do so just to the extent which is sufficient for the
questions we are discussing; for further precision is perhaps something
more laborious than our purposes require. (25)
Some things are said about it, adequately enough, even in the
discussions outside our school, and we must use these; e. g. that one
element in the soul is irrational and one has a rational principle. (30)
Whether these are separated as the parts of the body or of anything
divisible are, or are distinct by definition but by nature inseparable, like
convex and concave in the circumference of a circle, does not affect the
present question.
Of the irrational element one division seems to be widely distributed,
and vegetative in its nature, I mean that which causes nutrition and
growth; for it is this kind of power of the soul that one must assign to all
nurslings and to embryos, and this same power to full-grown creatures;
this is more reasonable than to assign some different power to them.
[1102b] Now the excellence of this seems to be common to all species
and not specifically human; for this part or faculty seems to function
most in sleep, (5) while goodness and badness are least manifest in sleep
(whence comes the saying that the happy are no better off than the
wretched for half their lives; and this happens naturally enough, since
sleep is an inactivity of the soul in that respect in which it is called good
or bad), unless perhaps to a small extent some of the movements
actually penetrate to the soul, (10) and in this respect the dreams of good
men are better than those of ordinary people. Enough of this subject,
however; let us leave the nutritive faculty alone, since it has by its
nature no share in human excellence.
There seems to be also another irrational element in the soul—one
which in a sense, however, shares in a rational principle. For we praise
the rational principle of the continent man and of the incontinent, (15)
and the part of their soul that has such a principle, since it urges them
aright and towards the best objects; but there is found in them also
another element naturally opposed to the rational principle, which fights
against and resists that principle. For exactly as paralysed limbs when
we intend to move them to the right turn on the contrary to the left, (20)
so is it with the soul; the impulses of incontinent people move in
contrary directions. But while in the body we see that which moves
astray, in the soul we do not. No doubt, however, we must none the less
suppose that in the soul too there is something contrary to the rational
principle, (25) resisting and opposing it. In what sense it is distinct from
the other elements does not concern us. Now even this seems to have a
share in a rational principle, as we said;21 at any rate in the continent
man it obeys the rational principle—and presumably in the temperate
and brave man it is still more obedient; for in him it speaks, on all
matters, with the same voice as the rational principle.
Therefore the irrational element also appears to be twofold. For the
vegetative element in no way shares in a rational principle, (30) but the
appetitive, and in general the desiring element in a sense shares in it, in
so far as it listens to and obeys it; this is the sense in which we speak of
‘taking account’ of one’s father or one’s friends, not that in which we
speak of ‘accounting’ for a mathematical property. That the irrational
element is in some sense persuaded by a rational principle is indicated
also by the giving of advice and by all reproof and exhortation.
[1103a] And if this element also must be said to have a rational
principle, that which has a rational principle (as well as that which has
not) will be twofold, one subdivision having it in the strict sense and in
itself, and the other having a tendency to obey as one does one’s father.
Virtue too is distinguished into kinds in accordance with this
difference; for we say that some of the virtues are intellectual and others
moral, (5) philosophic wisdom and understanding and practical wisdom
being intellectual, liberality and temperance moral. For in speaking
about a man’s character we do not say that he is wise or has
understanding but that he is good-tempered or temperate; yet we praise
the wise man also with respect to his state of mind; and of states of mind
we call those which merit praise virtues. (10)

1 PPerhaps by Eudoxus; Cf. 1172b 9.

2 The Platonic School; Cf. ch. 6.

3 Cf. Rep. 511 B.

4 1177a 12–1178a 8, 1178a 22–1179a 32.

5 Cf. Met. 986a 22–6, 1028b 21–4, 1072b 30–1073a 3, 1091a 29–b 3, b 13–1092a 17.

6 Cf. Met. iv. 2.

7 i. 10, 11, ix. 10.

8 1094b 11–27.

9 Pl. Euthyd. 279 AB, Phil. 48 E, Laws, 743 E.

10 i. e., he judges that virtuous actions are good and noble in the highest degree.

11 1098b 26–9.

12 1098a 16.

13 1094a 27.

14 1098a 16–18.

15 1099a 31–b 7.

16 Durability.

17 Simonides.

18 l. 9.

19 Aristotle now returns to the question stated in 1100a 18–30.

20 Cf. Top. 126b 4; M. M. 1183b 20.

21 l. 13.
 BOOK II

1 Virtue, then, being of two kinds, intellectual and moral, (15)

intellectual virtue in the main owes both its birth and its growth to
teaching (for which reason it requires experience and time), while moral
virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its name ethike is
one that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit).
From this it is also plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by
nature; for nothing that exists by nature can form a habit contrary to its
nature. (20) For instance the stone which by nature moves downwards
cannot be habituated to move upwards, not even if one tries to train it
by throwing it up ten thousand times; nor can fire be habituated to move
downwards, nor can anything else that by nature behaves in one way be
trained to behave in another. Neither by nature, then, nor contrary to
nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to
receive them, (25) and are made perfect by habit.
Again, of all the things that come to us by nature we first acquire the
potentiality and later exhibit the activity (this is plain in the case of the
senses; for it was not by often seeing or often hearing that we got these
senses, (30) but on the contrary we had them before we used them, and
did not come to have them by using them); but the virtues we get by
first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For
the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing
them, e. g. [1103b] men become builders by building and lyreplayers
by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate
by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
This is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make the
citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every
legislator, (5) and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in
this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.
Again, it is from the same causes and by the same means that every
virtue is both produced and destroyed, and similarly every art; for it is
from playing the lyre that both good and bad lyre-players are produced.
And the corresponding statement is true of builders and of all the rest;
men will be good or bad builders as a result of building well or badly. (10)
For if this were not so, there would have been no need of a teacher, but
all men would have been born good or bad at their craft. This, then, is
the case with the virtues also; by doing the acts that we do in our
transactions with other men we become just or unjust, (15) and by doing
the acts that we do in the presence of danger, and being habituated to
feel fear or confidence, we become brave or cowardly. The same is true
of appetities and feelings of anger; some men become temperate and
good-tempered, others self-indulgent and irascible, by behaving in one
way or the other in the appropriate circumstances. (20) Thus, in one
word, states of character arise out of like activities. This is why the
activities we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of
character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no small
difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from
our very youth; it makes a very great difference, (25) or rather all the
difference.

2 Since, then, the present inquiry does not aim at theoretical

knowledge like the others (for we are inquiring not in order to know
what virtue is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry
would have been of no use), we must examine the nature of actions,
namely how we ought to do them; for these determine also the nature of
the states of character that are produced, (30) as we have said.1 Now, that
we must act according to the right rule is a common principle and must
be assumed—it will be discussed later,2 i. e. both what the right rule is,
and how it is related to the other virtues. [1104a] But this must be
agreed upon beforehand, that the whole account of matters of conduct
must be given in outline and not precisely, as we said at the very
beginning3 that the accounts we demand must be in accordance with the
subject-matter; matters concerned with conduct and questions of what is
good for us have no fixity, any more than matters of health. (5) The
general account being of this nature, the account of particular cases is
yet more lacking in exactness; for they do not fall under any art or
precept but the agents themselves must in each case consider what is
appropriate to the occasion, as happens also in the art of medicine or of
navigation.
But though our present account is of this nature we must give what
help we can. (10) First, then, let us consider this, that it is the nature of
such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we see in the case of
strength and of health (for to gain light on things imperceptible we must
use the evidence of sensible things); both excessive and defective
exercise destroys the strength, (15) and similarly drink or food which is
above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is
proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it. So too is it,
(20) then, in the case of temperance and courage and the other virtues.

For the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his
ground against anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears
nothing at all but goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly
the man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes
self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, (25) as boors do,
becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are
destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean.
But not only are the sources and causes of their origination and
growth the same as those of their destruction, but also the sphere of
their actualization will be the same; for this is also true of the things
which are more evident to sense, (30) e. g. of strength; it is produced by
taking much food and undergoing much exertion, and it is the strong
man that will be most able to do these things. So too is it with the
virtues; by abstaining from pleasures we become temperate, (35) and it is
when we have become so that we are most able to abstain from them;
and similarly too in the case of courage; for by being habituated to
despise things that are terrible and to stand our ground against them we
become brave, and it is when we have become so that we shall be most
able to stand our ground against them. [1104b]

3 We must take as a sign of states of character the pleasure or pain

that ensues on acts; for the man who abstains from bodily pleasures and
delights in this very fact is temperate, (5) while the man who is annoyed
at it is self-indulgent, and he who stands his ground against things that
are terrible and delights in this or at least is not pained is brave, while
the man who is pained is a coward. For moral excellence is concerned
with pleasures and pains; it is on account of the pleasure that we do bad
things, (10) and on account of the pain that we abstain from noble ones.
Hence we ought to have been brought up in a particular way from our
very youth, as Plato says,4 so as both to delight in and to be pained by
the things that we ought; for this is the right education.
Again, if the virtues are concerned with actions and passions, and
every passion and every action is accompanied by pleasure and pain, (15)
for this reason also virtue will be concerned with pleasures and pains.
This is indicated also by the fact that punishment is inflicted by these
means; for it is a kind of cure, and it is the nature of cures to be effected
by contraries.
Again, as we said but lately,5 every state of soul has a nature relative
to and concerned with the kind of things by which it tends to be made
worse or better; but it is by reason of pleasures and pains that men
become bad, (20) by pursuing and avoiding these—either the pleasures
and pains they ought not or when they ought not or as they ought not,
or by going wrong in one of the other similar ways that may be
distinguished. Hence men6 even define the virtues as certain states of
impassivity and rest; not well, (25) however, because they speak
absolutely, and do not say ‘as one ought’ and ‘as one ought not’ and
‘when one ought or ought not’, and the other things that may be added.
We assume, then, that this kind of excellence tends to do what is best
with regard to pleasures and pains, and vice does the contrary.
The following facts also may show us that virtue and vice are
concerned with these same things. There being three objects of choice
and three of avoidance, (30) the noble, the advantageous, the pleasant,
and their contraries, the base, the injurious, the painful, about all of
these the good man tends to go right and the bad man to go wrong, and
especially about pleasure; for this is common to the animals, and also it
accompanies all objects of choice; for even the noble and the
advantageous appear pleasant. (35)
Again, it has grown up with us all from our infancy; this is why it is
difficult to rub off this passion, engrained as it is in our life. [1105a]
And we measure even our actions, some of us more and others less, (5) by
the rule of pleasure and pain. For this reason, then, our whole inquiry
must be about these; for to feel delight and pain rightly or wrongly has
no small effect on our actions.
 Again, it is harder to fight with pleasure than with anger, to use
Heraclitus’ phrase, but both art and virtue are always concerned with
what is harder; for even the good is better when it is harder. (10)
Therefore for this reason also the whole concern both of virtue and of
political science is with pleasures and pains; for the man who uses these
well will be good, he who uses them badly bad.
That virtue, then, is concerned with pleasures and pains, and that by
the acts from which it arises it is both increased and, if they are done
differently, destroyed, and that the acts from which it arose are those in
which it actualizes itself—let this be taken as said. (15)

4 The question might be asked, what we mean by saying7 that we

must become just by doing just acts, and temperate by doing temperate
acts; for if men do just and temperate acts, they are already just and
temperate, (20) exactly as, if they do what is in accordance with the laws
of grammar and of music, they are grammarians and musicians.
Or is this not true even of the arts? It is possible to do something that
is in accordance with the laws of grammar, either by chance or at the
suggestion of another. A man will be a grammarian, then, (25) only when
he has both done something grammatical and done it grammatically;
and this means doing it in accordance with the grammatical knowledge
in himself.
Again, the case of the arts and that of the virtues are not similar; for
the products of the arts have their goodness in themselves, so that it is
enough that they should have a certain character, but if the acts that are
in accordance with the virtues have themselves a certain character it
does not follow that they are done justly or temperately. (30) The agent
also must be in a certain condition when he does them; in the first place
he must have knowledge, secondly he must choose the acts, and choose
them for their own sakes, and thirdly his action must proceed from a
firm and unchangeable character. These are not reckoned in as
conditions of the possession of the arts, except the bare knowledge; but
as a condition of the possession of the virtues knowledge has little or no
weight, while the other conditions count not for a little but for
everything, i. e. the very conditions which result from often doing just
and temperate acts. [1105b]
 Actions, (5) then, are called just and temperate when they are such as
the just or the temperate man would do; but it is not the man who does
these that is just and temperate, but the man who also does them as just
and temperate men do them. It is well said, then, (10) that it is by doing
just acts that the just man is produced, and by doing temperate acts the
temperate man; without doing these no one would have even a prospect
of becoming good.
But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think
they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, (15)
behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors,
but do none of the things they are ordered to do. As the latter will not be
made well in body by such a course of treatment, the former will not be
made well in soul by such a course of philosophy.

5 Next we must consider what virtue is. Since things that are found in
the soul are of three kinds—passions, (20) faculties, states of character,
virtue must be one of these. By passions I mean appetite, anger, fear,
confidence, envy, joy, friendly feeling, hatred, longing, emulation, pity,
and in general the feelings that are accompanied by pleasure or pain; by
faculties the things in virtue of which we are said to be capable of
feeling these, e. g. of becoming angry or being pained or feeling pity; by
states of character the things in virtue of which we stand well or badly
with reference to the passions, (25) e. g. with reference to anger we stand
badly if we feel it violently or too weakly, and well if we feel it
moderately; and similarly with reference to the other passions.
Now neither the virtues nor the vices are passions, because we are not
called good or bad on the ground of our passions, (30) but are so called on
the ground of our virtues and our vices, and because we are neither
praised nor blamed for our passions (for the man who feels fear or anger
is not praised, nor is the man who simply feels anger blamed, but the
man who feels it in a certain way), but for our virtues and our vices we
are praised or blamed. [1106a]
Again, we feel anger and fear without choice, but the virtues are
modes of choice or involve choice. Further, in respect of the passions we
are said to be moved, but in respect of the virtues and the vices we are
said not to be moved but to be disposed in a particular way. (5)
 For these reasons also they are not faculties; for we are neither called
good nor bad, nor praised nor blamed, for the simple capacity of feeling
the passions; again, we have the faculties by nature, but we are not
made good or bad by nature; we have spoken of this before.8
If, then, the virtues are neither passions nor faculties, (10) all that
remains is that they should be states of character.
Thus we have stated what virtue is in respect of its genus.

6 We must, however, not only describe virtue as a state of character,

but also say what sort of state it is. We may remark, then, (15) that every
virtue or excellence both brings into good condition the thing of which it
is the excellence and makes the work of that thing be done well; e. g. the
excellence of the eye makes both the eye and its work good; for it is by
the excellence of the eye that we see well. Similarly the excellence of the
horse makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at
carrying its rider and at awaiting the attack of the enemy. (20) Therefore,
if this is true in every case, the virtue of man also will be the state of
character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own
work well.
How this is to happen we have stated already,9 but it will be made
plain also by the following consideration of the specific nature of virtue.
(25) In everything that is continuous and divisible it is possible to take

more, less, or an equal amount, and that either in terms of the thing
itself or relatively to us; and the equal is an intermediate between excess
and defect. By the intermediate in the object I mean that which is
equidistant from each of the extremes, (30) which is one and the same for
all men; by the intermediate relatively to us that which is neither too
much nor too little—and this is not one, nor the same for all. For
instance, if ten is many and two is few, six is the intermediate, taken in
terms of the object; for it exceeds and is exceeded by an equal amount;
this is intermediate according to arithmetical proportion. (35) But the
intermediate relatively to us is not to be taken so; if ten pounds are too
much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does not follow
that the trainer will order six pounds; for this also is perhaps too much
for the person who is to take it, or too little—too little for Milo,10 too
much for the beginner in athletic exercises. [1106b] The same is true
of running and wrestling. Thus a master of any art avoids excess and
defect, but seeks the intermediate and chooses this—the intermediate
not in the object but relatively to us. (5)
If it is thus, then, that every art does its work well—by looking to the
intermediate and judging its works by this standard (so that we often say
of good works of art that it is not possible either to take away or to add
anything, (10) implying that excess and defect destroy the goodness of
works of art, while the mean preserves it; and good artists, as we say,
look to this in their work), and if, further, virtue is more exact and better
than any art, as nature also is, (15) then virtue must have the quality of
aiming at the intermediate. I mean moral virtue; for it is this that is
concerned with passions and actions, and in these there is excess, defect,
and the intermediate. For instance, both fear and confidence and
appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt
both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them
at the right times, (20) with reference to the right objects, towards the
right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both
intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue. Similarly with
regard to actions also there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. Now
virtue is concerned with passions and actions, (25) in which excess is a
form of failure, and so is defect, while the intermediate is praised and is
a form of success; and being praised and being successful are both
characteristics of virtue. Therefore virtue is a kind of mean, since, as we
have seen, it aims at what is intermediate.
Again, it is possible to fail in many ways (for evil belongs to the class
of the unlimited, as the Pythagoreans conjectured, (30) and good to that
of the limited), while to succeed is possible only in one way (for which
reason also one is easy and the other difficult—to miss the mark easy, to
hit it difficult); for these reasons also, then, excess and defect are
characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue;

For men are good in but one way, but bad in many. (35)

Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a

mean, i. e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational
principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom
would determine it. [1107a] Now it is a mean between two vices, that
which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it
is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is
right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses
that which is intermediate. (5) Hence in respect of its substance and the
definition which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what
is best and right an extreme.
But not every action nor every passion admits of a mean; for some
have names that already imply badness, e. g. spite, shamelessness, (10)
envy, and in the case of actions adultery, theft, murder; for all of these
and suchlike things imply by their names that they are themselves bad,
and not the excesses or deficiencies of them. It is not possible, then, ever
to be right with regard to them; one must always be wrong. Nor does
goodness or badness with regard to such things depend on committing
adultery with the right woman, (15) at the right time, and in the right
way, but simply to do any of them is to go wrong. It would be equally
absurd, then, to expect that in unjust, cowardly, and voluptuous action
there should be a mean, an excess, and a deficiency; for at that rate there
would be a mean of excess and of deficiency, (20) an excess of excess, and
a deficiency of deficiency. But as there is no excess and deficiency of
temperance and courage because what is intermediate is in a sense an
extreme, so too of the actions we have mentioned there is no mean nor
any excess and deficiency, but however they are done they are wrong;
for in general there is neither a mean of excess and deficiency, (25) nor
excess and deficiency of a mean.

7 We must, however, not only make this general statement, but also
apply it to the individual facts. For among statements about conduct
those which are general apply more widely, but those which are
particular are more genuine, since conduct has to do with individual
cases, (30) and our statements must harmonize with the facts in these
cases. We may take these cases from our table. With regard to feelings of
fear and confidence courage is the mean; of the people who exceed, he
who exceeds in fearlessness has no name (many of the states have no
name), while the man who exceeds in confidence is rash, and he who
exceeds in fear and falls short in confidence is a coward. [1107b] With
regard to pleasures and pains—not all of them, and not so much with
regard to the pains—the mean is temperance, (5) the excess self-
indulgence. Persons deficient with regard to the pleasures are not often
found; hence such persons also have received no name. But let us call
them ‘insensible’.
With regard to giving and taking of money the mean is liberality, (10)
the excess and the defect prodigality and meanness. In these actions
people exceed and fall short in contrary ways; the prodigal exceeds in
spending and falls short in taking, while the mean man exceeds in taking
and falls short in spending. (At present we are giving a mere outline or
summary, (15) and are satisfied with this; later these states will be more
exactly determined.11) With regard to money there are also other
dispositions—a mean, magnificence (for the magnificent man differs
from the liberal man; the former deals with large sums, the latter with
small ones), an excess, tastelessness and vulgarity, (20) and a deficiency,
niggardliness; these differ from the states opposed to liberality, and the
mode of their difference will be stated later.12
With regard to honour and dishonour the mean is proper pride, the
excess is known as a sort of ‘empty vanity’, and the deficiency is undue
humility; and as we said13 liberality was related to magnificence, (25)
differing from it by dealing with small sums, so there is a state similarly
related to proper pride, being concerned with small honours while that
is concerned with great. For it is possible to desire honour as one ought,
and more than one ought, and less, and the man who exceeds in his
desires is called ambitious, the man who falls short unambitious, (30)
while the intermediate person has no name. The dispositions also are
nameless, except that that of the ambitious man is called ambition.
Hence the people who are at the extremes lay claim to the middle place;
and we ourselves sometimes call the intermediate person ambitious and
sometimes unambitious, and sometimes praise the ambitious man and
sometimes the unambitious. [1108a] The reason of our doing this will
be stated in what follows;14 but now let us speak of the remaining states
according to the method which has been indicated.
With regard to anger also there is an excess, a deficiency, (5) and a
mean. Although they can scarcely be said to have names, yet since we
call the intermediate person good-tempered let us call the mean good
temper; of the persons at the extremes let the one who exceeds be called
irascible, and his vice irascibility, and the man who falls short an
inirascible sort of person, and the deficiency inirascibility.
There are also three other means, which have a certain likeness to one
another, but differ from one another: for they are all concerned with
intercourse in words and actions, (10) but differ in that one is concerned
with truth in this sphere, the other two with pleasantness; and of this
one kind is exhibited in giving amusement, the other in all the
circumstances of life. We must therefore speak of these too, that we may
the better see that in all things the mean is praiseworthy, (15) and the
extremes neither praiseworthy nor right, but worthy of blame. Now most
of these states also have no names, but we must try, as in the other
cases, to invent names ourselves so that we may be clear and easy to
follow. With regard to truth, then, the intermediate is a truthful sort of
person and the mean may be called truthfulness, (20) while the pretence
which exaggerates is boastfulness and the person characterized by it a
boaster, and that which understates is mock modesty and the person
characterized by it mock-modest. With regard to pleasantness in the
giving of amusement the intermediate person is ready-witted and the
disposition ready wit, the excess is buffoonery and the person
characterized by it a buffoon, while the man who falls short is a sort of
boor and his state is boorishness. (25) With regard to the remaining kind
of pleasantness, that which is exhibited in life in general, the man who is
pleasant in the right way is friendly and the mean is friendliness, while
the man who exceeds is an obsequious person if he has no end in view, a
flatterer if he is aiming at his own advantage, and the man who falls
short and is unpleasant in all circumstances is a quarrelsome and surly
sort of person.
There are also means in the passions and concerned with the passions;
since shame is not a virtue, (30) and yet praise is extended to the modest
man. For even in these matters one man is said to be intermediate, and
another to exceed, as for instance the bashful man who is ashamed of
everything; while he who falls short or is not ashamed of anything at all
is shameless, and the intermediate person is modest. Righteous
indignation is a mean between envy and spite, (35) and these states are
concerned with the pain and pleasures that are felt at the fortunes of our
neighbours; the man who is characterized by righteous indignation is
pained at undeserved good fortune, the envious man, going beyond him,
is pained at all good fortune, and the spiteful man falls so far short of
being pained that he even rejoices. [1108b] But these states there will
be an opportunity of describing elsewhere;15 with regard to justice, (5)
since it has not one simple meaning, we shall, after describing the other
states, distinguish its two kinds and say how each of them is a mean;16
and similarly we shall treat also of the rational virtues.17 (10)

8 There are three kinds of disposition, then, two of them vices,

involving excess and deficiency respectively, and one a virtue, viz. the
mean, and all are in a sense opposed to all; for the extreme states are
contrary both to the intermediate state and to each other, (15) and the
intermediate to the extremes; as the equal is greater relatively to the
less, less relatively to the greater, so the middle states are excessive
relatively to the deficiencies, deficient relatively to the excesses, both in
passions and in actions. For the brave man appears rash relatively to the
coward, (20) and cowardly relatively to the rash man; and similarly the
temperate man appears self-indulgent relatively to the insensible man,
insensible relatively to the self-indulgent, and the liberal man prodigal
relatively to the mean man, mean relatively to the prodigal. Hence also
the people at the extremes push the intermediate man each over to the
other, and the brave man is called rash by the coward, (25) cowardly by
the rash man, and correspondingly in the other cases.
These states being thus opposed to one another, the greatest
contrariety is that of the extremes to each other, rather than to the
intermediate; for these are further from each other than from the
intermediate, as the great is further from the small and the small from
the great than both are from the equal. (30) Again, to the intermediate
some extremes show a certain likeness, as that of rashness to courage
and that of prodigality to liberality; but the extremes show the greatest
unlikeness to each other; (35) now contraries are defined as the things
that are furthest from each other, so that things that are further apart are
more contrary. [1109a]
To the mean in some cases the deficiency, in some the excess is more
opposed; e. g. it is not rashness, which is an excess, but cowardice,
which is a deficiency, that is more opposed to courage, and not
insensibility, which is a deficiency, but self-indulgence, (5) which is an
excess, that is more opposed to temperance. This happens from two
reasons, one being drawn from the thing itself; for because one extreme
is nearer and liker to the intermediate, we oppose not this but rather its
contrary to the intermediate. e. g., since rashness is thought liker and
nearer to courage, and cowardice more unlike, (10) we oppose rather the
latter to courage; for things that are further from the intermediate are
thought more contrary to it. This, then, is one cause, drawn from the
thing itself; another is drawn from ourselves; for the things to which we
ourselves more naturally tend seem more contrary to the intermediate.
For instance, we ourselves tend more naturally to pleasures, (15) and
hence are more easily carried away towards self-indulgence than
towards propriety. We describe as contrary to the mean, then, rather the
directions in which we more often go to great lengths; and therefore self-
indulgence, which is an excess, is the more contrary to temperance.

9 That moral virtue is a mean, then, and in what sense it is so, (20) and
that it is a mean between two vices, the one involving excess, the other
deficiency, and that it is such because its character is to aim at what is
intermediate in passions and in actions, has been sufficiently stated.
Hence also it is no easy task to be good. For in everything it is no easy
task to find the middle, e. g. to find the middle of a circle is not for every
one but for him who knows; so, (25) too, any one can get angry—that is
easy—or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the
right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right
way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both
rare and laudable and noble.
Hence he who aims at the intermediate must first depart from what is
the more contrary to it, (30) as Calypso advises—

Hold the ship out beyond that surf and spray.18

For of the extremes one is more erroneous, one less so; therefore, since
to hit the mean is hard in the extreme, we must as a second best, as
people say, take the least of the evils; and this will be done best in the
way we describe. (35)
But we must consider the things towards which we ourselves also are
easily carried away; for some of us tend to one thing, some to another;
and this will be recognizable from the pleasure and the pain we feel.
[1109b] We must drag ourselves away to the contrary extreme; for we
shall get into the intermediate state by drawing well away from error, (5)
as people do in straightening sticks that are bent.
Now in everything the pleasant or pleasure is most to be guarded
against; for we do not judge it impartially. We ought, then, to feel
towards pleasure as the elders of the people felt towards Helen, and in
all circumstances repeat their saying;19 for if we dismiss pleasure thus
we are less likely to go astray. (10) It is by doing this, then, (to sum the
matter up) that we shall best be able to hit the mean.
But this is no doubt difficult, and especially in individual cases; for it
is not easy to determine both how and with whom and on what
provocation and how long one should be angry; for we too sometimes
praise those who fall short and call them good-tempered, (15) but
sometimes we praise those who get angry and call them manly. The
man, however, who deviates little from goodness is not blamed, whether
he do so in the direction of the more or of the less, but only the man
who deviates more widely; for he does not fail to be noticed. (20) But up
to what point and to what extent a man must deviate before he becomes
blameworthy it is not easy to determine by reasoning, any more than
anything else that is perceived by the senses; such things depend on
particular facts, and the decision rests with perception. So much, then, is
plain, that the intermediate state is in all things to be praised, (25) but
that we must incline sometimes towards the excess, sometimes towards
the deficiency; for so shall we most easily hit the mean and what is right.

1 a 31–b 25.

2 vi. 13.

3 1094b 11–27.
4 Laws, 653 A ff., Rep. 401 E–402 A.

5 a 27–b 3.

6 Probably Speusippus is referred to.

7 1103a 31–b 25, 1104a 27–b 3.

8 1103a 18–b 2.

9 1104a 11–27.

10 A famous wrestler.

11 iv. 1.

12 1122a 20–9, b 10–18.

13 ll. 17–19.

14 b 11–26, 1125b 14–18.

15 The reference may be to the whole treatment of the moral virtues in iii. 6–iv. 9, or to the
discussion of shame in iv. 9 and an intended corresponding discussion of righteous indignation,
or to the discussion of these two states in Rhet. ii. 6, 9, 10.
16 1129a 26–b 1, 1130a 14–b 5, 1131b 9–15, 1132a 24–30, 1133b 30–1134a 1.

17 Bk. vi.

18 Od. xii. 219 f. (Mackail’s trans.). But it was Circe who gave the advice (xii. 108), and the
actual quotation is from Odysseus’ orders to his steersman.
19 Il. iii. 156–60.
 BOOK III

1 Since virtue is concerned with passions and actions, (30) and on

voluntary passions and actions praise and blame are bestowed, on those
that are involuntary pardon, and sometimes also pity, to distinguish the
voluntary and the involuntary is presumably necessary for those who are
studying the nature of virtue, and useful also for legislators with a view
to the assigning both of honours and of punishments.
Those things, (35) then, are thought involuntary, which take place
under compulsion or owing to ignorance; and that is compulsory of
which the moving principle is outside, being a principle in which
nothing is contributed by the person who is acting or is feeling the
passion, e. g. if he were to be carried somewhere by a wind, or by men
who had him in their power. [1110a]
But with regard to the things that are done from fear of greater evils
or for some noble object (e. g. if a tyrant were to order one to do
something base, (5) having one’s parents and children in his power, and if
one did the action they were to be saved, but otherwise would be put to
death), it may be debated whether such actions are involuntary or
voluntary. Something of the sort happens also with regard to the
throwing of goods overboard in a storm; for in the abstract no one
throws goods away voluntarily, (10) but on condition of its securing the
safety of himself and his crew any sensible man does so. Such actions,
then, are mixed, but are more like voluntary actions; for they are worthy
of choice at the time when they are done, and the end of an action is
relative to the occasion. Both the terms, then, ‘voluntary’ and
‘involuntary’, must be used with reference to the moment of action. Now
the man acts voluntarily; for the principle that moves the instrumental
parts of the body in such actions is in him, (15) and the things of which
the moving principle is in a man himself are in his power to do or not to
do. Such actions, therefore, are voluntary, but in the abstract perhaps
involuntary; for no one would choose any such act in itself.
For such actions men are sometimes even praised, (20) when they
endure something base or painful in return for great and noble objects
gained; in the opposite case they are blamed, since to endure the
greatest indignities for no noble end or for a trifling end is the mark of
an inferior person. On some actions praise indeed is not bestowed, but
pardon is, when one does what he ought not under pressure which
overstrains human nature and which no one could withstand. (25) But
some acts, perhaps, we cannot be forced to do, but ought rather to face
death after the most fearful sufferings; for the things that ‘forced’
Euripides’ Alcmaeon to slay his mother seem absurd. It is difficult
sometimes to determine what should be chosen at what cost, and what
should be endured in return for what gain, and yet more difficult to
abide by our decisions; for as a rule what is expected is painful, (30) and
what we are forced to do is base, whence praise and blame are bestowed
on those who have been compelled or have not.
What sort of acts, then, should be called compulsory? We answer that
without qualification actions are so when the cause is in the external
circumstances and the agent contributes nothing. [1110b] But the
things that in themselves are involuntary, but now and in return for
these gains are worthy of choice, and whose moving principle is in the
agent, are in themselves involuntary, but now and in return for these
gains voluntary. (5) They are more like voluntary acts; for actions are in
the class of particulars, and the particular acts here are voluntary. What
sort of things are to be chosen, and in return for what, it is not easy to
state; for there are many differences in the particular cases.
But if some one were to say that pleasant and noble objects have a
compelling power, forcing us from without, all acts would be for him
compulsory; for it is for these objects that all men do everything they do.
(10) And those who act under compulsion and unwillingly act with pain,

but those who do acts for their pleasantness and nobility do them with
pleasure; it is absurd to make external circumstances responsible, and
not oneself, as being easily caught by such attractions, and to make
oneself responsible for noble acts but the pleasant objects responsible for
base acts. (15) The compulsory, then, seems to be that whose moving
principle is outside, the person compelled contributing nothing.
Everything that is done by reason of ignorance is not voluntary; it is
only what produces pain and repentance that is involuntary. for the man
who has done something owing to ignorance, (20) and feels not the least
vexation at his action, has not acted voluntarily, since he did not know
what he was doing, nor yet involuntarily, since he is not pained. Of
people, then, who act by reason of ignorance he who repents is thought
an involuntary agent, and the man who does not repent may, since he is
different, be called a not voluntary agent; for, since he differs from the
other, it is better that he should have a name of his own.
Acting by reason of ignorance seems also to be different from acting in
ignorance; for the man who is drunk or in a rage is thought to act as a
result not of ignorance but of one of the causes mentioned, (25) yet not
knowingly but in ignorance.
Now every wicked man is ignorant of what he ought to do and what
he ought to abstain from, and it is by reason of error of this kind that
men become unjust and in general bad; but the term ‘involuntary’ tends
to be used not if a man is ignorant of what is to his advantage—for it is
not mistaken purpose that causes involuntary action (it leads rather to
wickedness), (30) nor ignorance of the universal (for that men are blamed),
but ignorance of particulars, i. e. of the circumstances of the action and
the objects with which it is concerned. [1111a] For it is on these that
both pity and pardon depend, since the person who is ignorant of any of
these acts involuntarily.
Perhaps it is just as well, therefore, to determine their nature and
number. A man may be ignorant, then, of who he is, what he is doing,
what or whom he is acting on, (5) and sometimes also what (e. g. what
instrument) he is doing it with, and to what end (e. g. he may think his
act will conduce to some one’s safety), and how he is doing it (e. g.
whether gently or violently). Now of all of these no one could be
ignorant unless he were mad, and evidently also he could not be
ignorant of the agent; for how could he not know himself? But of what
he is doing a man might be ignorant, as for instance people say ‘it
slipped out of their mouths as they were speaking’, (10) or ‘they did not
know it was a secret’, as Aeschylus said of the mysteries, or a man might
say he ‘let it go off when he merely wanted to show its working’, as the
man did with the catapult. Again, one might think one’s son was an
enemy, as Merope did, or that a pointed spear had a button on it, or that
a stone was pumice-stone; or one might give a man a draught to save
him, and really kill him; or one might want to touch a man, as people do
in sparring, and really wound him. The ignorance may relate, (15) then, to
any of these things, i. e. of the circumstances of the action, and the man
who was ignorant of any of these is thought to have acted involuntarily,
and especially if he was ignorant on the most important points; and
these are thought to be the circumstances of the action and its end.
Further, the doing of an act that is called involuntary in virtue of
ignorance of this sort must be painful and involve repentance. (20)
Since that which is done under compulsion or by reason of ignorance
is involuntary, the voluntary would seem to be that of which the moving
principle is in the agent himself, he being aware of the particular
circumstances of the action. Presumably acts done by reason of anger or
appetite are not rightly called involuntary.1 For in the first place, (25) on
that showing none of the other animals will act voluntarily, nor will
children; and secondly, is it meant that we do not do voluntarily any of
the acts that are due to appetite or anger, or that we do the noble acts
voluntarily and the base acts involuntarily? Is not this absurd, when one
and the same thing is the cause? But it would surely be odd to describe
as involuntary the things one ought to desire; and we ought both to be
angry at certain things and to have an appetite for certain things, (30)
e. g. for health and for learning. Also what is involuntary is thought to
be painful, but what is in accordance with appetite is thought to be
pleasant. Again, what is the difference in respect of involuntariness
between errors committed upon calculation and those committed in
anger? Both are to be avoided, but the irrational passions are thought
not less human than reason is, and therefore also the actions which
proceed from anger or appetite are the man’s actions. [1111b] It
would be odd, then, to treat them as involuntary.

2 Both the voluntary and the involuntary having been delimited, we

must next discuss choice; for it is thought to be most closely bound up
with virtue and to discriminate characters better than actions do. (5)
Choice, then, seems to be voluntary, but not the same thing as the
voluntary; the latter extends more widely. For both children and the
lower animals share in voluntary action, but not in choice, and acts done
on the spur of the moment we describe as voluntary, but not as chosen.
Those who say it is appetite or anger or wish or a kind of opinion do
not seem to be right. (10) For choice is not common to irrational creatures
as well, but appetite and anger are. Again, the incontinent man acts with
appetitie, but not with choice; while the continent man on the contrary
acts with choice, (15) but not with appetite. Again, appetite is contrary to
choice, but not appetite to appetite. Again, appetite relates to the
pleasant and the painful, choice neither to the painful nor to the
pleasant.
Still less is it anger; for acts due to anger are thought to be less than
any others objects of choice.
But neither is it wish, (20) though it seems near to it; for choice cannot
relate to impossibles, and if any one said he chose them he would be
thought silly; but there may be a wish even for impossibles, e. g. for
immortality. And wish may relate to things that could in no way be
brought about by one’s own efforts, e. g. that a particular actor or
athlete should win in a competition; but no one chooses such things, (25)
but only the things that he thinks could be brought about by his own
efforts. Again, wish relates rather to the end, choice to the means; for
instance, we wish to be healthy, but we choose the acts which will make
us healthy, and we wish to be happy and say we do, but we cannot well
say we choose to be so; for, in general, choice seems to relate to the
things that are in our own power.
For this reason, (30) too, it cannot be opinion; for opinion is thought to
relate to all kinds of things, no less to eternal things and impossible
things than to things in our own power; and it is distinguished by its
falsity or truth, not by its badness or goodness, while choice is
distinguished rather by these.
Now with opinion in general perhaps no one even says it is identical.
[1112a] But it is not identical even with any kind of opinion; for by
choosing what is good or bad we are men of a certain character, which
we are not by holding certain opinions. And we choose to get or avoid
something good or bad, but we have opinions about what a thing is or
whom it is good for or how it is good for him; we can hardly be said to
opine to get or avoid anything. (5) And choice is praised for being related
to the right object rather than for being rightly related to it, opinion for
being truly related to its object. And we choose what we best know to be
good, but we opine what we do not quite know; and it is not the same
people that are thought to make the best choices and to have the best
opinions, but some are thought to have fairly good opinions, but by
reason of vice to choose what they should not. (10) If opinion precedes
choice or accompanies it, that makes no difference; for it is not this that
we are considering, but whether it is identical with some kind of opinion.
What, then, or what kind of thing is it, since it is none of the things we
have mentioned? It seems to be voluntary, but not all that is voluntary
to be an object of choice. Is it, then, what has been decided on by
previous deliberation? At any rate choice involves a rational principle
and thought. (15) Even the name seems to suggest that it is what is chosen
before other things.

3 Do we deliberate about everything, and is everything a possible

subject of deliberation, or is deliberation impossible about some things?
We ought presumably to call not what a fool or a madman would
deliberate about, (20) but what a sensible man would deliberate about, a
subject of deliberation. Now about eternal things no one deliberates,
e. g. about the material universe or the incommensurability of the
diagonal and the side of a square. But no more do we deliberate about
the things that involve movement but always happen in the same way,
whether of necessity or by nature or from any other cause, (25) e. g. the
solstices and the risings of the stars; nor about things that happen now in
one way, now in another, e. g. droughts and rains; nor about chance
events, like the finding of treasure. But we do not deliberate even about
all human affairs; for instance, no Spartan deliberates about the best
constitution for the Scythians. For none of these things can be brought
about by our own efforts.
We deliberate about things that are in our power and can be done; and
these are in fact what is left. (30) For nature, necessity, and chance are
thought to be causes, and also reason and everything that depends on
man. Now every class of men deliberates about the things that can be
done by their own efforts. [1112b] And in the case of exact and self-
contained sciences there is no deliberation, e. g. about the letters of the
alphabet (for we have no doubt how they should be written); but the
things that are brought about by our own efforts, but not always in the
same way, are the things about which we deliberate, e. g. questions of
medical treatment or of money-making. And we do so more in the case
of the art of navigation than in that of gymnastics, (5) inasmuch as it has
been less exactly worked out, and again about other things in the same
ratio, and more also in the case of the arts than in that of the sciences;
for we have more doubt about the former. Deliberation is concerned
with things that happen in a certain way for the most part, (10) but in
which the event is obscure, and with things in which it is indeterminate.
We call in others to aid us in deliberation on important questions,
distrusting ourselves as not being equal to deciding.
We deliberate not about ends but about means. For a doctor does not
deliberate whether he shall heal, nor an orator whether he shall
persuade, nor a statesman whether he shall produce law and order, (15)
nor does any one else deliberate about his end. They assume the end and
consider how and by what means it is to be attained; and if it seems to
be produced by several means they consider by which it is most easily
and best produced, while if it is achieved by one only they consider how
it will be achieved by this and by what means this will be achieved, till
they come to the first cause, which in the order of discovery is last. (20)
For the person who deliberates seems to investigate and analyse in the
way described as though he were analysing a geometrical construction2
(not all investigation appears to be deliberation—for instance
mathematical investigations—but all deliberation is investigation), and
what is last in the order of analysis seems to be first in the order of
becoming. And if we come on an impossibility, (25) we give up the
search, e. g. if we need money and this cannot be got; but if a thing
appears possible we try to do it. By ‘possible’ things I mean things that
might be brought about by our own efforts; and these in a sense include
things that can be brought about by the efforts of our friends, since the
moving principle is in ourselves. The subject of investigation is
sometimes the instruments, sometimes the use of them; and similarly in
the other cases—sometimes the means, (30) sometimes the mode of using
it or the means of bringing it about. It seems, then, as has been said, that
man is a moving principle of actions; now deliberation is about the
things to be done by the agent himself, and actions are for the sake of
things other than themselves. For the end cannot be a subject of
deliberation, but only the means; nor indeed can the particular facts be a
subject of it, as whether this is bread or has been baked as it should; for
these are matters of perception. [1113a] If we are to be always
deliberating, we shall have to go on to infinity.
The same thing is deliberated upon and is chosen, except that the
object of choice is already determinate, since it is that which has been
decided upon as a result of deliberation that is the object of choice. (5)
For every one ceases to inquire how he is to act when he has brought the
moving principle back to himself and to the ruling part of himself; for
this is what chooses. This is plain also from the ancient constitutions,
which Homer represented; for the kings announced their choices to the
people. The object of choice being one of the things in our own power
which is desired after deliberation, (10) choice will be deliberate desire of
things in our own power; for when we have decided as a result of
deliberation, we desire in accordance with our deliberation.
We may take it, then, that we have described choice in outline, and
stated the nature of its objects and the fact that it is concerned with
means.

4 That wish is for the end has already been stated;3 some think it is for
the good, (15) others for the apparent good. Now those who say that the
good is the object of wish must admit in consequence that that which
the man who does not choose aright wishes for is not an object of wish
(for if it is to be so, it must also be good; but it was, if it so happened,
bad); while those who say the apparent good is the object of wish must
admit that there is no natural object of wish, (20) but only what seems
good to each man. Now different things appear good to different people,
and, if it so happens, even contrary things.
If these consequences are unpleasing, are we to say that absolutely
and in truth the good is the object of wish, but for each person the
apparent good; that that which is in truth an object of wish is an object
of wish to the good man, (25) while any chance thing may be so to the
bad man, as in the case of bodies also the things that are in truth
wholesome are wholesome for bodies which are in good condition, while
for those that are diseased other things are wholesome—or bitter or
sweet or hot or heavy, and so on; since the good man judges each class
of things rightly, and in each the truth appears to him? For each state of
character has its own ideas of the noble and the pleasant, (30) and
perhaps the good man differs from others most by seeing the truth in
each class of things, being as it were the norm and measure of them. In
most things the error seems to be due to pleasure; for it appears a good
when it is not. We therefore choose the pleasant as a good, and avoid
pain as an evil. [1113b]

5 The end, then, being what we wish for, the means what we
deliberate about and choose, actions concerning means must be
according to choice and voluntary. Now the exercise of the virtues is
concerned with means. (5) Therefore virtue also is in our own power, and
so too vice. For where it is in our power to act it is also in our power not
to act, and vice versa; so that, if to act, where this is noble, is in our
power, not to act, which will be base, will also be in our power, and if
not to act, (10) where this is noble, is in our power, to act, which will be
base, will also be in our power. Now if it is in our power to do noble or
base acts, and likewise in our power not to do them, and this was what
being good or bad meant,4 then it is in our power to be virtuous or
vicious.
The saying that ‘no one is voluntarily wicked nor involuntarily happy’
seems to be partly false and partly true; for no one is involuntarily
happy, (15) but wickedness is voluntary. Or else we shall have to dispute
what has just been said, at any rate, and deny that man is a moving
principle or begetter of his actions as of children. But if these facts are
evident and we cannot refer actions to moving principles other than
those in ourselves, (20) the acts whose moving principles are in us must
themselves also be in our power and voluntary.
Witness seems to be borne to this both by individuals in their private
capacity and by legislators themselves; for these punish and take
vengeance on those who do wicked acts (unless they have acted under
compulsion or as a result of ignorance for which they are not themselves
responsible), (25) while they honour those who do noble acts, as though
they meant to encourage the latter and deter the former. But no one is
encouraged to do the things that are neither in our power nor voluntary;
it is assumed that there is no gain in being persuaded not to be hot or in
pain or hungry or the like, (30) since we shall experience these feelings
none the less. Indeed, we punish a man for his very ignorance, if he is
thought responsible for the ignorance, as when penalties are doubled in
the case of drunkenness; for the moving principle is in the man himself,
since he had the power of not getting drunk and his getting drunk was
the cause of his ignorance. And we punish those who are ignorant of
anything in the laws that they ought to know and that is not difficult,
and so too in the case of anything else that they are thought to be
ignorant of through carelessness; we assume that it is in their power not
to be ignorant, since they have the power of taking care. [1114a]
But perhaps a man is the kind of man not to take care. Still they are
themselves by their slack lives responsible for becoming men of that
kind, (5) and men make themselves responsible for being unjust or self-
indulgent, in the one case by cheating and in the other by spending their
time in drinking bouts and the like; for it is activities exercised on
particular objects that make the corresponding character. This is plain
from the case of people training for any contest or action; they practise
the activity the whole time. Now not to know that it is from the exercise
of activities on particular objects that states of character are produced is
the mark of a thoroughly senseless person. (10) Again, it is irrational to
suppose that a man who acts unjustly does not wish to be unjust or a
man who acts self-indulgently to be self-indulgent. But if without being
ignorant a man does the things which will make him unjust, he will be
unjust voluntarily. Yet it does not follow that if he wishes he will cease
to be unjust and will be just. For neither does the man who is ill become
well on those terms. (15) We may suppose a case in which he is ill
voluntarily, through living incontinently and disobeying his doctors. In
that case it was then open to him not to be ill, but not now, when he has
thrown away his chance, just as when you have let a stone go it is too
late to recover it; but yet it was in your power to throw it, since the
moving principle was in you. So, too, to the unjust and to the self-
indulgent man it was open at the beginning not to become men of this
kind, (20) and so they are unjust and self-indulgent voluntarily; but now
that they have become so it is not possible for them not to be so.
But not only are the vices of the soul voluntary, but those of the body
also for some men, whom we accordingly blame; while no one blames
those who are ugly by nature, we blame those who are so owing to want
of exercise and care. So it is, too, (25) with respect to weakness and
infirmity; no one would reproach a man blind from birth or by disease or
from a blow, but rather pity him, while every one would blame a man
who was blind from drunkenness or some other form of self-indulgence.
Of vices of the body, then, those in our own power are blamed, those not
in our power are not. And if this be so, (30) in the other cases also the
vices that are blamed must be in our own power.
Now some one may say that all men desire the apparent good, but
have no control over the appearance, but the end appears to each man in
a form answering to his character. [1114b] We reply that if each man
is somehow responsible for his state of mind, he will also be himself
somehow responsible for the appearance; but if not, no one is
responsible for his own evildoing, but every one does evil acts through
ignorance of the end, thinking that by these he will get what is best, (5)
and the aiming at the end is not self-chosen but one must be born with
an eye, as it were, by which to judge rightly and choose what is truly
good, and he is well endowed by nature who is well endowed with this.
For it is what is greatest and most noble, and what we cannot get or
learn from another, (10) but must have just such as it was when given us
at birth, and to be well and nobly endowed with this will be perfect and
true excellence of natural endowment. If this is true, then, how will
virtue be more voluntary than vice? To both men alike, (15) the good and
the bad, the end appears and is fixed by nature or however it may be,
and it is by referring everything else to this that men do whatever they
do.
Whether, then, it is not by nature that the end appears to each man
such as it does appear, but something also depends on him, or the end is
natural but because the good man adopts the means voluntarily virtue is
voluntary, (20) vice also will be none the less voluntary; for in the case of
the bad man there is equally present that which depends on himself in
his actions even if not in his end. If, then, as is asserted, the virtues are
voluntary (for we are ourselves somehow partly responsible for our
states of character, and it is by being persons of a certain kind that we
assume the end to be so and so), the vices also will be voluntary; for the
same is true of them. (25)
With regard to the virtues in general we have stated their genus in
outline, viz. that they are means and that they are states of character,
and that they tend, and by their own nature, to the doing of the acts by
which they are produced, and that they are in our power and voluntary,
(30) and act as the right rule prescribes. But actions and states of

character are not voluntary in the same way; for we are masters of our
actions from the beginning right to the end, if we know the particular
facts, but though we control the beginning of our states of character the
gradual progress is not obvious, any more than it is in illnesses; because
it was in our power, however, to act in this way or not in this way,
therefore the states are voluntary. [1115a]
Let us take up the several virtues, however, and say which they are
and what sort of things they are concerned with and how they are
concerned with them; at the same time it will become plain how many
they are. (5) And first let us speak of courage.

6 That it is a mean with regard to feelings of fear and confidence has

already been made evident;5 and plainly the things we fear are terrible
things, and these are, to speak without qualification, (10) evils; for which
reason people even define fear as expectation of evil. Now we fear all
evils, e. g. disgrace, poverty, disease, friendlessness, death, but the brave
man is not thought to be concerned with all; for to fear some things is
even right and noble, and it is base not to fear them—e. g. disgrace; he
who fears this is good and modest, and he who does not is shameless. He
is, however, by some people called brave, by a transference of the word
to a new meaning; for he has in him something which is like the brave
man, (15) since the brave man also is a fearless person. Poverty and
disease we perhaps ought not to fear, nor in general the things that do
not proceed from vice and are not due to a man himself. But not even
the man who is fearless of these is brave. Yet we apply the word to him
also in virtue of a similarity; for some who in the dangers of war are
cowards are liberal and are confident in face of the loss of money. (20)
Nor is a man a coward if he fears insult to his wife and children or envy
or anything of the kind; nor brave if he is confident when he is about to
be flogged. With what sort of terrible things, then, is the brave man
concerned? Surely with the greatest; for no one is more likely than he to
stand his ground against what is awe-inspiring. (25) Now death is the
most terrible of all things; for it is the end, and nothing is thought to be
any longer either good or bad for the dead. But the brave man would not
seem to be concerned even with death in all circumstances, e. g. at sea
or in disease. In what circumstances, then? Surely in the noblest. Now
such deaths are those in battle; for these take place in the greatest and
noblest danger. (30) And these are correspondingly honoured in city-states
and at the courts of monarchs. Properly, then, he will be called brave
who is fearless in face of a noble death, and of all emergencies that
involve death; and the emergencies of war are in the highest degree of
this kind. Yet at sea also, (35) and in disease; the brave man is fearless,
but not in the same way as the seamen; for he has given up hope of
safety, and is disliking the thought of death in this shape, while they are
hopeful because of their experience. [1115b] At the same time, we
show courage in situations where there is the opportunity of showing
prowess or where death is noble; but in these forms of death neither of
these conditions is fulfilled. (5)

7 What is terrible is not the same for all men; but we say there are
things terrible even beyond human strength. These, then, are terrible to
every one—at least to every sensible man; but the terrible things that are
not beyond human strength differ in magnitude and degree, and so too
do the things that inspire confidence. (10) Now the brave man is as
dauntless as man may be. Therefore, while he will fear even the things
that are not beyond human strength, he will face them as he ought and
as the rule directs, for honour’s sake; for this is the end of virtue. But it
is possible to fear these more, or less, and again to fear things that are
not terrible as if they were. (15) Of the faults that are committed one
consists in fearing what one should not, another in fearing as we should
not, another in fearing when we should not, and so on; and so too with
respect to the things that inspire confidence. The man, then, who faces
and who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right
way and at the right time, and who feels confidence under the
corresponding conditions, is brave; for the brave man feels and acts
according to the merits of the case and in whatever way the rule directs.
(20) Now the end of every activity is conformity to the corresponding

state of character. This is true, therefore, of the brave man as well as of

others. But courage is noble. Therefore the end also is noble; for each
thing is defined by its end. Therefore it is for a noble end that the brave
man endures and acts as courage directs.
Of those who go to excess he who exceeds in fearlessness has no name
(we have said previously that many states of character have no names6),
(25) but he would be a sort of madman or insensible person if he feared

nothing, neither earthquakes nor the waves, as they say the Celts do not;
while the man who exceeds in confidence about what really is terrible is
rash. The rash man, however, (30) is also thought to be boastful and only
a pretender to courage; at all events, as the brave man is with regard to
what is terrible, so the rash man wishes to appear; and so he imitates
him in situations where he can. Hence also most of them are a mixture
of rashness and cowardice; for, while in these situations they display
confidence, they do not hold their ground against what is really terrible.
The man who exceeds in fear is a coward; for he fears both what he
ought not and as he ought not, (35) and all the similar characterizations
attach to him. [1116a] He is lacking also in confidence; but he is more
conspicuous for his excess of fear in painful situations. The coward, then,
is a despairing sort of person; for he fears everything. The brave man, on
the other hand, has the opposite disposition; for confidence is the mark
of a hopeful disposition. The coward, the rash man, and the brave man,
(5) then, are concerned with the same objects but are differently disposed

towards them; for the first two exceed and fall short, while the third
holds the middle, which is the right, position; and rash men are
precipitate, and wish for dangers beforehand but draw back when they
are in them, while brave men are keen in the moment of action, but
quiet beforehand.
As we have said, (10) then, courage is a mean with respect to things
that inspire confidence or fear, in the circumstances that have been
stated;7 and it chooses or endures things because it is noble to do so, or
because it is base not to do so.8 But to die to escape from poverty or love
or anything painful is not the mark of a brave man, but rather of a
coward; for it is softness to fly from what is troublesome, and such a
man endures death not because it is noble but to fly from evil.

8 Courage, then, is something of this sort, but the name is also applied
to five other kinds. (15) (1) First comes the courage of the citizen-soldier;
for this is most like true courage. Citizen-soldiers seem to face dangers
because of the penalties imposed by the laws and the reproaches they
would otherwise incur, and because of the honours they win by such
action; and therefore those peoples seem to be bravest among whom
cowards are held in dishonour and brave men in honour. (20) This is the
kind of courage that Homer depicts, e. g. in Diomede and in Hector:
First will Polydamas be to heap reproach on me then;9 and

For Hector one day ’mid the Trojans shall utter his vaulting harangue:
“Afraid was Tydeides, (25) and fled from my face.”10

This kind of courage is most like to that which we described earlier,11

because it is due to virtue; for it is due to shame and to desire of a noble
object (i. e. honour) and avoidance of disgrace, which is ignoble. One
might rank in the same class even those who are compelled by their
rulers; but they are inferior, (30) inasmuch as they do what they do not
from shame but from fear, and to avoid not what is disgraceful but what
is painful; for their masters compel them, as Hector12 does:

But if I shall spy any dastard that cowers far from the fight,
Vainly will such an one hope to escape from the dogs. (35)

And those who give them their posts, and beat them if they retreat, do
the same, and so do those who draw them up with trenches or
something of the sort behind them; all of these apply compulsion.
[1116b] But one ought to be brave not under compulsion but because
it is noble to be so.
(2) Experience with regard to particular facts is also thought to be
courage; this is indeed the reason why Socrates thought courage was
knowledge. Other people exhibit this quality in other dangers, (5) and
professional soldiers exhibit it in the dangers of war; for there seem to be
many empty alarms in war, of which these have had the most
comprehensive experience; therefore they seem brave, because the
others do not know the nature of the facts. Again, (10) their experience
makes them most capable in attack and in defence, since they can use
their arms and have the kind that are likely to be best both for attack
and for defence; therefore they fight like armed men against unarmed or
like trained athletes against amateurs; for in such contests too it is not
the bravest men that fight best, but those who are strongest and have
their bodies in the best condition. (15) Professional soldiers turn cowards,
however, when the danger puts too great a strain on them and they are
inferior in numbers and equipment; for they are the first to fly, while
citizen-forces die at their posts, as in fact happened at the temple of
Hermes.13 For to the latter flight is disgraceful and death is preferable to
safety on those terms; while the former from the very beginning faced
the danger on the assumption that they were stronger, (20) and when they
know the facts they fly, fearing death more than disgrace; but the brave
man is not that sort of person.
(3) Passion also is sometimes reckoned as courage; those who act from
passion, like wild beasts rushing at those who have wounded them, (25)
are thought to be brave, because brave men also are passionate; for
passion above all things is eager to rush on danger, and hence Homer’s
‘put strength into his passion’14 and ‘aroused their spirit and passion’15
and ‘hard he breathed panting’16 and ‘his blood boiled’.17 For all such
expressions seem to indicate the stirring and onset of passion. (30) Now
brave men act for honour’s sake, but passion aids them; while wild
beasts act under the influence of pain; for they attack because they have
been wounded or because they are afraid, since if they are in a forest
they do not come near one. Thus they are not brave because, driven by
pain and passion, they rush on danger without foreseeing any of the
perils, (35) since at that rate even asses would be brave when they are
hungry; for blows will not drive them from their food; and lust also
makes adulterers do many daring things. [1117a] [Those creatures are
not brave, then, which are driven on to danger by pain or passion.] The
‘courage’ that is due to passion seems to be the most natural, and to be
courage if choice and motive be added.
Men, (5) then, as well as beasts, suffer pain when they are angry, and are
pleased when they exact their revenge; those who fight for these reasons,
however, are pugnacious but not brave; for they do not act for honour’s
sake nor as the rule directs, but from strength of feeling; they have,
however, something akin to courage.
 (4) Nor are sanguine people brave; for they are confident in danger
only because they have conquered often and against many foes. (10) Yet
they closely resemble brave men, because both are confident; but brave
men are confident for the reasons stated earlier,18 while these are so
because they think they are the strongest and can suffer nothing.
(Drunken men also behave in this way; they become sanguine.) When
their adventures do not succeed, however, (15) they run away; but it was
the mark of a brave man to face things that are, and seem, terrible for a
man, because it is noble to do so and disgraceful not to do so. Hence also
it is thought the mark of a braver man to be fearless and undisturbed in
sudden alarms than to be so in those that are foreseen; for it must have
proceeded more from a state of character, because less from preparation;
acts that are foreseen may be chosen by calculation and rule, (20) but
sudden actions must be in accordance with one’s state of character.
(5) People who are ignorant of the danger also appear brave, and they
are not far removed from those of a sanguine temper, but are inferior
inasmuch as they have no self-reliance while these have. Hence also the
sanguine hold their ground for a time; but those who have been
deceived about the facts fly if they know or suspect that these are
different from what they supposed, (25) as happened to the Argives when
they fell in with the Spartans and took them for Sicyonians.19

9 We have, then, described the character both of brave men and of

those who are thought to be brave.
Though courage is concerned with feelings of confidence and of fear,
it is not concerned with both alike, but more with the things that inspire
fear; for he who is undisturbed in face of these and bears himself as he
should towards these is more truly brave than the man who does so
towards the things that inspire confidence. (30) It is for facing what is
painful, then, as has been said,20 that men are called brave. Hence also
courage involves pain, and is justly praised; for it is harder to face what
is painful than to abstain from what is pleasant. Yet the end which
courage sets before it would seem to be pleasant, (35) but to be concealed
by the attending circumstances, as happens also in athletic contests;
[1117b] for the end at which boxers aim is pleasant—the crown and
the honours—but the blows they take are distressing to flesh and blood,
 and painful, and so is their whole exertion; and because the blows and
(5)

the exertions are many the end, which is but small, appears to have
nothing pleasant in it. And so, if the case of courage is similar, death and
wounds will be painful to the brave man and against his will, but he will
face them because it is noble to do so or because it is base not to do so.
And the more he is possessed of virtue in its entirety and the happier he
is, (10) the more he will be pained at the thought of death; for life is best
worth living for such a man, and he is knowingly losing the greatest
goods, and this is painful. But he is none the less brave, and perhaps all
the more so, because he chooses noble deeds of war at that cost. (15) It is
not the case, then, with all the virtues that the exercise of them is
pleasant, except in so far as it reaches its end. But it is quite possible that
the best soldiers may be not men of this sort but those who are less
brave but have no other good; for these are ready to face danger, and
they sell their life for trifling gains.
So much, (20) then, for courage; it is not difficult to grasp its nature in
outline, at any rate, from what has been said.
After courage let us speak of temperance; for these seem to be the
virtues of the irrational parts.

10 We have said21 that temperance is a mean with regard to pleasures

(for it is less, (25) and not in the same way, concerned with pains); self-
indulgence also is manifested in the same sphere. Now, therefore, let us
determine with what sort of pleasures they are concerned. We may
assume the distinction between bodily pleasures and those of the soul,
such as love of honour and love of learning; for the lover of each of these
delights in that of which he is a lover, (30) the body being in no way
affected, but rather the mind; but men who are concerned with such
pleasures are called neither temperate nor self-indulgent. Nor, again, are
those who are concerned with the other pleasures that are not bodily; for
those who are fond of hearing and telling stories and who spend their
days on anything that turns up are called gossips, (35) but not self-
indulgent, nor are those who are pained at the loss of money or of
friends.
[1118a] Temperance must be concerned with bodily pleasures, but
not all even of these; for those who delight in objects of vision, (5) such
as colours and shapes and painting, are called neither temperate nor self-
indulgent; yet it would seem possible to delight even in these either as
one should or to excess or to a deficient degree.
And so too is it with objects of hearing; no one calls those who delight
extravagantly in music or acting self-indulgent, nor those who do so as
they ought temperate.
Nor do we apply these names to those who delight in odour, unless it
be incidentally; we do not call those self-indulgent who delight in the
odour of apples or roses or incense, but rather those who delight in the
odour of unguents or of dainty dishes; for self-indulgent people delight
in these because these remind them of the objects of their appetite. (10)
And one may see even other people, when they are hungry, delighting in
the smell of food; but to delight in this kind of thing is the mark of the
self-indulgent man; for these are objects of appetite to him. (15)
Nor is there in animals other than man any pleasure connected with
these senses, except incidentally. For dogs do not delight in the scent of
hares, but in the eating of them, but the scent told them the hares were
there; nor does the lion delight in the lowing of the ox, (20) but in eating
it; but he perceived by the lowing that it was near, and therefore appears
to delight in the lowing; and similarly he does not delight because he
sees ‘a stag or a wild goat’,22 but because he is going to make a meal of
it. Temperance and self-indulgence, however, are concerned with the
kind of pleasures that the other animals share in, (25) which therefore
appear slavish and brutish; these are touch and taste. But even of taste
they appear to make little or no use; for the business of taste is the
discriminating of flavours, which is done by wine-tasters and people who
season dishes; but they hardly take pleasure in making these
discriminations, or at least self-indulgent people do not, (30) but in the
actual enjoyment, which in all cases comes through touch, both in the
case of food and in that of drink and in that of sexual intercourse. This is
why a certain gourmand prayed that his throat might become longer
than a crane’s, implying that it was the contact that he took pleasure in.
[1118b] Thus the sense with which self-indulgence is connected is the
most widely shared of the senses; and self-indulgence would seem to be
justly a matter of reproach, because it attaches to us not as men but as
animals. To delight in such things, then, and to love them above all
others, is brutish. For even of the pleasures of touch the most liberal
have been eliminated, e. g. those produced in the gymnasium by rubbing
and by the consequent heat; for the contact characteristic of the self-
indulgent man does not affect the whole body but only certain parts. (5)

11 Of the appetites some seem to be common, others to be peculiar to

individuals and acquired; e. g. the appetite for food is natural, (10) since
every one who is without it craves for food or drink, and sometimes for
both, and for love also (as Homer says)23 if he is young and lusty; but
not every one craves for this or that kind of nourishment or love, nor for
the same things. Hence such craving appears to be our very own. Yet it
has of course something natural about it; for different things are pleasant
to different kinds of people, and some things are more pleasant to every
one than chance objects. (15) Now in the natural appetites few go wrong,
and only in one direction, that of excess; for to eat or drink whatever
offers itself till one is surfeited is to exceed the natural amount, since
natural appetite is the replenishment of one’s deficiency. Hence these
people are called belly-gods, (20) this implying that they fill their belly
beyond what is right. It is people of entirely slavish character that
become like this. But with regard to the pleasures peculiar to individuals
many people go wrong and in many ways. For while the people who are
‘fond of so and so’ are so called because they delight either in the wrong
things, or more than most people do, (25) or in the wrong way, the self-
indulgent exceed in all three ways; they both delight in some things that
they ought not to delight in (since they are hateful), and if one ought to
delight in some of the things they delight in, they do so more than one
ought and than most men do.
Plainly, then, excess with regard to pleasures is self-indulgence and is
culpable; with regard to pains one is not, as in the case of courage, (30)
called temperate for facing them or self-indulgent for not doing so, but
the self-indulgent man is so called because he is pained more than he
ought at not getting pleasant things (even his pain being caused by
pleasure), and the temperate man is so called because he is not pained at
the absence of what is pleasant and at his abstinence from it.
The self-indulgent man, then, craves for all pleasant things or those
that are most pleasant, and is led by his appetite to choose these at the
cost of everything else; hence he is pained both when he fails to get
them and when he is merely craving for them (for appetite involves
pain); but it seems absurd to be pained for the sake of pleasure. (5)
People who fall short with regard to pleasures and delight in them less
than they should are hardly found; for such insensibility is not human.
Even the other animals distinguish different kinds of food and enjoy
some and not others; and if there is any one who finds nothing pleasant
and nothing more attractive than anything else, (10) he must be
something quite different from a man; this sort of person has not
received a name because he hardly occurs. The temperate man occupies
a middle position with regard to these objects. For he neither enjoys the
things that the self-indulgent man enjoys most—but rather dislikes them
—nor in general the things that he should not, nor anything of this sort
to excess, nor does he feel pain or craving when they are absent, or does
so only to a moderate degree, and not more than he should, nor when he
should not, (15) and so on; but the things that, being pleasant, make for
health or for good condition, he will desire moderately and as he should,
and also other pleasant things if they are not hindrances to these ends,
or contrary to what is noble, or beyond his means. For he who neglects
these conditions loves such pleasures more than they are worth, but the
temperate man is not that sort of person, but the sort of person that the
right rule prescribes. (20)

12 Self-indulgence is more like a voluntary state than cowardice. For

the former is actuated by pleasure, the latter by pain, of which the one is
to be chosen and the other to be avoided; and pain upsets and destroys
the nature of the person who feels it, while pleasure does nothing of the
sort. Therefore self-indulgence is more voluntary. Hence also it is more a
matter of reproach; for it is easier to become accustomed to its objects,
(25) since there are many things of this sort in life, and the process of

habituation to them is free from danger, while with terrible objects the
reverse is the case. But cowardice would seem to be voluntary in a
different degree from its particular manifestations; for it is itself painless,
but in these we are upset by pain, so that we even throw down our arms
and disgrace ourselves in other ways; hence our acts are even thought to
be done under compulsion. (30) For the self-indulgent man, on the other
hand, the particular acts are voluntary (for he does them with craving
and desire), but the whole state is less so; for no one craves to be self-
indulgent.
The name self-indulgence is applied also to childish faults; for they
bear a certain resemblance to what we have been considering. Which is
called after which, makes no difference to our present purpose; plainly,
however, the later is called after the earlier. [1119b] The transference
of the name seems not a bad one; for that which desires what is base and
which develops quickly ought to be kept in a chastened condition, and
these characteristics belong above all to appetite and to the child, since
children in fact live at the beck and call of appetite, and it is in them
that the desire for what is pleasant is strongest. (5) If, then, it is not going
to be obedient and subject to the ruling principle, it will go to great
lengths; for in an irrational being the desire for pleasure is insatiable
even if it tries every source of gratification, and the exercise of appetite
increases its innate force, (10) and if appetites are strong and violent they
even expel the power of calculation. Hence they should be moderate and
few, and should in no way oppose the rational principle—and this is
what we call an obedient and chastened state—and as the child should
live according to the direction of his tutor, (15) so the appetitive element
should live according to rational principle. Hence the appetitive element
in a temperate man should harmonize with the rational principle; for the
noble is the mark at which both aim, and the temperate man craves for
the things he ought, as he ought, and when he ought; and this is what
rational principle directs.
Here we conclude our account of temperance.

1 A reference to Pl. Laws 863 B, ff., where anger and appetite are coupled with ignorance as
sources of wrong action.
2 Aristotle has in mind the method of discovering the solution of a geometrical problem. The
problem being to construct a figure of a certain kind, we suppose it constructed and then analyse
it to see if there is some figure by constructing which we can construct the required figure, and
so on till we come to a figure which our existing knowledge enables us to construct.
3 1111b 26.

4 1112a 1 f.
5 1107a 33–b 4.

6 1107b 2, Cf. 1107b 29, 1108a 5.

7 Ch. 6.

8 1115b 11–24.

9 Il. xxii. 100.

10 Il. viii. 148, 149.

11 Chs. 6, 7.

12 Aristotle’s quotation is more like Il. ii. 391–3, where Agamemnon speaks, than xv. 348–51,
where Hector speaks.
13 The reference is to a battle at Coronea in the Sacred War, c. 353 B. C., in which the Phocians
defeated the citizens of Coronea and some Boeotian regulars.
14 This is a conflation of Il. xi. 11 or xiv. 151 and xvi. 529.

15 Cf. Il. v. 470, xv. 232, 594.

16 Cf. Od. xxiv. 318 f.

17 The phrase does not occur in Homer; it is found in Theocr. xx. 15.

18 1115b 11–24.

19 At the Long Walls of Corinth, 392 B. C. Cf. Xen. Hell. iv. 4. 10.

20 1115b 7–13.

21 1107b 4–6.

22 Il. iii. 24.

23 Il. xxiv. 130.

 BOOK IV

1 Let us speak next of liberality. It seems to be the mean with regard

to wealth; for the liberal man is praised not in respect of military
matters, nor of those in respect of which the temperate man is praised,
(25) nor of judicial decisions, but with regard to the giving and taking of

wealth, and especially in respect of giving. Now by ‘wealth’ we mean all

the things whose value is measured by money. Further, prodigality and
meanness are excesses and defects with regard to wealth; and meanness
we always impute to those who care more than they ought for wealth,
(30) but we sometimes apply the word ‘prodigality’ in a complex sense;

for we call those men prodigals who are incontinent and spend money
on self-indulgence. Hence also they are thought the poorest characters;
for they combine more vices than one. Therefore the application of the
word to them is not its proper use; for a ‘prodigal’ means a man who has
a single evil quality, that of wasting his substance; since a prodigal is
one who is being ruined by his own fault, and the wasting of substance
is thought to be a sort of ruining of oneself, life being held to depend on
possession of substance. [1120a]
This, then, is the sense in which we take the word ‘prodigality’. (5)
Now the things that have a use may be used either well or badly; and
riches is a useful thing; and everything is used best by the man who has
the virtue concerned with it; riches, therefore, will be used best by the
man who has the virtue concerned with wealth; and this is the liberal
man. Now spending and giving seem to be the using of wealth; taking
and keeping rather the possession of it. Hence it is more the mark of the
liberal man to give to the right people than to take from the right
sources and not to take from the wrong. (10) For it is more characteristic
of virtue to do good than to have good done to one, and more
characteristic to do what is noble than not to do what is base; and it is
not hard to see that giving implies doing good and doing what is noble,
and taking implies having good done to one or not acting basely. (15) And
gratitude is felt towards him who gives, not towards him who does not
take, and praise also is bestowed more on him. It is easier, also, not to
take than to give; for men are apter to give away their own too little
than to take what is another’s. Givers, too, are called liberal; but those
who do not take are not praised for liberality but rather for justice; while
those who take are hardly praised at all. (20) And the liberal are almost
the most loved of all virtuous characters, since they are useful; and this
depends on their giving.
Now virtuous actions are noble and done for the sake of the noble.
Therefore the liberal man, like other virtuous men, will give for the sake
of the noble, and rightly; for he will give to the right people, (25) the right
amounts, and at the right time, with all the other qualifications that
accompany right giving; and that too with pleasure or without pain; for
that which is virtuous is pleasant or free from pain—least of all will it be
painful. But he who gives to the wrong people or not for the sake of the
noble but for some other cause, will be called not liberal but by some
other name. Nor is he liberal who gives with pain; for he would prefer
the wealth to the noble act, (30) and this is not characteristic of a liberal
man. But no more will the liberal man take from wrong sources; for such
taking is not characteristic of the man who sets no store by wealth. Nor
will he be a ready asker; for it is not characteristic of a man who confers
benefits to accept them lightly. But he will take from the right sources,
e. g. [1120b] from his own possessions, not as something noble but as
a necessity, that he may have something to give. Nor will he neglect his
own property, since he wishes by means of this to help others. And he
will refrain from giving to anybody and everybody, that he may have
something to give to the right people, at the right time, and where it is
noble to do so. It is highly characteristic of a liberal man also to go to
excess in giving, so that he leaves too little for himself; for it is the
nature of a liberal man not to look to himself. (5) The term ‘liberality’ is
used relatively to a man’s substance; for liberality resides not in the
multitude of the gifts but in the state of character of the giver, and this is
relative to the giver’s substance. There is therefore nothing to prevent
the man who gives less from being the more liberal man, if he has less to
give. Those are thought to be more liberal who have not made their
wealth but inherited it; for in the first place they have no experience of
want, (10) and secondly all men are fonder of their own productions, as
are parents and poets. It is not easy for the liberal man to be rich, (15)
since he is not apt either at taking or at keeping, but at giving away, and
does not value wealth for its own sake but as a means to giving. Hence
comes the charge that is brought against fortune, that those who deserve
riches most get it least. But it is not unreasonable that it should turn out
so; for he cannot have wealth, (20) any more than anything else, if he
does not take pains to have it. Yet he will not give to the wrong people
nor at the wrong time, and so on; for he would no longer be acting in
accordance with liberality, and if he spent on these objects he would
have nothing to spend on the right objects. For, as has been said, he is
liberal who spends according to his substance and on the right objects;
and he who exceeds is prodigal. (25) Hence we do not call despots
prodigal; for it is thought not easy for them to give and spend beyond
the amount of their possessions. Liberality, then, being a mean with
regard to giving and taking of wealth, the liberal man will both give and
spend the right amounts and on the right objects, (30) alike in small
things and in great, and that with pleasure; he will also take the right
amounts and from the right sources. For, the virtue being a mean with
regard to both, he will do both as he ought; since this sort of taking
accompanies proper giving, and that which is not of this sort is contrary
to it, and accordingly the giving and taking that accompany each other
are present together in the same man, while the contrary kinds evidently
are not. [1121a] But if he happens to spend in a manner contrary to
what is right and noble, he will be pained, but moderately and as he
ought; for it is the mark of virtue both to be pleased and to be pained at
the right objects and in the right way. (5) Further, the liberal man is easy
to deal with in money matters; for he can be got the better of, since he
sets no store by money, and is more annoyed if he has not spent
something that he ought than pained if he has spent something that he
ought not, and does not agree with the saying of Simonides.
The prodigal errs in these respects also; for he is neither pleased nor
pained at the right things or in the right way; this will be more evident
as we go on. (10) We have said1 that prodigality and meanness are
excesses and deficiencies, and in two things, in giving and in taking; for
we include spending under giving. Now prodigality exceeds in giving
and not taking, and falls short in taking, while meanness falls short in
giving, (15) and exceeds in taking, except in small things.
The characteristics of prodigality are not often combined; for it is not
easy to give to all if you take from none; private persons soon exhaust
their substance with giving, and it is to these that the name of prodigals
is applied—though a man of this sort would seem to be in no small
degree better than a mean man. For he is easily cured both by age and
by poverty, (20) and thus he may move towards the middle state. For he
has the characteristics of the liberal man, since he both gives and
refrains from taking, though he does neither of these in the right manner
or well. Therefore if he were brought to do so by habituation or in some
other way, he would be liberal; for he will then give to the right people,
and will not take from the wrong sources. (25) This is why he is thought
to have not a bad character; it is not the mark of a wicked or ignoble
man to go to excess in giving and not taking, but only of a foolish one.
The man who is prodigal in this way is thought much better than the
mean man both for the aforesaid reasons and because he benefits many
while the other benefits no one, not even himself.
But most prodigal people, as has been said,2 also take from the wrong
sources, (30) and are in this respect mean. They become apt to take
because they wish to spend and cannot do this easily; for their
possessions soon run short. Thus they are forced to provide means from
some other source. At the same time, because they care nothing for
honour, they take recklessly and from any source; for they have an
appetite for giving, and they do not mind how or from what source.
[1121b] Hence also their giving is not liberal; for it is not noble, nor
does it aim at nobility, nor is it done in the right way; sometimes they
make rich those who should be poor, (5) and will give nothing to people
of respectable character, and much to flatterers or those who provide
them with some other pleasure. Hence also most of them are self-
indulgent; for they spend lightly and waste money on their indulgences,
and incline towards pleasures because they do not live with a view to
what is noble. (10)
The prodigal man, then, turns into what we have described if he is left
untutored, but if he is treated with care he will arrive at the
intermediate and right state. But meanness is both incurable (for old age
and every disability is thought to make men mean) and more innate in
men than prodigality; for most men are fonder of getting money than of
giving. (15) It also extends widely, and is multiform, since there seem to
be many kinds of meanness.
For it consists in two things, deficiency in giving and excess in taking,
and is not found complete in all men but is sometimes divided; some
men go to excess in taking, others fall short in giving. (20) Those who are
called by such names as ‘miserly’, ‘close’, ‘stingy’, all fall short in giving,
but do not covet the possessions of others nor wish to get them. In some
this is due to a sort of honesty and avoidance of what is disgraceful (for
some seem, (25) or at least profess, to hoard their money for this reason,
that they may not some day be forced to do something disgraceful; to
this class belong the cheeseparer and every one of the sort; he is so
called from his excess of unwillingness to give anything); while others
again keep their hands off the property of others from fear, on the
ground that it is not easy, if one takes the property of others oneself, to
avoid having one’s own taken by them; they are therefore content
neither to take nor to give.
Others again exceed in respect of taking by taking anything and from
any source, (30) e. g. those who ply sordid trades, pimps and all such
people, and those who lend small sums and at high rates. [1122a] For
all of these take more than they ought and from wrong sources. What is
common to them is evidently sordid love of gain; they all put up with a
bad name for the sake of gain, and little gain at that. For those who
make great gains but from wrong sources, and not the right gains, (5)
e. g. despots when they sack cities and spoil temples, we do not call
mean but rather wicked, impious, and unjust. But the gamester and the
footpad [and the highwayman] belong to the class of the mean, since
they have a sordid love of gain. For it is for gain that both of them ply
their craft and endure the disgrace of it, and the one faces the greatest
dangers for the sake of the booty, (10) while the other makes gain from
his friends, to whom he ought to be giving. Both, then, since they are
willing to make gain from wrong sources, are sordid lovers of gain;
therefore all such forms of taking are mean.
And it is natural that meanness is described as the contrary of
liberality; for not only is it a greater evil than prodigality, (15) but men
err more often in this direction than in the way of prodigality as we have
described it.
So much, then, for liberality and the opposed vices.
2 It would seem proper to discuss magnificence next. (20) For this also
seems to be a virtue concerned with wealth; but it does not like liberality
extend to all the actions that are concerned with wealth, but only to
those that involve expenditure; and in these it surpasses liberality in
scale. For, as the name itself suggests, it is a fitting expenditure involving
largeness of scale. But the scale is relative; for the expense of equipping
a trireme is not the same as that of heading a sacred embassy. (25) It is
what is fitting, then, in relation to the agent, and to the circumstances
and the object. The man who in small or middling things spends
according to the merits of the case is not called magnificent (e. g. the
man who can say ‘many a gift I gave the wanderer’),3 but only the man
who does so in great things. For the magnificent man is liberal, but the
liberal man is not necessarily magnificent. (30) The deficiency of this state
of character is called niggardliness, the excess vulgarity, lack of taste,
and the like, which do not go to excess in the amount spent on right
objects, but by showy expenditure in the wrong circumstances and the
wrong manner; we shall speak of these vices later.4
The magnificent man is like an artist; for he can see what is fitting and
spend large sums tastefully. For, as we said at the beginning,5 a state of
character is determined by its activities and by its objects. [1122b] (35)
Now the expenses of the magnificent man are large and fitting. Such,
therefore, are also his results; for thus there will be a great expenditure
and one that is fitting to its result. Therefore the result should be worthy
of the expense, and the expense should be worthy of the result, (5) or
should even exceed it. And the magnificent man will spend such sums
for honour’s sake; for this is common to the virtues. And further he will
do so gladly and lavishly; for nice calculation is a niggardly thing. And
he will consider how the result can be made most beautiful and most
becoming rather than for how much it can be produced and how it can
be produced most cheaply. It is necessary, then, (10) that the magnificent
man be also liberal. For the liberal man also will spend what he ought
and as he ought; and it is in these matters that the greatness implied in
the name of the magnificent man—his bigness, as it were—is manifested,
since liberality is concerned with these matters; and at an equal expense
he will produce a more magnificent work of art. For a possession and a
work of art have not the same excellence. The most valuable possession
is that which is worth most, (15) e. g. gold, but the most valuable work of
art is that which is great and beautiful (for the contemplation of such a
work inspires admiration, and so does magnificence); and a work has an
excellence—viz. magnificence—which involves magnitude. Magnificence
is an attribute of expenditures of the kind which we call honourable,
e. g. those connected with the gods—votive offerings, buildings, and
sacrifices—and similarly with any form of religious worship, and all
those that are proper objects of public-spirited ambition, (20) as when
people think they ought to equip a chorus or a trireme, or entertain the
city, in a brilliant way. But in all cases, as has been said,6 we have
regard to the agent as well and ask who he is and what means he has;
for the expenditure should be worthy of his means, (25) and suit not only
the result but also the producer. Hence a poor man cannot be
magnificent, since he has not the means with which to spend large sums
fittingly; and he who tries is a fool, since he spends beyond what can be
expected of him and what is proper, but it is right expenditure that is
virtuous. (30) But great expenditure is becoming to those who have
suitable means to start with, acquired by their own efforts or from
ancestors or connexions, and to people of high birth or reputation, and
so on; for all these things bring with them greatness and prestige.
Primarily, then, (35) the magnificent man is of this sort, and magnificence
is shown in expenditures of this sort, as has been said;7 for these are the
greatest and most honourable. [1123a] Of private occasions of
expenditure the most suitable are those that take place once for all, e. g.
a wedding or anything of the kind, or anything that interests the whole
city or the people of position in it, and also the receiving of foreign
guests and the sending of them on their way, and gifts and counter-gifts;
for the magnificent man spends not on himself but on public objects, (5)
and gifts bear some resemblance to votive offerings. A magnificent man
will also furnish his house suitably to his wealth (for even a house is a
sort of public ornament), and will spend by preference on those works
that are lasting (for these are the most beautiful), and on every class of
things he will spend what is becoming; for the same things are not
suitable for gods and for men, (10) nor in a temple and in a tomb. And
since each expenditure may be great of its kind, and what is most
magnificent absolutely is great expenditure on a great object, but what is
magnificent here is what is great in these circumstances, and greatness in
the work differs from greatness in the expense (for the most beautiful
ball or bottle is magnificent as a gift to a child, (15) but the price of it is
small and mean)—therefore it is characteristic of the magnificent man,
whatever kind of result he is producing, to produce it magnificently (for
such a result is not easily surpassed) and to make it worthy of the
expenditure.
Such, then, is the magnificent man; the man who goes to excess and is
vulgar exceeds, as has been said,8 by spending beyond what is right. (20)
For on small objects of expenditure he spends much and displays a
tasteless showiness; e. g. he gives a club dinner on the scale of a wedding
banquet, and when he provides the chorus for a comedy he brings them
on to the stage in purple, as they do at Megara. (25) And all such things
he will do not for honour’s sake but to show off his wealth, and because
he thinks he is admired for these things, and where he ought to spend
much he spends little and where little, much. The niggardly man on the
other hand will fall short in everything, and after spending the greatest
sums will spoil the beauty of the result for a trifle, and whatever he is
doing he will hesitate and consider how he may spend least, (30) and
lament even that, and think he is doing everything on a bigger scale than
he ought.
These states of character, then, are vices; yet they do not bring disgrace
because they are neither harmful to one’s neighbour nor very unseemly.

3 Pride seems even from its name9 to be concerned with great things;
what sort of great things, is the first question we must try to answer. It
makes no difference whether we consider the state of character or the
man characterized by it. (35) Now the man is thought to be proud who
thinks himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them; for he who
does so beyond his deserts is a fool, but no virtuous man is foolish or
silly. [1123b] The proud man, then, is the man we have described. For
he who is worthy of little and thinks himself worthy of little is
temperate, (5) but not proud; for pride implies greatness, as beauty
implies a good-sized body, and little people may be neat and well-
proportioned but cannot be beautiful. On the other hand, he who thinks
himself worthy of great things, being unworthy of them, is vain; though
not every one who thinks himself worthy of more than he really is
worthy of is vain. The man who thinks himself worthy of less than he is
really worthy of is unduly humble, whether his deserts be great or
moderate, or his deserts be small but his claims yet smaller. (10) And the
man whose deserts are great would seem most unduly humble; for what
would he have done if they had been less? The proud man, then, is an
extreme in respect of the greatness of his claims, but a mean in respect
of the rightness of them; for he claims what is in accordance with his
merits, while the others go to excess or fall short.
If, then, he deserves and claims great things, and above all the greatest
things, (15) he will be concerned with one thing in particular. Desert is
relative to external goods; and the greatest of these, we should say, is
that which we render to the gods, and which people of position most
aim at, and which is the prize appointed for the noblest deeds; and this
is honour; that is surely the greatest of external goods. (20) Honours and
dishonours, therefore, are the objects with respect to which the proud
man is as he should be. And even apart from argument it is with honor
that proud men appear to be concerned; for it is honour that they chiefly
claim, but in accordance with their deserts. The unduly humble man
falls short both in comparison with his own merits and in comparison
with the proud man’s claims. (25) The vain man goes to excess in
comparison with his own merits, but does not exceed the proud man’s
claims.
Now the proud man, since he deserves most, must be good in the
highest degree; for the better man always deserves more, and the best
man most. (30) Therefore the truly proud man must be good. And
greatness in every virtue would seem to be characteristic of a proud
man. And it would be most unbecoming for a proud man to fly from
danger, swinging his arms by his sides, or to wrong another; for to what
end should he do disgraceful acts, he to whom nothing is great? If we
consider him point by point, we shall see the utter absurdity of a proud
man who is not good. Nor, again, would he be worthy of honour if he
were bad; for honour is the prize of virtue, (35) and it is to the good that
it is rendered. [1124a] Pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the
virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them.
Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without
nobility and goodness of character. It is chiefly with honours and
dishonours, (5) then, that the proud man is concerned; and at honours
that are great and conferred by good men he will be moderately pleased,
thinking that he is coming by his own or even less than his own; for
there can be no honour that is worthy of perfect virtue, (10) yet he will at
any rate accept it since they have nothing greater to bestow on him; but
honour from casual people and on trifling grounds he will utterly
despise, since it is not this that he deserves, and dishonour too, since in
his case it cannot be just. In the first place, then, as has been said,10 the
proud man is concerned with honours; yet he will also bear himself with
moderation towards wealth and power and all good or evil fortune, (15)
whatever may befall him, and will be neither over-joyed by good fortune
nor over-pained by evil. For not even towards honour does he bear
himself as if it were a very great thing. Power and wealth are desirable
for the sake of honour (at least those who have them wish to get honour
by means of them); and for him to whom even honour is a little thing
the others must be so too. Hence proud men are thought to be
disdainful.
The goods of fortune also are thought to contribute towards pride. (20)
For men who are well-born are thought worthy of honour, and so are
those who enjoy power or wealth; for they are in a superior position,
and everything that has a superiority in something good is held in
greater honour. Hence even such things make men prouder; for they are
honoured by some for having them; but in truth the good man alone is
to be honoured; he, (25) however, who has both advantages is thought the
more worthy of honour. But those who without virtue have such goods
are neither justified in making great claims nor entitled to the name of
‘proud’; for these things imply perfect virtue. Disdainful and insolent,
however, even those who have such goods become. For without virtue it
is not easy to bear gracefully the goods of fortune; and, (30) being unable
to bear them, and thinking themselves superior to others, they despise
others and themselves do what they please. [1124b] They imitate the
proud man without being like him, and this they do where they can; so
they do not act virtuously, but they do despise others. For the proud
man despises justly (since he thinks truly), (5) but the many do so at
random.
 He does not run into trifling dangers, nor is he fond of danger, because
he honours few things; but he will face great dangers, and when he is in
danger he is unsparing of his life, knowing that there are conditions on
which life is not worth having. And he is the sort of man to confer
benefits, but he is ashamed of receiving them; for the one is the mark of
a superior, (10) the other of an inferior. And he is apt to confer greater
benefits in return; for thus the original benefactor besides being paid will
incur a debt to him, and will be the gainer by the transaction. They seem
also to remember any service they have done, but not those they have
received (for he who receives a service is inferior to him who has done
it, but the proud man wishes to be superior), and to hear of the former
with pleasure, of the latter with displeasure; this, it seems, (15) is why
Thetis did not mention to Zeus the services she had done him,11 and why
the Spartans did not recount their services to the Athenians, but those
they had received. It is a mark of the proud man also to ask for nothing
or scarcely anything, but to give help readily, and to be dignified
towards people who enjoy high position and good fortune, but
unassuming towards those of the middle class; for it is a difficult and
lofty thing to be superior to the former, (20) but easy to be so to the
latter, and a lofty bearing over the former is no mark of ill-breeding, but
among humble people it is as vulgar as a display of strength against the
weak. Again, it is characteristic of the proud man not to aim at the
things commonly held in honour, or the things in which others excel; to
be sluggish and to hold back except where great honour or a great work
is at stake, (25) and to be a man of few deeds, but of great and notable
ones. He must also be open in his hate and in his love (for to conceal
one’s feelings, i. e. to care less for truth than for what people will think,
is a coward’s part), and must speak and act openly; for he is free of
speech because he is contemptuous, and he is given to telling the truth,
(30) except when he speaks in irony to the vulgar. [1125a] He must be

unable to make his life revolve round another, unless it be a friend; for
this is slavish, and for this reason all flatterers are servile and people
lacking in self-respect are flatterers. Nor is he given to admiration; for
nothing to him is great. Nor is he mindful of wrongs; for it is not the part
of a proud man to have a long memory, especially for wrongs, (5) but
rather to overlook them. Nor is he a gossip; for he will speak neither
about himself nor about another, since he cares not to be praised nor for
others to be blamed; nor again is he given to praise; and for the same
reason he is not an evil-speaker, even about his enemies, except from
haughtiness. With regard to necessary or small matters he is least of all
men given to lamentation or the asking of favours; for it is the part of
one who takes such matters seriously to behave so with respect to them.
(10) He is one who will possess beautiful and profitless things rather than

profitable and useful ones; for this is more proper to a character that
suffices to itself.
Further, a slow step is thought proper to the proud man, a deep voice,
and a level utterance; for the man who takes few things seriously is not
likely to be hurried, nor the man who thinks nothing great to be excited,
(15) while a shrill voice and a rapid gait are the results of hurry and

excitement.
Such, then, is the proud man; the man who falls short of him is unduly
humble, and the man who goes beyond him is vain. Now even these are
not thought to be bad (for they are not malicious), but only mistaken.
For the unduly humble man, being worthy of good things, (20) robs
himself of what he deserves, and seems to have something bad about
him from the fact that he does not think himself worthy of good things,
and seems also not to know himself; else he would have desired the
things he was worthy of, since these were good. Yet such people are not
thought to be fools, but rather unduly retiring. Such a reputation, (25)
however, seems actually to make them worse; for each class of people
aims at what corresponds to its worth, and these people stand back even
from noble actions and undertakings, deeming themselves unworthy,
and from external goods no less. Vain people, on the other hand, are
fools and ignorant of themselves, and that manifestly; for, not being
worthy of them, they attempt honourable undertakings, (30) and then are
found out; and they adorn themselves with clothing and outward show
and such things, and wish their strokes of good fortune to be made
public, and speak about them as if they would be honoured for them.
But undue humility is more opposed to pride than vanity is; for it is both
commoner and worse.
Pride, then, is concerned with honour on the grand scale, as has been
said.12
4 There seems to be in the sphere of honour also, (35) as was said in
our first remarks on the subject,13 a virtue which would appear to be
related to pride as liberality is to magnificence. [1125b] For neither of
these has anything to do with the grand scale, but both dispose us as is
right with regard to middling and unimportant objects; as in getting and
giving of wealth there is a mean and an excess and defect, (5) so too
honour may be desired more than is right, or less, or from the right
sources and in the right way. We blame both the ambitious man as
aiming at honour more than is right and from wrong sources, (10) and the
unambitious man as not willing to be honoured even for noble reasons.
But sometimes we praise the ambitious man as being manly and a lover
of what is noble, and the unambitious man as being moderate and self-
controlled, as we said in our first treatment of the subject.14 Evidently,
since ‘fond of such and such an object’ has more than one meaning, we
do not assign the term ‘ambition’ or ‘love of honour’ always to the same
thing, but when we praise the quality we think of the man who loves
honour more than most people, (15) and when we blame it we think of
him who loves it more than is right. The mean being without a name,
the extremes seem to dispute for its place as though that were vacant by
default. But where there is excess and defect, there is also an
intermediate; now men desire honour both more than they should and
less; therefore it is possible also to do so as one should; at all events this
is the state of character that is praised, (20) being an unnamed mean in
respect of honour. Relatively to ambition it seems to be
unambitiousness, and relatively to unambitiousness it seems to be
ambition, while relatively to both severally it seems in a sense to be both
together. This appears to be true of the other virtues also. But in this
case the extremes seem to be contradictories because the mean has not
received a name. (25)

5 Good temper is a mean with respect to anger; the middle state being
unnamed, and the extremes almost without a name as well, we place
good temper in the middle position, though it inclines towards the
deficiency, which is without a name. The excess might be called a sort of
‘irascibility’. (30) For the passion is anger, while its causes are many and
diverse.
The man who is angry at the right things and with the right people,
and, further, as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he ought, is
praised. This will be the good-tempered man, then, since good temper is
praised. For the good-tempered man tends to be unperturbed and not to
be led by passion, (35) but to be angry in the manner, at the things, and
for the length of time, that the rule dictates; but he is thought to err
rather in the direction of deficiency; for the good-tempered man is not
revengeful, but rather tends to make allowances. [1126a]
The deficiency, whether it is a sort of ‘inirascibility’ or whatever it is,
is blamed. For those who are not angry at the things they should be
angry at are thought to be fools, (5) and so are those who are not angry
in the right way, at the right time, or with the right persons; for such a
man is thought not to feel things nor to be pained by them, and, since he
does not get angry, he is thought unlikely to defend himself; and to
endure being insulted and put up with insult to one’s friends is slavish.
The excess can be manifested in all the points that have been named
(for one can be angry with the wrong persons, at the wrong things, (10)
more than is right, too quickly, or too long); yet all are not found in the
same person. Indeed they could not; for evil destroys even itself, and if it
is complete becomes unbearable. Now hot-tempered people get angry
quickly and with the wrong persons and at the wrong things and more
than is right, but their anger ceases quickly—which is the best point
about them. (15) This happens to them because they do not restrain their
anger but retaliate openly owing to their quickness of temper, and then
their anger ceases. By reason of excess choleric people are quick-
tempered and ready to be angry with everything and on every occasion;
whence their name. Sulky people are hard to appease, (20) and retain
their anger long; for they repress their passion. But it ceases when they
retaliate; for revenge relieves them of their anger, producing in them
pleasure instead of pain. If this does not happen they retain their burden;
for owing to its not being obvious no one even reasons with them, (25)
and to digest one’s anger in oneself takes time. Such people are most
troublesome to themselves and to their dearest friends. We call bad-
tempered those who are angry at the wrong things, more than is right,
and longer, and cannot be appeased until they inflict vengeance or
punishment.
To good temper we oppose the excess rather than the defect; for not
only is it commoner (since revenge is the more human), but bad-
tempered people are worse to live with. (30)
What we have said in our earlier treatment of the subject15 is plain
also from what we are now saying; viz. that it is not easy to define how,
with whom, at what, and how long one should be angry, and at what
point right action ceases and wrong begins. (35) For the man who strays a
little from the path, either towards the more or towards the less, is not
blamed; since sometimes we praise those who exhibit the deficiency, and
call them good-tempered, and sometimes we call angry people manly, as
being capable of ruling. [1126b] How far, therefore, and how a man
must stray before he becomes blameworthy, it is not easy to state in
words; for the decision depends on the particular facts and on
perception. But so much at least is plain, that the middle state is praise-
worthy—that in virtue of which we are angry with the right people, (5) at
the right things, in the right way, and so on, while the excesses and
defects are blameworthy—slightly so if they are present in a low degree,
more if in a higher degree, and very much if in a high degree. Evidently,
then, we must cling to the middle state.—Enough of the states relative to
anger. (10)

6 In gatherings of men, in social life and the interchange of words and

deeds, some men are thought to be obsequious, viz. those who to give
pleasure praise everything and never oppose, but think it their duty ‘to
give no pain to the people they meet’; while those who, (15) on the
contrary, oppose everything and care not a whit about giving pain are
called churlish and contentious. That the states we have named are
culpable is plain enough, and that the middle state is laudable—that in
virtue of which a man will put up with, and will resent, the right things
and in the right way; but no name has been assigned to it, though it
most resembles friendship. For the man who corresponds to this middle
state is very much what, (20) with affection added, we call a good friend.
But the state in question differs from friendship in that it implies no
passion or affection for one’s associates; since it is not by reason of
loving or hating that such a man takes everything in the right way, but
by being a man of a certain kind. For he will behave so alike towards
those he knows and those he does not know, (25) towards intimates and
those who are not so, except that in each of these cases he will behave as
is befitting; for it is not proper to have the same care for intimates and
for strangers, nor again is it the same conditions that make it right to
give pain to them. Now we have said generally that he will associate
with people in the right way; but it is by reference to what is honourable
and expedient that he will aim at not giving pain or at contributing
pleasure. (30) For he seems to be concerned with the pleasures and pains
of social life; and wherever it is not honourable, or is harmful, for him to
contribute pleasure, he will refuse, and will choose rather to give pain;
also if his acquiescence in another’s action would bring disgrace, and
that in a high degree, or injury, on that other, (35) while his opposition
brings a little pain, he will not acquiesce but will decline. He will
associate differently with people in high station and with ordinary
people, with closer and more distant acquaintances, and so too with
regard to all other differences, rendering to each class what is befitting,
and while for its own sake he chooses to contribute pleasure, and avoids
the giving of pain, he will be guided by the consequences, (5) if these are
greater, i. e. honour and expediency. For the sake of a great future
pleasure, too, he will inflict small pains. [1127a]
The man who attains the mean, then, is such as we have described,
but has not received a name; of those who contribute pleasure, the man
who aims at being pleasant with no ulterior object is obsequious, but the
man who does so in order that he may get some advantage in the
direction of money or the things that money buys is a flatterer; while the
man who quarrels with everything is, (10) as has been said,16 churlish and
contentious. And the extremes seem to be contradictory to each other
because the mean is without a name.

7 The mean opposed to boastfulness is found in almost the same

sphere; and this also is without a name. It will be no bad plan to
describe these states as well; for we shall both know the facts about
character better if we go through them in detail, (15) and we shall be
convinced that the virtues are means if we see this to be so in all cases.
In the field of social life those who make the giving of pleasure or pain
their object in associating with others have been described;17 let us now
describe those who pursue truth or falsehood alike in words and deeds
and in the claims they put forward. (20) The boastful man, then, is
thought to be apt to claim the things that bring glory, when he has not
got them, or to claim more of them than he has, and the mock-modest
man on the other hand to disclaim what he has or belittle it, while the
man who observes the mean is one who calls a thing by its own name,
being truthful both in life and in word, owning to what he has, (25) and
neither more nor less. Now each of these courses may be adopted either
with or without an object. But each man speaks and acts and lives in
accordance with his character, if he is not acting for some ulterior object.
And falsehood is in itself18 mean and culpable, and truth noble and
worthy of praise. Thus the truthful man is another case of a man who,
(30) being in the mean, is worthy of praise, and both forms of untruthful

man are culpable, and particularly the boastful man.

Let us discuss them both, but first of all the truthful man. We are not
speaking of the man who keeps faith in his agreements, i. e. in the things
that pertain to justice or injustice (for this would belong to another
virtue), but the man who in the matters in which nothing of this sort is
at stake is true both in word and in life because his character is such.
[1127b] But such a man would seem to be as a matter of fact
equitable. For the man who loves truth, and is truthful where nothing is
at stake, will still more be truthful where something is at stake; he will
avoid falsehood as something base, (5) seeing that he avoided it even for
its own sake; and such a man is worthy of praise. He inclines rather to
understate the truth; for this seems in better taste because exaggerations
are wearisome.
He who claims more than he has with no ulterior object is a
contemptible sort of fellow (otherwise he would not have delighted in
falsehood), (10) but seems futile rather than bad; but if he does it for an
object, he who does it for the sake of reputation or honour is (for a
boaster) not very much to be blamed, but he who does it for money, or
the things that lead to money, is an uglier character (it is not the
capacity that makes the boaster, but the purpose; for it is in virtue of his
state of character and by being a man of a certain kind that he is a
boaster); as one man is a liar because he enjoys the lie itself, (15) and
another because he desires reputation or gain. Now those who boast for
the sake of reputation claim such qualities as win praise or
congratulation, but those whose object is gain claim qualities which are
of value to one’s neighbours and one’s lack of which is not easily
detected, e. g. the powers of a seer, a sage, or a physician. For this
reason it is such things as these that most people claim and boast about;
for in them the above-mentioned qualities are found. (20)
Mock-modest people, who understate things, seem more attractive in
character; for they are thought to speak not for gain but to avoid parade;
and here too it is qualities which bring reputation that they disclaim, (25)
as Socrates used to do. Those who disclaim trifling and obvious qualities
are called humbugs and are more contemptible; and sometimes this
seems to be boastfulness, like the Spartan dress; for both excess and
great deficiency are boastful. But those who use understatement with
moderation and understate about matters that do not very much force
themselves on our notice seem attractive. (30) And it is the boaster that
seems to be opposed to the truthful man; for he is the worse character.

8 Since life includes rest as well as activity, and in this is included

leisure and amusement, there seems here also to be a kind of intercourse
which is tasteful; there is such a thing as saying—and again listening to
—what one should and as one should. [1128a] The kind of people one
is speaking or listening to will also make a difference. Evidently here
also there is both an excess and a deficiency as compared with the mean.
(5) Those who carry humour to excess are thought to be vulgar buffoons,

striving after humour at all costs, and aiming rather at raising a laugh
than at saying what is becoming and at avoiding pain to the object of
their fun; while those who can neither make a joke themselves nor put
up with those who do are thought to be boorish and unpolished. But
those who joke in a tasteful way are called ready-witted, (10) which
implies a sort of readiness to turn this way and that; for such sallies are
thought to be movements of the character, and as bodies are
discriminated by their movements, so too are characters. The ridiculous
side of things is not far to seek, however, and most people delight more
than they should in amusement and in jesting, (15) and so even buffoons
are called ready-witted because they are found attractive; but that they
differ from the ready-witted man, and to no small extent, is clear from
what has been said.
To the middle state belongs also tact; it is the mark of a tactful man to
say and listen to such things as befit a good and well-bred man; for there
are some things that it befits such a man to say and to hear by way of
jest, (20) and the well-bred man’s jesting differs from that of a vulgar
man, and the joking of an educated man from that of an uneducated.
One may see this even from the old and the new comedies; to the
authors of the former indecency of language was amusing, to those of
the latter innuendo is more so; and these differ in no small degree in
respect of propriety. (25) Now should we define the man who jokes well
by his saying what is not unbecoming to a well-bred man, or by his not
giving pain, or even giving delight, to the hearer? Or is the latter
definition, at any rate, itself indefinite, since different things are hateful
or pleasant to different people? The kind of jokes he will listen to will be
the same; for the kind he can put up with are also the kind he seems to
make. There are, then, jokes he will not make; for the jest is a sort of
abuse, and there are things that lawgivers forbid us to abuse; and they
should, (30) perhaps, have forbidden us even to make a jest of such. The
refined and well-bred man, therefore, will be as we have described,
being as it were a law to himself.
Such, then, is the man who observes the mean, whether he be called
tactful or ready-witted. The buffoon, on the other hand, is the slave of
his sense of humour, and spares neither himself nor others if he can raise
a laugh, (35) and says things none of which a man of refinement would
say, and to some of which he would not even listen. [1128b] The boor,
again, is useless for such social intercourse; for he contributes nothing
and finds fault with everything. But relaxation and amusement are
thought to be a necessary element in life.
The means in life that have been described, then, are three in number,
and are all concerned with an interchange of words and deeds of some
kind. (5) They differ, however, in that one is concerned with truth, and
the other two with pleasantness. Of those concerned with pleasure, one
is displayed in jests, the other in the general social intercourse of life.

9 Shame should not be described as a virtue; for it is more like a

feeling than a state of character. (10) It is defined, at any rate, as a kind of
fear of dishonour, and produces an effect similar to that produced by
fear of danger; for people who feel disgraced blush, and those who fear
death turn pale. Both, therefore, seem to be in a sense bodily conditions,
which is thought to be characteristic of feeling rather than of a state of
character.
The feeling is not becoming to every age, but only to youth. (15) For we
think young people should be prone to the feeling of shame because they
live by feeling and therefore commit many errors, but are restrained by
shame; and we praise young people who are prone to this feeling, but an
older person no one would praise for being prone to the sense of
disgrace, since we think he should not do anything that need cause this
sense. (20) For the sense of disgrace is not even characteristic of a good
man,19 since it is consequent on bad actions (for such actions should not
be done; and if some actions are disgraceful in very truth and others
only according to common opinion, this makes no difference; for neither
class of actions should be done, so that no disgrace should be felt); and it
is a mark of a bad man even to be such as to do any disgraceful action.
(25) To be so constituted as to feel disgraced if one does such an action,

and for this reason to think oneself good, is absurd; for it is for voluntary
actions that shame is felt, and the good man will never voluntarily do
bad actions. (30) But shame may be said to be conditionally a good thing;
if a good man does such actions, he will feel disgraced; but the virtues
are not subject to such a qualification. And if shamelessness—not to be
ashamed of doing base actions—is bad, that does not make it good to be
ashamed of doing such actions. (35) Continence too is not virtue, but a
mixed sort of state; this will be shown later.20 Now, however, let us
discuss justice.

1 1119b 27.

2 ll. 16–19.

3 Od. xvii. 420.

4 1123a 19–33.

5 Not in so many words, but Cf. 1103b 21–23, 1104a 27–29.

6 a 24–26.
7 ll. 19–23.

8 1122a 31–33.

9 ‘Pride’ of course has not the etymological associations of megalopsychia, but seems in other
respects the best translation.
10 1123b 15–22.

11 In fact she did, Il. i. 503.

12 1107b 26, 1123a 34–b 22.

13 Ib. 24–27.

14 1107b 33.

15 1109b 14–26.

16 1125b 14–16.

17 Ch. 6.

18 i. e. apart from any ulterior object it may serve.

19 sc. still less is it itself a virtue.

20 vii. 1–10.
 BOOK V

1 [1129a] With regard to justice and injustice we must consider (1)

what kind of actions they are concerned with, (2) what sort of mean
justice is, (5) and (3) between what extremes the just act is intermediate.
Our investigation shall follow the same course as the preceding
discussions.
We see that all men mean by justice that kind of state of character
which makes people disposed to do what is just and makes them act
justly and wish for what is just; and similarly by injustice that state
which makes them act unjustly and wish for what is unjust. (10) Let us
too, then, lay this down as a general basis. For the same is not true of
the sciences and the faculties as of states of character. A faculty or a
science which is one and the same is held to relate to contrary objects,
(15) but a state of character which is one of two contraries does not

produce the contrary results; e. g. as a result of health we do not do

what is the opposite of healthy, but only what is healthy; for we say a
man walks healthily, when he walks as a healthy man would.
Now often one contrary state is recognized from its contrary, and
often states are recognized from the subjects that exhibit them; for (A) if
good condition is known, (20) bad condition also becomes known, and (B)
good condition is known from the things that are in good condition, and
they from it. If good condition is firmness of flesh, it is necessary both
that bad condition should be flabbiness of flesh and that the wholesome
should be that which causes firmness in flesh. (25) And it follows for the
most part that if one contrary is ambiguous the other also will be
ambiguous; e. g. if ‘just’ is so, that ‘unjust’ will be so too.
Now ‘justice’ and ‘injustice’ seem to be ambiguous, but because their
different meanings approach near to one another the ambiguity escapes
notice and is not obvious as it is, comparatively, when the meanings are
far apart, e. g. (for here the difference in outward form is great) as the
ambiguity in the use of kleis for the collar-bone of an animal and for that
with which we lock a door. (30) Let us take as a starting-point, then, the
various meanings of ‘an unjust man’. Both the lawless man and the
grasping and unfair man are thought to be unjust, so that evidently both
the law-abiding and the fair man will be just. The just, then, is the
lawful and the fair, the unjust the unlawful and the unfair.
[1129b] Since the unjust man is grasping, he must be concerned
with goods—not all goods, but those with which prosperity and
adversity have to do, which taken absolutely are always good, but for a
particular person are not always good. Now men pray for and pursue
these things; but they should not, (5) but should pray that the things that
are good absolutely may also be good for them, and should choose the
things that are good for them. The unjust man does not always choose
the greater, but also the less—in the case of things bad absolutely; but
because the lesser evil is itself thought to be in a sense good, and
graspingness is directed at the good, therefore he is thought to be
grasping. (10) And he is unfair; for this contains and is common to both.
Since the lawless man was seen to be unjust and the law-abiding man
just, evidently all lawful acts are in a sense just acts; for the acts laid
down by the legislative art are lawful, and each of these, we say, is just.
Now the laws in their enactments on all subjects aim at the common
advantage either of all or of the best or of those who hold power, (15) or
something of the sort; so that in one sense we call those acts just that
tend to produce and preserve happiness and its components for the
political society. And the law bids us do both the acts of a brave man
(e. g. not to desert our post nor take to flight nor throw away our arms),
(20) and those of a temperate man (e. g. not to commit adultery nor to

gratify one’s lust), and those of a good-tempered man (e. g. not to strike
another nor to speak evil), and similarly with regard to the other virtues
and forms of wickedness, commanding some acts and forbidding others;
and the rightly-framed law does this rightly, and the hastily conceived
one less well.
This form of justice, then, is complete virtue, but not absolutely, (25)
but in relation to our neighbour. And therefore justice is often thought to
be the greatest of virtues, and ‘neither evening nor morning star’ is so
wonderful; and proverbially ‘in justice is every virtue comprehended’.
And it is complete virtue in its fullest sense, (30) because it is the actual
exercise of complete virtue. It is complete because he who possesses it
can exercise his virtue not only in himself but towards his neighbour
also; for many men can exercise virtue in their own affairs, but not in
their relations to their neighbour. [1130a] This is why the saying of
Bias is thought to be true, that ‘rule will show the man’; for a ruler is
necessarily in relation to other men and a member of a society. For this
same reason justice, alone of the virtues, is thought to be ‘another’s
good’,1 because it is related to our neighbour; for it does what is
advantageous to another, (5) either a ruler or a copartner. Now the worst
man is he who exercises his wickedness both towards himself and
towards his friends, and the best man is not he who exercises his virtue
towards himself but he who exercises it towards another; for this is a
difficult task. Justice in this sense, then, is not part of virtue but virtue
entire, (10) nor is the contrary injustice a part of vice but vice entire.
What the difference is between virtue and justice in this sense is plain
from what we have said; they are the same but their essence is not the
same; what, as a relation to one’s neighbour, is justice is, as a certain
kind of state without qualification, virtue.

2 But at all events what we are investigating is the justice which is a

part of virtue; for there is a justice of this kind, as we maintain. (15)
Similarly it is with injustice in the particular sense that we are
concerned.
That there is such a thing is indicated by the fact that while the man
who exhibits in action the other forms of wickedness acts wrongly
indeed, but not graspingly (e. g. the man who throws away his shield
through cowardice or speaks harshly through bad temper or fails to help
a friend with money through meanness), when a man acts graspingly he
often exhibits none of these vices—no, (20) nor all together, but certainly
wickedness of some kind (for we blame him) and injustice. There is,
then, another kind of injustice which is a part of injustice in the wide
sense, and a use of the word ‘unjust’ which answers to a part of what is
unjust in the wide sense of ‘contrary to the law’. Again, if one man
commits adultery for the sake of gain and makes money by it, (25) while
another does so at the bidding of appetite though he loses money and is
penalized for it, the latter would be held to be self-indulgent rather than
grasping, but the former is unjust, but not self-indulgent; evidently,
therefore, he is unjust by reason of his making gain by his act. Again, all
other unjust acts are ascribed invariably to some particular kind of
wickedness, (30) e. g. adultery to self-indulgence, the desertion of a
comrade in battle to cowardice, physical violence to anger; but if a man
makes gain, his action is ascribed to no form of wickedness but injustice.
Evidently, therefore, there is apart from injustice in the wide sense
another, ‘particular’, injustice which shares the name and nature of the
first, because its definition falls within the same genus; for the
significance of both consists in a relation to one’s neighbour, but the one
is concerned with honour or money or safety—or that which includes all
these, if we had a single name for it—and its motive is the pleasure that
arises from gain; while the other is concerned with all the objects with
which the good man is concerned. [1130b]
It is clear, then, that there is more than one kind of justice, and that
there is one which is distinct from virtue entire; we must try to grasp its
genus and differentia. (5)
The unjust has been divided into the unlawful and the unfair, and the
just into the lawful and the fair. To the unlawful answers the afore-
mentioned sense of injustice. But since the unfair and the unlawful are
not the same, but are different as a part is from its whole (for all that is
unfair is unlawful, (10) but not all that is unlawful is unfair), the unjust
and injustice in the sense of the unfair are not the same as but different
from the former kind, as part from whole; for injustice in this sense is a
part of injustice in the wide sense, and similarly justice in the one sense
of justice in the other. Therefore we must speak also about particular
justice and particular injustice, (15) and similarly about the just and the
unjust. The justice, then, which answers to the whole of virtue, and the
corresponding injustice, one being the exercise of virtue as a whole, and
the other that of vice as a whole, towards one’s neighbour, we may leave
on one side. And how the meanings of ‘just’ and ‘unjust’ which answer to
these are to be distinguished is evident; for practically the majority of
the acts commanded by the law are those which are prescribed from the
point of view of virtue taken as a whole; for the law bids us practise
every virtue and forbids us to practise any vice. (20) And the things that
tend to produce virtue taken as a whole are those of the acts prescribed
by the law which have been prescribed with a view to education for the
common good. (25) But with regard to the education of the individual as
such, which makes him without qualification a good man, we must
determine later2 whether this is the function of the political art or of
another; for perhaps it is not the same to be a good man and a good
citizen of any state taken at random.
Of particular justice and that which is just in the corresponding sense,
(30) (A) one kind is that which is manifested in distributions of honour or

money or the other things that fall to be divided among those who have
a share in the constitution (for in these it is possible for one man to have
a share either unequal or equal to that of another), and (B) one is that
which plays a rectifying part in transactions between man and man.
[1131a] Of this there are two divisions; of transactions (1) some are
voluntary and (2) others involuntary—voluntary such transactions as
sale, purchase, loan for consumption, pledging, loan for use, depositing,
letting (they are called voluntary because the origin of these transactions
is voluntary), (5) while of the involuntary (a) some are clandestine, such
as theft, adultery, poisoning, procuring, enticement of slaves,
assassination, false witness, and (b) others are violent, such as assault,
imprisonment, murder, robbery with violence, mutilation, abuse, insult.

3 (A) We have shown that both the unjust man and the unjust act are
unfair or unequal; now it is clear that there is also an intermediate
between the two unequals involved in either case. (10) And this is the
equal; for in any kind of action in which there is a more and a less there
is also what is equal. If, then, the unjust is unequal, the just is equal, as
all men suppose it to be, even apart from argument. And since the equal
is intermediate, the just will be an intermediate. (15) Now equality
implies at least two things. The just, then, must be both intermediate
and equal and relative (i. e. for certain persons). And qua intermediate it
must be between certain things (which are respectively greater and less);
qua equal, it involves two things; qua just, it is for certain people. The
just, therefore, involves at least four terms; for the persons for whom it is
in fact just are two, and the things in which it is manifested, (20) the
objects distributed, are two. And the same equality will exist between
the persons and between the things concerned; for as the latter—the
things concerned—are related, so are the former; if they are not equal,
they will not have what is equal, but this is the origin of quarrels and
complaints—when either equals have and are awarded unequal shares,
or unequals equal shares. Further, (25) this is plain from the fact that
awards should be ‘according to merit’; for all men agree that what is just
in distribution must be according to merit in some sense, though they do
not all specify the same sort of merit, but democrats identify it with the
status of freeman, supporters of oligarchy with wealth (or with noble
birth), and supporters of aristocracy with excellence.
The just, (30) then, is a species of the proportionate (proportion being
not a property only of the kind of number which consists of abstract
units, but of number in general). For proportion is equality of ratios, and
involves four terms at least (that discrete proportion involves four terms
is plain, but so does continuous proportion, for it uses one term as two
and mentions it twice; e. g. ‘as the line A is to the line B, so is the line B
to the line C’; the line B, then, has been mentioned twice, so that if the
line B be assumed twice, the proportional terms will be four); and the
just, too, involves at least four terms, and the ratio between one pair is
the same as that between the other pair; for there is a similar distinction
between the persons and between the things. [1131b] (5) As the term
A, then, is to B, so will C be to D, and therefore, alternando, as A is to C,
B will be to D. Therefore also the whole is in the same ratio to the
whole;3 and this coupling the distribution effects, and, if the terms are so
combined, effects justly. The conjunction, then, of the term A with C and
of B with D is what is just in distribution,4 and this species of the just is
intermediate, (10) and the unjust is what violates the proportion; for the
proportional is intermediate, and the just is proportional.
(Mathematicians call this kind of proportion geometrical; for it is in
geometrical proportion that it follows that the whole is to the whole as
either part is to the corresponding part. (15)) This proportion is not
continuous; for we cannot get a single term standing for a person and a
thing.
This, then, is what the just is—the proportional; the unjust is what
violates the proportion. Hence one term becomes too great, the other too
small, as indeed happens in practice; for the man who acts unjustly has
too much, and the man who is unjustly treated too little, of what is
good. In the case of evil the reverse is true; for the lesser evil is reckoned
a good in comparison with the greater evil, (20) since the lesser evil is
rather to be chosen than the greater, and what is worthy of choice is
good, and what is worthier of choice a greater good.
This, then, is one species of the just.

4 (B) The remaining one is the rectificatory, (25) which arises in

connexion with transactions both voluntary and involuntary. This form
of the just has a different specific character from the former. For the
justice which distributes common possessions is always in accordance
with the kind of proportion mentioned above5 (for in the case also in
which the distribution is made from the common funds of a partnership
it will be according to the same ratio which the funds put into the
business by the partners bear to one another); and the injustice opposed
to this kind of justice is that which violates the proportion. (30) But the
justice in transactions between man and man is a sort of equality indeed,
and the injustice a sort of inequality; not according to that kind of
proportion, however, but according to arithmetical proportion.6
[1132a] For it makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded
a bad man or a bad man a good one, nor whether it is a good or a bad
man that has committed adultery; the law looks only to the distinctive
character of the injury, and treats the parties as equal, (5) if one is in the
wrong and the other is being wronged, and if one inflicted injury and the
other has received it. Therefore, this kind of injustice being an
inequality, the judge tries to equalize it; for in the case also in which one
has received and the other has inflicted a wound, or one has slain and
the other been slain, the suffering and the action have been unequally
distributed; but the judge tries to equalize things by means of the
penalty, (10) taking away from the gain of the assailant. For the term
‘gain’ is applied generally to such cases, even if it be not a term
appropriate to certain cases, e. g. to the person who inflicts a wound—
and ‘loss’ to the sufferer; at all events when the suffering has been
estimated, the one is called loss and the other gain. Therefore the equal
is intermediate between the greater and the less, (15) but the gain and the
loss are respectively greater and less in contrary ways; more of the good
and less of the evil are gain, and the contrary is loss; intermediate
between them is, as we saw,7 the equal, which we say is just; therefore
corrective justice will be the intermediate between loss and gain. This is
why, (20) when people dispute, they take refuge in the judge; and to go to
the judge is to go to justice; for the nature of the judge is to be a sort of
animate justice; and they seek the judge as an intermediate, and in some
states they call judges mediators, on the assumption that if they get what
is intermediate they will get what is just. The just, then, is an
intermediate, since the judge is so. Now the judge restores equality; it is
as though there were a line divided into unequal parts, (25) and he took
away that by which the greater segment exceeds the half, and added it
to the smaller segment. And when the whole has been equally divided,
then they say they have ‘their own’—i. e. when they have got what is
equal. The equal is intermediate between the greater and the lesser line
according to arithmetical proportion. It is for this reason also that it is
called just (dikaion), (30) because it is a division into two equal parts
(dicha), just as if one were to call it (dichaion); and the judge (dicastes) is
one who bisects (dichastes). For when something is subtracted from one
of two equals and added to the other, the other is in excess by these two;
since if what was taken from the one had not been added to the other,
the latter would have been in excess by one only. It therefore exceeds
the intermediate by one, and the intermediate exceeds by one that from
which something was taken. [1132b] By this, then, we shall recognize
both what we must subtract from that which has more, and what we
must add to that which has less; we must add to the latter that by which
the intermediate exceeds it, (5) and subtract from the greatest that by
which it exceeds the intermediate. Let the lines AA’, BB’, CC’ be equal to
one another; from the line AA’ let the segment AE have been subtracted,
and to the line CC’ let the segment CD8 have been added, so that the
whole line DCC’ exceeds the line EA’ by the segment CD and the segment
CF; therefore it exceeds the line BB’ by the segment CD. (9)
These names, both loss and gain, have come from voluntary exchange;
for to have more than one’s own is called gaining, (11) and to have less
than one’s original share is called losing, e. g. in buying and selling and
in all other matters in which the law has left people free to make their
own terms; but when they get neither more nor less but just what
belongs to themselves, (15) they say that they have their own and that
they neither lose nor gain.
Therefore the just is intermediate between a sort of gain and a sort of
loss, viz. those which are involuntary;9 it consists in having an equal
amount before and after the transaction. (20)

5 Some think that reciprocity is without qualification just, as the

Pythagoreans said; for they defined justice without qualification as
reciprocity. Now ‘reciprocity’ fits neither distributive nor rectificatory
justice—yet people want even the justice of Rhadamanthus to mean this:

Should a man suffer what he did, right justice would be done (25)

—for in many cases reciprocity and rectificatory justice are not in

accord, e. g. (1) if an official has inflicted a wound, he should not be
wounded in return, and if some one has wounded an official, (30) he
ought not to be wounded only but punished in addition. Further (2)
there is a great difference between a voluntary and an involuntary act.
But in associations for exchange this sort of justice does hold men
together—reciprocity in accordance with a proportion and not on the
basis of precisely equal return. For it is by proportionate requital that the
city holds together. Men seek to return either evil for evil—and if they
cannot do so, think their position mere slavery—or good for good—and
if they cannot do so there is no exchange, but it is by exchange that they
hold together. [1133a] This is why they give a prominent place to the
temple of the Graces—to promote the requital of services; for this is
characteristic of grace—we should serve in return one who has shown
grace to us, and should another time take the initiative in showing it.
Now proportionate return is secured by cross-conjunction. (5) Let A be
a builder, B a shoemaker, C a house, D a shoe. The builder, then, must
get from the shoemaker the latter’s work, and must himself give him in
return his own. (10) If, then, first there is proportionate equality of goods,
and then reciprocal action takes place, the result we mention will be
effected. If not, the bargain is not equal, and does not hold; for there is
nothing to prevent the work of the one being better than that of the
other; they must therefore be equated. (And this is true of the other arts
also; for they would have been destroyed if what the patient suffered
had not been just what the agent did, (15) and of the same amount and
kind.) For it is not two doctors that associate for exchange, but a doctor
and a farmer, or in general people who are different and unequal; but
these must be equated. This is why all things that are exchanged must be
somehow comparable. It is for this end that money has been introduced,
and it becomes in a sense an intermediate; for it measures all things, and
therefore the excess and the defect—how many shoes are equal to a
house or to a given amount of food. (20) The number of shoes exchanged
for a house [or for a given amount of food] must therefore correspond to
the ratio of builder to shoemaker. For if this be not so, there will be no
exchange and no intercourse. And this proportion will not be effected
unless the goods are somehow equal. (25) All goods must therefore be
measured by some one thing, as we said before. Now this unit is in truth
demand, which holds all things together (for if men did not need one
another’s goods at all, or did not need them equally, there would be
either no exchange or not the same exchange); but money has become
by convention a sort of representative of demand; and this is why it has
the name ‘money’ (nomisma)—because it exists not by nature but by law
(nomos) and it is in our power to change it and make it useless. (30) There
will, then, be reciprocity when the terms have been equated so that as
farmer is to shoemaker, the amount of the shoemaker’s work is to that of
the farmer’s work for which it exchanges. But we must not bring them
into a figure of proportion when they have already exchanged
(otherwise one extreme will have both excesses), but when they still
have their own goods. [1133b] Thus they are equals and associates
just because this equality can be effected in their case. Let A be a farmer,
C food, (5) B a shoemaker, D his product equated to C. If it had not been
possible for reciprocity to be thus effected, there would have been no
association of the parties. That demand holds things together as a single
unit is shown by the fact that when men do not need one another, i. e.
when neither needs the other or one does not need the other, they do
not exchange, as we do when some one wants what one has oneself, e. g.
when people permit the exportation of corn in exchange for wine. This
equation therefore must be established. (10) And for the future exchange
—that if we do not need a thing now we shall have it if ever we do need
it—money is as it were our surety; for it must be possible for us to get
what we want by bringing the money. Now the same thing happens to
money itself as to goods—it is not always worth the same; yet it tends to
be steadier. This is why all goods must have a price set on them; for then
there will always be exchange, (15) and if so, association of man with
man. Money, then, acting as a measure, makes goods commensurate and
equates them; for neither would there have been association if there
were not exchange, nor exchange if there were not equality, nor equality
if there were not commensurability. Now in truth it is impossible that
things differing so much should become commensurate, (20) but with
reference to demand they may become so sufficiently. There must, then,
be a unit, and that fixed by agreement (for which reason it is called
money); for it is this that makes all things commensurate, since all things
are measured by money. Let A be a house, B ten minae, C a bed. A is
half of B, if the house is worth five minae or equal to them; the bed, (25)
C, is a tenth of B; it is plain, then, how many beds are equal to a house,
viz. five. That exchange took place thus before there was money is plain;
for it makes no difference whether it is five beds that exchange for a
house, or the money value of five beds.
We have now defined the unjust and the just. (30) These having been
marked off from each other, it is plain that just action is intermediate
between acting unjustly and being unjustly treated; for the one is to have
too much and the other to have too little. Justice is a kind of mean, but
not in the same way as the other virtues, but because it relates to an
intermediate amount, while injustice relates to the extremes. [1134a]
And justice is that in virtue of which the just man is said to be a doer, by
choice, of that which is just, and one who will distribute either between
himself and another or between two others not so as to give more of
what is desirable to himself and less to his neighbour (and conversely
with what is harmful), (5) but so as to give what is equal in accordance
with proportion; and similarly in distributing between two other
persons. Injustice on the other hand is similarly related to the unjust,
which is excess and defect, contrary to proportion, of the useful or
hurtful. For which reason injustice is excess and defect, viz. because it is
productive of excess and defect—in one’s own case excess of what is in
its own nature useful and defect of what is hurtful, (10) while in the case
of others it is as a whole like what it is in one’s own case, but proportion
may be violated in either direction. In the unjust act to have too little is
to be unjustly treated; to have too much is to act unjustly.
Let this be taken as our account of the nature of justice and injustice,
(15) and similarly of the just and the unjust in general.

6 Since acting unjustly does not necessarily imply being unjust, we

must ask what sort of unjust acts imply that the doer is unjust with
respect to each type of injustice, e. g. a thief, an adulterer, or a brigand.
Surely the answer does not turn on the difference between these types.
For a man might even lie with a woman knowing who she was, but the
origin of his act might be not deliberate choice but passion. He acts
unjustly, (20) then, but is not unjust; e. g. a man is not a thief, yet he
stole, nor an adulterer, yet he committed adultery; and similarly in all
other cases.
Now we have previously stated how the reciprocal is related to the
just;10 but we must not forget that what we are looking for is not only
what is just without qualification but also political justice. (25) This is
found among men who share their life with a view to self-sufficiency,
men who are free and either proportionately or arithmetically equal, so
that between those who do not fulfil this condition there is no political
justice but justice in a special sense and by analogy. For justice exists
only between men whose mutual relations are governed by law; and law
exists for men between whom there is injustice; for legal justice is the
discrimination of the just and the unjust. (30) And between men between
whom there is injustice there is also unjust action (though there is not
injustice between all between whom there is unjust action), and this is
assigning too much to oneself of things good in themselves and too little
of things evil in themselves. This is why we do not allow a man to rule,
(35) but rational principle, because a man behaves thus in his own interests
and becomes a tyrant. [1134b] The magistrate on the other hand is the
guardian of justice, and, if of justice, then of equality also. And since he
is assumed to have no more than his share, if he is just (for he does not
assign to himself more of what is good in itself, unless such a share is
proportional to his merits—so that it is for others that he labours, and it
is for this reason that men, as we stated previously,11 say that justice is
‘another’s good’), (5) therefore a reward must be given him, and this is
honour and privilege; but those for whom such things are not enough
become tyrants.
The justice of a master and that of a father are not the same as the
justice of citizens, though they are like it; for there can be no injustice in
the unqualified sense towards things that are one’s own, but a man’s
chattel,12 and his child until it reaches a certain age and sets up for
itself, (10) are as it were part of himself, and no one chooses to hurt
himself (for which reason there can be no injustice towards oneself).
Therefore the justice or injustice of citizens is not manifested in these
relations; for it was as we saw13 according to law, and between people
naturally subject to law, and these as we saw14 are people who have an
equal share in ruling and being ruled. Hence justice can more truly be
manifested towards a wife than towards children and chattels, (15) for the
former is household justice; but even this is different from political
justice.

7 Of political justice part is natural, part legal—natural, that which

everywhere has the same force and does not exist by people’s thinking
this or that; legal, (20) that which is originally indifferent, but when it has
been laid down is not indifferent, e. g. that a prisoner’s ransom shall be a
mina, or that a goat and not two sheep shall be sacrificed, and again all
the laws that are passed for particular cases, e. g. that sacrifice shall be
made in honour of Brasidas, and the provisions of decrees. (25) Now some
think that all justice is of this sort, because that which is by nature is
unchangeable and has everywhere the same force (as fire burns both
here and in Persia), while they see change in the things recognized as
just. This, however, is not true in this unqualified way, but is true in a
sense; or rather, with the gods it is perhaps not true at all, while with us
there is something that is just even by nature, yet all of it is changeable;
but still some is by nature, some not by nature. (30) It is evident which
sort of thing, among things capable of being otherwise, is by nature; and
which is not but is legal and conventional, assuming that both are
equally changeable. And in all other things the same distinction will
apply; by nature the right hand is stronger, yet it is possible that all men
should come to be ambidextrous. [1135a] The things which are just by
virtue of convention and expediency are like measures; for wine and
corn measures are not everywhere equal, but larger in wholesale and
smaller in retail markets. Similarly, the things which are just not by
nature but by human enactment are not everywhere the same, since
constitutions also are not the same, though there is but one which is
everywhere by nature the best.
Of things just and lawful each is related as the universal to its
particulars; for the things that are done are many, (5) but of them each is
one, since it is universal.
There is a difference between the act of injustice and what is unjust,
and between the act of justice and what is just; for a thing is unjust by
nature or by enactment; and this very thing, (10) when it has been done,
is an act of injustice, but before it is done is not yet that but is unjust.
So, too, with an act of justice (though the general term is rather ‘just
action’, and ‘act of justice’ is applied to the correction of the act of
injustice).
Each of these must later15 be examined separately with regard to the
nature and number of its species and the nature of the things with which
it is concerned.

8 Acts just and unjust being as we have described them, (15) a man acts
unjustly or justly whenever he does such acts voluntarily; when
involuntarily, he acts neither unjustly nor justly except in an incidental
way; for he does things which happen to be just or unjust. Whether an
act is or is not one of injustice (or of justice) is determined by its
voluntariness or involuntariness; for when it is voluntary it is blamed, (20)
and at the same time is then an act of injustice; so that there will be
things that are unjust but not yet acts of injustice, if voluntariness be not
present as well. By the voluntary I mean, as has been said before,16 any
of the things in a man’s own power which he does with knowledge, i. e.
not in ignorance either of the person acted on or of the instrument used
or of the end that will be attained (e. g. whom he is striking, (25) with
what, and to what end), each such act being done not incidentally nor
under compulsion (e. g. if A takes B’s hand and therewith strikes C, B
does not act voluntarily; for the act was not in his own power). The
person struck may be the striker’s father, and the striker may know that
it is a man or one of the persons present, but not know that it is his
father; a similar distinction may be made in the case of the end, (30) and
with regard to the whole action. Therefore that which is done in
ignorance, or though not done in ignorance is not in the agent’s power,
or is done under compulsion, is involuntary (for many natural processes,
even, we knowingly both perform and experience, none of which is
either voluntary or involuntary; e. g. growing old or dying). [1135b]
But in the case of unjust and just acts alike the injustice or justice may
be only incidental; for a man might return a deposit unwillingly and
from fear, and then he must not be said either to do what is just or to act
justly, (5) except in an incidental way. Similarly the man who under
compulsion and unwillingly fails to return the deposit must be said to
act unjustly, and to do what is unjust, only incidentally. Of voluntary
acts we do some by choice, others not by choice; by choice those which
we do after deliberation, (10) not by choice those which we do without
previous deliberation. Thus there are three kinds of injury in
transactions between man and man; those done in ignorance are mistakes
when the person acted on, the act, the instrument, or the end that will
be attained is other than the agent supposed; the agent thought either
that he was not hitting any one or that he was not hitting with this
missile or not hitting this person or to this end, but a result followed
other than that which he thought likely (e. g. he threw not with intent to
wound but only to prick), (15) or the person hit or the missile was other
than he supposed. Now when (1) the injury takes place contrary to
reasonable expectation, it is a misadventure. When (2) it is not contrary
to reasonable expectation, but does not imply vice, it is a mistake (for a
man makes a mistake when the fault originates in him, but is the victim
of accident when the origin lies outside him). When (3) he acts with
knowledge but not after deliberation, (20) it is an act of injustice—e. g. the
acts due to anger or to other passions necessary or natural to man; for
when men do such harmful and mistaken acts they act unjustly, and the
acts are acts of injustice, but this does not imply that the doers are
unjust or wicked; for the injury is not due to vice. (25) But when (4) a
man acts from choice, he is an unjust man and a vicious man.
Hence acts proceeding from anger are rightly judged not to be done of
malice aforethought; for it is not the man who acts in anger but he who
enraged him that starts the mischief. Again, the matter in dispute is not
whether the thing happened or not, but its justice; for it is apparent
injustice that occasions rage. For they do not dispute about the
occurrence of the act—as in commercial transactions where one of the
two parties must be vicious17—unless they do so owing to forgetfulness;
but, (30) agreeing about the fact, they dispute on which side justice lies
(whereas a man who has deliberately injured another cannot help
knowing that he has done so), so that the one thinks he is being treated
unjustly and the other disagrees. [1136a]
But if a man harms another by choice, he acts unjustly; and these are
the acts of injustice which imply that the doer is an unjust man,
provided that the act violates proportion or equality. Similarly, a man is
just when he acts justly by choice; but he acts justly if he merely acts
voluntarily.
Of involuntary acts some are excusable, (5) others not. For the mistakes
which men make not only in ignorance but also from ignorance are
excusable, while those which men do not from ignorance but (though
they do them in ignorance) owing to a passion which is neither natural
nor such as man is liable to, are not excusable.

9 Assuming that we have sufficiently defined the suffering and doing

of injustice, (10) it may be asked (1) whether the truth is expressed in
Euripides’ paradoxical words:

‘I slew my mother, that’s my tale in brief.’

‘Were you both willing, or unwilling both?’

Is it truly possible to be willingly treated unjustly, or is all suffering of

injustice on the contrary involuntary, (15) as all unjust action is
voluntary? And is all suffering of injustice of the latter kind or else all of
the former, or is it sometimes voluntary, sometimes involuntary? So, too,
with the case of being justly treated; all just action is voluntary, so that
it is reasonable that there should be a similar opposition in either case—
that both being unjustly and being justly treated should be either alike
voluntary or alike involuntary. (20) But it would be thought paradoxical
even in the case of being justly treated, if it were always voluntary; for
some are unwillingly treated justly. (2) One might raise this question
also, whether every one who has suffered what is unjust is being unjustly
treated, or on the other hand it is with suffering as with acting. (25) In
action and in passivity alike it is possible to partake of justice
incidentally, and similarly (it is plain) of injustice; for to do what is
unjust is not the same as to act unjustly, nor to suffer what is unjust as to
be treated unjustly, and similarly in the case of acting justly and being
justly treated; for it is impossible to be unjustly treated if the other does
not act unjustly, or justly treated unless he acts justly. (30) Now if to act
unjustly is simply to harm some one voluntarily, and ‘voluntarily’ means
‘knowing the person acted on, the instrument, and the manner of one’s
acting’, and the incontinent man voluntarily harms himself, not only will
he voluntarily be unjustly treated but it will be possible to treat oneself
unjustly. (This also is one of the questions in doubt, whether a man can
treat himself unjustly.) [1136b] Again, a man may voluntarily, owing
to incontinence, be harmed by another who acts voluntarily, so that it
would be possible to be voluntarily treated unjustly. Or is our definition
incorrect; must we to ‘harming another, with knowledge both of the
person acted on, of the instrument, and of the manner’ add ‘contrary to
the wish of the person acted on’? Then a man may be voluntarily
harmed and voluntarily suffer what is unjust, (5) but no one is voluntarily
treated unjustly; for no one wishes to be unjustly treated, not even the
incontinent man. He acts contrary to his wish; for no one wishes for what
he does not think to be good, but the incontinent man does do things
that he does not think he ought to do. Again, one who gives what is his
own, as Homer says Glaucus gave Diomede
Armour of gold for brazen, the price of a hundred beeves for nine,18 is not
unjustly treated; for though to give is in his power, (10) to be unjustly
treated is not, but there must be some one to treat him unjustly. It is
plain, then, that being unjustly treated is not voluntary.
 Of the questions we intended to discuss two still remain for discussion;
(3) whether it is the man who has assigned to another more than his
share that acts unjustly, (15) or he who has the excessive share, and (4)
whether it is possible to treat oneself unjustly. The questions are
connected; for if the former alternative is possible and the distributor
acts unjustly and not the man who has the excessive share, then if a man
assigns more to another than to himself, knowingly and voluntarily, (20)
he treats himself unjustly; which is what modest people seem to do,
since the virtuous man tends to take less than his share. Or does this
statement too need qualification? For (a) he perhaps gets more than his
share of some other good, e. g. of honour or of intrinsic nobility. (b) The
question is solved by applying the distinction we applied to unjust
action;19 for he suffers nothing contrary to his own wish, so that he is
not unjustly treated as far as this goes, but at most only suffers harm.
It is plain too that the distributor acts unjustly, (25) but not always the
man who has the excessive share; for it is not he to whom what is unjust
appertains that acts unjustly, but he to whom it appertains to do the
unjust act voluntarily, i. e. the person in whom lies the origin of the
action, and this lies in the distributor, not in the receiver. Again, (30)
since the word ‘do’ is ambiguous, and there is a sense in which lifeless
things, or a hand, or a servant who obeys an order, may be said to slay,
he who gets an excessive share does not act unjustly, though he ‘does’
what is unjust.
Again, if the distributor gave his judgment in ignorance, he does not
act unjustly in respect of legal justice, and his judgment is not unjust in
this sense, but in a sense it is unjust (for legal justice and primordial
justice are different); but if with knowledge he judged unjustly, he is
himself aiming at an excessive share either of gratitude or of revenge.
[1137a] As much, then, as if he were to share in the plunder, the man
who has judged unjustly for these reasons has got too much; the fact that
what he gets is different from what he distributes makes no difference,
for even if he awards land with a view to sharing in the plunder he gets
not land but money.
Men think that acting unjustly is in their power, (5) and therefore that
being just is easy. But it is not; to lie with one’s neighbour’s wife, to
wound another, to deliver a bribe, is easy and in our power, but to do
these things as a result of a certain state of character is neither easy nor
in our power. Similarly to know what is just and what is unjust requires,
men think, no great wisdom, because it is not hard to understand the
matters dealt with by the laws (though these are not the things that are
just, (10) except incidentally); but how actions must be done and
distributions effected in order to be just, to know this is a greater
achievement than knowing what is good for the health; though even
there, while it is easy to know that honey, wine, hellebore, cautery, and
the use of the knife are so, to know how, to whom, (15) and when these
should be applied with a view to producing health, is no less an
achievement than that of being a physician. Again, for this very reason20
men think that acting unjustly is characteristic of the just man no less
than of the unjust, because he would be not less but even more capable
of doing each of these unjust acts;21 for he could lie with a woman or
wound a neighbour; and the brave man could throw away his shield and
turn to flight in this direction or in that. (20) But to play the coward or to
act unjustly consists not in doing these things, except incidentally, but in
doing them as the result of a certain state of character, just as to practise
medicine and healing consists not in applying or not applying the knife,
in using or not using medicines, but in doing so in a certain way. (25)
Just acts occur between people who participate in things good in
themselves and can have too much or too little of them; for some beings
(e. g. presumably the gods) cannot have too much of them, (30) and to
others, those who are incurably bad, not even the smallest share in them
is beneficial but all such goods are harmful, while to others they are
beneficial up to a point; therefore justice is essentially something human.

10 Our next subject is equity and the equitable (to epieikes), and their
respective relations to justice and the just. For on examination they
appear to be neither absolutely the same nor generically different; and
while we sometimes praise what is equitable and the equitable man (so
that we apply the name by way of praise even to instances of the other
virtues, (35) instead of ‘good,’ meaning by epieikesteron that a thing is
better), at other times, when we reason it out, it seems strange if the
equitable, being something different from the just, is yet praiseworthy;
for either the just or the equitable is not good, if they are different; or, if
both are good, they are the same. [1137b]
These, (5) then, are pretty much the considerations that give rise to the
problem about the equitable; they are all in a sense correct and not
opposed to one another; for the equitable, though it is better than one
kind of justice, yet is just, and it is not as being a different class of thing
that it is better than the just. The same thing, then, is just and equitable,
(10) and while both are good the equitable is superior. What creates the

problem is that the equitable is just, but not the legally just but a
correction of legal justice. The reason is that all law is universal but
about some things it is not possible to make a universal statement which
shall be correct. In those cases, then, (15) in which it is necessary to speak
universally, but not possible to do so correctly, the law takes the usual
case, though it is not ignorant of the possibility of error. And it is none
the less correct; for the error is not in the law nor in the legislator but in
the nature of the thing, since the matter of practical affairs is of this kind
from the start. When the law speaks universally, (20) then, and a case
arises on it which is not covered by the universal statement, then it is
right, where the legislator fails us and has erred by over-simplicity, to
correct the omission—to say what the legislator himself would have said
had he been present, and would have put into his law if he had known.
Hence the equitable is just, (25) and better than one kind of justice—not
better than absolute justice but better than the error that arises from the
absoluteness of the statement. And this is the nature of the equitable, a
correction of law where it is defective owing to its universality. In fact
this is the reason why all things are not determined by law, viz. that
about some things it is impossible to lay down a law, so that a decree is
needed. For when the thing is indefinite the rule also is indefinite, like
the leaden rule used in making the Lesbian moulding; the rule adapts
itself to the shape of the stone and is not rigid, (30) and so too the decree
is adapted to the facts.
It is plain, then, what the equitable is, and that it is just and is better
than one kind of justice. It is evident also from this who the equitable
man is; the man who chooses and does such acts, (35) and is no stickler
for his rights in a bad sense but tends to take less than his share though
he has the law on his side, is equitable, and this state of character is
equity, which is a sort of justice and not a different state of character.
[1138a]

11 Whether a man can treat himself unjustly or not, (5) is evident from
what has been said.22 For (a) one class of just acts are those acts in
accordance with any virtue which are prescribed by the law; e. g. the
law does not expressly permit suicide, and what it does not expressly
permit it forbids. Again, when a man in violation of the law harms
another (otherwise than in retaliation) voluntarily, he acts unjustly, and
a voluntary agent is one who knows both the person he is affecting by
his action and the instrument he is using; and he who through anger
voluntarily stabs himself does this contrary to the right rule of life, (10)
and this the law does not allow; therefore he is acting unjustly. But
towards whom? Surely towards the state, not towards himself. For he
suffers voluntarily, but no one is voluntarily treated unjustly. This is also
the reason why the state punishes; a certain loss of civil rights attaches
to the man who destroys himself, on the ground that he is treating the
state unjustly.
Further (b) in that sense of ‘acting unjustly’ in which the man who
‘acts unjustly’ is unjust only and not bad all round, it is not possible to
treat oneself unjustly (this is different from the former sense; the unjust
man in one sense of the term is wicked in a particularized way just as
the coward is, (15) not in the sense of being wicked all round, so that his
‘unjust act’ does not manifest wickedness in general). For (i) that would
imply the possibility of the same thing’s having been subtracted from
and added to the same thing at the same time; but this is impossible—
the just and the unjust always involve more than one person. Further,
(ii) unjust action is voluntary and done by choice, (20) and takes the
initiative (for the man who because he has suffered does the same in
return is not thought to act unjustly); but if a man harms himself he
suffers and does the same things at the same time. Further, (iii) if a man
could treat himself unjustly, he could be voluntarily treated unjustly.
Besides, (iv) no one acts unjustly without committing particular acts of
injustice; but no one can commit adultery with his own wife or
housebreaking on his own house or theft on his own property. (25)
In general, the question ‘can a man treat himself unjustly?’ is solved
also by the distinction we applied to the question ‘can a man be
voluntarily treated unjustly?’23
(It is evident too that both are bad, being unjustly treated and acting
unjustly; for the one means having less and the other having more than
the intermediate amount, which plays the part here that the healthy
does in the medical art, (30) and that good condition does in the art of
bodily training. But still acting unjustly is the worse, for it involves vice
and is blameworthy—involves vice which is either of the complete and
unqualified kind or almost so (we must admit the latter alternative,
because not all voluntary unjust action implies injustice as a state of
character), while being unjustly treated does not involve vice and
injustice in oneself. (35) In itself, then, being unjustly treated is less bad,
but there is nothing to prevent its being incidentally a greater evil.
[1138b] But theory cares nothing for this; it calls pleurisy a more
serious mischief than a stumble; yet the latter may become incidentally
the more serious, if the fall due to it leads to your being taken prisoner
or put to death by the enemy.)
Metaphorically and in virtue of a certain resemblance there is a
justice, (5) not indeed between a man and himself, but between certain
parts of him; yet not every kind of justice but that of master and servant
or that of husband and wife.24 For these are the ratios in which the part
of the soul that has a rational principle stands to the irrational part; and
it is with a view to these parts that people also think a man can be
unjust to himself, (10) viz. because these parts are liable to suffer
something contrary to their respective desires; there is therefore thought
to be a mutual justice between them as between ruler and ruled.
Let this be taken as our account of justice and the other, i. e. the other
moral, virtues.

1 Pl. Rep. 343 C.

2 1179b 20–1181b 12. Pol. 1276b 16–1277b 32, 1278a 40–b5, 1288a 32–b2, 1333a 11–16, 1337a
11–14.
3 Person A + thing C to person B + thing D.

4 The problem of distributive justice is to divide the distributable honour or reward into parts
which are to one another as are the merits of the persons who are to participate. If
A (first person) : B (second person) :: C (first portion) : D (second portion), then (alternando) A : C
:: B : D,
and therefore (componendo) A + C : B + D :: A : B.
In other words the position established answers to the relative merits of the parties.
5 l. 12 f.

6 The problem of ‘rectificatory justice’ has nothing to do with punishment proper but is only that
of rectifying a wrong that has been done, by awarding damages; i. e. rectificatory justice is that
of the civil, not that of the criminal courts. The parties are treated by the court as equal (since a
law court is not a court of morals), and the wrongful act is reckoned as having brought equal
gain to the wrong-doer and loss to his victim; it brings A to the position A + C, and B to the
position B — C. The judge’s task is to find the arithmetical mean between these, and this he does
by transferring C from A to B. Thus (A being treated as = B) we get the arithmetical ‘proportion’

(A + C) — (A + C — C) = (A + C — C) — (B — C)

or

(A + C) — (B — C + C) = (B — C + C) — (B — C).

7 l. 14.

8 sc. equal to AE.

9 i. e. for the loser.

10 1132b 21–1133b 28.

11 1130a 3.

12 i. e. his slave.

13 a 30.

14 a 26–8.

15 Possibly a reference to an intended (or now lost) book of the Politics on laws.

16 1109b35–1111a24.

17 The plaintiff, if he brings a false accusation; the defendant, if he denies a true one.

18 Il. vi. 236.

19 Il. 3–5.

20 i. e. that stated in l. 4 f., that acting unjustly is in our own power.

21 Cf. ll. 6–8.

22 Cf. 1129a 32-b 1, 1136a 10–1137a 4.

23 Cf. 1136a 31-b 5.

24 Cf. 1134b 15–17.

 BOOK VI

1 Since we have previously said that one ought to choose that which
is intermediate, not the excess nor the defect,1 and that the intermediate
is determined by the dictates of the right rule,2 let us discuss the nature
of these dictates. (20) In all the states of character we have mentioned,3 as
in all other matters, there is a mark to which the man who has the rule
looks, and heightens or relaxes his activity accordingly, and there is a
standard which determines the mean states which we say are
intermediate between excess and defect, being in accordance with the
right rule. (25) But such a statement, though true, is by no means clear;
for not only here but in all other pursuits which are objects of
knowledge it is indeed true to say that we must not exert ourselves nor
relax our efforts too much nor too little, but to an intermediate extent
and as the right rule dictates; but if a man had only this knowledge he
would be none the wiser—e. g. we should not know what sort of
medicines to apply to our body if some one were to say ‘all those which
the medical art prescribes, (30) and which agree with the practice of one
who possesses the art.’ Hence it is necessary with regard to the states of
the soul also not only that this true statement should be made, but also
that it should be determined what is the right rule and what is the
standard that fixes it.
We divided the virtues of the soul and said that some are virtues of
character and others of intellect.4 (35) Now we have discussed in detail
the moral virtues;3 with regard to the others let us express our view as
follows, beginning with some remarks about the soul. [1139a] We said
before5 that there are two parts of the soul—that which grasps a rule or
rational principle, and the irrational; let us now draw a similar
distinction within the part which grasps a rational principle. (5) And let it
be assumed that there are two parts which grasp a rational principle—
one by which we contemplate the kind of things whose originative
causes are invariable, and one by which we contemplate variable things;
for where objects differ in kind the part of the soul answering to each of
the two is different in kind, since it is in virtue of a certain likeness and
kinship with their objects that they have the knowledge they have. (10)
Let one of these parts be called the scientific and the other the
calculative; for to deliberate and to calculate are the same thing, but no
one deliberates about the invariable. Therefore the calculative is one
part of the faculty which grasps a rational principle. We must, then,
learn what is the best state of each of these two parts; for this is the
virtue of each. (15)

2 The virtue of a thing is relative to its proper work. Now there are
three things in the soul which control action and truth—sensation,
reason, desire.
Of these sensation originates no action; this is plain from the fact that
the lower animals have sensation but no share in action. (20)
What affirmation and negation are in thinking, pursuit and avoidance
are in desire; so that since moral virtue is a state of character concerned
with choice, and choice is deliberate desire, therefore both the reasoning
must be true and the desire right, if the choice is to be good, (25) and the
latter must pursue just what the former asserts. Now this kind of intellect
and of truth is practical; of the intellect which is contemplative, not
practical nor productive, the good and the bad state are truth and falsity
respectively (for this is the work of everything intellectual) ; while of the
part which is practical and intellectual the good state is truth in
agreement with right desire. (30)
The origin of action—its efficient, not its final cause—is choice, and
that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end. This is why
choice cannot exist either without reason and intellect or without a
moral state; for good action and its opposite cannot exist without a
combination of intellect and character. (35) Intellect itself, however,
moves nothing, but only the intellect which aims at an end and is
practical; for this rules the productive intellect as well, since every one
who makes makes for an end, and that which is made is not an end in
the unqualified sense (but only an end in a particular relation, and the
end of a particular operation)—only that which is done is that; for good
action is an end, and desire aims at this. [1139b] Hence choice is
either desiderative reason or ratiocinative desire, and such an origin of
action is a man. (5) (It is to be noted that nothing that is past is an object
of choice, e. g. no one chooses to have sacked Troy; for no one deliberates
about the past, but about what is future and capable of being otherwise,
while what is past is not capable of not having taken place; hence
Agathon is right in saying

For this alone is lacking even to God, (10)

To make undone things that have once been done.)

The work of both the intellectual parts, then, is truth. Therefore the
states that are most strictly those in respect of which each of these parts
will reach truth are the virtues of the two parts.

3 Let us begin, then, from the beginning, and discuss these states once
more. (15) Let it be assumed that the states by virtue of which the soul
possesses truth by way of affirmation or denial are five in number, i. e.
art, scientific knowledge, practical wisdom, philosophic wisdom,
intuitive reason; we do not include judgement and opinion because in
these we may be mistaken.
Now what scientific knowledge is, if we are to speak exactly and not
follow mere similarities, is plain from what follows. (20) We all suppose
that what we know is not even capable of being otherwise; of things
capable of being otherwise we do not know, when they have passed
outside our observation, whether they exist or not. Therefore the object
of scientific knowledge is of necessity. Therefore it is eternal; for things
that are of necessity in the unqualified sense are all eternal; and things
that are eternal are ungenerated and imperishable. Again, every science
is thought to be capable of being taught, and its object of being learned.
(25) And all teaching starts from what is already known, as we maintain

in the Analytics6 also; for it proceeds sometimes through induction and

sometimes by syllogism. Now induction is the starting-point which
knowledge even of the universal presupposes, while syllogism proceeds
from universals. There are therefore starting-points from which syllogism
proceeds, which are not reached by syllogism; it is therefore by
induction that they are acquired. (30) Scientific knowledge is, then, a
state of capacity to demonstrate, and has the other limiting
characteristics which we specify in the Analytics;7 for it is when a man
believes in a certain way and the starting-points are known to him that
he has scientific knowledge, since if they are not better known to him
than the conclusion, (35) he will have his knowledge only incidentally.
Let this, then, be taken as our account of scientific knowledge.

4 [1140a] In the variable are included both things made and things
done; making and acting are different (for their nature we treat even the
discussions outside our school as reliable); so that the reasoned state of
capacity to act is different from the reasoned state of capacity to make.
(5) Hence too they are not included one in the other; for neither is acting

making nor is making acting. Now since architecture is an art and is

essentially a reasoned state of capacity to make, and there is neither any
art that is not such a state nor any such state that is not an art, art is
identical with a state of capacity to make, involving a true course of
reasoning. (10) All art is concerned with coming into being, i. e. with
contriving and considering how something may come into being which
is capable of either being or not being, and whose origin is in the maker
and not in the thing made; for art is concerned neither with things that
are, or come into being, by necessity, nor with things that do so in
accordance with nature (since these have their origin in themselves). (15)
Making and acting being different, art must be a matter of making, not
of acting. And in a sense chance and art are concerned with the same
objects; as Agathon says, ‘art loves chance and chance loves art’. Art,
then, as has been said,8 is a state concerned with making, (20) involving a
true course of reasoning, and lack of art on the contrary is a state
concerned with making, involving a false course of reasoning; both are
concerned with the variable.

5 Regarding practical wisdom we shall get at the truth by considering

who are the persons we credit with it. (25) Now it is thought to be the
mark of a man of practical wisdom to be able to deliberate well about
what is good and expedient for himself, not in some particular respect,
e. g. about what sorts of thing conduce to health or to strength, but
about what sorts of thing conduce to the good life in general. This is
shown by the fact that we credit men with practical wisdom in some
particular respect when they have calculated well with a view to some
good end which is one of those that are not the object of any art. (30) It
follows that in the general sense also the man who is capable of
deliberating has practical wisdom. Now no one deliberates about things
that are invariable, nor about things that it is impossible for him to do.
Therefore, since scientific knowledge involves demonstration, but there
is no demonstration of things whose first principles are variable (for all
such things might actually be otherwise), (35) and since it is impossible to
deliberate about things that are of necessity, practical wisdom cannot be
scientific knowledge nor art; not science because that which can be done
is capable of being otherwise, not art because action and making are
different kinds of thing. [1140b] The remaining alternative, (5) then, is
that it is a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the
things that are good or bad for man. For while making has an end other
than itself, action cannot; for good action itself is its end. It is for this
reason that we think Pericles and men like him have practical wisdom,
viz. because they can see what is good for themselves and what is good
for men in general; we consider that those can do this who are good at
managing households or states. (10) (This is why we call temperance
(sophrosyne) by this name; we imply that it preserves one’s practical
wisdom (sodsousa ten phronesin). Now what it preserves is a judgement of
the kind we have described. For it is not any and every judgement that
pleasant and painful objects destroy and pervert, e. g. the judgement
that the triangle has or has not its angles equal to two right angles, (15)
but only judgements about what is to be done. For the originating causes
of the things that are done consist in the end at which they are aimed;
but the man who has been ruined by pleasure or pain forthwith fails to
see any such originating cause—to see that for the sake of this or
because of this he ought to choose and do whatever he chooses and
does; for vice is destructive of the originating cause of action.)
Practical wisdom, then, must be a reasoned and true state of capacity
to act with regard to human goods. (20) But further, while there is such a
thing as excellence in art, there is no such thing as excellence in
practical wisdom; and in art he who errs willingly is preferable, but in
practical wisdom, as in the virtues, he is the reverse. Plainly, then,
practical wisdom is a virtue and not an art. There being two parts of the
soul that can follow a course of reasoning, (25) it must be the virtue of
one of the two, i. e. of that part which forms opinions; for opinion is
about the variable and so is practical wisdom. But yet it is not only a
reasoned state; this is shown by the fact that a state of that sort may be
forgotten but practical wisdom cannot. (30)

6 Scientific knowledge is judgement about things that are universal

and necessary, and the conclusions of demonstration, and all scientific
knowledge, follow from first principles (for scientific knowledge involves
apprehension of a rational ground). This being so, the first principle
from which what is scientifically known follows cannot be an object of
scientific knowledge, of art, or of practical wisdom; for that which can
be scientifically known can be demonstrated, (35) and art and practical
wisdom deal with things that are variable. [1141a] Nor are these first
principles the objects of philosophic wisdom, for it is a mark of the
philosopher to have demonstration about some things. If, then, the states
of mind by which we have truth and are never deceived about things
invariable or even variable are scientific knowledge, practical wisdom,
philosophic wisdom, and intuitive reason, (5) and it cannot be any of the
three (i. e. practical wisdom, scientific knowledge, or philosophic
wisdom), the remaining alternative is that it is intuitive reason that grasps
the first principles.

7 Wisdom (1) in the arts we ascribe to their most finished exponents,

e. g. to Phidias as a sculptor and to Polyclitus as a maker of portrait-
statues, (10) and here we mean nothing by wisdom except excellence in
art; but (2) we think that some people are wise in general, not in some
particular field or in any other limited respect, as Homer says in the
Margites,

Him did the gods make neither a digger nor yet a ploughman
Nor wise in anything else. (15)

Therefore wisdom must plainly be the most finished of the forms of

knowledge. It follows that the wise man must not only know what
follows from the first principles, but must also possess truth about the
first principles. Therefore wisdom must be intuitive reason combined
with scientific knowledge—scientific knowledge of the highest objects
which has received as it were its proper completion.
Of the highest objects, (20) we say; for it would be strange to think that
the art of politics, or practical wisdom, is the best knowledge, since man
is not the best thing in the world. Now if what is healthy or good is
different for men and for fishes, but what is white or straight is always
the same, (25) any one would say that what is wise is the same but what
is practically wise is different; for it is to that which observes well the
various matters concerning itself that one ascribes practical wisdom, and
it is to this that one will entrust such matters. This is why we say that
some even of the lower animals have practical wisdom, viz. those which
are found to have a power of foresight with regard to their own life. It is
evident also that philosophic wisdom and the art of politics cannot be
the same; for if the state of mind concerned with a man’s own interests is
to be called philosophic wisdom, (30) there will be many philosophic
wisdoms; there will not be one concerned with the good of all animals
(any more than there is one art of medicine for all existing things), but a
different philosophic wisdom about the good of each species.
But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this makes
no difference; for there are other things much more divine in their
nature even than man, e. g., most conspicuously, the bodies of which the
heavens are framed. [1141b] From what has been said it is plain, then,
that philosophic wisdom is scientific knowledge, combined with intuitive
reason, of the things that are highest by nature. This is why we say
Anaxagoras, Thales, and men like them have philosophic but not
practical wisdom, (5) when we see them ignorant of what is to their own
advantage, and why we say that they know things that are remarkable,
admirable, difficult, and divine, but useless; viz. because it is not human
goods that they seek.
Practical wisdom on the other hand is concerned with things human
and things about which it is possible to deliberate; for we say this is
above all the work of the man of practical wisdom, (10) to deliberate well,
but no one deliberates about things invariable, nor about things which
have not an end, and that a good that can be brought about by action.
The man who is without qualification good at deliberating is the man
who is capable of aiming in accordance with calculation at the best for
man of things attainable by action. Nor is practical wisdom concerned
with universals only—it must also recognize the particulars; for it is
practical, (15) and practice is concerned with particulars. This is why
some who do not know, and especially those who have experience, are
more practical than others who know; for if a man knew that light meats
are digestible and wholesome, but did not know which sorts of meat are
light, he would not produce health, but the man who knows that chicken
is wholesome is more likely to produce health. (20)
Now practical wisdom is concerned with action; therefore one should
have both forms of it, or the latter in preference to the former. But of
practical as of philosophic wisdom there must be a controlling kind.

8 Political wisdom and practical wisdom are the same state of mind,
but their essence is not the same. Of the wisdom concerned with the
city, the practical wisdom which plays a controlling part is legislative
wisdom, while that which is related to this as particulars to their
universal is known by the general name ‘political wisdom’; this has to do
with action and deliberation, (25) for a decree is a thing to be carried out
in the form of an individual act. This is why the exponents of this art are
alone said to ‘take part in politics’; for these alone ‘do things’ as manual
labourers ‘do things’.
Practical wisdom also is identified especially with that form of it
which is concerned with a man himself—with the individual; and this is
known by the general name ‘practical wisdom’; of the other kinds one is
called household management, (30) another legislation, the third politics,
and of the latter one part is called deliberative and the other judicial.
[1142a] Now knowing what is good for oneself will be one kind of
knowledge, but it is very different from the other kinds; and the man
who knows and concerns himself with his own interests is thought to
have practical wisdom, while politicians are thought to be busybodies;
hence the words of Euripides,

But how could I be wise, who might at ease,

Numbered among the army’s multitude,
Have had an equal share?…
For those who aim too high and do too much…. (5)
Those who think thus seek their own good, and consider that one ought
to do so. From this opinion, then, has come the view that such men have
practical wisdom; yet perhaps one’s own good cannot exist without
household management, nor without a form of government. (10) Further,
how one should order one’s own affairs is not clear and needs inquiry.
What has been said is confirmed by the fact that while young men
become geometricians and mathematicians and wise in matters like
these, it is thought that a young man of practical wisdom cannot be
found. The cause is that such wisdom is concerned not only with
universals but with particulars, which become familiar from experience,
(15) but a young man has no experience, for it is length of time that gives

experience; indeed one might ask this question too, why a boy may
become a mathematician, but not a philosopher or a physicist. Is it
because the objects of mathematics exist by abstraction, while the first
principles of these other subjects come from experience, and because
young men have no conviction about the latter but merely use the
proper language, while the essence of mathematical objects is plain
enough to them?
Further, (20) error in deliberation may be either about the universal or
about the particular; we may fail to know either that all water that
weighs heavy is bad, or that this particular water weighs heavy.
That practical wisdom is not scientific knowledge is evident; for it is,
as has been said,9 concerned with the ultimate particular fact, (25) since
the thing to be done is of this nature. It is opposed, then, to intuitive
reason; for intuitive reason is of the limiting premisses, for which no
reason can be given, while practical wisdom is concerned with the
ultimate particular, which is the object not of scientific knowledge but of
perception—not the perception of qualities peculiar to one sense but a
perception akin to that by which we perceive that the particular figure
before us is a triangle; for in that direction as well as in that of the major
premiss there will be a limit. But this is rather perception than practical
wisdom, (30) though it is another kind of perception than that of the
qualities peculiar to each sense.

9 There is a difference between inquiry and deliberation; for

deliberation is inquiry into a particular kind of thing. We must grasp the
nature of excellence in deliberation as well—whether it is a form of
scientific knowledge, or opinion, or skill in conjecture, or some other
kind of thing. Scientific knowledge it is not; for men do not inquire about
the things they know about, but good deliberation is a kind of
deliberation, and he who deliberates inquires and calculates. [1142b]
Nor is it skill in conjecture; for this both involves no reasoning and is
something that is quick in its operation, while men deliberate a long
time, and they say that one should carry out quickly the conclusions of
one’s deliberation, (5) but should deliberate slowly. Again, readiness of
mind is different from excellence in deliberation; it is a sort of skill in
conjecture. Nor again is excellence in deliberation opinion of any sort.
But since the man who deliberates badly makes a mistake, while he who
deliberates well does so correctly, excellence in deliberation is clearly a
kind of correctness, but neither of knowledge nor of opinion; for there is
no such thing as correctness of knowledge (since there is no such thing
as error of knowledge), (10) and correctness of opinion is truth; and at the
same time everything that is an object of opinion is already determined.
But again excellence in deliberation involves reasoning. The remaining
alternative, then, is that it is correctness of thinking; for this is not yet
assertion, since, while even opinion is not inquiry but has reached the
stage of assertion, the man who is deliberating, whether he does so well
or ill, is searching for something and calculating. (15)
But excellence in deliberation is a certain correctness of deliberation;
hence we must first inquire what deliberation is and what it is about.
And, there being more than one kind of correctness, plainly excellence in
deliberation is not any and every kind; for (1) the incontinent man and
the bad man, if he is clever, will reach as a result of his calculation what
he sets before himself, so that he will have deliberated correctly, but he
will have got for himself a great evil. Now to have deliberated well is
thought to be a good thing; for it is this kind of correctness of
deliberation that is excellence in deliberation, (20) viz. that which tends
to attain what is good. But (2) it is possible to attain even good by a
false syllogism, and to attain what one ought to do but not by the right
means, the middle term being false; so that this too is not yet excellence
in deliberation—this state in virtue of which one attains what one ought
but not by the right means. (25) Again (3) it is possible to attain it by long
deliberation while another man attains it quickly. Therefore in the
former case we have not yet got excellence in deliberation, which is
rightness with regard to the expedient—rightness in respect both of the
end, the manner, and the time. (4) Further it is possible to have
deliberated well either in the unqualified sense or with reference to a
particular end. Excellence in deliberation in the unqualified sense, then,
is that which succeeds with reference to what is the end in the
unqualified sense, (30) and excellence in deliberation in a particular sense
is that which succeeds relatively to a particular end. If, then, it is
characteristic of men of practical wisdom to have deliberated well,
excellence in deliberation will be correctness with regard to what
conduces to the end of which practical wisdom is the true apprehension.

10 Understanding, also, and goodness of understanding, in virtue of

which men are said to be men of understanding or of good
understanding, are neither entirely the same as opinion or scientific
knowledge (for at that rate all men would have been men of
understanding), nor are they one of the particular sciences, such as
medicine, the science of things connected with health, or geometry, the
science of spatial magnitudes. [1143a] For understanding is neither
about things that are always and are unchangeable, (5) nor about any and
every one of the things that come into being, but about things which
may become subjects of questioning and deliberation. Hence it is about
the same objects as practical wisdom; but understanding and practical
wisdom are not the same. For practical wisdom issues commands, since
its end is what ought to be done or not to be done; but understanding
only judges. (10) (Understanding is identical with goodness of
understanding, men of understanding with men of good understanding.)
Now understanding is neither the having nor the acquiring of practical
wisdom; but as learning is called understanding when it means the
exercise of the faculty of knowledge, so ‘understanding’ is applicable to
the exercise of the faculty of opinion for the purpose of judging of what
some one else says about matters with which practical wisdom is
concerned—and of judging soundly; for ‘well’ and ‘soundly’ are the same
thing. (15) And from this has come the use of the name ‘understanding’ in
virtue of which men are said to be ‘of good understanding’, viz. from the
application of the word to the grasping of scientific truth; for we often
call such grasping understanding.

11 What is called judgement, in virtue of which men are said to ‘be

sympathetic judges’ and to ‘have judgement’, (20) is the right
discrimination of the equitable. This is shown by the fact that we say the
equitable man is above all others a man of sympathetic judgement, and
identify equity with sympathetic judgement about certain facts. And
sympathetic judgement is judgement which discriminates what is
equitable and does so correctly; and correct judgement is that which
judges what is true.
Now all the states we have considered converge, (25) as might be
expected, to the same point; for when we speak of judgement and
understanding and practical wisdom and intuitive reason we credit the
same people with possessing judgement and having reached years of
reason and with having practical wisdom and understanding. For all
these faculties deal with ultimates, i. e. with particulars; and being a
man of understanding and of good or sympathetic judgement consists in
being able to judge about the things with which practical wisdom is
concerned; for the equities are common to all good men in relation to
other men. (30) Now all things which have to be done are included among
particulars or ultimates; for not only must the man of practical wisdom
know particular facts, but understanding and judgement are also
concerned with things to be done, and these are ultimates. And intuitive
reason is concerned with the ultimates in both directions; for both the
first terms and the last are objects of intuitive reason and not of
argument, (35) and the intuitive reason which is presupposed by
demonstrations grasps the unchangeable and first terms, while the
intuitive reason involved in practical reasonings grasps the last and
variable fact, i. e. the minor premiss. [1143b] For these variable facts
are the starting-points for the apprehension of the end, since the
universals are reached from the particulars; of these therefore we must
have perception, (5) and this perception is intuitive reason.
This is why these states are thought to be natural endowments—why,
while no one is thought to be a philosopher by nature, people are
thought to have by nature judgement, understanding, and intuitive
reason. This is shown by the fact that we think our powers correspond to
our time of life, and that a particular age brings with it intuitive reason
and judgement; this implies that nature is the cause. [Hence intuitive
reason is both beginning and end; for demonstrations are from these and
about these. (10)] Therefore we ought to attend to the undemonstrated
sayings and opinions of experienced and older people or of people of
practical wisdom not less than to demonstrations; for because experience
has given them an eye they see aright.
We have stated, then, what practical and philosophic wisdom are, and
with what each of them is concerned, and we have said that each is the
virtue of a different part of the soul. (15)

12 Difficulties might be raised as to the utility of these qualities of

mind. For (1) philosophic wisdom will contemplate none of the things
that will make a man happy (for it is not concerned with any coming
into being), and though practical wisdom has this merit, (20) for what
purpose do we need it? Practical wisdom is the quality of mind
concerned with things just and noble and good for man, but these are
the things which it is the mark of a good man to do, and we are none the
more able to act for knowing them if the virtues are states of character,
just as we are none the better able to act for knowing the things that are
healthy and sound, (25) in the sense not of producing but of issuing from
the state of health; for we are none the more able to act for having the
art of medicine or of gymnastics. But (2) if we are to say that a man
should have practical wisdom not for the sake of knowing moral truths
but for the sake of becoming good, practical wisdom will be of no use to
those who are good; but again it is of no use to those who have not
virtue; for it will make no difference whether they have practical
wisdom themselves or obey others who have it, (30) and it would be
enough for us to do what we do in the case of health; though we wish to
become healthy, yet we do not learn the art of medicine. (3) Besides
this, it would be thought strange if practical wisdom, being inferior to
philosophic wisdom, is to be put in authority over it, as seems to be
implied by the fact that the art which produces anything rules and issues
commands about that thing.
These, (35) then, are the questions we must discuss; so far we have only
stated the difficulties. [1144a]
(1) Now first let us say that in themselves these states must be worthy
of choice because they are the virtues of the two parts of the soul
respectively, even if neither of them produce anything.
(2) Secondly, they do produce something, not as the art of medicine
produces health, however, but as health produces health;10 so does
philosophic wisdom produce happiness; for, being a part of virtue entire,
(5) by being possessed and by actualizing itself it makes a man happy.

(3) Again, the work of man is achieved only in accordance with

practical wisdom as well as with moral virtue; for virtue makes us aim at
the right mark, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means. (Of
the fourth part of the soul—the nutritive11—there is no such virtue; for
there is nothing which it is in its power to do or not to do. (10))
(4) With regard to our being none the more able to do because of our
practical wisdom what is noble and just, let us begin a little further back,
starting with the following principle. As we say that some people who do
just acts are not necessarily just, (15) i. e. those who do the acts ordained
by the laws either unwillingly or owing to ignorance or for some other
reason and not for the sake of the acts themselves (though, to be sure,
they do what they should and all the things that the good man ought), so
is it, it seems, that in order to be good one must be in a certain state
when one does the several acts, (20) i. e. one must do them as a result of
choice and for the sake of the acts themselves. Now virtue makes the
choice right, but the question of the things which should naturally be
done to carry out our choice belongs not to virtue but to another faculty.
We must devote our attention to these matters and give a clearer
statement about them. There is a faculty which is called cleverness; and
this is such as to be able to do the things that tend towards the mark we
have set before ourselves, (25) and to hit it. Now if the mark be noble, the
cleverness is laudable, but if the mark be bad, the cleverness is mere
smartness; hence we call even men of practical wisdom clever or smart.
Practical wisdom is not the faculty, but it does not exist without this
faculty. And this eye of the soul acquires its formed state not without the
aid of virtue, (30) as has been said12 and is plain; for the syllogisms which
deal with acts to be done are things which involve a starting-point, viz.
‘since the end, i. e. what is best, is of such and such a nature’, whatever
it may be (let it for the sake of argument be what we please); and this is
not evident except to the good man; for wickedness perverts us and
causes us to be deceived about the starting-points of action. (35) Therefore
it is evident that it is impossible to be practically wise without being
good.

13 [1144b] We must therefore consider virtue also once more; for

virtue too is similarly related; as practical wisdom is to cleverness—not
the same, but like it—so is natural virtue to virtue in the strict sense. For
all men think that each type of character belongs to its possessors in
some sense by nature; for from the very moment of birth we are just or
fitted for self-control or brave or have the other moral qualities; but yet
we seek something else as that which is good in the strict sense—we
seek for the presence of such qualities in another way. (5) For both
children and brutes have the natural dispositions to these qualities, but
without reason these are evidently hurtful. Only we seem to see this
much, (10) that, while one may be led astray by them, as a strong body
which moves without sight may stumble badly because of its lack of
sight, still, if a man once acquires reason, that makes a difference in
action; and his state, while still like what it was, will then be virtue in
the strict sense. Therefore, as in the part of us which forms opinions
there are two types, cleverness and practical wisdom, (15) so too in the
moral part there are two types, natural virtue and virtue in the strict
sense, and of these the latter involves practical wisdom. This is why
some say that all the virtues are forms of practical wisdom, and why
Socrates in one respect was on the right track while in another he went
astray; in thinking that all the virtues were forms of practical wisdom he
was wrong, but in saying they implied practical wisdom he was right. (20)
This is confirmed by the fact that even now all men, when they define
virtue, after naming the state of character and its objects add ‘that
(state) which is in accordance with the right rule’; now the right rule is
that which is in accordance with practical wisdom. All men, then, seem
somehow to divine that this kind of state is virtue, (25) viz. that which is
in accordance with practical wisdom. But we must go a little further. For
it is not merely the state in accordance with the right rule, but the state
that implies the presence of the right rule, that is virtue; and practical
wisdom is a right rule about such matters. Socrates, then, thought the
virtues were rules or rational principles (for he thought they were, all of
them, forms of scientific knowledge), while we think they involve a
rational principle. (30)
It is clear, then, from what has been said, that it is not possible to be
good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise
without moral virtue. But in this way we may also refute the dialectical
argument whereby it might be contended that the virtues exist in
separation from each other; the same man, it might be said, is not best
equipped by nature for all the virtues, so that he will have already
acquired one when he has not yet acquired another. (35) This is possible
in respect of the natural virtues, but not in respect of those in respect of
which a man is called without qualification good; for with the presence
of the one quality, practical wisdom, will be given all the virtues.
[1145a] And it is plain that, even if it were of no practical value, we
should have needed it because it is the virtue of the part of us in
question; plain too that the choice will not be right without practical
wisdom any more than without virtue; for the one determines the end
and the other makes us do the things that lead to the end. (5)
But again it is not supreme over philosophic wisdom, i. e. over the
superior part of us, any more than the art of medicine is over health; for
it does not use it but provides for its coming into being; it issues orders,
(10) then, for its sake, but not to it. Further, to maintain its supremacy

would be like saying that the art of politics rules the gods because it
issues orders about all the affairs of the state.

1 1104a 11–27, 1106a 26–1107a 27.

2 1107a 1, Cf. 1103b 31, 1114b 29.

3 In iii. 6–v. 11.

4 1103a 3–7.

5 1102a 26–8.

6 An. Post. 71a 1.

7 Ib. b 9–23.

8 l. 9.

9 1141b 14–22.
10 i. e. as health, as an inner state, produces the activities which we know as constituting health.

11 The other three being the scientific, the calculative, and the desiderative.

12 ll. 6–26.
 BOOK VII

1 Let us now make a fresh beginning and point out that of moral
states to be avoided there are three kinds—vice, (15) incontinence,
brutishness. The contraries of two of these are evident—one we call
virtue, the other continence; to brutishness it would be most fitting to
oppose superhuman virtue, (20) a heroic and divine kind of nature, as
Homer has represented Priam saying of Hector that he was very good,

For he seemed not, he,

The child of a mortal man, but as one that of God’s seed came.1

Therefore if, as they say, men become gods by excess of virtue, of this
kind must evidently be the state opposed to the brutish state; for as a
brute has no vice or virtue, so neither has a god; his state is higher than
virtue, (25) and that of a brute is a different kind of state from vice.
Now, since it is rarely that a godlike man is found—to use the epithet
of the Spartans, who when they admire any one highly call him a
‘godlike man’—so too the brutish type is rarely found among men; it is
found chiefly among barbarians, (30) but some brutish qualities are also
produced by disease or deformity; and we also call by this evil name
those men who go beyond all ordinary standards by reason of vice. Of
this kind of disposition, however, we must later make some mention,2
while we have discussed vice before;3 we must now discuss incontinence
and softness (or effeminacy), (35) and continence and endurance; for we
must treat each of the two neither as identical with virtue or wickedness,
nor as a different genus. [1145b] We must, as in all other cases, set the
observed facts before us and, after first discussing the difficulties, go on
to prove, if possible, the truth of all the common opinions about these
affections of the mind, or, failing this, of the greater number and the
most authoritative; for if we both refute the objections and leave the
common opinions undisturbed, (5) we shall have proved the case
sufficiently.
Now (1) both continence and endurance are thought to be included
among things good and praiseworthy, and both incontinence and
softness among things bad and blameworthy; and the same man is
thought to be continent and ready to abide by the result of his
calculations, (10) or incontinent and ready to abandon them. And (2) the
incontinent man, knowing that what he does is bad, does it as a result of
passion, while the continent man, knowing that his appetites are bad,
refuses on account of his rational principle to follow them. (3) The
temperate man all men call continent and disposed to endurance, (15)
while the continent man some maintain to be always temperate but
others do not; and some call the self-indulgent man incontinent and the
incontinent man self-indulgent indiscriminately while others distinguish
them. (4) The man of practical wisdom, they sometimes say, cannot be
incontinent, while sometimes they say that some who are practically
wise and clever are incontinent. Again (5) men are said to be incontinent
even with respect to anger, honour, and gain.—These, (20) then, are the
things that are said.

2 Now we may ask (1) how a man who judges rightly can behave
incontinently. That he should behave so when he has knowledge, some
say is impossible; for it would be strange—so Socrates4 thought—if when
knowledge was in a man something else could master it and drag it
about like a slave. (25) For Socrates was entirely opposed to the view in
question, holding that there is no such thing as incontinence; no one, he
said, when he judges acts against what he judges best—people act so
only by reason of ignorance. Now this view plainly contradicts the
observed facts, and we must inquire about what happens to such a man;
if he acts by reason of ignorance, what is the manner of his ignorance?
For that the man who behaves incontinently does not, (30) before he gets
into this state, think he ought to act so, is evident. But there are some
who concede certain of Socrates’ contentions but not others; that nothing
is stronger than knowledge they admit, but not that no one acts contrary
to what has seemed to him the better course, and therefore they say that
the incontinent man has not knowledge when he is mastered by his
pleasures, but opinion. But if it is opinion and not knowledge, (35) if it is
not a strong conviction that resists but a weak one, as in men who
hesitate, we sympathize with their failure to stand by such convictions
against strong appetites; but we do not sympathize with wickedness, nor
with any of the other blameworthy states. [1146a] Is it then practical
wisdom whose resistance is mastered?5 That is the strongest of all states.
But this is absurd; the same man will be at once practically wise and
incontinent, but no one would say that it is the part of a practically wise
man to do willingly the basest acts. Besides, it has been shown before
that the man of practical wisdom is one who will act (for he is a man
concerned with the individual facts)6 and who has the other virtues.7 (5)
(2) Further, if continence involves having strong and bad appetites, (10)
the temperate man will not be continent nor the continent man
temperate; for a temperate man will have neither excessive nor bad
appetites. But the continent man must; for if the appetites are good, the
state of character that restrains us from following them is bad, (15) so that
not all continence will be good; while if they are weak and not bad,
there is nothing admirable in resisting them, and if they are weak and
bad, there is nothing great in resisting these either.
(3) Further, if continence makes a man ready to stand by any and
every opinion, it is bad, i. e. if it makes him stand even by a false
opinion; and if incontinence makes a man apt to abandon any and every
opinion, there will be a good incontinence, of which Sophocles’
Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes8 will be an instance; for he is to be
praised for not standing by what Odysseus persuaded him to do, (20)
because he is pained at telling a lie.
(4) Further, the sophistic argument presents a difficulty; the syllogism
arising from men’s wish to expose paradoxical results arising from an
opponent’s view, in order that they may be admired when they succeed,
is one that puts us in a difficulty (for thought is bound fast when it will
not rest because the conclusion does not satisfy it, (25) and cannot
advance because it cannot refute the argument). There is an argument
from which it follows that folly coupled with incontinence is virtue; for a
man does the opposite of what he judges, owing to incontinence, but
judges what is good to be evil and something that he should not do, and
in consequence he will do what is good and not what is evil. (30)
(5) Further, he who on conviction does and pursues and chooses what
is pleasant would be thought to be better than one who does so as a
result not of calculation but of incontinence; for he is easier to cure since
he may be persuaded to change his mind. But to the incontinent man
may be applied the proverb ‘when water chokes, what is one to wash it
down with?’ If he had been persuaded of the rightness of what he does,
(35) he would have desisted when he was persuaded to change his mind;

but now he acts in spite of his being persuaded of something quite

different. [1146b]
(6) Further, if incontinence and continence are concerned with any
and every kind of object, who is it that is incontinent in the unqualified
sense? No one has all the forms of incontinence, but we say some people
are incontinent without qualification. (5)

3 Of some such kind are the difficulties that arise; some of these
points must be refuted and the others left in possession of the field; for
the solution of the difficulty is the discovery of the truth. (1) We must
consider first, then, whether incontinent people act knowingly or not,
and in what sense knowingly; then (2) with what sorts of object the
incontinent and the continent man may be said to be concerned (i. e.
whether with any and every pleasure and pain or with certain
determinate kinds), (10) and whether the continent man and the man of
endurance are the same or different; and similarly with regard to the
other matters germane to this inquiry. The starting-point of our
investigation is (a) the question whether the continent man and the
incontinent are differentiated by their objects or by their attitude, i. e.
whether the incontinent man is incontinent simply by being concerned
with such and such objects, (15) or, instead, by his attitude, or, instead of
that, by both these things; (b) the second question is whether
incontinence and continence are concerned with any and every object or
not. The man who is incontinent in the unqualified sense is neither
concerned with any and every object, but with precisely those with
which the self-indulgent man is concerned, (20) nor is he characterized by
being simply related to these (for then his state would be the same as
self-indulgence), but by being related to them in a certain way. For the
one is led on in accordance with his own choice, thinking that he ought
always to pursue the present pleasure; while the other does not think so,
but yet pursues it.
(1) As for the suggestion that it is true opinion and not knowledge
against which we act incontinently, that makes no difference to the
argument; for some people when in a state of opinion do not hesitate, (25)
but think they know exactly. If, then, the notion is that owing to their
weak conviction those who have opinion are more likely to act against
their judgement than those who know, we answer that there need be no
difference between knowledge and opinion in this respect; for some men
are no less convinced of what they think than others of what they know;
as is shown by the case of Heraclitus. (30) But (a), since we use the word
‘know’ in two senses (for both the man who has knowledge but is not
using it and he who is using it are said to know), it will make a
difference whether, when a man does what he should not, he has the
knowledge but is not exercising it, or is exercising it; for the latter seems
strange, but not the former. (35)
(b) Further, since there are two kinds of premisses, there is nothing to
prevent a man’s having both premisses and acting against his
knowledge, provided that he is using only the universal premiss and not
the particular; for it is particular acts that have to be done. [1147a]
And there are also two kinds of universal term; one is predicable of the
agent, (5) the other of the object; e. g. ‘dry food is good for every man’,
and ‘I am a man’, or ‘such and such food is dry’; but whether ‘this food is
such and such’, of this the incontinent man either has not or is not
exercising the knowledge.9 There will, then, be, firstly, an enormous
difference between these manners of knowing, so that to know in one
way when we act incontinently would not seem anything strange, while
to know in the other way would be extraordinary.
And further (c) the possession of knowledge in another sense than
those just named is something that happens to men; for within the case
of having knowledge but not using it we see a difference of state, (10)
admitting of the possibility of having knowledge in a sense and yet not
having it, as in the instance of a man asleep, mad, or drunk. But now
this is just the condition of men under the influence of passion; for
outbursts of anger and sexual appetites and some other such passions, (15)
it is evident, actually alter our bodily condition, and in some men even
produce fits of madness. It is plain, then, that incontinent people must be
said to be in a similar condition to men asleep, mad, or drunk. The fact
that men use the language that flows from knowledge proves nothing;
for even men under the influence of these passions utter scientific proofs
and verses of Empedocles, (20) and those who have just begun to learn a
science can string together its phrases, but do not yet know it; for it has
to become part of themselves, and that takes time; so that we must
suppose that the use of language by men in an incontinent state means
no more than its utterance by actors on the stage.
(d) Again, we may also view the cause as follows with reference to the
facts of human nature. (25) The one opinion is universal, the other is
concerned with the particular facts, and here we come to something
within the sphere of perception; when a single opinion results from the
two, the soul must in one type of case10 affirm the conclusion, while in
the case of opinions concerned with production it must immediately act
(e. g. if ‘everything sweet ought to be tasted’, and ‘this is sweet’, in the
sense of being one of the particular sweet things, (30) the man who can
act and is not prevented must at the same time actually act accordingly).
When, then, the universal opinion is present in us forbidding us to taste,
and there is also the opinion that ‘everything sweet is pleasant’, and that
‘this is sweet’ (now this is the opinion that is active),11 and when
appetite happens to be present in us, the one opinion bids us avoid the
object, but appetite leads us towards it (for it can move each of our
bodily parts); so that it turns out that a man behaves incontinently under
the influence (in a sense) of a rule and an opinion, (35) and of one not
contrary in itself, but only incidentally—for the appetite is contrary, not
the opinion—to the right rule. [1147b] It also follows that this is the
reason why the lower animals are not incontinent, viz. because they
have no universal judgment but only imagination and memory of
particulars. (5)
The explanation of how the ignorance is dissolved and the incontinent
man regains his knowledge, is the same as in the case of the man drunk
or asleep and is not particular to this condition; we must go to the
students of natural science for it. Now, the last premiss both being an
opinion about a perceptible object, and being what determines our
actions, (10) this a man either has not when he is in the state of passion,
or has it in the sense in which having knowledge did not mean knowing
but only talking, as a drunken man may mutter the verses of
Empedocles.12 And because the last term is not universal nor equally an
object of scientific knowledge with the universal term, (15) the position
that Socrates sought to establish13 actually seems to result; for it is not in
the presence of what is thought to be knowledge proper that the
affection of incontinence arises (nor is it this that is dragged about’ as a
result of the state of passion), but in that of perceptual knowledge.14
This must suffice as our answer to the question of action with and
without knowledge, and how it is possible to behave incontinently with
knowledge.

4 (2) We must next discuss whether there is any one who is

incontinent without qualification, (20) or all men who are incontinent are
so in a particular sense, and if there is, with what sort of objects he is
concerned. That both continent persons and persons of endurance, and
incontinent and soft persons, are concerned with pleasures and pains, is
evident.
Now of the things that produce pleasure some are necessary, while
others are worthy of choice in themselves but admit of excess, (25) the
bodily causes of pleasure being necessary (by such I mean both those
concerned with food and those concerned with sexual intercourse, i. e.
the bodily matters with which we defined15 self-indulgence and
temperance as being concerned), while the others are not necessary but
worthy of choice in themselves (e. g. victory, honour, wealth, (30) and
good and pleasant things of this sort). This being so, (a) those who go to
excess with reference to the latter, contrary to the right rule which is in
themselves, are not called incontinent simply, but incontinent with the
qualification ‘in respect of money, gain, honour, or anger’,—not simply
incontinent, on the ground that they are different from incontinent
people and are called incontinent by reason of a resemblance. (Compare
the case of Anthropos (Man), who won a contest at the Olympic games;
in his case the general definition of man differed little from the
definition peculiar to him, (35) but yet it was different.)16 [1148a] This
is shown by the fact that incontinence either without qualification or in
respect of some particular bodily pleasure is blamed not only as a fault
but as a kind of vice, while none of the people who are incontinent in
these other respects is so blamed.
But (b) of the people who are incontinent with respect to bodily
enjoyments, with which we say the temperate and the self-indulgent
man are concerned, (5) he who pursues the excesses of things pleasant—
and shuns those of things painful, of hunger and thirst and heat and cold
and all the objects of touch and taste—not by choice but contrary to his
choice and his judgment, is called incontinent, (10) not with the
qualification ‘in respect of this or that’, e. g. of anger, but just simply.
This is confirmed by the fact that men are called ‘soft’ with regard to
these pleasures, but not with regard to any of the others. And for this
reason we group together the incontinent and the self-indulgent, the
continent and the temperate man—but not any of these other types—
because they are concerned somehow with the same pleasures and pains;
but though these are concerned with the same objects, (15) they are not
similarly related to them, but some of them make a deliberate choice
while the others do not.17
This is why we should describe as self-indulgent rather the man who
without appetite or with but a slight appetite pursues the excesses of
pleasure and avoids moderate pains, than the man who does so because
of his strong appetites; for what would the former do, (20) if he had in
addition a vigorous appetite, and a violent pain at the lack of the
‘necessary’ objects?
Now of appetites and pleasures some belong to the class of things
generically noble and good—for some pleasant things are by nature
worthy of choice, while others are contrary to these, and others are
intermediate, to adopt our previous distinction18—e. g. wealth, gain, (25)
victory, honour. And with reference to all objects whether of this or of
the intermediate kind men are not blamed for being affected by them,
for desiring and loving them, but for doing so in a certain way, i. e. for
going to excess. (This is why all those who contrary to the rule either are
mastered by or pursue one of the objects which are naturally noble and
good, (30) e. g. those who busy themselves more than they ought about
honour or about children and parents, [are not wicked]; for these too are
goods, and those who busy themselves about them are praised; but yet
there is an excess even in them—if like Niobe one were to fight even
against the gods, or were to be as much devoted to one’s father as
Satyrus nicknamed ‘the filial’, who was thought to be very silly on this
point.19) [1148b] There is no wickedness, then, with regard to these
objects, for the reason named, viz. because each of them is by nature a
thing worthy of choice for its own sake; yet excesses in respect of them
are bad and to be avoided. (5) Similarly there is no incontinence with
regard to them; for incontinence is not only to be avoided but is also a
thing worthy of blame; but owing to a similarity in the state of feeling
people apply the name incontinence, adding in each case what it is in
respect of, as we may describe as a bad doctor or a bad actor one whom
we should not call bad, simply. As, then, in this case we do not apply the
term without qualification because each of these conditions is not
badness but only analogous to it, (10) so it is clear that in the other case
also that alone must be taken to be incontinence and continence which is
concerned with the same objects as temperance and self-indulgence, but
we apply the term to anger by virtue of a resemblance; and this is why
we say with a qualification ‘incontinent in respect of anger’ as we say
‘incontinent in respect of honour, or of gain’.

5 (1) Some things are pleasant by nature, (15) and of these (a) some
are so without qualification, and (b) others are so with reference to
particular classes either of animals or of men; while (2) others are not
pleasant by nature, but (a) some of them become so by reason of injuries
to the system, and (b) others by reason of acquired habits, and (c) others
by reason of originally bad natures. This being so, it is possible with
regard to each of the latter kinds to discover similar states of character
to those recognized with regard to the former; I mean (A) the brutish
states,20 (20) as in the case of the female who, they say, rips open
pregnant women and devours the infants, or of the things in which some
of the tribes about the Black Sea that have gone savage are said to
delight—in raw meat or in human flesh, or in lending their children to
one another to feast upon—or of the story told of Phalaris.21
These states are brutish, but (B) others arise as a result of disease22
(or, in some cases, of madness, as with the man who sacrificed and ate
his mother, (25) or with the slave who ate the liver of his fellow), and
others are morbid states (C) resulting from custom,23 e. g. the habit of
plucking out the hair or of gnawing the nails, or even coals or earth, and
in addition to these paederasty; for these arise in some by nature and in
others, as in those who have been the victims of lust from childhood, (30)
from habit.
 Now those in whom nature is the cause of such a state no one would
call incontinent, any more than one would apply the epithet to women
because of the passive part they play in copulation; nor would one apply
it to those who are in a morbid condition as a result of habit. To have
these various types of habit is beyond the limits of vice, as brutishness is
too; for a man who has them to master or be mastered by them is not
simple [continence or] incontinence but that which is so by analogy, as
the man who is in this condition in respect of fits of anger is to be called
incontinent in respect of that feeling, but not incontinent simply.
[1149a]
For every excessive state whether of folly, of cowardice, of self-
indulgence, (5) or of bad temper, is either brutish or morbid; the man
who is by nature apt to fear everything, even the squeak of a mouse, is
cowardly with a brutish cowardice, while the man who feared a weasel
did so in consequence of disease; and of foolish people those who by
nature are thoughtless and live by their senses alone are brutish, like
some races of the distant barbarians, (10) while those who are so as a
result of disease (e. g. of epilepsy) or of madness are morbid. Of these
characteristics it is possible to have some only at times, and not to be
mastered by them, e. g. Phalaris may have restrained a desire to eat the
flesh of a child or an appetite for unnatural sexual pleasure; but it is also
possible to be mastered, not merely to have the feelings. (15) Thus, as the
wickedness which is on the human level is called wickedness simply,
while that which is not is called wickedness not simply but with the
qualification ‘brutish’ or ‘morbid’, in the same way it is plain that some
incontinence is brutish and some morbid, (20) while only that which
corresponds to human self-indulgence is incontinence simply.
That incontinence and continence, then, are concerned only with the
same objects as self-indulgence and temperance and that what is
concerned with other objects is a type distinct from incontinence, and
called incontinence by a metaphor and not simply, is plain.

6 That incontinence in respect of anger is less disgraceful than that in

respect of the appetites is what we will now proceed to see. (25) (1) Anger
seems to listen to argument to some extent, but to mishear it, as do hasty
servants who run out before they have heard the whole of what one
says, and then muddle the order, or as dogs bark if there is but a knock
at the door, before looking to see if it is a friend; so anger by reason of
the warmth and hastiness of its nature, (30) though it hears, does not hear
an order, and springs to take revenge. For argument or imagination
informs us that we have been insulted or slighted, and anger, reasoning
as it were that anything like this must be fought against, boils up
straightway; while appetite, (35) if argument or perception merely says
that an object is pleasant, springs to the enjoyment of it. [1149b]
Therefore anger obeys the argument in a sense, but appetite does not. It
is therefore more disgraceful; for the man who is incontinent in respect
of anger is in a sense conquered by argument, while the other is
conquered by appetite and not by argument.
(2) Further, we pardon people more easily for following natural
desires, (5) since we pardon them more easily for following such appetites
as are common to all men, and in so far as they are common; now anger
and bad temper are more natural than the appetites for excess, i. e. for
unnecessary objects. Take for instance the man who defended himself on
the charge of striking his father by saying ‘yes, but he struck his father,
(10) and he struck his, and’ (pointing to his child) ‘this boy will strike me

when he is a man; it runs in the family’; or the man who when he was
being dragged along by his son bade him stop at the doorway, since he
himself had dragged his father only as far as that.
(3) Further, those who are more given to plotting against others are
more criminal. Now a passionate man is not given to plotting, (15) nor is
anger itself—it is open; but the nature of appetite is illustrated by what
the poets call Aphrodite, ‘guile-weaving daughter of Cyprus’, and by
Homer’s words about her ‘embroidered girdle’:

And the whisper of wooing is there,

Whose subtlety stealeth the wits of the wise, how prudent soe’er.24

Therefore if this form of incontinence is more criminal and disgraceful

than that in respect of anger, it is both incontinence without
qualification and in a sense vice.
(4) Further, no one commits wanton outrage with a feeling of pain, (20)
but every one who acts in anger acts with pain, while the man who
commits outrage acts with pleasure. If, then, those acts at which it is
most just to be angry are more criminal than others, the incontinence
which is due to appetite is the more criminal; for there is no wanton
outrage involved in anger.
Plainly, then, the incontinence concerned with appetite is more
disgraceful than that concerned with anger, (25) and continence and
incontinence are concerned with bodily appetites and pleasures; but we
must grasp the differences among the latter themselves. For, as has been
said at the beginning,25 some are human and natural both in kind and in
magnitude, others are brutish, and others are due to organic injuries and
diseases. Only with the first of these are temperance and self-indulgence
concerned; this is why we call the lower animals neither temperate nor
self-indulgent except by a metaphor, (30) and only if some one race of
animals exceeds another as a whole in wantonness, destructiveness, and
omnivorous greed; these have no power of choice or calculation, but
they are departures from the natural norm,26 as, (35) among men,
madmen are. [1150a] Now brutishness is a less evil than vice, though
more alarming; for it is not that the better part has been perverted, as in
man—they have no better part. Thus it is like comparing a lifeless thing
with a living in respect of badness; for the badness of that which has no
originative source of movement is always less hurtful, and reason is an
originative source. Thus it is like comparing injustice in the abstract with
an unjust man. (5) Each is in some sense worse; for a bad man will do ten
thousand times as much evil as a brute.

7 With regard to the pleasures and pains and appetites and aversions
arising through touch and taste, to which both self-indulgence and
temperance were formerly narrowed down,27 (10) it is possible to be in
such a state as to be defeated even by those of them which most people
master, or to master even those by which most people are defeated;
among these possibilities, those relating to pleasures are incontinence
and continence, those relating to pains softness and endurance. The state
of most people is intermediate, even if they lean more towards the worse
states. (15)
Now, since some pleasures are necessary while others are not, and are
necessary up to a point while the excesses of them are not, nor the
deficiencies, and this is equally true of appetites and pains, the man who
pursues the excesses of things pleasant, or pursues to excess necessary
objects, (20) and does so by choice, for their own sake and not at all for
the sake of any result distinct from them, is self-indulgent; for such a
man is of necessity unlikely to repent, and therefore incurable, since a
man who cannot repent cannot be cured. The man who is deficient in his
pursuit of them is the opposite of self-indulgent; the man who is
intermediate is temperate. Similarly, there is the man who avoids bodily
pains not because he is defeated by them but by choice. (25) (Of those
who do not choose such acts, one kind of man is led to them as a result
of the pleasure involved, another because he avoids the pain arising
from the appetite, so that these types differ from one another. Now any
one would think worse of a man if with no appetite or with weak
appetite he were to do something disgraceful, than if he did it under the
influence of powerful appetite, and worse of him if he struck a blow not
in anger than if he did it in anger; for what would he have done if he
had been strongly affected? This is why the self-indulgent man is worse
than the incontinent. (30)) Of the states named, then,28 the latter is rather
a kind of softness;29 the former is self-indulgence. While to the
incontinent man is opposed the continent, to the soft is opposed the man
of endurance; for endurance consists in resisting, (35) while continence
consists in conquering, and resisting and conquering are different, as not
being beaten is different from winning; this is why continence is also
more worthy of choice than endurance. [1150b] Now the man who is
defective in respect of resistance to the things which most men both
resist and resist successfully is soft and effeminate; for effeminacy too is
a kind of softness; such a man trails his cloak to avoid the pain of lifting
it, and plays the invalid without thinking himself wretched, though the
man he imitates is a wretched man.
The case is similar with regard to continence and incontinence. (5) For
if a man is defeated by violent and excessive pleasures or pains, there is
nothing wonderful in that; indeed we are ready to pardon him if he has
resisted, as Theodectes’ Philoctetes does when bitten by the snake, (10) or
Carcinus’ Cercyon in the Alope, and as people who try to restrain their
laughter burst out in a guffaw, as happened to Xenophantus. But it is
surprising if a man is defeated by and cannot resist pleasures or pains
which most men can hold out against, when this is not due to heredity
or disease, like the softness that is hereditary with the kings of the
Scythians, or that which distinguishes the female sex from the male. (15)
The lover of amusement, too, is thought to be self-indulgent, but is
really soft. For amusement is a relaxation, since it is a rest from work;
and the lover of amusement is one of the people who go to excess in this.
Of incontinence one kind is impetuosity, another weakness. For some
men after deliberating fail, owing to their emotion, (20) to stand by the
conclusions of their deliberation, others because they have not
deliberated are led by their emotion; since some men (just as people who
first tickle others are not tickled themselves), if they have first perceived
and seen what is coming and have first roused themselves and their
calculative faculty, are not defeated by their emotion, whether it be
pleasant or painful. It is keen and excitable people that suffer especially
from the impetuous form of incontinence; for the former by reason of
their quickness and the latter by reason of the violence of their passions
do not await the argument, (25) because they are apt to follow their
imagination.

8 The self-indulgent man, as was said,30 is not apt to repent; for he

stands by his choice; but any incontinent man is likely to repent. (30) This
is why the position is not as it was expressed in the formulation of the
problem,31 but the self-indulgent man is incurable and the incontinent
man curable; for wickedness is like a disease such as dropsy or
consumption, while incontinence is like epilepsy; the former is a
permanent, the latter an intermittent badness. (35) And generally
incontinence and vice are different in kind; vice is unconscious of itself,
incontinence is not (of incontinent men themselves, those who become
temporarily beside themselves are better than those who have the
rational principle but do not abide by it, since the latter are defeated by
a weaker passion, and do not act without previous deliberation like the
others); for the incontinent man is like the people who get drunk quickly
and on little wine, i. e. on less than most people. [1151a]
Evidently, then, incontinence is not vice (though perhaps it is so in a
qualified sense); for incontinence is contrary to choice while vice is in
accordance with choice; not but what they are similar in respect of the
actions they lead to; as in the saying of Demodocus about the Milesians,
(5) ‘the Milesians are not without sense, but they do the things that

senseless people do’, so too incontinent people are not criminal, (10) but
they will do criminal acts.
Now, since the incontinent man is apt to pursue, not on conviction,
bodily pleasures that are excessive and contrary to the right rule, while
the self-indulgent man is convinced because he is the sort of man to
pursue them, it is on the contrary the former that is easily persuaded to
change his mind, (15) while the latter is not. For virtue and vice
respectively preserve and destroy the first principle, and in actions the
final cause is the first principle, as the hypotheses32 are in mathematics;
neither in that case is it argument that teaches the first principles, nor is
it so here—virtue either natural or produced by habituation is what
teaches right opinion about the first principle. Such a man as this, then,
is temperate; his contrary is the self-indulgent. (20)
But there is a sort of man who is carried away as a result of passion
and contrary to the right rule—a man whom passion masters so that he
does not act according to the right rule, but does not master to the
extent of making him ready to believe that he ought to pursue such
pleasures without reserve; this is the incontinent man, (25) who is better
than the self-indulgent man, and not bad without qualification; for the
best thing in him, the first principle, is preserved. And contrary to him is
another kind of man, he who abides by his convictions and is not carried
away, at least as a result of passion. It is evident from these
considerations that the latter is a good state and the former a bad one.

9 Is the man continent who abides by any and every rule and any and
every choice, or the man who abides by the right choice, (30) and is he
incontinent who abandons any and every choice and any and every rule,
or he who abandons the rule that is not false and the choice that is right;
this is how we put it before in our statement of the problem.33 Or is it
incidentally any and every choice but per se the true rule and the right
choice by which the one abides and the other does not? If any one
chooses or pursues this for the sake of that, (35) per se he pursues and
chooses the latter, but incidentally the former. [1151b] But when we
speak without qualification we mean what is per se. Therefore in a sense
the one abides by, and the other abandons, any and every opinion; but
without qualification, the true opinion.
There are some who are apt to abide by their opinion, (5) who are
called strong-headed, viz. those who are hard to persuade in the first
instance and are not easily persuaded to change; these have in them
something like the continent man, as the prodigal is in a way like the
liberal man and the rash man like the confident man; but they are
different in many respects. For it is to passion and appetite that the one
will not yield, since on occasion the continent man will be easy to
persuade; but it is to argument that the others refuse to yield, (10) for
they do form appetites and many of them are led by their pleasures.
Now the people who are strong-headed are the opinionated, the
ignorant, and the boorish—the opinionated being influenced by pleasure
and pain; for they delight in the victory they gain if they are not
persuaded to change, and are pained if their decisions become null and
void as decrees sometimes do; so that they are liker the incontinent than
the continent man. (15)
But there are some who fail to abide by their resolutions, not as a
result of incontinence, e. g. Neoptolemus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes; yet it
was for the sake of pleasure that he did not stand fast—but a noble
pleasure; for telling the truth was noble to him, (20) but he had been
persuaded by Odysseus to tell the lie. For not every one who does
anything for the sake of pleasure is either self-indulgent or bad or
incontinent, but he who does it for a disgraceful pleasure.
Since there is also a sort of man who takes less delight than he should
in bodily things, and does not abide by the rule, he who is intermediate
between him and the incontinent man is the continent man; for the
incontinent man fails to abide by the rule because he delights too much
in them, (25) and this man because he delights in them too little; while
the continent man abides by the rule and does not change on either
account. Now if continence is good, both the contrary states must be
bad, as they actually appear to be; but because the other extreme is seen
in few people and seldom, (30) as temperance is thought to be contrary
only to self-indulgence, so is continence to incontinence.
Since many names are applied analogically, it is by analogy that we
have come to speak of the ‘continence’ of the temperate man; for both
the continent man and the temperate man are such as to do nothing
contrary to the rule for the sake of the bodily pleasures, (35) but the
former has and the latter has not bad appetites, and the latter is such as
not to feel pleasure contrary to the rule, while the former is such as to
feel pleasure but not to be led by it. [1152a] And the incontinent and
the self-indulgent man are also like another; they are different, (5) but
both pursue bodily pleasures—the latter, however, also thinking that he
ought to do so, while the former does not think this.

10 Nor can the same man have practical wisdom and be incontinent;
for it has been shown34 that a man is at the same time practically wise,
and good in respect of character. Further, a man has practical wisdom
not by knowing only but by being able to act; but the incontinent man is
unable to act—there is, however, nothing to prevent a clever man from
being incontinent; this is why it is sometimes actually thought that some
people have practical wisdom but are incontinent, (10) viz. because
cleverness and practical wisdom differ in the way we have described in
our first discussions,35 and are near together in respect of their
reasoning, but differ in respect of their purpose—nor yet is the
incontinent man like the man who knows and is contemplating a truth,
(15) but like the man who is asleep or drunk. And he acts willingly (for he

acts in a sense with knowledge both of what he does and of the end to
which he does it), but is not wicked, since his purpose is good; so that he
is half-wicked. And he is not a criminal; for he does not act of malice
aforethought; of the two types of incontinent man the one does not abide
by the conclusions of his deliberation, (20) while the excitable man does
not deliberate at all. And thus the incontinent man is like a city which
passes all the right decrees and has good laws, but makes no use of
them, as in Anaxandrides’ jesting remark,

‘The city willed it, that cares nought for laws’;

but the wicked man is like a city that uses its laws, but has wicked laws
to use.
Now incontinence and continence are concerned with that which is in
excess of the state characteristic of most men; for the continent man
abides by his resolutions more and the incontinent man less than most
men can. (25)
Of the forms of incontinence, that of excitable people is more curable
than that of those who deliberate but do not abide by their decisions,
and those who are incontinent through habituation are more curable
than those in whom incontinence is innate; for it is easier to change a
habit than to change one’s nature; even habit is hard to change just
because it is like nature, (30) as Evenus says:

I say that habit’s but long practice, friend,

And this becomes men’s nature in the end.

We have now stated what continence, incontinence, endurance, (35)

and softness are, and how these states are related to each other.

11 [1152b] The study of pleasure and pain belongs to the province

of the political philosopher; for he is the architect of the end, with a
view to which we call one thing bad and another good without
qualification. Further, it is one of our necessary tasks to consider them;
for not only did we lay it down that moral virtue and vice are concerned
with pains and pleasures,36 (5) but most people say that happiness
involves pleasure; this is why the blessed man is called by a name
derived from a word meaning enjoyment.37
Now (1) some people think that no pleasure is a good, either in itself
or incidentally, since the good and pleasure are not the same; (2) others
think that some pleasures are good but that most are bad. (10) (3) Again
there is a third view, that even if all pleasures are goods, yet the best
thing in the world cannot be pleasure. (1) The reasons given for the view
that pleasure is not a good at all are (a) that every pleasure is a
perceptible process to a natural state, and that no process is of the same
kind as its end, e. g. no process of building of the same kind as a house.
(15) (b) A temperate man avoids pleasures. (c) A man of practical wisdom

pursues what is free from pain, not what is pleasant. (d) The pleasures
are a hindrance to thought, and the more so the more one delights in
them, e. g. in sexual pleasure; for no one could think of anything while
absorbed in this. (e) There is no art of pleasure; but every good is the
product of some art. (f) Children and the brutes pursue pleasures. (2)
The reasons for the view that not all pleasures are good are that (a)
there are pleasures that are actually base and objects of reproach, (20)
and (b) there are harmful pleasures; for some pleasant things are
unhealthy. (3) The reason for the view that the best thing in the world is
not pleasure is that pleasure is not an end but a process.

12 These are pretty much the things that are said. (25) That it does not
follow from these grounds that pleasure is not a good, or even the chief
good, is plain from the following considerations. (A)38 (a) First, since
that which is good may be so in either of two senses (one thing good
simply and another good for a particular person), natural constitutions
and states of being, and therefore also the corresponding movements and
processes, will be correspondingly divisible. Of those which are thought
to be bad some will be bad if taken without qualification but not bad for
a particular person, but worthy of his choice, (30) and some will not be
worthy of choice even for a particular person, but only at a particular
time and for a short period, though not without qualification; while
others are not even pleasures, but seem to be so, viz. all those which
involve pain and whose end is curative, e. g. the processes that go on in
sick persons.
(b) Further, one kind of good being activity and another being state,
the processes that restore us to our natural state are only incidentally
pleasant; for that matter the activity at work in the appetites for them is
the activity of so much of our state and nature as has remained
unimpaired; for there are actually pleasures that involve no pain or
appetite (e. g. those of contemplation), (35) the nature in such a case not
being defective at all. [1153a] That the others are incidental is
indicated by the fact that men do not enjoy the same pleasant objects
when their nature is in its settled state as they do when it is being
replenished, but in the former case they enjoy the things that are
pleasant without qualification, in the latter the contraries of these as
well; for then they enjoy even sharp and bitter things, (5) none of which
is pleasant either by nature or without qualification. The states they
produce, therefore, are not pleasures naturally or without qualification;
for as pleasant things differ, so do the pleasures arising from them.
(c) Again, it is not necessary that there should be something else better
than pleasure, as some say the end is better than the process; for
pleasures are not processes nor do they all involve process—they are
activities and ends; nor do they arise when we are becoming something,
(10) but when we are exercising some faculty; and not all pleasures have

an end different from themselves, but only the pleasures of persons who
are being led to the perfecting of their nature. This is why it is not right
to say that pleasure is perceptible process, (15) but it should rather be
called activity of the natural state, and instead of ‘perceptible’
‘unimpeded’. It is thought by some people to be process just because they
think it is in the strict sense good; for they think that activity is process,
which it is not.
(B)39 The view that pleasures are bad because some pleasant things
are unhealthy is like saying that healthy things are bad because some
healthy things are bad for money-making; both are bad in the respect
mentioned, (20) but they are not bad for that reason—indeed, thinking
itself is sometimes injurious to health.
Neither practical wisdom nor any state of being is impeded by the
pleasure arising from it; it is foreign pleasures that impede, for the
pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and
learn all the more.
(C)40 The fact that no pleasure is the product of any art arises
naturally enough; there is no art of any other activity either, (25) but only
of the corresponding faculty; though for that matter the arts of the
perfumer and the cook are thought to be arts of pleasure.
(D)41 The arguments based on the grounds that the temperate man
avoids pleasure and that the man of practical wisdom pursues the
painless life, and that children and the brutes pursue pleasure, are all
refuted by the same consideration. We have pointed out42 in what sense
pleasures are good without qualification and in what sense some are not
good; now both the brutes and children pursue pleasures of the latter
kind (and the man of practical wisdom pursues tranquil freedom from
that kind), (30) viz. those which imply appetite and pain, i. e. the bodily
pleasures (for it is these that are of this nature) and the excesses of them,
in respect of which the self-indulgent man is self-indulgent. This is why
the temperate man avoids these pleasures; for even he has pleasures of
his own. (35)
13 [1153b] But further (E) it is agreed that pain is bad and to be
avoided; for some pain is without qualification bad, and other pain is
bad because it is in some respect an impediment to us. Now the contrary
of that which is to be avoided, qua something to be avoided and bad, is
good. Pleasure, then, is necessarily a good. For the answer of
Speusippus, that pleasure is contrary both to pain and to good, (5) as the
greater is contrary both to the less and to the equal, is not successful;
since he would not say that pleasure is essentially just a species of evil.
And (F)43 if certain pleasures are bad, that does not prevent the chief
good from being some pleasure, just as the chief good may be some form
of knowledge though certain kinds of knowledge are bad. Perhaps it is
even necessary, if each disposition has unimpeded activities, (10) that,
whether the activity (if unimpeded) of all our dispositions or that of
some one of them is happiness, this should be the thing most worthy of
our choice; and this activity is pleasure. Thus the chief good would be
some pleasure, though most pleasures might perhaps be bad without
qualification. And for this reason all men think that the happy life is
pleasant and weave pleasure into their ideal of happiness—and
reasonably too; for no activity is perfect when it is impeded, (15) and
happiness is a perfect thing; this is why the happy man needs the goods
of the body and external goods, i. e. those of fortune, viz. in order that
he may not be impeded in these ways. Those who say that the victim on
the rack or the man who falls into great misfortunes is happy if he is
good, are, whether they mean to or not, talking nonsense. (20) Now
because we need fortune as well as other things, some people think good
fortune the same thing as happiness; but it is not that, for even good
fortune itself when in excess is an impediment, and perhaps should then
be no longer called good fortune; for its limit is fixed by reference to
happiness.
And indeed the fact that all things, (25) both brutes and men, pursue
pleasure is an indication of its being somehow the chief good:

No voice is wholly lost that many peoples …

But since no one nature or state either is or is thought the best for all, (30)
neither do all pursue the same pleasure; yet all pursue pleasure. And
perhaps they actually pursue not the pleasure they think they pursue nor
that which they would say they pursue, but the same pleasure; for all
things have by nature something divine in them. But the bodily
pleasures have appropriated the name both because we oftenest steer
our course for them and because all men share in them; thus because
they alone are familiar, (35) men think there are no others. [1154a]
It is evident also that if pleasure, i. e. the activity of our faculties, is
not a good, it will not be the case that the happy man lives a pleasant
life; for to what end should he need pleasure, if it is not a good but the
happy man may even live a painful life? For pain is neither an evil nor a
good, (5) if pleasure is not; why then should he avoid it? Therefore, too,
the life of the good man will not be pleasanter than that of any one else,
if his activities are not more pleasant.

14 (G)44 With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who say that some
pleasures are very much to be chosen, viz. the noble pleasures, (10) but
not the bodily pleasures, i. e. those with which the self-indulgent man is
concerned, must consider why, then, the contrary things are bad. For the
contrary of bad is good. Are the necessary pleasures good in the sense in
which even that which is not bad is good? Or are they good up to a
point? Is it that where you have states and processes of which there
cannot be too much, there cannot be too much of the corresponding
pleasure, and that where there can be too much of the one there can be
too much of the other also? Now there can be too much of bodily goods,
(15) and the bad man is bad by virtue of pursuing the excess, not by

virtue of pursuing the necessary pleasures (for all men enjoy in some
way or other both dainty foods and wines and sexual intercourse, but
not all men do so as they ought). The contrary is the case with pain; for
he does not avoid the excess of it, (20) he avoids it altogether; and this is
peculiar to him, for the alternative to excess of pleasure is not pain,
except to the man who pursues this excess.
Since we should state not only the truth, but also the cause of error—
for this contributes towards producing conviction, since when a
reasonable explanation is given of why the false view appears true, this
tends to produce belief in the true view—therefore we must state why
the bodily pleasures appear the more worthy of choice. (25) (a) Firstly,
then, it is because they expel pain; owing to the excesses of pain that
men experience, they pursue excessive and in general bodily pleasure as
being a cure for the pain. (30) Now curative agencies produce intense
feeling—which is the reason why they are pursued—because they show
up against the contrary pain. (Indeed pleasure is thought not to be good
for these two reasons, as has been said,45 viz. that (a) some of them are
activities belonging to a bad nature—either congenital, as in the case of
a brute, or due to habit, i. e. those of bad men; while (β) others are
meant to cure a defective nature, and it is better to be in a healthy state
than to be getting into it, but these arise during the process of being
made perfect and are therefore only incidentally good.) [1154b] (b)
Further, they are pursued because of their violence by those who cannot
enjoy other pleasures. (At all events they go out of their way to
manufacture thirsts somehow for themselves. When these are harmless,
the practice is irreproachable; when they are hurtful, it is bad.) For they
have nothing else to enjoy, and, besides, (5) a neutral state is painful to
many people because of their nature. For the animal nature is always in
travail, as the students of natural science also testify, saying that sight
and hearing are painful; but we have become used to this, as they
maintain. Similarly, while, in youth, people are, owing to the growth
that is going on, in a situation like that of drunken men, and youth is
pleasant,46 on the other hand people of excitable nature47 always need
relief; for even their body is ever in torment owing to its special
composition, (10) and they are always under the influence of violent
desire; but pain is driven out both by the contrary pleasure, and by any
chance pleasure if it be strong; and for these reasons they become self-
indulgent and bad. (15) But the pleasures that do not involve pains do not
admit of excess; and these are among the things pleasant by nature and
not incidentally. By things pleasant incidentally I mean those that act as
cures (for because as a result people are cured, through some action of
the part that remains healthy, for this reason the process is thought
pleasant); by things naturally pleasant I mean those that stimulate the
action of the healthy nature.
There is no one thing that is always pleasant, (20) because our nature is
not simple but there is another element in us as well, inasmuch as we
are perishable creatures, so that if the one element does something, this
is unnatural to the other nature, and when the two elements are evenly
balanced, what is done seems neither painful nor pleasant; for if the
nature of anything were simple, (25) the same action would always be
most pleasant to it. This is why God always enjoys a single and simple
pleasure; for there is not only an activity of movement but an activity of
immobility, and pleasure is found more in rest than in movement. But
‘change in all things is sweet’, as the poet says, because of some vice; for
as it is the vicious man that is changeable, (30) so the nature that needs
change is vicious; for it is not simple nor good.
We have now discussed continence and incontinence, and pleasure
and pain, both what each is and in what sense some of them are good
and others bad; it remains to speak of friendship.

1 Il. xxiv. 258 f.

2 Ch. 5.

3 Bks. II–V.

4 Pl. Prot. 352 B, C.

5 1140b 4–6.

6 1141b 16, 1142a 24.

7 1144b 30–1145a 2.

8 ll. 895–916.

9 i. e., if I am to be able to deduce from (a) ‘dry food is good for all men’ that ‘this food is good
for me’, I must have (b) the premiss ‘I am a man’ and (c) the premisses (i) ‘x food is dry’, (ii) ‘this
food is x’. I cannot fail to know (b), and I may know (c i); but if I do not know (c ii), or know it
only ‘at the back of my my mind’, I shall not draw the conclusion.
10 i. e. in scientific reasoning.

11 i. e. determines action (Cf. b10).

12 Cf. a10–24.

13 1145b 22–24.

14 Even before the minor premiss of the practical syllogism has been obscured by passion, the
incontinent man has not scientific knowledge in the strict sense, since his minor premiss is not
universal but has for its subject a sensible particular, e. g. ‘this glass of wine’.
15 III. 10.

16 i. e. the definition appropriate to him was not ‘rational animal’ but ‘rational animal who won
the boxing contest at Olympia in 456 B. C.’
17 i. e. the temperate and the self-indulgent, not the continent and the incontinent.

18 1147b 23–31, where, however, the ‘contraries’ are not mentioned.

19 Nothing is really known about the Satyrus referred to, but Prof. Burnet’s suggestion that he
was a king of Bosporus who deified his father seems probable.
20 Answering to (2 c).

21 sc. and the bull. But Cf. 1149a 14.

22 Answering to (2 a).

23 Answering to (2 b).

24 Il. xiv. 214, 217.

25 1148b 15–31.

26 And therefore cannot be called self-indulgent properly, but can be so called by a metaphor.

27 III. 10.

28 In ll. 19–25.

29 Not softness proper, which is non-deliberate avoidance of pain (ll. 13–15).

30 a 21.

31 1146a 31-b 2.

32 i. e. the assumptions of the existence of the primary objects of mathematics, such as the
straight line or the unit.
33 1146a 16–31.

34 1144a 11-b 32.

35 1144a 23-b4.

36 1104b 8–1105a 13.

37 makarios from mala chairein!

38 (A) is the answer to (1 a) and (3).

39 Answer to (2 b) and (1 d).

40 Answer to (1 e).

41 Answer to (1 b), (1 c), (1 f).

42 1152b 26–1153a 7.

43 Answer to (2 a).

44 Answer to (2).

45 1152b 26–33.

46 i. e. the growth or replenishment that is going on produces exhilaration and pleasure.

47 Lit., melancholic people, those characterized by an excess of black bile.

 BOOK VIII

1 [1155a] After what we have said, a discussion of friendship would

naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue, (5) and is besides
most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would
choose to live, though he had all other goods; even rich men and those
in possession of office and of dominating power are thought to need
friends most of all; for what is the use of such prosperity without the
opportunity of beneficence, which is exercised chiefly and in its most
laudable form towards friends? Or how can prosperity be guarded and
preserved without friends? The greater it is, (10) the more exposed is it to
risk. And in poverty and in other misfortunes men think friends are the
only refuge. It helps the young, too, to keep from error; it aids older
people by ministering to their needs and supplementing the activities
that are failing from weakness; those in the prime of life it stimulates to
noble actions—‘two going together’1—for with friends men are more
able both to think and to act. (15) Again, parent seems by nature to feel it
for offspring and offspring for parent, not only among men but among
birds and among most animals; it is felt mutually by members of the
same race, (20) and especially by men, whence we praise lovers of their
fellowmen. We may see even in our travels how near and dear every
man is to every other. Friendship seems too to hold states together, and
lawgivers to care more for it than for justice; for unanimity seems to be
something like friendship, and this they aim at most of all, and expel
faction as their worst enemy; and when men are friends they have no
need of justice, (25) while when they are just they need friendship as well,
and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.
But it is not only necessary but also noble; for we praise those who
love their friends, and it is thought to be a fine thing to have many
friends; and again we think it is the same people that are good men and
are friends. (30)
Not a few things about friendship are matters of debate. Some define
it as a kind of likeness and say like people are friends, whence come the
sayings ‘like to like’, ‘birds of a feather flock together’, (35) and so on;
others on the contrary say ‘two of a trade never agree’. [1155b] On
this very question they inquire for deeper and more physical causes,
Euripides saying that ‘parched earth loves the rain, and stately heaven
when filled with rain loves to fall to earth’, and Heraclitus that ‘it is
what opposes that helps’ and ‘from different tones comes the fairest tune’
and ‘all things are produced through strife’; while Empedocles, (5) as well
as others, expresses the opposite view that like aims at like. The physical
problems we may leave alone (for they do not belong to the present
inquiry); let us examine those which are human and involve character
and feeling, (10) e. g. whether friendship can arise between any two
people or people cannot be friends if they are wicked, and whether there
is one species of friendship or more than one. Those who think there is
only one because it admits of degrees have relied on an inadequate
indication; for even things different in species admit of degree. (15) We
have discussed this matter previously.

2 The kinds of friendship may perhaps be cleared up if we first come

to know the object of love. For not everything seems to be loved but
only the lovable, and this is good, pleasant, or useful; but it would seem
to be that by which some good or pleasure is produced that is useful, so
that it is the good and the useful that are lovable as ends. Do men love,
(20) then, the good, or what is good for them? These sometimes clash. So

too with regard to the pleasant. Now it is thought that each loves what is
good for himself, and that the good is without qualification lovable, and
what is good for each man is lovable for him; but each man loves not
what is good for him but what seems good. (25) This however will make
no difference; we shall just have to say that this is ‘that which seems
lovable’. Now there are three grounds on which people love; of the love
of lifeless objects we do not use the word ‘friendship’; for it is not mutual
love, nor is there a wishing of good to the other (for it would surely be
ridiculous to wish wine well; if one wishes anything for it, (30) it is that it
may keep, so that one may have it oneself); but to a friend we say we
ought to wish what is good for his sake. But to those who thus wish good
we ascribe only goodwill, if the wish is not reciprocated; goodwill when
it is reciprocal being friendship. Or must we add ‘when it is recognized’?
 For many people have goodwill to those whom they have not seen
(35)

but judge to be good or useful; and one of these might return this
feeling. [1156a] These people seem to bear goodwill to each other; but
how could one call them friends when they do not know their mutual
feelings? To be friends, then, they must be mutually recognized as
bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of the aforesaid
reasons. (5)

3 Now these reasons differ from each other in kind; so, therefore, do
the corresponding forms of love and friendship. There are therefore
three kinds of friendship, equal in number to the things that are
loveable; for with respect to each there is a mutual and recognized love,
and those who love each other wish well to each other in that respect in
which they love one another. (10) Now those who love each other for
their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some
good which they get from each other. So too with those who love for the
sake of pleasure; it is not for their character that men love ready-witted
people, but because they find them pleasant. (15) Therefore those who
love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good for
themselves, and those who love for the sake of pleasure do so for the sake
of what is pleasant to themselves, and not in so far as the other is the
person loved but in so far as he is useful or pleasant. And thus these
friendships are only incidental; for it is not as being the man he is that
the loved person is loved, but as providing some good or pleasure. (20)
Such friendships, then, are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain
like themselves; for if the one party is no longer pleasant or useful the
other ceases to love him.
Now the useful is not permanent but is always changing. Thus when
the motive of the friendship is done away, the friendship is dissolved,
inasmuch as it existed only for the ends in question. (25) This kind of
friendship seems to exist chiefly between old people (for at that age
people pursue not the pleasant but the useful) and, of those who are in
their prime or young, between those who pursue utility. And such
people do not live much with each other either; for sometimes they do
not even find each other pleasant; therefore they do not need such
companionship unless they are useful to each other; for they are pleasant
to each other only in so far as they rouse in each other hopes of
something good to come. (30) Among such friendships people also class
the friendship of host and guest. On the other hand the friendship of
young people seems to aim at pleasure; for they live under the guidance
of emotion, and pursue above all what is pleasant to themselves and
what is immediately before them; but with increasing age their pleasures
become different. This is why they quickly become friends and quickly
cease to be so; their friendship changes with the object that is found
pleasant, (35) and such pleasure alters quickly. Young people are amorous
too; for the greater part of the friendship of love depends on emotion
and aims at pleasure; this is why they fall in love and quickly fall out of
love, changing often within a single day. [1156b] But these people do
wish to spend their days and lives together; for it is thus that they attain
the purpose of their friendship. (5)
Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in
virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are
good in themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their
sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of their own
nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as
they are good—and goodness is an enduring thing. (10) And each is good
without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both good
without qualification and useful to each other. (15) So too they are
pleasant; for the good are pleasant both without qualification and to
each other, since to each his own activities and others like them are
pleasurable, and the actions of the good are the same or like. And such a
friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there meet in it all
the qualities that friends should have. For all friendship is for the sake of
good or of pleasure—good or pleasure either in the abstract or such as
will be enjoyed by him who has the friendly feeling—and is based on a
certain resemblance; and to a friendship of good men all the qualities we
have named belong in virtue of the nature of the friends themselves; for
in the case of this kind of friendship the other qualities also2 are alike in
both friends, (20) and that which is good without qualification is also
without qualification pleasant, and these are the most lovable qualities.
Love and friendship therefore are found most and in their best form
between such men.
 But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for such
men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and familiarity; as
the proverb says, (25) men cannot know each other till they have ‘eaten
salt together’; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends
till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each. Those who
quickly show the marks of friendship to each other wish to be friends,
(30) but are not friends unless they both are lovable and know the fact;

for a wish for friendship may arise quickly, but friendship does not.

4 This kind of friendship, then, is perfect both in respect of duration

and in all other respects, and in it each gets from each in all respects the
same as, or something like what, he gives; which is what ought to
happen between friends. (35) Friendship for the sake of pleasure bears a
resemblance to this kind; for good people too are pleasant to each other.
[1157a] So too does friendship for the sake of utility; for the good are
also useful to each other. Among men of these inferior sorts too,
friendships are most permanent when the friends get the same thing
from each other (e. g. pleasure), (5) and not only that but also from the
same source, as happens between ready-witted people, not as happens
between lover and beloved. For these do not take pleasure in the same
things, but the one in seeing the beloved and the other in receiving
attentions from his lover; and when the bloom of youth is passing the
friendship sometimes passes too (for the one finds no pleasure in the
sight of the other, and the other gets no attentions from the first); but
many lovers on the other hand are constant, (10) if familiarity has led
them to love each other’s characters, these being alike. But those who
exchange not pleasure but utility in their amour are both less truly
friends and less constant. (15) Those who are friends for the sake of utility
part when the advantage is at an end; for they were lovers not of each
other but of profit.
For the sake of pleasure or utility, then, even bad men may be friends
of each other, or good men of bad, or one who is neither good nor bad
may be a friend to any sort of person, but for their own sake clearly only
good men can be friends; for bad men do not delight in each other unless
some advantage come of the relation.
The friendship of the good too and this alone is proof against slander;
for it is not easy to trust any one’s talk about a man who has long been
tested by oneself; and it is among good men that trust and the feeling
that ‘he would never wrong me’ and all the other things that are
demanded in true friendship are found. (20) In the other kinds of
friendship, however, there is nothing to prevent these evils arising. (20)
For men apply the name of friends even to those whose motive is
utility, in which sense states are said to be friendly (for the alliances of
states seem to aim at advantage), and to those who love each other for
the sake of pleasure, in which sense children are called friends.
Therefore we too ought perhaps to call such people friends, (30) and say
that there are several kinds of friendship—firstly and in the proper sense
that of good men qua good, and by analogy the other kinds; for it is in
virtue of something good and something akin to what is found in true
friendship that they are friends, since even the pleasant is good for the
lovers of pleasure. But these two kinds of friendship are not often united,
nor do the same people become friends for the sake of utility and of
pleasure; for things that are only incidentally connected are not often
coupled together. (35)
[1157b] Friendship being divided into these kinds, bad men will be
friends for the sake of pleasure or of utility, being in this respect like
each other, but good men will be friends for their own sake, i. e. in
virtue of their goodness. These, then, are friends without qualification;
the others are friends incidentally and through a resemblance to these.

5 As in regard to the virtues some men are called good in respect of a

state of character, (5) others in respect of an activity, so too in the case of
friendship; for those who live together delight in each other and confer
benefits on each other, but those who are asleep or locally separated are
not performing, but are disposed to perform, the activities of friendship;
distance does not break off the friendship absolutely, (10) but only the
activity of it. But if the absence is lasting, it seems actually to make men
forget their friendship; hence the saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’.
Neither old people nor sour people seem to make friends easily; for there
is little that is pleasant in them, and no one can spend his days with one
whose company is painful, (15) or not pleasant, since nature seems above
all to avoid the painful and to aim at the pleasant. Those, however, who
approve of each other but do not live together seem to be well-disposed
rather than actual friends. For there is nothing so characteristic of
friends as living together (since while it is people who are in need that
desire benefits, (20) even those who are supremely happy desire to spend
their days together; for solitude suits such people least of all); but people
cannot live together if they are not pleasant and do not enjoy the same
things, as friends who are companions seem to do.
The truest friendship, then, is that of the good, (25) as we have
frequently said;3 for that which is without qualification good or pleasant
seems to be lovable and desirable, and for each person that which is
good or pleasant to him; and the good man is lovable and desirable to
the good man for both these reasons. Now it looks as if love were a
feeling, friendship a state of character; for love may be felt just as much
towards lifeless things, (30) but mutual love involves choice and choice
springs from a state of character; and men wish well to those whom they
love, for their sake, not as a result of feeling but as a result of a state of
character. And in loving a friend men love what is good for themselves;
for the good man in becoming a friend becomes a good to his friend.
Each, (35) then, both loves what is good for himself, and makes an equal
return in goodwill and in pleasantness; for friendship is said to be
equality, and both of these are found most in the friendship of the good.

6 [1158a] Between sour and elderly people friendship arises less

readily, inasmuch as they are less good-tempered and enjoy
companionship less; for these are thought to be the greatest marks of
friendship and most productive of it. This is why, while young men
become friends quickly, (5) old men do not; it is because men do not
become friends with those in whom they do not delight; and similarly
sour people do not quickly make friends either. But such men may bear
goodwill to each other; for they wish one another well and aid one
another in need; but they are hardly friends because they do not spend
their days together nor delight in each other, and these are thought the
greatest marks of friendship. (10)
One cannot be a friend to many people in the sense of having
friendship of the perfect type with them, just as one cannot be in love
with many people at once (for love is a sort of excess of feeling, and it is
the nature of such only to be felt towards one person); and it is not easy
for many people at the same time to please the same person very greatly,
or perhaps even to be good in his eyes. One must, too, acquire some
experience of the other person and become familiar with him, (15) and
that is very hard. But with a view to utility or pleasure it is possible that
many people should please one; for many people are useful or pleasant,
and these services take little time.
Of these two kinds that which is for the sake of pleasure is the more
like friendship, when both parties get the same things from each other
and delight in each other or in the same things, (20) as in the friendships
of the young; for generosity is more found in such friendships.
Friendship based on utility is for the commercially minded. People who
are supremely happy, too, have no need of useful friends, but do need
pleasant friends; for they wish to live with some one and, though they
can endure for a short time what is painful, no one could put up with it
continuously, nor even with the Good itself if it were painful to him; this
is why they look out for friends who are pleasant. (25) Perhaps they
should look out for friends who, being pleasant, are also good, and good
for them, too; for so they will have all the characteristics that friends
should have.
People in positions of authority seem to have friends who fall into
distinct classes; some people are useful to them and others are pleasant,
but the same people are rarely both; for they seek neither those whose
pleasantness is accompanied by virtue nor those whose utility is with a
view to noble objects, (30) but in their desire for pleasure they seek for
ready-witted people, and their other friends they choose as being clever
at doing what they are told, and these characteristics are rarely
combined. Now we have said that the good man is at the same time
pleasant and useful;4 but such a man does not become the friend of one
who surpasses him in station, unless he is surpassed also in virtue; if this
is not so, he does not establish equality by being proportionally
exceeded in both respects. (35) But people who surpass him in both
respects are not so easy to find.
However that may be, the aforesaid friendships involve equality; for
the friends get the same things from one another and wish the same
things for one another, or exchange one thing for another, e. g. pleasure
for utility; we have said,5 however, that they are both less truly
friendships and less permanent. But it is from their likeness and their
unlikeness to the same thing that they are thought both to be and not to
be friendships. (5) It is by their likeness to the friendship of virtue that
they seem to be friendships (for one of them involves pleasure and the
other utility, and these characteristics belong to the friendship of virtue
as well); while it is because the friendship of virtue is proof against
slander and permanent, while these quickly change (besides differing
from the former in many other respects), that they appear not to be
friendships; i. e. it is because of their unlikeness to the friendship of
virtue. (10)

7 But there is another kind of friendship, viz. that which involves an

inequality between the parties, e. g. that of father to son and in general
of elder to younger, that of man to wife and in general that of ruler to
subject. And these friendships differ also from each other; for it is not
the same that exists between parents and children and between rulers
and subjects, (15) nor is even that of father to son the same as that of son
to father, nor that of husband to wife the same as that of wife to
husband. For the virtue and the function of each of these is different,
and so are the reasons for which they love; the love and the friendship
are therefore different also. (20) Each party, then, neither gets the same
from the other, nor ought to seek it; but when children render to parents
what they ought to render to those who brought them into the world,
and parents render what they should to their children, the friendship of
such persons will be abiding and excellent. In all friendships implying
inequality the love also should be proportional, (25) i. e. the better should
be more loved than he loves, and so should the more useful, and
similarly in each of the other cases; for when the love is in proportion to
the merit of the parties, then in a sense arises equality, which is certainly
held to be characteristic of friendship.
But equality does not seem to take the same form in acts of justice and
in friendship; for in acts of justice what is equal in the primary sense is
that which is in proportion to merit, (30) while quantitative equality is
secondary, but in friendship quantitative equality is primary and
proportion to merit secondary. This becomes clear if there is a great
interval in respect of virtue or vice or wealth or anything else between
the parties; for then they are no longer friends, (35) and do not even
expect to be so. And this is most manifest in the case of the gods; for
they surpass us most decisively in all good things. [1159a] But it is
clear also in the case of kings; for with them, too, men who are much
their inferiors do not expect to be friends; nor do men of no account
expect to be friends with the best or wisest men. In such cases it is not
possible to define exactly up to what point friends can remain friends;
for much can be taken away and friendship remain, but when one party
is removed to a great distance, as God is, (5) the possibility of friendship
ceases. This is in fact the origin of the question whether friends really
wish for their friends the greatest goods, e. g. that of being gods; since in
that case their friends will no longer be friends to them, and therefore
will not be good things for them (for friends are good things). The
answer is that if we were right in saying that friend wishes good to
friend for his sake,6 his friend must remain the sort of being he is, (10)
whatever that may be; therefore it is for him only so long as he remains
a man that he will wish the greatest goods. But perhaps not all the
greatest goods; for it is for himself most of all that each man wishes
what is good.

8 Most people seem, owing to ambition, to wish to be loved rather

than to love; which is why most men love flattery; for the flatterer is a
friend in an inferior position, or pretends to be such and to love more
than he is loved; and being loved seems to be akin to being honoured,
(15) and this is what most people aim at. But it seems to be not for its

own sake that people choose honour, but incidentally. For most people
enjoy being honoured by those in positions of authority because of their
hopes (for they think that if they want anything they will get it from
them; and therefore they delight in honour as a token of favour to
come); while those who desire honour from good men, (20) and men who
know, are aiming at confirming their own opinion of themselves; they
delight in honour, therefore, because they believe in their own goodness
on the strength of the judgement of those who speak about them. In
being loved, on the other hand, people delight for its own sake; whence
it would seem to be better than being honoured, (25) and friendship to be
desirable in itself. But it seems to lie in loving rather than in being loved,
as is indicated by the delight mothers take in loving; for some mothers
hand over their children to be brought up, and so long as they know
their fate they love them and do not seek to be loved in return (if they
cannot have both), (30) but seem to be satisfied if they see them
prospering; and they themselves love their children even if these owing
to their ignorance give them nothing of a mother’s due. Now since
friendship depends more on loving, and it is those who love their friends
that are praised, loving seems to be the characteristic virtue of friends,
so that it is only those in whom this is found in due measure that are
lasting friends, (35) and only their friendship that endures.
[1159b] It is in this way more than any other that even unequals
can be friends; they can be equalized. Now equality and likeness are
friendship, and especially the likeness of those who are like in virtue; for
being steadfast in themselves they hold fast to each other, (5) and neither
ask nor give base services, but (one may say) even prevent them; for it is
characteristic of good men neither to go wrong themselves nor to let
their friends do so. But wicked men have no steadfastness (for they do
not remain even like to themselves), but become friends for a short time
because they delight in each other’s wickedness. (10) Friends who are
useful or pleasant last longer; i. e. as long as they provide each other
with enjoyments or advantages. Friendship for utility’s sake seems to be
that which most easily exists between contraries, e. g. between poor and
rich, between ignorant and learned; for what a man actually lacks he
aims at, and one gives something else in return. (15) But under this head,
too, we might bring lover and beloved, beautiful and ugly. This is why
lovers sometimes seem ridiculous, when they demand to be loved as
they love; if they are equally lovable their claim can perhaps be justified,
but when they have nothing lovable about them it is ridiculous. Perhaps,
however, (20) contrary does not even aim at contrary by its own nature,
but only incidentally, the desire being for what is intermediate; for that
is what is good, e. g. it is good for the dry not to become wet7 but to
come to the intermediate state, and similarly with the hot and in all
other cases. These subjects we may dismiss; for they are indeed
somewhat foreign to our inquiry.
9 Friendship and justice seem, (25) as we have said at the outset of our
discussion,8 to be concerned with the same objects and exhibited
between the same persons. For in every community there is thought to
be some form of justice, and friendship too; at least men address as
friends their fellow-voyagers and fellow-soldiers, and so too those
associated with them in any other kind of community. And the extent of
their association is the extent of their friendship, (30) as it is the extent to
which justice exists between them. And the proverb ‘what friends have is
common property’ expresses the truth; for friendship depends on
community. Now brothers and comrades have all things in common, but
the others to whom we have referred have definite things in common—
some more things, others fewer; for of friendships, too, (35) some are
more and others less truly friendships. [1160a] And the claims of
justice differ too; the duties of parents to children and those of brothers
to each other are not the same nor those of comrades and those of
fellow-citizens, and so, too, with the other kinds of friendship. There is a
difference, therefore, also between the acts that are unjust towards each
of these classes of associates, and the injustice increases by being
exhibited towards those who are friends in a fuller sense; e. g. it is a
more terrible thing to defraud a comrade than a fellow-citizen, (5) more
terrible not to help a brother than a stranger, and more terrible to
wound a father than any one else. And the demands of justice also seem
to increase with the intensity of the friendship, which implies that
friendship and justice exist between the same persons and have an equal
extension.
Now all forms of community are like parts of the political community;
for men journey together with a view to some particular advantage, (10)
and to provide something that they need for the purposes of life; and it
is for the sake of advantage that the political community too seems both
to have come together originally and to endure, for this is what
legislators aim at, and they call just that which is to the common
advantage. Now the other communities aim at advantage bit by bit, e. g.
sailors at what is advantageous on a voyage with a view to making
money or something of the kind, (15) fellow-soldiers at what is
advantageous in war, whether it is wealth or victory or the taking of a
city that they seek, and members of tribes and demes act similarly [Some
communities seem to arise for the sake of pleasure, viz. religious guilds
and social clubs; for these exist respectively for the sake of offering
sacrifice and of companionship. (20) But all these seem to fall under the
political community; for it aims not at present advantage but at what is
advantageous for life as a whole], offering sacrifices and arranging
gatherings for the purpose, and assigning honours to the gods, and
providing pleasant relaxations for themselves. For the ancient sacrifices
and gatherings seem to take place after the harvest as a sort of firstfruits,
(25) because it was at these seasons that people had most leisure. All the

communities, then, seem to be parts of the political community; and the

particular kinds of friendship will correspond to the particular kinds of
community. (30)

10 There are three kinds of constitution, and an equal number of

deviation-forms—perversions, as it were, of them. The constitutions are
monarchy, aristocracy, and thirdly that which is based on a property
qualification, which it seems appropriate to call timocratic, though most
people are wont to call it polity. The best of these is monarchy, (35) the
worst timocracy. The deviation from monarchy is tyranny; for both are
forms of one-man rule, but there is the greatest difference between them;
the tyrant looks to his own advantage, the king to that of his subjects.
[1160b] For a man is not a king unless he is sufficient to himself and
excels his subjects in all good things; and such a man needs nothing
further; therefore he will not look to his own interests but to those of his
subjects; for a king who is not like that would be a mere titular king. (5)
Now tyranny is the very contrary of this; the tyrant pursues his own
good. And it is clearer in the case of tyranny that it is the worst
deviation-form;9 but it is the contrary of the best that is worst.10
Monarchy passes over into tyranny; for tyranny is the evil form of one-
man rule and the bad king becomes a tyrant. (10) Aristocracy passes over
into oligarchy by the badness of the rulers, who distribute contrary to
equity what belongs to the city—all or most of the good things to
themselves, and office always to the same people, (15) paying most regard
to wealth; thus the rulers are few and are bad men instead of the most
worthy. Timocracy passes over into democracy; for these are
coterminous, since it is the ideal even of timocracy to be the rule of the
majority, and all who have the property qualification count as equal.
Democracy is the least bad of the deviations; for in its case the form of
constitution is but a slight deviation. (20) These then are the changes to
which constitutions are most subject; for these are the smallest and
easiest transitions.
One may find resemblances to the constitutions and, as it were,
patterns of them even in households. For the association of a father with
his sons bears the form of monarchy, (25) since the father cares for his
children; and this is why Homer calls Zeus ‘father’; it is the ideal of
monarchy to be paternal rule. But among the Persians the rule of the
father is tyrannical; they use their sons as slaves. Tyrannical too is the
rule of a master over slaves; for it is the advantage of the master that is
brought about in it. (30) Now this seems to be a correct form of
government, but the Persian type is perverted; for the modes of rule
appropriate to different relations are diverse. The association of man and
wife seems to be aristocratic; for the man rules in accordance with his
worth, and in those matters in which a man should rule, (35) but the
matters that befit a woman he hands over to her. If the man rules in
everything the relation passes over into oligarchy; for in doing so he is
not acting in accordance with their respective worth, and not ruling in
virtue of his superiority. [1161a] Sometimes, however, women rule,
because they are heiresses; so their rule is not in virtue of excellence but
due to wealth and power, as in oligarchies. (5) The association of brothers
is like timocracy; for they are equal, except in so far as they differ in age;
hence if they differ much in age, the friendship is no longer of the
fraternal type. Democracy is found chiefly in masterless dwellings (for
here every one is on an equality), and in those in which the ruler is weak
and every one has license to do as he pleases.

11 Each of the constitutions may be seen to involve friendship just in

so far as it involves justice. (10) The friendship between a king and his
subjects depends on an excess of benefits conferred; for he confers
benefits on his subjects if being a good man he cares for them with a
view to their well-being, as a shepherd does for his sheep (whence
Homer called Agamemnon ‘shepherd of the peoples’). (15) Such too is the
friendship of a father, though this exceeds the other in the greatness of
the benefits conferred; for he is responsible for the existence of his
children, which is thought the greatest good, and for their nurture and
upbringing. These things are ascribed to ancestors as well. Further, by
nature a father tends to rule over his sons, ancestors over descendants, a
king over his subjects. These friendships imply superiority of one party
over the other, which is why ancestors are honoured. (20) The justice
therefore that exists between persons so related is not the same on both
sides but is in every case proportioned to merit; for that is true of the
friendship as well. The friendship of man and wife, again, is the same
that is found in an aristocracy; for it is in accordance with virtue—the
better gets more of what is good, and each gets what befits him; and so,
too, with the justice in these relations. The friendship of brothers is like
that of comrades; for they are equal and of like age, (25) and such persons
are for the most part like in their feelings and their character. Like this,
too, is the friendship appropriate to timocratic government; for in such a
constitution the ideal is for the citizens to be equal and fair; therefore
rule is taken in turn, and on equal terms; and the friendship appropriate
here will correspond.
But in the deviation-forms, as justice hardly exists, so too does
friendship. (30) It exists least in the worst form; in tyranny there is little
or no friendship. For where there is nothing common to ruler and ruled,
there is not friendship either, since there is not justice; e. g. between
craftsman and tool, soul and body, (35) master and slave; the latter in
each case is benefited by that which uses it, but there is no friendship
nor justice towards lifeless things. [1161b] But neither is there
friendship towards a horse or an ox, nor to a slave qua slave. For there is
nothing common to the two parties; the slave is a living tool and the tool
a lifeless slave. Qua slave then, one cannot be friends with him. (5) But
qua man one can; for there seems to be some justice between any man
and any other who can share in a system of law or be a party to an
agreement; therefore there can also be friendship with him in so far as
he is a man. Therefore while in tyrannies friendship and justice hardly
exist, in democracies they exist more fully; for where the citizens are
equal they have much in common. (10)
12 Every form of friendship, then, involves association, as has been
said.11 One might, however, mark off from the rest both the friendship
of kindred and that of comrades. Those of fellow-citizens, fellow-
tribesmen, fellow-voyagers, and the like are more like mere friendships
of association; for they seem to rest on a sort of compact. (15) With them
we might class the friendship of host and guest.
The friendship of kinsmen itself, while it seems to be of many kinds,
appears to depend in every case on parental friendship; for parents love
their children as being a part of themselves, and children their parents as
being something originating from them. (20) Now (1) parents know their
offspring better than their children know that they are their children,
and (2) the originator feels his offspring to be his own more than the
offspring do their begetter; for the product belongs to the producer (e. g.
a tooth or hair or anything else to him whose it is), but the producer
does not belong to the product, or belongs in a less degree. And (3) the
length of time produces the same result; parents love their children as
soon as these are born, (25) but children love their parents only after time
has elapsed and they have acquired understanding or the power of
discrimination by the senses. From these considerations it is also plain
why mothers love more than fathers do. Parents, then, love their
children as themselves (for their issue are by virtue of their separate
existence a sort of other selves), while children love their parents as
being born of them, (30) and brothers love each other as being born of the
same parents; for their identity with them makes them identical with
each other (which is the reason why people talk of ‘the same blood’, ‘the
same stock’, and so on). They are, therefore, in a sense the same thing,
though in separate individuals. Two things that contribute greatly to
friendship are a common upbringing and similarity of age; for ‘two of an
age take to each other’, (35) and people brought up together tend to be
comrades; whence the friendship of brothers is akin to that of comrades.
[1162a] And cousins and other kinsmen are bound up together by
derivation from brothers, viz. by being derived from the same parents.
They come to be closer together or farther apart by virtue of the
nearness or distance of the original ancestor.
The friendship of children to parents, and of men to gods, (5) is a
relation to them as to something good and superior; for they have
conferred the greatest benefits, since they are the causes of their being
and of their nourishment, and of their education from their birth; and
this kind of friendship possesses pleasantness and utility also, more than
that of strangers, inasmuch as their life is lived more in common. The
friendship of brothers has the characteristics found in that of comrades
(and especially when these are good), (10) and in general between people
who are like each other, inasmuch as they belong more to each other
and start with a love for each other from their very birth, and inasmuch
as those born of the same parents and brought up together and similarly
educated are more akin in character; and the test of time has been
applied most fully and convincingly in their case.
Between other kinsmen friendly relations are found in due proportion.
(15) Between man and wife friendship seems to exist by nature; for man is

naturally inclined to form couples—even more than to form cities,

inasmuch as the household is earlier and more necessary than the city,
and reproduction is more common to man with the animals. With the
other animals the union extends only to this point, but human beings
live together not only for the sake of reproduction but also for the
various purposes of life; for from the start the functions are divided, (20)
and those of man and woman are different; so they help each other by
throwing their peculiar gifts into the common stock. It is for these
reasons that both utility and pleasure seem to be found in this kind of
friendship. (25) But this friendship may be based also on virtue, if the
parties are good; for each has its own virtue and they will delight in the
fact. And children seem to be a bond of union (which is the reason why
childless people part more easily); for children are a good common to
both and what is common holds them together.
How man and wife and in general friend and friend ought mutually to
behave seems to be the same question as how it is just for them to
behave; (30) for a man does not seem to have the same duties to a friend,
a stranger, a comrade, and a schoolfellow.

13 There are three kinds of friendship, as we said at the outset of our

inquiry,12 and in respect of each some are friends on an equality and
others by virtue of a superiority (for not only can equally good men
become friends but a better man can make friends with a worse, (35) and
similarly in friendships of pleasure or utility the friends may be equal or
unequal in the benefits they confer). [1162b] This being so, equals
must effect the required equalization on a basis of equality in love and in
all other respects, while unequals must render what is in proportion to
their superiority or inferiority.
Complaints and reproaches arise either only or chiefly in the
friendship of utility, (5) and this is only to be expected. For those who are
friends on the ground of virtue are anxious to do well by each other
(since that is a mark of virtue and of friendship), and between men who
are emulating each other in this there cannot be complaints or quarrels;
no one is offended by a man who loves him and does well by him—if he
is a person of nice feeling he takes his revenge by doing well by the
other. (10) And the man who excels the other in the services he renders
will not complain of his friend, since he gets what he aims at; for each
man desires what is good. Nor do complaints arise much even in
friendships of pleasure; for both get at the same time what they desire, if
they enjoy spending their time together; and even a man who
complained of another for not affording him pleasure would seem
ridiculous, (15) since it is in his power not to spend his days with him.
But the friendship of utility is full of complaints; for as they use each
other for their own interests they always want to get the better of the
bargain, and think they have got less than they should, and blame their
partners because they do not get all they ‘want and deserve’; and those
who do well by others cannot help them as much as those whom they
benefit want. (20)
Now it seems that, as justice is of two kinds, one unwritten and the
other legal, one kind of friendship of utility is moral and the other legal.
And so complaints arise most of all when men do not dissolve the
relation in the spirit of the same type of friendship in which they
contracted it. (25) The legal type is that which is on fixed terms; its purely
commercial variety is on the basis of immediate payment, while the
more liberal variety allows time but stipulates for a definite quid pro quo.
In this variety the debt is clear and not ambiguous, but in the
postponement it contains an element of friendliness; and so some states
do not allow suits arising out of such agreements, (30) but think men who
have bargained on a basis of credit ought to accept the consequences.
The moral type is not on fixed terms; it makes a gift, or does whatever it
does, as to a friend; but one expects to receive as much or more, as
having not given but lent; and if a man is worse off when the relation is
dissolved than he was when it was contracted he will complain. (35) This
happens because all or most men, while they wish for what is noble,
choose what is advantageous; now it is noble to do well by another
without a view to repayment, but it is the receiving of benefits that is
advantageous.
[1163a] Therefore if we can we should return the equivalent of
what we have received (for we must not make a man our friend against
his will; we must recognize that we were mistaken at the first and took a
benefit from a person we should not have taken it from—since it was not
from a friend, nor from one who did it just for the sake of acting so—and
we must settle up just as if we had been benefited on fixed terms). (5)
Indeed, one would agree to repay if one could (if one could not, even the
giver would not have expected one to do so); therefore if it is possible
we must repay. But at the outset we must consider the man by whom we
are being benefited and on what terms he is acting, in order that we may
accept the benefit on these terms, or else decline it.
It is disputable whether we ought to measure a service by its utility to
the receiver and make the return with a view to that, (10) or by the
benevolence of the giver. For those who have received say they have
received from their benefactors what meant little to the latter and what
they might have got from others—minimizing the service; while the
givers, on the contrary, say it was the biggest thing they had, and what
could not have been got from others, and that it was given in times of
danger or similar need. (15) Now if the friendship is one that aims at
utility, surely the advantage to the receiver is the measure. For it is he
that asks for the service, and the other man helps him on the assumption
that he will receive the equivalent; so the assistance has been precisely
as great as the advantage to the receiver, and therefore he must return as
much as he has received, or even more (for that would be nobler). (20) In
friendships based on virtue on the other hand, complaints do not arise,
but the purpose of the doer is a sort of measure; for in purpose lies the
essential element of virtue and character.
14 Differences arise also in friendships based on superiority; for each
expects to get more out of them, but when this happens the friendship is
dissolved. (25) Not only does the better man think he ought to get more,
since more should be assigned to a good man, but the more useful
similarly expects this; they say a useless man should not get as much as
they should, since it becomes an act of public service and not a
friendship if the proceeds of the friendship do not answer to the worth of
the benefits conferred. For they think that, (30) as in a commercial
partnership those who put more in get more out, so it should be in
friendship. But the man who is in a state of need and inferiority makes
the opposite claim; they think it is the part of a good friend to help those
who are in need; what, they say, is the use of being the friend of a good
man or a powerful man, (35) if one is to get nothing out of it?
At all events it seems that each party is justified in his claim, and that
each should get more out of the friendship than the other—not more of
the same thing, however, but the superior more honour and the inferior
more gain; for honour is the prize of virtue and of beneficence, while
gain is the assistance required by inferiority.
[1163b] It seems to be so in constitutional arrangements also; the
man who contributes nothing good to the common stock is not
honoured; for what belongs to the public is given to the man who
benefits the public, (5) and honour does belong to the public. It is not
possible to get wealth from the common stock and at the same time
honour. For no one puts up with the smaller share in all things; therefore
to the man who loses in wealth they assign honour and to the man who
is willing to be paid, (10) wealth, since the proportion to merit equalizes
the parties and preserves the friendship, as we have said.13
This then is also the way in which we should associate with unequals;
the man who is benefited in respect of wealth or virtue must give honour
in return, repaying what he can. For friendship asks a man to do what he
can, not what is proportional to the merits of the case; since that cannot
always be done, (15) e. g. in honours paid to the gods or to parents; for no
one could ever return to them the equivalent of what he gets, but the
man who serves them to the utmost of his power is thought to be a good
man.
This is why it would not seem open to a man to disown his father
(though a father may disown his son; being in debt, (20) he should repay,
but there is nothing by doing which a son will have done the equivalent
of what he has received, so that he is always in debt. But creditors can
remit a debt; and a father can therefore do so too. At the same time it is
thought that presumably no one would repudiate a son who was not far
gone in wickedness; for apart from the natural friendship of father and
son it is human nature not to reject a son’s assistance. (25) But the son, if
he is wicked, will naturally avoid aiding his father, or not be zealous
about it; for most people wish to get benefits, but avoid doing them, as a
thing unprofitable.—So much for these questions.

1 Il. x. 224.

2 i. e. absolute pleasantness, relative goodness, and relative pleasantness, as well as absolute

goodness.
3 1156b 7, 23, 33, 1157a 30, b4.

4 1156b 13–15, 1157a 1–3.

5 1156a 16–24, 1157a 20–33.

6 1155b 31.

7 Cf. 1155b 3.

8 1155a 22–28.

9 Than it is that monarchy is the best genuine form (a 35).

10 Therefore monarchy must be the best.

11 1159b 29–32.

12 1156a 7.

13 1162a 34-b 4, Cf. 1158b 27, 1159a 35-b 3.

 BOOK IX

1 In all friendships between dissimilars it is, as we have said,1

proportion that equalizes the parties and preserves the friendship; e. g.
in the political form of friendship the shoemaker gets a return for his
shoes in proportion to his worth, (35) and the weaver and all other
craftsmen do the same. [1164a] Now here a common measure has
been provided in the form of money, and therefore everything is referred
to this and measured by this; but in the friendship of lovers sometimes
the lover complains that his excess of love is not met by love in return
(though perhaps there is nothing lovable about him), (5) while often the
beloved complains that the lover who formerly promised everything now
performs nothing. Such incidents happen when the lover loves the
beloved for the sake of pleasure while the beloved loves the lover for the
sake of utility, and they do not both possess the qualities expected of
them. If these be the objects of the friendship it is dissolved when they
do not get the things that formed the motives of their love; for each did
not love the other person himself but the qualities he had, (10) and these
were not enduring; that is why the friendships also are transient. But the
love of characters, as has been said, endures because it is self-
dependent.2 Differences arise when what they get is something different
and not what they desire; for it is like getting nothing at all when we do
not get what we aim at; compare the story of the person who made
promises to a lyre-player, (15) promising him the more, the better he
sang, but in the morning, when the other demanded the fulfilment of his
promises, said that he had given pleasure3 for pleasure. Now if this had
been what each wanted, all would have been well; but if the one wanted
enjoyment but the other gain, and the one has what he wants while the
other has not, the terms of the association will not have been properly
fulfilled; for what each in fact wants is what he attends to, (20) and it is
for the sake of that that he will give what he has.
But who is to fix the worth of the service; he who makes the sacrifice
or he who has got the advantage? At any rate the other seems to leave it
to him. This is what they say Protagoras used to do;4 whenever he
taught anything whatsoever, (25) he bade the learner assess the value of
the knowledge, and accepted the amount so fixed. But in such matters
some men approve of the saying ‘let a man have his fixed reward’.
Those who get the money first and then do none of the things they
said they would, owing to the extravagance of their promises, naturally
find themselves the objects of complaint; for they do not fulfil what they
agreed to. The sophists are perhaps compelled to do this because no one
would give money for the things they do know. (30) These people then, if
they do not do what they have been paid for, are naturally made the
objects of complaint.
But where there is no contract of service, those who give up something
for the sake of the other party cannot (as we have said5 be complained
of (for that is the nature of the friendship of virtue), (35) and the return to
them must be made on the basis of their purpose (for it is purpose that is
the characteristic thing in a friend and in virtue). [1164b] And so too,
it seems, should one make a return to those with whom one has studied
philosophy; for their worth cannot be measured against money, and they
can get no honour which will balance their services, (5) but still it is
perhaps enough, as it is with the gods and with one’s parents, to give
them what one can.
If the gift was not of this sort, but was made with a view to a return, it
is no doubt preferable that the return made should be one that seems
fair to both parties, but if this cannot be achieved, it would seem not
only necessary that the person who gets the first service should fix the
reward, (10) but also just; for if the other gets in return the equivalent of
the advantage the beneficiary has received, or the price he would have
paid for the pleasure, he will have got what is fair as from the other.
We see this happening too with things put up for sale, and in some
places there are laws providing that no actions shall arise out of
voluntary contracts, on the assumption that one should settle with a
person to whom one has given credit, (15) in the spirit in which one
bargained with him. The law holds that it is more just that the person to
whom credit was given should fix the terms than that the person who
gave credit should do so. For most things are not assessed at the same
value by those who have them and those who want them; each class
values highly what is its own and what it is offering; yet the return is
made on the terms fixed by the receiver. (20) But no doubt the receiver
should assess a thing not at what it seems worth when he has it, but at
what he assessed it at before he had it.

2 A further problem is set by such questions as, whether one should in

all things give the preference to one’s father and obey him, or whether
when one is ill one should trust a doctor, (25) and when one has to elect a
general should elect a man of military skill; and similarly whether one
should render a service by preference to a friend or to a good man, and
should show gratitude to a benefactor or oblige a friend, if one cannot
do both.
All such questions are hard, are they not, to decide with precision? For
they admit of many variations of all sorts in respect both of the
magnitude of the service and of its nobility and necessity. (30) But that we
should not give the preference in all things to the same person is plain
enough; and we must for the most part return benefits rather than oblige
friends, as we must pay back a loan to a creditor rather than make one
to a friend. But perhaps even this is not always true; e. g. should a man
who has been ransomed out of the hands of brigands ransom his
ransomer in return, (35) whoever he may be (or pay him if he has not
been captured but demands payment), or should he ransom his father? It
would seem that he should ransom his father in preference even to
himself. [1165a] As we have said,6 then, generally the debt should be
paid, but if the gift is exceedingly noble or exceedingly necessary, one
should defer to these considerations. For sometimes it is not even fair to
return the equivalent of what one has received, (5) when the one man has
done a service to one whom he knows to be good, while the other makes
a return to one whom he believes to be bad. For that matter, one should
sometimes not lend in return to one who has lent to oneself; for the one
person lent to a good man, expecting to recover his loan, while the other
has no hope of recovering from one who is believed to be bad. Therefore
if the facts really are so, (10) the demand is not fair; and if they are not,
but people think they are, they would be held to be doing nothing
strange in refusing. As we have often pointed out,7 then, discussions
about feelings and actions have just as much definiteness as their
subject-matter.
That we should not make the same return to everyone, nor give a
father the preference in everything, as one does not sacrifice everything
to Zeus,8 (15) is plain enough; but since we ought to render different
things to parents, brothers, comrades, and benefactors, we ought to
render to each class what is appropriate and becoming. And this is what
people seem in fact to do; to marriages they invite their kinsfolk; for
these have a part in the family and therefore in the doings that affect the
family; and at funerals also they think that kinsfolk, before all others, (20)
should meet, for the same reason. And it would be thought that in the
matter of food we should help our parents before all others, since we
owe our own nourishment to them, and it is more honourable to help in
this respect the authors of our being even before ourselves; and honour
too one should give to one’s parents as one does to the gods, but not any
and every honour; for that matter one should not give the same honour
to one’s father and one’s mother, (25) nor again should one give them the
honour due to a philosopher or to a general, but the honour due to a
father, or again to a mother. To all older persons, too, one should give
honour appropriate to their age, by rising to receive them and finding
seats for them and so on; while to comrades and brothers one should
allow freedom of speech and common use of all things. (30) To kinsmen,
too, and fellow-tribesmen and fellow-citizens and to every other class
one should always try to assign what is appropriate, and to compare the
claims of each class with respect to nearness of relation and to virtue or
usefulness. The comparison is easier when the persons belong to the
same class, and more laborious when they are different. (35) Yet we must
not on that account shrink from the task, but decide the question as best
we can.

3 Another question that arises is whether friendships should or should

not be broken off when the other party does not remain the same.
[1165b] Perhaps we may say that there is nothing strange in breaking
off a friendship based on utility or pleasure, when our friends no longer
have these attributes. For it was of these attributes that we were the
friends; and when these have failed it is reasonable to love no longer. (5)
But one might complain of another if, when he loved us for our
usefulness or pleasantness, he pretended to love us for our character.
For, as we said at the outset,9 most differences arise between friends
when they are not friends in the spirit in which they think they are. So
when a man has deceived himself and has thought he was being loved
for his character, when the other person was doing nothing of the kind,
(10) he must blame himself; but when he has been deceived by the

pretences of the other person, it is just that he should complain against

his deceiver; he will complain with more justice than one does against
people who counterfeit the currency, inasmuch as the wrongdoing is
concerned with something more valuable.
But if one accepts another man as good, and he turns out badly and is
seen to do so, must one still love him? Surely it is impossible, since not
everything can be loved, but only what is good. (15) What is evil neither
can nor should be loved; for it is not one’s duty to be a lover of evil, nor
to become like what is bad; and we have said10 that like is dear to like.
Must the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off? Or is this not so in all
cases, but only when one’s friends are incurable in their wickedness? If
they are capable of being reformed one should rather come to the
assistance of their character or their property, (20) inasmuch as this is
better and more characteristic of friendship. But a man who breaks off
such a friendship would seem to be doing nothing strange; for it was not
to a man of this sort that he was a friend; when his friend has changed,
therefore, and he is unable to save him, he gives him up.
But if one friend remained the same while the other became better and
far outstripped him in virtue, should the latter treat the former as a
friend? Surely he cannot. (25) When the interval is great this becomes
most plain, e. g. in the case of childish friendships; if one friend
remained a child in intellect while the other became a fully developed
man, how could they be friends when they neither approved of the same
things nor delighted in and were pained by the same things? For not
even with regard to each other will their tastes agree, and without this
(as we saw11 they cannot be friends; for they cannot live together. (30)
But we have discussed these matters.12
Should he, then, behave no otherwise towards him than he would if he
had never been his friend? Surely he should keep a remembrance of
their former intimacy, and as we think we ought to oblige friends rather
than strangers, so to those who have been our friends we ought to make
some allowance for our former friendship, (35) when the breach has not
been due to excess of wickedness.

4 Friendly relations with one’s neighbours, and the marks by which

friendships are defined, seem to have proceeded from a man’s relations
to himself. [1166a] For (1) we define a friend as one who wishes and
does what is good, or seems so, for the sake of his friend, or (2) as one
who wishes his friend to exist and live, for his sake; which mothers do to
their children, (5) and friends do who have come into conflict. And (3)
others define him as one who lives with and (4) has the same tastes as
another, or (5) one who grieves and rejoices with his friend; and this too
is found in mothers most of all. It is by some one of these characteristics
that friendship too is defined.
Now each of these is true of the good man’s relation to himself (and of
all other men in so far as they think themselves good; virtue and the
good man seem, (10) as has been said,13 to be the measure of every class
of things). For14 his opinions are harmonious, and he desires the same
things with all his soul; and therefore15 he wishes for himself what is
good and what seems so, and does it (for it is characteristic of the good
man to work out the good), (15) and does so for his own sake (for he does
it for the sake of the intellectual element in him, which is thought to be
the man himself); and16 he wishes himself to live and be preserved, and
especially the element by virtue of which he thinks. For existence is
good to the virtuous man, and each man wishes himself what is good,
while no one chooses to possess the whole world if he has first to
become some one else (for that matter, (20) even now God possesses the
good17; he wishes for this only on condition of being whatever he is; and
the element that thinks would seem to be the individual man, or to be so
more than any other element in him. And18 such a man wishes to live
with himself; for he does so with pleasure, since the memories of his past
acts are delightful and his hopes for the future are good, (25) and
therefore pleasant. His mind is well stored too with subjects of
contemplation. And19 he grieves and rejoices, more than any other, with
himself; for the same thing is always painful, and the same thing always
pleasant, and not one thing at one time and another at another; he has,
so to speak, nothing to repent of.
Therefore, since each of these characteristics belongs to the good man
in relation to himself, (30) and he is related to his friend as to himself (for
his friend is another self), friendship too is thought to be one of these
attributes, and those who have these attributes to be friends. Whether
there is or is not friendship between a man and himself is a question we
may dismiss for the present;20 there would seem to be friendship in so
far as he is two or more, (35) to judge from the aforementioned attributes
of friendship, and from the fact that the extreme of friendship is likened
to one’s love for oneself. [1166b]
But the attributes named seem to belong even to the majority of men,
poor creatures though they may be. Are we to say then that in so far as
they are satisfied with themselves and think they are good, (5) they share
in these attributes? Certainly no one who is thoroughly bad and impious
has these attributes, or even seems to do so. They hardly belong even to
inferior people; for they21 are at variance with themselves, and have
appetites for some things and rational desires for others. This is true, for
instance, of incontinent people; for they choose, instead of the things
they themselves think good, (10) things that are pleasant but hurtful;
while others again, through cowardice and laziness, shrink from doing
what they think best for themselves. And22 those who have done many
terrible deeds and are hated for their wickedness even shrink from life
and destroy themselves. And23 wicked men seek for people with whom
to spend their days, (15) and shun themselves; for they remember many a
grievous deed, and anticipate others like them, when they are by
themselves, but when they are with others they forget. And24 having
nothing lovable in them they have no feeling of love to themselves.
Therefore25 also such men do not rejoice or grieve with themselves; for
their soul is rent by faction, (20) and one element in it by reason of its
wickedness grieves when it abstains from certain acts, while the other
part is pleased, and one draws them this way and the other that, as if
they were pulling them in pieces. If a man cannot at the same time be
pained and pleased, at all events after a short time he is pained because
he was pleased, and he could have wished that these things had not been
pleasant to him; for bad men are laden with repentance.
Therefore the bad man does not seem to be amicably disposed even to
himself, (25) because there is nothing in him to love; so that if to be thus
is the height of wretchedness, we should strain every nerve to avoid
wickedness and should endeavour to be good; for so and only so can one
be either friendly to oneself or a friend to another.

5 Goodwill is a friendly sort of relation, but is not identical with

friendship; for one may have goodwill both towards people whom one
does not know, (30) and without their knowing it, but not friendship. This
has indeed been said already.26 But goodwill is not even friendly feeling.
For it does not involve intensity or desire, whereas these accompany
friendly feeling; and friendly feeling implies intimacy while goodwill
may arise of a sudden, as it does towards competitors in a contest; we
come to feel goodwill for them and to share in their wishes, (35) but we
would not do anything with them; for, as we said, we feel goodwill
suddenly and love them only superficially. [1167a]
Goodwill seems, then, to be a beginning of friendship, as the pleasure
of the eye is the beginning of love. For no one loves if he has not first
been delighted by the form of the beloved, but he who delights in the
form of another does not, (5) for all that, love him, but only does so when
he also longs for him when absent and craves for his presence; so too it
is not possible for people to be friends if they have not come to feel
goodwill for each other, but those who feel goodwill are not for all that
friends; for they only wish well to those for whom they feel goodwill,
and would not do anything with them nor take trouble for them. And so
one might by an extension of the term friendship say that goodwill is
inactive friendship, (10) though when it is prolonged and reaches the
point of intimacy it becomes friendship—not the friendship based on
utility nor that based on pleasure; for goodwill too does not arise on
those terms. The man who has received a benefit bestows goodwill in
return for what has been done to him, but in doing so is only doing what
is just; while he who wishes some one to prosper because he hopes for
enrichment through him seems to have goodwill not to him but rather to
himself, (15) just as a man is not a friend to another if he cherishes him
for the sake of some use to be made of him. In general, goodwill arises
on account of some excellence and worth, when one man seems to
another beautiful or brave or something of the sort, as we pointed out in
the case of competitors in a contest. (20)
6 Unanimity also seems to be a friendly relation. For this reason it is
not identity of opinion; for that might occur even with people who do
not know each other; nor do we say that people who have the same
views on any and every subject are unanimous, (25) e. g. those who agree
about the heavenly bodies (for unanimity about these is not a friendly
relation), but we do say that a city is unanimous when men have the
same opinion about what is to their interest, and choose the same
actions, and do what they have resolved in common. It is about things to
be done, therefore, that people are said to be unanimous, and, among
these, about matters of consequence and in which it is possible for both
or all parties to get what they want; e. g. (30) a city is unanimous when
all its citizens think that the offices in it should be elective, or that they
should form an alliance with Sparta, or that Pittacus should be their
ruler—at a time when he himself was also willing to rule. But when each
of two people wishes himself to have the thing in question, like the
captains in the Phoenissae,27 they are in a state of faction; for it is not
unanimity when each of two parties thinks of the same thing, (35)
whatever that may be, but only when they think of the same thing in the
same hands, e. g. when both the common people and those of the better
class wish the best men to rule; for thus and thus alone do all get what
they aim at. [1167b] Unanimity seems, then, to be political friendship,
as indeed it is commonly said to be; for it is concerned with things that
are to our interest and have an influence on our life.
Now such unanimity is found among good men; for they are
unanimous both in themselves and with one another, (5) being, so to say,
of one mind (for the wishes of such men are constant and not at the
mercy of opposing currents like a strait of the sea), and they wish for
what is just and what is advantageous, and these are the objects of their
common endeavour as well. But bad men cannot be unanimous except to
a small extent, any more than they can be friends, (10) since they aim at
getting more than their share of advantages, while in labour and public
service they fall short of their share; and each man wishing for
advantage to himself criticizes his neighbour and stands in his way; for if
people do not watch it carefully the common weal is soon destroyed.
The result is that they are in a state of faction, (15) putting compulsion on
each other but unwilling themselves to do what is just.
7 Benefactors are thought to love those they have benefited, more
than those who have been well treated love those that have treated them
well, and this is discussed as though it were paradoxical. Most people
think it is because the latter are in the position of debtors and the former
of creditors; and therefore as, in the case of loans, (20) debtors wish their
creditors did not exist, while creditors actually take care of the safety of
their debtors, so it is thought that benefactors wish the objects of their
action to exist since they will then get their gratitude, while the
beneficiaries take no interest in making this return. (25) Epicharmus
would perhaps declare that they say this because they ‘look at things on
their bad side’, but it is quite like human nature; for most people are
forgetful, and are more anxious to be well treated than to treat others
well. But the cause would seem to be more deeply rooted in the nature
of things; the case of those who have lent money is not even analogous.
For they have no friendly feeling to their debtors, (30) but only a wish
that they may be kept safe with a view to what is to be got from them;
while those who have done a service to others feel friendship and love
for those they have served even if these are not of any use to them and
never will be. This is what happens with craftsmen too; every man loves
his own handiwork better than he would be loved by it if it came alive;
and this happens perhaps most of all with poets; for they have an
excessive love for their own poems, (35) doting on them as if they were
their children. [1168a] This is what the position of benefactors is like;
for that which they have treated well is their handiwork, and therefore
they love this more than the handiwork does its maker. The cause of this
is that existence is to all men a thing to be chosen and loved, (5) and that
we exist by virtue of activity (i. e. by living and acting), and that the
handiwork is in a sense, the producer in activity; he loves his handiwork,
therefore, because he loves existence. And this is rooted in the nature of
things; for what he is in potentiality, his handiwork manifests in activity.
At the same time to the benefactor that is noble which depends on his
action, so that he delights in the object of his action, (10) whereas to the
patient there is nothing noble in the agent, but at most something
advantageous, and this is less pleasant and lovable. What is pleasant is
the activity of the present, the hope of the future, the memory of the
past; but most pleasant is that which depends on activity, and similarly
this is most lovable. Now for a man who has made something his work
remains (for the noble is lasting), (15) but for the person acted on the
utility passes away. And the memory of noble things is pleasant, but that
of useful things is not likely to be pleasant, or is less so; though the
reverse seems true of expectation.
Further, love is like activity, being loved like passivity; and loving and
its concomitants are attributes of those who are the more active.28
Again, (20) all men love more what they have won by labour; e. g.
those who have made their money love it more than those who have
inherited it; and to be well treated seems to involve no labour, while to
treat others well is a laborious task. These are the reasons, too, (25) why
mothers are fonder of their children than fathers; bringing them into the
world costs them more pains, and they know better that the children are
their own. This last point, too, would seem to apply to benefactors.

8 The question is also debated, whether a man should love himself

most, or some one else. People criticize those who love themselves most,
and call them self-lovers, using this as an epithet of disgrace, (30) and a
bad man seems to do everything for his own sake, and the more so the
more wicked he is—and so men reproach him, for instance, with doing
nothing of his own accord—while the good man acts for honour’s sake,
and the more so the better he is, and acts for his friend’s sake, and
sacrifices his own interest.
But the facts clash with these arguments, (35) and this is not surprising.
[1168b] For men say that one ought to love best one’s best friend, and
a man’s best friend is one who wishes well to the object of his wish for
his sake, even if no one is to know of it; and these attributes are found
most of all in a man’s attitude towards himself, and so are all the other
attributes by which a friend is defined; for, (5) as we have said,29 it is
from this relation that all the characteristics of friendship have extended
to our neighbours. All the proverbs, too, agree with this, e. g. ‘a single
soul’, and ‘what friends have is common property’, and ‘friendship is
equality’, and ‘charity begins at home’; for all these marks will be found
most in a man’s relation to himself; he is his own best friend and
therefore ought to love himself best. It is therefore a reasonable
question, (10) which of the two views we should follow; for both are
plausible.
Perhaps we ought to mark off such arguments from each other and
determine how far and in what respects each view is right. Now if we
grasp the sense in which each school uses the phrase ‘lover of self’, (15)
the truth may become evident. Those who use the term as one of
reproach ascribe self-love to people who assign to themselves the greater
share of wealth, honours, and bodily pleasures; for these are what most
people desire, and busy themselves about as though they were the best
of all things, which is the reason, too, why they become objects of
competition. So those who are grasping with regard to these things
gratify their appetites and in general their feelings and the irrational
element of the soul; and most men are of this nature (which is the reason
why the epithet has come to be used as it is—it takes its meaning from
the prevailing type of self-love, (20) which is a bad one); it is just,
therefore, that men who are lovers of self in this way are reproached for
being so. That it is those who give themselves the preference in regard to
objects of this sort that most people usually call lovers of self is plain; for
if a man were always anxious that he himself, (25) above all things,
should act justly, temperately, or in accordance with any other of the
virtues, and in general were always to try to secure for himself the
honourable course, no one will call such a man a lover of self or blame
him.
But such a man would seem more than the other a lover of self; at all
events he assigns to himself the things that are noblest and best, and
gratifies the most authoritative element in himself and in all things
obeys this; and just as a city or any other systematic whole is most
properly identified with the most authoritative element in it, (30) so is a
man; and therefore the man who loves this and gratifies it is most of all
a lover of self. Besides, a man is said to have or not to have self-control
according as his reason has or has not the control, on the assumption
that this is the man himself; (35) and the things men have done on a
rational principle are thought most properly their own acts and
voluntary acts. [1169a] That this is the man himself, then, or is so
more than anything else, is plain, and also that the good man loves most
this part of him. Whence it follows that he is most truly a lover of self, of
another type than that which is a matter of reproach, and as different
from that as living according to a rational principle is from living as
passion dictates, and desiring what is noble from desiring what seems
advantageous. (5) Those, then, who busy themselves in an exceptional
degree with noble actions all men approve and praise; and if all were to
strive towards what is noble and strain every nerve to do the noblest
deeds, everything would be as it should be for the common weal, and
every one would secure for himself the goods that are greatest, (10) since
virtue is the greatest of goods.
Therefore the good man should be a lover of self (for he will both
himself profit by doing noble acts, and will benefit his fellows), but the
wicked man should not; for he will hurt both himself and his neighbours,
following as he does evil passions. For the wicked man, (15) what he does
clashes with what he ought to do, but what the good man ought to do he
does; for reason in each of its possessors chooses what is best for itself,
and the good man obeys his reason. It is true of the good man too that
he does many acts for the sake of his friends and his country, and if
necessary dies for them; for he will throw away both wealth and honours
and in general the goods that are objects of competition, (20) gaining for
himself nobility; since he would prefer a short period of intense pleasure
to a long one of mild enjoyment, a twelvemonth of noble life to many
years of humdrum existence, (25) and one great and noble action to many
trivial ones. Now those who die for others doubtless attain this result; it
is therefore a great prize that they choose for themselves. They will
throw away wealth too on condition that their friends will gain more; for
while a man’s friend gains wealth he himself achieves nobility; he is
therefore assigning the greater good to himself. (30) The same too is true
of honour and office; all these things he will sacrifice to his friend; for
this is noble and laudable for himself. Rightly then is he thought to be
good, since he chooses nobility before all else. But he may even give up
actions to his friend; it may be nobler to become the cause of his friend’s
acting than to act himself. (35) In all the actions, therefore, that men are
praised for, the good man is seen to assign to himself the greater share in
what is noble. [1169b] In this sense, then, as has been said, a man
should be a lover of self; but in the sense in which most men are so, he
ought not.
9 It is also disputed whether the happy man will need friends or not.
It is said that those who are supremely happy and self-sufficient have no
need of friends; for they have the things that are good, (5) and therefore
being self-sufficient they need nothing further, while a friend, being
another self, furnishes what a man cannot provide by his own effort;
whence the saying ‘when fortune is kind, what need of friends?’ But it
seems strange, when one assigns all good things to the happy man, (10)
not to assign friends, who are thought the greatest of external goods.
And if it is more characteristic of a friend to do well by another than to
be well done by, and to confer benefits is characteristic of the good man
and of virtue, and it is nobler to do well by friends than by strangers, the
good man will need people to do well by. (15) This is why the question is
asked whether we need friends more in prosperity or in adversity, on the
assumption that not only does a man in adversity need people to confer
benefits on him, but also those who are prospering need people to do
well by. Surely it is strange, too, to make the supremely happy man a
solitary; for no one would choose the whole world on condition of being
alone, since man is a political creature and one whose nature is to live
with others. Therefore even the happy man lives with others; for he has
the things that are by nature good. (20) And plainly it is better to spend
his days with friends and good men than with strangers or any chance
persons. Therefore the happy man needs friends.
What then is it that the first school means, and in what respect is it
right? Is it that most men identify friends with useful people? Of such
friends indeed the supremely happy man will have no need, since he
already has the things that are good; nor will he need those whom one
makes one’s friends because of their pleasantness, (25) or he will need
them only to a small extent (for his life, being pleasant, has no need of
adventitious pleasure); and because he does not need such friends he is
thought not to need friends.
But that is surely not true. For we have said at the outset30 that
happiness is an activity; and activity plainly comes into being and is not
present at the start like a piece of property. (30) If (1) happiness lies in
living and being active, and the good man’s activity is virtuous and
pleasant in itself, as we have said at the outset,31 and (2) a thing’s being
one’s own is one of the attributes that make it pleasant, and (3) we can
contemplate our neighbours better than ourselves and their actions
better than our own, and if the actions of virtuous men who are their
friends are pleasant to good men (since these have both the attributes
that are naturally pleasant32—if this be so, (35) the supremely happy man
will need friends of this sort, since his purpose is to contemplate worthy
actions and actions that are his own, and the actions of a good man who
is his friend have both these qualities. [1170a]
Further, men think that the happy man ought to live pleasantly. Now
if he were a solitary, life would be hard for him; for by oneself it is not
easy to be continuously active; but with others and towards others it is
easier. (5) With others therefore his activity will be more continuous, and
it is in itself pleasant, as it ought to be for the man who is supremely
happy; for a good man qua good delights in virtuous actions and is vexed
at vicious ones, as a musical man enjoys beautiful tunes but is pained at
bad ones. (10) A certain training in virtue arises also from the company of
the good, as Theognis has said before us.
If we look deeper into the nature of things, a virtuous friend seems to
be naturally desirable for a virtuous man. For that which is good by
nature, we have said,33 is for the virtuous man good and pleasant in
itself. (15) Now life is defined in the case of animals by the power of
perception, in that of man by the power of perception or thought; and a
power is defined by reference to the corresponding activity, which is the
essential thing; therefore life seems to be essentially the act of perceiving
or thinking. And life is among the things that are good and pleasant in
themselves, (20) since it is determinate and the determinate is of the
nature of the good; and that which is good by nature is also good for the
virtuous man (which is the reason why life seems pleasant to all men);
but we must not apply this to a wicked and corrupt life nor to a life
spent in pain; for such a life is indeterminate, as are its attributes. (25)
The nature of pain will become plainer in what follows.34 But if life itself
is good and pleasant (which it seems to be, from the very fact that all
men desire it, and particularly those who are good and supremely
happy; for to such men life is most desirable, and their existence is the
most supremely happy); and if he who sees perceives that he sees, and
he who hears, that he hears, and he who walks, (30) that he walks, and in
the case of all other activities similarly there is something which
perceives that we are active, so that if we perceive, we perceive that we
perceive, and if we think, that we think; and if to perceive that we
perceive or think is to perceive that we exist (for existence was defined
as perceiving or thinking); and if perceiving that one lives is in itself one
of the things that are pleasant (for life is by nature good, and to perceive
what is good present in oneself is pleasant); and if life is desirable, and
particularly so for good men, because to them existence is good and
pleasant (for they are pleased at the consciousness of the presence in
them of what is in itself good); and if as the virtuous man is to himself,
(5) he is to his friend also (for his friend is another self):—if all this be

true, as his own being is desirable for each man, so, or almost so, is that
of his friend. [1170b] Now his being was seen to be desirable because
he perceived his own goodness, (10) and such perception is pleasant in
itself. He needs, therefore, to be conscious of the existence of his friend
as well, and this will be realized in their living together and sharing in
discussion and thought; for this is what living together would seem to
mean in the case of man, and not, as in the case of cattle, feeding in the
same place.
If, then, being is in itself desirable for the supremely happy man (since
it is by its nature good and pleasant), (15) and that of his friend is very
much the same, a friend will be one of the things that are desirable. Now
that which is desirable for him he must have, or he will be deficient in
this respect. The man who is to be happy will therefore need virtuous
friends.

10 Should we, (20) then, make as many friends as possible, or—as in

the case of hospitality it is thought to be suitable advice, that one should
be ‘neither a man of many guests nor a man with none’—will that apply
to friendship as well; should a man neither be friendless nor have an
excessive number of friends?
To friends made with a view to utility this saying would seem
thoroughly applicable; for to do services to many people in return is a
laborious task and life is not long enough for its performance. (25)
Therefore friends in excess of those who are sufficient for our own life
are superfluous, and hindrances to the noble life; so that we have no
need of them. Of friends made with a view to pleasure, also, few are
enough, as a little seasoning in food is enough.
But as regards good friends, should we have as many as possible, or is
there a limit to the number of one’s friends, as there is to the size of a
city? You cannot make a city of ten men, (30) and if there are a hundred
thousand it is a city no longer. But the proper number is presumably not
a single number, but anything that falls between certain fixed points. So
for friends too there is a fixed number—perhaps the largest number with
whom one can live together (for that, we found,35 is thought to be very
characteristic of friendship); and that one cannot live with many people
and divide oneself up among them is plain. [1171a] Further, they too
must be friends of one another, if they are all to spend their days
together; and it is a hard business for this condition to be fulfilled with a
large number. It is found difficult, (5) too, to rejoice and to grieve in an
intimate way with many people, for it may likely happen that one has at
once to be happy with one friend and to mourn with another.
Presumably, then, it is well not to seek to have as many friends as
possible, but as many as are enough for the purpose of living together;
for it would seem actually impossible to be a great friend to many
people. (10) This is why one cannot love several people; love is ideally a
sort of excess of friendship, and that can only be felt towards one person;
therefore great friendship too can only be felt towards a few people. This
seems to be confirmed in practice; for we do not find many people who
are friends in the comradely way of friendship, and the famous
friendships of this sort are always between two people. (15) Those who
have many friends and mix intimately with them all are thought to be no
one’s friend, except in the way proper to fellow-citizens, and such people
are also called obsequious. In the way proper to fellow-citizens, indeed,
it is possible to be the friend of many and yet not be obsequious but a
genuinely good man; but one cannot have with many people the
friendship based on virtue and on the character of our friends
themselves, (20) and we must be content if we find even a few such.

11 Do we need friends more in good fortune or in bad? They are

sought after in both; for while men in adversity need help, in prosperity
they need people to live with and to make the objects of their
beneficence; for they wish to do well by others. Friendship, then, is more
necessary in bad fortune, and so it is useful friends that one wants in this
case; but it is more noble in good fortune, (25) and so we also seek for
good men as our friends, since it is more desirable to confer benefits on
these and to live with these. For the very presence of friends is pleasant
both in good fortune and also in bad, (30) since grief is lightened when
friends sorrow with us. Hence one might ask whether they share as it
were our burden, or—without that happening—their presence by its
pleasantness, and the thought of their grieving with us, make our pain
less. Whether it is for these reasons or for some other that our grief is
lightened, is a question that may be dismissed; at all events what we
have described appears to take place.
But their presence seems to contain a mixture of various factors. (35)
The very seeing of one’s friends is pleasant, especially if one is in
adversity, and becomes a safeguard against grief (for a friend tends to
comfort us both by the sight of him and by his words, if he is tactful,
since he knows our character and the things that please or pain us); but
to see him pained at our misfortunes is painful; for every one shuns
being a cause of pain to his friends. [1171b] (5) For this reason people
of a manly nature guard against making their friends grieve with them,
and, unless he be exceptionally insensible to pain, such a man cannot
stand the pain that ensues for his friends, and in general does not admit
fellow-mourners because he is not himself given to mourning; but
women and womanly men enjoy sympathisers in their grief, (10) and love
them as friends and companions in sorrow. But in all things one
obviously ought to imitate the better type of person.
On the other hand, the presence of friends in our prosperity implies
both a pleasant passing of our time and the pleasant thought of their
pleasure at our own good fortune. For this cause it would seem that we
ought to summon our friends readily to share our good fortunes (for the
beneficent character is a noble one), (15) but summon them to our bad
fortunes with hesitation; for we ought to give them as little a share as
possible in our evils—whence the saying ‘enough is my misfortune’. We
should summon friends to us most of all when they are likely by
suffering a few inconveniences to do us a great service.
Conversely, it is fitting to go unasked and readily to the aid of those in
adversity (for it is characteristic of a friend to render services, (20) and
especially to those who are in need and have not demanded them; such
action is nobler and pleasanter for both persons); but when our friends
are prosperous we should join readily in their activities (for they need
friends for these too), but be tardy in coming forward to be the objects
of their kindness; for it is not noble to be keen to receive benefits. Still,
we must no doubt avoid getting the reputation of kill-joys by repulsing
them; for that sometimes happens. (25)
The presence of friends, then, seems desirable in all circumstances.

12 Does it not follow, then, that, as for lovers the sight of the beloved
is the thing they love most, and they prefer this sense to the others
because on it love depends most for its being and for its origin, (30) so for
friends the most desirable thing is living together? For friendship is a
partnership, and as a man is to himself, so is he to his friend; now in his
own case the consciousness of his being is desirable, and so therefore is
the consciousness of his friend’s being, (35) and the activity of this
consciousness is produced when they live together, so that it is natural
that they aim at this. [1172a] And whatever existence means for each
class of men, whatever it is for whose sake they value life, in that they
wish to occupy themselves with their friends; and so some drink
together, others dice together, others join in athletic exercises and
hunting, or in the study of philosophy, (5) each class spending their days
together in whatever they love most in life; for since they wish to live
with their friends, they do and share in those things which give them the
sense of living together. Thus the friendship of bad men turns out an evil
thing (for because of their instability they unite in bad pursuits, (10) and
besides they become evil by becoming like each other), while the
friendship of good men is good, being augmented by their
companionship; and they are thought to become better too by their
activities and by improving each other; for from each other they take the
mould of the characteristics they approve—whence the saying ‘noble
deeds from noble men’.—So much, then, for friendship; our next task
must be to discuss pleasure. (15)

1 This has not been said precisely of friendship between dissimilars, but Cf. 1132b 31–33, 1158b
27, 1159a 35-b 3, 1162a 34-b 4, 1163b 11.
2 1156b 9–12.

3 i. e. the pleasure of expectation.

4 Cf. Pl. Prot. 328 B, C.

5 1162b 6–13.

6 1164b 31–1165a 2.

7 1094b 11–27, 1098a 26–29, 1103b 34–1104a 5.

8 Cf. 1134b 18–24.

9 1162b 23–25.

10 1156b 19–21, 1159b 1.

11 1157b 22–24.

12 ib. 17–24, 1158b 33–35.

13 1113a 22–33, Cf. 1099a 13.

14 (4) above.

15 (1) above.

16 (2) above.

17 sc. but as no one gains by God’s now having the good, he would not gain if a new person
which was no longer himself were to possess it. Cf. 1159a 5–11.
18 (3) above.

19 (5) above.

20 Cf. 1168a 28–1169b 2.

21 (4) above.

22 (2) above.

23 (3) above.

24 (1) above.

25 (5) above.

26 1155b 32–1156a 5.

27 Eteocles and Polynices (Eur. Phoen. 588 ff.).

28 i. e. benefactors.

29 Ch. 4.

30 1098a 16b, 31–1099a 7.

31 1099a 14, 21.

32 i. e. the attribute of goodness and that of being their own.

33 1099a 7–11, 1113a 25–33.

34 x. 1–5.

35 1157b 19, 1158a 3, 10.

 BOOK X

1 After these matters we ought perhaps next to discuss pleasure. For it

is thought to be most intimately connected with our human nature,
which is the reason why in educating the young we steer them by the
rudders of pleasure and pain; it is thought, (20) too, that to enjoy the
things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing
on virtue of character. For these things extend right through life, with a
weight and power of their own in respect both to virtue and to the
happy life, (25) since men choose what is pleasant and avoid what is
painful; and such things, it will be thought, we should least of all omit to
discuss, especially since they admit of much dispute. For some1 say
pleasure is the good, while others,2 on the contrary, say it is thoroughly
bad—some no doubt being persuaded that the facts are so, and others
thinking it has a better effect on our life to exhibit pleasure as a bad
thing even if it is not; for most people (they think) incline towards it and
are the slaves of their pleasures, (30) for which reason they ought to lead
them in the opposite direction, since thus they will reach the middle
state. But surely this is not correct. For arguments about matters
concerned with feelings and actions are less reliable than facts: and so
when they clash with the facts of perception they are despised, (35) and
discredit the truth as well; if a man who runs down pleasure is once seen
to be aiming at it, his inclining towards it is thought to imply that it is
all worthy of being aimed at; for most people are not good at drawing
distinctions. [1172b] True arguments seem, then, most useful, not only
with a view to knowledge, (5) but with a view to life also; for since they
harmonize with the facts they are believed, and so they stimulate those
who understand them to live according to them.—Enough of such
questions; let us proceed to review the opinions that have been
expressed about pleasure.

2 Eudoxus thought pleasure was the good because he saw all things,
(10) both rational and irrational, aiming at it, and because in all things

that which is the object of choice is what is excellent, and that which is
most the object of choice the greatest good; thus the fact that all things
moved towards the same object indicated that this was for all things the
chief good (for each thing, he argued, finds its own good, as it finds its
own nourishment); and that which is good for all things and at which all
aim was the good. (15) His arguments were credited more because of the
excellence of his character than for their own sake; he was thought to be
remarkably self-controlled, and therefore it was thought that he was not
saying what he did say as a friend of pleasure, but that the facts really
were so. He believed that the same conclusion followed no less plainly
from a study of the contrary of pleasure; pain was in itself an object of
aversion to all things, and therefore its contrary must be similarly an
object of choice. (20) And again that is most an object of choice which we
choose not because or for the sake of something else, and pleasure is
admittedly of this nature; for no one asks to what end he is pleased, thus
implying that pleasure is in itself an object of choice. Further, he argued
that pleasure when added to any good, e. g. to just or temperate action,
makes it more worthy of choice, and that it is only by itself that the
good can be increased. (25)
This argument seems to show it to be one of the goods, and no more a
good than any other; for every good is more worthy of choice along with
another good than taken alone. And so it is by an argument of this kind
that Plato3 proves the good not to be pleasure; he argues that the
pleasant life is more desirable with wisdom than without, (30) and that if
the mixture is better, pleasure is not the good; for the good cannot
become more desirable by the addition of anything to it. Now it is clear
that nothing else, any more than pleasure, can be the good if it is made
more desirable by the addition of any of the things that are good in
themselves. What, then, is there that satisfies this criterion, which at the
same time we can participate in? It is something of this sort that we are
looking for.
Those who object that that at which all things aim is not necessarily
good are, (35) we may surmise, talking nonsense. For we say that that
which every one thinks really is so; and the man who attacks this belief
will hardly have anything more credible to maintain instead. [1173a]
If it is senseless creatures that desire the things in question, there might
be something in what they say; but if intelligent creatures do so as well,
what sense can there be in this view? But perhaps even in inferior
creatures there is some natural good stronger than themselves which
aims at their proper good.
Nor does the argument about the contrary of pleasure seem to be
correct. (5) They say that if pain is an evil it does not follow that pleasure
is a good; for evil is opposed to evil and at the same time both are
opposed to the neutral state—which is correct enough but does not
apply to the things in question. For if both pleasure and pain belonged to
the class of evils they ought both to be objects of aversion, (10) while if
they belonged to the class of neutrals neither should be an object of
aversion or they should both be equally so; but in fact people evidently
avoid the one as evil and choose the other as good; that then must be the
nature of the opposition between them.

3 Nor again, if pleasure is not a quality, does it follow that it is not a

good; for the activities of virtue are not qualities either, nor is happiness.
They say,4 (15) however, that the good is determinate, while pleasure is
indeterminate, because it admits of degrees. Now if it is from the feeling
of pleasure that they judge thus, the same will be true of justice and the
other virtues, in respect of which we plainly say that people of a certain
character are so more or less, and act more or less in accordance with
these virtues; for people may be more just or brave, (20) and it is possible
also to act justly or temperately more or less. But if their judgement is
based on the various pleasures, surely they are not stating the real
cause,5 if in fact some pleasures are unmixed and others mixed. Again,
just as health admits of degrees without being indeterminate, (25) why
should not pleasure? The same proportion is not found in all things, nor
a single proportion always in the same thing, but it may be relaxed and
yet persist up to a point, and it may differ in degree. The case of
pleasure also may therefore be of this kind.
Again, they assume6 that the good is perfect while movements and
comings into being are imperfect, (30) and try to exhibit pleasure as being
a movement and a coming into being. But they do not seem to be right
even in saying that it is a movement. For speed and slowness are thought
to be proper to every movement, and if a movement, e. g. that of the
heavens, has not speed or slowness in itself, it has it in relation to
something else; but of pleasure neither of these things is true. For while
we may become pleased quickly as we may become angry quickly, we
cannot be pleased quickly, not even in relation to some one else, while
we can walk, or grow, or the like, quickly. [1173b] While, then, we
can change quickly or slowly into a state of pleasure, we cannot quickly
exhibit the activity of pleasure, i. e. be pleased. Again, how can it be a
coming into being? It is not thought that any chance thing can come out
of any chance thing, (5) but that a thing is dissolved into that out of
which it comes into being; and pain would be the destruction of that of
which pleasure is the coming into being.
They say, too,7 that pain is the lack of that which is according to
nature, and pleasure is replenishment. But these experiences are bodily.
If then pleasure is replenishment with that which is according to nature,
that which feels pleasure will be that in which the replenishment takes
place, i. e. the body; but that is not thought to be the case; therefore the
replenishment is not pleasure, (10) though one would be pleased when
replenishment was taking place, just as one would be pained if one was
being operated on.8 This opinion seems to be based on the pains and
pleasures connected with nutrition; on the fact that when people have
been short of food and have felt pain beforehand they are pleased by the
replenishment. But this does not happen with all pleasures; for the
pleasures of learning and, (15) among the sensuous pleasures, those of
smell, and also many sounds and sights, and memories and hopes, do not
presuppose pain. Of what then will these be the coming into being?
There has not been lack of anything of which they could be the
supplying anew.
In reply to those who bring forward the disgraceful pleasures one may
say that these are not pleasant; if things are pleasant to people of vicious
constitution, (20) we must not suppose that they are also pleasant to
others than these, just as we do not reason so about the things that are
wholesome or sweet or bitter to sick people, or ascribe whiteness to the
things that seem white to those suffering from a disease of the eye. Or
one might answer thus—that the pleasures are desirable, (25) but not
from these sources, as wealth is desirable, but not as the reward of
betrayal, and health, but not at the cost of eating anything and
everything. Or perhaps pleasures differ in kind; for those derived from
noble sources are different from those derived from base sources, and
one cannot get the pleasure of the just man without being just, nor that
of the musical man without being musical, (30) and so on.
The fact, too, that a friend is different from a flatterer seems to make
it plain that pleasure is not a good or that pleasures are different in kind;
for the one is thought to consort with us with a view to the good, the
other with a view to our pleasure, and the one is reproached for his
conduct while the other is praised on the ground that he consorts with
us for different ends. [1174a] And no one would choose to live with
the intellect of a child throughout his life, however much he were to be
pleased at the things that children are pleased at, nor to get enjoyment
by doing some most disgraceful deed, though he were never to feel any
pain in consequence. And there are many things we should be keen
about even if they brought no pleasure, (5) e. g. seeing, remembering,
knowing, possessing the virtues. If pleasures necessarily do accompany
these, that makes no odds; we should choose these even if no pleasure
resulted. It seems to be clear, then, that neither is pleasure the good nor
is all pleasure desirable, (10) and that some pleasures are desirable in kind
or in their sources from the others. So much for the things that are said
about pleasure and pain.

4 What pleasure is, or what kind of thing it is, will become plainer if
we take up the question again from the beginning. (15) Seeing seems to be
at any moment complete, for it does not lack anything which coming
into being later will complete its form; and pleasure also seems to be of
this nature. For it is a whole, and at no time can one find a pleasure
whose form will be completed if the pleasure lasts longer. For this
reason, too, it is not a movement. For every movement (e. g. that of
building) takes time and is for the sake of an end, (20) and is complete
when it has made what it aims at. It is complete, therefore, only in the
whole time or at that final moment. In their parts and during the time
they occupy, all movements are incomplete, and are different in kind
from the whole movement and from each other. For the fitting together
of the stones is different from the fluting of the column, and these are
both different from the making of the temple; and the making of the
temple is complete (for it lacks nothing with a view to the end
proposed), (25) but the making of the base or of the triglyph is
incomplete; for each is the making of only a part. They differ in kind,
then, and it is not possible to find at any and every time a movement
complete in form, but if at all, only in the whole time. So, too, in the
case of walking and all other movements. (30) For if locomotion is a
movement from here to there, it, too, has differences in kind—flying,
walking, leaping, and so on. And not only so, but in walking itself there
are such differences; for the whence and whither are not the same in the
whole racecourse and in a part of it, nor in one part and in another, nor
is it the same thing to traverse this line and that; for one traverses not
only a line but one which is in a place, and this one is in a different
place from that. [1174b] We have discussed movement with precision
in another work,9 but it seems that it is not complete at any and every
time, but that the many movements are incomplete and different in kind,
(5) since the whence and whither give them their form. But of pleasure

the form is complete at any and every time. Plainly, then, pleasure and
movement must be different from each other, and pleasure must be one
of the things that are whole and complete. This would seem to be the
case, too, from the fact that it is not possible to move otherwise than in
time, but it is possible to be pleased; for that which takes place in a
moment is a whole.
From these considerations it is clear, too, that these thinkers are not
right in saying there is a movement or a coming into being of pleasure.
For these cannot be ascribed to all things, (10) but only to those that are
divisible and not wholes; there is no coming into being of seeing nor of a
point nor of a unit, nor is any of these a movement or coming into being;
therefore there is no movement or coming into being of pleasure either;
for it is a whole.
Since every sense is active in relation to its object, (15) and a sense
which is in good condition acts perfectly in relation to the most beautiful
of its objects (for perfect activity seems to be ideally of this nature;
whether we say that it is active, or the organ in which it resides, may be
assumed to be immaterial), it follows that in the case of each sense the
best activity is that of the best-conditioned organ in relation to the finest
of its objects. And this activity will be the most complete and pleasant.
For, while there is pleasure in respect of any sense, (20) and in respect of
thought and contemplation no less, the most complete is pleasantest, and
that of a well-conditioned organ in relation to the worthiest of its objects
is the most complete; and the pleasure completes the activity. But the
pleasure does not complete it in the same way as the combination of
object and sense, (25) both good, just as health and the doctor are not in
the same way the cause of a man’s being healthy. (That pleasure is
produced in respect to each sense is plain; for we speak of sights and
sounds as pleasant. It is also plain that it arises most of all when both the
sense is at its best and it is active in reference to an object which
corresponds; when both object and perceiver are of the best there will
always be pleasure, (30) since the requisite agent and patient are both
present.) Pleasure completes the activity not as the corresponding
permanent state does, by its immanence, but as an end which supervenes
as the bloom of youth does on those in the flower of their age. So long,
then, as both the intelligible or sensible object and the discriminating or
contemplative faculty are as they should be, the pleasure will be
involved in the activity; for when both the passive and the active factor
are unchanged and are related to each other in the same way, the same
result naturally follows.
[1175a] How, then, is it that no one is continuously pleased? Is it
that we grow weary? Certainly all human things are incapable of
continuous activity. Therefore pleasure also is not continuous; for it
accompanies activity. (5) Some things delight us, when they are new, but
later do so less, for the same reason; for at first the mind is in a state of
stimulation and intensely active about them, as people are with respect
to their vision when they look hard at a thing, but afterwards our
activity is not of this kind, but has grown relaxed; for which reason the
pleasure also is dulled.
One might think that all men desire pleasure because they all aim at
life; life is an activity, (10) and each man is active about those things and
with those faculties that he loves most; e. g. the musician is active with
his hearing in reference to tunes, the student with his mind in reference
to theoretical questions, (15) and so on in each case; now pleasure
completes the activities, and therefore life, which they desire. It is with
good reason, then, that they aim at pleasure too, since for every one it
completes life, which is desirable. But whether we choose life for the
sake of pleasure or pleasure for the sake of life is a question we may
dismiss for the present. For they seem to be bound up together and not
to admit of separation, (20) since without activity pleasure does not arise,
and every activity is completed by the attendant pleasure.

5 For this reason pleasures seem, too, to differ in kind. For things
different in kind are, we think, completed by different things (we see
this to be true both of natural objects and of things produced by art, (25)
e. g. animals, trees, a painting, a sculpture, a house, an implement); and,
similarly, we think that activities differing in kind are completed by
things differing in kind. Now the activities of thought differ from those
of the senses, and both differ among themselves, in kind; so, therefore,
do the, pleasures that complete them.
This may be seen, too, from the fact that each of the pleasures is
bound up with the activity it completes. For an activity is intensified by
its proper pleasure, (30) since each class of things is better judged of and
brought to precision by those who engage in the activity with pleasure;
e. g. it is those who enjoy geometrical thinking that become geometers
and grasp the various propositions better, and, similarly, those who are
fond of music or of building, and so on, (35) make progress in their proper
function by enjoying it; so the pleasures intensify the activities, and what
intensifies a thing is proper to it, but things different in kind have
properties different in kind. [1175b]
This will be even more apparent from the fact that activities are
hindered by pleasures arising from other sources. For people who are
fond of playing the flute are incapable of attending to arguments if they
overhear some one playing the flute, since they enjoy flute-playing more
than the activity in hand; so the pleasure connected with flute-playing
destroys the activity concerned with argument. (5) This happens,
similarly, in all other cases, when one is active about two things at once;
the more pleasant activity drives out the other, and if it is much more
pleasant does so all the more, so that one even ceases from the other.
This is why when we enjoy anything very much we do not throw
ourselves into anything else, (10) and do one thing only when we are not
much pleased by another; e. g. in the theatre the people who eat sweets
do so most when the actors are poor. Now since activities are made
precise and more enduring and better by their proper pleasure, and
injured by alien pleasures, (15) evidently the two kinds of pleasure are far
apart. For alien pleasures do pretty much what proper pains do, since
activities are destroyed by their proper pains; e. g. if a man finds writing
or doing sums unpleasant and painful, he does not write, or does not do
sums, because the activity is painful. So an activity suffers contrary
effects from its proper pleasures and pains, (20) i. e. from those that
supervene on it in virtue of its own nature. And alien pleasures have
been stated to do much the same as pain; they destroy the activity, only
not to the same degree.
Now since activities differ in respect of goodness and badness, and
some are worthy to be chosen, others to be avoided, and others neutral,
(25) so, too, are the pleasures; for to each activity there is a proper

pleasure. The pleasure proper to a worthy activity is good and that

proper to an unworthy activity bad; just as the appetites for noble
objects are laudable, those for base objects culpable. (30) But the
pleasures involved in activities are more proper to them than the desires;
for the latter are separated both in time and in nature, while the former
are close to the activities, and so hard to distinguish from them that it
admits of dispute whether the activity is not the same as the pleasure.
(Still, pleasure does not seem to be thought or perception—that would be
strange; but because they are not found apart they appear to some
people the same. (35)) As activities are different, then, so are the
corresponding pleasures. [1176a] Now sight is superior to touch in
purity, and hearing and smell to taste; the pleasures, therefore, are
similarly superior, and those of thought superior to these, and within
each of the two kinds some are superior to others.
Each animal is thought to have a proper pleasure, as it has a proper
function; viz. that which corresponds to its activity. If we survey them
species by species, too, this will be evident; horse, (5) dog, and man have
different pleasures, as Heraclitus says ‘asses would prefer sweepings to
gold’; for food is pleasanter than gold to asses. So the pleasures of
creatures different in kind differ in kind, and it is plausible to suppose
that those of a single species do not differ. But they vary to no small
extent, in the case of men at least; the same things delight some people
and pain others, (10) and are painful and odious to some, and pleasant to
and liked by others. This happens, too, in the case of sweet things; the
same things do not seem sweet to a man in a fever and a healthy man—
nor hot to a weak man and one in good condition. The same happens in
other cases. (15) But in all such matters that which appears to the good
man is thought to be really so. If this is correct, as it seems to be, and
virtue and the good man as such are the measure of each thing, those
also will be pleasures which appear so to him, and those things pleasant
which he enjoys. If the things he finds tiresome seem pleasant to some
one, (20) that is nothing surprising; for men may be ruined and spoilt in
many ways; but the things are not pleasant, but only pleasant to these
people and to people in this condition. Those which are admittedly
disgraceful plainly should not be said to be pleasures, except to a
perverted taste; but of those that are thought to be good what kind of
pleasure or what pleasure should be said to be that proper to man? Is it
not plain from the corresponding activities? The pleasures follow these.
(25) Whether, then, the perfect and supremely happy man has one or

more activities, the pleasures that perfect these will be said in the strict
sense to be pleasures proper to man, and the rest will be so in a
secondary and fractional way, as are the activities.

6 Now that we have spoken of the virtues, (30) the forms of friendship,
and the varieties of pleasure, what remains is to discuss in outline the
nature of happiness, since this is what we state the end of human nature
to be. Our discussion will be the more concise if we first sum up what
we have said already. We said,10 then, that it is not a disposition; for if it
were it might belong to some one who was asleep throughout his life, (35)
living the life of a plant, or, again, to some one who was suffering the
greatest misfortunes. [1176b] If these implications are unacceptable,
and we must rather class happiness as an activity, as we have said
before,11 and if some activities are necessary, and desirable for the sake
of something else, while others are so in themselves, evidently happiness
must be placed among those desirable in themselves, (5) not among those
desirable for the sake of something else; for happiness does not lack
anything, but is self-sufficient. Now those activities are desirable in
themselves from which nothing is sought beyond the activity. And of this
nature virtuous actions are thought to be; for to do noble and good
deeds is a thing desirable for its own sake.
Pleasant amusements also are thought to be of this nature; we choose
them not for the sake of other things; for we are injured rather than
benefited by them, since we are led to neglect our bodies and our
property. (10) But most of the people who are deemed happy take refuge
in such pastimes, which is the reason why those who are ready-witted at
them are highly esteemed at the courts of tyrants; they make themselves
pleasant companions in the tyrants’ favourite pursuits, (15) and that is the
sort of man they want. Now these things are thought to be of the nature
of happiness because people in despotic positions spend their leisure in
them, but perhaps such people prove nothing; for virtue and reason,
from which good activities flow, do not depend on despotic position;
nor, if these people, who have never tasted pure and generous pleasure,
take refuge in the bodily pleasures, (20) should these for that reason be
thought more desirable; for boys, too, think the things that are valued
among themselves are the best. It is to be expected, then, that, as
different things seem valuable to boys and to men, so they should to bad
men and to good. Now, as we have often maintained,12 those things are
both valuable and pleasant which are such to the good man; and to each
man the activity in accordance with his own disposition is most
desirable, (25) and, therefore, to the good man that which is in
accordance with virtue. Happiness, therefore, does not lie in amusement;
it would, indeed, be strange if the end were amusement, and one were to
take trouble and suffer hardship all one’s life in order to amuse oneself.
For, (30) in a word, everything that we choose we choose for the sake of
something else—except happiness, which is an end. Now to exert oneself
and work for the sake of amusement seems silly and utterly childish. But
to amuse oneself in order that one may exert oneself, as Anacharsis puts
it, seems right; for amusement is a sort of relaxation, and we need
relaxation because we cannot work continuously. (35) Relaxation, then, is
not an end; for it is taken for the sake of activity.
The happy life is thought to be virtuous; now a virtuous life requires
exertion, and does not consist in amusement. [1177a] And we say that
serious things are better than laughable things and those connected with
amusement, and that the activity of the better of any two things—
whether it be two elements of our being or two men—is the more
serious; but the activity of the better is ipso facto superior and more of
the nature of happiness. (5) And any chance person—even a slave—can
enjoy the bodily pleasures no less than the best man; but no one assigns
to a slave a share in happiness—unless he assigns to him also a share in
human life. (10) For happiness does not lie in such occupations, but, as we
have said before,13 in virtuous activities.

7 If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable

that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue; and this will be
that of the best thing in us. Whether it be reason or something else that
is this element which is thought to be our natural ruler and guide and to
take thought of things noble and divine, (15) whether it be itself also
divine or only the most divine element in us, the activity of this in
accordance with its proper virtue will be perfect happiness. That this
activity is contemplative we have already said.14
Now this would seem to be in agreement both with what we said
before15 and with the truth. (20) For, firstly, this activity is the best (since
not only is reason the best thing in us, but the objects of reason are the
best of knowable objects); and, secondly, it is the most continuous, since
we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything.
And we think happiness has pleasure mingled with it, but the activity of
philosophic wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest of virtuous activities;
at all events the pursuit of it is thought to offer pleasures marvellous for
their purity and their enduringness, (25) and it is to be expected that
those who know will pass their time more pleasantly than those who
inquire. And the self-sufficiency that is spoken of must belong most to
the contemplative activity. For while a philosopher, as well as a just man
or one possessing any other virtue, (30) needs the necessaries of life, when
they are sufficiently equipped with things of that sort the just man needs
people towards whom and with whom he shall act justly, and the
temperate man, the brave man, and each of the others is in the same
case, but the philosopher, even when by himself, can contemplate truth,
and the better the wiser he is; he can perhaps do so better if he has
fellow-workers, but still he is the most self-sufficient. [1177b] And this
activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises
from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we
gain more or less apart from the action. (5) And happiness is thought to
depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make
war that we may live in peace. Now the activity of the practical virtues
is exhibited in political or military affairs, but the actions concerned
with these seem to be unleisurely. Warlike actions are completely so (for
no one chooses to be at war, or provokes war, for the sake of being at
war; any one would seem absolutely murderous if he were to make
enemies of his friends in order to bring about battle and slaughter); but
the action of the statesman is also unleisurely, (10) and—apart from the
political action itself—aims at despotic power and honours, or at all
events happiness, for him and his fellow citizens—a happiness different
from political action, (15) and evidently sought as being different. So if
among virtuous actions political and military actions are distinguished
by nobility and greatness, and these are unleisurely and aim at an end
and are not desirable for their own sake, but the activity of reason,
which is contemplative, seems both to be superior in serious worth and
to aim at no end beyond itself, and to have its pleasure proper to itself
(and this augments the activity), (20) and the self-sufficiency,
leisureliness, unweariedness (so far as this is possible for man), and all
the other attributes ascribed to the supremely happy man are evidently
those connected with this activity, it follows that this will be the
complete happiness of man, if it be allowed a complete term of life (for
none of the attributes of happiness is incomplete). (25)
But such a life would be too high for man; for it is not in so far as he is
man that he will live so, but in so far as something divine is present in
him; and by so much as this is superior to our composite nature is its
activity superior to that which is the exercise of the other kind of virtue.
If reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, (30) the life according
to it is divine in comparison with human life. But we must not follow
those who advise us, being men, to think of human things, and, being
mortal, of mortal things, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves
immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best
thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power
and worth surpass everything. [1178a] This would seem, too, to be
each man himself, since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It
would be strange, then, if he were to choose not the life of his self but
that of something else. And what we said before16 will apply now; that
which is proper to each thing is by nature best and most pleasant for
each thing; for man, (5) therefore, the life according to reason is best and
pleasantest, since reason more than anything else is man. This life
therefore is also the happiest.

8 But in a secondary degree the life in accordance with the other kind
of virtue is happy; for the activities in accordance with this befit our
human estate. (10) Just and brave acts, and other virtuous acts, we do in
relation to each other, observing our respective duties with regard to
contracts and services and all manner of actions and with regard to
passions; and all of these seem to be typically human. (15) Some of them
seem even to arise from the body, and virtue of character to be in many
ways bound up with the passions. Practical wisdom, too, is linked to
virtue of character, and this to practical wisdom, since the principles of
practical wisdom are in accordance with the moral virtues and rightness
in morals is in accordance with practical wisdom. Being connected with
the passions also, the moral virtues must belong to our composite nature;
and the virtues of our composite nature are human; so, (20) therefore, are
the life and the happiness which correspond to these. The excellence of
the reason is a thing apart; we must be content to say this much about it,
for to describe it precisely is a task greater than our purpose requires. It
would seem, however, also to need external equipment but little, (25) or
less than moral virtue does. Grant that both need the necessaries, and do
so equally, even if the statesman’s work is the more concerned with the
body and things of that sort; for there will be little difference there; but
in what they need for the exercise of their activities there will be much
difference. The liberal man will need money for the doing of his liberal
deeds, and the just man too will need it for the returning of services (for
wishes are hard to discern, (30) and even people who are not just pretend
to wish to act justly); and the brave man will need power if he is to
accomplish any of the acts that correspond to his virtue, and the
temperate man will need opportunity; for how else is either he or any of
the others to be recognized? It is debated, too, whether the will or the
deed is more essential to virtue, (35) which is assumed to involve both; it
is surely clear that its perfection involves both; but for deeds many
things are needed, and more, the greater and nobler the deeds are.
[1178b] But the man who is contemplating the truth needs no such
thing, at least with a view to the exercise of his activity; indeed they are,
one may say, (5) even hindrances, at all events to his contemplation; but
in so far as he is a man and lives with a number of people, he chooses to
do virtuous acts; he will therefore need such aids to living a human life.
But that perfect happiness is a contemplative activity will appear from
the following consideration as well. We assume the gods to be above all
other beings blessed and happy; but what sort of actions must we assign
to them? Acts of justice? Will not the gods seem absurd if they make
contracts and return deposits, (10) and so on? Acts of a brave man, then,
confronting dangers and running risks because it is noble to do so? Or
liberal acts? To whom will they give? It will be strange if they are really
to have money or anything of the kind. And what would their temperate
acts be? Is not such praise tasteless, (15) since they have no bad appetites?
If we were to run through them all, the circumstances of action would be
found trivial and unworthy of gods. Still, every one supposes that they
live and therefore that they are active; we cannot suppose them to sleep
like Endymion. Now if you take away from a living being action, (20) and
still more production, what is left but contemplation? Therefore the
activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be
contemplative; and of human activities, therefore, that which is most
akin to this must be most of the nature of happiness.
This is indicated, too, by the fact that the other animals have no share
in happiness, being completely deprived of such activity. For while the
whole life of the gods is blessed, and that of men too in so far as some
likeness of such activity belongs to them, (25) none of the other animals is
happy, since they in no way share in contemplation. Happiness extends,
then, just so far as contemplation does, and those to whom
contemplation more fully belongs are more truly happy, not as a mere
concomitant but in virtue of the contemplation; (30) for this is in itself
precious. Happiness, therefore, must be some form of contemplation.
But, being a man, one will also need external prosperity; for our
nature is not self-sufficient for the purpose of contemplation, but our
body also must be healthy and must have food and other attention. (35)
Still, we must not think that the man who is to be happy will need many
things or great things, merely because he cannot be supremely happy
without external goods; for self-sufficiency and action do not involve
excess, and we can do noble acts without ruling earth and sea; for even
with moderate advantages one can act virtuously (this is manifest
enough; for private persons are thought to do worthy acts no less than
despots—indeed even more); and it is enough that we should have so
much as that; for the life of the man who is active in accordance with
virtue will be happy. [1179a] (5) Solon, too, was perhaps sketching
well the happy man when he described him as moderately furnished
with externals but as having done (as Solon thought) the noblest acts, (10)
and lived temperately; for one can with but moderate possessions do
what one ought. Anaxagoras also seems to have supposed the happy man
not to be rich nor a despot, when he said that he would not be surprised
if the happy man were to seem to most people a strange person; for they
judge by externals, (15) since these are all they perceive. The opinions of
the wise seem, then, to harmonize with our arguments. But while even
such things carry some conviction, the truth in practical matters is
discerned from the facts of life; for these are the decisive factor. (20) We
must therefore survey what we have already said, bringing it to the test
of the facts of life, and if it harmonizes with the facts we must accept it,
but if it clashes with them we must suppose it to be mere theory. Now
he who exercises his reason and cultivates it seems to be both in the best
state of mind and most dear to the gods. For if the gods have any care
for human affairs, (25) as they are thought to have, it would be reasonable
both that they should delight in that which was best and most akin to
them (i. e. reason) and that they should reward those who love and
honour this most, as caring for the things that are dear to them and
acting both rightly and nobly. And that all these attributes belong most
of all to the philosopher is manifest. (30) He, therefore, is the dearest to
the gods. And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so
that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy.

9 If these matters and the virtues, and also friendship and pleasure,
have been dealt with sufficiently in outline, are we to suppose that our
programme has reached its end? Surely, (35) as the saying goes, where
there are things to be done the end is not to survey and recognize the
various things, but rather to do them; with regard to virtue, then, it is
not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it, or try any other
way there may be of becoming good. [1179b] Now if arguments were
in themselves enough to make men good, (5) they would justly, as
Theognis says, have won very great rewards, and such rewards should
have been provided; but as things are, while they seem to have power to
encourage and stimulate the generous-minded among our youth, and to
make a character which is gently born, and a true lover of what is noble,
ready to be possessed by virtue, (10) they are not able to encourage the
many to nobility and goodness. For these do not by nature obey the
sense of shame, but only fear, and do not abstain from bad acts because
of their baseness but through fear of punishment; living by passion they
pursue their own pleasures and the means to them, and avoid the
opposite pains, (15) and have not even a conception of what is noble and
truly pleasant, since they have never tasted it. What argument would
remould such people? It is hard, if not impossible, to remove by
argument the traits that have long since been incorporated in the
character; and perhaps we must be content if, when all the influences by
which we are thought to become good are present, we get some tincture
of virtue.
Now some think that we are made good by nature, (20) others by
habituation, others by teaching. Nature’s part evidently does not depend
on us, but as a result of some divine causes is present in those who are
truly fortunate; while argument and teaching, we may suspect, are not
powerful with all men, but the soul of the student must first have been
cultivated by means of habits for noble joy and noble hatred, (25) like
earth which is to nourish the seed. For he who lives as passion directs
will not hear argument that dissuades him, nor understand it if he does;
and how can we persuade one in such a state to change his ways? And in
general passion seems to yield not to argument but to force. The
character, then, must somehow be there already with a kinship to virtue,
loving what is noble and hating what is base. (30)
But it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for virtue if one
has not been brought up under right laws; for to live temperately and
hardily is not pleasant to most people, especially when they are young.
(35) For this reason their nurture and occupations should be fixed by law;
for they will not be painful when they have become customary.
[1180a] But it is surely not enough that when they are young they
should get the right nurture and attention; since they must, even when
they are grown up, practise and be habituated to them, we shall need
laws for this as well, and generally speaking to cover the whole of life;
for most people obey necessity rather than argument, and punishments
rather than the sense of what is noble.
This is why some think17 that legislators ought to stimulate men to
virtue and urge them forward by the motive of the noble, (5) on the
assumption that those who have been well advanced by the formation of
habits will attend to such influences; and that punishments and penalties
should be imposed on those who disobey and are of inferior nature,
while the incurably bad should be completely banished.18 A good man
(they think), since he lives with his mind fixed on what is noble, will
submit to argument, while a bad man, (10) whose desire is for pleasure, is
corrected by pain like a beast of burden. This is, too, why they say the
pains inflicted should be those that are most opposed to the pleasures
such men love.
However that may be, if (as we have said)19 the man who is to be
good must be well trained and habituated, (15) and go on to spend his
time in worthy occupations and neither willingly nor unwillingly do bad
actions, and if this can be brought about if men live in accordance with a
sort of reason and right order, provided this has force—if this be so, the
paternal command indeed has not the required force or compulsive
power (nor in general has the command of one man, (20) unless he be a
king or something similar), but the law has compulsive power, while it is
at the same time a rule proceeding from a sort of practical wisdom and
reason. And while people hate men who oppose their impulses, even if
they oppose them rightly, the law in its ordaining of what is good is not
burdensome.
In the Spartan state alone, (25) or almost alone, the legislator seems to
have paid attention to questions of nurture and occupations; in most
states such matters have been neglected, and each man lives as he
pleases, Cyclops-fashion, ‘to his own wife and children dealing law’.20
Now it is best that there should be a public and proper care for such
matters; but if they are neglected by the community it would seem right
for each man to help his children and friends towards virtue, (30) and that
they should have the power, or at least the will, to do this.
It would seem from what has been said that he can do this better if he
makes himself capable of legislating. For public control is plainly
effected by laws, and good control by good laws; whether written or
unwritten would seem to make no difference, (35) nor whether they are
laws providing for the education of individuals or of groups—any more
than it does in the case of music or gymnastics and other such pursuits.
[1180b] For as in cities laws and prevailing types of character have
force, so in households do the injunctions and the habits of the father, (5)
and these have even more because of the tie of blood and the benefits he
confers; for the children start with a natural affection and disposition to
obey. Further, private education has an advantage over public, as private
medical treatment has; for while in general rest and abstinence from
food are good for a man in a fever, (10) for a particular man they may not
be; and a boxer presumably does not prescribe the same style of fighting
to all his pupils. It would seem, then, that the detail is worked out with
more precision if the control is private; for each person is more likely to
get what suits his case.
But the details can be best looked after, one by one, by a doctor or
gymnastic instructor or any one else who has the general knowledge of
what is good for every one or for people of a certain kind (for the
sciences both are said to be, and are, (15) concerned with what is
universal); not but what some particular detail may perhaps be well
looked after by an unscientific person, if he has studied accurately in the
light of experience what happens in each case, just as some people seem
to be their own best doctors, though they could give no help to any one
else. None the less, it will perhaps be agreed that if a man does wish to
become master of an art or science he must go to the universal, (20) and
come to know it as well as possible; for, as we have said, it is with this
that the sciences are concerned.
And surely he who wants to make men, whether many or few, better
by his care must try to become capable of legislating, if it is through
laws that we can become good. For to get any one whatever—any one
who is put before us—into the right condition is not for the first chance
comer; if any one can do it, (25) it is the man who knows, just as in
medicine and all other matters which give scope for care and prudence.
Must we not, then, next examine whence or how one can learn how to
legislate? Is it, as in all other cases, from statesmen? Certainly it was
thought to be a part of statesmanship.21 Or is a difference apparent
between statesmanship and the other sciences and arts? In the others the
same people are found offering to teach the arts and practising them, (30)
e. g. doctors or painters; but while the sophists profess to teach politics,
(35) it is practised not by any of them but by the politicians, who would

seem to do so by dint of a certain skill and expedience rather than of

thought; for they are not found either writing or speaking about such
matters (though it were a nobler occupation perhaps than composing
speeches for the law-courts and the assembly), nor again are they found
to have made statesmen of their own sons or any other of their friends.
[1181a] But it was to be expected that they should if they could; (5) for
there is nothing better than such a skill that they could have left to their
cities, or could prefer to have for themselves, or, therefore, for those
dearest to them. Still, experience seems to contribute not a little; else
they could not have become politicians by familiarity with politics; and
so it seems that those who aim at knowing about the art of politics need
experience as well. (10)
But those of the sophists who profess the art seem to be very far from
teaching it. For, to put the matter generally, they do not even know
what kind of thing it is nor what kinds of things it is about; otherwise
they would not have classed it as identical with rhetoric or even inferior
to it,22 (15) nor have thought it easy to legislate by collecting the laws
that are thought well of;23 they say it is possible to select the best laws,
as though even the selection did not demand intelligence and as though
right judgement were not the greatest thing, as in matters of music. For
while people experienced in any department judge rightly the works
produced in it, (20) and understand by what means or how they are
achieved, and what harmonizes with what, the inexperienced must be
content if they do not fail to see whether the work has been well or ill
made—as in the case of painting. Now laws are as it were the ‘works’ of
the political art; how then can one learn from them to be a legislator, or
judge which are best? Even medical men do not seem to be made by a
study of text-books. [1181b] Yet people try, at any rate, to state not
only the treatments, but also how particular classes of people can be
cured and should be treated—distinguishing the various habits of body;
but while this seems useful to experienced people, (5) to the
inexperienced it is valueless. Surely, then, while collections of laws, and
of constitutions also, may be serviceable to those who can study them
and judge what is good or bad and what enactments suit what
circumstances, (10) those who go through such collections without a
practised faculty will not have right judgement (unless it be as a
spontaneous gift of nature), though they may perhaps become more
intelligent in such matters.
Now our predecessors have left the subject of legislation to us
unexamined; it is perhaps best, therefore, that we should ourselves study
it, and in general study the question of the constitution, (15) in order to
complete to the best of our ability our philosophy of human nature.
First, then, if anything has been said well in detail by earlier thinkers, let
us try to review it; then in the light of the constitutions we have
collected let us study what sorts of influence preserve and destroy states,
and what sorts preserve or destroy the particular kinds of constitution,
and to what causes it is due that some are well and others ill
administered. (20) When these have been studied we shall perhaps be
more likely to see with a comprehensive view, which constitution is best,
and how each must be ordered, and what laws and customs it must use,
if it is to be at its best.24 Let us make a beginning of our discussion.

1 The school of Eudoxus, Cf. b9. Aristippus is perhaps also referred to.

2 The school of Speusippus, Cf. 1153b 5.

3 Phil. 60 B–E.

4 Ib. 24 E-25 A, 31 A.

5 SC., of the badness of (some) pleasures.

6 Pl. Phil. 53 C-54 D.

7 Ib. 31 E-32 B, 42 C, D.

8 The point being that the being replenished no more is pleasure than the being operated on is
pain. For the instance, Cf. Pl. Tim. 65 B.
9 Phys. vi–viii.
10 1095b 31–1096a 2, 1098b 31–1099a 7.

11 1098a 5–7.

12 1099a 13, 1113a 22–33, 1166a 12, 1170a 14–16, 1176a 15—22.

13 1098a 16, 1176a 35–b9.

14 This has not been said, but Cf. 1095b 14–1096a 5, 1141a 18–b 3, 1143b 33–1144a 6, 1145a 6–
11.
15 1097a 25–b 21, 1099a 7–21, 1173b 15–19, 1174b 20–23, 1175b 36–1176a 3.

16 1169b 33, 1176b 26.

17 Pl. Laws 722 D ff.

18 Pl. Prot. 325 A.

19 1179b 31–1180a 5.

20 Od. ix. 114 f.

21 1141b 24.

22 Isoc. Antid. § 80.

23 Ib. §§ 82, 83.

24 1181b 12–23 is a programme for the Politics, agreeing to a large extent with the existing
contents of that work.
 Politica

Translated by Benjamin Jowett

 CONTENTS

BOOK I.

CHAPTER

Chapters 1, 2. Definition and structure of the State.

1. The state is the highest form of community and aims at the highest good. How it differs
from other communities will appear if we examine the parts of which it is
composed.
2. It consists of villages which consist of households. The household is founded upon the
two relations of male and female, of master and slave; it exists to satisfy man’s
daily needs. The village, a wider community, satisfies a wider range of needs. The
state aims at satisfying all the needs of men. Men form states to secure a bare
subsistence; but the ultimate object of the state is the good life. The naturalness of
the state is proved by the faculty of speech in man. In the order of Nature the
state precedes the household and the individual. It is founded on a natural
impulse, that towards political association.

Chapters 3–13. Household economy. The Slave. Property. Children and

Wives.

3. Let us discuss the household, since the state is composed of households.

4. First as to slavery. The slave is a piece of property which is animate, and useful for
action rather than for production.
5. Slavery is natural; in every department of the natural universe we find the relation of
ruler and subject. There are human beings who, without possessing reason,
understand it. These are natural slaves.
6. But we find persons in slavery who are not natural slaves. Hence slavery itself is
condemned by some; but they are wrong. The natural slave benefits by subjection
to a master.
7. The art of ruling slaves differs from that of ruling free men but calls for no detailed
description; any one who is a natural master can acquire it for himself.
8. As to property and the modes of acquiring it. This subject concerns us in so far as
property is an indispensable substratum to the household.
9. But we do not need that form of finance which accumulates wealth for its own sake.
This is unnatural finance. It has been made possible by the invention of coined
 money. It accumulates money by means of exchange. Natural and unnatural
finance are often treated as though they were the same, but differ in their aims;
10. Also in their subject-matter; for natural finance is only concerned with the fruits of the
earth and animals.
11. Natural finance is necessary to the householder; he must therefore know about live
stock, agriculture, possibly about the exchange of the products of the earth, such
as wood and minerals, for money. Special treatises on finance exist, and the
subject should be specially studied by statesmen.
12. Lastly, we must discuss and distinguish the relations of husband to wife, of father to
child.
13. In household management persons call for more attention than things; free persons for
more than slaves. Slaves are only capable of an inferior kind of virtue. Socrates
was wrong in denying that there are several kinds of virtue. Still the slave must be
trained in virtue. The education of the free man will be subsequently discussed.

BOOK II

Chapters 1–8. Ideal Commonwealths—Plato, Phaleas, Hippodamus.

1. To ascertain the nature of the ideal state we should start by examining both the best
states of history and the best that theorists have imagined. Otherwise we might
waste our time over problems which others have already solved.
Among theorists, Plato in the Republic raises the most fundamental questions. He
desires to abolish private property and the family.
2. But the end which he has in view is wrong. He wishes to make all his citizens absolutely
alike; but the differentiation of functions is a law of nature. There can be too
much unity in a state.
3. And the means by which he would promote unity are wrong. The abolition of property
will produce, not remove, dissension. Communism of wives and children will
destroy natural affection.
4. Other objections can be raised; but this is the fatal one.
5. To descend to details. The advantages to be expected from communism of property
would be better secured if private property were used in a liberal spirit to relieve
the wants of others. Private property makes men happier, and enables them to
cultivate such virtues as generosity. The Republic makes unity the result of
uniformity among the citizens, which is not the case. The good sense of mankind
has always been against Plato, and experiment would show that his idea is
 impracticable.
6. Plato sketched another ideal state in the Laws; it was meant to be more practicable than
the other. In the Laws he abandoned communism, but otherwise upheld the
leading ideas of the earlier treatise, except that he made the new state larger and
too large. He forgot to discuss foreign relations, and to fix a limit of private
property, and to restrict the increase of population, and to distinguish between
ruler and subject. The form of government which he proposed was bad.
7. Phaleas of Chalcedon made equal distribution of property the main feature of his
scheme. This would be difficult to effect, and would not meet the evils which
Phaleas had in mind. Dissensions arise from deeper causes than inequality of
wealth. His state would be weak against foreign foes. His reforms would anger the
rich and not satisfy the poor.
8. Hippodamus, who was not a practical politician, aimed at symmetry. In his state there
were to be three classes, three kinds of landed property, three sorts of laws. He
also proposed to (1) create a Court of Appeal, (2) let juries qualify their verdicts,
(3) reward those who made discoveries of public utility. His classes and his
property system were badly devised. Qualified verdicts are impossible since
jurymen may not confer together. The law about discoveries would encourage
men to tamper with the Constitution. Now laws when obsolete and absurd should
be changed; but needless changes diminish the respect for law.

Chapters 9–12. The best existent states—Sparta, Crete, and Carthage—

Greek lawgivers.

9. The Spartans cannot manage their serf population. Their women are too influential and
too luxurious. Their property system has concentrated all wealth in a few hands.
Hence the citizen body has decreased. There are points to criticize in the
Ephorate, the Senate, the Kingship, the common meals, the Admiralty. The
Spartan and his state are only fit for war. Yet even in war Sparta is hampered by
the want of a financial system.
10. The Cretan cities resemble Sparta in their constitutions, but are more primitive. Their
common meals are better managed. But the Cosmi are worse than the Ephors. The
Cretan constitution is a narrow and factious oligarchy; the cities are saved from
destruction only by their inaccessibility.
11. The Carthaginian polity is highly praised, and not without reason. It may be compared
with the Spartan; it is an oligarchy with some democratic features. It lays stress
upon wealth; in Carthage all offices are bought and sold. Also, one man may hold
 several offices together. These are bad features. But the discontent of the people is
soothed by schemes of emigration.
12. Of lawgivers, Solon was the best; conservative when possible, and a moderate
democrat. About Philolaus, Charondas, Phaleas, Draco, Pittacus, and Androdamas
there is little to be said.

BOOK III

Chapters 1–5. The Citizen, civic virtue, and the civic body.

1. How are we to define a citizen? He is more than a mere denizen; private rights do not
make a citizen. He is ordinarily one who possesses political power; who sits on
juries and in the assembly. But it is hard to find a definition which applies to all
so-called citizens. To define him as the son of citizen parents is futile.
2. Some say that his civic rights must have been justly acquired. But he is a citizen who
has political power, however acquired.
3. Similarly the state is defined by reference to the distribution of political power; when
the mode of distribution is changed a new state comes into existence.
4. The good citizen may not be a good man; the good citizen is one who does good service
to his state, and this state may be bad in principle. In a constitutional state the
good citizen knows both how to rule and how to obey. The good man is one who
is fitted to rule. But the citizen in a constitutional state learns to rule by obeying
orders. Therefore citizenship in such a state is a moral training.
5. Mechanics will not be citizens in the best state. Extreme democracies, and some
oligarchies, neglect this rule. But circumstances oblige them to do this. They have
no choice.

Chapters 6–13. The Classification of Constitutions; Democracy and

Oligarchy; Kingship.

6. The aims of the state are two: to satisfy man’s social instinct, and to fit him for the good
life. Political rule differs from that over slaves in aiming primarily at the good of
those who are ruled.
7. Constitutions are bad or good according as the common welfare is, or is not, their aim.
Of good Constitutions there are three: Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Polity. Of bad
there are also three: Tyranny, Oligarchy, Extreme Democracy. The bad are
perversions of the good.
8. Democracies and Oligarchies are not made by the numerical proportion of the rulers to
 the ruled. Democracy is the rule of the poor; oligarchy is that of the rich.
9. Democrats take Equality for their motto; oligarchs believe that political rights should be
unequal and proportionate to wealth. But both sides miss the true object of the
state, which is virtue. Those who do most to promote virtue deserve the greatest
share of power.
10. On the same principle, Justice is not the will of the majority or of the wealthier, but
that course of action which the moral aim of the state requires.
11. But are the Many or the Few likely to be the better rulers? It would be unreasonable to
give the highest offices to the Many. But they have a faculty of criticism which fits
them for deliberative and judicial power. The good critic need not be an expert;
experts are sometimes bad judges. Moreover, the Many have a greater stake in the
city than the Few. But the governing body, whether Few or Many, must be held in
check by the laws.
12. On what principle should political power be distributed? Granted that equals deserve
equal shares; who are these equals? Obviously those who are equally able to be of
service to the state.
13. Hence there is something in the claims advanced by the wealthy, the free born, the
noble, the highly gifted. But no one of these classes should be allowed to rule the
rest. A state should consist of men who are equal, or nearly so, in wealth, in birth,
in moral and intellectual excellence. The principle which underlies Ostracism is
plausible. But in the ideal state, if a pre-eminent individual be found, he should be
made a king.

Chapters 14–18. The Forms of Monarchy.

14. Of Monarchy there are five kinds, (1) the Spartan, (2) the Barbarian, (3) the elective
dictatorship, (4) the Heroic, (5) Absolute Kingship.
15. The last of these forms might appear the best polity to some; that is, if the king acts as
the embodiment of law. For he will dispense from the law in the spirit of the law.
But this power would be less abused if reserved for the Many. Monarchy arose to
meet the needs of primitive society; it is now obsolete and on various grounds
objectionable.
16. It tends to become hereditary; it subjects equals to the rule of an equal. The individual
monarch may be misled by his passions, and no single man can attend to all the
duties of government.
17. One case alone can be imagined in which Absolute Kingship would be just.
18. Let us consider the origin and nature of the best polity, now that we have agreed not to
 call Absolute Kingship the best.

BOOK IV (VI)

Chapters 1–10. Variations of the main types of Constitutions.

1. Political science should study (1) the ideal state, (2) those states which may be the best
obtainable under special circumstances, and even (3) those which are essentially
bad. For the statesman must sometimes make the best of a bad Constitution.
2. Of our six main types of state, Kingship and Aristocracy have been discussed (cf. Bk. III,
c. 14 fol.). Let us begin by dealing with the other four and their divisions,
inquiring also when and why they may be desirable.
3. First as to Democracy and Oligarchy. The common view that Democracy and Oligarchy
should be taken as the main types of Constitution is at variance with our own
view and wrong. So is the view that the numerical proportion of rulers to ruled
makes the difference between these two types; in a Democracy the Many are also
the poor, in an Oligarchy the Few are also the wealthy. In every state the
distinction between rich and poor is the most fundamental of class-divisions. Still
Oligarchy and Democracy are important types; and their variations arise from
differences in the character of the rich and the poor by whom they are ruled.
4. Of Democracies there are four kinds. The worst, extreme Democracy, is that in which all
offices are open to all, and the will of the people overrides all law.
5. Of Oligarchies too there are four kinds; the worst is that in which offices are hereditary
and the magistrates uncontrolled by law.
6. These variations arise under circumstances which may be briefly described.
7. Of Aristocracy in the strict sense there is but one form, that in which the best men alone
are citizens.
8. Polity is a compromise between Democracy and Oligarchy, but inclines to the
Democratic side. Many so-called Aristocracies are really Polities.
9. There are different ways of effecting the compromise which makes a Polity. The
Laconian Constitution is an example of a successful compromise.
10. Tyranny is of three kinds: (1) the barbarian despotism, and (2) the elective dictatorship
have already been discussed; in both there is rule according to law over willing
subjects. But in (3) the strict form of tyranny, there is the lawless rule of one man
over unwilling subjects.

Chapters 11–13. Of the Best State both in general and under special
 circumstances.

11. For the average city-state the best constitution will be a mean between the rule of rich
and poor; the middle-class will be supreme. No state will be well administered
unless the middle-class holds sway. The middle-class is stronger in large than in
small states. Hence in Greece it has rarely attained to power; especially as
democracy and oligarchy were aided by the influence of the leading states.
12. No constitution can dispense with the support of the strongest class in the state. Hence
Democracy and Oligarchy are the only constitutions possible in some states. But in
these cases the legislator should conciliate the middle-class.
13. Whatever form of constitution be adopted there are expedients to be noted which may
help in preserving it.

Chapters 14–16. How to proceed in framing a Constitution.

14. The legislator must pay attention to three subjects in particular: (a) The Deliberative
Assembly which is different in each form of constitution.
15. (b) The Executive. Here he must know what offices are indispensable and which of
them may be conveniently combined in the person of one magistrate; also
whether the same offices should be supreme in every state; also which of the
twelve or more methods of making appointments should be adopted in each case.
16. (c) The Courts of Law. Here he must consider the kinds of law-courts, their spheres of
action, their methods of procedure.

BOOK V (VIII)

Chapters 1–4. Of Revolutions, and their causes in general.

1. Ordinary states are founded on erroneous ideas of justice, which lead to discontent and
revolution. Of revolutions some are made to introduce a new Constitution, others
to modify the old, others to put the working of the Constitution in new hands.
Both Democracy and Oligarchy contain inherent flaws which lead to revolution,
but Democracy is the more stable of the two types.
2. We may distinguish between the frame of mind which fosters revolution, the objects for
which it is started, and the provocative causes.
3. The latter deserve a more detailed account.
4. Trifles may be the occasion but are never the true cause of a sedition. One common
cause is the aggrandizement of a particular class; another is a feud between rich
 and poor when they are evenly balanced and there is no middle-class to mediate.
As to the manner of effecting a revolution: it may be carried through by force or
fraud.

Chapters 5–12. Revolutions in particular States, and how revolutions may

be avoided.

5. (a) In Democracies revolutions may arise from a persecution of the rich; or when a
demagogue becomes a general, or when politicians compete for the favour of the
mob.
6. (b) In Oligarchies the people may rebel against oppression; ambitious oligarchs may
conspire, or appeal to the people, or set up a tyrant. Oligarchies are seldom
destroyed except by the feuds of their own members; unless they employ a
mercenary captain, who may become a tyrant.
7. (c) In Aristocracies and Polities the injustice of the ruling class may lead to revolution,
but less often in Polities. Aristocracies may also be ruined by an unprivileged
class, or an ambitious man of talent. Aristocracies tend to become oligarchies.
Also they are liable to gradual dissolution; which is true of Polities as well.
8. The best precautions against sedition are these: to avoid illegality and frauds upon the
unprivileged; to maintain good feeling between rulers and ruled; to watch
destructive agencies; to alter property qualifications from time to time; to let no
individual or class become too powerful; not to let magistracies be a source of
gain; to beware of class-oppression.
9. In all magistrates we should require loyalty, ability, and justice; we should not carry the
principle of the constitution to extremes; we should educate the citizens in the
spirit of a constitution.
10. (d) The causes which destroy and the means which preserve a Monarchy must be
considered separately. Let us first distinguish between Tyranny and Kingship.
Tyranny combines the vices of Democracy and Oligarchy. Kingship is exposed to
the same defects as Aristocracy. But both these kinds of Monarchy are especially
endangered by the insolence of their representatives and by the fear or contempt
which they inspire in others. Tyranny is weak against both external and domestic
foes; Kingship is strong against invasion, weak against sedition.
11. Moderation is the best preservative of Kingship. Tyranny may rely on the traditional
expedients of demoralizing and dividing its subjects, or it may imitate Kingship by
showing moderation in expenditure, and courtesy and temperance in social
relations, by the wise use of ministers, by holding the balance evenly between the
 rich and poor.
12. But the Tyrannies of the past have been short-lived. Plato’s discussion of revolutions in
the Republic is inadequate; e. g. he does not explain the results of a revolution
against a tyranny, and could not do so on his theory; nor is he correct about the
cause of revolution in an Oligarchy; nor does he distinguish between the different
varieties of Oligarchy and Democracy.

BOOK VI (VII)

Chapters 1–8. Concerning the proper organization of Democracies and

Oligarchies.

1. (A) Democracies differ inter se (1) according to the character of the citizen body, (2)
according to the mode in which the characteristic features of democracy are
combined.
2. Liberty is the first principle of democracy. The results of liberty are that the numerical
majority is supreme, and that each man lives as he likes. From these
characteristics we may easily infer the other features of democracy.
3. In oligarchies it is not the numerical majority, but the wealthier men, who are supreme.
Both these principles are unjust if the supreme authority is to be absolute and
above the law. Both numbers and wealth should have their share of influence. But
it is hard to find the true principles of political justice, and harder still to make
men act upon them.
4. Democracy has four species (cf. Bk. IV, c. 4). The best is (1) an Agricultural Democracy,
in which the magistrates are elected by, and responsible to, the citizen body,
while each office has a property qualification proportionate to its importance.
These democracies should encourage agriculture by legislation. The next best is
(2) the Pastoral Democracy. Next comes (3) the Commercial Democracy. Worst of
all is (4) the Extreme Democracy with manhood suffrage.
5. It is harder to preserve than to found a Democracy. To preserve it we must prevent the
poor from plundering the rich; we must not exhaust the public revenues by giving
pay for the performance of public duties; we must prevent the growth of a pauper
class.
6. (B) The modes of founding Oligarchies call for little explanation.
Careful organization is the best way of preserving these governments.
7. Much depends on the military arrangements; oligarchs must not make their subjects too
powerful an element in the army. Admission to the governing body should be
 granted on easy conditions. Office should be made a burden, not a source of
profit.
8. Both in oligarchies and democracies the right arrangement of offices is important. Some
kinds of office are necessary in every state; others are peculiar to special types of
state.

BOOK VII (IV)

Chapters 1–3. The Summum Bonum for individuals and states.

1. Before constructing the ideal state we must know what is the most desirable life for
states and individuals. True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and
virtue, and not from the possession of external goods. But a virtuous life must be
equipped with external goods as instruments. These laws hold good of both states
and individuals.
2. But does the highest virtue consist in contemplation or in action? The states of the past
have lived for action in the shape of war and conquest. But war cannot be
regarded as a reasonable object for a state.
3. A virtuous life implies activity, but activity may be speculative as well as practical.
Those are wrong who regard the life of a practical politician as degrading. But
again they are wrong who treat political power as the highest good.

Chapters 4–12. A picture of the Ideal State.

4. We must begin by considering the population and the territory. The former should be as
small as we can make it without sacrificing independence and the capacity for a
moral life. The smaller the population the more manageable it will be.
5. The territory must be large enough to supply the citizens with the means of living
liberally and temperately, with an abundance of leisure. The city should be in a
central position.
6. Communication with the sea is desirable for economic and military reasons; but the
moral effects of sea-trade are bad. If the state has a marine, the port town should
be at some distance from the city.
7. The character of the citizens should be a mean between that of Asiatics and that of the
northern races; intelligence and high spirit should be harmoniously blended as
they are in some Greek races.
8. We must distinguish the members of the state from those who are necessary as its
servants, but ho part of it. There must be men who are able to provide food, to
 practise the arts, to bear arms, to carry on the work of exchange, to supervise the
state religion, to exercise political and judicial functions.
9. But of these classes we should exclude from the citizen body (1) the mechanics, (2) the
traders, (3) the husbandmen. Warriors, rulers, priests remain as eligible for
citizenship. The same persons should exercise these three professions, but at
different periods of life. Ownership of land should be confined to them.
10. Such a distinction between a ruling and a subject class, based on a difference of
occupation, is nothing new. It still exists in Egypt, and the custom of common
meals in Crete and Italy proves that it formerly existed there. Most of the valuable
rules of politics have been discovered over and over again in the course of history.
In dealing with the land of the state we must distinguish between public demesnes
and private estates. Both kinds of land should be tilled by slaves or barbarians of a
servile disposition.
11. The site of the city should be chosen with regard (1) to public health, (2) to political
convenience, (3) to strategic requirements. The ground-plan of the city should be
regular enough for beauty, not so regular as to make defensive warfare difficult.
Walls are a practical necessity.
12. It is well that the arrangement of the buildings in the city should be carefully thought
out.

Chapters 13–17. The Educational System of the Ideal State, its aim, and
early stages.

13. The nature and character of the citizens must be determined with reference to the kind
of happiness which we desire them to pursue. Happiness was defined in the Ethics
as the perfect exercise of virtue, the latter term being understood not in the
conditional, but in the absolute sense. Now a man acquires virtue of this kind by
the help of nature, habit, and reason. Habit and reason are the fruits of education,
which must therefore be discussed.
14. The citizens should be educated to obey when young and to rule when they are older.
Rule is their ultimate and highest function. Since the good ruler is the same as the
good man, our education must be so framed as to produce the good man. It should
develop all man’s powers and fit him for all the activities of life; but the highest
powers and the highest activities must be the supreme care of education. An
education which is purely military, like the Laconian, neglects this principle.
15. The virtues of peace (intellectual culture, temperance, justice) are the most necessary
for states and individuals; war is nothing but a means towards securing peace. But
 education must follow the natural order of human development, beginning with
the body, dealing next with the appetites, and training the intellect last of all.
16. To produce a healthy physique the legislator must fix the age of marriage, regulate the
physical condition of the parents, provide for the exposure of infants, and settle
the duration of marriage.
17. He must also prescribe a physical training for infants and young children. For their
moral education the very young should be committed to overseers; these should
select the tales which they are told, their associates, the pictures, plays, and
statues which they see. From five to seven years of age should be the period of
preparation for intellectual training.

BOOK VIII (V).

Chapters 1–7. The Ideal Education continued. Its Music and Gymnastic.

1. Education should be under state-control and the same for all the citizens.
2. It should comprise those useful studies which every one must master, but none which
degrade the mind or body.
3. Reading, writing, and drawing have always been taught on the score of their utility;
gymnastic as producing valour. Music is taught as a recreation, but it serves a
higher purpose. The noble employment of leisure is the highest aim which a man
can pursue; and music is valuable for this purpose. The same may be said of
drawing, and other subjects of education have the same kind of value.
4. Gymnastic is the first stage of education; but we must not develop the valour and
physique of our children at the expense of the mind, as they do in Sparta. Until
puberty, and for three years after, bodily exercise should be light.
5. Music, if it were a mere amusement, should not be taught to children; they would do
better by listening to professionals. But music is a moral discipline and a rational
enjoyment.
6. By learning music children become better critics and are given a suitable occupation.
When of riper age they should abandon music; professional skill is not for them;
nor should they be taught difficult instruments.
7. The various musical harmonies should be used for different purposes. Some inspire
virtue, others valour, others enthusiasm. The ethical harmonies are those which
children should learn. The others may be left to professionals. The Dorian
harmony is the best for education. The Phrygian is bad; but the Lydian may be
beneficial to children.
Cetera desunt.
POLITICA

(Politics)
 BOOK I

1 [1252a] Every state is a community of some kind, and every

community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always
act in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities
aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest
of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree
than any other, (5) and at the highest good.
Some people think1 that the qualifications of a statesman, king,
householder, and master are the same, and that they differ, not in kind,
but only in the number of their subjects. For example, (10) the ruler over
a few is called a master; over more, the manager of a household; over a
still larger number, a statesman or king, as if there were no difference
between a great household and a small state. The distinction which is
made between the king and the statesman is as follows: When the
government is personal, the ruler is a king; when, (15) according to the
rules of the political science, the citizens rule and are ruled in turn, then
he is called a statesman.
But all this is a mistake; for governments differ in kind, as will be
evident to any one who considers the matter according to the method2
which has hitherto guided us. As in other departments of science, (20) so
in politics, the compound should always be resolved into the simple
elements or least parts of the whole. We must therefore look at the
elements of which the state is composed, in order that we may see in
what the different kinds of rule differ from one another, and whether
any scientific result can be attained about each one of them.

2 He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin,

whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them.
(25) In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist

without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may
continue (and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose,
but because, in common with other animals and with plants, (30)
mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of
themselves), and of natural ruler and subject, that both may be
preserved. For that which can foresee by the exercise of mind is by
nature intended to be lord and master, and that which can with its body
give effect to such foresight is a subject, and by nature a slave; hence
master and slave have the same interest. [1252b] Now nature has
distinguished between the female and the slave. For she is not niggardly,
like the smith who fashions the Delphian knife for many uses; she makes
each thing for a single use, and every instrument is best made when
intended for one and not for many uses. (5) But among barbarians no
distinction is made between women and slaves, because there is no
natural ruler among them: they are a community of slaves, male and
female. Wherefore the poets say—

‘It is meet that Hellenes should rule over barbarians’;

as if they thought that the barbarian and the slave were by nature one.
Out of these two relationships between man and woman, (10) master
and slave, the first thing to arise is the family, and Hesiod is right when
he says—

‘First house and wife and an ox for the plough’,

for the ox is the poor man’s slave. The family is the association
established by nature for the supply of men’s everyday wants, and the
members of it are called by Charondas ‘companions of the cupboard’,
and by Epimenides the Cretan, ‘companions of the manger.’ (15) But when
several families are united, and the association aims at something more
than the supply of daily needs, the first society to be formed is the
village. And the most natural form of the village appears to be that of a
colony from the family, composed of the children and grandchildren,
who are said to be suckled with the same milk’. (20) And this is the reason
why Hellenic states were originally governed by kings; because the
Hellenes were under royal rule before they came together, as the
barbarians still are. Every family is ruled by the eldest, and therefore in
the colonies of the family the kingly form of government prevailed
because they were of the same blood. As Homer says:3
 ‘Each one gives law to his children and to his wives.’

For they lived dispersedly, as was the manner in ancient times.

Wherefore men say that the Gods have a king, because they themselves
either are or were in ancient times under the rule of a king. (25) For they
imagine, not only the forms of the Gods, but their ways of life to be like
their own.
When several villages are united in a single complete community,
large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state comes into
existence, originating in the bare needs of life, and continuing in
existence for the sake of a good life. And therefore, (30) if the earlier
forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and
the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully
developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a
horse, or a family. Besides, the final cause and end of a thing is the best,
and to be self-sufficing is the end and the best. [1253a]
Hence it is evident that the state is a creation of nature, and that man
is by nature a political animal. And he who by nature and not by mere
accident is without a state, is either a bad man or above humanity; he is
like the

‘Tribeless, lawless, hearthless one,’

whom Homer4 denounces—the natural outcast is forthwith a lover of

war; he may be compared to an isolated piece at draughts.
Now, that man is more of a political animal than bees or any other
gregarious animals is evident. Nature, as we often say, makes nothing in
vain,5 and man is the only animal whom she has endowed with the gift
of speech.6 And whereas mere voice is but an indication of pleasure or
pain, (10) and is therefore found in other animals (for their nature attains
to the perception of pleasure and pain and the intimation of them to one
another, and no further), the power of speech is intended to set forth the
expedient and inexpedient, and therefore likewise the just and the
unjust. And it is a characteristic of man that he alone has any sense of
good and evil, (15) of just and unjust, and the like, and the association of
living beings who have this sense makes a family and a state.
Further, the state is by nature clearly prior to the family and to the
individual, since the whole is of necessity prior to the part; for example,
(20) if the whole body be destroyed, there will be no foot or hand, except

in an equivocal sense, as we might speak of a stone hand; for when

destroyed the hand will be no better than that. But things are defined by
their working and power; and we ought not to say that they are the same
when they no longer have their proper quality, (25) but only that they
have the same name. The proof that the state is a creation of nature and
prior to the individual is that the individual, when isolated, is not self-
sufficing; and therefore he is like a part in relation to the whole. But he
who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is
sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god: he is no part of a
state. A social instinct is implanted in all men by nature, (30) and yet he
who first founded the state was the greatest of benefactors. For man,
when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law
and justice, he is the worst of all; since armed injustice is the more
dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms, meant to be used by
intelligence and virtue, (35) which he may use for the worst ends.
Wherefore, if he have not virtue, he is the most unholy and the most
savage of animals, and the most full of lust and gluttony. But justice is
the bond of men in states, for the administration of justice, which is the
determination of what is just,7 is the principle of order in political
society.

3 Seeing then that the state is made up of households, before speaking

of the state we must speak of the management of the household.
[1253b] The parts of household management correspond to the
persons who compose the household, and a complete household consists
of slaves and freemen. Now we should begin by examining everything in
its fewest possible elements; and the first and fewest possible parts of a
family are master and slave, (5) husband and wife, father and children.
We have therefore to consider what each of these three relations is and
ought to be:—I mean the relation of master and servant, (10) the marriage
relation (the conjunction of man and wife has no name of its own), and
thirdly, the procreative relation (this also has no proper name). And
there is another element of a household, the so-called art of getting
wealth, which, according to some, is identical with household
management, according to others, a principal part of it; the nature of
this art will also have to be considered by us.
Let us first speak of master and slave, (15) looking to the needs of
practical life and also seeking to attain some better theory of their
relation than exists at present. For some are of opinion that the rule of a
master is a science, and that the management of a household, and the
mastership of slaves, and the political and royal rule, (20) as I was saying
at the outset,8 are all the same. Others affirm that the rule of a master
over slaves is contrary to nature, and that the distinction between slave
and freeman exists by law only, and not by nature; and being an
interference with nature is therefore unjust.

4 Property is a part of the household, and the art of acquiring

property is a part of the art of managing the household; for no man can
live well, or indeed live at all, unless he be provided with necessaries. (25)
And as in the arts which have a definite sphere the workers must have
their own proper instruments for the accomplishment of their work, so it
is in the management of a household. Now instruments are of various
sorts; some are living, others lifeless; in the rudder, the pilot of a ship
has a lifeless, in the look-out man, a living instrument; for in the arts the
servant is a kind of instrument. Thus, too, a possession is an instrument
for maintaining life. And so, (30) in the arrangement of the family, a slave
is a living possession, and property a number of such instruments; and
the servant is himself an instrument which takes precedence of all other
instruments. For if every instrument could accomplish its own work,
obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus,
(35) or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet,9

‘of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods’;

if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the
lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want
servants, nor masters slaves. Here, however, (1254) another distinction
must be drawn; the instruments commonly so called are instruments of
production, whilst a possession is an instrument of action. The shuttle,
for example, is not only of use; but something else is made by it,
whereas of a garment or of a bed there is only the use. Further, as
production and action are different in kind, (5) and both require
instruments, the instruments which they employ must likewise differ in
kind. But life is action and not production, and therefore the slave is the
minister of action. Again, a possession is spoken of as a part is spoken of;
for the part is not only a part of something else, but wholly belongs to it;
and this is also true of a possession. (10) The master is only the master of
the slave; he does not belong to him, whereas the slave is not only the
slave of his master, but wholly belongs to him. Hence we see what is the
nature and office of a slave; he who is by nature not his own but
another’s man, (15) is by nature a slave; and he may be said to be
another’s man who, being a human being, is also a possession. And a
possession may be defined as an instrument of action, separable from the
possessor.

5 But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for
whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery
a violation of nature?
There is no difficulty in answering this question, (20) on grounds both
of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a
thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth,
some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.
And there are many kinds both of rulers and subjects (and that rule is
the better which is exercised over better subjects—for example, (25) to
rule over men is better than to rule over wild beasts; for the work is
better which is executed by better workmen, and where one man rules
and another is ruled, they may be said to have a work); for in all things
which form a composite whole and which are made up of parts, (30)
whether continuous or discrete, a distinction between the ruling and the
subject element comes to light. Such a duality exists in living creatures,
but not in them only; it originates in the constitution of the universe;
even in things which have no life there is a ruling principle, as in a
musical mode. But we are wandering from the subject. We will therefore
restrict ourselves to the living creature, which, (35) in the first place,
consists of soul and body: and of these two, the one is by nature the
ruler, and the other the subject. But then we must look for the intentions
of nature in things which retain their nature, and not in things which are
corrupted. And therefore we must study the man who is in the most
perfect state both of body and soul, for in him we shall see the true
relation of the two; although in bad or corrupted natures the body will
often appear to rule over the soul, because they are in an evil and
unnatural condition. [1254b] At all events we may firstly observe in
living creatures both a despotical and a constitutional rule; for the soul
rules the body with a despotical rule, whereas the intellect rules the
appetites with a constitutional and royal rule. (5) And it is clear that the
rule of the soul over the body, and of the mind and the rational element
over the passionate, is natural and expedient; whereas the equality of the
two or the rule of the inferior is always hurtful. The same holds good of
animals in relation to men; for tame animals have a better nature than
wild, (10) and all tame animals are better off when they are ruled by man;
for then they are preserved. Again, the male is by nature superior, and
the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this
principle, of necessity, (15) extends to all mankind. Where then there is
such a difference as that between soul and body, or between men and
animals (as in the case of those whose business is to use their body, and
who can do nothing better), the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is
better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a
master. For he who can be, and therefore is, another’s, (20) and he who
participates in rational principle enough to apprehend, but not to have,
such a principle, is a slave by nature. Whereas the lower animals cannot
even apprehend a principle; they obey their instincts. And indeed the use
made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with
their bodies minister to the needs of life. (25) Nature would like to
distinguish between the bodies of freemen and slaves, making the one
strong for servile labour, the other upright, and although useless for such
services, useful for political life in the arts both of war and peace. (30) But
the opposite often happens—that some have the souls and others have
the bodies of freemen. And doubtless if men differed from one another in
the mere forms of their bodies as much as the statues of the Gods do
from men, all would acknowledge that the inferior class should be slaves
of the superior. (35) And if this is true of the body, how much more just
that a similar distinction should exist in the soul? but the beauty of the
body is seen, whereas the beauty of the soul is not seen. [1255a] It is
clear, then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and that
for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.

6 But that those who take the opposite view have in a certain way
right on their side, may be easily seen. For the words slavery and slave
are used in two senses. There is a slave or slavery by law as well as by
nature. (5) The law of which I speak is a sort of convention—the law by
which whatever is taken in war is supposed to belong to the victors. But
this right many jurists impeach, as they would an orator who brought
forward an unconstitutional measure: they detest the notion that,
because one man has the power of doing violence and is superior in
brute strength, another shall be his slave and subject. (10) Even among
philosophers there is a difference of opinion. The origin of the dispute,
and what makes the views invade each other’s territory, is as follows: in
some sense virtue, when furnished with means, has actually the greatest
power of exercising force: and as superior power is only found where
there is superior excellence of some kind, power seems to imply virtue,
and the dispute to be simply one about justice (for it is due to one party
identifying justice with goodwill,10 (15) while the other identifies it with
the mere rule of the stronger). If these views are thus set out separately,
the other views11 have no force or plausibility against the view that the
superior in virtue ought to rule, (20) or be master. Others, clinging, as
they think, simply to a principle of justice (for law and custom are a sort
of justice), assume that slavery in accordance with the custom of war is
justified by law, but at the same moment they deny this. For what if the
cause of the war be unjust? And again, (25) no one would ever say that he
is a slave who is unworthy to be a slave. Were this the case, men of the
highest rank would be slaves and the children of slaves if they or their
parents chance to have been taken captive and sold. Wherefore Hellenes
do not like to call Hellenes slaves, but confine the term to barbarians.
Yet, (30) in using this language, they really mean the natural slave of
whom we spoke at first;12 for it must be admitted that some are slaves
everywhere, others nowhere. The same principle applies to nobility.
Hellenes regard themselves as noble everywhere, and not only in their
own country, (35) but they deem the barbarians noble only when at
home, thereby implying that there are two sorts of nobility and freedom,
the one absolute, the other relative. The Helen of Theodectes says:

‘Who would presume to call me servant who am on both sides sprung

from the stem of the Gods?’

What does this mean but that they distinguish freedom and slavery, (40)
noble and humble birth, by the two principles of good and evil? They
think that as men and animals beget men and animals, so from good
men a good man springs. [1255b] But this is what nature, though she
may intend it, cannot always accomplish.
We see then that there is some foundation for this difference of
opinion, (5) and that all are not either slaves by nature or freemen by
nature, and also that there is in some cases a marked distinction between
the two classes, rendering it expedient and right for the one to be slaves
and the others to be masters: the one practising obedience, the others
exercising the authority and lordship which nature intended them to
have. The abuse of this authority is injurious to both; for the interests of
part and whole,13 (10) of body and soul, are the same, and the slave is a
part of the master, a living but separated part of his bodily frame. Hence,
where the relation of master and slave between them is natural they are
friends and have a common interest, but where it rests merely on law
and force the reverse is true. (15)

7 The previous remarks are quite enough to show that the rule of a
master is not a constitutional rule, and that all the different kinds of rule
are not, as some affirm, the same with each other.14 For there is one rule
exercised over subjects who are by nature free, another over subjects
who are by nature slaves. The rule of a household is a monarchy, for
every house is under one head: whereas constitutional rule is a
government of freemen and equals. The master is not called a master
because he has science,15 (20) but because he is of a certain character, and
the same remark applies to the slave and the freeman. Still there may be
a science for the master and a science for the slave. The science of the
slave would be such as the man of Syracuse taught, who made money by
instructing slaves in their ordinary duties. (25) And such a knowledge may
be carried further, so as to include cookery and similar menial arts. For
some duties are of the more necessary, others of the more honourable
sort; as the proverb says, ‘slave before slave, master before master’. But
all such branches of knowledge are servile. (30) There is likewise a science
of the master, which teaches the use of slaves; for the master as such is
concerned, not with the acquisition, but with the use of them. Yet this
so-called science is not anything great or wonderful; for the master need
only know how to order that which the slave must know how to execute.
Hence those who are in a position which places them above toil have
stewards who attend to their households while they occupy themselves
with philosophy or with politics. (35) But the art of acquiring slaves, I
mean of justly acquiring them, differs both from the art of the master
and the art of the slave, being a species of hunting or war.16 Enough of
the distinction between master and slave. (40)

8 Let us now inquire into property generally, and into the art of
getting wealth, in accordance with our usual method,17 for a slave has
been shown18 to be a part of property. [1256a] The first question is
whether the art of getting wealth is the same with the art of managing a
household or a part of it, or instrumental to it; and if the last, whether in
the way that the art of making shuttles is instrumental to the art of
weaving, or in the way that the casting of bronze is instrumental to the
art of the statuary, (5) for they are not instrumental in the same way, but
the one provides tools and the other material; and by material I mean
the substratum out of which any work is made; thus wool is the material
of the weaver, (10) bronze of the statuary. Now it is easy to see that the
art of household management is not identical with the art of getting
wealth, for the one uses the material which the other provides. For the
art which uses household stores can be no other than the art of
household management. There is, however, a doubt whether the art of
getting wealth is a part of household management or a distinct art. (15) If
the getter of wealth has to consider whence wealth and property can be
procured, but there are many sorts of property and riches, then are
husbandry, and the care and provision of food in general, parts of the
wealth-getting art or distinct arts? Again, there are many sorts of food,
and therefore there are many kinds of lives both of animals and men;
they must all have food, (20) and the differences in their food have made
differences in their ways of life. For of beasts, some are gregarious,
others are solitary; they live in the way which is best adapted to sustain
them, accordingly as they are carnivorous or herbivorous or omnivorous:
and their habits are determined for them by nature in such a manner
that they may obtain with greater facility the food of their choice. (25)
But, as different species have different tastes, the same things are not
naturally pleasant to all of them; and therefore the lives of carnivorous
or herbivorous animals further differ among themselves. (30) In the lives
of men too there is a great difference. The laziest are shepherds, who
lead an idle life, and get their subsistence without trouble from tame
animals; their flocks having to wander from place to place in search of
pasture, they are compelled to follow them, (35) cultivating a sort of
living farm. Others support themselves by hunting, which is of different
kinds. Some, for example, are brigands, others, who dwell near lakes or
marshes or rivers or a sea in which there are fish, are fishermen, and
others live by the pursuit of birds or wild beasts. The greater number
obtain a living from the cultivated fruits of the soil. (40) Such are the
modes of subsistence which prevail among those whose industry springs
up of itself, and whose food is not acquired by exchange and retail trade
—there is the shepherd, the husbandman, the brigand, the fisherman,
the hunter. [1256b] Some gain a comfortable maintenance out of two
employments, eking out the deficiencies of one of them by another: thus
the life of a shepherd may be combined with that of a brigand, (5) the life
of a farmer with that of a hunter. Other modes of life are similarly
combined in any way which the needs of men may require. Property, in
the sense of a bare livelihood, seems to be given by nature herself to all,
both when they are first born, and when they are grown up. For some
animals bring forth, (10) together with their offspring, so much food as
will last until they are able to supply themselves; of this the vermiparous
or oviparous animals are an instance; and the viviparous animals have
up to a certain time a supply of food for their young in themselves,
which is called milk. In like manner we may infer that, after the birth of
animals, (15) plants exist for their sake, and that the other animals exist
for the sake of man, the tame for use and food, the wild, if not all, at
least the greater part of them, for food, and for the provision of clothing
and various instruments. Now if nature makes nothing incomplete, (20)
and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has made all animals
for the sake of man. And so, in one point of view, the art of war is a
natural art of acquisition, for the art of acquisition includes hunting, an
art which we ought to practise against wild beasts, and against men
who, though intended by nature to be governed, (25) will not submit; for
war of such a kind is naturally just.19
Of the art of acquisition then there is one kind which by nature is a
part of the management of a household, in so far as the art of household
management must either find ready to hand, or itself provide, such
things necessary to life, and useful for the community of the family or
state, (30) as can be stored. They are the elements of true riches; for the
amount of property which is needed for a good life is not unlimited,
although Solon in one of his poems says that

‘No bound to riches has been fixed for man’.

But there is a boundary fixed, just as there is in the other arts; for the
instruments of any art are never unlimited, either in number or size, (35)
and riches may be defined as a number of instruments to be used in a
household or in a state. And so we see that there is a natural art of
acquisition which is practised by managers of households and by
statesmen, and what is the reason of this.

9 There is another variety of the art of acquisition which is commonly

and rightly called an art of wealth-getting, (40) and has in fact suggested
the notion that riches and property have no limit. [1257a] Being
nearly connected with the preceding, it is often identified with it. But
though they are not very different, neither are they the same. The kind
already described is given by nature, the other is gained by experience
and art.
Let us begin our discussion of the question with the following
considerations:
Of everything which we possess there are two uses: both belong to the
thing as such, (5) but not in the same manner, for one is the proper, and
the other the improper or secondary use of it. For example, a shoe is
used for wear, and is used for exchange; both are uses of the shoe. (10) He
who gives a shoe in exchange for money or food to him who wants one,
does indeed use the shoe as a shoe, but this is not its proper or primary
purpose, for a shoe is not made to be an object of barter. The same may
be said of all possessions, for the art of exchange extends to all of them,
(15) and it arises at first from what is natural, from the circumstance that

some have too little, others too much. Hence we may infer that retail
trade is not a natural part of the art of getting wealth; had it been so,
men would have ceased to exchange when they had enough. In the first
community, indeed, which is the family, (20) this art is obviously of no
use, but it begins to be useful when the society increases. For the
members of the family originally had all things in common; later, when
the family divided into parts, the parts shared in many things, and
different parts in different things, which they had to give in exchange for
what they wanted, (25) a kind of barter which is still practised among
barbarous nations who exchange with one another the necessaries of life
and nothing more; giving and receiving wine, for example, in exchange
for corn, and the like. This sort of barter is not part of the wealth-getting
art and is not contrary to nature, (30) but is needed for the satisfaction of
men’s natural wants. The other or more complex form of exchange grew,
as might have been inferred, out of the simpler. When the inhabitants of
one country became more dependent on those of another, and they
imported what they needed, and exported what they had too much of,
(35) money necessarily came into use. For the various necessaries of life

are not easily carried about, and hence men agreed to employ in their
dealings with each other something which was intrinsically useful and
easily applicable to the purposes of life, for example, iron, silver, and the
like. Of this the value was at first measured simply by size and weight,
(40) but in process of time they put a stamp upon it, to save the trouble of

weighing and to mark the value.

[1257b] When the use of coin had once been discovered, out of the
barter of necessary articles arose the other art of wealth-getting, namely,
retail trade; which was at first probably a simple matter, but became
more complicated as soon as men learned by experience whence and by
what exchanges the greatest profit might be made. (5) Originating in the
use of coin, the art of getting wealth is generally thought to be chiefly
concerned with it, and to be the art which produces riches and wealth;
having to consider how they may be accumulated. Indeed, riches is
assumed by many to be only a quantity of coin, because the arts of
getting wealth and retail trade are concerned with coin. (10) Others
maintain that coined money is a mere sham, a thing not natural, but
conventional only, because, if the users substitute another commodity
for it, it is worthless, and because it is not useful as a means to any of
the necessities of life, and, indeed, he who is rich in coin may often be in
want of necessary food. But how can that be wealth of which a man may
have a great abundance and yet perish with hunger, (15) like Midas in the
fable, whose insatiable prayer turned everything that was set before him
into gold?
Hence men seek after a better notion of riches and of the art of getting
wealth than the mere acquisition of coin, and they are right. For natural
riches and the natural art of wealth-getting are a different thing; in their
true form they are part of the management of a household; whereas
retail trade is the art of producing wealth, (20) not in every way, but by
exchange. And it is thought to be concerned with coin; for coin is the
unit of exchange and the measure or limit of it. And there is no bound to
the riches which spring from this art of wealth-getting.20 As in the art of
medicine there is no limit to the pursuit of health, (25) and as in the other
arts there is no limit to the pursuit of their several ends, for they aim at
accomplishing their ends to the uttermost (but of the means there is a
limit, for the end is always the limit), so, too, in this art of wealth-
getting there is no limit of the end, which is riches of the spurious kind,
and the acquisition of wealth. (30) But the art of wealth-getting which
consists in household management, on the other hand, has a limit; the
unlimited acquisition of wealth is not its business. And, therefore, in one
point of view, all riches must have a limit; nevertheless, as a matter of
fact, we find the opposite to be the case; for all getters of wealth increase
their hoard of coin without limit. The source of the confusion is the near
connexion between the two kinds of wealth-getting; in either, the
instrument is the same, (35) although the use is different, and so they pass
into one another; for each is a use of the same property, but with a
difference: accumulation is the end in the one case, but there is a further
end in the other. Hence some persons are led to believe that getting
wealth is the object of household management, and the whole idea of
their lives is that they ought either to increase their money without
limit, or at any rate not to lose it. (40) The origin of this disposition in
men is that they are intent upon living only, and not upon living well;
and, as their desires are unlimited, they also desire that the means of
gratifying them should be without limit. [1258a] Those who do aim at
a good life seek the means of obtaining bodily pleasures; and, (5) since
the enjoyment of these appears to depend on property, they are absorbed
in getting wealth: and so there arises the second species of wealth-
getting. For, as their enjoyment is in excess, they seek an art which
produces the excess of enjoyment; and, if they are not able to supply
their pleasures by the art of getting wealth, they try other arts, using in
turn every faculty in a manner contrary to nature. (10) The quality of
courage, for example, is not intended to make wealth, but to inspire
confidence; neither is this the aim of the general’s or of the physician’s
art; but the one aims at victory and the other at health. Nevertheless,
some men turn every quality or art into a means of getting wealth; this
they conceive to be the end, and to the promotion of the end they think
all things must contribute.
Thus, then, we have considered the art of wealth-getting which is
unnecessary, (15) and why men want it; and also the necessary art of
wealth-getting, which we have seen to be different from the other, and
to be a natural part of the art of managing a household, concerned with
the provision of food, not, however, like the former kind, unlimited, but
having a limit.

10 And we have found the answer to our original question,21 Whether

the art of getting wealth is the business of the manager of a household
and of the statesman or not their business?—viz. (20) that wealth is
presupposed by them. For as political science does not make men, but
takes them from nature and uses them, so too nature provides them with
earth or sea or the like as a source of food. At this stage begins the duty
of the manager of a household, who has to order the things which nature
supplies;—he may be compared to the weaver who has not to make but
to use wool, (25) and to know, too, what sort of wool is good and
serviceable or bad and unserviceable. Were this otherwise, it would be
difficult to see why the art of getting wealth is a part of the management
of a household and the art of medicine not; for surely the members of a
household must have health just as they must have life or any other
necessary. (30) The answer is that as from one point of view the master of
the house and the ruler of the state have to consider about health, from
another point of view not they but the physician; so in one way the art
of household management, in another way the subordinate art, has to
consider about wealth. But, strictly speaking, as I have already said, the
means of life must be provided beforehand by nature; for the business of
nature is to furnish food to that which is born, (35) and the food of the
offspring is always what remains over of that from which it is
produced.22 Wherefore the art of getting wealth out of fruits and animals
is always natural.
There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said23; one is a part of
household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary
and honourable, while that which consists in exchange is justly
censured; (40) for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from
one another. [1258b] The most hated sort, and with the greatest
reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from
the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange,
but not to increase at interest. And this term interest,24 which means the
birth of money from money, (5) is applied to the breeding of money
because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of all modes of
getting wealth this is the most unnatural.

11 Enough has been said about the theory of wealth-getting; we will

now proceed to the practical part. The discussion of such matters is not
unworthy of philosophy, (10) but to be engaged in them practically is
illiberal and irksome. The useful parts of wealth-getting are, first, the
knowledge of live-stock—which are most profitable, and where, and
how—as, for example, what sort of horses or sheep or oxen or any other
animals are most likely to give a return. A man ought to know which of
these pay better than others, (15) and which pay best in particular places,
for some do better in one place and some in another. Secondly,
husbandry, which may be either tillage or planting, and the keeping of
bees and of fish, or fowl, or of any animals which may be useful to man.
These are the divisions of the true or proper art of wealth-getting and
come first. (20) Of the other, which consists in exchange, the first and
most important division is commerce (of which there are three kinds—
the provision of a ship, the conveyance of goods, exposure for sale—
these again differing as they are safer or more profitable), the second is
usury, the third, service for hire—of this, (25) one kind is employed in the
mechanical arts, the other in unskilled and bodily labour. There is still a
third sort of wealth-getting intermediate between this and the first or
natural mode which is partly natural, but is also concerned with
exchange, viz. the industries that make their profit from the earth, and
from things growing from the earth which, (30) although they bear no
fruit, are nevertheless profitable; for example, the cutting of timber and
all mining. The art of mining, by which minerals are obtained, itself has
many branches, for there are various kinds of things dug out of the
earth. Of the several divisions of wealth-getting I now speak generally; a
minute consideration of them might be useful in practice, but it would
be tiresome to dwell upon them at greater length now.
Those occupations are most truly arts in which there is the least
element of chance; they are the meanest in which the body is most
deteriorated, (35) the most servile in which there is the greatest use of the
body, and the most illiberal in which there is the least need of
excellence.
Works have been written upon these subjects by various persons; for
example, (40) by Chares the Parian, and Apollodorus the Lemnian, who
have treated of Tillage and Planting, while others have treated of other
branches; any one who cares for such matters may refer to their
writings. [1259a] It would be well also to collect the scattered stories
of the ways in which individuals have succeeded in amassing a fortune;
for all this is useful to persons who value the art of getting wealth. (5)
There is the anecdote of Thales the Milesian and his financial device,
which involves a principle of universal application, but is attributed to
him on account of his reputation for wisdom. He was reproached for his
poverty, (10) which was supposed to show that philosophy was of no use.
According to the story, he knew by his skill in the stars while it was yet
winter that there would be a great harvest of olives in the coming year;
so, having a little money, he gave deposits for the use of all the olive-
presses in Chios and Miletus, which he hired at a low price because no
one bid against him. When the harvest-time came, (15) and many were
wanted all at once and of a sudden, he let them out at any rate which he
pleased, and made a quantity of money. Thus he showed the world that
philosophers can easily be rich if they like, but that their ambition is of
another sort. He is supposed to have given a striking proof of his
wisdom, but, as I was saying, (20) his device for getting wealth is of
universal application, and is nothing but the creation of a monopoly. It is
an art often practised by cities when they are in want of money; they
make a monopoly of provisions.
There was a man of Sicily, who, having money deposited with him,
bought up all the iron from the iron mines; afterwards, (25) when the
merchants from their various markets came to buy, he was the only
seller, and without much increasing the price he gained 200 per cent.
Which when Dionysius heard, he told him that he might take away his
money, but that he must not remain at Syracuse, (30) for he thought that
the man had discovered a way of making money which was injurious to
his own interests. He made the same discovery as Thales; they both
contrived to create a monopoly for themselves. And statesmen as well
ought to know these things; for a state is often as much in want of
money and of such devices for obtaining it as a household, or even more
so; hence some public men devote themselves entirely to finance. (35)

12 Of household management we have seen25 that there are three

parts—one is the rule of a master over slaves, which has been discussed
already,26 another of a father, and the third of a husband. A husband
and father, we saw, rules over wife and children, both free, (40) but the
rule differs, the rule over his children being a royal, over his wife a
constitutional rule. For although there may be exceptions to the order of
nature, the male is by nature fitter for command than the female, just as
the elder and full-grown is superior to the younger and more immature.
[1259b] But in most constitutional states the citizens rule and are
ruled by turns, (5) for the idea of a constitutional state implies that the
natures of the citizens are equal, and do not differ at all.27 Nevertheless,
when one rules and the other is ruled we endeavour to create a
difference of outward forms and names and titles of respect, which may
be illustrated by the saying of Amasis about his foot-pan.28 The relation
of the male to the female is of this kind, but there the inequality is
permanent. The rule of a father over his children is royal, (10) for he rules
by virtue both of love and of the respect due to age, exercising a kind of
royal power. And therefore Homer has appropriately called Zeus ‘father
of Gods and men’, because he is the king of them all. For a king is the
natural superior of his subjects, but he should be of the same kin or kind
with them, and such is the relation of elder and younger, (15) of father
and son.

13 Thus it is clear that household management attends more to men

than to the acquisition of inanimate things, and to human excellence
more than to the excellence of property which we call wealth, (20) and to
the virtue of freemen more than to the virtue of slaves. A question may
indeed be raised, whether there is any excellence at all in a slave beyond
and higher than merely instrumental and ministerial qualities—whether
he can have the virtues of temperance, courage, justice, and the like; or
whether slaves possess only bodily and ministerial qualities. (25) And,
whichever way we answer the question, a difficulty arises; for, if they
have virtue, in what will they differ from freemen? On the other hand,
since they are men and share in rational principle, it seems absurd to say
that they have no virtue. A similar question may be raised about women
and children, whether they too have virtues: ought a woman to be
temperate and brave and just, (30) and is a child to be called temperate,
and intemperate, or not? So in general we may ask about the natural
ruler, and the natural subject, whether they have the same or different
virtues. For if a noble nature is equally required in both, (35) why should
one of them always rule, and the other always be ruled? Nor can we say
that this is a question of degree, for the difference between ruler and
subject is a difference of kind, which the difference of more and less
never is. Yet how strange is the supposition that the one ought, and that
the other ought not, (40) to have virtue! For if the ruler is intemperate
and unjust, how can he rule well? if the subject, how can he obey well?
If he be licentious and cowardly, he will certainly not do his duty.
[1260a] It is evident, therefore, that both of them must have a share of
virtue, but varying as natural subjects also vary among themselves. Here
the very constitution of the soul has shown us the way; in it one part
naturally rules, (5) and the other is subject, and the virtue of the ruler we
maintain to be different from that of the subject;—the one being the
virtue of the rational, and the other of the irrational part. Now, it is
obvious that the same principle applies generally, and therefore almost
all things rule and are ruled according to nature. But the kind of rule
differs;—the freeman rules over the slave after another manner from that
in which the male rules over the female, (10) or the man over the child;
although the parts of the soul are present in all of them, they are present
in different degrees. For the slave has no deliberative faculty at all; the
woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is
immature. (15) So it must necessarily be supposed to be with the moral
virtues also; all should partake of them, but only in such manner and
degree as is required by each for the fulfilment of his duty. Hence the
ruler ought to have moral virtue in perfection, for his function, taken
absolutely, demands a master artificer, and rational principle is such an
artificer; the subjects, on the other hand, (20) require only that measure of
virtue which is proper to each of them. Clearly, then, moral virtue
belongs to all of them; but the temperance of a man and of a woman, or
the courage and justice of a man and of a woman, are not, as Socrates
maintained,29 the same; the courage of a man is shown in commanding,
of a woman in obeying. And this holds of all other virtues, (25) as will be
more clearly seen if we look at them in detail, for those who say
generally that virtue consists in a good disposition of the soul, or in
doing rightly, or the like, only deceive themselves. Far better than such
definitions is their mode of speaking, who, like Gorgias,30 enumerate the
virtues. All classes must be deemed to have their special attributes; as
the poet says of women,

‘Silence is a woman’s glory’, (30)

but this is not equally the glory of man. The child is imperfect, and
therefore obviously his virtue is not relative to himself alone, but to the
perfect man and to his teacher, and in like manner the virtue of the slave
is relative to a master. Now we determined31 that a slave is useful for
the wants of life, and therefore he will obviously require only so much
virtue as will prevent him from failing in his duty through cowardice or
lack of self-control. (35) Some one will ask whether, if what we are saying
is true, virtue will not be required also in the artisans, for they often fail
in their work through the lack of self-control? But is there not a great
difference in the two cases? For the slave shares in his master’s life; the
artisan is less closely connected with him, (40) and only attains excellence
in proportion as he becomes a slave. The meaner sort of mechanic has a
special and separate slavery; and whereas the slave exists by nature, not
so the shoemaker or other artisan. [1260b] It is manifest, then, that
the master ought to be the source of such excellence in the slave, and
not a mere possessor of the art of mastership which trains the slave in
his duties.32 Wherefore they are mistaken who forbid us to converse
with slaves and say that we should employ command only,33 (5) for
slaves stand even more in need of admonition than children.
So much for this subject; the relations of husband and wife, parent and
child, their several virtues, what in their intercourse with one another is
good, and what is evil, and how we may pursue the good and escape the
evil, (10) will have to be discussed when we speak of the different forms
of government.34 For, inasmuch as every family is a part of a state, and
these relationships are the parts of a family, and the virtue of the part
must have regard to the virtue of the whole, women and children must
be trained by education with an eye to the constitution,35 (15) if the
virtues of either of them are supposed to make any difference in the
virtues of the state. And they must make a difference: for the children
grow up to be citizens, and half the free persons in a state are women.36
Of these matters, enough has been said; of what remains, (20) let us
speak at another time. Regarding, then, our present inquiry as complete,
we will make a new beginning. And, first, let us examine the various
theories of a perfect state.

1 Cp. Plato, Politicus, 258 E-259 D.

2 Cp. 1256a2.
3 Od. ix. 114, quoted by Plato, Laws, iii. 680 B, and in N. Eth. x. 1180a 28.

4 Il. ix. 63.

5 Cp. 1256b 20.

6 Cp. vii. 1332b 5.

7 Cp. N. Eth. v. 1134a 31.

8 Plato in Pol. 258 E-259 D, referred to already in 1252a 7–16.

9 Hom. Il. xviii. 376.

10 i. e. mutual goodwill, which is held to be incompatible with the relation of master and slave.

11 i. e. those stated in Il. 5–12, that the stronger always has, and that he never has, a right to
enslave the weaker. Aristotle finds that these views cannot maintain themselves against his
intermediate view, that the superior in virtue should rule.
12 Chap. 5.

13 Cp. 1254a8.

14 Plato, Polit. 258 E-259 D, referred to already in 1252a 7–16, 1253b 18–20.

15 Polit. 259 C, 293 C.

16 Cp. vii. 1333b 38.

17 Of understanding the whole by the part, Cp. 1252a 17.

18 Chap. 4.

19 Cp. 1255b 38, 1333b 38.

20 Cp. 1256b 32.

21 1256a 3.

22 Cp. 1256b 10.

23 1256a 15–1258a 18.

24 tokos, lit. ‘offspring’.

25 1253b 3–11.

26 1253b 14–1255b 39.

27 Cp. ii. 1261a39, iii. 1288a 12.

28 Herod. ii. 172.

29 Plato, Meno, 72 A-73 C.

30 Meno, 71 E, 72 A.

31 1254b 16–39, Cf. 1259b 25 sq.

32 Cp. 1255b 23, 31–35.

33 Plato, Laws, vi. 777 E.

34 The question is not actually discussed in the Politics.

35 Cp. v. 1310a 12–36, viii. 1337a 11–18.

36 Plato, Laws, vi. 781 A.

 BOOK II

1 Our purpose is to consider what form of political community is best

of all for those who are most able to realize their ideal of life. (30) We
must therefore examine not only this but other constitutions, both such
as actually exist in well-governed states, and any theoretical forms which
are held in esteem; that what is good and useful may be brought to light.
And let no one suppose that in seeking for something beyond them we
are anxious to make a sophistical display at any cost; we only undertake
this inquiry because all the constitutions with which we are acquainted
are faulty. (35)
We will begin with the natural beginning of the subject. Three
alternatives are conceivable: The members of a state must either have
(1) all things or (2) nothing in common, or (3) some things in common
and some not. That they should have nothing in common is clearly
impossible, (40) for the constitution is a community, and must at any rate
have a common place—one city will be in one place, and the citizens are
those who share in that one city. [1261a] But should a well-ordered
state have all things, as far as may be, in common, or some only and not
others? For the citizens might conceivably have wives and children and
property in common, (5) as Socrates proposes in the Republic of Plato.1
Which is better, our present condition, or the proposed new order of
society?

2 There are many difficulties in the community of women. (10) And

the principle on which Socrates rests the necessity of such an institution
evidently is not established by his arguments. Further, as a means to the
end which he ascribes to the state, the scheme, taken literally, is
impracticable, and how we are to interpret it is nowhere precisely
stated. (15) I am speaking of the premiss from which the argument of
Socrates proceeds, ‘that the greater the unity of the state the better’. Is it
not obvious that a state may at length attain such a degree of unity as to
be no longer a state?—since the nature of a state is to be a plurality, and
in tending to greater unity, from being a state, (20) it becomes a family,
and from being a family, an individual; for the family may be said to be
more than the state, and the individual than the family. So that we
ought not to attain this greatest unity even if we could, for it would be
the destruction of the state. Again, a state is not made up only of so
many men, but of different kinds of men; for similars do not constitute a
state. It is not like a military alliance. (25) The usefulness of the latter
depends upon its quantity even where there is no difference in quality
(for mutual protection is the end aimed at), just as a greater weight of
anything is more useful than a less (in like manner, a state differs from a
nation, when the nation has not its population organized in villages, but
lives an Arcadian sort of life); but the elements out of which a unity is to
be formed differ in kind. Wherefore the principle of compensation, (30) as
I have already remarked in the Ethics,2 is the salvation of states. Even
among freemen and equals this is a principle which must be maintained,
for they cannot all rule together, but must change at the end of a year or
some other period of time or in some order of succession. The result is
that upon this plan they all govern; just as if shoemakers and carpenters
were to exchange their occupations, (35) and the same persons did not
always continue shoemakers and carpenters. And since it is better that
this should be so in politics as well, it is clear that while there should be
continuance of the same persons in power where this is possible, yet
where this is not possible by reason of the natural equality of the
citizens, and at the same time it is just that all should share in the
government (whether to govern be a good thing or a bad3, an
approximation to this is that equals should in turn retire from office and
should, apart from official position, be treated alike.4 [1261b] Thus
the one party rule and the others are ruled in turn, as if they were no
longer the same persons. (5) In like manner when they hold office there is
a variety in the offices held. Hence it is evident that a city is not by
nature one in that sense which some persons affirm; and that what is
said to be the greatest good of cities is in reality their destruction; but
surely the good of things must be that which preserves them.5 Again, in
another point of view, (10) this extreme unification of the state is clearly
not good; for a family is more self-sufficing than an individual, and a
city than a family, and a city only comes into being when the
community is large enough to be self-sufficing. If then self-sufficiency is
to be desired, the lesser degree of unity is more desirable than the
greater. (15)

3 But, even supposing that it were best for the community to have the
greatest degree of unity, this unity is by no means proved to follow from
the fact ‘of all men saying “mine” and “not mine” at the same instant of
time’, which, according to Socrates,6 is the sign of perfect unity in a
state. (20) For the word ‘all’ is ambiguous. If the meaning be that every
individual says ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ at the same time, then perhaps the
result at which Socrates aims may be in some degree accomplished; each
man will call the same person his own son and the same person his own
wife, and so of his property and of all that falls to his lot. This, however,
is not the way in which people would speak who had their wives and
children in common; they would say ‘all’ but not ‘each.’ (25) In like
manner their property would be described as belonging to them, not
severally but collectively. There is an obvious fallacy in the term ‘all’:
like some other words, ‘both’, ‘odd’, ‘even’, it is ambiguous, and even in
abstract argument becomes a source of logical puzzles. (30) That all
persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may
be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in the
other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is
another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the
greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks
chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when
he is himself concerned as an individual. (35) For besides other
considerations, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he
expects another to fulfil; as in families many attendants are often less
useful than a few. Each citizen will have a thousand sons who will not
be his sons individually, but anybody will be equally the son of anybody,
and will therefore be neglected by all alike. [1262a] Further, upon this
principle, every one will use the word ‘mine’ of one who is prospering or
the reverse,7 however small a fraction he may himself be of the whole
number; the same boy will be ‘my son’, ‘so and so’s son’, the son of each
of the thousand, or whatever be the number of the citizens; and even
about this he will not be positive; for it is impossible to know who
chanced to have a child, (5) or whether, if one came into existence, it has
survived. But which is better—for each to say ‘mine’ in this way, making
a man the same relation to two thousand or ten thousand citizens, or to
use the word ‘mine’ in the ordinary and more restricted sense? For
usually the same person is called by one man his own son whom another
calls his own brother or cousin or kinsman—blood relation or connexion
by marriage either of himself or of some relation of his, (10) and yet
another his clansman or tribesman; and how much better is it to be the
real cousin of somebody than to be a son after Plato’s fashion! Nor is
there any way of preventing brothers and children and fathers and
mothers from sometimes recognizing one another; for children are born
like their parents, (15) and they will necessarily be finding indications of
their relationship to one another. Geographers declare such to be the
fact; they say that in part of Upper Libya, where the women are
common, (20) nevertheless the children who are born are assigned to their
respective fathers on the ground of their likeness. And some women, like
the females of other animals—for example, mares and cows—have a
strong tendency to produce offspring resembling their parents, as was
the case with the Pharsalian mare called Honest.

4 Other evils, against which it is not easy for the authors of such a (25)
community to guard, will be assaults and homicides, voluntary as well as
involuntary, quarrels and slanders, all which are most unholy acts when
committed against fathers and mothers and near relations, but not
equally unholy when there is no relationship. Moreover, they are (30)
much more likely to occur if the relationship is unknown, and, when
they have occurred, the customary expiations of them cannot be made.
Again, how strange it is that Socrates,8 after having made the children
common, should hinder lovers from carnal intercourse only, but should
permit love and familiarities between father and son or between (35)
brother and brother, than which nothing can be more unseemly, since
even without them love of this sort is improper. How strange, too, to
forbid intercourse for no other reason than the violence of the pleasure,
as though the relationship of father and son or of brothers with one
another made no difference.
This community of wives and children seems better suited to the
husbandmen than to the guardians, (40) for if they have wives and
children in common, they will be bound to one another by weaker ties,
as a subject class should be, and they will remain obedient and not
rebel.9 [1262b] In a word, the result of such a law would be just the
opposite of that which good laws ought to have, and the intention of
Socrates in making these regulations about women and children would
defeat itself. (5) For friendship we believe to be the greatest good of
states10 and the preservative of them against revolutions; neither is there
anything which Socrates so greatly lauds as the unity of the state which
he and all the world declare to be created by friendship. (10) But the unity
which he commends11 would be like that of the lovers in the
Symposium,12 who, as Aristophanes says, desire to grow together in the
excess of their affection, and from being two to become one, (15) in which
case one or both would certainly perish. Whereas in a state having
women and children common, love will be watery; and the father will
certainly not say ‘my son’, or the son ‘my father’.13 As a little sweet wine
mingled with a great deal of water is imperceptible in the mixture, so, in
this sort of community, the idea of relationship which is based upon
these names will be lost; there is no reason why the so-called father
should care about the son, (20) or the son about the father, or brothers
about one another. Of the two qualities which chiefly inspire regard and
affection—that a thing is your own and that it is your only one—neither
can exist in such a state as this.
Again, the transfer of children as soon as they are born from the rank
of husbandmen or of artisans to that of guardians, (25) and from the rank
of guardians into a lower rank,14 will be very difficult to arrange; the
givers or transferrers cannot but know whom they are giving and
transferring, and to whom. And the previously mentioned15 evils, (30)
such as assaults, unlawful loves, homicides, will happen more often
amongst those who are transferred to the lower classes, or who have a
place assigned to them among the guardians; for they will no longer call
the members of the class they have left brothers, and children, and
fathers, and mothers, and will not, therefore, be afraid of committing
any crimes by reason of consanguinity. (35) Touching the community of
wives and children, let this be our conclusion.
5 Next let us consider what should be our arrangements about
property: (40) should the citizens of the perfect state have their
possessions in common or not? This question may be discussed
separately from the enactments about women and children. [1263a]
Even supposing that the women and children belong to individuals,
according to the custom which is at present universal, may there not be
an advantage in having and using possessions in common? Three cases
are possible: (1) the soil may be appropriated, but the produce may be
thrown for consumption into the common stock; and this is the practice
of some nations. (5) Or (2), the soil may be common, and may be
cultivated in common, but the produce divided among individuals for
their private use; this is a form of common property which is said to
exist among certain barbarians. Or (3), the soil and the produce may be
alike common.
When the husbandmen are not the owners, the case will be different
and easier to deal with; but when they till the ground for themselves the
question of ownership will give a world of trouble. (10) If they do not
share equally in enjoyments and toils, those who labour much and get
little will necessarily complain of those who labour little and receive or
consume much. But indeed there is always a difficulty in men living
together and having all human relations in common, (15) but especially in
their having common property. The partnerships of fellow-travellers are
an example to the point; for they generally fall out over everyday
matters and quarrel about any trifle which turns up. So with servants:
we are most liable to take offense at those with whom we most
frequently come into contact in daily life.(20)
These are only some of the disadvantages which attend the community
of property; the present arrangement, if improved as it might be by good
customs and laws, would be far better, and would have the advantages
of both systems. Property should be in a certain sense common, (25) but,
as a general rule, private; for, when every one has a distinct interest,16
men will not complain of one another, and they will make more
progress, because every one will be attending to his own business. And
yet by reason of goodness, and in respect of use, ‘Friends’, as the proverb
says, ‘will have all things common.’17 Even now there are traces of such
a principle, (30) showing that it is not impracticable, but, in well-ordered
states, exists already to a certain extent and may be carried further. For,
although every man has his own property, some things he will place at
the disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the use with them.
The Lacedaemonians, (35) for example, use one another’s slaves, and
horses, and dogs, as if they were their own; and when they lack
provisions on a journey, they appropriate what they find in the fields
throughout the country. It is clearly better that property should be
private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the
legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition. Again, how
immeasurably greater is the pleasure, (40) when a man feels a thing to be
his own; for surely the love of self18 is a feeling implanted by nature and
not given in vain, although selfishness is rightly censured; this, however,
is not the mere love of self, but the love of self in excess, like the miser’s
love of money; for all, or almost all, men love money and other such
objects in a measure. [1263b] (5) And further, there is the greatest
pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friends or guests or
companions, which can only be rendered when a man has private
property. These advantages are lost by excessive unification of the state.
The exhibition of two virtues, besides, is visibly annihilated in such a
state: first, (10) temperance towards women (for it is an honourable
action to abstain from another’s wife for temperance sake); secondly,
liberality in the matter of property. No one, when men have all things in
common, will any longer set an example of liberality or do any liberal
action; for liberality consists in the use which is made of property.19
Such legislation may have a specious appearance of benevolence; men
readily listen to it, (15) and are easily induced to believe that in some
wonderful manner everybody will become everybody’s friend, especially
when some one20 is heard denouncing the evils now existing in states,
(20) suits about contracts, convictions for perjury, flatteries of rich men

and the like, which are said to arise out of the possession of private
property. These evils, however, are due to a very different cause—the
wickedness of human nature. Indeed, we see that there is much more
quarrelling among those who have all things in common, (25) though
there are not many of them when compared with the vast numbers who
have private property.
Again, we ought to reckon, not only the evils from which the citizens
will be saved, but also the advantages which they will lose. (30) The life
which they are to lead appears to be quite impracticable. The error of
Socrates must be attributed to the false notion of unity from which he
starts.21 Unity there should be, both of the family and of the state, but in
some respects only. For there is a point at which a state may attain such
a degree of unity as to be no longer a state, or at which, without actually
ceasing to exist, (35) it will become an inferior state, like harmony passing
into unison, or rhythm which has been reduced to a single foot. The
state, as I was saying, is a plurality,22 which should be united and made
into a community by education; and it is strange that the author of a
system of education which he thinks will make the state virtuous, should
expect to improve his citizens by regulations of this sort, (40) and not by
philosophy or by customs and laws, like those which prevail at Sparta
and Crete respecting common meals, whereby the legislator has made
property common. [1264a] Let us remember that we should not
disregard the experience of ages; in the multitude of years these things,
if they were good, would certainly not have been unknown; for almost
everything has been found out, although sometimes they are not put
together; in other cases men do not use the knowledge which they have.
Great light would be thrown on this subject if we could see such a form
of government in the actual process of construction; (5) for the legislator
could not form a state at all without distributing and dividing its
constituents into associations for common meals, and into phratries and
tribes. But all this legislation ends only in forbidding agriculture to the
guardians, (10) a prohibition which the Lacedaemonians try to enforce
already.
But, indeed, Socrates has not said, nor is it easy to decide, what in
such a community will be the general form of the state. The citizens who
are not guardians are the majority, and about them nothing has been
determined: are the husbandmen, too, to have their property in
common? Or is each individual to have his own? and are the wives and
children to be individual or common? If, (15) like the guardians, they are
to have all things in common, in what do they differ from them, or what
will they gain by submitting to their government? Or, upon what
principle would they submit, unless indeed the governing class adopt the
ingenious policy of the Cretans, (20) who give their slaves the same
institutions as their own, but forbid them gymnastic exercises and the
possession of arms. If, on the other hand, the inferior classes are to be
like other cities in respect of marriage and property, what will be the
form of the community? Must it not contain two states in one,23 (25) each
hostile to the other? He makes the guardians into a mere occupying
garrison, while the husbandmen and artisans and the rest are the real
citizens. But if so the suits and quarrels, and all the evils which Socrates
affirms24 to exist in other states, will exist equally among them. He says
indeed that, having so good an education, (30) the citizens will not need
many laws, for example laws about the city or about the markets;25 but
then he confines his education to the guardians. Again, he makes the
husbandmen owners of the property upon condition of their paying a
tribute.26 But in that case they are likely to be much more unmanageable
and conceited than the Helots, or Penestae, or slaves in general.27 And
whether community of wives and property be necessary for the lower
equally with the higher class or not, (35) and the questions akin to this,
what will be the education, form of government, laws of the lower class,
Socrates has nowhere determined: neither is it easy to discover this, (40)
nor is their character of small importance if the common life of the
guardians is to be maintained. [1264b]
Again, if Socrates makes the women common, and retains private
property, the men will see to the fields, but who will see to the house?
And who will do so if the agricultural class have both their property and
their wives in common? Once more: it is absurd to argue, (5) from the
analogy of the animals, that men and women should follow the same
pursuits,28 for animals have not to manage a household. The
government, too, as constituted by Socrates, contains elements of
danger; for he makes the same persons always rule. And if this is often a
cause of disturbance among the meaner sort, (10) how much more among
high-spirited warriors? But that the persons whom he makes rulers must
be the same is evident; for the gold which the God mingles in the souls
of men is not at one time given to one, at another time to another, but
always to the same: as he says, ‘God mingles gold in some, and silver in
others, from their very birth; but brass and iron in those who are meant
to be artisans and husbandmen.’29 (15) Again, he deprives the guardians
even of happiness, and says that the legislator ought to make the whole
state happy.30 But the whole cannot be happy unless most, or all, or
some of its parts enjoy happiness.31 In this respect happiness is not like
the even principle in numbers, (20) which may exist only in the whole,
but in neither of the parts; not so happiness. And if the guardians are not
happy, who are? Surely not the artisans, or the common people. The
Republic of which Socrates discourses has all these difficulties, (25) and
others quite as great.

6 The same, or nearly the same, objections apply to Plato’s later work,
the Laws, and therefore we had better examine briefly the constitution
which is therein described. In the Republic, (30) Socrates has definitely
settled in all a few questions only; such as the community of women and
children, the community of property, and the constitution of the state.
The population is divided into two classes—one of husbandmen, and the
other of warriors;32 from this latter is taken a third class of counsellors
and rulers of the state.33 But Socrates has not determined whether the
husbandmen and artisans are to have a share in the government, (35) and
whether they, too, are to carry arms and share in military service, or not.
He certainly thinks34 that the women ought to share in the education of
the guardians, and to fight by their side. The remainder of the work is
filled up with digressions foreign to the main subject, (40) and with
discussions about the education of the guardians. In the Laws there is
hardly anything but laws; not much is said about the constitution.
[1265a] This, which he had intended to make more of the ordinary
type, he gradually brings round to the other or ideal form. For with the
exception of the community of women and property, he supposes
everything to be the same in both states; (5) there is to be the same
education; the citizens of both are to live free from servile occupations,
and there are to be common meals in both. The only difference is that in
the Laws, the common meals are extended to women,35 and the warriors
number 5000,36 but in the Republic only 1000.37
The discourses of Socrates are never commonplace; they always
exhibit grace and originality and thought; but perfection in everything
can hardly be expected. (10) We must not overlook the fact that the
number of 5000 citizens, just now mentioned, will require a territory as
large as Babylon, or some other huge site, (15) if so many persons are to
be supported in idleness, together with their women and attendants,
who will be a multitude many times as great. In framing an ideal we
may assume what we wish, but should avoid impossibilities.38
It is said that the legislator ought to have his eye directed to two
points—the people and the country.39 But neighbouring countries also
must not be forgotten by him,40 (20) firstly because the state for which he
legislates is to have a political and not an isolated life.41 For a state must
have such a military force as will be serviceable against her neighbours,
and not merely useful at home. (25) Even if the life of action is not
admitted to be the best, either for individuals or states,42 still a city
should be formidable to enemies, whether invading or retreating.
There is another point: Should not the amount of property be defined
in some way which differs from this by being clearer? For Socrates says
that a man should have so much property as will enable him to live
temperately,43 which is only a way of saying ‘to live well’; this is too
general a conception. (30) Further, a man may live temperately and yet
miserably. A better definition would be that a man must have so much
property as will enable him to live not only temperately but liberally;44
if the two are parted, liberality will combine with luxury; temperance
will be associated with toil. For liberality and temperance are the only
eligible qualities which have to do with the use of property. (35) A man
cannot use property with mildness or courage, but temperately and
liberally he may; and therefore the practice of these virtues is
inseparable from property. There is an inconsistency, too, in equalizing
the property and not regulating the number of the citizens;45 the
population is to remain unlimited, (40) and he thinks that it will be
sufficiently equalized by a certain number of marriages being unfruitful,
however many are born to others, because he finds this to be the case in
existing states. [1265b] But greater care will be required than now; for
among ourselves, whatever may be the number of citizens, the property
is always distributed among them, and therefore no one is in want; but,
(5) if the property were incapable of division as in the Laws, the

supernumeraries, whether few or many, would get nothing. One would

have thought that it was even more necessary to limit population than
property; and that the limit should be fixed by calculating the chances of
mortality in the children, and of sterility in married persons. (10) The
neglect of this subject, which in existing states is so common, is a never-
failing cause of poverty among the citizens; and poverty is the parent of
revolution and crime. Pheidon the Corinthian, who was one of the most
ancient legislators, thought that the families and the number of citizens
ought to remain the same, (15) although originally all the lots may have
been of different sizes: but in the Laws the opposite principle is
maintained. What in our opinion is the right arrangement will have to be
explained hereafter.46
There is another omission in the Laws: Socrates does not tell us how
the rulers differ from their subjects; he only says that they should be
related as the warp and the woof, (20) which are made out of different
wools.47 He allows that a man’s whole property may be increased
fivefold,48 but why should not his land also increase to a certain extent?
Again, will the good management of a household be promoted by his
arrangement of homesteads? for he assigns to each individual two
homesteads in separate places,49 (25) and it is difficult to live in two
houses.
The whole system of government tends to be neither democracy nor
oligarchy, but something in a mean between them, which is usually
called a polity, and is composed of the heavy-armed soldiers. Now, if he
intended to frame a constitution which would suit the greatest number
of states, he was very likely right, (30) but not if he meant to say that this
constitutional form came nearest to his first or ideal state; for many
would prefer the Lacedaemonian, or, possibly, some other more
aristocratic government. Some, indeed, say that the best constitution is a
combination of all existing forms, and they praise the Lacedaemonian50
because it is made up of oligarchy, monarchy, (35) and democracy, the
king forming the monarchy, and the council of elders the oligarchy,
while the democratic element is represented by the Ephors; for the
Ephors are selected from the people. Others, however, declare the
Ephoralty to be a tyranny, (40) and find the element of democracy in the
common meals and in the habits of daily life. In the Laws51 it is
maintained that the best constitution is made up of democracy and
tyranny, which are either not constitutions at all, or are the worst of all.
[1266a] But they are nearer the truth who combine many forms; for
the constitution is better which is made up of more numerous elements.
The constitution proposed in the Laws has no element of monarchy at
all; it is nothing but oligarchy and democracy, leaning rather to
oligarchy. This is seen in the mode of appointing magistrates;52 for
although the appointment of them by lot from among those who have
been already selected combines both elements, the way in which the rich
are compelled by law to attend the assembly53 and vote for magistrates
or discharge other political duties, (10) while the rest may do as they like,
and the endeavour54 to have the greater number of the magistrates
appointed out of the richer classes and the highest officers selected from
those who have the greatest incomes, both these are oligarchical
features. The oligarchical principle prevails also in the choice of the
council,55 for all are compelled to choose, (15) but the compulsion
extends only to the choice out of the first class, and of an equal number
out of the second class and out of the third class, but not in this latter
case to all the voters but to those of the first three classes; and the
selection of candidates out of the fourth class is only compulsory on the
first and second. Then, from the persons so chosen, (20) he says that there
ought to be an equal number of each class selected. Thus a
preponderance will be given to the better sort of people, who have the
larger incomes, because many of the lower classes, not being compelled,
will not vote. These considerations, (25) and others which will be
adduced56 when the time comes for examining similar polities, tend to
show that states like Plato’s should not be composed of democracy and
monarchy. There is also a danger in electing the magistrates out of a
body who are themselves elected;57 for, if but a small number choose to
combine, the elections will always go as they desire. (30) Such is the
constitution which is described in the Laws.

7 Other constitutions have been proposed; some by private persons,

others by philosophers and statesmen, which all come nearer to
established or existing ones than either of Plato’s. No one else has
introduced such novelties as the community of women and children, (35)
or public tables for women: other legislators begin with what is
necessary. In the opinion of some, the regulation of property is the chief
point of all, that being the question upon which all revolutions turn. This
danger was recognized by Phaleas of Chalcedon, who was the first to
affirm that the citizens of a state ought to have equal possessions. (40)
[1266b] He thought that in a new colony the equalization might be
accomplished without difficulty, not so easily when a state was already
established; and that then the shortest way of compassing the desired
end would be for the rich to give and not to receive marriage portions,
and for the poor not to give but to receive them.
Plato in the Laws58 was of opinion that, (5) to a certain extent,
accumulation should be allowed, forbidding, as I have already
observed,59 any citizen to possess more than five times the minimum
qualification. But those who make such laws should remember what
they are apt to forget60—that the legislator who fixes the amount of
property should also fix the number of children; for, (10) if the children
are too many for the property, the law must be broken. And, besides the
violation of the law, it is a bad thing that many from being rich should
become poor; for men of ruined fortunes are sure to stir up revolutions.
That the equalization of property exercises an influence on political
society was clearly understood even by some of the old legislators. (15)
Laws were made by Solon and others prohibiting an individual from
possessing as much land as he pleased; and there are other laws in states
which forbid the sale of property: among the Locrians, for example,
there is a law that a man is not to sell his property unless he can prove
unmistakably that some misfortune has befallen him. (20) Again, there
have been laws which enjoin the preservation of the original lots. Such a
law existed in the island of Leucas, and the abrogation of it made the
constitution too democratic, for the rulers no longer had the prescribed
qualification. Again, where there is equality of property, the amount
may be either too large or too small, (25) and the possessor may be living
either in luxury or penury. Clearly, then, the legislator ought not only to
aim at the equalization of properties, but at moderation in their amount.
Further, if he prescribe this moderate amount equally to all, he will be
no nearer the mark; for it is not the possessions but the desires of
mankind which require to be equalized,61 and this is impossible, unless a
sufficient education is provided by the laws. (30) But Phaleas will
probably reply that this is precisely what he means; and that, in his
opinion, there ought to be in states, not only equal property, but equal
education. Still he should tell precisely what he means; and that, in his
opinion, there ought to be in having one and the same for all, if it is of a
sort that predisposes men to avarice, (35) or ambition, or both. Moreover,
civil troubles arise, not only out of the inequality of property, but out of
the inequality of honour, (40) though in opposite ways. [1267a] For the
common people quarrel about the inequality of property, the higher
class about the equality of honour; as the poet says—

‘The bad and good alike in honour share.’62

There are crimes of which the motive is want; and for these Phaleas
expects to find a cure in the equalization of property, which will take
away from a man the temptation to be a highwayman, because he is
hungry or cold. But want is not the sole incentive to crime; (5) men also
wish to enjoy themselves and not to be in a state of desire—they wish to
cure some desire, going beyond the necessities of life, which preys upon
them; nay, this is not the only reason—they may desire superfluities in
order to enjoy pleasures unaccompanied with pain, and therefore they
commit crimes.
Now what is the cure of these three disorders? Of the first, moderate
possessions and occupation; of the second, habits of temperance; as to
the third, if any desire pleasures which depend on themselves, (10) they
will find the satisfaction of their desires nowhere but in philosophy; for
all other pleasures we are dependent on others. The fact is that the
greatest crimes are caused by excess and not by necessity. Men do not
become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold; and hence great is
the honour bestowed, (15) not on him who kills a thief, but on him who
kills a tyrant. Thus we see that the institutions of Phaleas avail only
against petty crimes.
There is another objection to them. They are chiefly designed to
promote the internal welfare of the state. But the legislator should
consider also its relation to neighbouring nations, and to all who are
outside of it.63 (20) The government must be organized with a view to
military strength; and of this he has said not a word. And so with respect
to property: there should not only be enough to supply the internal
wants of the state, but also to meet dangers coming from without. The
property of the state should not be so large that more powerful
neighbours may be tempted by it, (25) while the owners are unable to
repel the invaders; nor yet so small that the state is unable to maintain a
war even against states of equal power, and of the same character.
Phaleas has not laid down any rule; but we should bear in mind that
abundance of wealth is an advantage. The best limit will probably be,
that a more powerful neighbour must have no inducement to go to war
with you by reason of the excess of your wealth, (30) but only such as he
would have had if you had possessed less. There is a story that Eubulus,
when Autophradates was going to besiege Atarneus, told him to consider
how long the operation would take, and then reckon up the cost which
would be incurred in the time. ‘For’, said he, ‘I am willing for a smaller
sum than that to leave Atarneus at once.’ (35) These words of Eubulus
made an impression on Autophradates, and he desisted from the siege.
The equalization of property is one of the things that tend to prevent
the citizens from quarrelling. Not that the gain in this direction is very
great. For the nobles will be dissatisfied because they think themselves
worthy of more than an equal share of honours; and this is often found
to be a cause of sedition and revolution.64 (40) And the avarice of
mankind is insatiable; at one time two obols was pay enough; but now,
when this sum has become customary, men always want more and more
without end; for it is of the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most
men live only for the gratification of it. [1267b] The beginning of
reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the nobler sort of
natures not to desire more, (5) and to prevent the lower from getting
more; that is to say, they must be kept down, but not ill-treated. Besides,
the equalization proposed by Phaleas is imperfect; for he only equalizes
land, (10) whereas a man may be rich also in slaves, and cattle, and
money, and in the abundance of what are called his movables. Now
either all these things must be equalized, or some limit must be imposed
on them, or they must all be let alone. It would appear that Phaleas is
legislating for a small city only, if, as he supposes, (15) all the artisans are
to be public slaves and not to form a supplementary part of the body of
citizens. But if there is a law that artisans are to be public slaves, it
should only apply to those engaged on public works, as at Epidamnus, or
at Athens on the plan which Diophantus once introduced.
 From these observations any one may judge how far Phaleas was
wrong or right in his ideas. (20)

8 Hippodamus, the son of Euryphon, a native of Miletus, the same

who invented the art of planning cities, and who also laid out the
Piraeus—a strange man, whose fondness for distinction led him into a
general eccentricity of life, which made some think him affected (for he
would wear flowing hair and expensive ornaments; but these were worn
on a cheap but warm garment both in winter and summer); he, (25)
besides aspiring to be an adept in the knowledge of nature, was the first
person not a statesman who made inquiries about the best form of
government.
The city of Hippodamus was composed of 10,000 citizens divided into
three parts—one of artisans, (30) one of husbandmen, and a third of
armed defenders of the state. He also divided the land into three parts,
one sacred, one public, the third private:—the first was set apart to
maintain the customary worship of the gods, the second was to support
the warriors, the third was the property of the husbandmen. (35) He also
divided laws into three classes, and no more, for he maintained that
there are three subjects of lawsuits—insult, injury, and homicide. He
likewise instituted a single final court of appeal, to which all causes
seeming to have been improperly decided might be referred; this court
he formed of elders chosen for the purpose. (40) He was further of opinion
that the decisions of the courts ought not to be given by the use of a
voting pebble, but that every one should have a tablet on which he
might not only write a simple condemnation, or leave the tablet blank
for a simple acquittal; but, if he partly acquitted and partly condemned,
he was to distinguish accordingly. [1268a] To the existing law he
objected that it obliged the judges to be guilty of perjury, (5) whichever
way they voted. He also enacted that those who discovered anything for
the good of the state should be honoured; and he provided that the
children of citizens who died in battle should be maintained at the
public expense, as if such an enactment had never been heard of before,
(10) yet it actually exists at Athens and in other places. As to the

magistrates, he would have them all elected by the people, that is, by the
three classes already mentioned, and those who were elected were to
watch over the interests of the public, of strangers, and of orphans.
These are the most striking points in the constitution of Hippodamus. (15)
There is not much else.
The first of these proposals to which objection may be taken is the
threefold division of the citizens. The artisans, and the husbandmen, and
the warriors, all have a share in the government. But the husbandmen
have no arms, and the artisans neither arms nor land, and therefore they
become all but slaves of the warrior class. (20) That they should share in
all the offices is an impossibility; for generals and guardians of the
citizens, and nearly all the principal magistrates, must be taken from the
class of those who carry arms. Yet, if the two other classes have no share
in the government, how can they be loyal citizens? It may be said that
those who have arms must necessarily be masters of both the other
classes, (25) but this is not so easily accomplished unless they are
numerous; and if they are, why should the other classes share in the
government at all, or have power to appoint magistrates? Further, (30)
what use are farmers to the city? Artisans there must be, for these are
wanted in every city, and they can live by their craft, as elsewhere; and
the husbandmen, too, if they really provided the warriors with food,
might fairly have a share in the government. But in the republic of
Hippodamus they are supposed to have land of their own, (35) which they
cultivate for their private benefit. Again, as to this common land out of
which the soldiers are maintained, if they are themselves to be the
cultivators of it, the warrior class will be identical with the husbandmen,
although the legislator intended to make a distinction between them. If,
again, there are to be other cultivators distinct both from the
husbandmen, who have land of their own, and from the warriors, they
will make a fourth class, (40) which has no place in the state and no share
in anything. Or, if the same persons are to cultivate their own lands, and
those of the public as well, they will have a difficulty in supplying the
quantity of produce which will maintain two households: and why, in
this case, should there be any division, for they might find food
themselves and give to the warriors from the same land and the same
lots? There is surely a great confusion in all this. [1268b]
Neither is the law to be commended which says that the judges, (5)
when a simple issue is laid before them, should distinguish in their
judgement; for the judge is thus converted into an arbitrator. Now, in an
arbitration, although the arbitrators are many, they confer with one
another about the decision, and therefore they can distinguish; but in
courts of law this is impossible, and, indeed, (10) most legislators take
pains to prevent the judges from holding any communication with one
another. Again, will there not be confusion if the judge thinks that
damages should be given, but not so much as the suitor demands? He
asks, say, for twenty minae, and the judge allows him ten minae (or in
general the suitor asks for more and the judge allows less), while
another judge allows five, another four minae. (15) In this way they will
go on splitting up the damages, and some will grant the whole and
others nothing: how is the final reckoning to be taken? Again, no one
contends that he who votes for a simple acquittal or condemnation
perjures himself, if the indictment has been laid in an unqualified form;
and this is just, for the judge who acquits does not decide that the
defendant owes nothing, (20) but that he does not owe the twenty minae.
He only is guilty of perjury who thinks that the defendant ought not to
pay twenty minae, and yet condemns him.
To honour those who discover anything which is useful to the state is
a proposal which has a specious sound, but cannot safely be enacted by
law, for it may encourage informers, and perhaps even lead to political
commotions. This question involves another. (25) It has been doubted
whether it is or is not expedient to make any changes in the laws of a
country, even if another law be better. Now, if all changes are
inexpedient, we can hardly assent to the proposal of Hippodamus; for,
under pretence of doing a public service, (30) a man may introduce
measures which are really destructive to the laws or to the constitution.
But, since we have touched upon this subject, perhaps we had better go
a little into detail, for, as I was saying, there is a difference of opinion,
and it may sometimes seem desirable to make changes. Such changes in
the other arts and sciences have certainly been beneficial; medicine, (35)
for example, and gymnastic, and every other art and craft have departed
from traditional usage. And, if politics be an art, change must be
necessary in this as in any other art. That improvement has occurred is
shown by the fact that old customs are exceedingly simple and
barbarous. For the ancient Hellenes went about armed and bought their
brides of each other. (40) The remains of ancient laws which have come
down to us are quite absurd; for example, at Cumae there is a law about
murder, to the effect that if the accuser produce a certain number of
witnesses from among his own kinsmen, the accused shall be held guilty.
[1269a] Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what
their fathers had. But the primaeval inhabitants, (5) whether they were
born of the earth or were the survivors of some destruction, may be
supposed to have been no better than ordinary or even foolish people
among ourselves (such is certainly the tradition65 concerning the earth-
born men); and it would be ridiculous to rest contented with their
notions. Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always
to remain unaltered. As in other sciences, (10) so in politics, it is
impossible that all things should be precisely set down in writing; for
enactments must be universal, but actions are concerned with
particulars.66 Hence we infer that sometimes and in certain cases laws
may be changed; but when we look at the matter from another point of
view, great caution would seem to be required. (15) For the habit of
lightly changing the laws is an evil, and, when the advantage is small,
some errors both of lawgivers and rulers had better be left; the citizen
will not gain so much by making the change as he will lose by the habit
of disobedience. The analogy of the arts67 is false; a change in a law is a
very different thing from a change in an art. (20) For the law has no
power to command obedience except that of habit, which can only be
given by time, so that a readiness to change from old to new laws
enfeebles the power of the law. Even if we admit that the laws are to be
changed, are they all to be changed, (25) and in every state? And are they
to be changed by anybody who likes, or only by certain persons? These
are very important questions; and therefore we had better reserve the
discussion of them to a more suitable occasion.68

9 In the governments of Lacedaemon and Crete, and indeed in all

governments, (30) two points have to be considered: first, whether any
particular law is good or bad, when compared with the perfect state;
secondly, whether it is or is not consistent with the idea and character
which the lawgiver has set before his citizens. That in a well-ordered
state the citizens should have leisure and not have to provide for their
daily wants is generally acknowledged, (35) but there is a difficulty in
seeing how this leisure is to be attained. The Thessalian Penestae have
often risen against their masters, and the Helots in like manner against
the Lacedaemonians, for whose misfortunes they are always lying in
wait. Nothing, however, of this kind has as yet happened to the Cretans;
the reason probably is that the neighbouring cities, (40) even when at war
with one another, never form an alliance with rebellious serfs, rebellions
not being for their interest, since they themselves have a dependent
population.69 [1269b] Whereas all the neighbours of the
Lacedaemonians, whether Argives, Messenians, or Arcadians, were their
enemies. In Thessaly, again, the original revolt of the slaves occurred
because the Thessalians were still at war with the neighbouring
Achaeans, (5) Perrhaebians and Magnesians. Besides, if there were no
other difficulty, the treatment or management of slaves is a troublesome
affair; for, if not kept in hand, they are insolent, and think that they are
as good as their masters, and, if harshly treated, (10) they hate and
conspire against them. Now it is clear that when these are the results the
citizens of a state have not found out the secret of managing their
subject population.
Again, the licence of the Lacedaemonian women defeats the intention
of the Spartan constitution, and is adverse to the happiness of the state.
For, a husband and a wife being each a part of every family, (15) the state
may be considered as about equally divided into men and women; and,
therefore, in those states in which the condition of the women is bad,
half the city70 may be regarded as having no laws. And this is what has
actually happened at Sparta; the legislator wanted to make the whole
state hardy and temperate, and he has carried out his intention in the
case of the men, (20) but he has neglected the women, who live in every
sort of intemperance and luxury. The consequence is that in such a state
wealth is too highly valued, especially if the citizens fall under the
dominion of their wives, after the manner of most warlike races, (25)
except the Celts and a few others who openly approve of male loves. The
old mythologer would seem to have been right in uniting Ares and
Aphrodite, for all warlike races are prone to the love either of men or of
women. This was exemplified among the Spartans in the days of their
greatness; many things were managed by their women. (30) But what
difference does it make whether women rule, or the rulers are ruled by
women? The result is the same. Even in regard to courage, which is of
no use in daily life, and is needed only in war, (35) the influence of the
Lacedaemonian women has been most mischievous. The evil showed
itself in the Theban invasion, when, unlike the women in other cities,
they were utterly useless and caused more confusion than the enemy.
This licence of the Lacedaemonian women existed from the earliest
times, (40) and was only what might be expected. [1270a] For, during
the wars of the Lacedaemonians, first against the Argives, and afterwards
against the Arcadians and Messenians, the men were long away from
home, and, on the return of peace, (5) they gave themselves into the
legislator’s hand, already prepared by the discipline of a soldier’s life (in
which there are many elements of virtue), to receive his enactments.
But, when Lycurgus, as tradition says, wanted to bring the women under
his laws, they resisted, and he gave up the attempt. These then are the
causes of what then happened, and this defect in the constitution is
clearly to be attributed to them. We are not, however, (10) considering
what is or is not to be excused, but what is right or wrong, and the
disorder of the women, as I have already said,71 not only gives an air of
indecorum to the constitution considered in itself, but tends in a measure
to foster avarice.
The mention of avarice naturally suggests a criticism on the inequality
of property. (15) While some of the Spartan citizens have quite small
properties, others have very large ones; hence the land has passed into
the hands of a few. And this is due also to faulty laws; for, (20) although
the legislator rightly holds up to shame the sale or purchase of an
inheritance, he allows anybody who likes to give or bequeath it. Yet
both practices lead to the same result. And nearly two-fifths of the whole
country are held by women; this is owing to the number of heiresses and
to the large dowries which are customary. (25) It would surely have been
better to have given no dowries at all, or, if any, but small or moderate
ones. As the law now stands, a man may bestow his heiress on any one
whom he pleases, and, if he die intestate, the privilege of giving her
away descends to his heir.72 Hence, (30) although the country is able to
maintain 1500 cavalry and 30,000 hoplites, the whole number of
Spartan citizens73 fell below 1000. The result proves the faulty nature of
their laws respecting property; for the city sank under a single defeat;
the want of men was their ruin. There is a tradition that, in the days of
their ancient kings, (35) they were in the habit of giving the rights of
citizenship to strangers, and therefore, in spite of their long wars, no
lack of population was experienced by them; indeed, at one time Sparta
is said to have numbered not less than 10,000 citizens. Whether this
statement is true or not, it would certainly have been better to have
maintained their numbers by the equalization of property. Again, the
law which relates to the procreation of children is adverse to the
correction of this inequality. (40) For the legislator, wanting to have as
many Spartans as he could, encouraged the citizens to have large
families; and there is a law at Sparta that the father of three sons shall
be exempt from military service, and he who has four from all the
burdens of the state. [1270b] Yet it is obvious that, if there were many
children, the land being distributed as it is, (5) many of them must
necessarily fall into poverty.
The Lacedaemonian constitution is defective in another point; I mean
the Ephoralty. This magistracy has authority in the highest matters, but
the Ephors are chosen from the whole people, and so the office is apt to
fall into the hands of very poor men, who, (10) being badly off, are open
to bribes. There have been many examples at Sparta of this evil in
former times; and quite recently, in the matter of the Andrians, certain
of the Ephors who were bribed did their best to ruin the state. And so
great and tyrannical is their power, that even the kings have been
compelled to court them, so that, in this way as well, (15) together with
the royal office the whole constitution has deteriorated, and from being
an aristocracy has turned into a democracy. The Ephoralty certainly does
keep the state together; for the people are contented when they have a
share in the highest office, and the result, whether due to the legislator
or to chance, has been advantageous. For if a constitution is to be
permanent, all the parts of the state must wish that it should exist and
the same arrangements be maintained. (20) This is the case at Sparta,
where the kings desire its permanence because they have due honour in
their own persons; the nobles because they are represented in the
council of elders (for the office of elder is a reward of virtue); and the
people, because all are eligible to the Ephoralty. (25) The election of
Ephors out of the whole people is perfectly right, but ought not to be
carried on in the present fashion, which is too childish. Again, they have
the decision of great causes, although they are quite ordinary men, and
therefore they should not determine them merely on their own
judgement, but according to written rules, (30) and to the laws. Their way
of life, too, is not in accordance with the spirit of the constitution—they
have a deal too much licence; whereas, in the case of the other citizens,
the excess of strictness is so intolerable that they run away from the law
into the secret indulgence of sensual pleasures.
Again, the council of elders is not free from defects. (35) It may be said
that the elders are good men and well trained in manly virtue; and that,
therefore, there is an advantage to the state in having them. But that
judges of important causes should hold office for life is a disputable
thing, for the mind grows old as well as the body. (40) And when men
have been educated in such a manner that even the legislator himself
cannot trust them, there is real danger. [1271a] Many of the elders are
well known to have taken bribes and to have been guilty of partiality in
public affairs. (5) And therefore they ought not to be irresponsible; yet at
Sparta they are so. But (it may be replied), ‘All magistracies are
accountable to the Ephors.’ Yes, but this prerogative is too great for
them, and we maintain that the control should be exercised in some
other manner. Further, the mode in which the Spartans elect their elders
is childish; and it is improper that the person to be elected should
canvass for the office; the worthiest should be appointed, (10) whether he
chooses or not. And here the legislator clearly indicates the same
intention which appears in other parts of his constitution; he would have
his citizens ambitious, (15) and he has reckoned upon this quality in the
election of the elders; for no one would ask to be elected if he were not.
Yet ambition and avarice, almost more than any other passions, are the
motives of crime.
Whether kings are or are not an advantage to states, (20) I will consider
at another time74; they should at any rate be chosen, not as they are
now, but with regard to their personal life and conduct. The legislator
himself obviously did not suppose that he could make them really good
men; at least he shows a great distrust of their virtue. (25) For this reason
the Spartans used to join enemies with them in the same embassy, and
the quarrels between the kings were held to be conservative of the state.
Neither did the first introducer of the common meals, called ‘phiditia’,
regulate them well. The entertainment ought to have been provided at
the public cost, as in Crete75; but among the Lacedaemonians every one
is expected to contribute, (30) and some of them are too poor to afford the
expense; thus the intention of the legislator is frustrated. The common
meals were meant to be a popular institution, but the existing manner of
regulating them is the reverse of popular. (35) For the very poor can
scarcely take part in them; and, according to ancient custom, those who
cannot contribute are not allowed to retain their rights of citizenship.
The law about the Spartan admirals has often been censured, and with
justice; it is a source of dissension, for the kings are perpetual generals
and this office of admiral is but the setting up of another king. (40)
[1271b] The charge which Plato brings, in the Laws,76 against the
intention of the legislator, is likewise justified; the whole constitution
has regard to one part of virtue only—the virtue of the soldier, which
gives victory in war. So long as they were at war, therefore, their power
was preserved, but when they had attained empire they fell,77 for of the
arts of peace they knew nothing, (5) and had never engaged in any
employment higher than war. There is another error, equally great, into
which they have fallen. Although they truly think that the goods for
which men contend are to be acquired by virtue rather than by vice,
they err in supposing that these goods are to be preferred to the virtue
which gains them.
Once more: the revenues of the state are ill-managed; there is no
money in the treasury, (10) although they are obliged to carry on great
wars, and they are unwilling to pay taxes. The greater part of the land
being in the hands of the Spartans, they do not look closely into one
another’s contributions. The result which the legislator has produced is
the reverse of beneficial; for he has made his city poor, (15) and his
citizens greedy.
Enough respecting the Spartan constitution, of which these are the
principal defects.
10 The Cretan constitution nearly resembles the Spartan, (20) and in
some few points is quite as good; but for the most part less perfect in
form. The older constitutions are generally less elaborate than the later,
and the Lacedaemonian is said to be, and probably is, in a very great
measure, a copy of the Cretan. According to tradition, Lycurgus, when
he ceased to be the guardian of King Charillus, (25) went abroad and
spent most of his time in Crete. For the two countries are nearly
connected; the Lyctians are a colony of the Lacedaemonians, and the
colonists, when they came to Crete, adopted the constitution which they
found existing among the inhabitants. Even to this day the Perioeci, (30)
or subject population of Crete, are governed by the original laws which
Minos is supposed to have enacted. The island seems to be intended by
nature for dominion in Hellas, and to be well situated; it extends right
across the sea, around which nearly all the Hellenes are settled; and
while one end is not far from the Peloponnese, (35) the other almost
reaches to the region of Asia about Triopium and Rhodes. Hence Minos
acquired the empire of the sea, subduing some of the islands and
colonizing others; at last he invaded Sicily, where he died near Camicus.
The Cretan institutions resemble the Lacedaemonian. The Helots are
the husbandmen of the one, the Perioeci of the other, (40) and both
Cretans and Lacedaemonians have common meals, which were anciently
called by the Lacedaemonians not ‘phiditia’ but ‘andria’; and the Cretans
have the same word, the use of which proves that the common meals
originally came from Crete. [1272a] (5) Further, the two constitutions
are similar; for the office of the Ephors is the same as that of the Cretan
Cosmi, the only difference being that whereas the Ephors are five, the
Cosmi are ten in number. The elders, too, answer to the elders in Crete,
who are termed by the Cretans the council. And the kingly office once
existed in Crete, but was abolished, (10) and the Cosmi have now the duty
of leading them in war. All classes share in the ecclesia, but it can only
ratify the decrees of the elders and the Cosmi.
The common meals of Crete are certainly better managed than the
Lacedaemonian; for in Lacedaemon every one pays so much per head, (15)
or, if he fails, the law, as I have already explained,78 forbids him to
exercise the rights of citizenship. But in Crete they are of a more popular
character. There, of all the fruits of the earth and cattle raised on the
public lands, and of the tribute which is paid by the Perioeci, one
portion is assigned to the gods and to the service of the state, (20) and
another to the common meals, so that men, women, and children are all
supported out of a common stock.79 The legislator has many ingenious
ways of securing moderation in eating, which he conceives to be a gain;
he likewise encourages the separation of men from women, lest they
should have too many children, (25) and the companionship of men with
one another—whether this is a good or bad thing I shall have an
opportunity of considering at another time.80 But that the Cretan
common meals are better ordered than the Lacedaemonian there can be
no doubt.
On the other hand, the Cosmi are even a worse institution than the
Ephors, of which they have all the evils without the good. (30) Like the
Ephors, they are any chance persons, but in Crete this is not counter-
balanced by a corresponding political advantage. At Sparta every one is
eligible, and the body of the people, having a share in the highest office,
want the constitution to be permanent.81 But in Crete the Cosmi are
elected out of certain families, and not out of the whole people, and the
elders out of those who have been Cosmi.
The same criticism may be made about the Cretan, (35) which has been
already made about the Lacedaemonian elders.82 Their irresponsibility
and life tenure is too great a privilege, and their arbitrary power of
acting upon their own judgement, and dispensing with written law, is
dangerous. It is no proof of the goodness of the institution that the
people are not discontented at being excluded from it. (40) For there is no
profit to be made out of the office as out of the Ephoralty, since, unlike
the Ephors, the Cosmi, being in an island, are removed from temptation.
[1272b]
The remedy by which they correct the evil of this institution is an
extraordinary one, suited rather to a close oligarchy than to a
constitutional state. For the Cosmi are often expelled by a conspiracy of
their own colleagues, or of private individuals; and they are allowed also
to resign before their term of office has expired. Surely all matters of this
kind are better regulated by law than by the will of man, (5) which is a
very unsafe rule. Worst of all is the suspension of the office of Cosmi, a
device to which the nobles often have recourse when they will not
submit to justice. This shows that the Cretan government, although
possessing some of the characteristics of a constitutional state, (10) is
really a close oligarchy.
The nobles have a habit, too, of setting up a chief; they get together a
party among the common people and their own friends and then quarrel
and fight with one another. What is this but the temporary destruction of
the state and dissolution of society? A city is in a dangerous condition
when those who are willing are also able to attack her. (15) But, as I have
already said,83 the island of Crete is saved by her situation; distance has
the same effect as the Lacedaemonian prohibition of strangers; and the
Cretans have no foreign dominions. This is the reason why the Perioeci
are contented in Crete, whereas the Helots are perpetually revolting. But
when lately foreign invaders found their way into the island, (20) the
weakness of the Cretan constitution was revealed. Enough of the
government of Crete.

11 The Carthaginians are also considered to have an excellent form of

government, which differs from that of any other state in several
respects, though it is in some very like the Lacedaemonian. Indeed, (25)
all three states—the Lacedaemonian, the Cretan, and the Carthaginian—
nearly resemble one another, and are very different from any others.
Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of
their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remains
loyal to the constitution; the Carthaginians have never had any rebellion
worth speaking of, (30) and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.
Among the points in which the Carthaginian constitution resembles
the Lacedaemonian are the following:—The common tables of the clubs
answer to the Spartan phiditia, (35) and their magistracy of the 104 to the
Ephors; but, whereas the Ephors are any chance persons, the magistrates
of the Carthaginians are elected according to merit—this is an
improvement. They have also their kings and their gerusia, or council of
elders, who correspond to the kings and elders of Sparta. Their kings,
unlike the Spartan, are not always of the same family, (40) nor that an
ordinary one, but if there is some distinguished family they are selected
out of it and not appointed by seniority—this is far better. [1273a]
Such officers have great power, and therefore, if they are persons of little
worth, do a great deal of harm, and they have already done harm at
Lacedaemon.
Most of the defects or deviations from the perfect state, for which the
Carthaginian constitution would be censured, apply equally to all the
forms of government which we have mentioned. (5) But of the deflections
from aristocracy and constitutional government, some incline more to
democracy and some to oligarchy. The kings and elders, if unanimous,
may determine whether they will or will not bring a matter before the
people, but when they are not unanimous, the people decide on such
matters as well. And whatever the kings and elders bring before the
people is not only heard but also determined by them, (10) and any one
who likes may oppose it; now this is not permitted in Sparta and Crete.
That the magistracies of five who have under them many important
matters should be co-opted, (15) that they should choose the supreme
council of 100, and should hold office longer than other magistrates (for
they are virtually rulers both before and after they hold office)—these
are oligarchical features; their being without salary and not elected by
lot, and any similar points, such as the practice of having all suits tried
by the magistrates,84 (20) and not some by one class of judges or jurors
and some by another, as at Lacedaemon, are characteristic of
aristocracy. The Carthaginian constitution deviates from aristocracy and
inclines to oligarchy, chiefly on a point where popular opinion is on
their side. For men in general think that magistrates should be chosen
not only for their merit, but for their wealth: a man, they say, who is
poor cannot rule well—he has not the leisure. If, then, (25) election of
magistrates for their wealth be characteristic of oligarchy, and election
for merit of aristocracy, there will be a third form under which the
constitution of Carthage is comprehended; for the Carthaginians choose
their magistrates, and particularly the highest of them—their kings and
generals—with an eye both to merit and to wealth. (30)
But we must acknowledge that, in thus deviating from aristocracy, the
legislator has committed an error. Nothing is more absolutely necessary
than to provide that the highest class, not only when in office, but when
out of office, should have leisure and not disgrace themselves in any
way; and to this his attention should be first directed. Even if you must
have regard to wealth, in order to secure leisure, (35) yet it is surely a bad
thing that the greatest offices, such as those of kings and generals,
should be bought. The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of
more account than virtue, and the whole state becomes avaricious. For,
whenever the chiefs of the state deem anything honourable, the other
citizens are sure to follow their example; and, (40) where virtue has not
the first place, their aristocracy cannot be firmly established. [1273b]
Those who have been at the expense of purchasing their places will be in
the habit of repaying themselves; and it is absurd to suppose that a poor
and honest man will be wanting to make gains, and that a lower stamp
of man who has incurred a great expense will not. Wherefore they
should rule who are able to rule best. (5) And even if the legislator does
not care to protect the good from poverty, he should at any rate secure
leisure for them when in office.85
It would seem also to be a bad principle that the same person should
hold many offices, which is a favourite practice among the
Carthaginians, for one business is better done by one man.86 The
legislator should see to this and should not appoint the same person to
be a flute-player and a shoemaker. (10) Hence, where the state is large, it
is more in accordance both with constitutional and with democratic
principles that the offices of state should be distributed among many
persons. For, as I said,87 this arrangement is fairer to all, and any action
familiarized by repetition is better and sooner performed. We have a
proof in military and naval matters; the duties of command and of
obedience in both these services extend to all. (15)
The government of the Carthaginians is oligarchical, but they
successfully escape the evils of oligarchy by enriching one portion of the
people after another by sending them to their colonies. This is their
panacea and the means by which they give stability to the state. (20)
Accident favours them, but the legislator should be able to provide
against revolution without trusting to accidents. As things are, if any
misfortune occurred, and the bulk of the subjects revolted, there would
be no way of restoring peace by legal methods. (25)
Such is the character of the Lacedaemonian, Cretan, and Carthaginian
constitutions, which are justly celebrated.
12 Of those who have treated of governments, some have never taken
any part at all in public affairs, but have passed their lives in a private
station; about most of them, what was worth telling has been already
told.88 (30) Others have been lawgivers, either in their own or in foreign
cities, whose affairs they have administered; and of these some have
only made laws, others have framed constitutions; for example, Lycurgus
and Solon did both. Of the Lacedaemonian constitution I have already
spoken.89 (35) As to Solon, he is thought by some to have been a good
legislator, who put an end to the exclusiveness of the oligarchy,
emancipated the people, established the ancient Athenian democracy,
and harmonized the different elements of the state. According to their
view, the council of Areopagus was an oligarchical element, (40) the
elected magistracy, aristocratical, and the courts of law, democratical.
[1274a] The truth seems to be that the council and the elected
magistracy existed before the time of Solon, and were retained by him,
but that he formed the courts of law out of all the citizens, thus creating
the democracy, which is the very reason why he is sometimes blamed.
For in giving the supreme power to the law courts, (5) which are elected
by lot, he is thought to have destroyed the non-democratic element.
When the law courts grew powerful, to please the people who were now
playing the tyrant the old constitution was changed into the existing
democracy. Ephialtes and Pericles curtailed the power of the Areopagus;
Pericles also instituted the payment of the juries, (10) and thus every
demagogue in turn increased the power of the democracy until it
became what we now see. All this is true; it seems, however, to be the
result of circumstances, and not to have been intended by Solon. For the
people, having been instrumental in gaining the empire of the sea in the
Persian War,90 began to get a notion of itself, and followed worthless
demagogues, whom the better class opposed. Solon, (15) himself, appears
to have given the Athenians only that power of electing to offices and
calling to account the magistrates which was absolutely necessary;91 for
without it they would have been in a state of slavery and enmity to the
government. All the magistrates he appointed from the notables and the
men of wealth, that is to say, (20) from the pentacosio-medimni, or from
the class called zeugitae, or from a third class of so-called knights or
cavalry. The fourth class were labourers who had no share in any
magistracy.
Mere legislators were Zaleucus, who gave laws to the Epizephyrian
Locrians, and Charondas, who legislated for his own city of Catana, and
for the other Chalcidian cities in Italy and Sicily. (25) Some people
attempt to make out that Onomacritus was the first person who had any
special skill in legislation, and that he, although a Locrian by birth, was
trained in Crete, where he lived in the exercise of his prophetic art; that
Thales was his companion, and that Lycurgus and Zaleucus were
disciples of Thales, as Charondas was of Zaleucus. (30) But their account
is quite inconsistent with chronology.
There was also Philolaus, the Corinthian, who gave laws to the
Thebans. This Philolaus was one of the family of the Bacchiadae, and a
lover of Diocles, the Olympic victor, who left Corinth in horror of the
incestuous passion which his mother Halcyone had conceived for him,
and retired to Thebes, where the two friends together ended their days.
(35) The inhabitants still point out their tombs, which are in full view of

one another, but one is visible from the Corinthian territory, the other
not. Tradition says the two friends arranged them thus, Diocles out of
horror at his misfortunes, (40) so that the land of Corinth might not be
visible from his tomb; Philolaus that it might. [1274b] This is the
reason why they settled at Thebes, and so Philolaus legislated for the
Thebans, and, besides some other enactments, gave them laws about the
procreation of children, which they call the ‘Laws of Adoption’. These
laws were peculiar to him, and were intended to preserve the number of
the lots.
In the legislation of Charondas there is nothing remarkable, (5) except
the suits against false witnesses. He is the first who instituted
denunciation for perjury. His laws are more exact and more precisely
expressed than even those of our modern legislators.
(Characteristic of Phaleas is the equalization of property; of Plato, the
community of women, children, and property, the common meals of
women, (10) and the law about drinking, that the sober shall be masters
of the feast;92 also the training of soldiers to acquire by practice equal
skill with both hands, so that one should be as useful as the other.)93
Draco has left laws, but he adapted them to a constitution which
already existed, (15) and there is no peculiarity in them which is worth
mentioning, except the greatness and severity of the punishments.
Pittacus, too, was only a lawgiver, and not the author of a
constitution; he has a law which is peculiar to him, that, if a drunken
man do something wrong, (20) he shall be more heavily punished than if
he were sober;94 he looked not to the excuse which might be offered for
the drunkard, but only to expediency, for drunken more often than sober
people commit acts of violence.
Androdamas of Rhegium gave laws to the Chalcidians of Thrace. (25)
Some of them relate to homicide, and to heiresses; but there is nothing
remarkable in them.
And here let us conclude our inquiry into the various constitutions
which either actually exist, or have been devised by theorists.

1 Rep. iv. 423 E, V. 457 C, 462 B.

2 N. Eth. v. 1132b 32.

3 Cp. Pl. Rep. i. 345–6.

4 Cp. i. 1259b 4, iii. 1288a 12.

5 Cp. Pl. Rep. i. 353.

6 Pl. Rep. v. 462 C.

7 Cp. Rep. v. 463 E.

8 Rep. iii. 403 A-C.

9 Cp. vii. 1330a 28.

10 Cp. N. Eth. viii. 1155a 22.

11 Cp. C. 2.

12 Symp. 191 A, 192 C.

13 Cp. C. 3.

14 Rep. iii. 415 B.

15 a25–40.

16 Cp. Rep. ii. 374.

17 Cp. Rep. iv. 424 a

18 Cp. N. Eth. ix. 8.

19 Cp. N. Eth. iv. 1119b 22.

20 Rep. v. 464, 465.

21 Cp. C. 2.

22 Cp. 1261a 18.

23 Cp. Rep. iv. 422 E.

24 Rep. v. 464, 465.

25 Rep. iv. 425 D.

26 Rep. v. 464 C.

27 Cp. 1269a 36.

28 Cp. Rep. v. 451 D.

29 Cp. Rep. iii. 415 A.

30 Rep. iv. 419, 420.

31 Cp. vii. 1329a 23.

32 Rep. ii. 373 E.

33 Rep. iii. 412 B.

34 Rep. v. 451 E.

35 Laws, vi. 780 E.

36 Laws, v. 737 E.

37 Rep. iv. 423 A.

38 Cp. vii. 1325b 38.

39 Perhaps Laws, iv. 704–709, and v. 747 D.

40 Cp. 1267a 19.

41 Cp. vii. 1327a 41.

42 Cp. vii. C. 2. and 3.

43 Laws, v. 737 D.

44 Cp. vii. 1326b 30.

45 But see Laws, v. 740 B-741 A.

46 Cp. vii. 1326b 26–32, 1330a 9–18, 1335b 19–26; but the promise is hardly fulfilled.

47 Laws, v. 734 E, 735 A.

48 Laws, v. 744 E.

49 Laws, v. 745 C, but Cp. infra, vii. 1330a 9–18.

50 Cp. iv. 1293b 16, 1294b 18–34.

51 iii. 693 D, 701 E, iv. 710, vi. 756 E.

52 Laws, vi. 756, 763 E, 765.

53 Laws, vi. 764 A; and Pol. iv. 1294a 37, 1298b 16.

54 Laws, vi. 763 D E.

55 Laws, vi. 756 B-E.

56 iv. 7–9, 12. 1296b 34–38, 1297a 7–13.

57 Laws, vi. 753 D.

58 v. 744 E.

59 1265b 21

60 Cp. 1265a 38-b 16.

61 Cp. 1263b 22.

62 Il. ix. 319.

63 Cp. 1265a 20.

64 Cp. l. 1.

65 Cp. Plato, Laws, iii. 677 B; Polit. 274 C; Tim. 22 D.

66 Cp. Plato, Polit. 295 A.

67 1268b 34 sqq.

68 These questions are not actually discussed in the Politics.

69 Cp. 1271b 41.

70 Cp. i. 1260b 18.

71 1269b 12, 23.

72 i. e. to the person who ‘inherits’ the heiress.

73 At the time of the Theban invasion.

74 iii. 14–17.

75 Cp. 1272a 13–21.

76 Laws, i. 625 E, 630.

77 Cp. vii. 1334a 6.

78 1271a 35.

79 Cp. vii. 1330a 5.

80 The question is nowhere discussed by Aristotle.

81 Cp. supra, 1270b 25.

82 1270b 35–1271a 18.

83 a41 sq.

84 Cp. iii. 1275b 8–12.

85 Cp. 1269a 34.

86 Cp. Plato, Rep. ii. 374 A.

87 1261b 1.

88 cc. 1–8.

89 c. 9.

90 Cp. v. 1304a 20, viii. 1341a 29.

91 Cp. iii. 1281b 32.

92 Cp. Laws, i. 640 D, ii. 671 D-672 A.

93 Cp. Laws, vii. 794 D.

94 Cp. N. Eth. 1113b 31.

 BOOK III

1 He who would inquire into the essence and attributes of various

kinds of governments must first of all determine ‘What is a state?’ At
present this is a disputed question. Some say that the state has done a
certain act; others, (35) no, not the state,1 but the oligarchy or the tyrant.
And the legislator or statesman is concerned entirely with the state; a
constitution or government being an arrangement of the inhabitants of a
state. But a state is composite, (40) like any other whole made up of many
parts;—these are the citizens, who compose it. [1275a] It is evident,
therefore, that we must begin by asking, Who is the citizen, and what is
the meaning of the term? For here again there may be a difference of
opinion. He who is a citizen in a democracy will often not be a citizen in
an oligarchy. (5) Leaving out of consideration those who have been made
citizens, or who have obtained the name of citizen in any other
accidental manner, we may say, first, that a citizen is not a citizen
because he lives in a certain place, for resident aliens and slaves share in
the place; nor is he a citizen who has no legal right except that of suing
and being sued; for this right may be enjoyed under the provisions of a
treaty. (10) Nay, resident aliens in many places do not possess even such
rights completely, for they are obliged to have a patron, so that they do
but imperfectly participate in citizenship, and we call them citizens only
in a qualified sense, as we might apply the term to children who are too
young to be on the register, (15) or to old men who have been relieved
from state duties. Of these we do not say quite simply that they are
citizens, but add in the one case that they are not of age, and in the
other, that they are past the age, (20) or something of that sort; the
precise expression is immaterial, for our meaning is clear. Similar
difficulties to those which I have mentioned may be raised and answered
about deprived citizens and about exiles. But the citizen whom we are
seeking to define is a citizen in the strictest sense, against whom no such
exception can be taken, and his special characteristic is that he shares in
the administration of justice, and in offices. Now of offices some are
discontinuous, and the same persons are not allowed to hold them twice,
or can only hold them after a fixed interval; others have no limit of time
—for example, (25) the office of dicast or ecclesiast.2 It may, indeed, be
argued that these are not magistrates at all, and that their functions give
them no share in the government. But surely it is ridiculous to say that
those who have the supreme power do not govern. Let us not dwell
further upon this, which is a purely verbal question; what we want is a
common term including both dicast and ecclesiast. (30) Let us, for the
sake of distinction, call it ‘indefinite office’, and we will assume that
those who share in such office are citizens. This is the most
comprehensive definition of a citizen, and best suits all those who are
generally so called.
But we must not forget that things of which the underlying principles
differ in kind, (35) one of them being first, another second, another third,
have, when regarded in this relation, nothing, or hardly anything, worth
mentioning in common. Now we see that governments differ in kind,
and that some of them are prior and that others are posterior; those
which are faulty or perverted are necessarily posterior to those which
are perfect. [1275b] (What we mean by perversion will be hereafter
explained.3) The citizen then of necessity differs under each form of
government; and our definition is best adapted to the citizen of a
democracy; but not necessarily to other states. (5) For in some states the
people are not acknowledged, nor have they any regular assembly, but
only extraordinary ones; and suits are distributed by sections among the
magistrates. At Lacedaemon, for instance, the Ephors determine suits
about contracts, which they distribute among themselves, (10) while the
elders are judges of homicide, and other causes are decided by other
magistrates. A similar principle prevails at Carthage;4 there certain
magistrates decide all causes. We may, indeed, modify our definition of
the citizen so as to include these states. In them it is the holder of a
definite, not of an indefinite office, who legislates and judges, (15) and to
some or all such holders of definite offices is reserved the right of
deliberating or judging about some things or about all things. The
conception of the citizen now begins to clear up.
He who has the power to take part in the deliberative or judicial
administration of any state is said by us to be a citizen of that state; and,
(20) speaking generally, a state is a body of citizens sufficing for the
purposes of life.

2 But in practice a citizen is defined to be one of whom both the

parents are citizens; others insist on going further back; say to two or
three or more ancestors. (25) This is a short and practical definition; but
there are some who raise the further question: How this third or fourth
ancestor came to be a citizen? Gorgias of Leontini, partly because he was
in a difficulty, partly in irony, said—‘Mortars are what is made by the
mortar-makers, and the citizens of Larissa are those who are made by
the magistrates;5 for it is their trade to make Larissaeans.’ (30) Yet the
question is really simple, for, if according to the definition just given
they shared in the government, they were citizens. This is a better
definition than the other. For the words, ‘born of a father or mother who
is a citizen’, cannot possibly apply to the first inhabitants or founders of
a state.
There is a greater difficulty in the case of those who have been made
citizens after a revolution, (35) as by Cleisthenes at Athens after the
expulsion of the tyrants, for he enrolled in tribes many metics, both
strangers and slaves. The doubt in these cases is, not who is, but whether
he who is ought to be a citizen; and there will still be a furthering the
state, whether a certain act is or is not an act of the state; for what ought
not to be is what is false. [1276a] Now, there are some who hold
office, and yet ought not to hold office, whom we describe as ruling, but
ruling unjustly. And the citizen was defined6 by the fact of his holding
some kind of rule or office—he who holds a judicial or legislative office
fulfils our definition of a citizen. (5) It is evident, therefore, that the
citizens about whom the doubt has arisen must be called citizens.

3 Whether they ought to be so or not is a question which is bound up

with the previous inquiry.7 For a parallel question is raised respecting
the state, whether a certain act is or is not an act of the state; for
example, in the transition from an oligarchy or a tyranny to a
democracy. (10) In such cases persons refuse to fulfil their contracts or
any other obligations, on the ground that the tyrant, and not the state,
contracted them; they argue that some constitutions are established by
force, and not for the sake of the common good. But this would apply
equally to democracies, for they too may be founded on violence, (15) and
then the acts of the democracy will be neither more nor less acts of the
state in question than those of an oligarchy or of a tyranny. This
question runs up into another:—on what principle shall we ever say that
the state is the same, or different? It would be a very superficial view
which considered only the place and the inhabitants (for the soil and the
population may be separated, and some of the inhabitants may live in
one place and some in another). (20) This, however, is not a very serious
difficulty; we need only remark that the word ‘state’ is ambiguous.8
It is further asked: When are men, living in the same place, (25) to be
regarded as a single city—what is the limit? Certainly not the wall of the
city, for you might surround all Peloponnesus with a wall. Like this, we
may say, is Babylon,9 and every city that has the compass of a nation
rather than a city; Babylon, they say, had been taken for three days
before some part of the inhabitants became aware of the fact. (30) This
difficulty may, however, with advantage be deferred10 to another
occasion; the statesman has to consider the size of the state, and whether
it should consist of more than one nation or not.
Again, shall we say that while the race of inhabitants, (35) as well as
their place of abode, remain the same, the city is also the same, although
the citizens are always dying and being born, as we call rivers and
fountains the same, although the water is always flowing away and
coming again? Or shall we say that the generations of men, like the
rivers, are the same, but that the state changes? For, (40) since the state is
a partnership, and is a partnership of citizens in a constitution, when the
form of the government changes, and becomes different, then it may be
supposed that the state is no longer the same, just as a tragic differs from
a comic chorus, although the members of both may be identical.
[1276b] And in this manner we speak of every union or composition
of elements as different when the form of their composition alters; (5) for
example, a scale containing the same sounds is said to be different,
accordingly as the Dorian or the Phrygian mode is employed. (10) And if
this is true it is evident that the sameness of the state consists chiefly in
the sameness of the constitution, and it may be called or not called by
the same name, whether the inhabitants are the same or entirely
different. It is quite another question, whether a state ought or ought not
to fulfil engagements when the form of government changes. (15)

4 There is a point nearly allied to the preceding: Whether the virtue of

a good man and a good citizen is the same or not.11 But, before entering
on this discussion, we must certainly first obtain some general notion of
the virtue of the citizen. (20) Like the sailor, the citizen is a member of a
community. Now, sailors have different functions, for one of them is a
rower, another a pilot, and a third a look-out man, a fourth is described
by some similar term; and while the precise definition of each
individual’s virtue applies exclusively to him, (25) there is, at the same
time, a common definition applicable to them all. For they have all of
them a common object, which is safety in navigation. Similarly, one
citizen differs from another, but the salvation of the community is the
common business of them all. (30) This community is the constitution; the
virtue of the citizen must therefore be relative to the constitution of
which he is a member. If, then, there are many forms of government, it
is evident that there is not one single virtue of the good citizen which is
perfect virtue. But we say that the good man is he who has one single
virtue which is perfect virtue. Hence it is evident that the good citizen
need not of necessity possess the virtue which makes a good man. (35)
The same question may also be approached by another road, from a
consideration of the best constitution. If the state cannot be entirely
composed of good men, and yet each citizen is expected to do his own
business well, (40) and must therefore have virtue, still, inasmuch as all
the citizens cannot be alike, the virtue of the citizen and of the good
man cannot coincide. [1277a] All must have the virtue of the good
citizen—thus, and thus only, can the state be perfect; but they will not
have the virtue of a good man, unless we assume that in the good state
all the citizens must be good. (5)
Again, the state, as composed of unlikes, may be compared to the
living being: as the first elements into which a living being is resolved
are soul and body, as soul is made up of rational principle and appetite,
the family of husband and wife, property of master and slave, so of all
these, as well as other dissimilar elements, the state is composed; and,
 therefore, the virtue of all the citizens cannot possibly be the same,
(10)

any more than the excellence of the leader of a chorus is the same as
that of the performer who stands by his side. I have said enough to show
why the two kinds of virtue cannot be absolutely and always the same.
But will there then be no case in which the virtue of the good citizen
and the virtue of the good man coincide? To this we answer that the
good ruler is a good and wise man, (15) and that he who would be a
statesman must be a wise man. And some persons say that even the
education of the ruler should be of a special kind; for are not the
children of kings instructed in riding and military exercises? As
Euripides says:

‘No subtle arts for me, but what the state requires.’

As though there were a special education needed by a ruler. If then the

virtue of a good ruler is the same as that of a good man, (20) and we
assume further that the subject is a citizen as well as the ruler, the virtue
of the good citizen and the virtue of the good man cannot be absolutely
the same, although in some cases they may; for the virtue of a ruler
differs from that of a citizen. It was the sense of this difference which
made Jason say that ‘he felt hungry when he was not a tyrant’, meaning
that he could not endure to live in a private station. But, on the other
hand, it may be argued that men are praised for knowing both how to
rule and how to obey, (25) and he is said to be a citizen of approved
virtue who is able to do both. Now if we suppose the virtue of a good
man to be that which rules, and the virtue of the citizen to include ruling
and obeying, it cannot be said that they are equally worthy of praise.
Since, then, it is sometimes thought that the ruler and the ruled must
learn different things and not the same, (30) but that the, citizen must
know and share in them both, the inference is obvious. There is, indeed,
the rule of a master, which is concerned with menial offices12—the
master need not know how to perform these, but may employ others in
the execution of them: the other would be degrading; and by the other I
mean the power actually to do menial duties, (35) which vary much in
character and are executed by various classes of slaves, such, for
example, as handicraftsmen, who, as their name signifies, live by the
labour of their hands:—under these the mechanic is included. [1277b]
Hence in ancient times, and among some nations, the working classes
had no share in the government—a privilege which they only acquired
under the extreme democracy. Certainly the good man and the
statesman and the good citizen ought not to learn the crafts of inferiors
except for their own occasional use;13 if they habitually practise them, (5)
there will cease to be a distinction between master and slave.
This is not the rule of which we are speaking; but there is a rule of
another kind, which is exercised over freemen and equals by birth—a
constitutional rule, which the ruler must learn by obeying, (10) as he
would learn the duties of a general of cavalry by being under the orders
of a general of cavalry, or the duties of a general of infantry by being
under the orders of a general of infantry, and by having had the
command of a regiment and of a company. It has been well said that ‘he
who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander’. The two
are not the same, but the good citizen ought to be capable of both; he
should know how to govern like a freeman, (15) and how to obey like a
freeman—these are the virtues of a citizen. And, although the
temperance and justice of a ruler are distinct from those of a subject, the
virtue of a good man will include both; for the virtue of the good man
who is free and also a subject, e. g. his justice, will not be one but will
comprise distinct kinds, the one qualifying him to rule, the other to
obey, and differing as the temperance and courage of men and women
differ.14 (20) For a man would be thought a coward if he had no more
courage than a courageous woman, and a woman would be thought
loquacious if she imposed no more restraint on her conversation than the
good man; and indeed their part in the management of the household is
different, for the duty of the one is to acquire, (25) and of the other to
preserve. Practical wisdom only is characteristic of the ruler:15 it would
seem that all other virtues must equally belong to ruler and subject. The
virtue of the subject is certainly not wisdom, but only true opinion; he
may be compared to the maker of the flute, while his master is like the
flute-player or user of the flute.16
From these considerations may be gathered the answer to the
question, (30) whether the virtue of the good man is the same as that of
the good citizen, or different, and how far the same, and how far
different.17

5 There still remains one more question about the citizen: Is he only a
true citizen who has a share of office, (35) or is the mechanic to be
included? If they who hold no office are to be deemed citizens, not every
citizen can have this virtue of ruling and obeying; for this man is a
citizen. And if none of the lower class are citizens, in which part of the
state are they to be placed? For they are not resident aliens, and they are
not foreigners. [1278a] May we not reply, that as far as this objection
goes there is no more absurdity in excluding them than in excluding
slaves and freedmen from any of the above-mentioned classes? It must
be admitted that we cannot consider all those to be citizens who are
necessary to the existence of the state; for example, children are not
citizens equally with grown-up men, who are citizens absolutely, (5) but
children, not being grown up, are only citizens on a certain
assumption.18 Nay, in ancient times, and among some nations, the
artisan class were slaves or foreigners, and therefore the majority of them
are so now. The best form of state will not admit them to citizenship; but
if they are admitted, then our definition of the virtue of a citizen will not
apply to every citizen, nor to every free man as such, but only to those
who are freed from necessary services. (10) The necessary people are
either slaves who minister to the wants of individuals, or mechanics and
labourers who are the servants of the community. These reflections
carried a little further will explain their position; and indeed what has
been said already19 is of itself, when understood, explanation enough.
Since there are many forms of government there must be many
varieties of citizens, (15) and especially of citizens who are subjects; so
that under some governments the mechanic and the labourer will be
citizens, but not in others, as, for example, in aristocracy or the so-called
government of the best (if there be such an one), in which honours are
given according to virtue and merit; for no man can practise virtue who
is living the life of a mechanic or labourer. (20) In oligarchies the
qualification for office is high, and therefore no labourer can ever be a
citizen; but a mechanic may, for an actual majority of them are rich. At
Thebes20 there was a law that no man could hold office who had not
retired from business for ten years. (25) But in many states the law goes to
the length of admitting aliens; for in some democracies a man is a citizen
though his mother only be a citizen; and a similar principle is applied to
illegitimate children; the law is relaxed when there is a dearth of
population. (30) But when the number of citizens increases, first the
children of a male or a female slave are excluded; then those whose
mothers only are citizens; and at last the right of citizenship is confined
to those whose fathers and mothers are both citizens.
Hence, as is evident, there are different kinds of citizens; and he is a
citizen in the highest sense who shares in the honours of the state. (35)
Compare Homer’s words ‘like some dishonoured stranger’;21 he who is
excluded from the honours of the state is no better than an alien. But
when this exclusion is concealed, then the object is that the privileged
class may deceive their fellow inhabitants.
As to the question whether the virtue of the good man is the same as
that of the good citizen, (40) the considerations already adduced prove
that in some states the good man and the good citizen are the same, and
in others different. [1278b] When they are the same it is not every
citizen who is a good man, but only the statesman and those who have
or may have, (5) alone or in conjunction with others, the conduct of
public affairs.

6 Having determined these questions, we have next to consider

whether there is only one form of government or many, and if many,
what they are, and how many, and what are the differences between
them. (10)
A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state,22
especially of the highest of all. The government is everywhere sovereign
in the state, and the constitution is in fact the government. For example,
in democracies the people are supreme, but in oligarchies, the few; and,
therefore, we say that these two forms of government also are different:
and so in other cases. (15)
First, let us consider what is the purpose of a state, and how many
forms of government there are by which human society is regulated. We
have already said, in the first part of this treatise,23 when discussing
household management and the rule of a master, (20) that man is by
nature a political animal. And therefore, men, even when they do not
require one another’s help, desire to live together; not but that they are
also brought together by their common interests in proportion as they
severally attain to any measure of well-being. This is certainly the chief
end, both of individuals and of states. (25) And also for the sake of mere
life (in which there is possibly some noble element so long as the evils of
existence do not greatly overbalance the good) mankind meet together
and maintain the political community. And we all see that men cling to
life even at the cost of enduring great misfortune, seeming to find in life
a natural sweetness and happiness. (30)
There is no difficulty in distinguishing the various kinds of authority;
they have been often defined already in discussions outside the school.
The rule of a master, although the slave by nature and the master by
nature have in reality the same interests, (35) is nevertheless exercised
primarily with a view to the interest of the master, but accidentally
considers the slave, since, if the slave perish, the rule of the master
perishes with him. On the other hand, the government of a wife and
children and of a household, which we have called household
management, is exercised in the first instance for the good of the
governed or for the common good of both parties, (40) but essentially for
the good of the governed, as we see to be the case in medicine,
gymnastic, and the arts in general, which are only accidentally
concerned with the good of the artists themselves.24 [1279a] For there
is no reason why the trainer may not sometimes practise gymnastics, and
the helmsman is always one of the crew. The trainer or the helmsman
considers the good of those committed to his care. But, when he is one of
the persons taken care of, (5) he accidentally participates in the
advantage, for the helmsman is also a sailor, and the trainer becomes
one of those in training. And so in politics: when the state is framed
upon the principle of equality and likeness, the citizens think that they
ought to hold office by turns. Formerly, (10) as is natural, every one
would take his turn of service; and then again, somebody else would
look after his interest, just as he, while in office, had looked after
theirs.25 But nowadays, for the sake of the advantage which is to be
gained from the public revenues and from office, men want to be always
in office. One might imagine that the rulers, being sickly, were only kept
in health while they continued in office; in that case we may be sure that
they would be hunting after places. (15) The conclusion is evident: that
governments which have a regard to the common interest are
constituted in accordance with strict principles of justice, and are
therefore true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the
rulers are all defective and perverted forms, (20) for they are despotic,
whereas a state is a community of freemen.

7 Having determined these points, we have next to consider how

many forms of government there are, and what they are; and in the first
place what are the true forms, for when they are determined the
perversions of them will at once be apparent. (25) The words constitution
and government have the same meaning, and the government, which is
the supreme authority in states, must be in the hands of one, or of a few,
or of the many. The true forms of government, therefore, are those in
which the one, or the few, or the many, govern with a view to the
common interest; but governments which rule with a view to the private
interest, (30) whether of the one, or of the few, or of the many, are
perversions.26 For the members of a state, if they are truly citizens,
ought to participate in its advantages. Of forms of government in which
one rules, we call that which regards the common interests, kingship or
royalty; that in which more than one, but not many, rule, (35) aristocracy;
and it is so called, either because the rulers are the best men, or because
they have at heart the best interests of the state and of the citizens. But
when the citizens at large administer the state for the common interest,
the government is called by the generic name—a constitution. And there
is a reason for this use of language. (40) One man or a few may excel in
virtue; but as the number increases it becomes more difficult for them to
attain perfection in every kind of virtue, though they may in military
virtue, for this is found in the masses. [1279b] Hence in a
constitutional government the fighting-men have the supreme power,
and those who possess arms are the citizens.
Of the above-mentioned forms, the perversions are as follows:—of
royalty, (5) tyranny; of aristocracy, oligarchy; of constitutional
government, democracy. For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in
view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest
of the wealthy; democracy, of the needy: none of them the common
good of all. (10)

8 But there are difficulties about these forms of government, and it

will therefore be necessary to state a little more at length the nature of
each of them. For he who would make a philosophical study of the
various sciences, and does not regard practice only, (15) ought not to
overlook or omit anything, but to set forth the truth in every particular.
Tyranny, as I was saying, is monarchy exercising the rule of a master
over the political society; oligarchy is when men of property have the
government in their hands; democracy, the opposite, when the indigent,
and not the men of property, are the rulers. And here arises the first of
our difficulties, and it relates to the distinction just drawn. (20) For
democracy is said to be the government of the many. But what if the
many are men of property and have the power in their hands? In like
manner oligarchy is said to be the government of the few; but what if
the poor are fewer than the rich, (25) and have the power in their hands
because they are stronger? In these cases the distinction which we have
drawn between these different forms of government would no longer
hold good.
Suppose, once more, that we add wealth to the few and poverty to the
many, and name the governments accordingly—an oligarchy is said to
be that in which the few and the wealthy, (30) and a democracy that in
which the many and the poor are the rulers—there will still be a
difficulty. For, if the only forms of government are the ones already
mentioned, how shall we describe those other governments also just
mentioned by us, in which the rich are the more numerous and the poor
are the fewer, and both govern in their respective states?
The argument seems to show that, (35) whether in oligarchies or in
democracies, the number of the governing body, whether the greater
number, as in a democracy, or the smaller number, as in an oligarchy, is
an accident due to the fact that the rich everywhere are few, and the
poor numerous. But if so, there is a misapprehension of the causes of the
difference between them. For the real difference between democracy and
oligarchy is poverty and wealth. [1280a] (40) Wherever men rule by
reason of their wealth, whether they be few or many, that is an
oligarchy, and where the poor rule, that is a democracy. But as a fact the
rich are few and the poor many; for few are well-to-do, whereas freedom
is enjoyed by all, and wealth and freedom are the grounds on which the
oligarchical and democratical parties respectively claim power in the
state. (5)

9 Let us begin by considering the common definitions of oligarchy and

democracy, and what is justice oligarchical and democratical. For all
men cling to justice of some kind, but their conceptions are imperfeet
and they do not express the whole idea. (10) For example, justice is
thought by them to be, and is, equality, not, however, for all, but only
for equals. And inequality is thought to be, and is, justice; neither is this
for all, but only for unequals. When the persons are omitted, then men
judge erroneously. The reason is that they are passing judgement on
themselves, and most people are bad judges in their own case. (15) And
whereas justice implies a relation to persons as well as to things, and a
just distribution, as I have already said in the Ethics,27 implies the same
ratio between the persons and between the things, they agree about the
equality of the things, but dispute about the equality of the persons,
chiefly for the reason which I have just given—because they are bad
judges in their own affairs; and secondly, (20) because both the parties to
the argument are speaking of a limited and partial justice, but imagine
themselves to be speaking of absolute justice. For the one party, if they
are unequal in one respect, for example wealth, consider themselves to
be unequal in all; and the other party, if they are equal in one respect,
for example free birth, consider themselves to be equal in all. But they
leave out the capital point. (25) For if men met and associated out of
regard to wealth only, their share in the state would be proportioned to
their property, and the oligarchical doctrine would then seem to carry
the day. It would not be just that he who paid one mina should have the
same share of a hundred minae, whether of the principal or of the
profits, (30) as he who paid the remaining ninety-nine. But a state exists
for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of life only: if life only
were the object, slaves and brute animals might form a state, but they
cannot, for they have no share in happiness or in a life of free choice. (35)
Nor does a state exist for the sake of alliance and security from injustice,
nor yet for the sake of exchange and mutual intercourse; for then the
Tyrrhenians and the Carthaginians, and all who have commercial
treaties with one another,28 would be the citizens of one state. True,
they have agreements about imports, (40) and engagements that they will
do no wrong to one another, and written articles of alliance. [1280b]
But there are no magistracies common to the contracting parties who
will enforce their engagements; different states have each their own
magistracies. Nor does one state take care that the citizens of the other
are such as they ought to be, nor see that those who come under the
terms of the treaty do no wrong or wickedness at all, but only that they
do no injustice to one another. Whereas, (5) those who care for good
government take into consideration virtue and vice in states. Whence it
may be further inferred that virtue must be the care of a state which is
truly so called, and not merely enjoys the name: for without this end the
community becomes a mere alliance which differs only in place from
alliances of which the members live apart; and law is only a convention,
‘a surety to one another of justice,’ (10) as the sophist Lycophron says, and
has no real power to make the citizens good and just.
This is obvious; for suppose distinct places, such as Corinth and
Megara, to be brought together so that their walls touched, still they
would not be one city, not even if the citizens had the right to
intermarry, (15) which is one of the rights peculiarly characteristic of
states. Again, if men dwelt at a distance from one another, but not so far
off as to have no intercourse, and there were laws among them that they
should not wrong each other in their exchanges, (20) neither would this
be a state. Let us suppose that one man is a carpenter, another a
husbandman, another a shoemaker, and so on, and that their number is
ten thousand: nevertheless, if they have nothing in common but
exchange, alliance, and the like, that would not constitute a state. (25)
Why is this? Surely not because they are at a distance from one another:
for even supposing that such a community were to meet in one place,
but that each man had a house of his own, which was in a manner his
state, and that they made alliance with one another, but only against
evil-doers; still an accurate thinker would not deem this to be a state, if
their intercourse with one another was of the same character after as
before their union. (30) It is clear then that a state is not a mere society,
having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime
and for the sake of exchange.29 These are conditions without which a
state cannot exist; but all of them together do not constitute a state,
which is a community of families and aggregations of families in well-
being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life. Such a community
can only be established among those who live in the same place and
intermarry. (35) Hence arise in cities family connexions, brotherhoods,
common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together. But these are
created by friendship, for the will to live together is friendship. The end
of the state is the good life, and these are the means towards it. (40) And
the state is the union of families and villages in a perfect and self-
sufficing life, by which we mean a happy and honourable life.30
[1281a]
Our conclusion, then, is that political society exists for the sake of
noble actions, and not of mere companionship. Hence they who
contribute most to such a society have a greater share in it than those
who have the same or a greater freedom or nobility of birth but are
inferior to them in political virtue; or than those who exceed them in
wealth but are surpassed by them in virtue. (5)
From what has been said it will be clearly seen that all the partisans of
different forms of government speak of a part of justice only. (10)

10 There is also a doubt as to what is to be the supreme power in the

state:—Is it the multitude? Or the wealthy? Or the good? Or the one best
man? Or a tyrant? Any of these alternatives seems to involve
disagreeable consequences. If the poor, for example, because they are
more in number, divide among themselves the property of the rich—is
not this unjust? No, by heaven (will be the reply), (15) for the supreme
authority justly willed it. But if this is not injustice, pray what is? Again,
when in the first division all has been taken, and the majority divide
anew the property of the minority, is it not evident, if this goes on, that
they will ruin the state? Yet surely, virtue is not the ruin of those who
possess her, nor is justice destructive of a state; and therefore this law of
confiscation clearly cannot be just. If it were, (20) all the acts of a tyrant
must of necessity be just; for he only coerces other men by superior
power, just as the multitude coerce the rich. But is it just then that the
few and the wealthy should be the rulers? And what if they, (25) in like
manner, rob and plunder the people—is this just? If so, the other case
will likewise be just. But there can be no doubt that all these things are
wrong and unjust.
Then ought the good to rule and have supreme power? But in that
case everybody else, (30) being excluded from power, will be
dishonoured. For the offices of a state are posts of honour; and if one set
of men always hold them, the rest must be deprived of them. Then will it
be well that the one best man should rule? Nay, that is still more
oligarchical, for the number of those who are dishonoured is thereby
increased. Some one may say that it is bad in any case for a man, (35)
subject as he is to all the accidents of human passion, to have the
supreme power, rather than the law. But what if the law itself be
democratical or oligarchical, how will that help us out of our
difficulties?31 Not at all; the same consequences32 will follow.

11 Most of these questions may be reserved for another occasion.33

The principle that the multitude ought to be supreme rather than the
few best is one that is maintained, (40) and, though not free from
difficulty, yet seems to contain an element of truth. [1281b] For the
many, of whom each individual is but an ordinary person, when they
meet together may very likely be better than the few good, if regarded
not individually but collectively, just as a feast to which many contribute
is better than a dinner provided out of a single purse. For each
individual among the many has a share of virtue and prudence, (5) and
when they meet together, they become in a manner one man, who has
many feet, and hands, and senses; that is a figure of their mind and
disposition. Hence the many are better judges than a single man of
music and poetry; for some understand one part, and some another, (10)
and among them they understand the whole. There is a similar
combination of qualities in good men, who differ from any individual of
the many, as the beautiful are said to differ from those who are not
beautiful, and works of art from realities, because in them the scattered
elements are combined, although, if taken separately, the eye of one
person or some other feature in another person would be fairer than in
the picture. (15) Whether this principle can apply to every democracy,
and to all bodies of men, is not clear. Or rather, by heaven, in some
cases it is impossible of application; for the argument would equally hold
about brutes; and wherein, it will be asked, (20) do some men differ from
brutes? But there may be bodies of men about whom our statement is
nevertheless true. And if so, the difficulty which has been already
raised,34 and also another which is akin to it—viz. what power should be
assigned to the mass of freemen and citizens, (25) who are not rich and
have no personal merit—are both solved. There is still a danger in
allowing them to share the great offices of state, for their folly will lead
them into error, and their dishonesty into crime. But there is a danger
also in not letting them share, for a state in which many poor men are
excluded from office will necessarily be full of enemies. (30) The only way
of escape is to assign to them some deliberative and judicial functions.
For this reason Solon35 and certain other legislators give them the power
of electing to offices, and of calling the magistrates to account, but they
do not allow them to hold office singly. When they meet together their
perceptions are quite good enough, and combined with the better class
they are useful to the state (just as impure food when mixed with what is
pure sometimes makes the entire mass more wholesome than a small
quantity of the pure would be), (35) but each individual, left to himself,
forms an imperfect judgement. On the other hand, the popular form of
government involves certain difficulties. In the first place, it might be
objected that he who can judge of the healing of a sick man would be
one who could himself heal his disease, (40) and make him whole—that
is, in other words, the physician; and so in all professions and arts.
[1282a] As, then, the physician ought to be called to account by
physicians, so ought men in general to be called to account by their
peers. But physicians are of three kinds:—there is the ordinary
practitioner, and there is the physician of the higher class, and thirdly
the intelligent man who has studied the art: in all arts there is such a
class; and we attribute the power of judging to them quite as much as to
professors of the art. (5) Secondly, does not the same principle apply to
elections? For a right election can only be made by those who have
knowledge; those who know geometry, for example, will choose a
geometrician rightly, and those who know how to steer, a pilot; and,
even if there be some occupations and arts in which private persons
share in the ability to choose, (10) they certainly cannot choose better
than those who know. So that, according to this argument, neither the
election of magistrates, nor the calling of them to account, should be
entrusted to the many. Yet possibly these objections are to a great extent
met by our old answer,36 that if the people are not utterly degraded, (15)
although individually they may be worse judges than those who have
special knowledge—as a body they are as good or better. Moreover,
there are some arts whose products are not judged of solely, or best, by
the artists themselves, namely those arts whose products are recognized
even by those who do not possess the art; for example, the knowledge of
the house is not limited to the builder only; the user, (20) or, in other
words, the master, of the house will even be a better judge than the
builder, just as the pilot will judge better of a rudder than the carpenter,
and the guest will judge better of a feast than the cook.
This difficulty seems now to be sufficiently answered, (25) but there is
another akin to it. That inferior persons should have authority in greater
matters than the good would appear to be a strange thing, yet the
election and calling to account of the magistrates is the greatest of all.
And these, as I was saying,37 are functions which in some states are
assigned to the people, for the assembly is supreme in all such matters.
(30) Yet persons of any age, and having but a small property qualification,

sit in the assembly and deliberate and judge, although for the great
officers of state, such as treasurers and generals, a high qualification is
required. This difficulty may be solved in the same manner as the
preceding, and the present practice of democracies may be really
defensible. For the power does not reside in the dicast, (35) or senator, or
ecclesiast, but in the court, and the senate, and the assembly, of which
individual senators, or ecclesiasts, or dicasts, are only parts or members.
And for this reason the many may claim to have a higher authority than
the few; for the people, and the senate, and the courts consist of many
persons, (40) and their property collectively is greater than the property of
one or of a few individuals holding great offices. But enough of this.
 [1282b] The discussion of the first question38 shows nothing so
clearly as that laws, when good, should be supreme; and that the
magistrate or magistrates should regulate those matters only on which
the laws are unable to speak with precision owing to the difficulty of any
general principle embracing all particulars.39 (5) But what are good laws
has not yet been clearly explained; the old difficulty remains.40 The
goodness or badness, justice or injustice, of laws varies of necessity with
the constitutions of states. (10) This, however, is clear, that the laws must
be adapted to the constitutions. But if so, true forms of government will
of necessity have just laws, and perverted forms of government will have
unjust laws.

12 In all sciences and arts the end is a good, (15) and the greatest good
and in the highest degree a good in the most authoritative of all41—this
is the political science of which the good is justice, in other words, the
common interest. All men think justice to be a sort of equality; and to a
certain extent42 they agree in the philosophical distinćtions which have
been laid down by us about Ethics.43 For they admit that justice is a
thing and has a relation to persons, (20) and that equals ought to have
equality. But there still remains a question: equality or inequality of
what? here is a difficulty which calls for political speculation. For very
likely some persons will say that offices of state ought to be unequally
distributed according to superior excellence, in whatever respect, of the
citizen, although there is no other difference between him and the rest of
the community; for that those who differ in any one respect have
different rights and claims. (25) But, surely, if this is true, the complexion
or height of a man, or any other advantage, will be a reason for his
obtaining a greater share of political rights. (30) The error here lies upon
the surface, and may be illustrated from the other arts and sciences.
When a number of flute-players are equal in their art, there is no reason
why those of them who are better born should have better flutes given to
them; for they will not play any better on the flute, and the superior
instrument should be reserved for him who is the superior artist. If what
I am saying is still obscure, it will be made clearer as we proceed. For if
there were a superior fluteplayer who was far inferior in birth and
beauty, (35) although either of these may be a greater good than the art of
flute-playing, and may excel flute-playing in a greater ratio than he
excels the others in his art, (40) still he ought to have the best flutes given
to him, unless the advantages of wealth and birth contribute to
excellence in flute-playing, which they do not. [1283a] Moreover,
upon this principle any good may be compared with any other. For if a
given height may be measured against wealth and against freedom,
height in general may be so measured. (5) Thus if A excels in height more
than B in virtue, even if virtue in general excels height still more, all
goods will be commensurable; for if a certain amount is better than some
other, it is clear that some other will be equal. But since no such
comparison can be made, (10) it is evident that there is good reason why
in politics men do not ground their claim to office on every sort of
inequality any more than in the arts. For if some be slow, and others
swift, that is no reason why the one should have little and the others
much; it is in gymnastic contests that such excellence is rewarded.
Whereas the rival claims of candidates for office can only be based on
the possession of elements which enter into the composition of a state.
(15) And therefore the noble, or free-born, or rich, may with good reason

claim office; for holders of offices must be freemen and tax-payers: a

state can be no more composed entirely of poor men than entirely of
slaves. But if wealth and freedom are necessary elements, justice and
valour are equally so;44 for without the former qualities a state cannot
exist at all, (20) without the latter not well.

13 If the existence of the state is alone to be considered, then it would

seem that all, or some at least, of these claims are just; but, (25) if we take
into account a good life, then, as I have already said,45 education and
virtue have superior claims. As, however, those who are equal in one
thing ought not to have an equal share in all, nor those who are unequal
in one thing to have an unequal share in all, it is certain that all forms of
government which rest on either of these principles are perversions. All
men have a claim in a certain sense, as I have already admitted,46 (30) but
all have not an absolute claim. The rich claim because they have a
greater share in the land, and land is the common element of the state;
also they are generally more trustworthy in contracts. The free claim
under the same title as the noble; for they are nearly akin. For the noble
are citizens in a truer sense than the ignoble, and good birth is always
valued in a man’s own home and country.47 (35) Another reason is, that
those who are sprung from better ancestors are likely to be better men,
for nobility is excellence of race. Virtue, too, may be truly said to have a
claim, for justice has been acknowledged by us to be a social48 virtue,
and it implies all others.49 (40) Again, the many may urge their claim
against the few; for, when taken collectively, and compared with the
few, they are stronger and richer and better. [1283b] But, what if the
good, the rich, the noble, and the other classes who make up a state, are
all living together in the same city, will there, or will there not, be any
doubt who shall rule?—No doubt at all in determining who ought to rule
in each of the above-mentioned forms of government. (5) For states are
characterized by differences in their governing bodies—one of them has
a government of the rich, another of the virtuous, and so on. But a
difficulty arises when all these elements coexist. How are we to decide?
Suppose the virtuous to be very few in number: may we consider their
numbers in relation to their duties, (10) and ask whether they are enough
to administer the state, or so many as will make up a state? Objections
may be urged against all the aspirants to political power. (15) For those
who found their claims on wealth or family might be thought to have no
basis of justice; on this principle, if any one person were richer than all
the rest, it is clear that he ought to be ruler of them. In like manner he
who is very distinguished by his birth ought to have the superiority over
all those who claim on the ground that they are freeborn. In an
aristocracy, or government of the best, (20) a like difficulty occurs about
virtue; for if one citizen be better than the other members of the
government, however good they may be, he too, upon the same
principle of justice, should rule over them. And if the people are to be
supreme because they are stronger than the few, then if one man, or
more than one, but not a majority, is stronger than the many, (25) they
ought to rule, and not the many.
All these considerations appear to show that none of the principles on
which men claim to rule and to hold all other men in subjection to them
are strictly right. To those who claim to be masters of the government on
the ground of their virtue or their wealth, (30) the many might fairly
answer that they themselves are often better and richer than the few—I
do not say individually, but collectively. And another ingenious
objection which is sometimes put forward may be met in a similar
manner. (35) Some persons doubt whether the legislator who desires to
make the justest laws ought to legislate with a view to the good of the
higher classes or of the many, when the case which we have mentioned
occurs.50 Now what is just or right is to be interpreted in the sense of
‘what is equal’; and that which is right in the sense of being equal is to
be considered with reference to the advantage of the state, (40) and the
common good of the citizens. And a citizen is one who shares in
governing and being governed. He differs under different forms of
government, but in the best state he is one who is able and willing to be
governed and to govern with a view to the life of virtue. [1284a]
If, however, there be some one person, or more than one, although not
enough to make up the full complement of a state, whose virtue is so
pre-eminent that the virtues or the political capacity of all the rest admit
of no comparison with his or theirs, (5) he or they can be no longer
regarded as part of a state; for justice will not be done to the superior, if
he is reckoned only as the equal of those who are so far inferior to him
in virtue and in political capacity. (10) Such an one may truly be deemed
a God among men. Hence we see that legislation is necessarily
concerned only with those who are equal in birth and in capacity; and
that for men of pre-eminent virtue there is no law—they are themselves
a law. Any one would be ridiculous who attempted to make laws for
them: they would probably retort what, (15) in the fable of Antisthenes,
the lions said to the hares,51 when in the council of the beasts the latter
began haranguing and claiming equality for all. And for this reason
democratic states have instituted ostracism; equality is above all things
their aim, (20) and therefore they ostracized and banished from the city
for a time those who seemed to predominate too much through their
wealth, or the number of their friends, or through any other political
influence. Mythology tells us that the Argonauts left Heracles behind for
a similar reason; the ship Argo would not take him because she feared
that he would have been too much for the rest of the crew. (25)
Wherefore those who denounce tyranny and blame the counsel which
Periander gave to Thrasybulus cannot be held altogether just in their
censure. The story is that Periander, when the herald was sent to ask
counsel of him, said nothing, (30) but only cut off the tallest ears of corn
till he had brought the field to a level. The herald did not know the
meaning of the action, but came and reported what he had seen to
Thrasybulus, who understood that he was to cut off the principal men in
the state;52 and this is a policy not only expedient for tyrants or in
practice confined to them, (35) but equally necessary in oligarchies and
democracies. Ostracism53 is a measure of the same kind, which acts by
disabling and banishing the most prominent citizens. Great powers do
the same to whole cities and nations, as the Athenians did to the
Samians, Chians, (40) and Lesbians; no sooner had they obtained a firm
grasp of the empire, than they humbled their allies contrary to treaty;
and the Persian king has repeatedly crushed the Medes, Babylonians,
and other nations, when their spirit has been stirred by the recollection
of their former greatness. [1284b]
The problem is a universal one, and equally concerns all forms of
government, true as well as false; for, (5) although perverted forms with a
view to their own interests may adopt this policy, those which seek the
common interest do so likewise. The same thing may be observed in the
arts and sciences;54 for the painter will not allow the figure to have a
foot which, however beautiful, is not in proportion, (10) nor will the ship-
builder allow the stern or any other part of the vessel to be unduly large,
any more than the chorus-master will allow any one who sings louder or
better than all the rest to sing in the choir. Monarchs, too, may practise
compulsion and still live in harmony with their cities, (15) if their own
government is for the interest of the state. Hence where there is an
acknowledged superiority the argument in favour of ostracism is based
upon a kind of political justice. It would certainly be better that the
legislator should from the first so order his state as to have no need of
such a remedy. But if the need arises, the next best thing is that he
should endeavour to correct the evil by this or some similar measure.
The principle, (20) however, has not been fairly applied in states; for,
instead of looking to the good of their own constitution, they have used
ostracism for factious purposes. It is true that under perverted forms of
government, and from their special point of view, such a measure is just
and expedient, but it is also clear that it is not absolutely just. In the
perfect state there would be great doubts about the use of it, (25) not
when applied to excess in strength, wealth, popularity, or the like, but
when used against some one who is pre-eminent in virtue—what is to be
done with him? Mankind will not say that such an one is to be expelled
and exiled; on the other hand, he ought not to be a subject—that would
be as if mankind should claim to rule over Zeus, (30) dividing his offices
among them. The only alternative is that all should joyfully obey such a
ruler, according to what seems to be the order of nature, and that men
like him should be kings in their state for life.

14 The preceding discussion, by a natural transition, leads to the

consideration of royalty, (35) which we admit to be one of the true forms
of government. Let us see whether in order to be well governed a state
or country should be under the rule of a king or under some other form
of government; and whether monarchy, although good for some, may
not be bad for others. But first we must determine whether there is one
species of royalty or many. (40) It is easy to see that there are many, and
that the manner of government is not the same in all of them. [1285a]
Of royalties according to law, (1) the Lacedaemonian is thought to
answer best to the true pattern; but there the royal power is not
absolute, except when the kings go on an expedition, and then they take
the command. (5) Matters of religion are likewise committed to them.
The kingly office is in truth a kind of generalship, irresponsible and
perpetual. The king has not the power of life and death, except in a
specified case, as for instance, in ancient times, he had it when upon a
campaign, by right of force. This custom is described in Homer. (10) For
Agamemnon is patient when he is attacked in the assembly, but when
the army goes out to battle he has the power even of life and death. Does
he not say?—‘When I find a man skulking apart from the battle, nothing
shall save him from the dogs and vultures, for in my hands is death.’55
This, (15) then, is one form of royalty—a generalship for life: and of
such royalties some are hereditary and others elective.
(2) There is another sort of monarchy not uncommon among the
barbarians, which nearly resembles tyranny. But this is both legal and
hereditary. (20) For barbarians, being more servile in character than
Hellenes, and Asiatics than Europeans, do not rebel against a despotic
government. Such royalties have the nature of tyrannies because the
people are by nature slaves;56 but there is no danger of their being
overthrown, for they are hereditary and legal. (25) Wherefore also their
guards are such as a king and not such as a tyrant would employ, that is
to say, they are composed of citizens, whereas the guards of tyrants are
mercenaries.57 For kings rule according to law over voluntary subjects,
but tyrants over involuntary; and the one are guarded by their fellow-
citizens, the others are guarded against them. (30)
These are two forms of monarchy, and there was a third (3) which
existed in ancient Hellas, called an Aesymnetia or dictatorship. This may
be defined generally as an elective tyranny, which, like the barbarian
monarchy, is legal, but differs from it in not being hereditary. Sometimes
the office was held for life, sometimes for a term of years, (35) or until
certain duties had been performed. For example, the Mytilenaeans
elected Pittacus leader against the exiles, who were headed by
Antimenides and Alcaeus the poet. And Alcaeus himself shows in one of
his banquet odes that they chose Pittacus tyrant, for he reproaches his
fellow-citizens for ‘having made the low-born Pittacus tyrant of the
spiritless and ill-fated city, with one voice shouting his praises’.
[1285b]
These forms of government have always had the character of
tyrannies, because they possess despotic power; but inasmuch as they
are elective and acquiesced in by their subjects, they are kingly.
(4) There is a fourth species of kingly rule—that of the heroic times—
which was hereditary and legal, and was exercised over willing subjects.
(5) For the first chiefs were benefactors of the people58 in arts or arms;

they either gathered them into a community, or procured land for them;
and thus they became kings of voluntary subjects, and their power was
inherited by their descendants. (10) They took the command in war and
presided over the sacrifices, except those which required a priest. They
also decided causes either with or without an oath; and when they
swore, the form of the oath was the stretching out of their sceptre. In
ancient times their power extended continuously to all things
whatsoever, in city and country, (15) as well as in foreign parts; but at a
later date they relinquished several of these privileges, and others the
people took from them, until in some states nothing was left to them but
the sacrifices; and where they retained more of the reality they had only
the right of leadership in war beyond the border.
These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. (20) First the monarchy of the
heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to
certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the
control of religion. The second is that of the barbarians, which is an
hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the
power of the so-called Aesymnete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny.
(25) The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship,

hereditary and perpetual. These four forms differ from one another in
the manner which I have described.
(5) There is a fifth form of kingly rule in which one has the disposal of
all, just as each nation or each state has the disposal of public matters;
this form corresponds to the control of a household. (30) For as household
management is the kingly rule of a house, so kingly rule is the household
management of a city, or of a nation, or of many nations.

15 Of these forms we need only consider two, the Lacedaemonian and

the absolute royalty; for most of the others lie in a region between them,
(35) having less power than the last, and more than the first. Thus the

inquiry is reduced to two points: first, is it advantageous to the state that

there should be a perpetual general, and if so, should the office be
confined to one family, or open to the citizens in turn? Secondly, is it
well that a single man should have the supreme power in all things? The
first question falls under the head of laws rather than of constitutions;
for perpetual generalship might equally exist under any form of
government, so that this matter may be dismissed for the present.59
[1286a] The other kind of royalty is a sort of constitution; this we
have now to consider, (5) and briefly to run over the difficulties involved
in it. We will begin by inquiring whether it is more advantageous to be
ruled by the best man or by the best laws.60
The advocates of royalty maintain that the laws speak only in general
terms, (10) and cannot provide for circumstances; and that for any science
to abide by written rules is absurd. In Egypt the physician is allowed to
alter his treatment after the fourth day, but if sooner, he takes the risk.
Hence it is clear that a government acting according to written laws is
plainly not the best. (15) Yet surely the ruler cannot dispense with the
general principle which exists in law; and that is a better ruler which is
free from passion than that in which it is innate. Whereas the law is
passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man. (20) Yes, it may be
replied, but then on the other hand an individual will be better able to
deliberate in particular cases.
The best man, then, must legislate, and laws must be passed, but these
laws will have no authority when they miss the mark, (25) though in all
other cases retaining their authority. But when the law cannot determine
a point at all, or not well, should the one best man or should all decide?
According to our present practice assemblies meet, sit in judgement,
deliberate, and decide, and their judgements all relate to individual
cases. Now any member of the assembly, taken separately, is certainly
inferior to the wise man. But the state is made up of many individuals.
And as a feast to which all the guests contribute is better than a banquet
furnished by a single man,61 so a multitude is a better judge of many
things than any individual. (30)
Again, the many are more incorruptible than the few; they are like the
greater quantity of water which is less easily corrupted than a little. The
individual is liable to be overcome by anger or by some other passion,
(35) and then his judgement is necessarily perverted; but it is hardly to be

supposed that a great number of persons would all get into a passion and
go wrong at the same moment. Let us assume that they are the freemen,
and that they never act in violation of the law, but fill up the gaps which
the law is obliged to leave. Or, if such virtue is scarcely attainable by the
multitude, we need only suppose that the majority are good men and
good citizens, (40) and ask which will be the more incorruptible, the one
good ruler, or the many who are all good? Will not the many? But, you
will say, there may be parties among them, whereas the one man is not
divided against himself. [1286b] To which we may answer that their
character is as good as his. (5) If we call the rule of many men, who are
all of them good, aristocracy, and the rule of one man royalty, then
aristocracy will be better for states than royalty, whether the
government is supported by force or not,62 provided only that a number
of men equal in virtue can be found.
The first governments were kingships, probably for this reason,
because of old, when cities were small, men of eminent virtue were few.
(10) Further, they were made kings because they were benefactors,63 and

benefits can only be bestowed by good men. But when many persons
equal in merit arose, no longer enduring the pre-eminence of one, they
desired to have a commonwealth, and set up a constitution. The ruling
class soon deteriorated and enriched themselves out of the public
treasury; riches became the path to honour, and so oligarchies naturally
grew up. (15) These passed into tyrannies and tyrannies into democracies;
for love of gain in the ruling classes was always tending to diminish their
number, and so to strengthen the masses, who in the end set upon their
masters and established democracies. (20) Since cities have increased in
size, no other form of government appears to be any longer even easy to
establish.64
Even supposing the principle to be maintained that kingly power is the
best thing for states, how about the family of the king? Are his children
to succeed him? If they are no better than anybody else, that will be
mischievous. But, says the lover of royalty, the king, (25) though he
might, will not hand on his power to his children. That, however, is
hardly to be expected, and is too much to ask of human nature. There is
also a difficulty about the force which he is to employ; should a king
have guards about him by whose aid he may be able to coerce the
refractory? if not, how will he administer his kingdom? Even if he be the
lawful sovereign who does nothing arbitrarily or contrary to law, (30) still
he must have some force wherewith to maintain the law. In the case of a
limited monarchy there is not much difficulty in answering this question;
the king must have such force as will be more than a match for one or
more individuals, (35) but not so great as that of the people. The ancients
observe this principle when they have guards to any one whom they
appointed dictator or tyrant. Thus, when Dionysius asked the Syracusans
to allow him guards, somebody advised that they should give him only
such a number. (40)

16 [1287a] At this place in the discussion there impends the inquiry

respecting the king who acts solely according to his own will; he has
now to be considered. The so-called limited monarchy, or kingship
according to law, as I have already remarked,65 is not a distinct form of
government, for under all governments, as, for example, (5) in a
democracy or aristocracy, there may be a general holding office for life,
and one person is often made supreme over the administration of a state.
A magistracy of this kind exists at Epidamnus,66 and also at Opus, but in
the latter city has a more limited power. Now, (10) absolute monarchy, or
the arbitrary rule of a sovereign over all the citizens, in a city which
consists of equals, is thought by some to be quite contrary to nature; it is
argued that those who are by nature equals must have the same natural
right and worth, and that for unequals to have an equal share, or for
equals to have an unequal share, (15) in the offices of state, is as bad as
for different bodily constitutions to have the same food and clothing.
Wherefore it is thought to be just that among equals every one be ruled
as well as rule, and therefore that all should have their turn. We thus
arrive at law; for an order of succession implies law. And the rule of the
law, (20) it is argued, is preferable to that of any individual. On the same
principle, even if it be better for certain individuals to govern, they
should be made only guardians and ministers of the law. For magistrates
there must be—this is admitted; but then men say that to give authority
to any one man when all are equal is unjust. Nay, there may indeed be
cases which the law seems unable to determine, (25) but in such cases can
a man? Nay, it will be replied, the law trains officers for this express
purpose, and appoints them to determine matters which are left
undecided by it, to the best of their judgement. Further, it permits them
to make any amendment of the existing laws which experience suggests.
Therefore he who bids the law rule may be deemed to bid God and
Reason alone rule, (30) but he who bids man rule adds an element of the
beast; for desire is a wild beast, and passion perverts the minds of rulers,
even when they are the best of men. The law is reason unaffected by
desire. We are told67 that a patient should call in a physician; he will not
get better if he is doctored out of a book. But the parallel of the arts is
clearly not in point; for the physician does nothing contrary to rule from
motives of friendship; he only cures a patient and takes a fee; whereas
magistrates do many things from spite and partiality. (35) And, indeed, if
a man suspected the physician of being in league with his enemies to
destroy him for a bribe, (40) he would rather have recourse to the book.
But certainly physicians, when they are sick, call in other physicians,
and training-masters, when they are in training, other training-masters,
as if they could not judge truly about their own case and might be
influenced by their feelings. [1287b] Hence it is evident that in
seeking for justice men seek for the mean or neutral,68 for the law is the
mean. (5) Again, customary laws have more weight, and relate to more
important matters, than written laws, and a man may be a safer ruler
than the written law, but not safer than the customary law.
Again, it is by no means easy for one man to superintend many things;
he will have to appoint a number of subordinates, and what difference
does it make whether these subordinates always existed or were
appointed by him because he needed them? If, (10) as I said before,69 the
good man has a right to rule because he is better, still two good men are
better than one: this is the old saying—

‘two going together’70

and the prayer of Agamemnon—

‘would that I had ten such counsellors!’71

And at this day there are magistrates, for example judges, (15) who have
authority to decide some matters which the law is unable to determine,
since no one doubts that the law would command and decide in the best
manner whatever it could. But some things can, and other things cannot,
be comprehended under the law, and this is the origin of the vexed
question whether the best law or the best man should rule. (20) For
matters of detail about which men deliberate cannot be included in
legislation. Nor does any one deny that the decision of such matters
must be left to man, but it is argued that there should be many judges,
and not one only. For every ruler who has been trained by the law
judges well; and it would surely seem strange that a person should see
better with two eyes, (25) or hear better with two ears, or act better with
two hands or feet, than many with many; indeed, it is already the
practice of kings to make to themselves many eyes and ears and hands
and feet. For they make colleagues of those who are the friends of
themselves and their governments. (30) They must be friends of the
monarch and of his government; if not his friends, they will not do what
he wants; but friendship implies likeness and equality; and, therefore, if
he thinks that his friends ought to rule, he must think that those who are
equal to himself and like himself ought to rule equally with himself. (35)
These are the principal controversies relating to monarchy.

17 But may not all this be true in some cases and not in others? for
there is by nature both a justice and an advantage appropriate to the
rule of a master, another to kingly rule, another to constitutional rule;
but there is none naturally appropriate to tyranny, or to any other
perverted form of government; for these come into being contrary to
nature. Now, to judge at least from what has been said, it is manifest
that, (40) where men are alike and equal, it is neither expedient nor just
that one man should be lord of all, whether there are laws, or whether
there are no laws, but he himself is in the place of law. [1288a]
Neither should a good man be lord over good men, nor a bad man over
bad; nor, even if he excels in virtue, should he have a right to rule,
unless in a particular case, at which I have already hinted, and to which
I will once more recur.72 (5) But first of all, I must determine what
natures are suited for government by a king, and what for an aristocracy,
and what for a constitutional government.
A people who are by nature capable of producing a race superior in
the virtue needed for political rule are fitted for kingly government; and
a people submitting to be ruled as freemen by men whose virtue renders
them capable of political command are adapted for an aristocracy: (10)
while the people who are suited for constitutional freedom are those
among whom there naturally exists a warlike multitude73 able to rule
and to obey in turn by a law which gives office to the well-to-do
according to their desert. (15) But when a whole family, or some
individual, happens to be so pre-eminent in virtue as to surpass all
others, then it is just that they should be the royal family and supreme
over all, or that this one citizen should be king of the whole nation. (20)
For, as I said before,74 to give them authority is not only agreeable to
that ground of right which the founders of all states, whether
aristocratical, or oligarchical, or again democratical, are accustomed to
put forward (for these all recognize the claim of excellence, (25) although
not the same excellence), but accords with the principle already laid
down. For surely it would not be right to kill, or ostracize, or exile such
a person, or require that he should take his turn in being governed. The
whole is naturally superior to the part, and he who has this pre-
eminence is in the relation of a whole to a part. But if so, the only
alternative is that he should have the supreme power, (30) and that
mankind should obey him, not in turn, but always. These are the
conclusions at which we arrive respecting royalty and its various forms,
and this is the answer to the question, whether it is or is not
advantageous to states, and to which, and how.

18 We maintain75 that the true forms of government are three, (35) and
that the best must be that which is administered by the best, and in
which there is one man, or a whole family, or many persons, excelling
all the others together in virtue, and both rulers and subjects are fitted,
the one to rule, the others to be ruled, in such a manner as to attain the
most eligible life. We showed at the commencement of our inquiry76 that
the virtue of the good man is necessarily the same as the virtue of the
citizen of the perfect state. Clearly then in the same manner, and by the
same means through which a man becomes truly good, (40) he will frame
a state that is to be ruled by an aristocracy or by a king, and the same
education and the same habits will be found to make a good man and a
man fit to be a statesman or king. [1288b]
Having arrived at these conclusions, we must proceed to speak of the
perfect state, and describe how it comes into being and is established. (5)

1 Cp. 1276a 8.

2 ‘Dicast’ = juryman and judge in one: ‘ecclesiast’ = member of the ecclesia or assembly of the
citizens.
3 Cp. 1279a 19.

4 Cp. ii. 1273a 19.

5 An untranslatable play upon the word demiourgos, which means either ‘a magistrate’ or ‘an
artisan’.
6 1275a 22 sqq.

7 Cp. 1274b 34.

8 i. e. Polls means both ‘state’ and ‘city’.

9 Cp. ii. 1265a 14.

10 The size of the state is discussed in vii. 1326a 8–1327a 3; the question whether it should
consist of more than one nation is barely touched upon, in V. 1303a 25–b 3.
11 Cp. N. Eth. V. 1130b 28.

12 Cp. i. 1255b 20–37.

13 Cp. viii. 1337b 15.

14 Cp. i. 1260a 20.

15 Cp. Rep. iv. 428.

16 Cp. Rep. X. 601 D, E.

17 Cp. 1278a 40, 1288a 39, iv. 1293b 5, vii. 1333a II.

18 sc. that they grow up to be men.

19 1275a 38 sqq.

20 Cp. vi. 1321a 28.

21 Achilles complains of Agamemnon’s so treating him, Il. ix. 648, xvi. 59.

22 Cp. 1274b 38, iv. 1289a 15.

23 Cp. i. 1253a 2.

24 Cp. Pl. Rep. i. 341 D.

25 Cp. ii. 1261a 37–b 6.

26 Cp. N. Eth. viii. 10.

27 V. 1131a 15.

28 Cp. 1275a 10.

29 Cp. Protag. 322 B.

30 Cp. i. 1252b 27; N. Eth. i. 1097b 6.

31 Cp. 1282b 6.

32 Cp. Il. 11–34.

33 cc. 12–17, iv., vi.

34 c. 10.

35 Cp. ii. 1274a 15.

36 1281a 40–b 21.

37 1281b 32.

38 C. 10.
39 Cp. N. Eth. V. 1137b 19.

40 Cp. 1281a 36.

41 Cp. i. 1252a 2; N. Eth. i. 1094a 1.

42 Cp. 1280a 9.

43 Cp. N. Eth. v. 3.

44 Cp. iv. 1291a 19–33.

45 Cp. 1281a 4.

46 1280a 9 sqq.

47 Cp. i. 1255a 32.

48 Cp. i. 1253a 37.

49 Cp. N. Eth. v. 1129b 25.

50 i. e. when the many collectively are better than the few.

51 i. e. ‘where are your claws and teeth?’

52 Cp. v. 1311a 20.

53 Cp. v. 1302b 18.

54 Cp. v. 1302b 34, 1309b 21; vii. 1326a 35; Rep. iv. 420.

55 Il. ii. 391–393. The last clause is not found in our Homer.

56 Cp. i, 1252b 7.

57 Cp. v, 1311a 7.

58 Cp. v, 1310b 10.

59 It is not discussed later.

60 Cp. Plato, Polit. 294 A–295 C.

61 Cp. 1281a 42.

62 Cp. 1. 27.

63 Cp. 1285b 6.

64 Cp. iv. 1293a 1, 1297b 22.

65 1286a 2.

66 Cp. v. 1301b 21.

67 Cp. 1286a 12–14, Polit. 296 B.

68 Cp. N. Eth. v. 1132a 22.

69 1283b 21, 1284b 32.

70 Il. x. 224.

71 Il. ii. 372.

72 1284a 3, and 1288a 15.

73 Cp. 1279b 2.
74 1283b 20, 1284a 3–17, b25.

75 Cp. 1279b 22–b 4.

76 CC. 4, 5.
 BOOK IV

1 In all arts and sciences which embrace the whole of any subject, (10)
and do not come into being in a fragmentary way, it is the province of a
single art or science to consider all that appertains to a single subject.
For example, the art of gymnastic considers not only the suitableness of
different modes of training to different bodies (2), but what sort is
absolutely the best (1); (for the absolutely best must suit that which is by
nature best and best furnished with the means of life), and also what
common form of training is adapted to the great majority of men (4). (15)
And if a man does not desire the best habit of body, or the greatest skill
in gymnastics, which might be attained by him, still the trainer or the
teacher of gymnastic should be able to impart any lower degree of either
(3). The same principle equally holds in medicine and ship-building, and
the making of clothes, and in the arts generally.1
Hence it is obvious that government too is the subject of a single
science, (20) which has to consider what government is best and of what
sort it must be, to be most in accordance with our aspirations, if there
were no external impediment, and also what kind of government is
adapted to particular states. For the best is often unattainable, (25) and
therefore the true legislator and statesman ought to be acquainted, not
only with (1) that which is best in the abstract, but also with (2) that
which is best relatively to circumstances. We should be able further to
say how a state may be constituted under any given conditions (3); both
how it is originally formed and, when formed, how it may be longest
preserved; the supposed state being so far from having the best
constitution that it is unprovided even with the conditions necessary for
the best; neither is it the best under the circumstances, (30) but of an
inferior type.
He ought, moreover, to know (4) the form of government which is
best suited to states in general; for political writers, (35) although they
have excellent ideas, are often unpractical. We should consider, not only
what form of government is best, but also what is possible and what is
easily attainable by all. There are some who would have none but the
most perfect; for this many natural advantages are required. (40) Others,
again, speak of a more attainable form, and, although they reject the
constitution under which they are living, they extol some one in
particular, for example the Lacedaemonian.2 Any change of government
which has to be introduced should be one which men, starting from their
existing constitutions, will be both willing and able to adopt, since there
is quite as much trouble in the reformation of an old constitution as in
the establishment of a new one, (5) just as to unlearn is as hard as to
learn. [1289a] And therefore, in addition to the qualifications of the
statesman already mentioned, he should be able to find remedies for the
defects of existing constitutions, as has been said before.3 This he cannot
do unless he knows how many forms of government there are. It is often
supposed that there is only one kind of democracy and one of oligarchy.
(10) But this is a mistake; and, in order to avoid such mistakes, we must

ascertain what differences there are in the constitutions of states, and in

how many ways they are combined. The same political insight will
enable a man to know which laws are the best, and which are suited to
different constitutions; for the laws are, and ought to be, relative to the
constitution, (15) and not the constitution to the laws. A constitution is
the organization of offices in a state, and determines what is to be the
governing body, and what is the end of each community. But laws are
not to be confounded with the principles of the constitution; they are the
rules according to which the magistrates should administer the state, and
proceed against offenders. (20) So that we must know the varieties, and
the number of varieties, of each form of government, if only with a view
to making laws. For the same laws cannot be equally suited to all
oligarchies or to all democracies, since there is certainly more than one
form both of democracy and of oligarchy. (25)

2 In our original discussion4 about governments we divided them into

three true forms: kingly rule, aristocracy, and constitutional government,
and three corresponding perversions—tyranny, oligarchy, (30) and
democracy. Of kingly rule and of aristocracy we have already spoken,5
for the inquiry into the perfect state is the same thing with the
discussion of the two forms thus named, since both imply a principle of
virtue provided with external means. We have already determined in
what aristocracy and kingly rule differ from one another, and when the
latter should be established.6 In what follows we have to describe the so-
called constitutional government, (35) which bears the common name of
all constitutions, and the other forms, tyranny, oligarchy, and
democracy.
It is obvious which of the three perversions is the worst, and which is
the next in badness. That which is the perversion of the first and most
divine is necessarily the worst. (40) And just as a royal rule, if not a mere
name, must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the
king,7 so tyranny, which is the worst of governments, is necessarily the
farthest removed from a well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better,
for it is a long way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable
of the three. [1289b]
A writer8 who preceded me has already made these distinctions, (5) but
his point of view is not the same as mine. For he lays down the principle
that when all the constitutions are good (the oligarchy and the rest being
virtuous), democracy is the worst, but the best when all are bad.
Whereas we maintain that they are in any case defective, and that one
oligarchy is not to be accounted better than another, (10) but only less
bad.
Not to pursue this question further at present, let us begin by
determining (1)9 how many varieties of constitution there are (since of
democracy and oligarchy there are several); (2)10 what constitution is
the most generally acceptable, (15) and what is eligible in the next degree
after the perfect state; and besides this what other there is which is
aristocratical and well-constituted, and at the same time adapted to
states in general; (3)11 of the other forms of government to whom each
is suited. For democracy may meet the needs of some better than
oligarchy, and conversely. In the next place (4)12 we have to consider in
what manner a man ought to proceed who desires to establish some one
among these various forms, (20) whether of democracy or of oligarchy;
and lastly, (5)13 having briefly discussed these subjects to the best of our
power, we will endeavour to ascertain the modes of ruin and
preservation both of constitutions generally and of each separately, and
to what causes they are to be attributed. (25)
3 The reason why there are many forms of government is that every
state contains many elements. In the first place we see that all states are
made up of families, (30) and in the multitude of citizens there must be
some rich and some poor, and some in a middle condition; the rich are
heavy-armed, and the poor not. Of the common people, some are
husbandmen, and some traders, and some artisans. There are also among
the notables differences of wealth and property—for example, (35) in the
number of horses which they keep, for they cannot afford to keep them
unless they are rich. And therefore in old times the cities whose strength
lay in their cavalry were oligarchies, and they used cavalry in wars
against their neighbours; as was the practice of the Eretrians and
Chalcidians, and also of the Magnesians on the river Maeander, (40) and
of other peoples in Asia. [1290a] Besides differences of wealth there
are differences of rank and merit, and there are some other elements
which were mentioned by us when in treating of aristocracy we
enumerated the essentials of a state.14 Of these elements, sometimes all,
sometimes the lesser and sometimes the greater number, (5) have a share
in the government. It is evident then that there must be many forms of
government, differing in kind, since the parts of which they are
composed differ from each other in kind. For a constitution is an
organization of offices, which all the citizens distribute among
themselves, according to the power which different classes possess, (10)
for example the rich or the poor, or according to some principle of
equality which includes both. There must therefore be as many forms of
government as there are modes of arranging the offices, according to the
superiorities and the differences of the parts of the state.
There are generally thought to be two principal forms: as men say of
the winds that there are but two—north and south, (15) and that the rest
of them are only variations of these, so of governments there are said to
be only two forms—democracy and oligarchy. For aristocracy is
considered to be a kind of oligarchy, as being the rule of a few, and the
so-called constitutional government to be really a democracy, just as
among the winds we make the west a variation of the north, (20) and the
east of the south wind. Similarly of musical modes there are said to be
two kinds, the Dorian and the Phrygian; the other arrangements of the
scale are comprehended under one or other of these two. About forms of
government this is a very favourite notion. But in either case the better
and more exact way is to distinguish, as I have done,15 the one or two
which are true forms, (25) and to regard the others as perversions,
whether of the most perfectly attempered mode or of the best form of
government: we may compare the severer and more overpowering
modes to the oligarchical forms, and the more relaxed and gentler ones
to the democratic.

4 It must not be assumed, as some are fond of saying, (30) that

democracy is simply that form of government in which the greater
number are sovereign,16 for in oligarchies, and indeed in every
government, the majority rules; nor again is oligarchy that form of
government in which a few are sovereign. Suppose the whole population
of a city to be 1300, and that of these 1000 are rich, and do not allow
the remaining 300 who are poor, (35) but free, and in all other respects
their equals, a share of the government—no one will say that this is a
democracy. In like manner, if the poor were few and the masters of the
rich who outnumber them, no one would ever call such a government, in
which the rich majority have no share of office, an oligarchy. Therefore
we should rather say that democracy is the form of government in which
the free are rulers, (40) and oligarchy in which the rich; it is only an
accident that the free are the many and the rich are the few. [1290b]
Otherwise a government in which the offices were given according to
stature, as is said to be the case in Ethiopia, or according to beauty, (5)
would be an oligarchy; for the number of tall or good-looking men is
small. And yet oligarchy and democracy are not sufficiently
distinguished merely by these two characteristics of wealth and freedom.
Both of them contain many other elements, and therefore we must carry
our analysis further, and say that the government is not a democracy in
which the freemen, being few in number, (10) rule over the many who are
not free, as at Apollonia, on the Ionian Gulf, and at Thera; (for in each of
these states the nobles, who were also the earliest settlers, were held in
chief honour, although they were but a few out of many). Neither is it a
democracy when the rich have the government because they exceed in
number; as was the case formerly at Colophon, where the bulk of the
inhabitants were possessed of large property before the Lydian War. (15)
But the form of government is a democracy when the free, who are also
poor and the majority, govern, and an oligarchy when the rich and the
noble govern, they being at the same time few in number. (20)
I have said that there are many forms of government, and have
explained to what causes the variety is due. Why there are more than
those already mentioned,17 and what they are, and whence they arise, I
will now proceed to consider, starting from the principle already
admitted,18 which is that every state consists, not of one, but of many
parts. (25) If we were going to speak of the different species of animals,
we should first of all determine the organs which are indispensable to
every animal, as for example some organs of sense and the instruments
of receiving and digesting food, such as the mouth and the stomach,
besides organs of locomotion. Assuming now that there are only so many
kinds of organs, (30) but that there may be differences in them—I mean
different kinds of mouths, and stomachs, and perceptive and locomotive
organs—the possible combinations of these differences will necessarily
furnish many varieties of animals. (For animals cannot be the same
which have different kinds of mouths or of ears. (35)) And when all the
combinations are exhausted, there will be as many sorts of animals as
there are combinations of the necessary organs. The same, then, is true
of the forms of government which have been described; states, as I have
repeatedly said,19 are composed, (40) not of one, but of many elements.
[1291a] One element is the food-producing class, who are called
husbandmen; a second, the class of mechanics who practise the arts
without which a city cannot exist;—of these arts some are absolutely
necessary, others contribute to luxury or to the grace of life. The third
class is that of traders, and by traders I mean those who are engaged in
buying and selling, (5) whether in commerce or in retail trade. A fourth
class is that of the serfs or labourers. The warriors make up the fifth
class, and they are as necessary as any of the others, if the country is not
to be the slave of every invader. For how can a state which has any title
to the name be of a slavish nature? The state is independent and self-
sufficing, but a slave is the reverse of independent. (10) Hence we see that
this subject, though ingeniously, has not been satisfactorily treated in
the Republic.20 Socrates says that a state is made up of four sorts of
people who are absolutely necessary; these are a weaver, a husbandman,
a shoemaker, (15) and a builder; afterwards, finding that they are not
enough, he adds a smith, and again a herdsman, to look after the
necessary animals; then a merchant, and then a retail trader. All these
together form the complement of the first state, as if a state were
established merely to supply the necessaries of life, rather than for the
sake of the good, or stood equally in need of shoemakers and of
husbandmen. (20) But he does not admit into the state a military class
until the country has increased in size, and is beginning to encroach on
its neighbour’s land, whereupon they go to war. Yet even amongst his
four original citizens, or whatever be the number of those whom he
associates in the state, there must be some one who will dispense justice
and determine what is just. And as the soul may be said to be more truly
part of an animal than the body, so the higher parts of states, that is to
say, (25) the warrior class, the class engaged in the administration of
justice, and that engaged in deliberation, which is the special business of
political common sense—these are more essential to the state than the
parts which minister to the necessaries of life. Whether their several
functions are the functions of different citizens, or of the same—for it
may often happen that the same persons are both warriors and
husbandmen—is immaterial to the argument. (30) The higher as well as
the lower elements are to be equally considered parts of the state, and if
so, the military element at any rate must be included. There are also the
wealthy who minister to the state with their property; these form the
seventh class. The eighth class is that of magistrates and of officers; for
the state cannot exist without rulers. And therefore some must be able to
take office and to serve the state, (35) either always or in turn. There only
remains the class of those who deliberate and who judge between
disputants; we were just now distinguishing them. If presence of all these
elements, and their fair and equitable organization, (40) is necessary to
states, then there must also be persons who have the ability of
statesmen. [1291b] Different functions appear to be often combined in
the same individual; for example, the warrior may also be a
husbandman, or an artisan; or, again, the counsellor a judge. And all
claim to possess political ability, (5) and think that they are quite
competent to fill most offices. But the same persons cannot be rich and
poor at the same time. For this reason the rich and the poor are regarded
in an especial sense as parts of a state. Again, because the rich are
generally few in number, while the poor are many, they appear to be
antagonistic, (10) and as the one or the other prevails they form the
government. Hence arises the common opinion that there are two kinds
of government—democracy and oligarchy.
I have already explained21 that there are many forms of constitution,
and to what causes the variety is due. Let me now show that there are
different forms both of democracy and oligarchy, (15) as will indeed be
evident from what has preceded. For both in the common people and in
the notables various classes are included; of the common people, one
class are husbandmen, another artisans; another traders, who are
employed in buying and selling; another are the seafaring class, whether
engaged in war or in trade, as ferrymen or as fishermen. (In many places
any one of these classes forms quite a large population; for example,
fishermen at Tarenturn and Byzantium, crews of triremes at Athens,
merchant seamen at Aegina and Chios, (25) ferrymen at Tenedos.) To the
classes already mentioned may be added day-labourers, and those who,
owing to their needy circumstances, have no leisure, or those who are
not of free birth on both sides; and there may be other classes as well.
The notables again may be divided according to their wealth, birth,
virtue, education, and similar differences. (30)
Of forms of democracy first comes that which is said to be based
strictly on equality. In such a democracy the law says that it is just for
the poor to have no more advantage than the rich; and that neither
should be masters, but both equal. For if liberty and equality, (35) as is
thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best
attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
And since the people are the majority, and the opinion of the majority is
decisive, such a government must necessarily be a democracy. Here then
is one sort of democracy. There is another, in which the magistrates are
elected according to a certain property qualification, (40) but a low one;
he who has the required amount of property has a share in the
government, but he who loses his property loses his rights. [1292a]
Another kind is that in which all the citizens who are under no
disqualification share in the government, but still the law is supreme. In
another, everybody, if he be only a citizen, is admitted to the
government, but the law is supreme as before. A fifth form of
democracy, (5) in other respects, the same, is that in which, not the law,
but the multitude, have the supreme power, and supersede the law by
their decrees. This is a state of affairs brought about by the demagogues.
For in democracies which are subject to the law the best citizens hold
the first place, (10) and there are no demagogues; but where the laws are
not supreme, there demagogues spring up. For the people becomes a
monarch, and is many in one; and the many have the power in their
hands, not as individuals, but collectively. Homer says that ‘it is not
good to have a rule of many’,22 but whether he means this corporate
rule, or the rule of many individuals, (15) is uncertain. At all events this
sort of democracy, which is now a monarch, and no longer under the
control of law, seeks to exercise monarchical sway, and grows into a
despot; the flatterer is held in honour; this sort of democracy being
relatively to other democracies what tyranny is to other forms of
monarchy. The spirit of both is the same, and they alike exercise a
despotic rule over the better citizens. The decrees of the demos
correspond to the edicts of the tyrant; and the demagogue is to the one
what the flatterer is to the other. (20) Both have great power;—the
flatterer with the tyrant, the demagogue with democracies of the kind
which we are describing. The demagogues make the decrees of the
people override the laws, by referring all things to the popular assembly.
And therefore they grow great, because the people have all things in
their hands, (25) and they hold in their hands the votes of the people, who
are too ready to listen to them. Further, those who have any complaint
to bring against the magistrates say, ‘let the people be judges’; the
people are too happy to accept the invitation; and so the authority of
every office is undermined. Such a democracy is fairly open to the
objection that it is not a constitution at all; for where the laws have no
authority, (30) there is no constitution. The law ought to be supreme over
all, and the magistracies should judge of particulars, and only this
should be considered a constitution. So that if democracy be a real form
of government, the sort of system in which all things are regulated by
decrees is clearly not even a democracy in the true sense of the word, (35)
for decrees relate only to particulars.23
These then are the different kinds of democracy.
5 Of oligarchies, too, there are different kinds:—one where the
property qualification for office is such that the poor, (40) although they
form the majority, have no share in the government, yet he who acquires
a qualification may obtain a share. [1292b] Another sort is when there
is a qualification for office, but a high one, and the vacancies in the
governing body are filled by co-optation. If the election is made out of
all the qualified persons, a constitution of this kind inclines to an
aristocracy, if out of a privileged class, to an oligarchy. Another sort of
oligarchy is when the son succeeds the father. There is a fourth form, (5)
likewise hereditary, in which the magistrates are supreme and not the
law. Among oligarchies this is what tyranny is among monarchies, and
the last-mentioned form of democracy among democracies; and in fact
this sort of oligarchy receives the name of a dynasty (or rule of powerful
families). (10)
These are the different sorts of oligarchies and democracies. It should
however be remembered that in many states24 the constitution which is
established by law, although not democratic, owing to the education and
habits of the people may be administered democratically, (15) and
conversely in other states the established constitution may incline to
democracy, but may be administered in an oligarchical spirit. This most
often happens after a revolution: for governments do not change at once;
at first the dominant party are content with encroaching a little upon
their opponents. (20) The laws which existed previously continue in force,
but the authors of the revolution have the power in their hands.

6 From what has been already said we may safely infer that there are
so many different kinds of democracies and of oligarchies. For it is
evident that either all the classes whom we mentioned25 must share in
the government, (25) or some only and not others. When the class of
husbandmen and of those who possess moderate fortunes have the
supreme power, the government is administered according to law. For
the citizens being compelled to live by their labour have no leisure; and
so they set up the authority of the law, and attend assemblies only when
necessary. They all obtain a share in the government when they have
acquired the qualification which is fixed by the law—the absolute
exclusion of any class would be a step towards oligarchy; hence all who
have acquired the property qualification are admitted to a share in the
constitution. (30) But leisure cannot be provided for them unless there are
revenues to support them. This is one sort of democracy, and these are
the causes which give birth to it. Another kind is based on the
distinction which naturally comes next in order; in this, (35) every one to
whose birth there is no objection is eligible, but actually shares in the
government only if he can find leisure. Hence in such a democracy the
supreme power is vested in the laws, because the state has no means of
paying the citizens. A third kind is when all freemen have a right to
share in the government, but do not actually share, (40) for the reason
which has been already given; so that in this form again the law must
rule. A fourth kind of democracy is that which comes latest in the
history of states. [1293a] In our own day, when cities have far
outgrown their original size, and their revenues have increased, all the
citizens have a place in the government, through the great
preponderance of the multitude; and they all, (5) including the poor who
receive pay, and therefore have leisure to exercise their rights, share in
the administration. Indeed, when they are paid, the common people
have the most leisure, for they are not hindered by the care of their
property, which often fetters the rich, who are thereby prevented from
taking part in the assembly or in the courts, and so the state is governed
by the poor, who are a majority, and not by the laws. So many kinds of
democracies there are, (10) and they grow out of these necessary causes.
Of oligarchies, one form is that in which the majority of the citizens
have some property, but not very much; and this is the first form, which
allows to any one who obtains the required amount the right of sharing
in the government. The sharers in the government being a numerous
body, (15) it follows that the law must govern, and not individuals. For in
proportion as they are further removed from a monarchical form of
government, and in respect of property have neither so much as to be
able to live without attending to business, nor so little as to need state
support, they must admit the rule of law and not claim to rule
themselves. (20) But if the men of property in the state are fewer than in
the former case, and own more property, there arises a second form of
oligarchy. For the stronger they are, the more power they claim, and
having this object in view, they themselves select those of the other
classes who are to be admitted to the government; but, not being as yet
strong enough to rule without the law, (25) they make the law represent
their wishes.26 When this power is intensified by a further diminution of
their numbers and increase of their property, there arises a third and
further stage of oligarchy, in which the governing class keep the offices
in their own hands, and the law ordains that the son shall succeed the
father. (30) When, again, the rulers have great wealth and numerous
friends, this sort of family despotism approaches a monarchy; individuals
rule and not the law. This is the fourth sort of oligarchy, and is
analogous to the last sort of democracy.

7 There are still two forms besides democracy and oligarchy; one of
them is universally recognized and included among the four principal
forms of government, (35) which are said to be (1) monarchy, (2)
oligarchy, (3) democracy, and (4) the so-called aristocracy or
government of the best. But there is also a fifth, which retains the
generic name of polity or constitutional government; this is not common,
and therefore has not been noticed by writers who attempt to enumerate
the different kinds of government; like Plato,27 (40) in their books about
the state, they recognize four only. [1293b] The term ‘aristocracy’ is
rightly applied to the form of government which is described in the first
part of our treatise;28 for that only can be rightly called aristocracy
which is a government formed of the best men absolutely, and not
merely of men who are good when tried by any given standard. (5) In the
perfect state the good man is absolutely the same as the good citizen;
whereas in other states the good citizen is only good relatively to his
own form of government. But there are some states differing from
oligarchies and also differing from the so-called polity or constitutional
government; these are termed aristocracies, and in them magistrates are
certainly chosen, (10) both according to their wealth and according to
their merit. Such a form of government differs from each of the two just
now mentioned, and is termed an aristocracy. For indeed in states which
do not make virtue the aim of the community, men of merit and
reputation for virtue may be found. And so where a government has
regard to wealth, (15) virtue, and numbers, as at Carthage,29 that is
aristocracy; and also where it has regard only to two out of the three, as
at Lacedaemon, to virtue and numbers, and the two principles of
democracy and virtue temper each other. There are these two forms of
aristocracy in addition to the first and perfect state, (20) and there is a
third form, viz. the constitutions which incline more than the so-called
polity towards oligarchy.

8 I have yet to speak of the so-called polity and of tyranny. I put them
in this order, not because a polity or constitutional government is to be
regarded as a perversion any more than the abovementioned
aristocracies. (25) The truth is, that they all fall short of the most perfect
form of government, and so they are reckoned among perversions, and
the really perverted forms are perversions of these, as I said in the
original discussion.30 Last of all I will speak of tyranny, which I place
last in the series because I am inquiring into the constitutions of states,
and this is the very reverse of a constitution.
Having explained why I have adopted this order, (30) I will proceed to
consider constitutional government; of which the nature will be clearer
now that oligarchy and democracy have been defined. For polity or
constitutional government may be described generally as a fusion of
oligarchy and democracy; but the term is usually applied to those forms
of government which incline towards democracy, (35) and the term
aristocracy to those which incline towards oligarchy, because birth and
education are commonly the accompaniments of wealth. Moreover, the
rich already possess the external advantages the want of which is a
temptation to crime, and hence they are called noblemen and gentlemen.
And inasmuch as aristocracy seeks to give predominance to the best of
the citizens, (40) people say also of oligarchies that they are composed of
noblemen and gentlemen. Now it appears to be an impossible thing that
the state which is governed not by the best citizens but by the worst
should be well-governed, and equally impossible that the state which is
ill-governed should be governed by the best. [1294a] But we must
remember that good laws, if they are not obeyed, do not constitute good
government. Hence there are two parts of good government; one is the
actual obedience of citizens to the laws, (5) the other part is the goodness
of the laws which they obey; they may obey bad laws as well as good.
And there may be a further subdivision; they may obey either the best
laws which are attainable to them, or the best absolutely.
The distribution of offices according to merit is a special characteristic
of aristocracy, for the principle of an aristocracy is virtue, (10) as wealth
is of an oligarchy, and freedom of a democracy. In all of them there of
course exists the right of the majority, and whatever seems good to the
majority of those who share in the government has authority. Now in
most states the form called polity exists, (15) for the fusion goes no
further than the attempt to unite the freedom of the poor and the wealth
of the rich, who commonly take the place of the noble. But as there are
three grounds on which men claim an equal share in the government,
freedom, wealth, and virtue (for the fourth or good birth is the result of
the two last, (20) being only ancient wealth and virtue), it is clear that the
admixture of the two elements, that is to say, of the rich and poor, is to
be called a polity or constitutional government; and the union of the
three is to be called aristocracy or the government of the best, and more
than any other form of government, except the true and ideal, has a
right to this name.
Thus far I have shown the existence of forms of states other than
monarchy, (25) democracy, and oligarchy, and what they are, and in what
aristocracies differ from one another, and polities from aristocracies—
that the two latter are not very unlike is obvious.

9 Next we have to consider how by the side of oligarchy and

democracy the so-called polity or constitutional government springs up,
(30) and how it should be organized. The nature of it will be at once

understood from a comparison of oligarchy and democracy; we must

ascertain their different characteristics, and taking a portion from each,
put the two together, like the parts of an indenture. (35) Now there are
three modes in which fusions of government may be effected. In the first
mode we must combine the laws made by both governments, say
concerning the administration of justice. In oligarchies they impose a
fine on the rich if they do not serve as judges, and to the poor they give
no pay; but in democracies they give pay to the poor and do not fine the
rich. (40) Now (1) the union of these two modes31 is a common or middle
term between them, and is therefore characteristic of a constitutional
government, for it is a combination of both. [1294b] This is one mode
of uniting the two elements. Or (2) a mean may be taken between the
enactments of the two: thus democracies require no property
qualification, or only a small one, from members of the assembly, (5)
oligarchies a high one; here neither of these is the common term, but a
mean between them. (3) There is a third mode, in which something is
borrowed from the oligarchical and something from the democratical
principle. For example, the appointment of magistrates by lot is thought
to be democratical, and the election of them oligarchical; democratical
again when there is no property qualification, (10) oligarchical when
there is. In the aristocratical or constitutional state, one element will be
taken from each—from oligarchy the principle of electing to offices,
from democracy the disregard of qualification. Such are the various
modes of combination.
There is a true union of oligarchy and democracy when the same state
may be termed either a democracy or an oligarchy; those who use both
names evidently feel that the fusion is complete. (15) Such a fusion there
is also in the mean; for both extremes appear in it. The Lacedaemonian
constitution, for example, is often described as a democracy, (20) because
it has many democratical features. In the first place the youth receive a
democratical education. For the sons of the poor are brought up with the
sons of the rich, who are educated in such a manner as to make it
possible for the sons of the poor to be educated like them. A similar
equality prevails in the following period of life, (25) and when the citizens
are grown up to manhood the same rule is observed; there is no
distinction between the rich and poor. In like manner they all have the
same food at their public tables, and the rich wear only such clothing as
any poor man can afford. Again, the people elect to one of the two
greatest offices of state, and in the other they share;32 for they elect the
Senators and share in the Ephoralty. By others the Spartan constitution
is said to be an oligarchy, (30) because it has many oligarchical elements.
That all offices are filled by election and none by lot, is one of these
oligarchical characteristics; that the power of inflicting death or
banishment rests with a few persons is another; and there are others. In
a well attempered polity there should appear to be both elements and
yet neither; also the government should rely on itself, (35) and not on
foreign aid, and on itself not through the good will of a majority—they
might be equally well-disposed when there is a vicious form of
government—but through the general willingness of all classes in the
state to maintain the constitution.
Enough of the manner in which a constitutional government, (40) and
in which the so-called aristocracies ought to be framed.

10 [1295a] Of the nature of tyranny I have still to speak, in order

that it may have its place in our inquiry (since even tyranny is reckoned
by us to be a form of government), although there is not much to be said
about it. I have already in the former part of this treatise33 discussed
royalty or kingship according to the most usual meaning of the term, (5)
and considered whether it is or is not advantageous to states, and what
kind of royalty should be established, and from what source, and how.
When speaking of royalty we also spoke34 of two forms of tyranny,
which are both according to law, and therefore easily pass into royalty.
(10) Among Barbarians there are elected monarchs who exercise a

despotic power; despotic rulers were also elected in ancient Hellas,

called Aesymnetes or dictators. These monarchies, when compared with
one another, exhibit certain differences. And they are, (15) as I said
before,35 royal, in so far as the monarch rules according to law over
willing subjects; but they are tyrannical in so far as he is despotic and
rules according to his own fancy. There is also a third kind of tyranny,
which is the most typical form, and is the counterpart of the perfect
monarchy. This tyranny is just that arbitrary power of an individual
which is responsible to no one, (20) and governs all alike, whether equals
or better, with a view to its own advantage, not to that of its subjects,
and therefore against their will. No freeman, if he can escape from it,
will endure such a government.
The kinds of tyranny are such and so many, and for the reasons which
I have given.

11 We have now to inquire what is the best constitution for most

states, (25) and the best life for most men, neither assuming a standard of
virtue which is above ordinary persons, nor an education which is
exceptionally favoured by nature and circumstances, nor yet an ideal
state which is an aspiration only, but having regard to the life in which
the majority are able to share, (30) and to the form of government which
states in general can attain. As to those aristocracies, as they are called,
of which we were just now speaking,36 they either lie beyond the
possibilities of the greater number of states, or they approximate to the
so-called constitutional government, and therefore need no separate
discussion. And in fact the conclusion at which we arrive respecting all
these forms rests upon the same grounds. (35) For if what was said in the
Ethics37 is true, that the happy life is the life according to virtue lived
without impediment, and that virtue is a mean, then the life which is in
a mean, and in a mean attainable by every one, must be the best. (40) And
the same principles of virtue and vice are characteristic of cities and of
constitutions; for the constitution is in a figure the life of the city.
[1295b]
Now in all states there are three elements: one clàss is very rich,
another very poor, and a third in a mean. It is admitted that moderation
and the mean are best, and therefore it will clearly be best to possess the
gifts of fortune in moderation; for in that condition of life men are most
ready to follow rational principle. (5) But he who greatly excels in
beauty, strength, birth, or wealth, or on the other hand who is very poor,
or very weak, or very much disgraced, finds it difficult to follow rational
principle.38 Of these two the one sort grow into violent and great
criminals, (10) the others into rogues and petty rascals. And two sorts of
offences correspond to them, the one committed from violence, the other
from roguery. Again, the middle class is least likely to shrink from rule,
or to be over-ambitious for it; both of which are injuries to the state.
Again, (15) those who have too much of the goods of fortune, strength,
wealth, friends, and the like, are neither willing nor able to submit to
authority. The evil begins at home; for when they are boys, by reason of
the luxury in which they are brought up,39 they never learn, even at
school, the habit of obedience. On the other hand, the very poor, who
are in the opposite extreme, are too degraded. So that the one class
cannot obey, (20) and can only rule despotically; the other knows not how
to command and must be ruled like slaves. Thus arises a city, not of
freemen, but of masters and slaves, the one despising, the other envying;
and nothing can be more fatal to friendship and good fellowship in states
than this: for good fellowship springs from friendship; when men are at
enmity with one another, they would rather not even share the same
path. But a city ought to be composed, as far as possible, (25) of equals
and similars; and these are generally the middle classes. Wherefore the
city which is composed of middle-class citizens is necessarily best
constituted in respect of the elements of which we say the fabric of the
state naturally consists.40 And this is the class of citizens which is most
secure in a state, for they do not, like the poor, (30) covet their
neighbours’ goods; nor do others covet theirs, as the poor covet the
goods of the rich; and as they neither plot against others, nor are
themselves plotted against, they pass through life safely. Wisely then did
Phocylides pray—‘Many things are best in the mean; I desire to be of a
middle condition in my city.’
Thus it is manifest that the best political community is formed by
citizens of the middle class, (35) and that those states are likely to be well-
administered, in which the middle class is large, and stronger if possible
than both the other classes, or at any rate than either singly; for the
addition of the middle class turns the scale, and prevents either of the
extremes from being dominant. Great then is the good fortune of a state
in which the citizens have a moderate and sufficient property; for where
some possess much, (40) and the others nothing, there may arise an
extreme democracy, or a pure oligarchy; or a tyranny may grow out of
either extreme—either out of the most rampant democracy, or out of an
oligarchy; but it is not so likely to arise out of the middle constitutions
and those akin to them. [1296a] I will explain the reason of this
hereafter, (5) when I speak of the revolutions of states.41 The mean
condition of states is clearly best, for no other is free from faction; and
where the middle class is large, there are least likely to be factions and
dissensions. For a similar reason large states are less liable to faction
than small ones, because in them the middle class is large; whereas in
small states it is easy to divide all the citizens into two classes who are
either rich or poor, (10) and to leave nothing in the middle. And
democracies are safer42 and more permanent than oligarchies, because
they have a middle class which is more numerous and has a greater
share in the government; for when there is no middle class, (15) and the
poor greatly exceed in number, troubles arise, and the state soon comes
to an end. A proof of the superiority of the middle class is that the best
legislators have been of a middle condition; for example, (20) Solon, as his
own verses testify; and Lycurgus, for he was not a king; and Charondas,
and almost all legislators.
These considerations will help us to understand why most
governments are either democratical or oligarchical. The reason is that
the middle class is seldom numerous in them, and whichever party, (25)
whether the rich or the common people, transgresses the mean and
predominates, draws the constitution its own way, and thus arises either
oligarchy or democracy. There is another reason—the poor and the rich
quarrel with one another, and whichever side gets the better, (30) instead
of establishing a just or popular government, regards political supremacy
as the prize of victory, and the one party sets up a democracy and the
other an oligarchy. Further, both the parties which had the supremacy in
Hellas looked only to the interest of their own form of government, and
established in states, the one, democracies, (35) and the other, oligarchies;
they thought of their own advantage, of the public not at all. For these
reasons the middle form of government has rarely, if ever, existed, and
among a very few only. One man alone of all who ever ruled in Hellas
was induced to give this middle constitution to states. (40) But it has now
become a habit among the citizens of states, not even to care about
equality; all men are seeking for dominion, or, if conquered, are willing
to submit. [1296b]
What then is the best form of government, and what makes it the best,
is evident; and of other constitutions, since we say43 that there are many
kinds of democracy and many of oligarchy, (5) it is not difficult to see
which has the first and which the second or any other place in the order
of excellence, now that we have determined which is the best. For that
which is nearest to the best must of necessity be better, and that which is
furthest from it worse, if we are judging absolutely and not relatively to
given conditions: I say ‘relatively to given conditions’, (10) since a
particular government may be preferable, but another form may be
better for some people.
12 We have now to consider what and what kind of government is
suitable to what and what kind of men. I may begin by assuming, (15) as
a general principle common to all governments, that the portion of the
state which desires the permanence of the constitution ought to be
stronger than that which desires the reverse. Now every city is composed
of quality and quantity. By quality I mean freedom, wealth, education,
good birth, and by quantity, (20) superiority of numbers. Quality may
exist in one of the classes which make up the state, and quantity in the
other. For example, the meanly-born may be more in number than the
well-born, or the poor than the rich, yet they may not so much exceed in
quantity as they fall short in quality; and therefore there must be a
comparison of quantity and quality. (25) Where the number of the poor is
more than proportioned to the wealth of the rich, there will naturally be
a democracy, varying in form with the sort of people who compose it in
each case. If, for example, the husbandmen exceed in number, the first
form of democracy will then arise; if the artisans and labouring class, the
last; and so with the intermediate forms. (30) But where the rich and the
notables exceed in quality more than they fall short in quantity, there
oligarchy arises, similarly assuming various forms according to the kind
of superiority possessed by the oligarchs.
The legislator should always include the middle class in his
government; if he makes his laws oligarchical, (35) to the middle class let
him look; if he makes them democratical, he should equally by his laws
try to attach this class to the state. There only can the government ever
be stable where the middle class exceeds one or both of the others, and
in that case there will be no fear that the rich will unite with the poor
against the rulers. (40) For neither of them will ever be willing to serve
the other, and if they look for some form of government more suitable to
both, they will find hone better than this, for the rich and the poor will
never consent to rule in turn, (5) because they mistrust one another.
[1297a] The arbiter is always the one trusted, and he who is in the
middle is an arbiter. The more perfect the admixture of the political
elements, the more lasting will be the constitution. Many even of those
who desire to form aristocratical governments make a mistake, not only
in giving too much power to the rich, but in attempting to overreach the
people. (10) There comes a time when out of a false good there arises a
true evil, since the encroachments of the rich are more destructive to the
constitution than those of the people.

13 The devices by which oligarchies deceive the people are five in

number; they relate to (1) the assembly; (2) the magistracies; (3) the
courts of law; (4) the use of arms; (5) gymnastic exercises. (15) (1) The
assemblies are thrown open to all, but either the rich only are fined for
non-attendance, or a much larger fine is inflicted upon them. (2) As to
the magistracies, those who are qualified by property cannot decline
office upon oath, but the poor may. (3) In the law-courts the rich, (20)
and the rich only, are fined if they do not serve, the poor are let off with
impunity, or, as in the laws of Charondas, a larger fine is inflicted on the
rich, and a smaller one on the poor. In some states all citizens who have
registered themselves are allowed to attend the assembly and to try
causes; but if after registration they do not attend either in the assembly
or at the courts, (25) heavy fines are imposed upon them. The intention is
that through fear of the fines they may avoid registering themselves, and
then they cannot sit in the law-courts or in the assembly. Concerning (4)
the possession of arms, and (5) gymnastic exercises, they legislate in a
similar spirit. (30) For the poor are not obliged to have arms, but the rich
are fined for not having them; and in like manner no penalty is inflicted
on the poor for non-attendance at the gymnasium, and consequently,
having nothing to fear, they do not attend, whereas the rich are liable to
a fine, and therefore they take care to attend. (35)
These are the devices of oligarchical legislators, and in democracies
they have counter devices. They pay the poor for attending the
assemblies and the law-courts, and they inflict no penalty on the rich for
non-attendance. It is obvious that he who would duly mix the two
principles should combine the practice of both, and provide that the
poor should be paid to attend, and the rich fined if they do not attend,
(40) for then all will take part; if there is no such combination, power will

be in the hands of one party only. [1297b] The government should be

confined to those who carry arms. As to the property qualification, no
absolute rule can be laid down, but we must see what is the highest
qualification sufficiently comprehensive to secure that the number of
those who have the rights of citizens exceeds the number of those
excluded. (5) Even if they have no share in office, the poor, provided only
that they are not outraged or deprived of their property, will be quiet
enough.
But to secure gentle treatment for the poor is not an easy thing, (10)
since a ruling class is not always humane. And in time of war the poor
are apt to hesitate unless they are fed; when fed, they are willing enough
to fight. In some states the government is vested, not only in those who
are actually serving, but also in those who have served; among the
Malians, (15) for example, the governing body consisted of the latter,
while the magistrates were chosen from those actually on service. And
the earliest government which existed among the Hellenes, after the
overthrow of the kingly power, grew up out of the warrior class, and was
originally taken from the knights (for strength and superiority in war at
that time depended on cavalry;44 indeed, without discipline, infantry are
useless, (20) and in ancient times there was no military knowledge or
tactics, and therefore the strength of armies lay in their cavalry). But
when cities increased and the heavy-armed grew in strength, more had a
share in the government; and this is the reason why the states which we
call constitutional governments have been hitherto called democracies.
Ancient constitutions, (25) as might be expected, were oligarchical and
royal; their population being small they had no considerable middle
class; the people were weak in numbers and organization, and were
therefore more contented to be governed.
I have explained why there are various forms of government, and why
there are more than is generally supposed; for democracy, as well as
other constitutions, has more than one form: also what their differences
are, (30) and whence they arise, and what is the best form of government,
speaking generally, and to whom the various forms of government are
best suited; all this has now been explained.

14 Having thus gained an appropriate basis of discussion we will

proceed to speak of the points which follow next in order. (35) We will
consider the subject not only in general but with reference to particular
constitutions. All constitutions have three elements, concerning which
the good lawgiver has to regard what is expedient for each constitution.
When they are well-ordered, the constitution is well-ordered, and as they
differ from one another, constitutions differ. (40) There is (1) one element
which deliberates about public affairs; secondly (2) that concerned with
the magistracies—the questions being, what they should be, over what
they should exercise authority, and what should be the mode of electing
to them; and thirdly (3) that which has judicial power. [1298a]
The deliberative element has authority in matters of war and peace, in
making and unmaking alliances; it passes laws, (5) inflicts death, exile,
confiscation, elects magistrates and audits their accounts. These powers
must be assigned either all to all the citizens or all to some of them (for
example, to one or more magistracies, or different causes to different
magistracies), or some of them to all, and others of them only to some.
That all things should be decided by all is characteristic of democracy;
this is the sort of equality which the people desire. (10) But there are
various ways in which all may share in the government; they may
deliberate, not all in one body, but by turns, as in the constitution of
Telecles the Milesian. There are other constitutions in which the boards
of magistrates meet and deliberate, (15) but come into office by turns, and
are elected out of the tribes and the very smallest divisions of the state,
until every one has obtained office in his turn. The citizens, on the other
hand, are assembled only for the purposes of legislation, and to consult
about the constitution, and to hear the edicts of the magistrates. (20) In
another variety of democracy the citizens form one assembly, but meet
only to elect magistrates, to pass laws, to advise about war and peace,
and to make scrutinies. Other matters are referred severally to special
magistrates, who are elected by vote or by lot out of all the citizens. Or
again, (25) the citizens meet about election to offices and about scrutinies,
and deliberate concerning war or alliances while other matters are
administered by the magistrates, who, as far as is possible,45 are elected
by vote. I am speaking of those magistracies in which special knowledge
is required. A fourth form of democracy is when all the citizens meet to
deliberate about everything, (30) and the magistrates decide nothing, but
only make the preliminary inquiries; and that is the way in which the
last and worst form of democracy, corresponding, as we maintain,46 to
the close family oligarchy and to tyranny, is at present administered. All
these modes are democratical.
On the other hand, that some should deliberate about all is
oligarchical. (35) This again is a mode which, like the democratical, has
many forms. When the deliberative class being elected out of those who
have a moderate qualification are numerous and they respect and obey
the prohibitions of the law without altering it, and any one who has the
required qualification shares in the government, then, (40) just because of
this moderation, the oligarchy inclines towards polity. But when only
selected individuals and not the whole people share in the deliberations
of the state, then, although, as in the former case, they observe the law,
the government is a pure oligarchy. [1298b] Or, again, when those
who have the power of deliberation are self-elected, and son succeeds
father, and they and not the laws are supreme—the government is of
necessity oligarchical. (5) Where, again, particular persons have authority
in particular matters;—for example, when the whole people decide
about peace and war and hold scrutinies, but the magistrates regulate
everything else, and they are elected by vote—there the government is
an aristocracy. And if some questions are decided by magistrates elected
by vote, and others by magistrates elected by lot, either absolutely or out
of select candidates, (10) or elected partly by vote, partly by lot—these
practices are partly characteristic of an aristocratical government, and
partly of a pure constitutional government.
These are the various forms of the deliberative body; they correspond
to the various forms of government. And the government of each state is
administered according to one or other of the principles which have
been laid down. Now it is for the interest of democracy, according to the
most prevalent notion of it (I am speaking of that extreme form of
democracy in which the people are supreme even over the laws), with a
view to better deliberation to adopt the custom of oligarchies respecting
courts of law. (15) For in oligarchies the rich who are wanted to be judges
are compelled to attend under pain of a fine, whereas in democracies the
poor are paid to attend. And this practice of oligarchies should be
adopted by democracies in their public assemblies, for they will advise
better if they all deliberate together—the people with the notables and
the notables with the people. (20) It is also a good plan that those who
deliberate should be elected by vote or by lot in equal numbers out of
the different classes; and that if the people greatly exceed in number
those who have political training, pay should not be given to all, (25) but
only to as many as would balance the number of the notables, or that
the number in excess should be eliminated by lot. But in oligarchies
either certain persons should be co-opted from the mass, or a class of
officers should be appointed such as exist in some states, who are termed
probuli and guardians of the law; and the citizens should occupy
themselves exclusively with matters on which these have previously
deliberated; for so the people will have a share in the deliberations of
the state, (30) but will not be able to disturb the principles of the
constitution. Again, in oligarchies either the people ought to accept the
measures of the government, or not to pass anything contrary to them;
or, if all are allowed to share in counsel, the decision should rest with
the magistrates. The opposite of what is done in constitutional
governments should be the rule in oligarchies; the veto of the majority
should be final, (35) their assent not final, but the proposal should be
referred back to the magistrates. Whereas in constitutional governments
they take the contrary course; the few have the negative, not the
affirmative power; the affirmation of everything rests with the
multitude. (40) [1299a]
These, then, are our conclusions respecting the deliberative, that is,
the supreme element in states.

15 Next we will proceed to consider the distribution of offices; this

too, being a part of politics concerning which many questions arise:—
What shall their number be? Over what shall they preside, (5) and what
shall be their duration? Sometimes they last for six months, sometimes
for less; sometimes they are annual, whilst in other cases offices are held
for still longer periods. Shall they be for life or for a long term of years;
or, if for a short term only, shall the same persons hold them over and
over again, (10) or once only? Also about the appointment to them—from
whom are they to be chosen, by whom, and how? We should first be in a
position to say what are the possible varieties of them, and then we may
proceed to determine which are suited to different forms of government.
But what are to be included under the term ‘offices’? That is a question
not quite so easily answered. (15) For a political community requires
many officers; and not every one who is chosen by vote or by lot is to be
regarded as a ruler. In the first place there are the priests, who must be
distinguished from political officers; masters of choruses and heralds,
even ambassadors, are elected by vote. (20) Some duties of
superintendence again are political, extending either to all the citizens in
a single sphere of action, like the office of the general who superintends
them when they are in the field, or to a section of them only, like the
inspectorships of women or of youth. Other offices are concerned with
household management, like that of the corn measurers who exist in
many states and are elected officers. There are also menial offices which
the rich have executed by their slaves. (25) Speaking generally, those are
to be called offices to which the duties are assigned of deliberating about
certain measures and of judging and commanding, especially the last; for
to command is the especial duty of a magistrate. But the question is not
of any importance in practice; no one has ever brought into court the
meaning of the word, (30) although such problems have a speculative
interest.
What kinds of offices, and how many, are necessary to the existence of
a state, and which, if not necessary, yet conduce to its well-being, are
much more important considerations, affecting all constitutions, (35) but
more especially small states. For in great states it is possible, and indeed
necessary, that every office should have a special function; where the
citizens are numerous, many may hold office. And so it happens that
some offices a man holds a second time only after a long interval, and
others he holds once only; and certainly every work is better done which
receives the sole, and not the divided attention of the worker. [1299b]
But in small states it is necessary to combine many offices in a few
hands, since the small number of citizens does not admit of many
holding office:—for who will there be to succeed them? And yet small
states at times require the same offices and laws as large ones; the
difference is that the one want them often, (5) the others only after long
intervals. Hence there is no reason why the care of many offices should
not be imposed on the same person, for they will not interfere with each
other. When the population is small, offices should be like the spits
which also serve to hold a lamp.47 We must first ascertain how many
magistrates are necessary in every state, (10) and also how many are not
exactly necessary, but are nevertheless useful, and then there will be no
difficulty in seeing what offices can be combined in one. We should also
know over which matters several local tribunals are to have jurisdiction,
(15) and in which authority should be centralized: for example, should

one person keep order in the market and another in some other place, or
should the same person be responsible everywhere? Again, should
offices be divided according to the subjects with which they deal, or
according to the persons with whom they deal: I mean to say, should one
person see to good order in general, or one look after the boys, another
after the women, and so on? Further, under different constitutions, (20)
should the magistrates be the same or different? For example, in
democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy, should there be the same
magistrates, although they are elected, not out of equal or similar classes
of citizens, but differently under different constitutions—in aristocracies,
for example, they are chosen from the educated, in oligarchies from the
wealthy, and in democracies from the free—or are there certain
differences in the offices answering to them as well, (25) and may the
same be suitable to some, but different offices to others? For in some
states it may be convenient that the same office should have a more
extensive, in other states a narrower sphere. Special offices are peculiar
to certain forms of government:—for example that of probuli, (30) which
is not a democratic office, although a bule or council is. There must be
some body of men whose duty is to prepare measures for the people in
order that they may not be diverted from their business; when these are
few in number, the state inclines to an oligarchy: or rather the probuli
must always be few, (35) and are therefore an oligarchical element. But
when both institutions exist in a state, the probuli are a check on the
council; for the counsellor is a democratic element, but the probuli are
oligarchical. Even the power of the council disappears when democracy
has taken that extreme form in which the people themselves are always
meeting and deliberating about everything. [1300a] This is the case
when the members of the assembly receive abundant pay; for they have
nothing to do and are always holding assemblies and deciding
everything for themselves. A magistracy which controls the boys or the
women, or any similar office, (5) is suited to an aristocracy rather than to
a democracy; for how can the magistrates prevent the wives of the poor
from going out of doors? Neither is it an oligarchical office; for the wives
of the oligarchs are too fine to be controlled.
 Enough of these matters. I will now inquire into appointments to
offices. (10) The varieties depend on three terms, and the combinations of
these give all possible modes: first, who appoints? secondly, from
whom? and thirdly, how? Each of these three admits of three varieties:
(A) All the citizens, (15) or (B) only some, appoint. Either (1) the
magistrates are chosen out of all or (2) out of some who are
distinguished either by a property qualification, or by birth, or merit, or
for some special reason, as at Megara only those were eligible who had
returned from exile and fought together against the democracy. They
may be appointed either (a) by vote or (b) by lot. Again, (20) these
several varieties may be coupled, I mean that (C) some officers may be
elected by some, others by all, and (3) some again out of some, and
others out of all, and (c) some by vote and others by lot. Each variety of
these terms admits of four modes.
For either (A 1 a) all may appoint from all by vote, or (A 1 b) all from
all by lot, or (A 2 a) all from some by vote, (25) or (A 2 b) all from some
by lot (and if from all, either by sections, as, for example, by tribes, and
wards, and phratries, until all the citizens have been gone through; or
the citizens may be in all cases eligible indiscriminately); or again (A 1 c,
A 2 c) to some offices in the one way, to some in the other. Again, if it is
only some that appoint, they may do so either (B 1 a) from all by vote,
or (B 1 b) from all by lot, or (B 2 a) from some by vote, or (B 2 b) from
some by lot, or to some offices in the one way, to others in the other,
i. e. (B 1 c) from all, to some offices by vote, to some by lot, (30) and (B 2
c) from some, to some offices by vote, to some by lot. Thus the modes
that arise, apart from two (C, 3) out of the three couplings, number
twelve. Of these systems two are popular, that all should appoint from
all (A 1 a) by vote or (A 1 b) by lot—or (A 1 c) by both. (35) That all
should not appoint at once, but should appoint from all or from some
either by lot or by vote or by both, or appoint to some offices from all
and to others from some (‘by both’ meaning to some offices by lot, to
others by vote), is characteristic of a polity. And (B 1 c) that some
should appoint from all, to some offices by vote, to others by lot, is also
characteristic of a polity, (40) but more oligarchical than the former
method. And (A 3 a, b, c, B 3 a, b, c) to appoint from both, to some
offices from all, to others from some, is characteristic of a polity with a
leaning towards aristocracy. That (B 2) some should appoint from some
is oligarchical—even (B 2 b) that some should appoint from some by lot
(and if this does not actually occur, it is none the less oligarchical in
character), or (B 2 c) that some should appoint from some by both.
[1300b] (B 1 a) that some should appoint from all, and (A 2 a) that all
should appoint from some, by vote, is aristocratic.
These are the different modes of constituting magistrates, (5) and these
correspond to different forms of government:—which are proper to
which, or how they ought to be established, will be evident when we
determine the nature of their powers.48 By powers I mean such powers
as a magistrate exercises over the revenue or in defence of the country;
for there are various kinds of power: the power of the general, (10) for
example, is not the same with that which regulates contracts in the
market.

16 Of the three parts of government, the judicial remains to be

considered, and this we shall divide on the same principle. There are
three points on which the varieties of law-courts depend: The persons
from whom they are appointed, (15) the matters with which they are
concerned, and the manner of their appointment. I mean, (1) are the
judges taken from all, or from some only? (2) how many kinds of law-
courts are there? (3) are the judges chosen by vote or by lot?
First, let me determine how many kinds of law-courts there are. There
are eight in number: One is the court of audits or scrutinies; a second
takes cognizance of ordinary offences against the state; a third is
concerned with treason against the constitution; the fourth determines
disputes respecting penalties, (20) whether raised by magistrates or by
private persons; the fifth decides the more important civil cases; the
sixth tries cases of homicide, which are of various kinds, (25) (a)
premeditated, (b) involuntary, (c) cases in which the guilt is confessed
but the justice is disputed; and there may be a fourth court (d) in which
murderers who have fled from justice are tried after their return; such as
the Court of Phreatto is said to be at Athens. But cases of this sort rarely
happen at all even in large cities. (30) The different kinds of homicide
may be tried either by the same or by different courts. (7) There are
courts for strangers:—of these there are two subdivisions, (a) for the
settlement of their disputes with one another, (b) for the settlement of
disputes between them and the citizens. And besides all these there must
be (8) courts for small suits about sums of a drachma up to five
drachmas, or a little more, which have to be determined, but they do not
require many judges. (35)
Nothing more need be said of these small suits, nor of the courts for
homicide and for strangers:—I would rather speak of political cases,
which, when mismanaged, create division and disturbances in
constitutions.
Now if all the citizens judge, in all the different cases which I have
distinguished, (40) they may be appointed by vote or by lot, or sometimes
by lot and sometimes by vote. Or when a single class of causes are tried,
the judges who decide them may be appointed, some by vote, and some
by lot. [1301a] These then are the four modes of appointing judges
from the whole people, and there will be likewise four modes, if they are
elected from a part only; for they may be appointed from some by vote
and judge in all causes; or they may be appointed from some by lot and
judge in all causes; or they may be elected in some cases by vote, and in
some cases taken by lot, or some courts, even when judging the same
causes, may be composed of members some appointed by vote and some
by lot. (5) These modes, then, as was said, answer to those previously
mentioned.
Once more, the modes of appointment may be combined; I mean, that
some may be chosen out of the whole people, others out of some, some
out of both; for example, the same tribunal may be composed of some
who were elected out of all, and of others who were elected out of some,
either by vote or by lot or by both. (10)
In how many forms law-courts can be established has now been
considered. The first form, viz. that in which the judges are taken from
all the citizens, and in which all causes are tried, is democratical; the
second, which is composed of a few only who try all causes, oligarchical;
the third, in which some courts are taken from all classes, (15) and some
from certain classes only, aristocratical and constitutional.

1 The numbers in this paragraph are made to correspond with the numbers in the next.
2 Cp. ii. 1265b 35.

3 Cp. 1288b 29.

4 iii. 7; Cp. N. Eth. viii. 10.

5 iii. 14–18.

6 iii. 1279a 32–37, 1286b 3–5, 1284a 3–b 34, ch. 17.

7 Cp. iii. 1284a 3–b 34, chs. 17, 18, v. 1310b 10 sq., vii. 1325b 10–12.

8 Plato, Polit. 302 E, 303 A.

9 C. 3–10.

10 C. 11.

11 C. 12.

12 Book vi. 1–7.

13 Book v.

14 iii. 1283a 14 sq., and Cp. vii. 8, 9.

15 1289a 31–33, 40 sqq., Cp. viii. 1340a 40–b 5, 1342a 28 sqq., b29 sqq.

16 Cp. iii. 1279b 21.

17 i. e. democracy and oligarchy, Cp. 1290a 13.

18 1289b 27 sq.

19 ii. 1261a 22 sqq., iii. 1283a 14 sqq., iv. 1289b 27–1290b 5, 1290b 23 sq., Cp. iii. 1277a 5 sqq.

20 Rep. ii. 369.

21 Cp. iii. c. 6.

22 Il. ii. 204.

23 Cp. N. Eth. v. 1137b 27.

24 Cp. v. 1301b 10.

25 1291b 17–30.

26 i. e. they make a law that the governing class shall have the power of co-optation from other
classes.
27 Rep. viii, ix.

28 iii. 1279a 34, 1286b 3, Cp. vii. 1328b 37.

29 Cp. ii. 1273a 21–30.

30 iii. 7.

31 Cp. 1297a 38.

32 Cp. ii. 1270b 17.

33 iii. 14–17.

34 iii, 1285a 16–b3.

35 iii. 1285b 2.

36 1293b 7–21, Cp. 1293b 36–1294a 25.

37 N. Eth. i. 1098a 16. vii. 1153b 10, x. 1177a 12.

38 Cp. Pl. Rep. iv. 421 D ff.

39 Cp. v. 1310a 22.

40 Cp. ll. 1–3.

41 v. 1308a 18–24.

42 Cp. v. 1302a 8, 1307a 16.

43 1289a 8, b13, 1291b 15–1292b 10, 1292b 22–1293a 10.

44 Cp. 1289b 36, vi. 1321a 8.

45 sc. in an advanced democracy. Cp. vi. 1317b 21.

46 1292a 17–21, b7–10, 1293a 32–34.

47 Cp. 1252b 2.

48 The promise is not fulfilled in the Politics.

 BOOK V

1 The design which we proposed to ourselves is now nearly

completed.1 Next in order follow the causes of revolution in states, (20)
how many, and of what nature they are; what modes of destruction
apply to particular states, and out of what, and into what they mostly
change; also what are the modes of preservation in states generally, or in
a particular state, and by what means each state may be best preserved:
these questions remain to be considered.
In the first place we must assume as our starting-point that in the
many forms of government which have sprung up there has always been
an acknowledgement of justice and proportionate equality, (25) although
mankind fail in attaining them, as indeed I have already explained.2
Democracy, for example, arises out of the notion that those who are
equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally
free, they claim to be absolutely equal. (30) Oligarchy is based on the
notion that those who are unequal in one respect are in all respects
unequal; being unequal, that is, in property, they suppose themselves to
be unequal absolutely. The democrats think that as they are equal they
ought to be equal in all things; while the oligarchs, under the idea that
they are unequal, claim too much, which is one form of inequality. All
these forms of government have a kind of justice, but, (35) tried by an
absolute standard, they are faulty; and, therefore, both parties, whenever
their share in the government does not accord with their preconceived
ideas, stir up revolution. Those who excel in virtue have the best right of
all to rebel (for they alone can with reason be deemed absolutely
unequal),3 (40) but then they are of all men the least inclined to do so.4
[1301b] There is also a superiority which is claimed by men of rank;
for they are thought noble because they spring from wealthy and
virtuous ancestors.5 Here then, so to speak, are opened the very springs
and fountains of revolution; and hence arise two sorts of changes in
governments; the one affecting the constitution, (5) when men seek to
change from an existing form into some other, for example, from
democracy into oligarchy, and from oligarchy into democracy, or from
either of them into constitutional government or aristocracy, and
conversely; the other not affecting the constitution, (10) when, without
disturbing the form of government, whether oligarchy, or monarchy, or
any other, they try to get the administration into their own hands.6
Further, there is a question of degree; an oligarchy, for example, may
become more or less oligarchical, and a democracy more or less
democratical; and in like manner the characteristics of the other forms of
government may be more or less strictly maintained. (15) Or the
revolution may be directed against a portion of the constitution only,
e. g. the establishment or overthrow of a particular office: as at Sparta it
is said that Lysander attempted to overthrow the monarchy, and king
Pausanias,7 the ephoralty. At Epidamnus, (20) too, the change was partial.
For instead of phylarchs or heads of tribes, a council was appointed; but
to this day the magistrates are the only members of the ruling class who
are compelled to go to the Heliaea when an election takes places, (25) and
the office of the single archon8 was another oligarchical feature.
Everywhere inequality is a cause of revolution, but an inequality in
which there is no proportion—for instance, a perpetual monarchy among
equals; and always it is the desire of equality which rises in rebellion.
Now equality is of two kinds, numerical and proportional; by the first
I mean sameness or equality in number or size; by the second, (30)
equality of ratios. For example, the excess of three over two is
numerically equal to the excess of two over one; whereas four exceeds
two in the same ratio in which two exceeds one, for two is the same part
of four that one is of two, (35) namely, the half. As I was saying before,9
men agree that justice in the abstract is proportion, but they differ in
that some think that if they are equal in any respect they are equal
absolutely, others that if they are unequal in any respect they should be
unequal in all. Hence there are two principal forms of government, (40)
democracy and oligarchy; for good birth and virtue are rare, but wealth
and numbers are more common. [1302a] In what city shall we find a
hundred persons of good birth and of virtue? whereas the rich
everywhere abound. That a state should be ordered, simply and wholly,
according to either kind of equality, is not a good thing; the proof is the
fact that such forms of government never last. (5) They are originally
based on a mistake, and, as they begin badly, cannot fail to end badly.
The inference is that both kinds of equality should be employed;
numerical in some cases, and proportionate in others.
Still democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than
oligarchy.10 (10) For in oligarchies11 there is the double danger of the
oligarchs falling out among themselves and also with the people; but in
democracies12 there is only the danger of a quarrel with the oligarchs.
No dissension worth mentioning arises among the people themselves.
And we may further remark that a government which is composed of the
middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy,
(15) and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.

2 In considering how dissensions and political revolutions arise, we

must first of all ascertain the beginnings and causes of them which affect
constitutions generally. They may be said to be three in number; and we
have now to give an outline of each. (20) We want to know (1) what is
the feeling? (2) what are the motives of those who make them? (3)
whence arise political disturbances and quarrels? The universal and chief
cause of this revolutionary feeling has been already mentioned;13 viz.
the desire of equality, (25) when men think that they are equal to others
who have more than themselves; or, again, the desire of inequality and
superiority, when conceiving themselves to be superior they think that
they have not more but the same or less than their inferiors; pretensions
which may and may not be just. Inferiors revolt in order that they may
be equal, (30) and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of
mind which creates revolutions. The motives for making them are the
desire of gain and honour, or the fear of dishonour and loss; the authors
of them want to divert punishment or dishonour from themselves or
their friends. The causes and reasons of revolutions, (35) whereby men are
themselves affected in the way described, and about the things which I
have mentioned, viewed in one way may be regarded as seven, and in
another as more than seven. Two of them have been already noticed;14
but they act in a different manner, for men are excited against one
another by the love of gain and honour—not, as in the case which I have
just supposed, in order to obtain them for themselves, (40) but at seeing
others, justly or unjustly, engrossing them. [1302b] Other causes are
insolence, fear, excessive predominance, contempt, disproportionate
increase in some part of the state; causes of another sort are election
intrigues, carelessness, neglect about trifles, dissimilarity of elements.

3 What share insolence and avarice have in creating revolutions, (5)

and how they work, is plain enough. When the magistrates are insolent
and grasping they conspire against one another and also against the
constitution from which they derive their power, making their gains
either at the expense of individuals or of the public. It is evident, (10)
again, what an influence honour exerts and how it is a cause of
revolution. Men who are themselves dishonoured and who see others
obtaining honours rise in rebellion; the honour or dishonour when
undeserved is unjust; and just when awarded according to merit. Again,
superiority is a cause of revolution when one or more persons have a
power which is too much for the state and the power of the government;
this is a condition of affairs out of which there arises a monarchy, (15) or
a family oligarchy. And therefore, in some places, as at Athens and
Argos, they have recourse to ostracism.15 But how much better to
provide from the first that there should be no such pre-eminent
individuals instead of letting them come into existence and then finding
a remedy. (20)
Another cause of revolution is fear. Either men have committed
wrong, and are afraid of punishment, or they are expecting to suffer
wrong and are desirous of anticipating their enemy. Thus at Rhodes the
notables conspired against the people through fear of the suits that were
brought against them.16 (25) Contempt is also a cause of insurrection and
revolution; for example, in oligarchies—when those who have no share
in the state are the majority, they revolt, because they think that they
are the stronger. Or, again, in democracies, the rich despise the disorder
and anarchy of the state; at Thebes, for example, where, after the battle
of Oenophyta, (30) the bad administration of the democracy led to its
ruin. At Megara the fall of the democracy was due to a defeat occasioned
by disorder and anarchy. And at Syracuse the democracy aroused
contempt before the tyranny of Gelo arose; at Rhodes, before the
insurrection.
Political revolutions also spring from a disproportionate increase in
any part of the state. (35) For as a body is made up of many members, and
every member ought to grow in proportion,17 that symmetry may be
preserved; but loses its nature if the foot be four cubits long and the rest
of the body two spans; and, should the abnormal increase be one of
quality as well as of quantity, (40) may even take the form of another
animal: even so a state has many parts, of which some one may often
grow imperceptibly; for example, the number of poor in democracies
and in constitutional states. [1303a] And this disproportion may
sometimes happen by an accident, as at Tarentum, from a defeat in
which many of the notables were slain in a battle with the Iapygians just
after the Persian War, (5) the constitutional government in consequence
becoming a democracy; or as was the case at Argos, where the Argives,
after their army had been cut to pieces on the seventh day of the month
by Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian, were compelled to admit to
citizenship some of their perioeci; and at Athens, when, after frequent
defeats of their infantry at the time of the Peloponnesian War, the
notables were reduced in number, (10) because the soldiers had to be
taken from the roll of citizens. Revolutions arise from this cause as well,
in democracies as in other forms of government, but not to so great an
extent. When the rich grow numerous or properties increase, the form of
government changes into an oligarchy or a government of families.
Forms of government also change—sometimes even without revolution,
owing to election contests, as at Heraea (where, instead of electing their
magistrates, (15) they took them by lot, because the electors were in the
habit of choosing their own partisans); or owing to carelessness, when
disloyal persons are allowed to find their way into the highest offices, as
at Oreum, where, upon the accession of Heracleodorus to office, the
oligarchy was overthrown, and changed by him into a constitutional and
democratical government.
Again, the revolution may be facilitated by the slightness of the
change; I mean that a great change may sometimes slip into the
constitution through neglect of a small matter; at Ambracia, (20) for
instance, the qualification for office, small at first, was eventually
reduced to nothing. For the Ambraciots thought that a small
qualification was much the same as none at all.
Another cause of revolution is difference of races which do not at once
acquire a common spirit; for a state is not the growth of a day, (25) any
more than it grows out of a multitude brought together by accident.
Hence the reception of strangers in colonies, either at the time of their
foundation or afterwards, has generally produced revolution; for
example, the Achaeans who joined the Troezenians in the foundation of
Sybaris, becoming later the more numerous, (30) expelled them; hence the
curse fell upon Sybaris. At Thurii the Sybarites quarrelled with their
fellow-colonists; thinking that the land belonged to them, they wanted
too much of it and were driven out. At Byzantium the new colonists
were detected in a conspiracy, and were expelled by force of arms; the
people of Antissa, who had received the Chian exiles, fought with them,
and drove them out; and the Zancleans, (35) after having received the
Samians, were driven by them out of their own city. The citizens of
Apollonia on the Euxine, after the introduction of a fresh body of
colonists, had a revolution; the Syracusans, after the expulsion of their
tyrants, having admitted strangers and mercenaries to the rights of
citizenship, quarrelled and came to blows; the people of Amphipolis,
having received Chalcidian colonists, were nearly all expelled by them.
[1303b]
Now, in oligarchies the masses make revolution under the idea that
they are unjustly treated, (5) because, as I said before,18 they are equals,
and have not an equal share, and in democracies the notables revolt,
because they are not equals, and yet have only an equal share.
Again, the situation of cities is a cause of revolution when the country
is not naturally adapted to preserve the unity of the state. For example,
the Chytians at Clazomenae did not agree with the people of the island;
and the people of Colophon quarrelled with the Notians; at Athens too,
(10) the inhabitants of the Piraeus are more democratic than those who

live in the city. For just as in war the impediment of a ditch, though ever
so small, may break a regiment, so every cause of difference, (15)
however slight, makes a breach in a city. The greatest opposition is
confessedly that of virtue and vice; next comes that of wealth and
poverty; and there are other antagonistic elements, greater or less, of
which one is this difference of place.

4 In revolutions the occasions may be trifling, but great interests are

at stake. Even trifles are most important when they concern the rulers,
(20) as was the case of old at Syracuse; for the Syracusan constitution was

once changed by a love-quarrel of two young men, who were in the

government. The story is that while one of them was away from home
his beloved was gained over by his companion, and he to revenge
himself seduced the other’s wife. They then drew the members of the
ruling class into their quarrel and so split all the people into portions. (25)
We learn from this story that we should be on our guard against the
beginnings of such evils, and should put an end to the quarrels of chiefs
and mighty men. The mistake lies in the beginning—as the proverb says
—‘Well begun is half done’; so an error at the beginning, (30) though
quite small, bears the same ratio to the errors in the other parts. In
general, when the notables quarrel, the whole city is involved, as
happened in Hestiaea after the Persian War. The occasion was the
division of an inheritance; one of two brothers refused to give an
account of their father’s property and the treasure which he had found:
so the poorer of the two quarrelled with him and enlisted in his cause
the popular party, (35) the other, who was very rich, the wealthy classes.
At Delphi, again, a quarrel about a marriage was the beginning of all
the troubles which followed. [1304a] In this case the bridegroom,
fancying some occurrence to be of evil omen, came to the bride, and
went away without taking her. Whereupon her relations, thinking that
they were insulted by him, put some of the sacred treasure among his
offerings while he was sacrificing, and then slew him, pretending that he
had been robbing the temple. At Mytilene, (5) too, a dispute about
heiresses was the beginning of many misfortunes, and led to the war
with the Athenians in which Paches took their city. A wealthy citizen,
named Timophanes, left two daughters; Dexander, another citizen,
wanted to obtain them for his sons; but he was rejected in his suit,
whereupon he stirred up a revolution, and instigated the Athenians (of
whom he was proxenus) to interfere. (10) A similar quarrel about an
heiress arose at Phocis between Mnaseas the father of Mnason, and
Euthycrates the father of Onomarchus; this was the beginning of the
Sacred War. A marriage-quarrel was also the cause of a change in the
government of Epidamnus. A certain man betrothed his daughter to a
person whose father, having been made a magistrate, (15) fined the father
of the girl, and the latter, stung by the insult, conspired with the
unenfranchised classes to overthrow the state.
Governments also change into oligarchy or into democracy or into a
constitutional government because the magistrates, or some other
section of the state, increase in power or renown. (20) Thus at Athens the
reputation gained by the court of the Areopagus, in the Persian War,
seemed to tighten the reins of government. On the other hand, the
victory of Salamis,19 which was gained by the common people who
served in the fleet, and won for the Athenians the empire due to
command of the sea, strengthened the democracy. At Argos, (25) the
notables, having distinguished themselves against the Lacedaemonians in
the battle of Mantinea, attempted to put down the democracy. At
Syracuse, the people, having been the chief authors of the victory in the
war with the Athenians, changed the constitutional government into
democracy. At Chalcis, the people, uniting with the notaables, (30) killed
Phoxus the tyrant, and then seized the government. At Ambracia,20 the
people, in like manner, having joined with the conspirators in expelling
the tyrant Periander, transferred the government to themselves. And
generally, it should be remembered that those who have secured power
to the state, whether private citizens, (35) or magistrates, or tribes, or any
other part or section of the state, are apt to cause revolutions. For either
envy of their greatness draws others into rebellion, or they themselves,
in their pride of superiority, are unwilling to remain on a level with
others.
Revolutions also break out when opposite parties, e. g. the rich and
the people, are equally balanced, and there is little or no middle class;
for, if either party were manifestly superior, the other would not risk an
attack upon them. [1304b] And, for this reason, those who are
eminent in virtue usually do not stir up insurrections, always a minority.
Such are the beginnings and causes of the disturbances and revolutions
to which every form of government is liable. (5)
Revolutions are effected in two ways, by force and by fraud. Force
may be applied either at the time of making the revolution or
afterwards. (10) Fraud, again, is of two kinds; for (1) sometimes the
citizens are deceived into acquiescing in a change of government, and
afterwards they are held in subjection against their will. This was what
happened in the case of the Four Hundred, who deceived the people by
telling them that the king would provide money for the war against the
Lacedaemonians, and, having cheated the people, (15) still endeavoured
to retain the government. (2) In other cases the people are persuaded at
first, and afterwards, by a repetition of the persuasion, their goodwill
and allegiance are retained. The revolutions which effect constitutions
generally spring from the above-mentioned causes.21

5 And now, taking each constitution separately, we must see what

follows from the principles already laid down.
Revolutions in democracies are generally caused by the intemperance
of demagogues, (20) who either in their private capacity lay information
against rich men until they compel them to combine (for a common
danger unites even the bitterest enemies), or coming forward in public
stir up the people against them. The truth of this remark is proved by a
variety of examples. (25) At Cos the democracy was overthrown because
wicked demagogues arose, and the notables combined. At Rhodes the
demagogues not only provided pay for the multitude, but prevented
them from making good to the trierarchs the sums which had been
expended by them; and they, (30) in consequence of the suits which were
brought against them, were compelled to combine and put down the
democracy.22 The democracy at Heraclea was overthrown shortly after
the foundation of the colony by the injustice of the demagogues, which
drove out the notables, who came back in a body and put an end to the
democracy. Much in the same manner the democracy at Megara23 was
overturned; there the demagogues drove out many of the notables in
order that they might be able to confiscate their property. (35) At length
the exiles, becoming numerous, returned, and, engaging and defeating
the people, established the oligarchy. [1305a] The same thing
happened with the democracy of Cyme, which was overthrown by
Thrasymachus. And we may observe that in most states the changes have
been of this character. For sometimes the demagogues, in order to curry
favour with the people, wrong the notables and so force them to
combine;—either they make a division of their property, or diminish
their incomes by the imposition of public services, (5) and sometimes
they bring accusations against the rich that they may have their wealth
to confiscate.24
Of old, the demagogue was also a general, and then democracies
changed into tyrannies. Most of the ancient tyrants were originally
demagogues.25 (10) They are not so now, but they were then; and the
reason is that they were generals and not orators, for oratory had not yet
come into fashion. Whereas in our day, when the art of rhetoric has
made such progress, the orators lead the people, but their ignorance of
military matters prevents them from usurping power; at any rate
instances to the contrary are few and slight. (15) Tyrannies were more
common formerly than now, for this reason also, that great power was
placed in the hands of individuals; thus a tyranny arose at Miletus out of
the office of the Prytanis, who had supreme authority in many important
matters.26 Moreover, in those days, when cities were not large, the
people dwelt in the fields, busy at their work; and their chiefs, if they
possessed any military talent, (20) seized the opportunity, and winning
the confidence of the masses by professing their hatred of the wealthy,
they succeeded in obtaining the tyranny. Thus at Athens Peisistratus led
a faction against the men of the plain, and Theagenes at Megara
slaughtered the cattle of the wealthy, which he found by the river side,
where they had put them to graze in land not their own. (25) Dionysius,
again, was thought worthy of the tyranny because he denounced
Daphnaeus and the rich; his enmity to the notables won for him the
confidence of the people. Changes also take place from the ancient to the
latest form of democracy; for where there is a popular election of the
magistrates and no property qualification, (30) the aspirants for office get
hold of the people, and contrive at last even to set them above the laws.
A more or less complete cure for this state of things is for the separate
tribes, and not the whole people, to elect the magistrates.
These are the principal causes of revolutions in democracies. (35)

6 There are two patent causes of revolutions in oligarchies: (1) First,

when the oligarchs oppress the people, for then anybody is good enough
to be their champion, especially if he be himself a member of the
oligarchy, as Lygdamis at Naxos, who afterwards came to be tyrant. (40)
But revolutions which commence outside the governing class may be
further subdivided. [1305b] Sometimes, when the government is very
exclusive, the revolution is brought about by persons of the wealthy
class who are excluded, as happened at Massalia and Istros and
Heraclea, (5) and other cities. Those who had no share in the government
created a disturbance, until first the elder brothers, and then the
younger, were admitted; for in some places father and son, in others
elder and younger brothers, (10) do not hold office together. At Massalia
the oligarchy became more like a constitutional government, but at
Istros ended in a democracy, and at Heraclea was enlarged to 600. At
Cnidos, again, the oligarchy underwent a considerable change. For the
notables fell out among themselves, because only a few shared in the
government; there existed among them the rule already mentioned, (15)
that father and son could not hold office together, and, if there were
several brothers, only the eldest was admitted. The people took
advantage of the quarrel, and choosing one of the notables to be their
leader, attacked and conquered the oligarchs, who were divided, and
division is always a source of weakness. The city of Erythrae, too, in old
times was ruled, (20) and ruled well, by the Basilidae, but the people took
offence at the narrowness of the oligarchy and changed the constitution.
(2) Of internal causes of revolutions in oligarchies one is the personal
rivalry of the oligarchs, which leads them to play the demagogue. Now,
the oligarchical demagogue is of two sorts: either (a) he practises upon
the oligarchs themselves (for, (25) although the oligarchy are quite a
small number, there may be a demagogue among them, as at Athens
Charicles’ party won power by courting the Thirty, that of Phrynichus by
courting the Four Hundred); or (b) the oligarchs may play the
demagogue with the people. This was the case at Larissa, where the
guardians of the citizens endeavoured to gain over the people because
they were elected by them; and such is the fate of all oligarchies in
which the magistrates are elected, (30) as at Abydos, not by the class to
which they belong, but by the heavy-armed or by the people, although
they may be required to have a high qualification, or to be members of a
political club; or, again, where the law-courts are composed of persons
outside the government, (35) the oligarchs flatter the people in order to
obtain a decision in their own favour, and so they change the
constitution; this happened at Heraclea in Pontus. Again, oligarchies
change whenever any attempt is made to narrow them; for then those
who desire equal rights are compelled to call in the people. Changes in
the oligarchy also occur when the oligarchs waste their private property
by extravagant living; for then they want to innovate, (40) and either try
to make themselves tyrants, or install some one else in the tyranny, as
Hipparinus did Dionysius at Syracuse, and as at Amphipolis27 a man
named Cleotimus introduced Chalcidian colonists, and when they
arrived, stirred them up against the rich. [1306a] For a like reason in
Aegina the person who carried on the negotiation with Chares
endeavoured to revolutionize the state. (5) Some-times a party among the
oligarchs try directly to create a political change; sometimes they rob the
treasury, and then either the thieves or, as happened at Apollonia in
Pontus, those who resist them in their thieving quarrel with the rulers.
But an oligarchy which is at unity with itself is not easily destroyed from
within; of this we may see an example at Pharsalus, (10) for there,
although the rulers are few in number, they govern a large city, because
they have a good understanding among themselves.
Oligarchies, again, are overthrown when another oligarchy is created
within the original one, that is to say, when the whole governing body is
small and yet they do not all share in the highest offices. (15) Thus at Elis
the governing body was a small senate; and very few ever found their
way into it, because the senators were only ninety in number, and were
elected for life and out of certain families in a manner similar to the
Lacedaemonian elders. (20) Oligarchy is liable to revolutions alike in war
and in peace; in war because, not being able to trust the people, the
oligarchs are compelled to hire mercenaries, and the general who is in
command of them often ends in becoming a tyrant, as Timophanes did at
Corinth; or if there are more generals than one they make themselves
into a company of tyrants. (25) Sometimes the oligarchs, fearing this
danger, give the people a share in the government because their services
are necessary to them. And in time of peace, from mutual distrust, the
two parties hand over the defence of the state to the army and to an
arbiter between the two factions, who often ends the master of both.
This happened at Larissa when Simos the Aleuad had the government,
and at Abydos in the days of Iphiades and the political clubs. (30)
Revolutions also arise out of marriages or lawsuits which lead to the
overthrow of one party among the oligarchs by another. Of quarrels
about marriages I have already mentioned28 some instances; another
occurred at Eretria, (35) where Diagoras overturned the oligarchy of the
knights because he had been wronged about a marriage. A revolution at
Heraclea, and another at Thebes, both arose out of decisions of law-
courts upon a charge of adultery; in both cases the punishment was just,
but executed in the spirit of party, at Heraclea upon Eurytion, and at
Thebes upon Archias; for their enemies were jealous of them and so had
them pilloried in the agora. [1306b] Many oligarchies have been
destroyed by some members of the ruling class taking offence at their
excessive despotism; for example, (5) the oligarchy at Cnidus and at
Chios.
Changes of constitutional governments, and also of oligarchies which
limit the office of counsellor, judge, or other magistrate to persons
having a certain money qualification, often occur by accident. The
qualification may have been originally fixed according to the
circumstances of the time, (10) in such a manner as to include in an
oligarchy a few only, or in a constitutional government the middle class.
But after a time of prosperity, whether arising from peace or some other
good fortune, the same property becomes many times as valuable, and
then everybody participates in every office; this happens sometimes
gradually and insensibly, (15) and sometimes quickly. These are the
causes of changes and revolutions in oligarchies.
We must remark generally, both of democracies and oligarchies, that
they sometimes change, not into the opposite forms of government, but
only into another variety of the same class; I mean to say, (20) from those
forms of democracy and oligarchy which are regulated by law into those
which are arbitrary, and conversely.

7 In aristocracies revolutions are stirred up when a few only share in

the honours of the state; a cause which has been already shown29 to
affect oligarchies; for an aristocracy is a sort of oligarchy, (25) and, like an
oligarchy, is the government of a few, although few not for the same
reason; hence the two are often confounded. And revolutions will be
most likely to happen, and must happen, when the mass of the people
are of the high-spirited kind, and have a notion that they are as good as
their rulers. Thus at Lacedaemon the so-called Partheniae, (30) who were
the sons30 of the Spartan peers, attempted a revolution, and, being
detected, were sent away to colonize Tarentum. Again, revolutions occur
when great men who are at least of equal merit are dishonoured by
those higher in office, as Lysander was by the kings of Sparta; or, when a
brave man is excluded from the honours of the state, (35) like Cinadon,
who conspired against the Spartans in the reign of Agesilaus; or, again,
when some are very poor and others very rich, a state of society which is
most often the result of war, as at Lacedaemon in the days of the
Messenian War; this is proved from the poem of Tyrtaeus, entitled ‘Good
Order’; for he speaks of certain citizens who were ruined by the war and
wanted to have a redistribution of the land. [1307a] Again,
revolutions arise when an individual who is great, and might be greater,
wants to rule alone, as, at Lacedaemon, Pausanias, who was general in
the Persian War, or like Hanno at Carthage. (5)
Constitutional governments and aristocracies are commonly
overthrown owing to some deviation from justice in the constitution
itself; the cause of the downfall is, in the former, the ill-mingling of the
two elements democracy and oligarchy; in the latter, of the three
elements, democracy, oligarchy, and virtue, but especially democracy
and oligarchy. (10) For to combine these is the endeavour of
constitutional governments; and most of the so-called aristocracies have
a like aim,31 but differ from polities in the mode of combination; hence
some of them are more and some less permanent. Those which incline
more to oligarchy are called aristocracies, (15) and those which incline to
democracy constitutional governments. And therefore the latter are the
safer of the two; for the greater the number, the greater the strength,
and when men are equal they are contented. But the rich, if the
constitution gives them power, are apt to be insolent and avaricious;
and, (20) in general, whichever way the constitution inclines, in that
direction it changes as either party gains strength, a constitutional
government becoming a democracy, an aristocracy an oligarchy. But the
process may be reversed, and aristocracy may change into democracy.
This happens when the poor, under the idea that they are being
wronged, force the constitution to take an opposite form. In like manner
constitutional governments change into oligarchies. (25) The only stable
principle of government is equality according to proportion, and for
every man to enjoy his own.
What I have just mentioned actually happened at Thurii,32 where the
qualification for office, at first high, was therefore reduced, and the
magistrates increased in number. The notables had previously acquired
the whole of the land contrary to law; for the government tended to
oligarchy, (30) and they were able to encroach.… But the people, who
had been trained by war, soon got the better of the guards kept by the
oligarchs, until those who had too much gave up their land.
Again, since all aristocratical governments incline to oligarchy, the
notables are apt to be grasping; thus at Lacedaemon, (35) where property
tends to pass into few hands,33 the notables can do too much as they
like, and are allowed to marry whom they please. The city of Locri was
ruined by a marriage connexion with Dionysius, but such a thing could
never have happened in a democracy, or in a well-balanced aristocracy.
I have already remarked that in all states revolutions are occasioned
by trifles.34 (40) In aristocracies, above all, they are of a gradual and
imperceptible nature. [1307b] The citizens begin by giving up some
part of the constitution, and so with greater ease the government change
something else which is a little more important, (5) until they have
undermined the whole fabric of the state. At Thurii there was a law that
generals should only be re-elected after an interval of five years, and
some young men who were popular with the soldiers of the guard for
their military prowess, despising the magistrates and thinking that they
would easily gain their purpose, (10) wanted to abolish this law and allow
their generals to hold perpetual commands; for they well knew that the
people would be glad enough to elect them. Whereupon the magistrates
who had charge of these matters, and who are called councillors, at first
determined to resist, but they afterwards consented, (15) thinking that, if
only this one law was changed, no further inroad would be made on the
constitution. But other changes soon followed which they in vain
attempted to oppose; and the state passed into the hands of the
revolutionists, who established a dynastic oligarchy.
All constitutions are overthrown either from within or from without;
the latter, (20) when there is some government close at hand having an
opposite interest, or at a distance, but powerful. This was exemplified in
the old times of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians; the Athenians
everywhere put down the oligarchies, and the Lacedaemonians the
democracies.35
I have now explained what are the chief causes of revolutions and
dissensions in states. (25)

8 We have next to consider what means there are of preserving

constitutions in general, and in particular cases. In the first place it is
evident that if we know the causes which destroy constitutions, we also
know the causes which preserve them; for opposites produce opposites,
and destruction is the opposite of preservation.36
In all well-attempered governments there is nothing which should be
more jealously maintained than the spirit of obedience to law, (30) more
especially in small matters; for transgression creeps in unperceived and
at last ruins the state, just as the constant recurrence of small expenses
in time eats up a fortune. The expense does not take place all at once, (35)
and therefore is not observed; the mind is deceived, as in the fallacy
which says that ‘if each part is little, then the whole is little’. And this is
true in one way, but not in another, for the whole and the all are not
little, although they are made up of littles.
In the first place, then, men should guard against the beginning of
change, (40) and in the second place they should not rely upon the
political devices of which I have already spoken37 invented only to
deceive the people, for they are proved by experience to be useless.
[1308a] Further, we note that oligarchies as well as aristocracies may
last, not from any inherent stability in such forms of government, but
because the rulers are on good terms both with the unenfranchised and
with the governing classes, (5) not maltreating any who are excluded
from the government, but introducing into it the leading spirits among
them.38 They should never wrong the ambitious in a matter of honour,
or the common people in a matter of money; and they should treat one
another and their fellow-citizens in a spirit of equality. (10) The equality
which the friends of democracy seek to establish for the multitude is not
only just but likewise expedient among equals. Hence, if the governing
class are numerous, many democratic institutions are useful; for
example, (15) the restriction of the tenure of offices to six months, that all
those who are of equal rank may share in them. Indeed, equals or peers
when they are numerous become a kind of democracy, and therefore
demagogues are very likely to arise among them, as I have already
remarked.39 The short tenure of office prevents oligarchies and
aristocracies from falling into the hands of families; it is not easy for a
person to do any great harm when his tenure of office is short, (20)
whereas long possession begets tyranny in oligarchies and democracies.
For the aspirants to tyranny are either the principal men of the state,
who in democracies are demagogues and in oligarchies members of
ruling houses, or those who hold great offices, and have a long tenure of
them.40
Constitutions are preserved when their destroyers are at a distance, (25)
and sometimes also because they are near, for the fear of them makes
the government keep in hand the constitution. Wherefore the ruler who
has a care of the constitution should invent terrors, and bring distant
dangers near, in order that the citizens may be on their guard, and, like
sentinels in a night-watch, never relax their attention. He should
endeavour too by help of the laws to control the contentions and
quarrels of the notables, (30) and to prevent those who have not hitherto
taken part in them from catching the spirit of contention. No ordinary
man can discern the beginning of evil,41 but only the true statesman.
As to the change produced in oligarchies and constitutional
governments42 by the alteration of the qualification, (35) when this arises,
not out of any variation in the qualification but only out of the increase
of money, it is well to compare the general valuation of property with
that of past years, annually in those cities in which the census is taken
annually, (40) and in larger cities every third or fifth year. [1308b] If
the whole is many times greater or many times less than when the
ratings recognized by the constitution were fixed, there should be power
given by law to raise or lower the qualification as the amount is greater
or less. (5) Where this is not done a constitutional government passes into
an oligarchy, and an oligarchy is narrowed to a rule of families; or in the
opposite case constitutional government becomes democracy, and
oligarchy either constitutional government or democracy.
It is a principle common to democracy, (10) oligarchy, and every other
form of government not to allow the disproportionate increase of any
citizen, but to give moderate honour for a long time rather than great
honour for a short time. For men are easily spoilt; not every one can
bear prosperity. (15) But if this rule is not observed, at any rate the
honours which are given all at once should be taken away by degrees
and not all at once. Especially should the laws provide against any one
having too much power, whether derived from friends or money; if he
has, (20) he should be sent clean out of the country.43 And since
innovations creep in through the private life of individuals also, there
ought to be a magistracy which will have an eye to those whose life is
not in harmony with the government, whether oligarchy or democracy
or any other. And for a like reason an increase of prosperity in any part
of the state should be carefully watched. (25) The proper remedy for this
evil is always to give the management of affairs and offices of state to
opposite elements; such opposites are the virtuous and the many, or the
rich and the poor. Another way is to combine the poor and the rich in
one body, or to increase the middle class: thus an end will be put to the
revolutions which arise from inequality. (30)
But above all every state should be so administered and so regulated
by law that its magistrates cannot possibly make money.44 In oligarchies
special precautions should be used against this evil. For the people do
not take any great offence at being kept out of the government—indeed
they are rather pleased than otherwise at having leisure for their private
business—but what irritates them is to think that their rulers are stealing
the public money; then they are doubly annoyed; for they lose both
honour and profit. (35) If office brought no profit, then and then only
could democracy and aristocracy be combined; (40) for both notables and
people might have their wishes gratified. [1309a] All would be able to
hold office, which is the aim of democracy, and the notables would be
magistrates, which is the aim of aristocracy. And this result may be
accomplished when there is no possibility of making money out of the
offices; for the poor will not want to have them when there is nothing to
be gained from them—they would rather be attending to their own
concerns; and the rich, (5) who do not want money from the public
treasury, will be able to take them; and so the poor will keep to their
work and grow rich, and the notables will not be governed by the lower
class. In order to avoid peculation of the public money, (10) the transfer
of the revenue should be made at a general assembly of the citizens, and
duplicates of the accounts deposited with the different brotherhoods,
companies, and tribes. And honours should be given by law to
magistrates who have the reputation of being incorruptible. In
democracies the rich should be spared; not only should their property
not be divided, (15) but their incomes also, which in some states are taken
from them imperceptibly, should be protected. It is a good thing to
prevent the wealthy citizens, even if they are willing, from undertaking
expensive and useless public services, such as the giving of choruses,
torch-races, and the like. In an oligarchy, on the other hand, great care
should be taken of the poor, (20) and lucrative offices should go to them;
if any of the wealthy classes insult them, the offender should be
punished more severely than if he had wronged one of his own class.
Provision should be made that estates pass by inheritance and not by
gift, and no person should have more than one inheritance; for in this
way properties will be equalized, (25) and more of the poor rise to
competency. It is also expedient both in a democracy and in an oligarchy
to assign to those who have less share in the government (i. e. to the rich
in a democracy and to the poor in an oligarchy) an equality or
preference in all but the principal offices of state. (30) The latter should
be entrusted chiefly or only to members of the governing class.

9 There are three qualifications required in those who have to fill the
highest offices—(1) first of all, loyalty to the established constitution; (2)
the greatest administrative capacity; (3) virtue and justice of the kind
proper to each form of government; for, (35) if what is just is not the same
in all governments, the quality of justice must also differ. There may be
a doubt, however, when all these qualities do not meet in the same
person, how the selection is to be made; suppose, (40) for example, a good
general is a bad man and not a friend to the constitution, and another
man is loyal and just, which should we choose? In making the election
ought we not to consider two points? what qualities are common, and
what are rare. [1309b] Thus in the choice of a general, we should
regard his skill rather than his virtue; for few have military skill, (5) but
many have virtue. In any office of trust or stewardship, on the other
hand, the opposite rule should be observed; for more virtue than
ordinary is required in the holder of such an office, but the necessary
knowledge is of a sort which all men possess.
It may, however, be asked what a man wants with virtue if he have
political ability and is loyal, (10) since these two qualities alone will make
him do what is for the public interest. But may not men have both of
them and yet be deficient in self-control? If, knowing and loving their
own interests, they do not always attend to them, may they not be
equally negligent of the interests of the public?
Speaking generally, we may say that whatever legal enactments are
held to be for the interest of various constitutions, (15) all these preserve
them. And the great preserving principle is the one which has been
repeatedly mentioned45—to have a care that the loyal citizens should be
stronger than the disloyal. Neither should we forget the mean, which at
the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for
many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of
democracies, (20) and many which appear to be oligarchical are the ruin
of oligarchies. Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own
party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that
disproportion destroys a state. A nose which varies from the ideal of
straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable
to the eye; but if the excess be very great, (25) all symmetry is lost, and
the nose at last ceases to be a nose at all on account of some excess in
one direction or defect in the other; and this is true of every other part
of the human body. (30) The same law of proportion equally holds in
states. Oligarchy or democracy, although a departure from the most
perfect form, may yet be a good enough government, but if any one
attempts to push the principles of either to an extreme, he will begin by
spoiling the government and end by having none at all. (35) Wherefore
the legislator and the statesman ought to know what democratical
measures save and what destroy a democracy, and what oligarchical
measures save or destroy an oligarchy. For neither the one nor the other
can exist or continue to exist unless both rich and poor are included in
it. If equality of property is introduced, (40) the state must of necessity
take another form; for when by laws carried to excess one or other
element in the state is ruined, the constitution is ruined. [1310a]
 There is an error common both to oligarchies and to democracies:—in
the latter the demagogues, when the multitude are above the law, (5) are
always cutting the city in two by quarrels with the rich, whereas they
should always profess to be maintaining their cause; just as in
oligarchies the oligarchs should profess to maintain the cause of the
people, and should take oaths the opposite of those which they now
take. For there are cities in which they swear—‘I will be an enemy to the
people, and will devise all the harm against them which I can’; But they
ought to exhibit and to entertain the very opposite feeling; in the form of
their oath there should be an express declaration—‘I will do no wrong to
the people. (10)’
But of all the things which I have mentioned that which most
contributes to the permanence of constitutions is the adaptation of
education to the form of government,46 and yet in our own day this
principle is universally neglected. The best laws, (15) though sanctioned
by every citizen of the state, will be of no avail unless the young are
trained by habit and education in the spirit of the constitution, if the
laws are democratical, democratically, or oligarchically, if the laws are
oligarchical. For there may be a want of self-discipline in states as well
as in individuals. Now, to have been educated in the spirit of the
constitution is not to perform the actions in which oligarchs or
democrats delight, (20) but those by which the existence of an oligarchy
or of a democracy is made possible. Whereas among ourselves the sons
of the ruling class in an oligarchy live in luxury,47 but the sons of the
poor are hardened by exercise and toil, and hence they are both more
inclined and better able to make a revolution.48 And in democracies of
the more extreme type there has arisen a false idea of freedom which is
contradictory to the true interests of the state. (25) For two principles are
characteristic of democracy, the government of the majority and
freedom. Men think that what is just is equal; and that equality is the
supremacy of the popular will; and that freedom means the doing what a
man likes. (30) In such democracies every one lives as he pleases, or in
the words of Euripides, ‘according to his fancy’. But this is all wrong;
men should not think it slavery to live according to the rule of the
constitution; for it is their salvation. (35)
I have now discussed generally the causes of the revolution and
destruction of states, and the means of their preservation and
continuance.

10 I have still to speak of monarchy, and the causes of its destruction

and preservation. (40) What I have said already respecting forms of
constitutional government applies almost equally to royal and to
tyrannical rule. [1310b] For royal rule is of the nature of an
aristocracy, and a tyranny is a compound of oligarchy and democracy in
their most extreme forms; it is therefore most injurious to its subjects, (5)
being made up of two evil forms of government, and having the
perversions and errors of both. These two forms of monarchy are
contrary in their very origin. The appointment of a king is the resource
of the better classes against the people, (10) and he is elected by them out
of their own number, because either he himself or his family excel in
virtue and virtuous actions; whereas a tyrant is chosen from the people
to be their protector against the notables, and in order to prevent them
from being injured. History shows that almost all tyrants have been
demagogues who gained the favour of the people by their accusation of
the notables.49 (15) At any rate this was the manner in which the
tyrannies arose in the days when cities had increased in power. Others
which were older originated in the ambition of kings wanting to
overstep the limits of their hereditary power and become despots. (20)
Others again grew out of the class which were chosen to be chief
magistrates; for in ancient times the people who elected them gave the
magistrates, whether civil or religious, a long tenure. Others arose out of
the custom which oligarchies had of making some individual supreme
over the highest offices. In any of these ways an ambitious man had no
difficulty, (25) if he desired, in creating a tyranny, since he had the power
in his hands already, either as king or as one of the officers of state.50
Thus Pheidon at Argos and several others were originally kings, and
ended by becoming tyrants; Phalaris, on the other hand, and the Ionian
tyrants, acquired the tyranny by holding great offices. (30) Whereas
Panaetius at Leontini, Cypselus at Corinth, Peisistratus at Athens,
Dionysius at Syracuse, and several others who afterwards became
tyrants, were at first demagogues.
 And so, as I was saying,51 royalty ranks with aristocracy, for it is based
upon merit, whether of the individual or of his family, or on benefits
conferred,52 or on these claims with power added to them. (35) For all
who have obtained this honour have benefited, or had in their power to
benefit, states and nations; some, like Codrus, have prevented the state
from being enslaved in war; others, like Cyrus, have given their country
freedom, or have settled or gained a territory, (40) like the
Lacedaemonian, Macedonian, and Molossian kings. [1311a] The idea
of a king is to be a protector of the rich against unjust treatment, of the
people against insult and oppression. Whereas a tyrant, as has often been
repeated,53 has no regard to any public interest, except as conducive to
his private ends; his aim is pleasure, the aim of a king, (5) honour.
Wherefore also in their desires they differ; the tyrant is desirous of
riches, the king, of what brings honour. And the guards of a king are
citizens, but of a tyrant mercenaries.54
That tyranny has all the vices both of democracy and oligarchy is
evident. As of oligarchy so of tyranny, the end is wealth; (for by wealth
only can the tyrant maintain either his guard or his luxury). (10) Both
mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms. Both
agree too in injuring the people and driving them out of the city and
dispersing them. From democracy tyrants have borrowed the art of
making war upon the notables and destroying them secretly or openly,
(15) or of exiling them because they are rivals and stand in the way of

their power; and also because plots against them are contrived by men of
this class, who either want to rule or to escape subjection. (20) Hence
Periander advised Thrasybulus55 by cutting off the tops of the tallest ears
of corn, meaning that he must always put out of the way the citizens
who overtop the rest. And so, as I have already intimated,56 the
beginnings of change are the same in monarchies as in forms of
constitutional government; subjects attack their sovereigns out of fear or
contempt, (25) or because they have been unjustly treated by them. And
of injustice, the most common form is insult, another is confiscation of
property.
The ends sought by conspiracies against monarchies, whether
tyrannies or royalties, are the same as the ends sought by conspiracies
against other forms of government. Monarchs have great wealth and
honour, (30) which are objects of desire to all mankind. The attacks are
made sometimes against their lives, sometimes against the office; where
the sense of insult is the motive, against their lives. Any sort of insult
(and there are many) may stir up anger, and when men are angry, they
commonly act out of revenge, and not from ambition. For example, (35)
the attempt made upon the Peisistratidae arose out of the public
dishonour offered to the sister of Harmodius and the insult to himself.
He attacked the tyrant for his sister’s sake, and Aristogeiton joined in the
attack for the sake of Harmodius. A conspiracy was also formed against
Periander, the tyrant of Ambracia, because, (40) when drinking with a
favourite youth, he asked him whether by this time he was not with
child by him. [1311b] Philip, too, was attacked by Pausanias because
he permitted him to be insulted by Attalus and his friends, and Amyntas
the little, by Derdas, because he boasted of having enjoyed his youth.
Evagoras of Cyprus, again, was slain by the eunuch to revenge an insult;
for his wife had been carried off by Evagoras’s son. (5) Many conspiracies
have originated in shameful attempts made by sovereigns on the persons
of their subjects. Such was the attack of Crataeas upon Archelaus; he had
always hated the connexion with him, and so, when Archelaus, having
promised him one of his two daughters in marriage, (10) did not give him
either of them, but broke his word and married the elder to the king of
Elymeia, when he was hard pressed in a war against Sirrhas and
Arrhabaeus, and the younger to his own son Amyntas, under the idea
that Amyntas would then be less likely to quarrel with his son by
Cleopatra—Crataeas made this slight a pretext for attacking Archelaus,
(15) though even a less reason would have sufficed, for the real cause of

the estrangement was the disgust which he felt at his connexion with the
king. And from a like motive Hellanocrates of Larissa conspired with
him; for when Archelaus, who was his lover, did not fulfil his promise of
restoring him to his country, he thought that the connexion between
them had originated, not in affection, (20) but in the wantonness of
power. Pytho, too, and Heracleides of Aenos, slew Cotys in order to
avenge their father, and Adamas revolted from Cotys in revenge for the
wanton outrage which he had committed in mutilating him when a
child.
Many, too, irritated at blows inflicted on the person which they
deemed an insult, (25) have either killed or attempted to kill officers of
state and royal princes by whom they have been injured. Thus, at
Mytilene, Megacles and his friends attacked and slew the Penthilidae, as
they were going about and striking people with clubs. At a later date
Smerdis, who had been beaten and torn away from his wife by Penthilus,
(30) slew him. In the conspiracy against Archelaus, Decamnichus

stimulated the fury of the assassins and led the attack; he was enraged
because Archelaus had delivered him to Euripides to be scourged; for the
poet had been irritated at some remark made by Decamnichus on the
foulness of his breath. (35) Many other examples might be cited of
murders and conspiracies which have arisen from similar causes.
Fear is another motive which, as we have said,57 has caused
conspiracies as well in monarchies as in more popular forms of
government. Thus Artapanes conspired against Xerxes and slew him,
fearing that he would be accused of hanging Darius against his orders—
he having been under the impression that Xerxes would forget what he
had said in the middle of a meal, and that the offence would be forgiven.
(40)

Another motive is contempt, as in the case of Sardanapalus, whom

some one saw carding wool with his women, if the story-tellers say truly;
and the tale may be true, if not of him, of some one else.58 [1312a]
Dion attacked the younger Dionysius because he despised him, (5) and
saw that he was equally despised by his own subjects, and that he was
always drunk. Even the friends of a tyrant will sometimes attack him out
of contempt; for the confidence which he reposes in them breeds
contempt, and they think that they will not be found out. The
expectation of success is likewise a sort of contempt; the assailants are
ready to strike, and think nothing of the danger, (10) because they seem
to have the power in their hands. Thus generals of armies attack
monarchs; as, for example, Cyrus attacked Astyages, despising the
effeminacy of his life, and believing that his power was worn out. Thus
again, Seuthes the Thracian conspired against Amadocus, whose general
he was.
And sometimes men are actuated by more than one motive, (15) like
Mithridates, who conspired against Ariobarzanes, partly out of contempt
and partly from the love of gain.
 Bold natures, placed by their sovereigns in a high military position,
are most likely to make the attempt in the expectation of success; for
courage is emboldened by power, and the union of the two inspires them
with the hope of an easy victory. (20)
Attempts of which the motive is ambition arise in a different way as
well as in those already mentioned. There are men who will not risk
their lives in the hope of gains and honours however great, (25) but who
nevertheless regard the killing of a tyrant simply as an extraordinary
action which will make them famous and honourable in the world; they
wish to acquire, not a kingdom, but a name. It is rare, (30) however, to
find such men; he who would kill a tyrant must be prepared to lose his
life if he fail. He must have the resolution of Dion, who, when he made
war upon Dionysius, took with him very few troops, (35) saying ‘that
whatever measure of success he might attain would be enough for him,
even if he were to die the moment he landed; such a death would be
welcome to him’. But this is a temper to which few can attain.
Once more, tyrannies, like all other governments, (40) are destroyed
from without by some opposite and more powerful form of government.
[1312b] That such a government will have the will to attack them is
clear; for the two are opposed in principle; and all men, if they can, do
what they will. Democracy is antagonistic to tyranny, on the principle of
Hesiod, ‘Potter hates Potter’, because they are nearly akin, for the
extreme form of democracy is tyranny; and royalty and aristocracy are
both alike opposed to tyranny, (5) because they are constitutions of a
different type. And therefore the Lacedaemonians put down most of the
tyrannies, and so did the Syracusans during the time when they were
well governed.
Again, tyrannies are destroyed from within, when the reigning family
are divided among themselves, as that of Gelo was, (10) and more
recently that of Dionysius; in the case of Gelo because Thrasybulus, the
brother of Hiero, flattered the son of Gelo and led him into excesses in
order that he might rule in his name. Whereupon the family got together
a party to get rid of Thrasybulus and save the tyranny; but those of the
people who conspired with them seized the opportunity and drove them
all out. (15) In the case of Dionysius, Dion, his own relative, attacked and
expelled him with the assistance of the people; he afterwards perished
himself.
There are two chief motives which induce men to attack tyrannies—
hatred and contempt. (20) Hatred of tyrants is inevitable, and contempt is
also a frequent cause of their destruction. Thus we see that most of those
who have acquired, have retained their power, but those who have
inherited,59 have lost it, almost at once; for, living in luxurious ease,
they have become contemptible, and offer many opportunities to their
assailants. (25) Anger, too, must be included under hatred, and produces
the same effects. It is oftentimes even more ready to strike—the angry
are more impetuous in making an attack, for they do not follow rational
principle. And men are very apt to give way to their passions when they
are insulted. (30) To this cause is to be attributed the fall of the
Peisistratidae and of many others. Hatred is more reasonable, for anger
is accompanied by pain, which is an impediment to reason, whereas
hatred is painless.60
In a word, all the causes which I have mentioned61 as destroying the
last and most unmixed form of oligarchy, (35) and the extreme form of
democracy, may be assumed to affect tyranny; indeed the extreme forms
of both are only tyrannies distributed among several persons. Kingly rule
is little affected by external causes, (40) and is therefore lasting; it is
generally destroyed from within. [1313a] And there are two ways in
which the destruction may come about; (1) when the members of the
royal family quarrel among themselves, and (2) when the kings attempt
to administer the state too much after the fashion of a tyranny, and to
extend their authority contrary to the law. Royalties do not now come
into existence; where such forms of government arise, (5) they are rather
monarchies or tyrannies. For the rule of a king is over voluntary
subjects, and he is supreme in all important matters; but in our own day
men are more upon an equality, and no one is so immeasurably superior
to others as to represent adequately the greatness and dignity of the
office. Hence mankind will not, if they can help, (10) endure it, and any
one who obtains power by force or fraud is at once thought to be a
tyrant. In hereditary monarchies a further cause of destruction is the fact
that kings often fall into contempt, and, although possessing not
tyrannical power, but only royal dignity, are apt to outrage others. Their
overthrow is then readily effected; for there is an end to the king when
his subjects do not want to have him, (15) but the tyrant lasts, whether
they like him or not.
The destruction of monarchies is to be attributed to these and the like
causes.

11 And they are preserved, to speak generally, by the opposite causes;

or, if we consider them separately, (1) royalty is preserved by the
limitation of its powers. The more restricted the functions of kings, (20)
the longer their power will last unimpaired; for then they are more
moderate and not so despotic in their ways; and they are less envied by
their subjects. This is the reason why the kingly office has lasted so long
among the Molossians. And for a similar reason it has continued among
the Lacedaemonians, (25) because there it was always divided between
two, and afterwards further limited by Theopompus in various respects,
more particularly by the establishment of the Ephoralty. He diminished
the power of the kings, but established on a more lasting basis the kingly
office, which was thus made in a certain sense not less, but greater.
There is a story that when his wife once asked him whether he was not
ashamed to leave to his sons a royal power which was less than he had
inherited from his father, (30) ‘No indeed,’ he replied, ‘for the power
which I leave to them will be more lasting.’
As to (2) tyrannies, they are preserved in two most opposite ways. One
of them is the old traditional method in which most tyrants administer
their government. (35) Of such arts Periander of Corinth is said to have
been the great master, and many similar devices may be gathered from
the Persians in the administration of their government. There are firstly
the prescriptions mentioned some distance back,62 for the preservation
of a tyranny, in so far as this is possible; viz. that the tyrant should lop
off those who are too high; he must put to death men of spirit; he must
not allow common meals, (40) clubs, education, and the like; he must be
upon his guard against anything which is likely to inspire either courage
or confidence among his subjects; he must prohibit literary assemblies or
other meetings for discussion, and he must take every means to prevent
people from knowing one another (for acquaintance begets mutual
confidence). [1313b] Further, (5) he must compel all persons staying in
the city to appear in public and live at his gates; then he will know what
they are doing: if they are always kept under, they will learn to be
humble. In short, he should practise these and the like Persian and
barbaric arts, which all have the same object. (10) A tyrant should also
endeavour to know what each of his subjects says or does, and should
employ spies, like the ‘female detectives’ at Syracuse, and the
eavesdroppers whom Hiero was in the habit of sending to any place of
resort or meeting; for the fear of informers prevents people from
speaking their minds, (15) and if they do, they are more easily found out.
Another art of the tyrant is to sow quarrels among the citizens; friends
should be embroiled with friends, the people with the notables, and the
rich with one another. Also he should impoverish his subjects; he thus
provides against the maintenance of a guard by the citizens, (20) and the
people, having to keep hard at work, are prevented from, conspiring.
The Pyramids of Egypt afford an example of this policy; also the
offerings of the family of Cypselus, and the building of the temple of
Olympian Zeus by the Peisistratidae, and the great Polycratean
monuments at Samos; all these works were alike intended to occupy the
people and keep them poor. (25) Another practice of tyrants is to multiply
taxes, after the manner of Dionysius at Syracuse, who contrived that
within five years his subjects should bring into the treasury their whole
property. The tyrant is also fond of making war in order that his subjects
may have something to do and be always in want of a leader. (30) And
whereas the power of a king is preserved by his friends, the
characteristic of a tyrant is to distrust his friends, because he knows that
all men want to overthrow him, and they above all have the power.
Again, the evil practices of the last and worst form of democracy63 are
all found in tyrannies. Such are the power given to women in their
families in the hope that they will inform against their husbands, and the
licence which is allowed to slaves in order that they may betray their
masters; for slaves and women do not conspire against tyrants; and they
are of course friendly to tyrannies and also to democracies, (35) since
under them they have a good time. For the people too would fain be a
monarch, and therefore by them, as well as by the tyrant, (40) the
flatterer is held in honour; in democracies he is the demagogue; and the
tyrant also has those who associate with him in a humble spirit, which is
a work of flattery. [1314a]
Hence tyrants are always fond of bad men, because they love to be
flattered, but no man who has the spirit of a freeman in him will lower
himself by flattery; good men love others, or at any rate do not flatter
them. Moreover, the bad are useful for bad purposes; ‘nail knocks out
nail’, (5) as the proverb says. It is characteristic of a tyrant to dislike
every one who has dignity or independence; he wants to be alone in his
glory, but any one who claims a like dignity or asserts his independence
encroaches upon his prerogative, and is hated by him as an enemy to his
power. Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than
citizens, (10) and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one
are enemies, but the others enter into no rivalry with him.
Such are the notes of the tyrant and the arts by which he preserves his
power; there is no wickedness too great for him. All that we have said
may be summed up under three heads, which answer to the three aims
of the tyrant. (15) These are, (1) the humiliation of his subjects; he knows
that a mean-spirited man will not conspire against anybody: (2) the
creation of mistrust among them; for a tyrant is not overthrown until
men begin to have confidence in one another; and this is the reason why
tyrants are at war with the good; they are under the idea that their
power is endangered by them, (20) not only because they will not be ruled
despotically, but also because they are loyal to one another, and to other
men, and do not inform against one another or against other men: (3)
the tyrant desires that his subjects shall be incapable of action, for no
one attempts what is impossible, and they will not attempt to overthrow
a tyranny, if they are powerless. Under these three heads the whole
policy of a tyrant may be summed up, (25) and to one or other of them all
his ideas may be referred: (1) he sows distrust among his subjects; (2) he
takes away their power; (3) he humbles them.
This then is one of the two methods by which tyrannies are preserved;
and there is another which proceeds upon an almost opposite principle
of action. (30) The nature of this latter method may be gathered from a
comparison of the causes which destroy kingdoms, for as one mode of
destroying kingly power is to make the office of king more tyrannical, so
the salvation of a tyranny is to make it more like the rule of a king. But
of one thing the tyrant must be careful; he must keep power enough to
rule over his subjects, (35) whether they like him or not, for if he once
gives this up he gives up his tyranny. But though power must be retained
as the foundation, in all else the tyrant should act or appear to act in the
character of a king. In the first place he should pretend a care of the
public revenues, (40) and not waste money in making presents of a sort at
which the common people get excited when they see their hard-won
earnings snatched from them and lavished on courtesans and strangers
and artists. [1314b] He should give an account of what he receives
and of what he spends (a practice which has been adopted by some
tyrants); for then he will seem to be a steward of the public rather than a
tyrant; nor need he fear that, (5) while he is the lord of the city, he will
ever be in want of money. Such a policy is at all events much more
advantageous for the tyrant when he goes from home, (10) than to leave
behind him a hoard, for then the garrison who remain in the city will be
less likely to attack his power; and a tyrant, when he is absent from
home, has more reason to fear the guardians of his treasure than the
citizens, for the one accompany him, but the others remain behind. In
the second place, he should be seen to collect taxes and to require public
services only for state purposes, (15) and that he may form a fund in case
of war, and generally he ought to make himself the guardian and
treasurer of them, as if they belonged, not to him, but to the public. He
should appear, not harsh, but dignified, and when men meet him they
should look upon him with reverence, (20) and not with fear. Yet it is
hard for him to be respected if he inspires no respect, and therefore
whatever virtues he may neglect, at least he should maintain the
character of a great soldier, and produce the impression that he is one.
Neither he nor any of his associates should ever be guilty of the least
offence against modesty towards the young of either sex who are his
subjects, (25) and the women of his family should observe a like self-
control towards other women; the insolence of women has ruined many
tyrannies. In the indulgence of pleasures he should be the opposite of
our modern tyrants, who not only begin at dawn and pass whole days in
sensuality, (30) but want other men to see them, that they may admire
their happy and blessed lot. In these things a tyrant should if possible be
moderate, or at any rate should not parade his vices to the world; for a
drunken and drowsy tyrant is soon despised and attacked; not so he who
is temperate and wide awake. (35) His conduct should be the very reverse
of nearly everything which has been said before64 about tyrants. He
ought to adorn and improve his city, as though he were not a tyrant, but
the guardian of the state. Also he should appear to be particularly
earnest in the service of the Gods; for if men think that a ruler is
religious and has a reverence for the Gods, (40) they are less afraid of
suffering injustice at his hands, and they are less disposed to conspire
against him, because they believe him to have the very Gods fighting on
his side. [1315a] At the same time his religion must not be thought
foolish. (5) And he should honour men of merit, and make them think
that they would not be held in more honour by the citizens if they had a
free government. The honour he should distribute himself, but the
punishment should be inflicted by officers and courts of law. It is a
precaution which is taken by all monarchs not to make one person great;
but if one, then two or more should be raised, that they may look
sharply after one another. If after all some one has to be made great, (10)
he should not be a man of bold spirit; for such dispositions are ever most
inclined to strike. And if any one is to be deprived of his power, let it be
diminished gradually, not taken from him all at once.65 The tyrant
should abstain from all outrage; in particular from personal violence and
from wanton conduct towards the young. (15) He should be especially
careful of his behaviour to men who are lovers of honour; for as the
lovers of money are offended when their property is touched, so are the
lovers of honour and the virtuous when their honour is affected. (20)
Therefore a tyrant ought either not to commit such acts at all; or he
should be thought only to employ fatherly correction, and not to trample
upon others—and his acquaintance with youth should be supposed to
arise from affection, and not from the insolence of power, and in general
he should compensate the appearance of dishonour by the increase of
honour.
Of those who attempt assassination they are the most dangerous, (25)
and require to be most carefully watched, who do not care to survive, if
they effect their purpose. Therefore special precaution should be taken
about any who think that either they or those for whom they care have
been insulted; for when men are led away by passion to assault others
they are regardless of themselves. As Heracleitus says, ‘It is difficult to
fight against anger; for a man will buy revenge with his soul.’ (30)
And whereas states consist of two classes, of poor men and of rich, the
tyrant should lead both to imagine that they are preserved and
prevented from harming one another by his rule, (35) and whichever of
the two is stronger he should attach to his government; for, having this
advantage, he has no need either to emancipate slaves or to disarm the
citizens; either party added to the force which he already has, will make
him stronger than his assailants.
But enough of these details;—what should be the general policy of the
tyrant is obvious. (40) He ought to show himself to his subjects in the
light, not of a tyrant, but of a steward and a king. [1315b] He should
not appropriate what is theirs, but should be their guardian; he should
be moderate, not extravagant in his way of life; he should win the
notables by companionship, and the multitude by flattery. For then his
rule will of necessity be nobler and happier, (5) because he will rule over
better men66 whose spirits are not crushed, over men to whom he
himself is not an object of hatred, and of whom he is not afraid. His
power too will be more lasting. His disposition will be virtuous, (10) or at
least half virtuous; and he will not be wicked, but half wicked only.

12 Yet no forms of government are so short-lived as oligarchy and

tyranny. The tyranny which lasted longest was that of Orthagoras and
his sons at Sicyon; this continued for a hundred years. (15) The reason
was that they treated their subjects with moderation, and to a great
extent observed the laws; and in various ways gained the favour of the
people by the care which they took of them. Cleisthenes, in particular,
was respected for his military ability. If report may be believed, he
crowned the judge who decided against him in the games; and, (20) as
some say, the sitting statue in the Agora of Sicyon is the likeness of this
person. (A similar story is told of Peisistratus, who is said on one
occasion to have allowed himself to be summoned and tried before the
Areopagus.)
Next in duration to the tyranny of Orthagoras was that of the
Cypselidae at Corinth, which lasted seventy-three years and six months:
Cypselus reigned thirty years, (25) Periander forty and a half, and
Psammetichus the son of Gorgus three. Their continuance was due to
similar causes: Cypselus was a popular man, who during the whole time
of his rule never had a body-guard; and Periander, although he was a
tyrant, was a great soldier. Third in duration was the rule of the
Peisistratidae at Athens, (30) but it was interrupted; for Peisistratus was
twice driven out, so that during three and thirty years he reigned only
seventeen; and his sons reigned eighteen—altogether thirty-five years. Of
other tyrannies, that of Hiero and Gelo at Syracuse was the most lasting.
(35) Even this, however, was short, not more than eighteen years in all;

for Gelo continued tyrant for seven years, and died in the eighth; Hiero
reigned for ten years, and Thrasybulus was driven out in the eleventh
month. In fact, tyrannies generally have been of quite short duration. (40)
I have now gone through almost all the causes by which constitutional
governments and monarchies are either destroyed or preserved.
[1316a]
In the Republic of Plato,67 Socrates treats of revolutions, but not well,
for he mentions no cause of change which peculiarly affects the first, or
perfect state. He only says that the cause is that nothing is abiding, (5)
but all things change in a certain cycle; and that the origin of the change
consists in those numbers ‘of which 4 and 3, married with 5, furnish two
harmonies’—(he means when the number of this figure becomes solid);
he conceives that nature at certain times produces bad men who will not
submit to education; in which latter particular he may very likely be not
far wrong, for there may well be some men who cannot be educated and
made virtuous. (10) But why is such a cause of change peculiar to his
ideal state, and not rather common to all states, nay, to everything
which comes into being at all? And is it by the agency of time, which, as
he declares, makes all things change, that things which did not begin
together, (15) change together? For example, if something has come into
being the day before the completion of the cycle, will it change with
things that came into being before? Further, why should the perfect state
change into the Spartan?68 For governments more often take an opposite
form than one akin to them. The same remark is applicable to the other
changes; he says that the Spartan constitution changes into an oligarchy,
(20) and this into a democracy, and this again into a tyranny. And yet the

contrary happens quite as often; for a democracy is even more likely to

change into an oligarchy than into a monarchy. Further, he never says
whether tyranny is, (25) or is not, liable to revolutions, and if it is, what is
the cause of them, or into what form it changes. And the reason is, that
he could not very well have told: for there is no rule; according to him it
should revert to the first and best, and then there would be a complete
cycle. But in point of fact a tyranny often changes into a tyranny, (30) as
that at Sicyon changed from the tyranny of Myron into that of
Cleisthenes; into oligarchy, as the tyranny of Antileon did at Chalcis;
into democracy, as that of Gelo’s family did at Syracuse; into aristocracy,
as at Carthage, and the tyranny of Charilaus at Lacedaemon. (35) Often an
oligarchy changes into a tyranny, like most of the ancient oligarchies in
Sicily; for example, the oligarchy at Leontini changed into the tyranny of
Panaetius; that at Gela into the tyranny of Cleander; that at Rhegium
into the tyranny of Anaxilaus; the same thing has happened in many
other states. And it is absurd to suppose that the state changes into
oligarchy merely because the ruling class are lovers and makers of
money,69 (40) and not because the very rich think it unfair that the very
poor should have an equal share in the government with themselves.
[1316b] Moreover, in many oligarchies there are laws against making
money in trade. But at Carthage, which is a democracy, (5) there is no
such prohibition; and yet to this day the Carthaginians have never had a
revolution. It is absurd too for him to say that an oligarchy is two cities,
one of the rich, and the other of the poor.70 Is not this just as much the
case in the Spartan constitution, or in any other in which either all do
not possess equal property, or all are not equally good men? Nobody
need be any poorer than he was before, (10) and yet the oligarchy may
change all the same into a democracy, if the poor form the majority; and
a democracy may change into an oligarchy, if the wealthy class are
stronger than the people, (15) and the one are energetic, the other
indifferent. Once more, although the causes of the change71 are very
numerous, he mentions only one,72 which is, that the citizens become
poor through dissipation and debt, as though he thought that all, or the
majority of them, were originally rich. This is not true: though it is true
that when any of the leaders lose their property they are ripe for
revolution; but, (20) when anybody else, it is no great matter, and an
oligarchy does not even then more often pass into a democracy than into
any other form of government. Again, if men are deprived of the
honours of state, and are wronged, and insulted, they make revolutions,
and change forms of government, even although they have not wasted
their substance because they might do what they liked—of which
extravagance he declares excessive freedom to be the cause.73
Finally, (25) although there are many forms of oligarchies and
democracies, Socrates speaks of their revolutions as though there were
only one form of either of them.

1 Cp. iv. c. 2.

2 iii. 1282b 18–30, Cp. 1280a 9 sqq.

3 Cp. iii. 1284b 28–34.

4 Cp. 1304b 4.

5 Cp. iv. 1294a 21.

6 Cp. iv. 1292b 11.

7 Cp. vii. 1333b 34.

8 Cp. iii. 1287a 7.

9 a26.

10 Cp. iv. 1296a 13.

11 Cp. c. 6.

12 Cp. c. 5.

13 1301a 33 sqq., b35 sqq.

14 1. 32.

15 Cp. iii. 1284a 17.

16 Cp. 1304b 27.

17 Cp. iii. 1284b 8.

18 1301a 33.

19 Cp. ii. 1274a 12; viii. 1341a 29.

20 Cp. 1311a 39.

21 Cp. 1302a 17.

22 Cp. 1302b 23.

23 Cp. 1302b 31, iv. 1300a 17.

24 Cp. 1309a 14.

25 Cp. 1310b 14; Plato, Rep. viii. 565 D.

26 Cp. 1310b 20.

27 Cp. 1303b 2.

28 1303b 37–1304a 77.

29 1305b 2 sqq.

30 i. e. the illegitimate sons.

31 Cp. iv. c. 7.

32 Cp. 1303a 31.

33 Cp. ii. 1270a 18.

34 1302b 4, 1303a 20–25, b17.

35 Cp. iv. 1296a 32.

36 Cp. Nic. Eth. v. 1129a 13.

37 Cp. iv. 1297a 13–38.

38 Cp. vi. 1321a 26.

39 1305b 23 sqq.

40 Cp. 1305a 7.

41 Cp. 1303b 17–31.

42 Cp. 1306b 6–16.

43 Cp. 1302b 18; iii. 1284a 17.

44 Cp. 1316a 39.

45 iv. 1296b 15, vi. 1320a 14. Cp. ii. 1270b 21 sq., iv. 1294b 37.

46 Cp. viii. 1337a 14.

47 Cp. iv. 1295b 17.

48 Cp. Pl. Rep. viii. 556 D.

49 Cp. 1305a 8; Plato, Rep. viii. 565 D.

50 Cp. 1305a 15.

51 1. 2 sq.

52 Cp. iii. 1285b 6.

53 iii. 1279b 6 sq., iv. 1295a 19.

54 Cp. iii. 1285a 24.

55 Cp. 1284a 26.

56 1310a 40 sqq.

57 Cp. 1302b 2, 21, 1311a 25.

58 Cp. i. 1259a 7.

59 Cp. Plato, Laws, iii. 695.

60 Cp. Rhetoric, ii. 1382a 12.

61 1302b 25–33, 1304b 20–1306b 21.

62 1311a 15–22.

63 Cp. vi. 1319b 27.

64 1313a 35–1314a 29.

65 Cp. 1308b 15.

66 Cp. i. 1254a 25.

67 This is an extract from the much fuller account in Rep. viii. 546 B.C.

68 Rep. viii. 544 C.

69 Rep. viii. 550 E.

70 Rep. viii. 551 D.

71 sc. from oligarchy to democracy.

72 Rep. viii. 555 D.

73 Rep. viii. 557 C, 564.

 BOOK VI

1 We have now considered the varieties of the deliberative or

supreme power in states, and the various arrangements of law-courts and
state offices, and which of them are adapted to different forms of
government.1 We have also spoken of the destruction and preservation
of constitutions, (35) how and from what causes they arise.2
Of democracy and all other forms of government there are many
kinds; and it will be well to assign to them severally the modes of
organization which are proper and advantageous to each, (40) adding
what remains to be said about them.3 [1317a] Moreover, we ought to
consider the various combinations of these modes themselves; for such
combinations make constitutions overlap one another, so that
aristocracies have an oligarchical character, and constitutional
governments incline to democracies.4
When I speak of the combinations which remain to be considered, and
thus far have not been considered by us, I mean such as these:—when
the deliberative part of the government and the election of officers is
constituted oligarchically, (5) and the law-courts aristocratically, or when
the courts and the deliberative part of the state are oligarchical, and the
election to offices aristocratical, or when in any other way there is a
want of harmony in the composition of a state.5
I have shown already6 what forms of democracy are suited to
particular cities, (10) and what of oligarchy to particular peoples, and to
whom each of the other forms of government is suited. Further, we must
not only show which of these governments is the best for each state, but
also briefly proceed to consider7 how these and other forms of
government are to be established. (15)
First of all let us speak of democracy, which will also bring to light the
opposite form of government commonly called oligarchy. For the
purposes of this inquiry we need to ascertain all the elements and
characteristics of democracy, since from the combinations of these the
varieties of democratic government arise. (20) There are several of these
differing from each other, and the difference is due to two causes. One
(1) has been already mentioned8—differences of population; for the
popular element may consist of husbandmen, (25) or of mechanics, or of
labourers, and if the first of these be added to the second, or the third to
the two others, not only does the democracy become better or worse, but
its very nature is changed. A second cause (2) remains to be mentioned:
the various properties and characteristics of democracy, (30) when
variously combined, make a difference. For one democracy will have less
and another will have more, and another will have all of these
characteristics. There is an advantage in knowing them all, whether a
man wishes to establish some new form of democracy, or only to
remodel an existing one.9 Founders of states try to bring together all the
elements which accord with the ideas of the several constitutions; but
this is a mistake of theirs, (35) as I have already remarked10 when
speaking of the destruction and preservation of states. We will now set
forth the principles, characteristics, and aims of such states.

2 The basis of a democratic state is liberty; which, (40) according to the

common opinion of men, can only be enjoyed in such a state;—this they
affirm to be the great end of every democracy.11 [1317b] One
principle of liberty is for all to rule and be ruled in turn, and indeed
democratic justice is the application of numerical not proportionate
equality; whence it follows that the majority must be supreme, (5) and
that whatever the majority approve must be the end and the just. Every
citizen, it is said, must have equality, and therefore in a democracy the
poor have more power than the rich, because there are more of them,
and the will of the majority is supreme. This, (10) then, is one note of
liberty which all democrats affirm to be the principle of their state.
Another is that a man should live as he likes.12 This, they say, is the
privilege of a freeman, since, on the other hand, not to live as a man
likes is the mark of a slave. This is the second characteristic of
democracy, whence has arisen the claim of men to be ruled by none, (15)
if possible, or, if this is impossible, to rule and be ruled in turns; and so
it contributes to the freedom based upon equality.
Such being our foundation and such the principle from which we start,
the characteristics of democracy are as follows:—the election of officers
by all out of all; and that all should rule over each, (20) and each in his
turn over all; that the appointment to all offices, or to all but those
which require experience and skill,13 should be made by lot; that no
property qualification should be required for offices, or only a very low
one; that a man should not hold the same office twice, or not often, or in
the case of few except military offices: that the tenure of all offices, (25)
or of as many as possible, should be brief; that all men should sit in
judgement, or that judges selected out of all should judge, in all matters,
or in most and in the greatest and most important—such as the scrutiny
of accounts, the constitution, and private contracts; that the assembly
should be supreme over all causes, or at any rate over the most
important, (30) and the magistrates over none or only over a very few. Of
all magistracies, a council is the most democratic14 when there is not the
means of paying all the citizens, but when they are paid even this is
robbed of its power; for the people then draw all cases to themselves, as
I said in the previous discussion.15 (35) The next characteristic of
democracy is payment for services; assembly, law-courts, magistrates,
everybody receives pay, when it is to be had; or when it is not to be had
for all, then it is given to the law-courts and to the stated assemblies, to
the council and to the magistrates, or at least to any of them who are
compelled to have their meals together. And whereas oligarchy is
characterized by birth, (40) wealth, and education, the notes of
democracy appear to be the opposite of these—low birth, poverty, mean
employment. [1318a] Another note is that no magistracy is perpetual,
but if any such have survived some ancient change in the constitution it
should be stripped of its power, and the holders should be elected by lot
and no longer by vote. These are the points common to all democracies;
but democracy and demos in their truest form are based upon the
recognized principle of democratic justice, (5) that all should count
equally; for equality implies that the poor should have no more share in
the government than the rich, and should not be the only rulers, but that
all should rule equally according to their numbers.16 And in this way
men think that they will secure equality and freedom in their state. (10)

3 Next comes the question, how is this equality to be obtained? Are

we to assign to a thousand poor men the property qualifications of five
hundred rich men? and shall we give the thousand a power equal to that
of the five hundred? or, if this is not to be the mode, ought we, still
retaining the same ratio, to take equal numbers from each and give them
the control of the elections and of the courts?—Which, (15) according to
the democratical notion, is the juster form of the constitution—this or
one based on numbers only? Democrats say that justice is that to which
the majority agree, (20) oligarchs that to which the wealthier class; in
their opinion the decision should be given according to the amount of
property. In both principles there is some inequality and injustice. For if
justice is the will of the few, any one person who has more wealth than
all the rest of the rich put together, ought, upon the oligarchical
principle, to have the sole power—but this would be tyranny; or if
justice is the will of the majority, (25) as I was before saying,17 they will
unjustly confiscate the property of the wealthy minority. To find a
principle of equality in which they both agree we must inquire into their
respective ideas of justice.
Now they agree in saying that whatever is decided by the majority of
the citizens is to be deemed law. Granted:—but not without some
reserve; since there are two classes out of which a state is composed—
the poor and the rich—that is to be deemed law, (30) on which both or
the greater part of both agree; and if they disagree, that which is
approved by the greater number, and by those who have the higher
qualification. For example, suppose that there are ten rich and twenty
poor, and some measure is approved by six of the rich and is
disapproved by fifteen of the poor, and the remaining four of the rich
join with the party of the poor, (35) and the remaining five of the poor
with that of the rich; in such a case the will of those whose
qualifications, when both sides are added up, are the greatest, should
prevail. If they turn out to be equal, there is no greater difficulty than at
present, when, if the assembly or the Courts are divided, (40) recourse is
had to the lot, or to some similar expedient. [1318b] But, although it
may be difficult in theory to know what is just and equal, the practical
difficulty of inducing those to forbear who can, if they like, encroach, is
far greater, for the weaker are always asking for equality and justice, (5)
but the stronger care for none of these things.
4 Of the four kinds of democracy, as was said in the previous
discussion,18 the best is that which comes first in order; it is also the
oldest of them all. I am speaking of them according to the natural
classification of their inhabitants. For the best material of democracy is
an agricultural population;19 there is no difficulty in forming a
democracy where the mass of the people live by agriculture or tending
of cattle. (10) Being poor, they have no leisure, and therefore do not often
attend the assembly, and not having the necessaries of life they are
always at work, and do not covet the property of others. Indeed, they
find their employment pleasanter than the cares of government or office
where no great gains can be made out of them, (15) for the many are
more desirous of gain than of honour.20 A proof is that even the ancient
tyrannies were patiently endured by them, as they still endure
oligarchies, if they are allowed to work and are not deprived of their
property; for some of them grow quickly rich and the others are well
enough off. (20) Moreover, they have the power of electing the
magistrates and calling them to account;21 their ambition, if they have
any, is thus satisfied; and in some democracies, although they do not all
share in the appointment of offices, except through representatives
elected in turn out of the whole people, (25) as at Mantinea;—yet, if they
have the power of deliberating, the many are contented. Even this form
of government may be regarded as a democracy, and was such at
Mantinea. Hence it is both expedient and customary in the afore-
mentioned22 type of democracy that all should elect to offices, (30) and
conduct scrutinies, and sit in the law-courts, but that the great offices
should be filled up by election and from persons having a qualification;
the greater requiring a greater qualification, or, if there be no offices for
which a qualification is required, then those who are marked out by
special ability should be appointed. Under such a form of government
the citizens are sure to be governed well (for the offices will always be
held by the best persons; the people are willing enough to elect them
and are not jealous of the good). (35) The good and the notables will then
be satisfied, for they will not be governed by men who are their
inferiors, and the persons elected will rule justly, because others will call
them to account. Every man should be responsible to others, nor should
any one be allowed to do just as he pleases; (40) for where absolute
freedom is allowed there is nothing to restrain the evil which is inherent
in every man. [1319a] But the principle of responsibility secures that
which is the greatest good in states; the right persons rule and are
prevented from doing wrong, and the people have their due. It is evident
that this is the best kind of democracy, and why? Because the people are
drawn from a certain class. (5) Some of the ancient laws of most states
were, all of them, useful with a view to making the people husbandmen.
They provided either that no one should possess more than a certain
quantity of land, or that, if he did, the land should not be within a
certain distance from the town or the acropolis. Formerly in many states
there was a law forbidding any one to sell his original allotment of
land.23 (10) There is a similar law attributed to Oxylus, which is to the
effect that there should be a certain portion of every man’s land on
which he could not borrow money. A useful corrective to the evil of
which I am speaking would be the law of the Aphytaeans, who, (15)
although they are numerous, and do not possess much land, are all of
them husbandmen. For their properties are reckoned in the census, not
entire, but only in such small portions that even the poor may have more
than the amount required.
Next best to an agricultural, and in many respects similar, (20) are a
pastoral people, who live by their flocks; they are the best trained of any
for war, robust in body and able to camp out. The people of whom other
democracies consist are far inferior to them, (25) for their life is inferior;
there is no room for moral excellence in any of their employments,
whether they be mechanics or traders or labourers. Besides, people of
this class can readily come to the assembly, because they are continually
moving about in the city and in the agora; whereas husbandmen are
scattered over the country and do not meet, (30) or equally feel the want
of assembling together. Where the territory also happens to extend to a
distance from the city, there is no difficulty in making an excellent
democracy or constitutional government; for the people are compelled to
settle in the country, (35) and even if there is a town population the
assembly ought not to meet, in democracies, when the country people
cannot come. We have thus explained how the first and best form of
democracy should be constituted; it is clear that the other or inferior
sorts will deviate in a regular order, (40) and the population which is
excluded will at each stage be of a lower kind. [1319b]
The last form of democracy, that in which all share alike, is one which
cannot be borne by all states, and will not last long unless well regulated
by laws and customs. The more general causes which tend to destroy
this or other kinds of government have been pretty fully considered.24 (5)
In order to constitute such a democracy and strengthen the people, the
leaders have been in the habit of including as many as they can, and
making citizens not only of those who are legitimate, but even of the
illegitimate, and of those who have only one parent a citizen, (10)
whether father or mother;25 for nothing of this sort comes amiss to such
a democracy. This is the way in which demagogues proceed. Whereas
the right thing would be to make no more additions when the number of
the commonalty exceeds that of the notables and of the middle class—
beyond this not to go. When in excess of this point, (15) the constitution
becomes disorderly, and the notables grow excited and impatient of the
democracy, as in the insurrection at Cyrene; for no notice is taken of a
little evil, but when it increases it strikes the eye. Measures like those
which Cleisthenes26 passed when he wanted to increase the power of the
democracy at Athens, (20) or such as were taken by the founders of
popular government at Cyrene, are useful in the extreme form of
democracy. Fresh tribes and brotherhoods should be established; the
private rites of families should be restricted and converted into public
ones; in short, (25) every contrivance should be adopted which will
mingle the citizens with one another and get rid of old connexions.
Again, the measures which are taken by tyrants appear all of them to be
democratic; such, for instance, as the licence permitted to slaves (which
may be to a certain extent advantageous) and also that of women and
children, (30) and the allowing everybody to live as he likes.27 Such a
government will have many supporters, for most persons would rather
live in a disorderly than in a sober manner.

5 The mere establishment of a democracy is not the only or principal

business of the legislator, or of those who wish to create such a state, (35)
for any state, however badly constituted, may last one, two, or three
days; a far greater difficulty is the preservation of it. The legislator
should therefore endeavour to have a firm foundation according to the
principles already laid down concerning the preservation and destruction
of states;28 he should guard against the destructive elements, and should
make laws, (40) whether written or unwritten, which will contain all the
preservatives of states. [1320a] He must not think the truly
democratical or oligarchical measure to be that which will give the
greatest amount of democracy or oligarchy, but that which will make
them last longest.29 The demagogues of our own day often get property
confiscated30 in the law-courts in order to please the people. (5) But those
who have the welfare of the state at heart should counteract them, and
make a law that the property of the condemned should not be public and
go into the treasury but be sacred. Thus offenders will be as much afraid,
for they will be punished all the same, and the people, having nothing to
gain, (10) will not be so ready to condemn the accused. Care should also
be taken that state trials are as few as possible, and heavy penalties
should be inflicted on those who bring groundless accusations; for it is
the practice to indict, not members of the popular party, but the
notables, although the citizens ought to be all attached to the
constitution as well, (15) or at any rate should not regard their rulers as
enemies.
Now, since in the last and worst form of democracy the citizens are
very numerous, and can hardly be made to assemble unless they are
paid, (20) and to pay them when there are no revenues presses hardly
upon the notables (for the money must be obtained by a property-tax
and confiscations and corrupt practices of the courts, things which have
before now overthrown many democracies); where, I say, there are no
revenues, the government should hold few assemblies, and the law-
courts should consist of many persons, but sit for a few days only. This
system has two advantages: first, the rich do not fear the expense, even
although they are unpaid themselves when the poor are paid; and
secondly, (25) causes are better tried, for wealthy persons, although they
do not like to be long absent from their own affairs, do not mind going
for a few days to the law-courts. Where there are revenues the
demagogues should not be allowed after their manner to distribute the
surplus; the poor are always receiving and always wanting more and
more, (30) for such help is like water poured into a leaky cask. Yet the
true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for
extreme poverty lowers the character of the democracy; measures
therefore should be taken which will give them lasting prosperity; and as
this is equally the interest of all classes, (35) the proceeds of the public
revenues should be accumulated and distributed among its poor, if
possible, in such quantities as may enable them to purchase a little farm,
or, at any rate, make a beginning in trade or husbandry. [1320b] And
if this benevolence cannot be extended to all, money should be
distributed in turn according to tribes or other divisions, and in the
meantime the rich should pay the fee for the attendance of the poor at
the necessary assemblies; and should in return be excused from useless
public services. By administering the state in this spirit the Carthaginians
retain the affections of the people; their policy is from time to time to
send some of them into their dependent towns, (5) where they grow
rich.31 It is also worthy of a generous and sensible nobility to divide the
poor amongst them, and give them the means of going to work. The
example of the people of Tarentum is also well deserving of imitation,
(10) for, by sharing the use of their own property with the poor, they gain

their good will.32 Moreover, they divide all their offices into two classes,
some of them being elected by vote, the others by lot; the latter, that the
people may participate in them, and the former, that the state may be
better administered. A like result may be gained by dividing the same
offices, (15) so as to have two classes of magistrates, one chosen by vote,
the other by lot.
Enough has been said of the manner in which democracies ought to be
constituted.

6 From these considerations there will be no difficulty in seeing what

should be the constitution of oligarchies. We have only to reason from
opposites and compare each form of oligarchy with the corresponding
form of democracy. (20)
The first and best attempered of oligarchies is akin to a constitutional
government. In this there ought to be two standards of qualification; the
one high, the other low—the lower qualifying for the humbler yet
indispensable offices and the higher for the superior ones. (25) He who
acquires the prescribed qualification should have the rights of
citizenship. The number of those admitted should be such as will make
the entire governing body stronger than those who are excluded, and the
new citizen should be always taken out of the better class of the people.
The principle, narrowed a little, (30) gives another form of oligarchy; until
at length we reach the most cliquish and tyrannical of them all,
answering to the extreme democracy, which, being the worst, requires
vigilance in proportion to its badness. (35) For as healthy bodies and ships
well provided with sailors may undergo many mishaps and survive
them, whereas sickly constitutions and rotten ill-manned ships are
ruined by the very least mistake, so do the worst forms of government
require the greatest care. [1321a] The populousness of democracies
generally preserves them (for number is to democracy in the place of
justice based on proportion); whereas the preservation of an oligarchy
clearly depends on an opposite principle, viz. good order.

7 As there are four chief divisions of the common people—

husbandmen, (5) mechanics, retail traders, labourers; so also there are
four kinds of military forces—the cavalry, the heavy infantry, the light-
armed troops, the navy.33 When the country is adapted for cavalry, then
a strong oligarchy is likely to be established. For the security of the
inhabitants depends upon a force of this sort, (10) and only rich men can
afford to keep horses. The second form of oligarchy prevails when the
country is adapted to heavy infantry; for this service is better suited to
the rich than to the poor. But the light-armed and the naval element are
wholly democratic; and nowadays, where they are numerous, (15) if the
two parties quarrel, the oligarchy are often worsted by them in the
struggle. A remedy for this state of things may be found in the practice
of generals who combine a proper contingent of light-armed troops with
cavalry and heavy-armed. And this is the way in which the poor get the
better of the rich in civil contests; being lightly armed, (20) they fight
with advantage against cavalry and heavy infantry. An oligarchy which
raises such a force out of the lower classes raises a power against itself.
And therefore, since the ages of the citizens vary and some are older and
some younger, the fathers should have their own sons, while they are
still young, taught the agile movements of light-armed troops; and these,
(25) when they have been taken out of the ranks of the youth, should
become light-armed warriors in reality. The oligarchy should also yield a
share in the government to the people, either, as I said before, to those
who have a property qualification,34 or, as in the case of Thebes,35 to
those who have abstained for a certain number of years from mean
employments, (30) or, as at Massalia, to men of merit who are selected for
their worthiness, whether previously citizens or not. The magistracies of
the highest rank, which ought to be in the hands of the governing body,
should have expensive duties attached to them, and then the people will
not desire them and will take no offence at the privileges of their rulers
when they see that they pay a heavy fine for their dignity. It is fitting
also that the magistrates on entering office should offer magnificent
sacrifices or erect some public edifice, (35) and then the people who
participate in the entertainments, and see the city decorated with votive
offerings and buildings, will not desire an alteration in the government,
and the notables will have memorials of their munificence. (40) This,
however, is anything but the fashion of our modern oligarchs, who are
as covetous of gain as they are of honour; oligarchies like theirs may be
well described as petty democracies. [1321b] Enough of the manner in
which democracies and oligarchies should be organized.

8 Next in order follows the right distribution of offices, their number,

(5) their nature, their duties, of which indeed we have already spoken.36

No state can exist not having the necessary offices, and no state can be
well administered not having the offices which tend to preserve
harmony and good order. In small states, as we have already
remarked,37 there must not be many of them, (10) but in larger there must
be a larger number, and we should carefully consider which offices may
properly be united and which separated.
First among necessary offices is that which has the care of the market;
a magistrate should be appointed to inspect contracts and to maintain
order. (15) For in every state there must inevitably be buyers and sellers
who will supply one another’s wants; this is the readiest way to make a
state self-sufficing and so fulfil the purpose for which men come together
into one state.38 A second office of a similar kind undertakes the
supervision and embellishment of public and private buildings, (20) the
maintaining and repairing of houses and roads, the prevention of
disputes about boundaries, and other concerns of a like nature. This is
commonly called the office of City-warden, (25) and has various
departments, which, in more populous towns, are shared among
different persons, one, for example, taking charge of the walls, another
of the fountains, a third of harbours. There is another equally necessary
office, and of a similar kind, having to do with the same matters without
the walls and in the country—the magistrates who hold this office are
called Wardens of the country, or Inspectors of the woods. (30) Besides
these three there is a fourth office of receivers of taxes, who have under
their charge the revenue which is distributed among the various
departments; these are called Receivers or Treasurers. Another officer
registers all private contracts, (35) and decisions of the courts, all public
indictments, and also all preliminary proceedings. This office again is
sometimes subdivided, in which case one officer is appointed over all the
rest. These officers are called Recorders or Sacred Recorders, Presidents,
and the like.
Next to these comes an office of which the duties are the most
necessary and also the most difficult, (40) viz. that to which is committed
the execution of punishments, or the exaction of fines from those who
are posted up according to the registers; and also the custody of
prisoners. [1322a] The difficulty of this office arises out of the odium
which is attached to it; no one will undertake it unless great profits are
to be made, and any one who does is loath to execute the law. Still the
office is necessary; for judicial decisions are useless if they take no effect;
and if society cannot exist without them, (5) neither can it exist without
the execution of them. It is an office which, being so unpopular, should
not be entrusted to one person, but divided among several taken from
different courts. In like manner an effort should be made to distribute
among different persons the writing up of those who are on the register
of public debtors. (10) Some sentences should be executed by the
magistrates also, and in particular penalties due to the outgoing
magistrates should be exacted by the incoming ones; and as regards
those due to magistrates already in office, when one court has given
judgement, another should exact the penalty; for example, the wardens
of the city should exact the fines imposed by the wardens of the agora,
and others again should exact the fines imposed by them. For penalties
are more likely to be exacted when less odium attaches to the exaction
of them; but a double odium is incurred when the judges who have
passed also execute the sentence, (15) and if they are always the
executioners, they will be the enemies of all.
In many places, while one magistracy executes the sentence, another
has the custody of the prisoners, as, for example, ‘the Eleven’ at Athens.
It is well to separate off the jailorship also, (20) and try by some device to
render the office less unpopular. For it is quite as necessary as that of the
executioners; but good men do all they can to avoid it, and worthless
persons cannot safely be trusted with it; for they themselves require a
guard, and are not fit to guard others. (25) There ought not therefore to
be a single or permanent officer set apart for this duty; but it should be
entrusted to the young, wherever they are organized into a band or
guard, and different magistrates acting in turn should take charge of it.
These are the indispensable officers, and should be ranked first;—next
in order follow others, equally necessary, but of higher rank, (30) and
requiring great experience and fidelity. Such are the officers to which
are committed the guard of the city, and other military functions. Not
only in time of war but of peace their duty will be to defend the walls
and gates, (35) and to muster and marshal the citizens. In some states
there are many such offices; in others there are a few only, while small
states are content with one; these officers are called generals or
commanders. [1322b] Again, if a state has cavalry or light-armed
troops or archers or a naval force, it will sometimes happen that each of
these departments has separate officers, who are called admirals, or
generals of cavalry or of light-armed troops. And there are subordinate
officers called naval captains, and captains of light-armed troops and of
horse; having others under them:—all these are included in the
department of war. (5) Thus much of military command.
But since many, not to say all, of these offices handle the public
money, there must of necessity be another office which examines and
audits them, (10) and has no other functions. Such officers are called by
various names—Scrutineers, Auditors, Accountants, Controllers. Besides
all these offices there is another which is supreme over them, and to this
is often entrusted both the introduction and the ratification of measures,
or at all events it presides, in a democracy, (15) over the assembly. For
there must be a body which convenes the supreme authority in the state.
In some places they are called ‘probuli’, because they hold previous
deliberations, but in a democracy more commonly ‘councillors’.39 These
are the chief political offices.
Another set of officers is concerned with the maintenance of religion;
priests and guardians see to the preservation and repair of the temples of
the gods and to other matters of religion. (20) One office of this sort may
be enough in small places, but in larger ones there are a great many
besides the priesthood; for example superintendents of public worship,
(25) guardians of shrines, treasurers of the sacred revenues. Nearly

connected with these there are also the officers appointed for the
performance of the public sacrifices, except any which the law assigns to
the priests; such sacrifices derive their dignity from the public hearth of
the city. They are sometimes called archons, sometimes kings,40 and
sometimes prytanes. (30)
These, then, are the necessary offices, which may be summed up as
follows: offices concerned with matters of religion, with war, with the
revenue and expenditure, with the market, with the city, with the
harbours, with the country; also with the courts of law, (35) with the
records of contracts, with execution of sentences, with custody of
prisoners, with audits and scrutinies and accounts of magistrates; lastly,
there are those which preside over the public deliberations of the state.
There are likewise magistracies characteristic of states which are
peaceful and prosperous, and at the same time have a regard to good
order: such as the offices of guardians of women, guardians of the laws,
guardians of children, and directors of gymnastics; also superintendents
of gymnastic and Dionysiac contests, and of other similar spectacles.
[1323a] Some of these are clearly not democratic offices; for example,
the guardianships of women and children41—the poor, (5) not having any
slaves, must employ both their women and children as servants.
Once more: there are three offices according to whose directions the
highest magistrates are chosen in certain states—guardians of the law,
probuli, councillors—of these, the guardians of the law are an
aristocratical, the probuli an oligarchical, the council a democratical
institution. Enough of the different kinds of offices. (10)
1 Bk. iv. 14–16.

2 Bk. v.

3 1318b 6–1319a 6.

4 Cp. iv. 1293b 34.

5 These questions are not actually discussed by A.

6 iv. 12.

7 Cp. iv. 1289b 20.

8 iv. 1291b 17–28, 1292b 25 sqq., 1296b 26–31.

9 Cp. iv. 1289a 1.

10 v. 1309b 18–1310a 36.

11 Cp. Plato, Rep. viii. 557 sqq.

12 Cp. v. 1310a 31.

13 Cp. iv. 1298a 27.

14 Cp. iv. 1299b 32

15 Cp. iv. 1299b 38.

16 Cp. iv. 1291b 30.

17 Cp. iii. 1281a 14.

18 iv. 1292b 22–1293a 10.

19 Cp. iv. 1292b 25–33.

20 Cp. iv. 1297b 6.

21 Cp. ii. 1274a 15.

22 l. 6.

23 Cp. ii. 1266b 21.

24 v. 2–7, 1311a 22–1313a 16.

25 Cp. iii. 1278a 27.

26 Cp. iii. 1275b 35.

27 CP. v. 1313b 32.

28 Cp. Bk. v.

29 Cp. v. 1313a 20–33.

30 Cp. v. 1305a 3.

31 Cp. ii. 1273b 18.

32 Cp. ii. 1263a 37.

33 Cp. iv. 1289b 32–40.

34 1320b 25.

35 Cp. iii. 1278a 25.

36 iv. 15.

37 iv. 1299a 34–b 10.

38 Cp. i. i252b 27; Nic. Eth v. 1134a 26; Pl. Rep ii. 369.

39 Cp. iv. 1299b 31.

40 Cp. iii. 1285b 23.

41 Cp. iv. 1300a 4.

 BOOK VII

1 He who would duly inquire about the best form of a state ought first
to determine which is the most eligible life; while this remains uncertain
the best form of the state must also be uncertain; for, (15) in the natural
order of things, those may be expected to lead the best life who are
governed in the best manner of which their circumstances admit. We
ought therefore to ascertain, first of all, which is the most generally
eligible life, and then whether the same life is or is not best for the state
and for individuals. (20)
Assuming that enough has been already said in discussions outside the
school concerning the best life, we will now only repeat what is
contained in them. Certainly no one will dispute the propriety of that
partition of goods which separates them into three classes,1 viz. (25)
external goods, goods of the body, and goods of the soul, or deny that
the happy man must have all three. For no one would maintain that he is
happy who has not in him a particle of courage or temperance or justice
or prudence, who is afraid of every insect which flutters past him, and
will commit any crime, however great, (30) in order to gratify his lust of
meat or drink, who will sacrifice his dearest friend for the sake of half-a-
farthing, and is as feeble and false in mind as a child or a madman.
These propositions are almost universally acknowledged as soon as they
are uttered, (35) but men differ about the degree or relative superiority of
this or that good. Some think that a very moderate amount of virtue is
enough, but set no limit to their desires of wealth, property, power,
reputation, and the like. To whom we reply by an appeal to facts, (40)
which easily prove that mankind do not acquire or preserve virtue by
the help of external goods, but external goods by the help of virtue, and
that happiness, [1323b] whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or
both, is more often found with those who are most highly cultivated in
their mind and in their character, and have only a moderate share of
external goods, (5) than among those who possess external goods to a
useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities; and this is not only
matter of experience, but, if reflected upon, will easily appear to be in
accordance with reason. For, whereas external goods have a limit, like
any other instrument,2 and all things useful are of such a nature that
where there is too much of them they must either do harm, (10) or at any
rate be of no use, to their possessors, every good of the soul, the greater
it is, is also of greater use, if the epithet useful as well as noble is
appropriate to such subjects. No proof is required to show that the best
state of one thing in relation to another corresponds in degree of
excellence to the interval between the natures of which we say that these
very states are states: so that, (15) if the soul is more noble than our
possessions or our bodies, both absolutely and in relation to us, it must
be admitted that the best state of either has a similar ratio to the other.
Again, it is for the sake of the soul that goods external and goods of the
body are eligible at all, (20) and all wise men ought to choose them for
the sake of the soul, and not the soul for the sake of them.
Let us acknowledge then that each one has just so much of happiness
as he has of virtue and wisdom, and of virtuous and wise action. God is a
witness to us of this truth, for he is happy and blessed, not by reason of
any external good, but in himself and by reason of his own nature. (25)
And herein of necessity lies the difference between good fortune and
happiness; for external goods come of themselves, and chance is the
author of them, but no one is just or temperate by or through chance.3
(30) In like manner, and by a similar train of argument, the happy state

may be shown to be that which is best and which acts rightly; and
rightly it cannot act without doing right actions, and neither individual
nor state can do right actions without virtue and wisdom. Thus the
courage, justice, (35) and wisdom of a state have the same form and
nature as the qualities which give the individual who possesses them the
name of just, wise, or temperate.
Thus much may suffice by way of preface: for I could not avoid
touching upon these questions, neither could I go through all the
arguments affecting them; these are the business of another science.
Let us assume then that the best life, both for individuals and states,
(40) is the life of virtue, when virtue has external goods enough for the

performance of good actions. [1324a] If there are any who controvert

our assertion, we will in this treatise pass them over, and consider their
objections hereafter.
2 There remains to be discussed the question, (5) Whether the
happiness of the individual is the same as that of the state, or different?
Here again there can be no doubt—no one denies that they are the same.
For those who hold that the well-being of the individual consists in his
wealth, also think that riches make the happiness of the whole state, (10)
and those who value most highly the life of a tyrant deem that city the
happiest which rules over the greatest number; while they who approve
an individual for his virtue say that the more virtuous a city is, the
happier it is. Two points here present themselves for consideration: first
(1), which is the more eligible life, (15) that of a citizen who is a member
of a state, or that of an alien who has no political ties; and again (2),
which is the best form of constitution or the best condition of a state,
either on the supposition that political privileges are desirable for all, or
for a majority only? Since the good of the state and not of the individual
is the proper subject of political thought and speculation, (20) and we are
engaged in a political discussion, while the first of these two points has a
secondary interest for us, the latter will be the main subject of our
inquiry.
Now it is evident that the form of government is best in which every
man, whoever he is, can act best and live happily. (25) But even those
who agree in thinking that the life of virtue is the most eligible raise a
question, whether the life of business and politics is or is not more
eligible than one which is wholly independent of external goods, I mean
than a contemplative life, which by some is maintained to be the only
one worthy of a philosopher. For these two lives—the life of the
philosopher and the life of the statesman—appear to have been preferred
by those who have been most keen in the pursuit of virtue, (30) both in
our own and in other ages. Which is the better is a question of no small
moment; for the wise man, like the wise state, will necessarily regulate
his life according to the best end. There are some who think that while a
despotic rule over others is the greatest injustice, (35) to exercise a
constitutional rule over them, even though not unjust, is a great
impediment to a man’s individual well-being. Others take an opposite
view; they maintain that the true life of man is the practical and
political, and that every virtue admits of being practised, (40) quite as
much by statesmen and rulers as by private individuals. [1324b]
Others, again, are of opinion that arbitrary and tyrannical rule alone
consists with happiness; indeed, in some states the entire aim both of the
laws and of the constitution is to give men despotic power over their
neighbours. (5) And, therefore, although in most cities the laws may be
said generally to be in a chaotic state, still, if they aim at anything, they
aim at the maintenance of power: thus in Lacedaemon and Crete the
system of education and the greater part of the laws are framed with a
view to war.4 And in all nations which are able to gratify their ambition
military power is held in esteem, (10) for example among the Scythians
and Persians and Thracians and Celts. In some nations there are even
laws tending to stimulate the warlike virtues, as at Carthage, where we
are told that men obtain the honour of wearing as many armlets as they
have served campaigns. (15) There was once a law in Macedonia that he
who had not killed an enemy should wear a halter, and among the
Scythians no one who had not slain his man was allowed to drink out of
the cup which was handed round at a certain feast. Among the Iberians,
a warlike nation, the number of enemies whom a man has slain is
indicated by the number of obelisks which are fixed in the earth round
his tomb; and there are numerous practices among other nations of a
like kind, (20) some of them established by law and others by custom. Yet
to a reflecting mind it must appear very strange that the statesman
should be always considering how he can dominate and tyrannize over
others, (25) whether they will or not. How can that which is not even
lawful be the business of the statesman or the legislator? Unlawful it
certainly is to rule without regard to justice, for there may be might
where there is no right. The other arts and sciences offer no parallel; a
physician is not expected to persuade or coerce his patients, (30) nor a
pilot the passengers in his ship. Yet most men appear to think that the
art of despotic government is statesmanship, and what men affirm to be
unjust and inexpedient in their own case they are not ashamed of
practising towards others; they demand just rule for themselves, (35) but
where other men are concerned they care nothing about it. Such
behaviour is irrational; unless the one party is, and the other is not, born
to serve, in which case men have a right to command, not indeed all
their fellows, but only those who are intended to be subjects; just as we
ought not to hunt mankind, whether for food or sacrifice, (40) but only
the animals which may be hunted for food or sacrifice, this is to say,
such wild animals as are eatable. [1325a] And surely there may be a
city happy in isolation, which we will assume to be well-governed (for it
is quite possible that a city thus isolated might be well-administered and
have good laws); but such a city would not be constituted with any view
to war or the conquest of enemies—all that sort of thing must be
excluded. Hence we see very plainly that warlike pursuits, (5) although
generally to be deemed honourable, are not the supreme end of all
things, but only means. And the good lawgiver should inquire how states
and races of men and communities may participate in a good life, and in
the happiness which is attainable by them. (10) His enactments will not
be always the same; and where there are neighbours5 he will have to see
what sort of studies should be practised in relation to their several
characters, or how the measures appropriate in relation to each are to be
adopted. The end at which the best form of government should aim may
be properly made a matter of future consideration.6 (15)

3 Let us now address those who, while they agree that the life of
virtue is the most eligible, differ about the manner of practising it. For
some renounce political power, and think that the life of the freeman is
different from the life of the statesman and the best of all; but others
think the life of the statesman best. (20) The argument of the latter is that
he who does nothing cannot do well, and that virtuous activity is
identical with happiness. To both we say: ‘you are partly right and partly
wrong.’ The first class are right in affirming that the life of the freeman
is better than the life of the despot; for there is nothing grand or noble in
having the use of a slave, (25) in so far as he is a slave; or in issuing
commands about necessary things. But it is an error to suppose that
every sort of rule is despotic like that of a master over slaves, for there is
as great a difference between the rule over freemen and the rule over
slaves as there is between slavery by nature and freedom by nature,
about which I have said enough at the commencement of this treatise.7
(30) And it is equally a mistake to place inactivity above action, for

happiness is activity, and the actions of the just and wise are the
realization of much that is noble.
But perhaps some one, accepting these premises, may still maintain
that supreme power is the best of all things, because the possessors of it
are able to perform the greatest number of noble actions. (35) If so, the
man who is able to rule, instead of giving up anything to his neighbour,
ought rather to take away his power; and the father should make no
account of his son, nor the son of his father, nor friend of friend; they
should not bestow a thought on one another in comparison with this
higher object, (40) for the best is the most eligible and ‘doing well’ is the
best. [1325b] There might be some truth in such a view if we assume
that robbers and plunderers attain the chief good. But this can never be;
their hypothesis is false. For the actions of a ruler cannot really be
honourable, unless he is as much superior to other men as a husband is
to a wife, (5) or a father to his children, or a master to his slaves. And
therefore he who violates the law can never recover by any success,
however great, what he has already lost in departing from virtue. For
equals the honourable and the just consist in sharing alike, as is just and
equal. But that the unequal should be given to equals, and the unlike to
those who are like, is contrary to nature, (10) and nothing which is
contrary to nature is good. If therefore, there is any one8 superior in
virtue and in the power of performing the best actions, him we ought to
follow and obey, but he must have the capacity for action as well as
virtue.
If we are right in our view, and happiness is assumed to be virtuous
activity, (15) the active life will be the best, both for every city
collectively, and for individuals. Not that a life of action must
necessarily have relation to others, as some persons think, nor are those
ideas only to be regarded as practical which are pursued for the sake of
practical results, but much more the thoughts and contemplations which
are independent and complete in themselves; since virtuous activity, (20)
and therefore a certain kind of action, is an end, and even in the case of
external actions the directing mind is most truly said to act. Neither,
again, is it necessary that states which are cut off from others and choose
to live alone should be inactive; for activity, (25) as well as other things,
may take place by sections; there are many ways in which the sections of
a state act upon one another. The same thing is equally true of every
individual. If this were otherwise, God and the universe, who have no
external actions over and above their own energies, (30) would be far
enough from perfection. Hence it is evident that the same life is best for
each individual, and for states and for mankind collectively.

4 Thus far by way of introduction. In what has preceded9 I have

discussed other forms of government; in what remains the first point to
be considered is what should be the conditions of the ideal or perfect
state; for the perfect state cannot exist without a due supply of the
means of life. (35) And therefore we must pre-suppose many purely
imaginary conditions,10 but nothing impossible. There will be a certain
numbers of citizens, a country in which to place them, (40) and the like.
As the weaver or shipbuilder or any other artisan must have the material
proper for his work (and in proportion as this is better prepared, so will
the result of his art be nobler), so the statesman or legislator must also
have the materials suited to him. [1326a]
First among the materials required by the statesman is population: he
will consider what should be the number and character of the citizens, (5)
and then what should be the size and character of the country. Most
persons think that a state in order to be happy ought to be large; but
even if they are right, they have no idea what is a large and what a small
state. For they judge of the size of the city by the number of the
inhabitants; whereas they ought to regard, (10) not their number, but
their power. A city too, like an individual, has a work to do; and that
city which is best adapted to the fulfilment of its work is to be deemed
greatest, in the same sense of the word great in which Hippocrates might
be called greater, (15) not as a man, but as a physician, than some one
else who was taller. And even if we reckon greatness by numbers, we
ought not to include everybody, for there must always be in cities a
multitude of slaves and sojourners and foreigners; but we should include
those only who are members of the state, (20) and who form an essential
part of it. The number of the latter is a proof of the greatness of a city;
but a city which produces numerous artisans and comparatively few
soldiers cannot be great, for a great city is not to be confounded with a
populous one. Moreover, experience shows that a very populous city can
rarely, if ever, (25) be well governed; since all cities which have a
reputation for good government have a limit of population. We may
argue on grounds of reason, and the same result will follow. For law is
order, and good law is good order; but a very great multitude cannot be
orderly: to introduce order into the unlimited is the work of a divine
power—of such a power as holds together the universe. (30) Beauty is
realized in number and magnitude,11 and the state which combines
magnitude with good order must necessarily be the most beautiful. To
the size of states there is a limit, (35) as there is to other things, plants,
animals, implements; for none of these retain their natural power when
they are too large or too small, but they either wholly lose their nature,
or are spoiled. For example,12 a ship which is only a span long will not
be a ship at all, (40) nor a ship a quarter of a mile long; yet there may be
a ship of a certain size, either too large or too small, which will still be a
ship, but bad for sailing. [1326b] In like manner a state when
composed of too few is not, as a state ought to be, self-sufficing; when of
too many, though self-sufficing in all mere necessaries, as a nation may
be, (5) it is not a state, being almost incapable of constitutional
government. For who can be the general of such a vast multitude, or
who the herald, unless he have the voice of a Stentor?
A state, then, only begins to exist when it has attained a population
sufficient for a good life in the political community: it may indeed, (10) if
it somewhat exceed this number, be a greater state. But, as I was saying,
there must be a limit. What should be the limit will be easily ascertained
by experience. For both governors and governed have duties to perform;
the special functions of a governor are to command and to judge. (15) But
if the citizens of a state are to judge and to distribute offices according to
merit, then they must know each other’s characters; where they do not
possess this knowledge, both the election to offices and the decision of
lawsuits will go wrong. When the population is very large they are
manifestly settled at haphazard, (20) which clearly ought not to be.
Besides, in an over-populous state foreigners and metics will readily
acquire the rights of citizens, for who will find them out? Clearly then
the best limit of the population of a state is the largest number which
suffices for the purposes of life, (25) and can be taken in at a single view.
Enough concerning the size of a state.

5 Much the same principle will apply to the territory of the state:
every one would agree in praising the territory which is most entirely
self-sufficing; and that must be the territory which is all-producing, (30)
for to have all things and to want nothing is sufficiency. In size and
extent it should be such as may enable the inhabitants to live at once
temperately and liberally in the enjoyment of leisure.13 Whether we are
right or wrong in laying down this limit we will inquire more precisely
hereafter,14 when we have occasion to consider what is the right use of
property and wealth: a matter which is much disputed, (35) because men
are inclined to rush into one of two extremes, some into meanness,
others into luxury.
It is not difficult to determine the general character of the territory
which is required (there are, however, (40) some points on which military
authorities should be heard); it should be difficult of access to the
enemy, and easy of egress to the inhabitants. [1327a] Further, we
require that the land as well as the inhabitants of whom we were just
now speaking15 should be taken in at a single view, for a country which
is easily seen can be easily protected. As to the position of the city, if we
could have what we wish, it should be well situated in regard both to sea
and land. (5) This then is one principle, that it should be a convenient
centre for the protection of the whole country: the other is, that it should
be suitable for receiving the fruits of the soil, and also for the bringing in
of timber and any other products that are easily transported. (10)

6 Whether a communication with the sea is beneficial to a well-

ordered state or not is a question which has often been asked. It is
argued that the introduction of strangers brought up under other laws,
and the increase of population, will be adverse to good order; the
increase arises from their using the sea and having a crowd of merchants
coming and going, (15) and is inimical to good government.16 Apart from
these considerations, it would be undoubtedly better, both with a view
to safety and to the provision of necessaries, (20) that the city and
territory should be connected with the sea; the defenders of a country, if
they are to maintain themselves against an enemy, should be easily
relieved both by land and by sea; and even if they are not able to attack
by sea and land at once, they will have less difficulty in doing mischief
to their assailants on one element, if they themselves can use both.
Moreover, it is necessary that they should import from abroad what is
not found in their own country, (25) and that they should export what
they have in excess; for a city ought to be a market, not indeed for
others, but for herself.
Those who make themselves a market for the world only do so for the
sake of revenue, and if a state ought not to desire profit of this kind it
ought not to have such an emporium. (30) Nowadays we often see in
countries and cities dockyards and harbours very conveniently placed
outside the city, but not too far off; and they are kept in dependence by
walls and similar fortifications. (35) Cities thus situated manifestly reap
the benefit of intercourse with their ports; and any harm which is likely
to accrue may be easily guarded against by the laws, which will
pronounce and determine who may hold communication with one
another, and who may not.
There can be no doubt that the possession of a moderate naval force is
advantageous to a city; the city should be formidable not only to its own
citizens but to some of its neighbours,17 (40) or, if necessary, able to assist
them by sea as well as by land. [1327b] The proper number or
magnitude of this naval force is relative to the character of the state; for
if her function is to take a leading part in politics, her naval power
should be commensurate with the scale of her enterprises. (5) The
population of the state need not be much increased, since there is no
necessity that the sailors should be citizens: the marines who have the
control and command will be freemen, (10) and belong also to the
infantry; and wherever there is a dense population of Perioeci and
husbandmen, there will always be sailors more than enough. Of this we
see instances at the present day. The city of Heraclea, (15) for example,
although small in comparison with many others, can man a considerable
fleet. Such are our conclusions respecting the territory of the state, its
harbours, its towns, its relations to the sea, and its maritime power.
7 Having spoken of the number of the citizens,18 we will proceed to
speak of what should be their character. (20) This is a subject which can
be easily understood by any one who casts his eye on the more
celebrated states of Hellas, and generally on the distribution of races in
the habitable world. Those who live in a cold climate and in Europe are
full of spirit, (25) but wanting in intelligence and skill; and therefore they
retain comparative freedom, but have no political organization, and are
incapable of ruling over others. Whereas the natives of Asia are
intelligent and inventive, but they are wanting in spirit, and therefore
they are always in a state of subjection and slavery. But the Hellenic
race, which is situated between them, is likewise intermediate in
character, (30) being high-spirited and also intelligent.19 Hence it
continues free, and is the best-governed of any nation, and, if it could be
formed into one state, would be able to rule the world. There are also
similar differences in the different tribes of Hellas; for some of them are
of a one-sided nature, and are intelligent or courageous only, (35) while in
others there is a happy combination of both qualities. And clearly those
whom the legislator will most easily lead to virtue may be expected to
be both intelligent and courageous. Some20 say that the guardians
should be friendly towards those whom they know, (40) fierce towards
those whom they do not know. [1328a] Now, passion is the quality of
the soul which begets friendship and enables us to love; notably the
spirit within us is more stirred against our friends and acquaintances
than against those who are unknown to us, when we think that we are
despised by them; for which reason Archilochus, complaining of his
friends, very naturally addresses his soul in these words, (5)

‘For surely thou art plagued on account of friends’.

The power of command and the love of freedom are in all men based
upon this quality, for passion is commanding and invincible. Nor is it
right to say that the guardians should be fierce towards those whom they
do not know, for we ought not to be out of temper with any one; and a
lofty spirit is not fierce by nature, but only when excited against evil-
doers. And this, as I was saying before, (10) is a feeling which men show
most strongly towards their friends if they think they have received a
wrong at their hands: as indeed is reasonable; for, besides the actual
injury, they seem to be deprived of a benefit by those who owe them
one. Hence the saying, (15)

‘Cruel is the strife of brethren’,

and again,

‘They who love in excess also hate in excess’.

Thus we have nearly determined the number and character of the

citizens of our state, and also the size and nature of their territory. I say
‘nearly’, for we ought not to require the same minuteness in theory as in
the facts given by perception.21 (20)

8 As in other natural compounds the conditions of a composite whole

are not necessarily organic parts of it, so in a state or in any other
combination forming a unity not everything is a part, which is a
necessary condition.22 The members of an association have necessarily
some one thing the same and common to all, (25) in which they share
equally or unequally; for example, food or land or any other thing. But
where there are two things of which one is a means and the other an
end, they have nothing in common except that the one receives what the
other produces. Such, for example, (30) is the relation in which workmen
and tools stand to their work; the house and the builder have nothing in
common, but the art of the builder is for the sake of the house. And so
states require property, but property, (35) even though living beings are
included in it,23 is no part of a state; for a state is not a community of
living beings only, but a community of equals, aiming at the best life
possible. Now, whereas happiness is the highest good, being a realization
and perfect practice of virtue, which some can attain, while others have
little or none of it, the various qualities of men are clearly the reason
why there are various kinds of states and many forms of government; for
different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different
means, (40) and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms
of government. [1328b] We must see also how many things are
indispensable to the existence of a state, for what we call the parts of a
state will be found among the indispensables. Let us then enumerate the
functions of a state, (5) and we shall easily elicit what we want:
First, there must be food; secondly, arts, for life requires many
instruments; thirdly, there must be arms, for the members of a
community have need of them, and in their own hands, too, (10) in order
to maintain authority both against disobedient subjects and against
external assailants; fourthly, there must be a certain amount of revenue,
both for internal needs, and for the purposes of war; fifthly, or rather
first, there must be a care of religion, which is commonly called worship;
sixthly, and most necessary of all, there must be a power of deciding
what is for the public interest, and what is just in men’s dealings with
one another. (15)
These are the services which every state may be said to need. For a
state is not a mere aggregate of persons, but a union of them sufficing
for the purposes of life; and if any of these things be wanting, it is as we
maintain24 impossible that the community can be absolutely self-
sufficing. A state then should be framed with a view to the fulfilment of
these functions. There must be husbandmen to procure food, (20) and
artisans, and a warlike and a wealthy class, and priests, and judges to
decide what is necessary and expedient.

9 Having determined these points, we have in the next place to

consider whether all ought to share in every sort of occupation. (25) Shall
every man be at once husbandman, artisan, councillor, judge, or shall we
suppose the several occupations just mentioned assigned to diferent
persons? or, thirdly, shall some employments be assigned to individuals
and others common to all? The same arrangement, however, (30) does not
occur in every constitution; as we were saying, all may be shared by all,
or not all by all, but only by some; and hence arise the differences of
constitutions, for in democracies all share in all, in oligarchies the
opposite practice prevails. Now, since we are here speaking of the best
form of government, (35) i. e. that under which the state will be most
happy (and happiness, as has been already said, cannot exist without
virtue25), it clearly follows that in the state which is best governed and
possesses men who are just absolutely, and not merely relatively to the
principle of the constitution, the citizens must not lead the life of
mechanics or tradesmen, (40) for such a life is ignoble, and inimical to
virtue.26 Neither must they be husbandmen, since leisure is necessary
both for the development of virtue and the performance of political
duties. [1329a]
Again, there is in a state a class of warriors, and another of
councillors, who advise about the expedient and determine matters of
law, and these seem in an especial manner parts of a state. Now, (5)
should these two classes be distinguished, or are both functions to be
assigned to the same persons? Here again there is no difficulty in seeing
that both functions will in one way belong to the same, in another, to
different persons. To different persons in so far as these employments are
suited to different primes of life,27 for the one requires wisdom and the
other strength. But on the other hand, since it is an impossible thing that
those who are able to use or to resist force should be willing to remain
always in subjection, (10) from this point of view the persons are the
same; for those who carry arms can always determine the fate of the
constitution. It remains therefore that both functions should be entrusted
by the ideal constitution to the same persons, not, however, at the same
time, but in the order prescribed by nature, who has given to young men
strength and to older men wisdom. (15) Such a distribution of duties will
be expedient and also just, and is founded upon a principle of conformity
to merit. Besides, the ruling class should be the owners of property, for
they are citizens, and the citizens of a state should be in good
circumstances; whereas mechanics or any other class which is not a
producer of virtue have no share in the state. (20) This follows from our
first principle,28 for happiness cannot exist without virtue, and a city is
not to be termed happy in regard to a portion of the citizens, but in
regard to them all.29 And clearly property should be in their hands, (25)
since the husbandmen will of necessity be slaves or barbarian Perioeci.30
Of the classes enumerated there remain only the priests, and the
manner in which their office is to be regulated is obvious. No
husbandman or mechanic should be appointed to it; for the Gods should
receive honour from the citizens only. Now since the body of the citizens
is divided into two classes, (30) the warriors and the councillors, and it is
beseeming that the worship of the Gods should be duly performed, and
also a rest provided in their service for those who from age have given
up active life, to the old men of these two classes should be assigned the
duties of the priesthood.
We have shown what are the necessary conditions, and what the parts
of a state: husbandmen, craftsmen, and labourers of all kinds are
necessary to the existence of states, (35) but the parts of the state are the
warriors and councillors. And these are distinguished severally from one
another, the distinction being in some cases permanent, in others not.

10 It is now new or recent discovery of political philosophers that the

state ought to be divided into classes, (40) and that the warriors should be
separated from the husbandmen. [1329b] The system has continued in
Egypt and in Crete to this day, and was established, as tradition says, by
a law of Sesostris in Egypt and of Minos in Crete. (5) The institution of
common tables also appears to be of ancient date, being in Crete as old
as the reign of Minos, and in Italy far older. The Italian historians say
that there was a certain Italus king of Oenotria, (10) from whom the
Oenotrians were called Italians, and who gave the name of Italy to the
promontory of Europe lying within the Scylletic and Lametic Gulfs,31
which are distant from one another only half a day’s journey. They say
that this Italus converted the Oenotrians from shepherds into
husbandmen, (15) and besides other laws which he gave them, was the
founder of their common meals; even in our day some who are derived
from him retain this institution and certain other laws of his. On the side
of Italy towards Tyrrhenia dwelt the Opici, (20) who are now, as of old,
called Ausones; and on the side towards Iapygia and the Ionian Gulf, in
the district called Siritis, the Chones, who are likewise of Oenotrian race.
From this part of the world originally came the institution of common
tables; the separation into castes from Egypt, for the reign of Sesostris is
of far greater antiquity than that of Minos. It is true indeed that these
and many other things have been invented several times over32 in the
course of ages, (25) or rather times without number; for necessity may be
supposed to have taught men the inventions which were absolutely
required, and when these were provided, it was natural that other things
which would adorn and enrich life should grow up by degrees. (30) And
we may infer that in political institutions the same rule holds. Egypt33
witnesses to the antiquity of all these things, for the Egyptians appear to
be of all people the most ancient; and they have laws and a regular
constitution existing from time immemorial. (35) We should therefore
make the best use of what has been already discovered, and try to supply
defects.
I have already remarked that the land ought to belong to those who
possess arms and have a share in the government,34 and that the
husbandmen ought to be a class distinct from them; and I have
determined what should be the extent and nature of the territory. Let me
proceed to discuss the distribution of the land, and the character of the
agricultural class; for I do not think that property ought to be common,
(40) as some maintain,35 but only that by friendly consent there should be

a common use of it; and that no citizen should be in want of subsistence.

[1330a]
As to common meals, there is a general agreement that a well-ordered
city should have them; and we will hereafter explain what are our own
reasons for taking this view.36 They ought, (5) however, to be open to all
the citizens.37 And yet it is not easy for the poor to contribute the
requisite sum out of their private means, and to provide also for their
household. The expense of religious worship should likewise be a public
charge. The land must therefore be divided into two parts, (10) one public
and the other private, and each part should be subdivided, part of the
public land being appropriated to the service of the Gods, and the other
part used to defray the cost of the common meals; while of the private
land, part should be near the border, (15) and the other near the city, so
that, each citizen having two lots, they may all of them have land in
both places; there is justice and fairness in such a division, and it tends
to inspire unanimity among the people in their border wars. Where there
is not this arrangement, some of them are too ready to come to blows
with their neighbours, while others are so cautious that they quite lose
the sense of honour. (20) Wherefore there is a law in some places which
forbids those who dwell near the border to take part in public
deliberations about wars with neighbours, on the ground that their
interests will pervert their judgment. For the reasons already mentioned,
then, the land should be divided in the manner described. The very best
thing of all would be that the husbandmen should be slaves taken from
among men who are not all of the same race38 and not spirited, (25) for if
they have no spirit they will be better suited for their work, and there
will be no danger of their making a revolution. The next best thing
would be that they should be Perioeci of foreign race,39 and of a like
inferior nature; some of them should be the slaves of individuals, (30) and
employed in the private estates of men of property, the remainder
should be the property of the state and employed on the common land.40
I will hereafter explain41 what is the proper treatment of slaves, and why
it is expedient that liberty should be always held out to them as the
reward of their services.

11 We have already said that the city should be open to the land and
to the sea,42 (35) and to the whole country as far as possible. In respect of
the place itself our wish would be that its situation should be fortunate
in four things. The first, health—this is a necessity: cities which lie
towards the east, and are blown upon by winds coming from the east, (40)
are the healthiest; next in healthfulness are those which are sheltered
from the north wind, for they have a milder winter. [1330b] The site
of the city should likewise be convenient both for political
administration and for war. With a view to the latter it should afford
easy egress to the citizens, and at the same time be inaccessible and
difficult of capture to enemies.43 There should be a natural abundance of
springs and fountains in the town, (5) or, if there is a deficiency of them,
great reservoirs may be established for the collection of rain-water, such
as will not fail when the inhabitants are cut off from the country by war.
Special care should be taken of the health of the inhabitants, which will
depend chiefly on the healthiness of the locality and of the quarter to
which they are exposed, (10) and secondly, on the use of pure water; this
latter point is by no means a secondary consideration. For the elements
which we use most and oftenest for the support of the body contribute
most to health, and among these are water and air. (15) Wherefore, in all
wise states, if there is a want of pure water, and the supply is not all
equally good, the drinking water ought to be separated from that which
is used for other purposes.
 As to strongholds, what is suitable to different forms of government
varies: thus an acropolis is suited to an oligarchy or a monarchy, (20) but
a plain to a democracy; neither to an aristocracy, but rather a number of
strong places. The arrangement of private houses is considered to be
more agreeable and generally more convenient, if the streets are
regularly laid out after the modern fashion which Hippodamus44
introduced, (25) but for security in war the antiquated mode of building,
which made it difficult for strangers to get out of a town and for
assailants to find their way in, is preferable. A city should therefore
adopt both plans of building: it is possible to arrange the houses
irregularly, as husbandmen plant their vines in what are called ‘clumps’
The whole town should not be laid out in straight lines, (30) but only
certain quarters and regions; thus security and beauty will be combined.
As to walls, those who say45 that cities making any pretension to
military virtue should not have them, are quite out of date in their
notions; and they may see the cities which prided themselves on this
fancy confuted by facts. (35) True, there is little courage shown in seeking
for safety behind a rampart when an enemy is similar in character and
not much superior in number; but the superiority of the besiegers may
be and often is too much both for ordinary human valor and for that
which is found only in a few; and if they are to be saved and to escape
defeat and outrage, (40) the strongest wall will be the truest soldierly
precaution, more especially now that missiles and siege engines have
been brought to such perfection. [1331a] To have no walls would be
as foolish as to choose a site for a town in an exposed country, and to
level the heights; or as if an individual were to leave his house unwalled,
(5) lest the inmates should become cowards. Nor must we forget that

those who have their cities surrounded by walls may either take
advantage of them or not, but cities which are unwalled have no choice.
If our conclusions are just, not only should cities have walls, (10) but
care should be taken to make them ornamental, as well as useful for
warlike purposes, and adapted to resist modern inventions. For as the
assailants of a city do all they can to gain an advantage, (15) so the
defenders should make use of any means of defence which have been
already discovered, and should devise and invent others, for when men
are well prepared no enemy even thinks of attacking them.
12 As the walls are to be divided by guard-houses and towers built at
suitable intervals, and the body of citizens must be distributed at
common tables,46 (20) the idea will naturally occur that we should
establish some of the common tables in the guard-houses. These might
be arranged as has been suggested; while the principal common tables of
the magistrates will occupy a suitable place, and there also will be the
buildings appropriated to religious worship except in the case of those
rites which the law or the Pythian oracle has restricted to a special
locality.47 (25) The site should be a spot seen far and wide, which gives
due elevation to virtue and towers over the neighbourhood. (30) Below
this spot should be established an agora, such as that which the
Thessalians call the ‘freemen’s agora’; from this all trade should be
excluded, and no mechanic, husbandman, or any such person allowed to
enter, unless he be summoned by the magistrates. (35) It would be a
charming use of the place, if the gymnastic exercises of the elder men
were performed there. For in this noble practice different ages should be
separated, and some of the magistrates should stay with the boys, (40)
while the grown-up men remain with the magistrates; for the presence of
the magistrates is the best mode of inspiring true modesty and ingenuous
fear. [1331b] There should also be a traders’ agora, distinct and apart
from the other, in a situation which is convenient for the reception of
goods both by sea and land.
But in speaking of the magistrates we must not forget another section
of the citizens, (5) viz. the priests, for whom public tables should likewise
be provided in their proper place near the temples. The magistrates who
deal with contracts, indictments, summonses, and the like, and those
who have the care of the agora and of the city respectively, (10) ought to
be established near an agora and some public place of meeting; the
neighbourhood of the traders’ agora will be a suitable spot; the upper
agora we devote to the life of leisure, the other is intended for the
necessities of trade.
The same order should prevail in the country, for there too the
magistrates, (15) called by some ‘Inspectors of Forests’ and by others
‘Wardens of the Country’, must have guard-houses and common tables
while they are on duty; temples should also be scattered throughout the
country, dedicated, some to Gods, and some to heroes.
 But it would be a waste of time for us to linger over details like these.
The difficulty is not in imagining but in carrying them out. (20) We may
talk about them as much as we like, but the execution of them will
depend upon fortune. Wherefore let us say no more about these matters
for the present.

13 Returning to the constitution itself, let us seek to determine out of

what and what sort of elements the state which is to be happy and well-
governed should be composed. (25) There are two things in which all
well-being consists: one of them is the choice of a right end and aim of
action, and the other the discovery of the actions which are means
towards it; for the means and the end may agree or disagree. (30)
Sometimes the right end is set before men, but in practice they fail to
attain it; in other cases they are successful in all the means, but they
propose to themselves a bad end; and sometimes they fail in both. Take,
for example, the art of medicine; physicians do not always understand
the nature of health, (35) and also the means which they use may not
effect the desired end. In all arts and sciences both the end and the
means should be equally within our control.
The happiness and well-being which all men manifestly desire, some
have the power of attaining, but to others, (40) from some accident or
defect of nature, the attainment of them is not granted; for a good life
requires a supply of external goods, in a less degree when men are in a
good state, in a greater degree when they are in a lower state. [1332a]
Others again, who possess the conditions of happiness, go utterly wrong
from the first in the pursuit of it. But since our object is to discover the
best form of government, that, namely, (5) under which a city will be best
governed, and since the city is best governed which has the greatest
opportunity of obtaining happiness, it is evident that we must clearly
ascertain the nature of happiness.
We maintain, and have said in the Ethics,48 if the arguments there
adduced are of any value, that happiness is the realization and perfect
exercise of virtue, and this not conditional, but absolute. (10) And I used
the term ‘conditional’ to express that which is indispensable, and
‘absolute’ to express that which is good in itself. Take the case of just
actions; just punishments and chastisements do indeed spring from a
good principle, but they are good only because we cannot do without
them—it would be better that neither individuals nor states should need
anything of the sort—but actions which aim at honour and advantage
are absolutely the best. (15) The conditional action is only the choice of a
lesser evil; whereas these are the foundation and creation of good. A
good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other
ills of life; but he can only attain happiness under the opposite
conditions49 (for this also has been determined in accordance with
ethical arguments,50 (20) that the good man is he for whom, because he is
virtuous, the things that are absolutely good are good; it is also plain
that his use of these goods must be virtuous and in the absolute sense
good). (25) This makes men fancy that external goods are the cause of
happiness, yet we might as well say that a brilliant performance on the
lyre was to be attributed to the instrument and not to the skill of the
performer.
It follows then from what has been said that some things the legislator
must find ready to his hand in a state, others he must provide. And
therefore we can only say: May our state be constituted in such a
manner as to be blessed with the goods of which fortune disposes (for
we acknowledge her power): whereas virtue and goodness in the state
are not a matter of chance but the result of knowledge and purpose. (30)
A city can be virtuous only when the citizens who have a share in the
government are virtuous, and in our state all the citizens share in the
government; let us then inquire how a man becomes virtuous. (35) For
even if we could suppose the citizen body to be virtuous, without each of
them being so, yet the latter would be better, for in the virtue of each
the virtue of all is involved.
There are three things which make men good and virtuous; these are
nature, (40) habit, rational principle.51 In the first place, every one must
be born a man and not some other animal; so, too, he must have a
certain character, both of body and soul. [1332b] But some qualities
there is no use in having at birth, for they are altered by habit, and there
are some gifts which by nature are made to be turned by habit to good
or bad. Animals lead for the most part a life of nature, although in lesser
particulars some are influenced by habit as well. Man has rational
principle, (5) in addition, and man only. Wherefore nature, habit, rational
principle must be in harmony with one another; for they do not always
agree; men do many things against habit and nature, if rational principle
persuades them that they ought. We have already determined what
natures are likely to be most easily moulded by the hands of the
legislator.52 All else is the work of education; we learn some things by
habit and some by instruction. (10)

14 Since every political society is composed of rulers and subjects let

us consider whether the relations of one to the other should interchange
or be permanent.53 (15) For the education of the citizens will necessarily
vary with the answer given to this question. Now, if some men excelled
others in the same degree in which gods and heroes are supposed to
excel mankind in general (having in the first place a great advantage
even in their bodies, (20) and secondly in their minds), so that the
superiority of the governors was undisputed and patent to their subjects,
it would clearly be better that once for all the one class should rule and
the others serve.54 But since this is unattainable, and kings have no
marked superiority over their subjects, (25) such as Scylax affirms to be
found among the Indians, it is obviously necessary on many grounds that
all the citizens alike should take their turn of governing and being
governed. Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons, and
no government can stand which is not founded upon justice. For if the
government be unjust every one in the country unites with the governed
in the desire to have a revolution, (30) and it is an impossibility that the
members of the government can be so numerous as to be stronger than
all their enemies put together. Yet that governors should excel their
subjects is undeniable. How all this is to be effected, and in what way
they will respectively share in the government, the legislator has to
consider. (35) The subject has been already mentioned.55 Nature herself
has provided the distinction when she made a difference between old
and young within the same species, of whom she fitted the one to govern
and the other to be governed. No one takes offence at being governed
when he is young, nor does he think himself better than his governors,
(40) especially if he will enjoy the same privilege when he reaches the
required age.
We conclude that from one point of view governors and governed are
identical, and from another different. And therefore their education must
be the same and also different. [1333a] For he who would learn to
command well must, as men say, first of all learn to obey.56 As I
observed in the first part of this treatise, there is one rule which is for
the sake of the rulers and another rule which is for the sake of the
ruled;57 the former is a despotic, the latter a free government. (5) Some
commands differ not in the thing commanded, but in the intention with
which they are imposed. Wherefore, many apparently menial offices are
an honour to the free youth by whom they are performed; for actions do
not differ as honourable or dishonourable in themselves so much as in
the end and intention of them. (10) But since we say58 that the virtue of
the citizen and ruler is the same as that of the good man, and that the
same person must first be a subject and then a ruler, the legislator has to
see that they become good men, (15) and by what means this may be
accomplished, and what is the end of the perfect life.
Now the soul of man is divided into two parts, one of which has a
rational principle in itself, and the other, not having a rational principle
in itself, is able to obey such a principle.59 And we call a man in any way
good because he has the virtues of these two parts. In which of them the
end is more likely to be found is no matter of doubt to those who adopt
our division; for in the world both of nature and of art the inferior
always exists for the sake of the better or superior, (20) and the better or
superior is that which has a rational principle. This principle, too, in our
ordinary way of speaking, is divided into two kinds, for there is a
practical and a speculative principle.60 This part, (25) then, must
evidently be similarly divided. And there must be a corresponding
division of actions; the actions of the naturally better part are to be
preferred by those who have it in their power to attain to two out of the
three or to all, for that is always to every one the most eligible which is
the highest attainable by him. (30) The whole of life is further divided
into two parts, business and leisure,61 war and peace, and of actions
some aim at what is necessary and useful, and some at what is
honourable. And the preference given to one or the other class of actions
must necessarily be like the preference given to one or other part of the
soul and its actions over the other; there must be war for the sake of
peace, (35) business for the sake of leisure, things useful and necessary for
the sake of things honourable. All these points the statesman should
keep in view when he frames his laws; he should consider the parts of
the soul and their functions, (40) and above all the better and the end; he
should also remember the diversities of human lives and actions.
[1333b] For men must be able to engage in business and go to war,
but leisure and peace are better; they must do what is necessary and
indeed what is useful, but what is honourable is better. On such
principles children and persons of every age which requires education
should be trained. (5) Whereas even the Hellenes of the present day who
are reputed to be best governed, and the legislators who gave them their
constitutions, do not appear to have framed their governments with a
regard to the best end, or to have given them laws and education with a
view to all the virtues, but in a vulgar spirit have fallen back on those
which promised to be more useful and profitable. (10) Many modern
writers have taken a similar view: they commend the Lacedaemonian
constitution, and praise the legislator for making conquest and war his
sole aim,62 a doctrine which may be refuted by argument and has long
ago been refuted by facts. (15) For most men desire empire in the hope of
accumulating the goods of fortune; and on this ground Thibron and all
those who have written about the Lacedaemonian constitution have
praised their legislator, (20) because the Lacedaemonians, by being
trained to meet dangers, gained great power. But surely they are not a
happy people now that their empire has passed away, nor was their
legislator right. How ridiculous is the result, if, while they are continuing
in the observance of his laws and no one interferes with them, (25) they
have lost the better part of life! These writers further err about the sort
of government which the legislator should approve, for the government
of freemen is nobler and implies more virtue than despotic
government.63 Neither is a city to be deemed happy or a legislator to be
praised because he trains his citizens to conquer and obtain dominion
over their neighbours, (30) for there is great evil in this. On a similar
principle any citizen who could, should obviously try to obtain the
power in his own state—the crime which the Lacedaemonians accuse
king Pausanias of attempting,64 although he had so great honour
already. No such principle and no law having this object is either
statesmanlike or useful or right. (35) For the same things are best both for
individuals and for states, and these are the things which the legislator
ought to implant in the minds of his citizens. Neither should men study
war with a view to the enslavement of those who do not deserve to be
enslaved; but first of all they should provide against their own
enslavement, (40) and in the second place obtain empire for the good of
the governed, and not for the sake of exercising a general despotism, and
in the third place they should seek to be masters only over those who
deserve to be slaves. [1334a] Facts, as well as arguments, prove that
the legislator should direct all his military and other measures to the
provision of leisure and the establishment of peace. (5) For most of these
military states are safe only while they are at war,65 but fall when they
have acquired their empire; like unused iron they lose their temper in
time of peace. And for this the legislator is to blame, (10) he never having
taught them how to lead the life of peace.

15 Since the end of individuals and of states is the same, the end of
the best man and of the best constitution must also be the same; it is
therefore evident that there ought to exist in both of them the virtues of
leisure; for peace, as has been often repeated,66 is the end of war, (15) and
leisure of toil. But leisure and cultivation may be promoted, not only by
those virtues which are practised in leisure, but also by some of those
which are useful to business.67 For many necessaries of life have to be
supplied before we can have leisure. Therefore a city must be temperate
and brave, and able to endure: for truly, as the proverb says, (20) ‘There is
no leisure for slaves,’ and those who cannot face danger like men are the
slaves of any invader. Courage and endurance are required for business
and philosophy for leisure, temperance and justice for both, and more
especially in times of peace and leisure, (25) for war compels men to be
just and temperate, whereas the enjoyment of good fortune and the
leisure which comes with peace tend to make them insolent. Those then
who seem to be the best-off and to be in the possession of every good,
have special need of justice and temperance—for example, (30) those (if
such there be, as the poets say) who dwell in the Islands of the Blest;
they above all will need philosophy and temperance and justice, and all
the more the more leisure they have, living in the midst of abundance.
(35) There is no difficulty in seeing why the state that would be happy

and good ought to have these virtues. If it be disgraceful in men not to

be able to use the goods of life, it is peculiarly disgraceful not to be able
to use them in time of leisure—to show excellent qualities in action and
war, and when they have peace and leisure to be no better than slaves.
(40) Wherefore we should not practise virtue after the manner of the

Lacedaemonians.68 For they, while agreeing with other men in their

conception of the highest goods, differ from the rest of mankind in
thinking that they are to be obtained by the practice of a single virtue.
[1334b] And since [they think] these goods and the enjoyment of
them greater than the enjoyment derived from the virtues … and that [it
should be practised] for its own sake, (5) is evident from what has been
said; we must now consider how and by what means it is to be attained.
We have already determined that nature and habit and rational
principle are required,69 and, of these, the proper nature of the citizens
has also been defined by us.70 But we have still to consider whether the
training of early life is to be that of rational principle or habit, for these
two must accord, and when in accord they will then form the best of
harmonies. (10) The rational principle may be mistaken and fail in
attaining the highest ideal of life, and there may be a like evil influence
of habit. Thus much is clear in the first place, that, as in all other things,
birth implies an antecedent beginning,71 and that there are beginnings
whose end is relative to a further end. Now, in men rational principle
and mind are the end towards which nature strives,72 so that the birth
and moral discipline of the citizens ought to be ordered with a view to
them. (15) In the second place, as the soul and body are two, we see also
that there are two parts of the soul, the rational and the irrational, and
two corresponding states—reason and appetite. (20) And as the body is
prior in order of generation to the soul, so the irrational is prior to the
rational. The proof is that anger and wishing and desire are implanted in
children from their very birth, but reason and understanding are
developed as they grow older. Wherefore, (25) the care of the body ought
to precede that of the soul, and the training of the appetitive part should
follow: none the less our care of it must be for the sake of the reason,
and our care of the body for the sake of the soul.

16 Since the legislator should begin by considering how the frames of

the children whom he is rearing may be as good as possible, (30) his first
care will be about marriage—at what age should his citizens marry, and
who are fit to marry? In legislating on this subject he ought to consider
the persons and the length of their life, that their procreative life may
terminate at the same period, (35) and that they may not differ in their
bodily powers, as will be the case if the man is still able to beget
children while the woman is unable to bear them, or the woman able to
bear while the man is unable to beget, for from these causes arise
quarrels and differences between married persons. Secondly, he must
consider the time at which the children will succeed to their parents;
there ought not to be too great an interval of age, (40) for then the
parents will be too old to derive any pleasure from their affection, or to
be of any use to them. [1335a] Nor ought they to be too nearly of an
age; to youthful marriages there are many objections—the children will
be wanting in respect to the parents, who will seem to be their
contemporaries, and disputes will arise in the management of the
household. Thirdly, and this is the point from which we digressed,73 the
legislator must mould to his will the frames of newly-born children. (5)
Almost all these objects may be secured by attention to one point. Since
the time of generation is commonly limited within the age of seventy
years in the case of a man, and of fifty in the case of a woman, the
commencement of the union should conform to these periods. (10) The
union of male and female when too young is bad for the procreation of
children; in all other animals the offspring of the young are small and ill-
developed, and with a tendency to produce female children, and
therefore also in man, as is proved by the fact that in those cities in
which men and women are accustomed to marry young, (15) the people
are small and weak; in childbirth also younger women suffer more, and
more of them die; some persons say that this was the meaning of the
response once given to the Troezenians74—the oracle really meant that
many died because they married too young; it had nothing to do with
the ingathering of the harvest. (20) It also conduces to temperance not to
marry too soon; for women who marry early are apt to be wanton; and
in men too the bodily frame is stunted if they marry while the seed is
growing (for there is a time when the growth of the seed, (25) also,
ceases, or continues to but a slight extent). Women should marry when
they are about eighteen years of age, and men at seven and thirty; then
they are in the prime of life, (30) and the decline in the powers of both
will coincide. Further, the children, if their birth takes place soon, as
may reasonably be expected, will succeed in the beginning of their
prime, when the fathers are already in the decline of life, and have
nearly reached their term of three-score years and ten. (35)
Thus much of the age proper for marriage: the season of the year
should also be considered; according to our present custom, people
generally limit marriage to the season of winter, and they are right. (40)
The precepts of physicians and natural philosophers about generation
should also be studied by the parents themselves; the physicians give
good advice about the favourable conditions of the body, and the natural
philosophers about the winds; of which they prefer the north to the
south. [1335b]
What constitution in the parent is most advantageous to the offspring
is a subject which we will consider more carefully75 when we speak of
the education of children, and we will only make a few general remarks
at present. (5) The constitution of an athlete is not suited to the life of a
citizen, or to health, or to the procreation of children, any more than the
valetudinarian or exhausted constitution, but one which is in a mean
between them. A man’s constitution should be inured to labour, but not
to labour which is excessive or of one sort only, (10) such as is practised
by athletes; he should be capable of all the actions of a freeman. These
remarks apply equally to both parents.
Women who are with child should be careful of themselves; they
should take exercise and have a nourishing diet. (15) The first of these
prescriptions the legislator will easily carry into effect by requiring that
they shall take a walk daily to some temple, where they can worship the
gods who preside over birth.76 Their minds, however, unlike their
bodies, they ought to keep quiet, for the offspring derive their natures
from their mothers as plants do from the earth. (20)
As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a law that no
deformed child shall live, but that on the ground of an excess in the
number of children, if the established customs of the state forbid this
(for in our state population has a limit), no child is to be exposed, but
when couples have children in excess, (25) let abortion be procured before
sense and life have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in
these cases depends on the question of life and sensation.
And now, having determined at what ages men and women are to
begin their union, let us also determine how long they shall continue to
beget and bear offspring for the state; men who are too old, like men
who are too young, produce children who are defective in body and
mind; the children of very old men are weakly. (30) The limit, then,
should be the age which is the prime of their intelligence, and this in
most persons, according to the notion of some poets who measure life by
periods of seven years, is about fifty; at four or five years later, (35) they
should cease from having families; and from that time forward only
cohabit with one another for the sake of health; or for some similar
reason.
As to adultery, let it be held disgraceful, in general, for any man or
woman to be found in any way unfaithful when they are married, (40)
and called husband and wife. [1336a] If during the time of bearing
children anything of the sort occur, let the guilty person be punished
with a loss of privileges in proportion to the offence.77

17 After the children have been born, the manner of rearing them
may be supposed to have a great effect on their bodily strength. (5) It
would appear from the example of animals, and of those nations who
desire to create the military habit, that the food which has most milk in
it is best suited to human beings; but the less wine the better, if they
would escape diseases. Also all the motions to which children can be
subjected at their early age are very useful. But in order to preserve their
tender limbs from distortion, (10) some nations have had recourse to
mechanical appliances which straighten their bodies. To accustom
children to the cold from their earliest years is also an excellent practice,
which greatly conduces to health, and hardens them for military service.
Hence many barbarians have a custom of plunging their children at birth
into a cold stream; others, (15) like the Celts, clothe them in a light
wrapper only. For human nature should be early habituated to endure
all which by habit it can be made to endure; but the process must be
gradual. And children, from their natural warmth, (20) may be easily
trained to bear cold. Such care should attend them in the first stage of
life.
The next period lasts to the age of five; during this no demand should
be made upon the child for study or labour, lest its growth be impeded;
and there should be sufficient motion to prevent the limbs from being
inactive. (25) This can be secured, among other ways, by amusement, but
the amusement should not be vulgar or tiring or effeminate. The
Directors of Education, as they are termed, should be careful what tales
or stories the children hear,78 for all such things are designed to prepare
the way for the business of later life, (30) and should be for the most part
imitations of the occupations which they will hereafter pursue in
earnest.79 Those are wrong who in their laws attempt to check the loud
crying and screaming of children, (35) for these contribute towards their
growth, and, in a manner, exercise their bodies.80 Straining the voice has
a strengthening effect similar to that produced by the retention of the
breath in violent exertions. (40) The Directors of Education should have
an eye to their bringing up, and in particular should take care that they
are left as little as possible with slaves. [1336b] For until they are
seven years old they must live at home; and therefore, even at this early
age, it is to be expected that they should acquire a taint of meanness
from what they hear and see. Indeed, there is nothing which the
legislator should be more careful to drive away than indecency of
speech; for the light utterance of shameful words leads soon to shameful
actions. (5) The young especially should never be allowed to repeat or
hear anything of the sort. A freeman who is found saying or doing what
is forbidden, if he be too young as yet to have the privilege of reclining
at the public tables, (10) should be disgraced and beaten, and an elder
person degraded as his slavish conduct deserves. And since we do not
allow improper language, clearly we should also banish pictures or
speeches from the stage which are indecent. (15) Let the rulers take care
that there be no image or picture representing unseemly actions, except
in the temples of those Gods at whose festivals the law permits even
ribaldry, and whom the law also permits to be worshipped by persons of
mature age on behalf of themselves, their children, and their wives. But
the legislator should not allow youth to be spectators of iambi or of
comedy until they are of an age to sit at the public tables and to drink
strong wine; by that time education will have armed them against the
evil influences of such representations. (20)
We have made these remarks in a cursory manner—they are enough
for the present occasion; but hereafter81 we will return to the subject
and after a fuller discussion determine whether such liberty should or
should not be granted, (25) and in what way granted, if at all. Theodorus,
the tragic actor, was quite right in saying that he would not allow any
other actor, (30) not even if he were quite second-rate, to enter before
himself, because the spectators grew fond of the voices which they first
heard. And the same principle applies universally to association with
things as well as with persons, for we always like best whatever comes
first. And therefore youth should be kept strangers to all that is bad, (35)
and especially to things which suggest vice or hate. When the five years
have passed away, during the two following years they must look on at
the pursuits which they are hereafter to learn. There are two periods of
life with reference to which education has to be divided, from seven to
the age of puberty, and onwards to the age of one and twenty. The poets
who divide ages by sevens82 are in the main right: (40) but we should
observe the divisions actually made by nature; for the deficiencies of
nature are what art and education seek to fill up. [1337a]
Let us then first inquire if any regulations are to be laid down about
children, and secondly, whether the care of them should be the concern
of the state or of private individuals, which latter is in our own day the
common custom, (5) and in the third place, what these regulations should
be.

1 Cp. Laws, iii. 697 B, V. 743 E; N. Eth. i. 1098b 12.

2 Cp, i, 1256b 35.

3 N. Eth. i. 1099b 20.

4 Cp. Plato, Laws, i. 633 ff.

5 Cp. ii. 1265a 20, 1267a 19.

6 1333a 11 sqq.
7 i. 4–7.

8 Cp. iii. 1284b 32 and 1288a 28.

9 Bk. ii.

10 Cp. ii. 1265a 17.

11 Cp. Poet. 1450b 36.

12 Cp. v. 1309b 23.

13 Cp. ii. 1265a 32.

14 This promise is not fulfilled.

15 1326b 22–24.

16 Cp. Plato, Laws, iv. 704 D-705 B.

17 Cp. ii. 1265a 20.

18 1326a 9–b 24.

19 Cp. Plato, Rep. iv. 435 E, 436 A.

20 Rep. ii. 375 c.

21 Cp. 1331b 18.

22 Cp. iii. 1278a 2.

23 Cp. i. 1253b 32.

24 Cp. ii. 1261b 12, iii. 1275b 20, v. 1303a 26.

25 Cp. 1323a 21–1324a 4, 1328a 37 sq.

26 Cp. Plato, Laws, xi. 919 C-E.

27 i. e. the physical and the mental.

28 Cp. 1328b 35.

29 Cp. ii. 1264b 17–24.

30 Cp. infra, 1330a 25–31.

31 i. e. between these gulfs and the Strait of Messina.

32 Cp. Plato, Laws, iii. 676; Aristotle, Metaph. xii. 1074b 10; and Pol. ii. 1264a 3.

33 Cp. Metaph. i. 981b 23; Meteor. i. 14. 352b 19; Plato, Timaeus, 22 B; Laws, ii. 656, 657.

34 1328b 33–1339a 2, 1329a 17–26, 1326b 26–32.

35 Cp. ii. 5, Rep. iii. 416 D.

36 Aristotle does not give any explanation in the Politics.

37 Cp. ii. 1271a 28.

38 Cp. Plato, Laws, vi. 777 C, D.

39 Cp. 1329a 26.

40 Cp. ii. 1267b 16.

41 A. does not do so in the Politics, but Cp. Oec. 1344b 15.

42 1327a 4–40.

43 Repetition of 1326b 40.

44 Cp. ii. 1267b 22.

45 Cp. Plato, Laws, vi. 778 D.

46 Cp. 1330a 3.

47 Cp. Plato, Laws, v. 738 B-D, vi. 759 C, 778 c, viii. 848 D-E.

48 Nic. Eth. i. 1098a 16, x. 1176b 4; and Cp. 1328a 37.

49 Nic. Eth. i. 1100b 22, 1101a 13.

50 Nic. Eth. iii. 1113a 22–b 1; E. E. vii. 1248b 26; M. M. ii. 1207b 31.

51 Cp. N. Eth. x. 1179b 20.

52 1327b 36.

53 Cp. iii. 1279a 8.

54 Cp. i. 1254b 16, 1284a 3.

55 1329a 2–17.

56 Cp. iii. 1277b 9.

57 iii. 1278b 32–1279a 8, Cp. 1277a 33–b 30.

58 Cp. iii. 4, 5.

59 Cp. Nic. Eth. i. 1102b 28.

60 Cp. Nic. Eth. vi. 1139a 6.

61 Nic. Eth. x. 1177b 4.

62 Cp. Plato, Laws, i. 628, 638.

63 Cp. i. 1254a 25.

64 Cp. v. 1301b 20, 1307a 3.

65 Cp. ii. 1271b 3.

66 1333a 35, 1334a 2.

67 i. e. ‘not only by some of the speculative but also by some of the practical virtues’.

68 Cp. ii. 1271a 41.

69 1332a 39 sqq.

70 c. 7.

71 i. e. the union of the parents.

72 i. e. the birth of the offspring, which is the end of the union of the parents, points to a further
end, the development of mind.
73 1334b 29 sqq.

74 ‘Plough not the young field’.

75 A. does not actually do so.

76 Cp. Plato, Laws, vii. 789 E.

77 Cp. Laws, viii. 841 D, E.

78 Plato, Rep. ii. 377 ff.

79 Plato, Laws, i. 643.

80 Plato, Laws, vii. 792 A.

81 An unfulfilled promise.

82 Cp. 1335b 33.

 BOOK VIII

1 No one will doubt that the legislator should direct his attention
above all to the education of youth; for the neglect of education does
harm to the constitution. The citizen should be moulded to suit the form
of government under which he lives.1 For each government has a
peculiar character which originally formed and which continues to
preserve it. (15) The character of democracy creates democracy, and the
character of oligarchy creates oligarchy; and always the better the
character, the better the government.
Again, for the exercise of any faculty or art a previous training and
habituation are required; clearly therefore for the practice of virtue. (20)
And since the whole city has one end, it is manifest that education
should be one and the same for all, and that it should be public, and not
private—not as at present, when every one looks after his own children
separately, and gives them separate instruction of the sort which he
thinks best; the training in things which are of common interest should
be the same for all. (25) Neither must we suppose that any one of the
citizens belongs to himself, for they all belong to the state, and are each
of them a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from
the care of the whole. In this particular as in some others the
Lacedaemonians are to be praised, (30) for they take the greatest pains
about their children, and make education the business of the state.2

2 That education should be regulated by law and should be an affair

of state is not to be denied, but what should be the character of this
public education, and how young persons should be educated, are
questions which remain to be considered. As things are, there is
disagreement about the subjects. (35) For mankind are by no means
agreed about the things to be taught, whether we look to virtue or the
best life. Neither is it clear whether education is more concerned with
intellectual or with moral virtue. The existing practice is perplexing; no
one knows on what principle we should proceed—should the useful in
life, (40) or should virtue, or should the higher knowledge, be the aim of
our training; all three opinions have been entertained. [1337b] Again,
about the means there is no agreement; for different persons, starting
with different ideas about the nature of virtue, naturally disagree about
the practice of it. There can be no doubt that children should be taught
those useful things which are really necessary, (5) but not all useful
things; for occupations are divided into liberal and illiberal; and to
young children should be imparted only such kinds of knowledge as will
be useful to them without vulgarizing them. And any occupation, (10) art,
or science, which makes the body or soul or mind of the freeman less fit
for the practice or exercise of virtue, is vulgar; wherefore we call those
arts vulgar which tend to deform the body, and likewise all paid
employments, for they absorb and degrade the mind. (15) There are also
some liberal arts quite proper for a freeman to acquire, but only in a
certain degree, and if he attend to them too closely, in order to attain
perfection in them, the same evil effects will follow. The object also
which a man sets before him makes a great difference; if he does or
learns anything for his own sake3 or for the sake of his friends, or with a
view to excellence, the action will not appear illiberal; but if done for
the sake of others, (20) the very same action will be thought menial and
servile. The received subjects of instruction, as I have already remarked,4
are partly of a liberal and partly of an illiberal character.

3 The customary branches of education are in number four; they are—

(1) reading and writing, (2) gymnastic exercises, (3) music, (25) to which
is sometimes added (4) drawing. Of these, reading and writing and
drawing are regarded as useful for the purposes of life in a variety of
ways, and gymnastic exercises are thought to infuse courage. Concerning
music a doubt may be raised—in our own day most men cultivate it for
the sake of pleasure, but originally it was included in education, (30)
because nature herself, as has been often said,5 requires that we should
be able, not only to work well, but to use leisure well; for, as I must
repeat once again, the first principle of all action is leisure. Both are
required, but leisure is better than occupation and is its end; and
therefore the question must be asked, what ought we to do when at
leisure? Clearly we ought not to be amusing ourselves, (35) for then
amusement would be the end of life. But if this is inconceivable, and
amusement is needed more amid serious occupations than at other times
(for he who is hard at work has need of relaxation, and amusement gives
relaxation, whereas occupation is always accompanied with exertion and
effort, (40) we should introduce amusements only at suitable times, and
they should be our medicines, for the emotion which they create in the
soul is a relaxation, and from the pleasure we obtain rest. But leisure of
itself gives pleasure and happiness and enjoyment of life, which are
experienced, not by the busy man, but by those who have leisure.
[1338a] For he who is occupied has in view some end which he has
not attained; but happiness is an end, (5) since all men deem it to be
accompanied with pleasure and not with pain. This pleasure, however, is
regarded differently by different persons, and varies according to the
habit of individuals; the pleasure of the best man is the best, and springs
from the noblest sources. It is clear then that there are branches of
learning and education which we must study merely with a view to
leisure spent in intellectual activity, (10) and these are to be valued for
their own sake; whereas those kinds of knowledge which are useful in
business are to be deemed necessary, and exist for the sake of other
things. And therefore our fathers admitted music into education, not on
the ground either of its necessity or utility, for it is not necessary, nor
indeed useful in the same manner as reading and writing, (15) which are
useful in money-making, in the management of a household, in the
acquisition of knowledge and in political life, nor like drawing, useful
for a more correct judgement of the works of artists, nor again like
gymnastic, which gives health and strength; for neither of these is to be
gained from music. (20) There remains, then, the use of music for
intellectual enjoyment in leisure; which is in fact evidently the reason of
its introduction, this being one of the ways in which it is thought that a
freeman should pass his leisure; as Homer says—

‘But he who alone should be called6 to the pleasant feast’, (25)

and afterwards he speaks of others whom he describes as inviting

‘The bard who would delight them all’.7

And in another place Odysseus says there is no better way of passing life
than when men’s hearts are merry and

‘The banqueters in the hall, sitting in order, hear the voice of the minstrel’.8

It is evident, (30) then, that there is a sort of education in which parents

should train their sons, not as being useful or necessary, but because it is
liberal or noble. Whether this is of one kind only, or of more than one,
and if so, what they are, and how they are to be imparted, must
hereafter be determined.9 Thus much we are now in a position to say, (35)
that the ancients witness to us; for their opinion may be gathered from
the fact that music is one of the received and traditional branches of
education. Further, it is clear that children should be instructed in some
useful things—for example, in reading and writing—not only for their
usefulness, but also because many other sorts of knowledge are acquired
through them. (40) With a like view they may be taught drawing, not to
prevent their making mistakes in their own purchases, or in order that
they may not be imposed upon in the buying or selling of articles, but
perhaps rather because it makes them judges of the beauty of the human
form. [1338b] To be always seeking after the useful does not become
free and exalted souls.10 Now it is clear that in education practice must
be used before theory, (5) and the body be trained before the mind; and
therefore boys should be handed over to the trainer, who creates in them
the proper habit of body, and to the wrestling-master, who teaches them
their exercises.

4 Of those states which in our own day seem to take the greatest care
of children, some aim at producing in them an athletic habit, (10) but
they only injure their forms and stunt their growth. Although the
Lacedaemonians have not fallen into this mistake, yet they brutalize
their children by laborious exercises which they think will make them
courageous. But in truth, as we have often repeated,11 education should
not be exclusively, (15) or principally, directed to this end. And even if we
suppose the Lacedaemonians to be right in their end, they do not attain
it. For among barbarians and among animals courage is found
associated, not with the greatest ferocity, (20) but with a gentle and lion-
like temper. There are many races who are ready enough to kill and eat
men, such as the Achaeans and Heniochi, who both live about the Black
Sea;12 and there are other mainland tribes, as bad or worse, who all live
by plunder, but have no courage. It is notorious that the Lacedaemonians
themselves, while they alone were assiduous in their laborious drill, (25)
were superior to others, but now they are beaten both in war and
gymnastic exercises. For their ancient superiority did not depend on
their mode of training their youth, but only on the circumstance that
they trained them when their only rivals did not. Hence we may infer
that what is noble, not what is brutal, should have the first place; no
wolf or other wild animal will face a really noble danger; such dangers
are for the brave man.13 (30) And parents who devote their children to
gymnastics while they neglect their necessary education, in reality
vulgarize them; for they make them useful to the art of statesmanship in
one quality only, and even in this the argument proves them to be
inferior to others. (35) We should judge the Lacedaemonians not from
what they have been, but from what they are; for now they have rivals
who compete with their education; formerly they had none.
It is an admitted principle, that gymnastic exercises should be
employed in education, and that for children they should be of a lighter
kind, (40) avoiding severe diet or painful toil, lest the growth of the body
be impaired. The evil of excessive training in early years is strikingly
proved by the example of the Olympic victors; for not more than two or
three of them have gained a prize both as boys and as men; their early
training and severe gymnastic exercises exhausted their constitutions.
[1339a] When boyhood is over, three years should be spent in other
studies; the period of life which follows may then be devoted to hard
exercise and strict diet. (5) Men ought not to labour at the same time with
their minds and with their bodies;14 for the two kinds of labour are
opposed to one another; the labour of the body impedes the mind, and
the labour of the mind the body. (10)

5 Concerning music there are some questions which we have already

raised;15 these we may now resume and carry further; and our remarks
will serve as a prelude to this or any other discussion of the subject. It is
not easy to determine the nature of music, (15) or why any one should
have a knowledge of it. Shall we say, for the sake of amusement and
relaxation, like sleep or drinking, which are not good in themselves, but
are pleasant, and at the same time ‘make care to cease’, as Euripides
says? And for this end men also appoint music, and make use of all three
alike—sleep, drinking, music—to which some add dancing. (20) Or shall
we argue that music conduces to virtue, on the ground that it can form
our minds and habituate us to true pleasures as our bodies are made by
gymnastic to be of a certain character? Or shall we say that it
contributes to the enjoyment of leisure and mental cultivation, (25) which
is a third alternative? Now obviously youths are not to be instructed
with a view to their amusement, for learning is no amusement, but is
accompanied with pain. (30) Neither is intellectual enjoyment suitable to
boys of that age, for it is the end, and that which is imperfect cannot
attain the perfect or end. But perhaps it may be said that boys learn
music for the sake of the amusement which they will have when they are
grown up. If so, why should they learn themselves, and not, (35) like the
Persian and Median kings, enjoy the pleasure and instruction which is
derived from hearing others? (for surely persons who have made music
the business and profession of their lives will be better performers than
those who practise only long enough to learn). If they must learn music,
(40) on the same principle they should learn cookery, which is absurd.

And even granting that music may form the character, the objection still
holds: why should we learn ourselves? Why cannot we attain true
pleasure and form a correct judgement from hearing others, like the
Lacedaemonians?—for they, without learning music, nevertheless can
correctly judge, as they say, of good and bad melodies. [1339b] Or
again, if music should be used to promote cheerfulness and refined
intellectual enjoyment, (5) the objection still remains—why should we
learn ourselves instead of enjoying the performances of others? We may
illustrate what we are saying by our conception of the Gods; for in the
poets Zeus does not himself sing or play on the lyre. Nay, we call
professional performers vulgar; no freeman would play or sing unless he
were intoxicated or in jest. (10) But these matters may be left for the
present.16
The first question is whether music is or is not to be a part of
education. Of the three things mentioned in our discussion, which does
it produce?—education or amusement or intellectual enjoyment, for it
may be reckoned under all three, and seems to share in the nature of all
of them. (15) Amusement is for the sake of relaxation, and relaxation is of
necessity sweet, for it is the remedy of pain caused by toil: and
intellectual enjoyment is universally acknowledged to contain an
element not only of the noble but of the pleasant, (20) for happiness is
made up of both. All men agree that music is one of the pleasantest
things, whether with or without song; as Musaeus says,

‘Song is to mortals of all things the sweetest.’

Hence and with good reason it is introduced into social gatherings and
entertainments, because it makes the hearts of men glad: so that on this
ground alone we may assume that the young ought to be trained in it.
(25) For innocent pleasures are not only in harmony with the perfect end

of life, but they also provide relaxation. And whereas men rarely attain
the end, but often rest by the way and amuse themselves, not only with
a view to a further end, but also for the pleasure’s sake, (30) it may be
well at times to let them find a refreshment in music. It sometimes
happens that men make amusement the end, for the end probably
contains some element of pleasure, though not any ordinary or lower
pleasure; but they mistake the lower for the higher, and in seeking for
the one find the other, since every pleasure has a likeness to the end of
action.17 For the end is not eligible for the sake of any future good, (35)
nor do the pleasures which we have described exist for the sake of any
future good but of the past, that is to say, they are the alleviation of past
toils and pains. And we may infer this to be the reason why men seek
happiness from these pleasures. (40)
But music is pursued, not only as an alleviation of past toil, but also as
providing recreation. And who can say whether, having this use, it may
not also have a nobler one? In addition to this common pleasure, felt
and shared in by all (for the pleasure given by music is natural, and
therefore adapted to all ages and characters), (5) may it not have also
some influence over the character and the soul? It must have such an
influence if characters are affected by it. [1340a] And that they are so
affected is proved in many ways, and not least by the power which the
songs of Olympus exercise; for beyond question they inspire enthusiasm,
(10) and enthusiasm is an emotion of the ethical part of the soul. Besides,

when men hear imitations, even apart from the rhythms and tunes
themselves, their feelings move in sympathy. (15) Since then music is a
pleasure, and virtue consists in rejoicing and loving and hating aright,
there is clearly nothing which we are so much concerned to acquire and
to cultivate as the power of forming right judgements, and of taking
delight in good dispositions and noble actions.18 Rhythm and melody
supply imitations of anger and gentleness, and also of courage and
temperance, (20) and of all the qualities contrary to these, and of the
other qualities of character, which hardly fall short of the actual
affections, as we know from our own experience, for in listening to such
strains our souls undergo a change. The habit of feeling pleasure or pain
at mere representations is not far removed from the same feeling about
realities;19 for example, (25) if any one delights in the sight of a statue for
its beauty only, it necessarily follows that the sight of the original will be
pleasant to him. The objects of no other sense, such as taste or touch, (30)
have any resemblance to moral qualities; in visible objects there is only a
little, for there are figures which are of a moral character, but only to a
slight extent, and all do not participate in the feeling about them. Again,
figures and colours are not imitations, but signs, of moral habits,
indications which the body gives of states of feeling. (35) The connexion
of them with morals is slight, but in so far as there is any, young men
should be taught to look, not at the works of Pauson, but at those of
Polygnotus,20 or any other painter or sculptor who expresses moral
ideas. On the other hand, even in mere melodies there is an imitation of
character, (40) for the musical modes differ essentially from one another,
and those who hear them are differently affected by each. [1340b]
Some of them make men sad and grave, like the so-called Mixolydian,
others enfeeble the mind, like the relaxed modes, another, again,
produces a moderate and settled temper, which appears to be the
peculiar effect of the Dorian; the Phrygian inspires enthusiasm. (5) The
whole subject has been well treated by philosophical writers21 on this
branch of education, and they confirm their arguments by facts. The
same principles apply to rhythms;22 some have a character of rest, others
of motion, and of these latter again, (10) some have a more vulgar, others
a nobler movement. Enough has been said to show that music has a
power of forming the character, and should therefore be introduced into
the education of the young. (15) The study is suited to the stage of youth,
for young persons will not, if they can help, endure anything which is
not sweetened by pleasure, and music has a natural sweetness. There
seems to be in us a sort of affinity to musical modes and rhythms, which
makes some philosophers say that the soul is a tuning, others, that it
possesses tuning.

6 And now we have to determine the question which has been

already raised,23 (20) whether children should be themselves taught to
sing and play or not. Clearly there is a considerable difference made in
the character by the actual practice of the art. It is difficult, if not
impossible, for those who do not perform to be good judges of the
performance of others.24 (25) Besides, children should have something to
do, and the rattle of Archytas, which people give to their children in
order to amuse them and prevent them from breaking anything in the
house, was a capital invention, for a young thing cannot be quiet. The
rattle is a toy suited to the infant mind, and education is a rattle or toy
for children of a larger growth. (30) We conclude then that they should be
taught music in such a way as to become not only critics but performers.
The question what is or is not suitable for different ages may be easily
answered; nor is there any difficulty in meeting the objection of those
who say that the study of music is vulgar.25 We reply (1) in the first
place, (35) that they who are to be judges must also be performers, and
that they should begin to practise early, although when they are older
they may be spared the execution; they must have learned to appreciate
what is good and to delight in it, thanks to the knowledge which they
acquired in their youth. (40) As to (2) the vulgarizing effect which music
is supposed to exercise, this is a question which we shall have no
difficulty in determining, when we have considered to what extent
freemen who are being trained to political virtue should pursue the art,
what melodies and what rhythms they should be allowed to use, and
what instruments should be employed in teaching them to play; for even
the instrument makes a difference. [1341a] The answer to the
objection turns upon these distinctions; for it is quite possible that
certain methods, of teaching and learning music do really have a
degrading effect. It is evident then that the learning of music ought not
to impede the business of riper years, (5) or to degrade the body or
render it unfit for civil or military training, whether for bodily exercises
at the time or for later studies.
The right measure will be attained if students of music stop short of
the arts which are practised in professional contests, (10) and do not seek
to acquire those fantastic marvels of execution which are now the
fashion in such contests, and from these have passed into education. Let
the young practise even such music as we have prescribed, only until
they are able to feel delight in noble melodies and rhythms, and not
merely in that common part of music in which every slave or child and
even some animals find pleasure. (15)
From these principles we may also infer what instruments should be
used. The flute, or any other instrument which requires great skill, as for
example the harp, ought not to be admitted into education, but only
such as will make intelligent students of music or of the other parts of
education. (20) Besides, the flute is not an instrument which is expressive
of moral character; it is too exciting. The proper time for using it is when
the performance aims not at instruction, but at the relief of the
passions.26 And there is a further objection; the impediment which the
flute presents to the use of the voice detracts from its educational value.
(25) The ancients therefore were right in forbidding the flute to youths

and freemen, although they had once allowed it. For when their wealth
gave them a greater inclination to leisure, and they had loftier notions of
excellence, being also elated with their success, (30) both before and after
the Persian War, with more zeal than discernment they pursued every
kind of knowledge, and so they introduced the flute into education. At
Lacedaemon there was a choragus who led the chorus with a flute, and
at Athens the instrument became so popular that most freemen could
play upon it. The popularity is shown by the tablet which Thrasippus
dedicated when he furnished the chorus to Ecphantides. (35) Later
experience enabled men to judge what was or was not really conducive
to virtue, and they rejected both the flute and several other old-
fashioned instruments, (40) such as the Lydian harp, the many-stringed
lyre, the ‘heptagon’, ‘triangle’, ‘sambuca’, and the like—which are
intended only to give pleasure to the hearer, and require extraordinary
skill of hand.27 [1341b] There is a meaning also in the myth of the
ancients, which tells how Athene invented the flute and then threw it
away. It was not a bad idea of theirs, (5) that the Goddess disliked the
instrument because it made the face ugly; but with still more reason may
we say that she rejected it because the acquirement of flute-playing
contributes nothing to the mind, since to Athene we ascribe both
knowledge and art.
Thus then we reject the professional instruments and also the
professional mode of education in music (and by professional we mean
that which is adopted in contests), (10) for in this the performer practises
the art, not for the sake of his own improvement, but in order to give
pleasure, and that of a vulgar sort, to his hearers. For this reason the
execution of such music is not the part of a freeman but of a paid
performer, and the result is that the performers are vulgarized, (15) for
the end at which they aim is bad.28 The vulgarity of the spectator tends
to lower the character of the music and therefore of the performers; they
look to him—he makes them what they are, and fashions even their
bodies by the movements which he expects them to exhibit.

7 We have also to consider rhythms and modes, and their use in

education. (20) Shall we use them all or make a distinction? and shall the
same distinction be made for those who practise music with a view to
education, or shall it be some other? Now we see that music is produced
by melody and rhythm, and we ought to know what influence these have
respectively on education, (25) and whether we should prefer excellence
in melody or excellence in rhythm. But as the subject has been very well
treated by many musicians of the present day, and also by
philosophers29 who have had considerable experience of musical
education, to these we would refer the more exact student of the subject;
we shall only speak of it now after the manner of the legislator, (30)
stating the general principles.
We accept the division of melodies proposed by certain philosophers
into ethical melodies, melodies of action, and passionate or inspiring
melodies, each having, as they say, a mode corresponding to it. But we
maintain further that music should be studied, (35) not for the sake of
one, but of many benefits, that is to say, with a view to (1) education,
(2) purgation (the word ‘purgation’ we use at present without
explanation, but when hereafter we speak of poetry,30 we will treat the
subject with more precision); music may also serve (3) for intellectual
enjoyment, for relaxation and for recreation after exertion. (40) It is clear,
therefore, that all the modes must be employed by us, but not all of
them in the same manner. [1342a] In education the most ethical
modes are to be preferred, but in listening to the performances of others
we may admit the modes of action and passion also. (5) For feelings such
as pity and fear, or, again, enthusiasm, exist very strongly in some souls,
and have more or less influence over all. Some persons fall into a
religious frenzy, whom we see as a result of the sacred melodies—when
they have used the melodies that excite the soul to mystic frenzy—
restored as though they had found healing and purgation. (10) Those who
are influenced by pity or fear, and every emotional nature, must have a
like experience, and others in so far as each is susceptible to such
emotions, and all are in a manner purged and their souls lightened and
delighted. (15) The purgative melodies likewise give an innocent pleasure
to mankind. Such are the modes and the melodies in which those who
perform music at the theatre should be invited to compete. But since the
spectators are of two kinds—the one free and educated, and the other a
vulgar crowd composed of mechanics, labourers, and the like—there
ought to be contests and exhibitions instituted for the relaxation of the
second class also. (20) And the music will correspond to their minds; for
as their minds are perverted from the natural state, so there are
perverted modes and highly strung and unnaturally coloured melodies.
(25) A man receives pleasure from what is natural to him, and therefore

professional musicians may be allowed to practise this lower sort of

music before an audience of a lower type. But, for the purposes of
education, as I have already said,31 those modes and melodies should be
employed which are ethical, such as the Dorian, (30) as we said before;32
though we may include any others which are approved by philosophers
who have had a musical education. The Socrates of the Republic33 is
wrong in retaining only the Phrygian mode along with the Dorian, and
the more so because he rejects the flute; for the Phrygian is to the modes
what the flute is to musical instruments—both of them are exciting and
emotional. [1342b] Poetry proves this, (5) for Bacchic frenzy and all
similar emotions are most suitably expressed by the flute, and are better
set to the Phrygian than to any other mode. The dithyramb, for example,
is acknowledged to be Phrygian, a fact of which the connoisseurs of
music offer many proofs, saying, among other things, that Philoxenus,
(10) having attempted to compose his Mysians as a dithyramb in the

Dorian mode, found it impossible, and fell back by the very nature of
things into the more appropriate Phrygian. All men agree that the
Dorian music is the gravest and manliest. (15) And whereas we say that
the extremes should be avoided and the mean followed, and whereas the
Dorian is a mean between the other modes,34 it is evident that our youth
should be taught the Dorian music.
Two principles have to be kept in view, what is possible, what is
becoming: at these every man ought to aim. (20) But even these are
relative to age; the old, who have lost their powers, cannot very well
sing the high-strung modes, and nature herself seems to suggest that
their songs should be of the more relaxed kind. Wherefore the musicians
likewise blame Socrates,35 and with justice, (25) for rejecting the relaxed
modes in education under the idea that they are intoxicating, not in the
ordinary sense of intoxication (for wine rather tends to excite men), but
because they have no strength in them. And so, with a view also to the
time of life when men begin to grow old, they ought to practise the
gentler modes and melodies as well as the others, and, further, any
mode, such as the Lydian, above all others appears to be, (30) which is
suited to children of tender age, and possesses the elements both of
order and of education. Thus it is clear that education should be based
upon three principles—the mean, the possible, the becoming, these
three.

1 Cp. v. 1310a 12–36.

2 Cp. Nic. Eth. x. 1180a 24.

3 Cp. iii. 1277b 3.

4 a 39–b 3.

5 ii. 1271a 41 sqq., vii. 1333a 16–1334b 3; N. Eth. x. 6.

6 The line does not occur in our text of Homer, but in Aristotle’s text it probably came instead of,
or after, Od. xvii. 383.
7 Od. xvii. 385.

8 Od. ix. 7.

9 An unfulfilled promise.

10 Cp. Plato, Rep. vii. 525 ff.

11 ii. 1271a 41–b 10, vii. 1333b 5 sqq., 1334a 40 sqq.

12 Cp. N. Eth. vii. 1148b 21.

13 Cp. N. Eth. iii. 1115a 29.

14 Cp. Plato, Rep. vii. 537 B.

15 1337b 27–1338a 30.

16 Cp. c. 6.

17 Cp. N. Eth. vii. 1153b 33.

18 Cp. Plato, Rep. iii. 401, 402; Laws, ii. 659 C-E.

19 Cp. Plato, Rep. iii. 395.

20 Cp. Poet. 1448a 5, 1450a 26.

21 Cp. Rep. 398 E sqq.

22 Rep. iii. 399 E, 400.

23 1339a 33–b 10.

24 Cp. 1339a 42.

25 Cp. 1339b 8, 1341b 14.

26 Cp. 1341b 38.

27 Cp. Plato, Rep. iii. 399 C, D.

28 Cp. Plato, Laws, iii. 700.

29 Cp. Rep. iii. 398 D sqq.

30 Cp. Poet. 1449b 27, though the promise is really unfulfilled. The reference is probably to a lost
part of the Poetics.
31 1342a 2.

32 1340b 3 sq.

33 Plato, Rep. iii. 399 A.

34 Cp. 1340a 42.

35 Rep. iii. 398 E sqq.

 Rhetorica

Translated by W. Rhys Roberts

 CONTENTS

BOOK I

CHAPTER
1. Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic. It is a subject that can be treated systematically.
The argumentative modes of persuasion are the essence of the art of rhetoric:
appeals to the emotions warp the judgement. The writers of current text-books on
rhetoric give too much attention to the forensic branch (in which chicanery is
easier) and too little to the political (where the issues are larger). Argumentative
persuasion is a sort of demonstration; and the rhetorical form of demonstration is
the enthymeme. Four uses of rhetoric. Its possible abuse is no argument against its
proper use on the side of truth and justice. The honest rhetorician has no separate
name to distinguish him from the dishonest.
2. Definition of rhetoric as ‘the faculty of observing in any given case the available means
of persuasion’. Of the modes of persuasion some belong strictly to the art of
rhetoric, and some do not. The rhetorician finds the latter kind (viz. witnesses,
contracts, and the like) ready to his hand. The former kind he must provide
himself; and it has three divisions—(1) the speaker’s power of evincing a personal
character which will make his speech credible; (2) his power of stirring the
emotions of his hearers; (3) his power of proving a truth, or an apparent truth, by
means of persuasive arguments. Hence rhetoric may be regarded as an offshoot of
dialectic, and also of ethical (or, political) studies. The persuasive arguments are
(a) the example, corresponding to induction in dialectic; (b) the enthymeme,
corresponding to the syllogism; (c) the apparent Enthymeme, corresponding to the
apparent syllogism. The Enthymeme is a rhetorical syllogism, and the example a
rhetorical induction. Rhetoric has regard to classes of men, not to individual men;
its subjects, and the premisses from which it argues, are in the main such as
present alternative possibilities in the sphere of human action; and it must adapt
itself to an audience of untrained thinkers who cannot follow a long train of
reasoning. The premisses from which enthy-memes are formed are ‘probabilities’
and ‘signs’; and signs are either fallible or infallible, in which latter case they are
termed tekmeria. The lines of argument, or topics, which Enthymemes follow may
be distinguished as common (or, general) and special (i. e. special to a single
study, such as natural science or ethics). The special lines should be used
discreetly, if the rhetorician is not to find himself deserting his own field for
another.
 3. There are three kinds of rhetoric: A. political (deliberative), B. forensic (legal), and C.
epideictic (the ceremonial oratory of display). Their (a) divisions, (b) times, and
(c) ends are as follows: A. Political (a) exhortation and dehortation, (b) future, (c)
expediency and inexpediency; B. Forensic (a) accusation and defence, (b) past, (c)
justice and injustice; C. Epideictic (a) praise and censure, (b) present, (c) honour
and dishonour.
4. (A) The subjects of Political Oratory fall under five main heads: (1) ways and means, (2)
war and peace, (3) national defence, (4) imports and exports, (5) legislation. The
scope of each of these divisions.
5. In urging his hearers to take or to avoid a course of action, the political orator must
show that he has an eye to their happiness. Four definitions (of a popular kind: as
usual in the Rhetoric), and some fourteen constituents, of happiness.
6. The political speaker will also appeal to the interest of his hearers, and this involves a
knowledge of what is good. Definition and analysis of things ‘good’.
7. Comparison of ‘good’ things. Of two ‘good’ things, which is the better? This entails a
consideration of degree—the lore of ‘less or more’.
8. The political speaker will find his powers of persuasion most of all enhanced by a
knowledge of the four sorts of government—democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy,
monarchy, and their characteristic customs, institutions, and interests. Definition
of the four sorts severally. Ends of each.
9. (C) The Epideictic speaker is concerned with virtue and vice, praising the one and
censuring the other. The forms of virtue. Which are the greatest virtues?—Some
rhetorical devices used by the epideictic speaker: ‘amplification’, especially.
Amplification is particularly appropriate to epideictic oratory; examples, to
political; Enthymemes, to forensic.
10. (B) The Forensic speaker should have studied wrongdoing—its motives, its perpetrators,
and its victims. Definition of wrongdoing as injury voluntarily inflicted contrary
to law. Law is either (a) special, viz. that written law which regulates the life of a
particular community, or (b) general, viz. all those unwritten principles which are
supposed to be acknowledged everywhere. Enumeration and elucidation of the
seven causes of human action, viz. three involuntary, (1) chance, (2) nature, (3)
compulsion; and four voluntary, viz. (4) habit, (5) reasoning, (6) anger, (7)
appetite. All voluntary actions are good or apparently good, pleasant or
apparently pleasant. The good (or expedient) has been discussed under political
oratory, The pleasant has yet to be considered.
11. Definition of pleasure, and analysis of things pleasant.—The motives for wrongdoing,
viz. advantage and pleasure, have thus been discussed in chapters 6, 7, 11.
12. The characters and circumstances which lead men to commit wrong, or make them the
victims of wrong.
13. Actions just and unjust may be classified in relation to (1) the law, (2) the persons
affected. The law may be (a) special, i. e. the law of a particular State, or (b)
universal, i. e. the law of Nature. The persons affected may be (a) the entire
community, (b) individual members of it. A wrongdoer must either understand
and intend the action, or not understand and intend it. In the former case, he must
be acting either from deliberate choice or from passion. It is deliberate purpose
that constitutes wickedness and criminal guilt. Unwritten law (1) includes in its
purview the conduct that springs from exceptional goodness or badness, e. g. our
behaviour towards benefactors and friends; (2) makes up for the defects in a
community’s written code of law. This second kind is equity. Its existence partly
is, and partly is not, intended by legislators; not intended, where they have
noticed no defect in the law; intended, where they find themselves unable to
define things exactly, and are obliged to legislate as if that held good always
which in fact only holds good usually.—Further remarks on the nature and scope
of equity.
14. The worse of two acts of wrong done to others is that which is prompted by the worse
disposition. Other ways of computing the comparative badness of actions.
15. The ‘non-technical’ (extrinsic) means of persuasion—those which do not strictly belong
to the art of rhetoric. They are five in number, and pertain especially to forensic
oratory: (1) laws, (2) witnesses, (3) contracts, (4) tortures, (5) oaths. How laws
may be discredited or upheld, according as it suits the litigant. Witnesses may be
either ancient (viz. poets and other notable persons; soothsayers; proverbs) ; or
recent (viz. well-known contemporaries who have expressed their opinions about
some disputed matter, and witnesses who give their evidence in court). Ancient
witnesses are more trustworthy than contemporary. How contracts, and evidence
given under torture, may be belittled or represented as important. In regard to
oaths, a fourfold division exists: a man may either both offer and accept an oath,
or neither, or one without the other—that is, he may offer an oath but not accept
one, or accept an oath but not offer one.

BOOK II

1. Since rhetoric—political and forensic rhetoric, at any rate—exists to affect the giving of
decisions, the orator must not only try to make the argument of his speech
demonstrative and worthy of belief; he must also (1) make his own character look
right and (2) put his hearers, who are to decide, into the right frame of mind. As
 to his own character: he should make his audience feel that he possesses
prudence, virtue, and goodwill. This is especially important in a deliberative
assembly. In the law courts it is especially important that he should be able to
influence the emotions, or moral affections, of the jury who try the case.
Definition of the several emotions. In regard to each emotion we must consider
(a) the states of mind in which it is felt; (b) the people towards whom it is felt; (c)
the grounds on which it is felt.
2. In cc. 2–11 the various emotions are defined, and are also discussed (with incidental
observations) from the three points of view just indicated. In c. 2, Anger is the
subject. The orator must so speak as to make his hearers angry with his
opponents.
3. Calmness (as the opposite of Anger).
4. Friendship and Enmity.
5. Fear and Confidence.
6. Shame and Shamelessness.
7. Kindness and Unkindness.
8. Pity.
9. Indignation.
10. Envy.
11. Emulation.
12. The various types of human character are next considered, in relation to the various
emotions and moral qualities and to the various ages and fortunes. By ‘ages’ are
meant youth, the prime of life, and old age; by ‘fortunes’ are meant birth, wealth,
power, and their opposites. The youthful type of character is thereupon depicted.
13. The character of elderly men.
14. The character of men in their prime.—The body is in its prime from thirty to five-and-
thirty; the mind about forty-nine.
15. The gifts of fortune by which human character is affected. First, good birth.
16. Second, wealth.
17. Third, power.
18. Retrospect, and glance forward. The forms of argument common to all oratory will next
be discussed.
19. The four general lines of argument are: (1) The Possible and Impossible; (2) Fact Past;
(3) Fact Future; (4) Degree.
20. The two general modes of persuasion are: (1) the example, (2) the Enthymeme; the
maxim being part of the Enthymeme. Examples are either (a) historical parallels,
or (b) invented parallels, viz. either (i) illustrations, or (ii) fables, such as those of
 Aesop. Fables are suitable for popular addresses; and they have this advantage,
that they are comparatively easy to invent, whereas it is hard to find parallels
among actual past events.
21. Use of maxims. A maxim is a general statement about questions of practical conduct. It
is an incomplete Enthymeme. Four kinds of maxims. Maxims should be used (a)
by elderly men, and (b) to controvert popular sayings. Advantages of maxims: (a)
they enable a speaker to gratify his commonplace hearers by expressing as a
universal truth the opinions which they themselves hold about particular cases;
(b) they invest a speech with moral character.
22. Enthymernes. In Enthymemes we must not carry our reasoning too far back, nor must
we put in all the steps that lead to our conclusion. There are two kinds of
Enthymemes: (a) the demonstrative, formed by the conjunction of compatible
propositions; (b) the refutative, formed by the conjunction of incompatible
propositions.
23. Enumeration of twenty-eight topics (lines of argument) on which Enthymemes,
demonstrative and refutative, can be based. Two general remarks are added: (a)
the refutative Enthymeme has a greater reputation than the demonstrative,
because within a small space it works out two opposing arguments, and
arguments put side by side are clearer to the audience; (b) of all syllogisms,
whether refutative or demonstrative, those are most applauded of which we
foresee the conclusions from the beginning, so long as they are not obvious at first
sight—for part of the pleasure we feel is at our own intelligent anticipation; or
those which we follow well enough to see the point of them as soon as the last
work has been uttered.
24. Nine topics of apparent, or sham, Enthymemes.
25. Refutation. An argument may be refuted either by a counter-syllogism or by bringing an
objection. Objections may be raised in four ways: (a) by directly attacking your
opponent’s own statement; (b) by putting forward another statement like it; (c) by
putting forward a statement contrary to it; (d) by quoting previous decisions.
26. Correction of two errors, possible or actual; (1) Amplification and Depreciation do not
constitute an element of Enthymeme, in the sense of ‘a line of Enthymematic
argument’; (2) refutative Enthymemes are not a different species from
constructive. This brings to an end the treatment of the thought-element of
rhetoric—the way to invent and refute persuasive arguments. There remain the
subjects of (A) style and (B) arrangement.

BOOK III
 1. (A) Style. It is not enough to know what to say; we must also say it in the right way.
Upon the subject of delivery (which presents itself here) no systematic treatise has
been composed, though this art has much to do with oratory (as with poetry). The
matter has, however, been touched upon by Thrasymachus in his ‘Appeals to Pity’.
As to the place of style: the right thing in speaking really is that we should fight
our case with no help beyond the bare facts; and yet the arts of language cannot
help having a small but real importance, whatever it is we have to expound to
others. Through the influence of the poets, the language of oratorical prose at first
took a poetical colour, as in the case of Gorgias. But the language of prose is
distinct from that of poetry; and, further, the writers of tragic poetry itself have
now given up those words, not used in ordinary talk, which adorned the early
drama.

[Chapters 2–12 omitted.]

13. (B) Arrangement. A speech has two essential parts: statement and proof. To these may
be added introduction and epilogue.
14. Introduction. The introduction corresponds to the prologue in poetry and the prelude in
flute-music. The most essential function and distinctive property of the
introduction is to indicate the aim of the speech. An introduction may (1) excite
or allay prejudice; (2) exalt or depreciate. In a political speech an introduction is
seldom found, for the subject is usually familiar to the audience.
15. Prejudice. The various lines of argument suitable for exciting or allaying prejudice.
16. Narration. (1) In ceremonial oratory, narration should, as a rule, not be continuous but
intermittent: variety is pleasant, and the facts in a celebrity’s praise are usually
well known. (2) In forensic oratory, the current rule that the narration should be
rapid is wrong: rightness consists neither in rapidity nor in conciseness, but in the
happy mean. The defendant will make less use of narration than the plaintiff. (3)
In political oratory there is least opening for narration; nobody can narrate what
has not yet happened. If there is narration at all, it will be of past events, the
recollection of which will help the hearers to make better plans for the future. Or
it may be employed to attack some one’s character, or to eulogize him.
17. Arguments. The duty of the Arguments is to attempt conclusive proofs. (1) In forensic
oratory, the question in dispute will fall under one of four heads: (a) the fact, (b)
the existence of injury, (c) the amount of injury, (d) the justification. (2) In
ceremonial oratory, the facts themselves will usually be taken on trust, and the
speaker will maintain, say, the nobility or the utility of the deeds in question. (3)
 In political oratory, it will be urged that a proposal is impracticable; or that,
though practicable, it is unjust, or will do no good, or is not so important as its
proposer thinks. Argument by ‘example’ is highly suitable for political oratory,
argument by ‘Enthymeme’ better suits forensic. Enthymemes should not be used
in unbroken succession; they should be interspersed with other matter. ‘If you
have proofs to bring forward, bring them forward, and your moral discourse as
well; if you have no Enthymemes, then fall back upon moral discourse: after all, it
is more fitting for a good man to display himself as an honest fellow than as a
subtle reasoner.’ Hints as to the order in which arguments should be presented. As
to character: you cannot well say complimentary things about yourself or abusive
things about another, but you can put such remarks into the mouth of some third
person.
18. Interrogation and Jests. The best moment to employ interrogation is when your
opponent has so answered one question that the putting of just one more lands
him in absurdity. In replying to questions, you must meet them, if they are
ambiguous, by drawing reasonable distinctions, not by a curt answer.—Jests are
supposed to be of some service in controversy. Gorgias said that you should kill
your opponents’ earnestness with jesting and their jesting with earnestness; in
which he was right. Jests have been classified in the Poetics. ‘Some are becoming
to a gentleman, others are not; see that you choose such as become you. Irony
better befits a gentleman than buffoonery; the ironical man jokes to amuse
himself, the buffoon to amuse other people’.
19. Epilogue (Peroration, Conclusion). This has four parts. You must (1) make the audience
well disposed towards yourself and ill disposed towards your opponent, (2)
magnify or minimize the leading facts, (3) excite the required kind of emotion in
your hearers, and (4) refresh their memories by means of a recapitulation.—In
your closing words you may dispense with conjunctions, and thereby mark the
difference between the oration and the peroration: ‘I have done. You have heard
me. The facts are before you. I ask for your judgement.’
RHETORICA

(Rhetoric)
 BOOK I

1 Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic.1 Both alike are concerned

with such things as come, more or less, within the general ken of all men
and belong to no definite science. [1354a] Accordingly all men make
use, more or less, of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to
discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to
attack others. (5) Ordinary people do this either at random or through
practice and from acquired habit. Both ways being possible, the subject
can plainly be handled systematically, for it is possible to inquire the
reason why some speakers succeed through practice and others
spontaneously; and every one will at once agree that such an inquiry is
the function of an art. (10)
Now, the framers of the current treatises on rhetorïc have constructed
but a small portion of that art. The modes of persuasion are the only true
constituents of the art: everything else is merely accessory. These
writers, however, say nothing about Enthymemes, which are the
substance of rhetorical persuasion, but deal mainly with non-essentials.
(15) The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has

nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to

the man who is judging the case. Consequently if the rules for trials
which are now laid down in some states—especially in well-governed
states—were applied everywhere, (20) such people would have nothing to
say. All men, no doubt, think that the laws should prescribe such rules,
but some, as in the court of Areopagus, give practical effect to their
thoughts and forbid talk about nonessentials. This is sound law and
custom. It is not right to pervert the judge2 by moving him to anger or
envy or pity—one might as well warp a carpenter’s rule before using it.
(25) Again, a litigant has clearly nothing to do but to show that the

alleged fact is so or is not so, that it has or has not happened. As to

whether a thing is important or unimportant, just or unjust, the judge
must surely refuse to take his instructions from the litigants: he must
decide for himself all such points as the law-giver has not already
denned for him. (30)
 Now, it is of great moment that well-drawn laws should themselves
define all the points they possibly can and leave as few as may be to the
decision of the judges; and this for several reasons. [1354b] First, to
find one man, or a few men, who are sensible persons and capable of
legislating and administering justice is easier than to find a large
number. Next, laws are made after long consideration, whereas decisions
in the courts are given at short notice, which makes it hard for those
who try the case to satisfy the claims of justice and expediency. (5) The
weightiest reason of all is that the decision of the lawgiver is not
particular but prospective and general, whereas members of the
assembly and the jury find it their duty to decide on definite cases
brought before them. They will often have allowed themselves to be so
much influenced by feelings of friendship or hatred or self-interest that
they lose any clear vision of the truth and have their judgement
obscured by considerations of personal pleasure or pain. (10) In general,
then, the judge should, we say, be allowed to decide as few things as
possible. But questions as to whether something has happened or has not
happened, will be or will not be, is or is not, (15) must of necessity be left
to the judge, since the lawgiver cannot foresee them. If this is so, it is
evident that any one who lays down rules about other matters, such as
what must be the contents of the ‘introduction’ or the ‘narration’ or any
of the other divisions of a speech, is theorizing about non-essentials as if
they belonged to the art. The only question with which these writers
here deal is how to put the judge into a given frame of mind. (20) About
the orator’s proper modes of persuasion they have nothing to tell us;
nothing, that is, about how to gain skill in Enthymemes.
Hence it comes that, although the same systematic principles apply to
political as to forensic oratory,3 and although the former is a nobler
business, (25) and fitter for a citizen, than that which concerns the
relations of private individuals, these authors say nothing about political
oratory, but try, one and all, to write treatises on the way to plead in
court. The reason for this is that in political oratory there is less
inducement to talk about non-essentials. Political oratory is less given to
unscrupulous practices than forensic, because it treats of wider issues. In
a political debate the man who is forming a judgement is making a
decision about his own vital interests. (30) There is no need, therefore, to
prove anything except that the facts are what the supporter of a measure
maintains they are. In forensic oratory this is not enough; to conciliate
the listener is what pays here. (35) It is other people’s affairs that are to be
decided, so that the judges, intent on their own satisfaction and listening
with partiality, surrender themselves to the disputants instead of judging
between them. [1355a] Hence in many places, as we have said
already,4 irrelevant speaking is forbidden in the law-courts: in the public
assembly those who have to form a judgement are themselves well able
to guard against that.
It is clear, then, that rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is concerned
with the modes of persuasion. Persuasion is clearly a sort of
demonstration, (5) since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a
thing to have been demonstrated. The orator’s demonstration is an
Enthymeme, and this is, in general, the most effective of the modes of
persuasion. The Enthymeme is a sort of syllogism, and the consideration
of syllogisms of all kinds, without distinction, is the business of dialectic,
either of dialectic as a whole or of one of its branches. It follows plainly,
(10) therefore, that he who is best able to see how and from what

elements a syllogism is produced will also be best skilled in the

Enthymeme, when he has further learnt what its subject-matter is and in
what respects it differs from the syllogism of strict logic. The true and
the approximately true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also
be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, (15)
and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good
guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at probabilities.
It has now been shown that the ordinary writers on rhetoric treat of
non-essentials; it has also been shown why they have inclined more
towards the forensic branch of oratory. (20)
Rhetoric is useful (1) because things that are true and things that are
just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites, so that if the
decisions of judges are not what they ought to be, the defeat must be
due to the speakers themselves, and they must be blamed accordingly.
Moreover, (2) before some audiences not even the possession of the
exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce
conviction. (25) For argument based on knowledge implies instruction,
and there are people whom one cannot instruct. Here, then, we must
use, as our modes of persuasion and argument, notions possessed by
everybody, as we observed in the Topics5 when dealing with the way to
handle a popular audience. Further, (3) we must be able to employ
persuasion, just as strict reasoning can be employed, (30) on opposite
sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice employ it in
both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but in
order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another
man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him. No
other of the arts draws opposite conclusions: dialectic and rhetoric alone
do this. (35) Both these arts draw opposite conclusions impartially.
Nevertheless, the underlying facts do not lend themselves equally well to
the contrary views. No; things that are true and things that are better
are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and easier to
believe in. [1355b] Again, (4) it is absurd to hold that a man ought to
be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of
being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of
rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his
limbs. And if it be objected that one who uses such power of speech
unjustly might do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in
common against all good things except virtue, (5) and above all against
the things that are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship.
A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these, and
inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly.
It is clear, then, that rhetoric is not bound up with a single definite
class of subjects, but is as universal as dialectic; it is clear, also, that it is
useful. It is clear, further, that its function is not simply to succeed in
persuading, (10) but rather to discover the means of coming as near such
success as the circumstances of each particular case allow. In this it
resembles all other arts. For example, it is not the function of medicine
simply to make a man quite healthy, but to put him as far as may be on
the road to health; it is possible to give excellent treatment even to those
who can never enjoy sound health. Furthermore, it is plain that it is the
function of one and the same art to discern the real and the apparent
means of persuasion, (15) just as it is the function of dialectic to discern
the real and the apparent syllogism. What makes a man a ‘sophist’ is not
his faculty, but his moral purpose. In rhetoric, however, the term
‘rhetorician’ may describe either the speaker’s knowledge of the art, or
his moral purpose. In dialectic it is different: a man is a ‘sophist’ because
he has a certain kind of moral purpose, (20) a ‘dialectician’ in respect, not
of his moral purpose, but of his faculty.
Let us now try to give some account of the systematic principles of
Rhetoric itself—of the right method and means of succeeding in the
object we set before us. We must make as it were a fresh start, and
before going further define what rhetoric is. (25)

2 Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given

case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any
other art. Every other art can instruct or persuade about its own
particular subject-matter; for instance, medicine about what is healthy
and unhealthy, geometry about the properties of magnitudes, (30)
arithmetic about numbers, and the same is true of the other arts and
sciences. But rhetoric we look upon as the power of observing the means
of persuasion on almost any subject presented to us; and that is why we
say that, in its technical character, (35) it is not concerned with any
special or definite class of subjects.
Of the modes of persuasion some belong strictly to the art of rhetoric
and some do not. By the latter I mean such things as are not supplied by
the speaker but are there at the outset—witnesses, evidence given under
torture, written contracts, and so on. By the former I mean such as we
can ourselves construct by means of the principles of rhetoric. The one
kind has merely to be used, the other has to be invented.
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are
three kinds. [1356a] The first kind depends on the personal character
of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain6 frame
of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the
words of the speech itself. Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s
personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him
credible. (5) We believe good men more fully and more readily than
others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely
true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided. This
kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the
speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he begins
to speak. It is not true, (10) as some writers assume in their treatises on
rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes
nothing to his power of persuasion; on the contrary, his character may
almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses.
Secondly, persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech
stirs their emotions. (15) Our judgements when we are pleased and
friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile. It is
towards producing these effects, as we maintain, that present-day writers
on rhetoric direct the whole of their efforts. This subject shall be treated
in detail when we come to speak of the emotions.7 Thirdly, persuasion is
effected through the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an
apparent truth by means of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case
in question. (20)
There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man
who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason
logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their
various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions—that is, to name
them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which they
are excited. (25) It thus appears that rhetoric is an offshoot of dialectic
and also of ethical studies. Ethical studies may fairly be called political;
and for this reason rhetoric masquerades as political science, and the
professors of it as political experts—sometimes from want of education,
sometimes from ostentation, (30) sometimes owing to other human
failings. As a matter of fact, it is a branch of dialectic and similar to it, as
we said at the outset.8 Neither rhetoric nor dialectic is the scientific
study of any one separate subject: both are faculties for providing
arguments. This is perhaps a sufficient account of their scope and of how
they are related to each other. (35)
With regard to the persuasion achieved by proof or apparent proof:
just as in dialectic there is induction on the one hand and syllogism or
apparent syllogism on the other, so it is in rhetoric. [1356b] The
example is an induction, the Enthymeme is a syllogism, and the apparent
Enthymeme is an apparent syllogism. I call the Enthymeme a rhetorical
syllogism, (5) and the example a rhetorical induction. Every one who
effects persuasion through proof does in fact use either Enthymemes or
examples there is no other way. And since every one who proves
anything at all is bound to use either syllogisms or inductions (and this
is clear to us from the Analytics9), (10) it must follow that Enthymemes
are syllogisms and examples are inductions. The difference between
example and Enthymeme is made plain by the passages in the Topics10
where induction and syllogism have already been discussed. When we
base the proof of a proposition on a number of similar cases, this is
induction in dialectic, (15) example in rhetoric; when it is shown that,
certain propositions being true, a further and quite distinct proposition
must also be true in consequence, whether invariably or usually, this is
called syllogism in dialectic, Enthymeme in rhetoric. It is plain also that
each of these types of oratory has its advantages. Types of oratory, I say:
for what has been said in the Methodics11 applies equally well here; in
some oratorical styles examples prevail, in others Enthymemes; and in
like manner, (20) some orators are better at the former and some at the
latter. Speeches that rely on examples are as persuasive as the other
kind, but those which rely on Enthymemes excite the louder applause.
The sources of examples and Enthymemes, and their proper uses, we will
discuss later.12 Our next step is to define the processes themselves more
clearly. (25)
A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly self-
evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that
are so. In either case it is persuasive because there is somebody whom it
persuades. But none of the arts theorize about individual cases.
Medicine, for instance, does not theorize about what will help to cure
Socrates or Callias, but only about what will help to cure any or all of a
given class of patients: this alone is its business: individual cases are so
infinitely various that no systematic knowledge of them is possible. (30) In
the same way the theory of rhetoric is concerned not with what seems
probable to a given individual like Socrates or Hippias, but with what
seems probable to men of a given type; and this is true of dialectic also.
Dialectic does not construct its syllogisms out of any haphazard
materials, (35) such as the fancies of crazy people, but out of materials
that call for discussion; and rhetoric, too, draws upon the regular
subjects of debate. [1357a] The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such
matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the
hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated
argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning. The subjects of our
deliberation are such as seem to present us with alternative possibilities:
about things that could not have been, (5) and cannot now or in the
future be, other than they are, nobody who takes them to be of this
nature wastes his time in deliberation.
It is possible to form syllogisms and draw conclusions from the results
of previous syllogisms; or, on the other hand, from premisses which have
not been thus proved, and at the same time are so little accepted that
they call for proof. (10) Reasonings of the former kind will necessarily be
hard to follow owing to their length, for we assume an audience of
untrained thinkers; those of the latter kind will fail to win assent,
because they are based on premisses that are not generally admitted or
believed.
The Enthymeme and the example must, then, (15) deal with what is in
the main contingent, the example being an induction, and the
Enthymeme a syllogism, about such matters. The Enthymeme must
consist of few propositions, fewer often than those which make up the
normal syllogism. For if any of these propositions is a familiar fact, there
is no need even to mention it; the hearer adds it himself. Thus, to show
that Dorieus has been victor in a contest for which the prize is a crown,
(20) it is enough to say ‘For he has been victor in the Olympic games’,

without adding ‘And in the Olympic games the prize is a crown’, a fact
which everybody knows.
There are few facts of the ‘necessary’ type that can form the basis of
rhetorical syllogisms. Most of the things about which we make decisions,
(25) and into which therefore we inquire, present us with alternative

possibilities. For it is about our actions that we deliberate and inquire,

and all our actions have a contingent character; hardly any of them are
determined by necessity. Again, conclusions that state what is merely
usual or possible must be drawn from premisses that do the same, just as
‘necessary’ conclusions must be drawn from ‘necessary’ premisses; this
too is clear to us from the Analytics.13 (30) It is evident, therefore, that the
propositions forming the basis of Enthymemes, though some of them
may be ‘necessary’, will most of them be only usually true. Now the
materials of Enthymemes are Probabilities and Signs, which we can see
must correspond respectively with the propositions that are generally
and those that are necessarily true. (35) A Probability is a thing that
usually happens; not, however, as some definitions would suggest,
anything whatever that usually happens, but only if it belongs to the
class of the ‘contingent’ or ‘variable’. It bears the same relation to that in
respect of which it is probable as the universal bears to the particular.
[1357b] Of Signs, one kind bears the same relation to the statement it
supports as the particular bears to the universal, the other the same as
the universal bears to the particular. The infallible kind is a ‘complete
proof’; the fallible kind has no specific name. (5) By infallible signs I
mean those on which syllogisms proper may be based: and this shows us
why this kind of Sign is called ‘complete proof’: when people think that
what they have said cannot be refuted, they then think that they are
bringing forward a ‘complete proof’, meaning that the matter has now
been demonstrated and completed; for the word peras has the same
meaning (of ‘end’ or ‘boundary’) as the word tekmar in the ancient
tongue. (10) Now the one kind of Sign (that which bears to the
proposition it supports the relation of particular to universal) may be
illustrated thus. Suppose it were said, ‘The fact that Socrates was wise
and just is a sign that the wise are just’. Here we certainly have a Sign;
but even though the proposition be true, the argument is refutable, since
it does not form a syllogism. Suppose, on the other hand, it were said,
‘The fact that he has a fever is a sign that he is ill’, or, ‘The fact that she
is giving milk is a sign that she has lately borne a child’. (15) Here we
have the infallible kind of Sign, the only kind that constitutes a complete
proof, since it is the only kind that, if the particular statement is true, is
irrefutable. The other kind of Sign, that which bears to the proposition it
supports the relation of universal to particular, might be illustrated by
saying, ‘The fact that he breathes fast is a sign that he has a fever’. This
argument also is refutable, even if the statement about the fast breathing
be true, since a man may breathe hard without having a fever. (20)
It has, then, been stated above what is the nature of a Probability, of a
Sign, and of a complete proof, and what are the differences between
them. In the Analytics14 a more explicit description has been given of
these points; it is there shown why some of these reasonings can be put
into syllogisms and some cannot.
The ‘example’ has already been described as one kind of induction;
and the special nature of the subject-matter that distinguishes it from the
other kinds has also been stated above. (25) Its relation to the proposition
it supports is not that of part to whole, nor whole to part, nor whole to
whole, but of part to part, or like to like. When two statements are of the
same order, but one is more familiar than the other, the former is an
‘example’. The argument may, for instance, (30) be that Dionysius, in
asking as he does for a bodyguard, is scheming to make himself a despot.
For in the past Peisistratus kept asking for a bodyguard in order to carry
out such a scheme, and did make himself a despot as soon as he got it;
and so did Theagenes at Megara; and in the same way all other instances
known to the speaker are made into examples, in order to show what is
not yet known, that Dionysius has the same purpose in making the same
request: all these being instances of the one general principle, (35) that a
man who asks for a bodyguard is scheming to make himself a despot. We
have now described the sources of those means of persuasion which are
popularly supposed to be demonstrative. [1358a]
There is an important distinction between two sorts of enthymemes
that has been wholly overlooked by almost everybody—one that also
subsists between the syllogisms treated of in dialectic. One sort of
Enthymeme really belongs to rhetoric, as one sort of syllogism really
belongs to dialectic; but the other sort really belongs to other arts and
faculties, (5) whether to those we already exercise or to those we have
not yet acquired. Missing this distinction, people fail to notice that the
more correctly they handle their particular subject the further they are
getting away from pure rhetoric or dialectic. (10) This statement will be
clearer if expressed more fully. I mean that the proper subjects of
dialectical and rhetorical syllogisms are the things with which we say
the regular or universal Lines of Argument15 are concerned, that is to say
those lines of argument that apply equally to questions of right conduct,
natural science, politics, and many other things that have nothing to do
with one another. Take, for instance, the line of argument concerned
with ‘the more or less’.16 On this line of argument it is equally easy to
base a syllogism or Enthymeme about any of what nevertheless are
essentially disconnected subjects—right conduct, (15) natural science, or
anything else whatever. But there are also those special Lines of
Argument which are based on such propositions as apply only to
particular groups or classes of things. Thus there are propositions about
natural science on which it is impossible to base any Enthymeme or
syllogism about ethics, and other propositions about ethics on which
nothing can be based about natural science. (20) The same principle
applies throughout. The general Lines of Argument have no special
subject-matter, and therefore will not increase our understanding of any
particular class of things. On the other hand, the better the selection one
makes of propositions suitable for special Lines of Argument, the nearer
one comes, unconsciously, to setting up a science that is distinct from
dialectic and rhetoric. One may succeed in stating the required
principles, (25) but one’s science will be no longer dialectic or rhetoric,
but the science to which the principles thus discovered belong. Most
Enthymemes are in fact based upon these particular or special Lines of
Argument; comparatively few on the common or general kind. As in the
Topics,17 therefore, so in this work, we must distinguish, (30) in dealing
with Enthymemes, the special and the general Lines of Argument on
which they are to be founded. By special Lines of Argument I mean the
propositions peculiar to each several class of things, by general those
common to all classes alike. We may begin with the special Lines of
Argument. But, first of all, let us classify rhetoric into its varieties.
Having distinguished these we may deal with them one by one, and try
to discover the elements of which each is composed, (35) and the
propositions each must employ.

3 Rhetoric falls into three divisions, determined by the three classes of

listeners to speeches. For of the three elements in speech-making—
speaker, subject, and person addressed—it is the last one, the hearer,
that determines the speech’s end and object. [1358b] The hearer must
be either a judge, with a decision to make about things past or future, or
an observer. A member of the assembly decides about future events, a
juryman about past events: while those who merely decide on the
orator’s skill are observers. (5) From this it follows that there are three
divisions of oratory—(1) political, (2) forensic, and (3) the ceremonial
oratory of display.18
Political speaking urges us either to do or not to do something: one of
these two courses is always taken by private counsellors, as well as by
men who address public assemblies. (10) Forensic speaking either attacks
or defends somebody: one or other of these two things must always be
done by the parties in a case. The ceremonial oratory of display either
praises or censures somebody. These three kinds of rhetoric refer to
three different kinds of time. The political orator is concerned with the
future: it is about things to be done hereafter that he advises, for or
against. The party in a case at law is concerned with the past; one man
accuses the other, (15) and the other defends himself, with reference to
things already done. The ceremonial orator is, properly speaking,
concerned with the present, since all men praise or blame in view of the
state of things existing at the time, though they often find it useful also
to recall the past and to make guesses at the future. (20)
Rhetoric has three distinct ends in view, one for each of its three
kinds. The political orator aims at establishing the expediency or the
harmfulness of a proposed course of action; if he urges its acceptance, he
does so on the ground that it will do good; if he urges its rejection, he
does so on the ground that it will do harm; and all other points, such as
whether the proposal is just or unjust, honourable or dishonourable, he
brings in as subsidiary and relative to this main consideration. (25) Parties
in a law-case aim at establishing the justice or injustice of some action,
and they too bring in all other points as subsidiary and relative to this
one. Those who praise or attack a man aim at proving him worthy of
honour or the reverse, and they too treat all other considerations with
reference to this one.
That the three kinds of rhetoric do aim respectively at the three ends
we have mentioned is shown by the fact that speakers will sometimes
not try to establish anything else. (30) Thus, the litigant will sometimes
not deny that a thing has happened or that he has done harm. But that
he is guilty of injustice he will never admit; otherwise there would be no
need of a trial. So too, political orators often make any concession short
of admitting that they are recommending their hearers to take an
inexpedient course or not to take an expedient one. (35) The question
whether it is not unjust for a city to enslave its innocent neighbours often
does not trouble them at all. [1359a] In like manner those who praise
or censure a man do not consider whether his acts have been expedient
or not, but often make it a ground of actual praise that he has neglected
his own interest to do what was honourable. Thus, they praise Achilles
because he championed his fallen friend Patroclus, though he knew that
this meant death, and that otherwise he need not die: yet while to die
thus was the nobler thing for him to do, (5) the expedient thing was to
live on.
It is evident from what has been said that it is these three subjects,
more than any others, about which the orator must be able to have
propositions at his command. Now the propositions of Rhetoric are
Complete Proofs, Probabilities, (10) and Signs. Every kind of syllogism is
composed of propositions, and the enthymeme is a particular kind of
syllogism composed of the aforesaid propositions.19
Since only possible actions, and not impossible ones, can ever have
been done in the past or the present, and since things which have not
occurred, or will not occur, also cannot have been done or be going to
be done, (15) it is necessary for the political, the forensic, and the
ceremonial speaker alike to be able to have at their command
propositions about the possible and the impossible, and about whether a
thing has or has not occurred, will or will not occur. Further, all men, in
giving praise or blame, in urging us to accept or reject proposals for
action, in accusing others or defending themselves, (20) attempt not only
to prove the points mentioned but also to show that the good or the
harm, the honour or disgrace, the justice or injustice, is great or small,
either absolutely or relatively; and therefore it is plain that we must also
have at our command propositions about greatness or smallness and the
greater or the lesser—propositions both universal and particular. Thus,
we must be able to say which is the greater or lesser good, (25) the
greater or lesser act of justice or injustice; and so on.
Such, then, are the subjects regarding which we are inevitably bound
to master the propositions relevant to them. We must now discuss each
particular class of these subjects in turn, namely those dealt with in
political, in ceremonial, and lastly in legal, oratory.

4 First, then, we must ascertain what are the kinds of things, (30) good
or bad, about which the political orator offers counsel. For he does not
deal with all things, but only with such as may or may not take place.
Concerning things which exist or will exist inevitably, or which cannot
possibly exist or take place, no counsel can be given. Nor, again, can
counsel be given about the whole class of things which may or may not
take place; for this class includes some good things that occur naturally,
and some that occur by accident; and about these it is useless to offer
counsel. (35) Clearly counsel can only be given on matters about which
people deliberate; matters, namely, that ultimately depend on ourselves,
and which we have it in our power to set going. For we turn a thing over
in our mind until we have reached the point of seeing whether we can
do it or not. [1359b]
Now to enumerate and classify accurately the usual subjects of public
business, and further to frame, as far as possible, true definitions of
them, is a task which we must not attempt on the present occasion. For
it does not belong to the art of rhetoric, (5) but to a more instructive art
and a more real branch of knowledge; and as it is, rhetoric has been
given a far wider subject-matter than strictly belongs to it. The truth is,
as indeed we have said already,20 that rhetoric is a combination of the
science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics; and it is partly like
dialectic, (10) partly like sophistical reasoning. But the more we try to
make either dialectic or rhetoric not, what they really are, practical
faculties, but sciences, the more we shall inadvertently be destroying
their true nature; for we shall be re-fashioning them and shall be passing
into the region of sciences dealing with definite subjects rather than
simply with words and forms of reasoning. (15) Even here, however, we
will mention those points which it is of practical importance to
distinguish, their fuller treatment falling naturally to political science.
The main matters on which all men deliberate and on which political
speakers make speeches are some five in number: ways and means, (20)
war and peace, national defence, imports and exports, and legislation.
As to Ways and Means, then, the intending speaker will need to know
the number and extent of the country’s sources of revenue, so that, if any
is being overlooked, it may be added, (25) and, if any is defective, it may
be increased. Further, he should know all the expenditure of the country,
in order that, if any part of it is superfluous, it may be abolished, or, if
any is too large, it may be reduced. For men become richer not only by
increasing their existing wealth but also by reducing their expenditure.
(30) A comprehensive view of these questions cannot be gained solely
from experience in home affairs; in order to advise on such matters a
man must be keenly interested in the methods worked out in other
lands.
As to Peace and War, he must know the extent of the military strength
of his country, both actual and potential, (35) and also the nature of that
actual and potential strength; and further, what wars his country has
waged, and how it has waged them. He must know these facts not only
about his own country, but also about neighbouring countries; and also
about countries with which war is likely, in order that peace may be
maintained with those stronger than his own, and that his own may have
power to make war or not against those that are weaker. [1360a] He
should know, too, whether the military power of another country is like
or unlike that of his own; for this is a matter that may affect their
relative strength. With the same end in view he must, besides, have
studied the wars of other countries as well as those of his own, and the
way they ended; similar causes are likely to have similar results. (5)
With regard to National Defence: he ought to know all about the
methods of defence in actual use, such as the strength and character of
the defensive force and the positions of the forts—this last means that he
must be well acquainted with the lie of the country—in order that a
garrison may be increased if it is too small or removed if it is not
wanted, (10) and that the strategic points may be guarded with special
care.
With regard to the Food Supply: he must know what outlay will meet
the needs of his country; what kinds of food are produced at home and
what imported; and what articles must be exported or imported. This
last he must know in order that agreements and commercial treaties may
be made with the countries concerned. (15) There are, indeed, two sorts
of state to which he must see that his countrymen give no cause for
offence, states stronger than his own, and states with which it is
advantageous to trade.
But while he must, for security’s sake, be able to take all this into
account, he must before all things understand the subject of legislation;
for it is on a country’s laws that its whole welfare depends. (20) He must,
therefore, know how many different forms of constitution there are;
under what conditions each of these will prosper and by what internal
developments or external attacks each of them tends to be destroyed.
When I speak of destruction through internal developments I refer to the
fact that all constitutions, except the best one of all, are destroyed both
by not being pushed far enough and by being pushed too far. Thus,
democracy loses its vigour, (25) and finally passes into oligarchy, not only
when it is not pushed far enough, but also when it is pushed a great deal
too far; just as the aquiline and the snub nose not only turn into normal
noses by not being aquiline or snub enough, but also by being too
violently aquiline or snub arrive at a condition in which they no longer
look like noses at all.
It is useful, in framing laws, not only to study the past history of one’s
own country, (30) in order to understand which constitution is desirable
for it now, but also to have a knowledge of the constitutions of other
nations, and so to learn for what kinds of nation the various kinds of
constitution are suited. From this we can see that books of travel are
useful aids to legislation, since from these we may learn the laws and
customs of different races. (35) The political speaker will also find the
researches of historians useful. But all this is the business of political
science and not of rhetoric.
These, then, are the most important kinds of information which the
political speaker must possess. Let us now go back and state the
premisses from which he will have to argue in favour of adopting or
rejecting measures regarding these and other matters. [1360b]

5 It may be said that every individual man and all men in common
aim at a certain end which determines what they choose and what they
avoid. (5) This end, to sum it up briefly, is happiness and its constituents.
Let us, then, by way of illustration only, ascertain what is in general the
nature of happiness, and what are the elements of its constituent parts.
For all advice to do things or not to do them is concerned with happiness
and with the things that make for or against it; whatever creates or
increases happiness or some part of happiness, (10) we ought to do;
whatever destroys or hampers happiness, or gives rise to its opposite, we
ought not to do.
We may define happiness as prosperity combined with virtue; or as
independence of life; or as the secure enjoyment of the maximum of
pleasure; or as a good condition of property and body, (15) together with
the power of guarding one’s property and body and making use of them.
That happiness is one or more of these things, pretty well everybody
agrees.
From this definition of happiness it follows that its constituent parts
are:—good birth, (20) plenty of friends, good friends, wealth, good
children, plenty of children, a happy old age, also such bodily
excellences as health, beauty, strength, large stature, athletic powers,
together with fame, honour, good luck, and virtue. (25) A man cannot fail
to be completely independent if he possesses these internal and these
external goods; for besides these there are no others to have. (Goods of
the soul and of the body are internal. Good birth, friends, money, and
honour are external.) Further, we think that he should possess resources
and luck, in order to make his life really secure. As we have already
ascertained what happiness in general is, so now let us try to ascertain
what each of these parts of it is. (30)
Now good birth in a race or a state means that its members are
indigenous or ancient; that its earliest leaders were distinguished men,
and that from them have sprung many who were distinguished for
qualities that we admire.
The good birth of an individual, which may come either from the male
or the female side, implies that both parents are free citizens, (35) and
that, as in the case of the state, the founders of the line have been
notable for virtue or wealth or something else which is highly prized,
and that many distinguished persons belong to the family, men and
women, young and old.
The phrases ‘possession of good children’ and ‘of many children’ bear
a quite clear meaning. [1361a] Applied to a community, they mean
that its young men are numerous and of good quality: good in regard to
bodily excellences, such as stature, beauty, strength, athletic powers; and
also in regard to the excellences of the soul, which in a young man are
temperance and courage. Applied to an individual, (5) they mean that his
own children are numerous and have the good qualities we have
described. Both male and female are here included; the excellences of
the latter are, in body, beauty and stature; in soul, self-command and an
industry that is not sordid. (10) Communities as well as individuals should
lack none of these perfections, in their women as well as in their men.
Where, as among the Lacedaemonians, the state of women is bad, almost
half of human life is spoilt.
The constituents of wealth are: plenty of coined money and territory;
the ownership of numerous, large, and beautiful estates; also the
ownership of numerous and beautiful implements, live stock, (15) and
slaves. All these kinds of property are our own, are secure, gentlemanly,
and useful. The useful kinds are those that are productive, the
gentlemanly kinds are those that provide enjoyment. By ‘productive’ I
mean those from which we get our income; by ‘enjoyable’, those from
which we get nothing worth mentioning except the use of them. The
criterion of ‘security’ is the ownership of property in such places and
under such conditions that the use of it is in our power; and it is ‘our
own’ if it is in our own power to dispose of it or keep it. (20) By ‘disposing
of it’ I mean giving it away or selling it. Wealth as a whole consists in
using things rather than in owning them; it is really the activity—that is,
the use—of property that constitutes wealth.
Fame means being respected by everybody, (25) or having some quality
that is desired by all men, or by most, or by the good, or by the wise.
Honour is the token of a man’s being famous for doing good. It is
chiefly and most properly paid to those who have already done good;
but also to the man who can do good in future. (30) Doing good refers
either to the preservation of life and the means of life, or to wealth, or to
some other of the good things which it is hard to get either always or at
that particular place or time—for many gain honour for things which
seem small, but the place and the occasion account for it. The
constituents of honour are: sacrifices; commemoration, (35) in verse or
prose; privileges; grants of land; front seats at civic celebrations; state
burial; statues; public maintenance; among foreigners, obeisances and
giving place; and such presents as are among various bodies of men
regarded as marks of honour. For a present is not only the bestowal of a
piece of property, but also a token of honour; which explains why
honour-loving as well as money-loving persons desire it. The present
brings to both what they want; it is a piece of property, (1361) which is
what the lovers of money desire; and it brings honour, which is what the
lovers of honour desire.
 The excellence of the body is health; that is, a condition which allows
us, while keeping free from disease, to have the use of our bodies; for
many people are ‘healthy’ as we are told Herodicus was; and these no
one can congratulate on their ‘health’, (5) for they have to abstain from
everything or nearly everything that men do.—Beauty varies with the
time of life. In a young man beauty is the possession of a body fit to
endure the exertion of running and of contests of strength; which means
that he is pleasant to look at; and therefore all-round athletes are the
most beautiful, (10) being naturally adapted both for contests of strength
and for speed also. For a man in his prime, beauty is fitness for the
exertion of warfare, together with a pleasant but at the same time
formidable appearance. For an old man, it is to be strong enough for
such exertion as is necessary, and to be free from all those deformities of
old age which cause pain to others. (15) Strength is the power of moving
some one else at will; to do this, you must either pull, push, lift, pin, or
grip him; thus you must be strong in all of those ways or at least in
some. Excellence in size is to surpass ordinary people in height,
thickness, (20) and breadth by just as much as will not make one’s
movements slower in consequence. Athletic excellence of the body
consists in size, strength, and swiftness; swiftness implying strength. He
who can fling forward his legs in a certain way, and move them fast and
far, is good at running; he who can grip and hold down is good at
wrestling; he who can drive an adversary from his ground with the right
blow is a good boxer: he who can do both the last is a good pancratiast,
(25) while he who can do all is an ‘all-round’ athlete.

Happiness in old age is the coming of old age slowly and painlessly;
for a man has not this happiness if he grows old either quickly, or tardily
but painfully. It arises both from the excellences of the body and from
good luck. If a man is not free from disease, or if he is not strong, (30) he
will not be free from suffering; nor can he continue to live a long and
painless life unless he has good luck. There is, indeed, a capacity for long
life that is quite independent of health or strength; for many people live
long who lack the excellences of the body; but for our present purpose
there is no use in going into the details of this. (35)
The terms ‘possession of many friends’ and ‘possession of good friends’
need no explanation; for we define a ‘friend’ as one who will always try,
for your sake, to do what he takes to be good for you. The man towards
whom many feel thus has many friends; if these are worthy men, he has
good friends.
‘Good luck’ means the acquisition or possession of all or most, or the
most important, of those good things which are due to luck. [1362a]
Some of the things that are due to luck may also be due to artificial
contrivance; but many are independent of art, as for example those
which are due to nature—though, to be sure, things due to luck may
actually be contrary to nature. Thus health may be due to artificial
contrivance, but beauty and stature are due to nature. (5) All such good
things as excite envy are, as a class, the outcome of good luck. Luck is
also the cause of good things that happen contrary to reasonable
expectation: as when, for instance, all your brothers are ugly, but you
are handsome yourself; or when you find a treasure that everybody else
has overlooked; or when a missile hits the next man and misses you; or
when you are the only man not to go to a place you have gone to
regularly, while the others go there for the first time and are killed. (10)
All such things are reckoned pieces of good luck.
As to virtue, it is most closely connected with the subject of Eulogy,
and therefore we will wait to define it until we come to discuss that
subject.21

6 It is now plain what our aims, future or actual, (15) should be in

urging and what in deprecating, a proposal; the latter being the opposite
of the former. Now the political or deliberative orator’s aim is utility:
deliberation seeks to determine not ends but the means to ends, i. e.
what it is most useful to do. Further, utility is a good thing. (20) We ought
therefore to assure ourselves of the main facts about Goodness and
Utility in general.
We may define a good thing as that which ought to be chosen for its
own sake; or as that for the sake of which we choose something else; or
as that which is sought after by all things, or by all things that have
sensation or reason, or which will be sought after by any things that
acquire reason; or as that which must be prescribed for a given
individual by reason generally, (25) or is prescribed for him by his
individual reason, this being his individual good; or as that whose
presence brings anything into a satisfactory and self-sufficing condition;
or as self-sufficiency; or as what produces, maintains, or entails
characteristics of this kind, while preventing and destroying their
opposites. One thing may entail another in either of two ways—(1)
simultaneously, (30) (2) subsequently. Thus learning entails knowledge
subsequently, health entails life simultaneously. Things are productive of
other things in three senses: first as being healthy produces health;
secondly, as food produces health; and thirdly, as exercise does—i. e. it
does so usually. All this being settled, we now see that both the
acquisition of good things and the removal of bad things must be good;
the latter entails freedom from the evil things simultaneously, (35) while
the former entails possession of the good things subsequently. The
acquisition of a greater in place of a lesser good, or of a lesser in place of
a greater evil, is also good, for in proportion as the greater exceeds the
lesser there is acquisition of good or removal of evil. [1362b] The
virtues, too, must be something good; for it is by possessing these that
we are in a good condition, and they tend to produce good works and
good actions. They must be severally named and described elsewhere.22
Pleasure, again, must be a good thing, since it is the nature of all
animals to aim at it. (5) Consequently both pleasant and beautiful things
must be good things, since the former are productive of pleasure, while
of the beautiful things some are pleasant and some desirable in and for
themselves. (10)
The following is a more detailed list of things that must be good.
Happiness, as being desirable in itself and sufficient by itself, and as
being that for whose sake we choose many other things. Also justice,
courage, temperance, magnanimity, magnificence, and all such qualities,
as being excellences of the soul. Further, health, beauty, (15) and the like,
as being bodily excellences and productive of many other good things:
for instance, health is productive both of pleasure and of life, and
therefore is thought the greatest of goods, since these two things which
it causes, pleasure and life, are two of the things most highly prized by
ordinary people. Wealth, again: for it is the excellence of possession, and
also productive of many other good things. Friends and friendship: for a
friend is desirable in himself and also productive of many other good
things. (20) So, too, honour and reputation, as being pleasant, and
productive of many other good things, and usually accompanied by the
presence of the good things that cause them to be bestowed. The faculty
of speech and action; since all such qualities are productive of what is
good. Further—good parts, strong memory, (25) receptiveness, quickness
of intuition, and the like, for all such faculties are productive of what is
good. Similarly, all the sciences and arts. And life: since, even if no other
good were the result of life, it is desirable in itself. And justice, as the
cause of good to the community.
The above are pretty well all the things admittedly good. In dealing
with things whose goodness is disputed, we may argue in the following
ways:—That is good of which the contrary is bad. (30) That is good the
contrary of which is to the advantage of our enemies; for example, if it is
to the particular advantage of our enemies that we should be cowards,
clearly courage is of particular value to our countrymen. And generally,
the contrary of that which our enemies desire, (35) or of that at which
they rejoice, is evidently valuable. Hence the passage beginning:

Surely would Priam exult.23

This principle usually holds good, but not always, since it may well be
that our interest is sometimes the same as that of our enemies. Hence it
is said that ‘evils draw men together’; that is, when the same thing is
hurtful to them both. [1363a]
Further: that which is not in excess is good, and that which is greater
than it should be is bad. That also is good on which much labour or
money has been spent; the mere fact of this makes it seem good, and
such a good is assumed to be an end—an end reached through a long
chain of means; and any end is a good. (5) Hence the lines beginning:

And for Priam <and Troy-town’s folk> should they leave behind them a boast;24

and

Oh, it were shame

To have tarried so long and return empty-handed as erst we came;25

and there is also the proverb about ‘breaking the pitcher at the door’.
 That which most people seek after, and which is obviously an object of
contention, is also a good; for, as has been shown,26 that is good which
is sought after by everybody, and ‘most people’ is taken to be equivalent
to ‘everybody’. That which is praised is good, since no one praises what
is not good. So, again, that which is praised by our enemies [or by the
worthless]; for when even those who have a grievance think a thing
good, (10) it is at once felt that every one must agree with them; our
enemies can admit the fact only because it is evident, just as those must
be worthless whom their friends censure and their enemies do not. (For
this reason the Corinthians conceived themselves to be insulted by
Simonides when he wrote:

Against the Corinthians hath Ilium no complaint. (15))

Again, that is good which has been distinguished by the favour of a

discerning or virtuous man or woman, as Odysseus was distinguished by
Athena, Helen by Theseus, Paris by the goddesses, and Achilles by
Homer. And, generally speaking, all things are good which men
deliberately choose to do; this will include the things already mentioned,
and also whatever may be bad for their enemies or good for their
friends, (20) and at the same time practicable. Things are ‘practicable’ in
two senses: (1) it is possible to do them, (2) it is easy to do them. Things
are done ‘easily’ when they are done either without pain or quickly: the
‘difficulty’ of an act lies either in its painfulness or in the long time it
takes. Again, a thing is good if it is as men wish; and they wish to have
either no evil at all or at least a balance of good over evil. (25) This last
will happen where the penalty is either imperceptible or slight. Good,
too, are things that are a man’s very own, possessed by no one else,
exceptional; for this increases the credit of having them. So are things
which befit the possessors, such as whatever is appropriate to their birth
or capacity, and whatever they feel they ought to have but lack—such
things may indeed be trifling, (30) but none the less men deliberately
make them the goal of their action. And things easily effected; for these
are practicable (in the sense of being easy); such things are those in
which every one, or most people, or one’s equals, or one’s inferiors have
succeeded. Good also are the things by which we shall gratify our friends
or annoy our enemies: and the things chosen by those whom we admire:
and the things for which we are fitted by nature or experience, (35) since
we think we shall succeed more easily in these: and those in which no
worthless man can succeed, for such things bring greater praise: and
those which we do in fact desire, for what we desire is taken to be not
only pleasant but also better. [1363b] Further, a man of a given
disposition makes chiefly for the corresponding things: lovers of victory
make for victory, lovers of honour for honour, money-loving men for
money, and so with the rest. These, then, are the sources from which we
must derive our means of persuasion about Good and Utility.

7 Since, (5) however, it often happens that people agree that two
things are both useful but do not agree about which is the more so, the
next step will be to treat of relative goodness and relative utility.
A thing which surpasses another may be regarded as being that other
thing plus something more, and that other thing which is surpassed as
being what is contained in the first thing. Now to call a thing ‘greater’ or
‘more’ always implies a comparison of it with one that is ‘smaller’ or
‘less’, (10) while ‘great’ and ‘small’, ‘much’ and ‘little’, are terms used in
comparison with normal magnitude. The ‘great’ is that which surpasses
the normal, the ‘small’ is that which is surpassed by the normal; and so
with ‘many’ and ‘few’.
Now we are applying the term ‘good’ to what is desirable for its own
sake and not for the sake of something else; to that at which all things
aim; to what they would choose if they could acquire understanding and
practical wisdom; and to that which tends to produce or preserve such
goods, (15) or is always accompanied by them. Moreover, that for the
sake of which things are done is the end (an end being that for the sake
of which all else is done), and for each individual that thing is a good
which fulfils these conditions in regard to himself. It follows, then, that a
greater number of goods is a greater good than one or than a smaller
number, if that one or that smaller number is included in the count; for
then the larger number surpasses the smaller, and the smaller quantity is
surpassed as being contained in the larger. (20)
Again, if the largest number of one class surpasses the largest member
of another, then the one class surpasses the other; and if one class
surpasses another, then the largest member of the one surpasses the
largest member of the other. Thus, if the tallest man is taller than the
tallest woman, then men in general are taller than women. Conversely, if
men in general are taller than women, (25) then the tallest man is taller
than the tallest woman. For the superiority of class over class is
proportionate to the superiority possessed by their largest specimens.
Again, where one good is always accompanied by another, but does not
always accompany it, it is greater than the other, for the use of the
second thing is implied in the use of the first. (30) A thing may be
accompanied by another in three ways, either simultaneously,
subsequently, or potentially. Life accompanies health simultaneously
(but not health life), knowledge accompanies the act of learning
subsequently, cheating accompanies sacrilege potentially, since a man
who has committed sacrilege is always capable of cheating. Again, when
two things each surpass a third, that which does so by the greater
amount is the greater of the two; for it must surpass the greater as well
as the less of the other two. A thing productive of a greater good than
another is productive of is itself a greater good than that other. (35) For
this conception of ‘productive of a greater’ has been implied in our
argument.27 Likewise, that which is produced by a greater good is itself
a greater good; thus, if what is wholesome is more desirable and a
greater good than what gives pleasure, health too must be a greater good
than pleasure. Again, a thing which is desirable in itself is a greater good
than a thing which is not desirable in itself, as for example bodily
strength than what is wholesome, since the latter is not pursued for its
own sake, whereas the former is; and this was our definition of the
good.28 [1364a] Again, if one of two things is an end, and the other is
not, the former is the greater good, as being chosen for its own sake and
not for the sake of something else; as, for example, (5) exercise is chosen
for the sake of physical well-being. And of two things that which stands
less in need of the other, or of other things, is the greater good, since it
is more self-sufficing. (That which stands ‘less’ in need of others is that
which needs either fewer or easier things.) So when one thing does not
exist or cannot come into existence without a second, while the second
can exist without the first, the second is the better. That which does not
need something else is more self-sufficing than that which does, and
presents itself as a greater good for that reason. Again, (10) that which is
a beginning of other things is a greater good than that which is not, and
that which is a cause is a greater good than that which is not; the reason
being the same in each case, namely that without a cause and a
beginning nothing can exist or come into existence. Again, where there
are two sets of consequences arising from two different beginnings or
causes, the consequences of the more important beginning or cause are
themselves the more important; and conversely, that beginning or cause
is itself the more important which has the more important consequences.
(15) Now it is plain, from all that has been said, that one thing may be

shown to be more important than another from two opposite points of

view: it may appear the more important (1) because it is a beginning and
the other thing is not, and also (2) because it is not a beginning and the
other thing is—on the ground that the end is more important and is not
a beginning. So Leodamas, when accusing Callistratus, said that the man
who prompted the deed was more guilty than the doer, (20) since it would
not have been done if he had not planned it. On the other hand, when
accusing Chabrias he said that the doer was worse than the prompter,
since there would have been no deed without some one to do it; men,
said he, plot a thing only in order to carry it out.
Further, what is rare is a greater good than what is plentiful. Thus,
gold is a better thing than iron, though less useful: it is harder to get, (25)
and therefore better worth getting. Reversely, it may be argued that the
plentiful is a better thing than the rare, because we can make more use
of it. For what is often useful surpasses what is seldom useful, whence
the saying

The best of things is water.29

More generally: the hard thing is better than the easy, because it is rarer:
and reversely, the easy thing is better than the hard, (30) for it is as we
wish it to be. That is the greater good whose contrary is the greater evil,
and whose loss affects us more. Positive goodness and badness are more
important than the mere absence of goodness and badness: for positive
goodness and badness are ends, which the mere absence of them cannot
be. Further, in proportion as the functions of things are noble or base,
the things themselves are good or bad: conversely, in proportion as the
things themselves are good or bad, their runctions also are good or bad;
for the nature of results corresponds with that of their causes and
beginnings, and conversely the nature of causes and beginnings
corresponds with that of their results. (35) Moreover, those things are
greater goods, superiority in which is more desirable or more
honourable. Thus, keenness of sight is more desirable than keenness of
smell, sight generally being more desirable than smell generally; and
similarly, unusually great love of friends being more honourable than
unusually great love of money, ordinary love of friends is more
honourable than ordinary love of money. [1364b] Conversely, if one
of two normal things is better or nobler than the other, an unusual
degree of that thing is better or nobler than an unusual degree of the
other. Again, one thing is more honourable or better than another if it is
more honourable or better to desire it; the importance of the object of a
given instinct corresponds to the importance of the instinct itself; and for
the same reason, (5) if one thing is more honourable or better than
another, it is more honourable and better to desire it. Again, if one
science is more honourable and valuable than another, the activity with
which it deals is also more honourable and valuable; as is the science, so
is the reality that is its object, each science being authoritative in its own
sphere. So, also, the more valuable and honourable the object of a
science, (10) the more valuable and honourable the science itself is in
consequence. Again, that which would be judged, or which has been
judged, a good thing, or a better thing than something else, by all or
most people of understanding, or by the majority of men, or by the
ablest, must be so; either without qualification, or in so far as they use
their understanding to form their judgment. This is indeed a general
principle, applicable to all other judgements also; not only the goodness
of things, but their essence, magnitude, and general nature are in fact
just what knowledge and understanding will declare them to be. (15) Here
the principle is applied to judgements of goodness, since one definition
of ‘good’ was ‘what beings that acquire understanding will choose in any
given case’:30 from which it clearly follows that that thing is better which
understanding declares to be so. That, again, is a better thing which
attaches to better men, either absolutely, or in virtue of their being
better; as courage is better than strength. (20) And that is a greater good
which would be chosen by a better man, either absolutely, or in virtue of
his being better: for instance, to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong,
for that would be the choice of the juster man. Again, the pleasanter of
two things is the better, since all things pursue pleasure, and things
instinctively desire pleasurable sensation for its own sake; and these are
two of the characteristics by which the ‘good’ and the ‘end’ have been
defined. (25) One pleasure is greater than another if it is more unmixed
with pain, or more lasting. Again, the nobler thing is better than the less
noble, since the noble is either what is pleasant or what is desirable in
itself. And those things also are greater goods which men desire more
earnestly to bring about for themselves or for their friends, whereas
those things which they least desire to bring about are greater evils. (30)
And those things which are more lasting are better than those which are
more fleeting, and the more secure than the less; the enjoyment of the
lasting has the advantage of being longer, and that of the secure has the
advantage of suiting our wishes, being there for us whenever we like.
Further, in accordance with the rule of co-ordinate terms and inflexions
of the same stem, what is true of one such related word is true of all. (35)
Thus if the action qualified by the term ‘brave’ is more noble and
desirable than the action qualified by the term ‘temperate’, then
‘bravery’ is more desirable than ‘temperance’ and ‘being brave’ than
‘being temperate’. That, again, which is chosen by all is a greater good
than that which is not, and that chosen by the majority than that chosen
by the minority. [1365a] For that which all desire is good, as we have
said;31 and so, the more a thing is desired, the better it is. Further, that is
the better thing which is considered so by competitors or enemies, or,
again, by authorized judges or those whom they select to represent
them. In the first two cases the decision is virtually that of every one, in
the last two that of authorities and experts. And sometimes it may be
argued that what all share is the better thing, (5) since it is a dishonour
not to share in it; at other times, that what none or few share is better,
since it is rarer. The more praiseworthy things are, the nobler and
therefore the better they are. So with the things that earn greater
honours than others—honour is, as it were, a measure of value; and the
things whose absence involves comparatively heavy penalties; and the
things that are better than others admitted or believed to be good. (10)
Moreover, things look better merely by being divided into their parts,
since they then seem to surpass a greater number of things than before.
Hence Homer says that Meleager was roused to battle by the thought of

All horrors that light on a folk whose city is ta’en of their foes,
When they slaughter the men, when the burg is wasted with ravening flame,
When strangers are haling young children to thraldom, (15) [fair women to
shame].32

The same effect is produced by piling up facts in a climax after the

manner of Epicharmus. The reason is partly the same as in the case of
division (for combination too makes the impression of great superiority),
and partly that the original thing appears to be the cause and origin of
important results. And since a thing is better when it is harder or rarer
than other things, its superiority may be due to seasons, ages, places,
times, or one’s natural powers. When a man accomplishes something
beyond his natural power, (20) or beyond his years, or beyond the
measure of people like him, or in a special way, or at a special place or
time, his deed will have a high degree of nobleness, goodness, and
justice, or of their opposites. Hence the epigram on the victor at the
Olympic games:

In time past, (25) bearing a yoke on my shoulders, of wood unshaven, I

carried my loads of fish from Argos to Tegea town.33

So Iphicrates used to extol himself by describing the low estate from

which he had risen. Again, what is natural is better than what is
acquired, since it is harder to come by. Hence the words of Homer:

I have learnt from none but myself.34

And the best part of a good thing is particularly good; as when Pericles
in his funeral oration said that the country’s loss of its young men in
battle was ‘as if the spring were taken out of the year’. (30) So with those
things which are of service when the need is pressing; for example, in
old age and times of sickness. And of two things that which leads more
directly to the end in view is the better. So too is that which is better for
people generally as well as for a particular individual. (35) Again, what
can be got is better than what cannot, for it is good in a given case and
the other thing is not. And what is at the end of life is better than what
is not, since those things are ends in a greater degree which are nearer
the end. What aims at reality is better than what aims at appearance. We
may define what aims at appearance as what a man will not choose if
nobody is to know of his having it. [1365b] This would seem to show
that to receive benefits is more desirable than to confer them, since a
man will choose the former even if nobody is to know of it, but it is not
the general view that he will choose the latter if nobody knows of it.
What a man wants to be is better than what a man wants to seem, (5) for
in aiming at that he is aiming more at reality. Hence men say that justice
is of small value, since it is more desirable to seem just than to be just,
whereas with health it is not so. That is better than other things which is
more useful than they are for a number of different purposes; for
example, that which promotes life, good life, pleasure, (10) and noble
conduct. For this reason wealth and health are commonly thought to be
of the highest value, as possessing all these advantages. Again, that is
better than other things which is accompanied both with less pain and
with actual pleasure; for here there is more than one advantage; and so
here we have the good of feeling pleasure and also the good of not
feeling pain. And of two good things that is the better whose addition to
a third thing makes a better whole than the addition of the other to the
same thing will make. Again, those things which we are seen to possess
are better than those which we are not seen to possess, (15) since the
former have the air of reality. Hence wealth may be regarded as a
greater good if its existence is known to others. That which is dearly
prized is better than what is not—the sort of thing that some people
have only one of, though others have more like it. Accordingly, blinding
a one-eyed man inflicts worse injury than half-blinding a man with two
eyes; for the one-eyed man has been robbed of what he dearly prized. (20)
The grounds on which we must base our arguments, when we are
speaking for or against a proposal, have now been set forth more or less
completely.
8 The most important and effective qualification for success in
persuading audiences and speaking well on public affairs is to
understand all the forms of government and to discriminate their
respective customs, (25) institutions, and interests. For all men are
persuaded by considerations of their interest, and their interest lies in
the maintenance of the established order. Further, it rests with the
supreme authority to give authoritative decisions, and this varies with
each form of government; there are as many different supreme
authorities as there are different forms of government. The forms of
government are four—democracy, (30) oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy.
The supreme right to judge and decide always rests, therefore, with
either a part or the whole of one or other of these governing powers.
A Democracy is a form of government under which the citizens
distribute the offices of state among themselves by lot, whereas under
oligarchy there is a property qualification, under aristocracy one of
education. By education I mean that education which is laid down by
the law; for it is those who have been loyal to the national institutions
that hold office under an aristocracy. (35) These are bound to be looked
upon as ‘the best men’, and it is from this fact that this form of
government has derived its name (‘the rule of the best’). Monarchy, as
the word implies, is the constitution in which one man has authority
over all. [1366a] There are two forms of monarchy: kingship, which is
limited by prescribed conditions, and ‘tyranny’, which is not limited by
anything.
We must also notice the ends which the various forms of government
pursue, since people choose in practice such actions as will lead to the
realization of their ends. The end of democracy is freedom; of oligarchy,
wealth; of aristocracy, the maintenance of education and national
institutions; of tyranny, (5) the protection of the tyrant. It is clear, then,
that we must distinguish those particular customs, institutions, and
interests which tend to realize the ideal of each constitution, since men
choose their means with reference to their ends. But rhetorical
persuasion is effected not only by demonstrative but by ethical
argument; it helps a speaker to convince us, if we believe that he has
certain qualities himself, namely, goodness, or goodwill towards us, (10)
or both together. Similarly, we should know the moral qualities
characteristic of each form of government, for the special moral
character of each is bound to provide us with our most effective means
of persuasion in dealing with it. We shall learn the qualities of
governments in the same way as we learn the qualities of individuals,
since they are revealed in their deliberate acts of choice; and these are
determined by the end that inspires them. (15)
We have now considered the objects, immediate or distant, at which
we are to aim when urging any proposal, and the grounds on which we
are to base our arguments in favour of its utility. We have also briefly
considered the means and methods by which we shall gain a good
knowledge of the moral qualities and institutions peculiar to the various
forms of government—only, (20) however, to the extent demanded by the
present occasion; a detailed account of the subject has been given in the
Politics.35

9 We have now to consider Virtue and Vice, the Noble and the Base,
since these are the objects of praise and blame. In doing so, we shall at
the same time be finding out how to make our hearers take the required
view of our own characters—our second method of persuasion.36 (25) The
ways in which to make them trust the goodness of other people are also
the ways in which to make them trust our own. Praise, again, may be
serious or frivolous; nor is it always of a human or divine being but often
of inanimate things, (30) or of the humblest of the lower animals. Here
too we must know on what grounds to argue, and must, therefore, now
discuss the subject, though by way of illustration only.37
The Noble is that which is both desirable for its own sake and also
worthy of praise; or that which is both good and also pleasant because
good. (35) If this is a true definition of the Noble, it follows that virtue
must be noble, since it is both a good thing and also praiseworthy.
Virtue is, according to the usual view, a faculty of providing and
preserving good things; or a faculty of conferring many great benefits,
and benefits of all kinds on all occasions. [1366b] The forms of Virtue
are justice, courage, temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality,
gentleness, prudence, wisdom. If virtue is a faculty of beneficence, the
highest kinds of it must be those which are most useful to others, (5) and
for this reason men honour most the just and the courageous, since
courage is useful to others in war, justice both in war and in peace. Next
comes liberality; liberal people let their money go instead of fighting for
it, whereas other people care more for money than for anything else.
Justice is the virtue through which everybody enjoys his own
possessions in accordance with the law; its opposite is injustice, (10)
through which men enjoy the possessions of others in defiance of the
law. Courage is the virtue that disposes men to do noble deeds in
situations of danger, in accordance with the law and in obedience to its
commands; cowardice is the opposite. Temperance is the virtue that
disposes us to obey the law where physical pleasures are concerned;
incontinence is the opposite. (15) Liberality disposes us to spend money
for others’ good; illiberality is the opposite. Magnanimity is the virtue
that disposes us to do good to others on a large scale; [its opposite is
meanness of spirit]. Magnificence is a virtue productive of greatness in
matters involving the spending of money. The opposites of these two are
smallness of spirit and meanness respectively. Prudence is that virtue of
the understanding which enables men to come to wise decisions about
the relation to happiness of the goods and evils that have been
previously mentioned.38 (20)
The above is a sufficient account, for our present purpose, of virtue
and vice in general, and of their various forms. As to further aspects of
the subject, it is not difficult to discern the facts; it is evident that things
productive of virtue are noble, (25) as tending towards virtue; and also
the effects of virtue, that is, the signs of its presence and the acts to
which it leads. And since the signs of virtue, and such acts as it is the
mark of a virtuous man to do or have done to him, are noble, it follows
that all deeds or signs of courage, and everything done courageously,
must be noble things; and so with what is just and actions done justly.
(30) (Not, however, actions justly done to us; here justice is unlike the

other virtues; ‘justly’ does not always mean ‘nobly’; when a man is
punished, it is more shameful that this should be justly than unjustly
done to him.) The same is true of the other virtues. Again, those actions
are noble for which the reward is simply honour, (35) or honour more
than money. So are those in which a man aims at something desirable
for some one else’s sake; actions good absolutely, such as those a man
does for his country without thinking of himself; actions good in their
own nature; actions that are not good simply for the individual, since
individual interests are selfish. [1367a] Noble also are those actions
whose advantage may be enjoyed after death, as opposed to those whose
advantage is enjoyed during one’s lifetime: for the latter are more likely
to be for one’s own sake only. Also, all actions done for the sake of
others, since these less than other actions are done for one’s own sake;
and all successes which benefit others and not oneself; and services done
to one’s benefactors, (5) for this is just; and good deeds generally, since
they are not directed to one’s own profit. And the opposites of those
things of which men feel ashamed, for men are ashamed of saying,
doing, or intending to do shameful things. So when Alcaeus said

Something I fain would say to thee,

Only shame restraineth me, (10)

Sappho wrote

If for things good and noble thou wert yearning,

If to speak baseness were thy tongue not burning,
No load of shame would on thine eyelids weigh;
What thou with honour wishest thou wouldst say.

Those things, also, are noble for which men strive anxiously, (15) without
feeling fear; for they feel thus about the good things which lead to fair
fame. Again, one quality or action is nobler than another if it is that of a
naturally finer being: thus a man’s will be nobler than a woman’s. And
those qualities are noble which give more pleasure to other people than
to their possessors; hence the nobleness of justice and just actions. It is
noble to avenge oneself on one’s enemies and not to come to terms with
them; for requital is just, (20) and the just is noble; and not to surrender is
a sign of courage. Victory, too, and honour belong to the class of noble
things, since they are desirable even when they yield no fruits, and they
prove our superiority in good qualities. Things that deserve to be
remembered are noble, and the more they deserve this, the nobler they
are. So are the things that continue even after death; those which are
always attended by honour; those which are exceptional; and those
which are possessed by one person alone—these last are more readily
remembered than others. (25) So again are possessions that bring no
profit, since they are more fitting than others for a gentleman. So are the
distinctive qualities of a particular people, and the symbols of what it
specially admires, like long hair in Sparta, where this is a mark of a free
man, as it is not easy to perform any menial task when one’s hair is long.
(30) Again, it is noble not to practise any sordid craft, since it is the mark

of a free man not to live at another’s beck and call. We are also to
assume, when we wish either to praise a man or blame him, that
qualities closely allied to those which he actually has are identical with
them; for instance, that the cautious man is cold-blooded and
treacherous, and that the stupid man is an honest fellow or the thick-
skinned man a good-tempered one. (35) We can always idealize any given
man by drawing on the virtues akin to his actual qualities; thus we may
say that the passionate and excitable man is ‘outspoken’; or that the
arrogant man is ‘superb’ or ‘impressive’. [1367b] Those who run to
extremes will be said to possess the corresponding good qualities;
rashness will be called courage, and extravagance generosity. That will
be what most people think; and at the same time this method enables an
advocate to draw a misleading inference from the motive, arguing that if
a man runs into danger needlessly, (5) much more will he do so in a
noble cause; and if a man is open-handed to any one and every one, he
will be so to his friends also, since it is the extreme form of goodness to
be good to everybody.
We must also take into account the nature of our particular audience
when making a speech of praise; for, as Socrates used to say, it is not
difficult to praise the Athenians to an Athenian audience.39 If the
audience esteems a given quality, we must say that our hero has that
quality, (10) no matter whether we are addressing Scythians or Spartans
or philosophers. Everything, in fact, that is esteemed we are to represent
as noble. After all, people regard the two things as much the same.
All actions are noble that are appropriate to the man who does them:
if, for instance, they are worthy of his ancestors or of his own past
career. For it makes for happiness, and is a noble thing, that he should
add to the honour he already has. (15) Even inappropriate actions are
noble if they are better and nobler than the appropriate ones would be;
for instance, if one who was just an average person when all went well
becomes a hero in adversity, or if he becomes better and easier to get on
with the higher he rises. Compare the saying of Iphicrates, ‘Think what I
was and what I am’; and the epigram on the victor at the Olympic
games,

In time past, bearing a yoke on my shoulders, of wood unshaven;40 and the

encomium of Simonides,
A woman whose father, whose husband, whose brethren were princes all. (20)

Since we praise a man for what he has actually done, and fine actions
are distinguished from others by being intentionally good, we must try
to prove that our hero’s noble acts are intentional. This is all the easier if
we can make out that he has often acted so before, and therefore we
must assert coincidences and accidents to have been intended. Produce a
number of good actions, all of the same kind, (25) and people will think
that they must have been intended, and that they prove the good
qualities of the man who did them.
Praise is the expression in words of the eminence of a man’s good
qualities, and therefore we must display his actions as the product of
such qualities. Encomium refers to what he has actually done; the
mention of accessories, such as good birth and education, merely helps
to make our story credible—good fathers are likely to have good sons,
and good training is likely to produce good character. (30) Hence it is
only when a man has already done something that we bestow encomiums
upon him. Yet the actual deeds are evidence of the doer’s character: even
if a man has not actually done a given good thing, we shall bestow praise
on him, if we are sure that he is the sort of man who would do it. To call
any one blest is, it may be added, the same thing as to call him happy;
but these are not the same thing as to bestow praise and encomium upon
him; the two latter are a part of ‘calling happy’, just as goodness is a part
of happiness. (35)
To praise a man is in one respect akin to urging a course of action. The
suggestions which would be made in the latter case become encomiums
when differently expressed. [1368a] When we know what action or
character is required, then, in order to express these facts as suggestions
for action, we have to change and reverse our form of words. Thus the
statement ‘A man should be proud not of what he owes to fortune but of
what he owes to himself’, if put like this, (5) amounts to a suggestion; to
make it into praise we must put it thus, ‘Since he is proud not of what he
owes to fortune but of what he owes to himself.’41 Consequently,
whenever you want to praise any one, think what you would urge
people to do; and when you want to urge the doing of anything, think
what you would praise a man for having done. Since suggestion may or
may not forbid an action, the praise into which we convert it must have
one or other of two opposite forms of expression accordingly. (10)
There are, also, many useful ways of heightening the effect of praise.
We must, for instance, point out that a man is the only one, or the first,
or almost the only one who has done something, or that he has done it
better than any one else; all these distinctions are honourable. And we
must, further, make much of the particular season and occasion of an
action, arguing that we could hardly have looked for it just then. If a
man has often achieved the same success, (15) we must mention this; that
is a strong point; he himself, and not luck, will then be given the credit.
So, too, if it is on his account that observances have been devised and
instituted to encourage or honour such achievements as his own: thus
we may praise Hippolochus because the first encomium ever made was
for him, or Harmodius and Aristogeiton because their statues were the
first to be put up in the market-place. And we may censure bad men for
the opposite reason.
Again, if you cannot find enough to say of a man himself, (20) you may
pit him against others, which is what Isocrates used to do owing to his
want of familiarity with forensic pleading. The comparison should be
with famous men; that will strengthen your case; it is a noble thing to
surpass men who are themselves great. It is only natural that methods of
‘heightening the effect’ should be attached particularly to speeches of
praise; they aim at proving superiority over others, and any such
superiority is a form of nobleness. Hence if you cannot compare your
hero with famous men, (25) you should at least compare him with other
people generally, since any superiority is held to reveal excellence. And,
in general, of the lines of argument which are common to all speeches,
this ‘heightening of effect’ is most suitable for declamations, where we
take our hero’s actions as admitted facts, and our business is simply to
invest these with dignity and nobility. (30) ‘Examples’ are most suitable to
deliberative speeches; for we judge of future events by divination from
past events. Enthymemes are most suitable to forensic speeches; it is our
doubts about past events that most admit of arguments showing why a
thing must have happened or proving that it did happen.
The above are the general lines on which all, or nearly all, speeches of
praise or blame are constructed. We have seen the sort of thing we must
bear in mind in making such speeches, (35) and the materials out of
which encomiums and censures are made. No special treatment of
censure and vituperation is needed. Knowing the above facts, we know
their contraries; and it is out of these that speeches of censure are made.

10 We have next to treat of Accusation and Defence, and to

enumerate and describe the ingredients of the syllogisms used therein.
[1368b] There are three things we must ascertain—first, the nature
and number of the incentives to wrong-doing; second, the state of mind
of wrong-doers; third, the kind of persons who are wronged, and their
condition. (5) We will deal with these questions in order. But before that
let us define the act of ‘wrong-doing’.
We may describe ‘wrong-doing’ as injury voluntarily inflicted contrary
to law. ‘Law’ is either special or general. By special law I mean that
written law which regulates the life of a particular community; by
general law, all those unwritten principles which are supposed to be
acknowledged everywhere. We do things ‘voluntarily’ when we do them
consciously and without constraint. (10) (Not all voluntary42 acts are
deliberate, but all deliberate acts are conscious43—no one is ignorant of
what he deliberately intends.) The causes of our deliberately intending
harmful and wicked acts contrary to law are (1) vice, (2) lack of self-
control. For the wrongs a man does to others will correspond to the bad
quality or qualities that he himself possesses. (15) Thus it is the mean man
who will wrong others about money, the profligate in matters of physical
pleasure, the effeminate in matters of comfort, and the coward where
danger is concerned—his terror makes him abandon those who are
involved in the same danger. The ambitious man does wrong for the
sake of honour, the quick-tempered from anger, the lover of victory for
the sake of victory, (20) the embittered man for the sake of revenge, the
stupid man because he has misguided notions of right and wrong, the
shameless man because he does not mind what people think of him; and
so with the rest—any wrong that any one does to others corresponds to
his particular faults of character. (25)
However, this subject has already been cleared up in part in our
discussions of the virtues44 and will be further explained later when we
treat of the emotions.45 We have now to consider the motives and states
of mind of wrongdoers, and to whom they do wrong.
Let us first decide what sort of things people are trying to get or avoid
when they set about doing wrong to others. For it is plain that the
prosecutor must consider, (30) out of all the aims that can ever induce us
to do wrong to our neighbours, how many, and which, affect his
adversary; while the defendant must consider how many, and which, do
not affect him. Now every action of every person either is or is not due
to that person himself. Of those not due to himself some are due to
chance, the others to necessity; of these latter, again, (35) some are due to
compulsion, the others to nature. Consequently all actions that are not
due to a man himself are due either to chance or to nature or to
compulsion. [1369a] All actions that are due to a man himself and
caused by himself are due either to habit or to rational or irrational
craving. Rational craving is a craving for good, i. e. a wish—nobody
wishes for anything unless he thinks it good. Irrational craving is
twofold, viz. anger and appetite. (5)
Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes: chance,
nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite. It is superfluous
further to distinguish actions according to the doers’ ages, moral states,
or the like; it is of course true that, for instance, young men do have hot
tempers and strong appetites; still, (10) it is not through youth that they
act accordingly, but through anger or appetite. Nor, again, is action due
to wealth or poverty; it is of course true that poor men, being short of
money, do have an appetite for it, and that rich men, being able to
command needless pleasures, do have an appetite for such pleasures: but
here, again, their actions will be due not to wealth or poverty but to
appetite. Similarly, (15) with just men, and unjust men, and all others
who are said to act in accordance with their moral qualities, their
actions will really be due to one of the causes mentioned—either
reasoning or emotion: due, indeed, sometimes to good dispositions and
good emotions, and sometimes to bad; but that good qualities should be
followed by good emotions, (20) and bad by bad, is merely an accessory
fact—it is no doubt true that the temperate man, for instance, because
he is temperate, is always and at once attended by healthy opinions and
appetites in regard to pleasant things, and the intemperate man by
unhealthy ones. So we must ignore such distinctions. Still we must
consider what kinds of actions and of people usually go together; for
while there are no definite kinds of action associated with the fact that a
man is fair or dark, (25) tall or short, it does make a difference if he is
young or old, just or unjust. And, generally speaking, all those accessory
qualities that cause distinctions of human character are important: e. g.
the sense of wealth or poverty, of being lucky or unlucky. This shall be
dealt with later46—let us now deal first with the rest of the subject
before us. (30)
The things that happen by chance are all those whose cause cannot be
determined, that have no purpose, and that happen neither always nor
usually nor in any fixed way. The definition of chance shows just what
they are. Those things happen by nature which have a fixed and internal
cause; they take place uniformly, (35) either always or usually. [1369b]
There is no need to discuss in exact detail the things that happen
contrary to nature, nor to ask whether they happen in some sense
naturally or from some other cause; it would seem that chance is at least
partly the cause of such events. Those things happen through
compulsion which take place contrary to the desire or reason of the
doer, (5) yet through his own agency. Acts are done from habit which
men do because they have often done them before. Actions are due to
reasoning when, in view of any of the goods already mentioned,47 they
appear useful either as ends or as means to an end, and are performed
for that reason: ‘for that reason’, (10) since even licentious persons
perform a certain number of useful actions, but because they are
pleasant and not because they are useful. To passion and anger are due
all acts of revenge. Revenge and punishment are different things.
Punishment is inflicted for the sake of the person punished; revenge for
that of the punisher, to satisfy his feelings. (What anger is will be made
clear when we come to discuss the emotions.48) Appetite is the cause of
all actions that appear pleasant. (15) Habit, whether acquired by mere
familiarity or by effort, belongs to the class of pleasant things, for there
are many actions not naturally pleasant which men perform with
pleasure, once they have become used to them. To sum up then, all
actions due to ourselves either are or seem to be either good or pleasant.
(20) Moreover, as all actions due to ourselves are done voluntarily and

actions not due to ourselves are done involuntarily, it follows that all
voluntary actions must either be or seem to be either good or pleasant;
for I reckon among goods escape from evils or apparent evils and the
exchange of a greater evil for a less (since these things are in a sense
positively desirable), (25) and likewise I count among pleasures escape
from painful or apparently painful things and the exchange of a greater
pain for a less. We must ascertain, then, the number and nature of the
things that are useful and pleasant. The useful has been previously
examined in connexion with political oratory;49 let us now proceed to
examine the pleasant. (30) Our various definitions must be regarded as
adequate, even if they are not exact, provided they are clear.

11 We may lay it down that Pleasure is a movement, a movement by

which the soul as a whole is consciously brought into its normal state of
being; and that Pain is the opposite. [1370a] If this is what pleasure is,
it is clear that the pleasant is what tends to produce this condition, while
that which tends to destroy it, or to cause the soul to be brought into the
opposite state, is painful. It must therefore be pleasant as a rule to move
towards a natural state of being, (5) particularly when a natural process
has achieved the complete recovery of that natural state. Habits also are
pleasant; for as soon as a thing has become habitual, it is virtually
natural; habit is a thing not unlike nature; what happens often is akin to
what happens always, natural events happening always, habitual events
often. Again, that is pleasant which is not forced on us; for force is
unnatural, and that is why what is compulsory is painful, (10) and it has
been rightly said

All that is done on compulsion is bitterness unto the soul.50

So all acts of concentration, strong effort, and strain are necessarily

painful; they all involve compulsion and force, unless we are accustomed
to them, in which case it is custom that makes them pleasant. (15) The
opposites to these are pleasant; and hence ease, freedom from toil,
relaxation, amusement, rest, and sleep belong to the class of pleasant
things; for these are all free from any element of compulsion.
Everything, too, is pleasant for which we have the desire within us, since
desire is the craving for pleasure. Of the desires some are irrational,
some associated with reason. By irrational I mean those which do not
arise from any opinion held by the mind. (20) Of this kind are those
known as ‘natural’; for instance, those originating in the body, such as
the desire for nourishment, namely hunger and thirst, and a separate
kind of desire answering to each kind of nourishment; and the desires
connected with taste and sex and sensations of touch in general; and
those of smell, (25) hearing, and vision. Rational desires are those which
we are induced to have; there are many things we desire to see or get
because we have been told of them and induced to believe them good.
Further, pleasure is the consciousness through the senses of a certain
kind of emotion; but imagination is a feeble sort of sensation, and there
will always be in the mind of a man who remembers or expects
something an image or picture of what he remembers or expects. (30) If
this is so, it is clear that memory and expectation also, being
accompanied by sensation, may be accompanied by pleasure. It follows
that anything pleasant is either present and perceived, past and
remembered, or future and expected, since we perceive present
pleasures, remember past ones, and expect future ones. Now the things
that are pleasant to remember are not only those that, when actually
perceived as present, were pleasant, but also some things that were not,
provided that their results have subsequently proved noble and good.
[1370b] Hence the words
Sweet ’tis when rescued to remember pain,51

and

Even his griefs are a joy long after to one that remembers
All that he wrought and endured.52 (5)
The reason of this is that it is pleasant even to be merely free from evil.
The things it is pleasant to expect are those that when present are felt to
afford us either great delight or great but not painful benefit. And in
general, all the things that delight us when they are present also do so,
as a rule, when we merely remember or expect them. (10) Hence even
being angry is pleasant—Homer said of wrath that

Sweeter it is by far than the honeycomb dripping with sweetness53—

for no one grows angry with a person on whom there is no prospect of

taking vengeance, and we feel comparatively little anger, or none at all,
with those who are much our superiors in power. (15) Some pleasant
feeling is associated with most of our appetites; we are enjoying either
the memory of a past pleasure or the expectation of a future one, just as
persons down with fever, during their attacks of thirst, enjoy
remembering the drinks they have had and looking forward to having
more. So also a lover enjoys talking or writing about his loved one, (20) or
doing any little thing connected with him; all these things recall him to
memory and make him actually present to the eye of imagination.
Indeed, it is always the first sign of love, that besides enjoying some
one’s presence, we remember him when he is gone, and feel pain as well
as pleasure, because he is there no longer. Similarly there is an element
of pleasure even in mourning and lamentation for the departed. (25)
There is grief, indeed, at his loss, but pleasure in remembering him and
as it were seeing him before us in his deeds and in his life. We can well
believe the poet when he says

He spake, and in each man’s heart he awakened the love of lament.54

Revenge, too, is pleasant; it is pleasant to get anything that it is painful

to fail to get, (30) and angry people suffer extreme pain when they fail to
get their revenge; but they enjoy the prospect of getting it. Victory also
is pleasant, and not merely to ‘bad losers’, but to every one; the winner
sees himself in the light of a champion, and everybody has a more or less
keen appetite for being that. The pleasantness of victory implies of
course that combative sports and intellectual contests are pleasant (since
in these it often happens that some one wins) and also games like
knuckle-bones, ball, dice, and draughts. [1371a] And similarly with
the serious sports; some of these become pleasant when one is
accustomed to them; while others are pleasant from the first, like
hunting with hounds, or indeed any kind of hunting. (5) For where there
is competition, there is victory. That is why forensic pleading and
debating contests are pleasant to those who are accustomed to them and
have the capacity for them. Honour and good repute are among the most
pleasant things of all; they make a man see himself in the character of a
fine fellow, (10) especially when he is credited with it by people whom he
thinks good judges. His neighbours are better judges than people at a
distance; his associates and fellow-countrymen better than strangers; his
contemporaries better than posterity; sensible persons better than foolish
ones; a large number of people better than a small number: those of the
former class, in each case, are the more likely to be good judges of him.
Honour and credit bestowed by those whom you think much inferior to
yourself—e. g. children or animals—you do not value: (15) not for its own
sake, anyhow: if you do value it, it is for some other reason. Friends
belong to the class of pleasant things; it is pleasant to love—if you love
wine, you certainly find it delightful: and it is pleasant to be loved, for
this too makes a man see himself as the possessor of goodness, (20) a
thing that every being that has a feeling for it desires to possess: to be
loved means to be valued for one’s own personal qualities. To be
admired is also pleasant, simply because of the honour implied. Flattery
and flatterers are pleasant: the flatterer is a man who, you believe,
admires and likes you. (25) To do the same thing often is pleasant, since,
as we saw, anything habitual is pleasant.55 And to change is also
pleasant: change means an approach to nature, whereas invariable
repetition of anything causes the excessive prolongation of a settled
condition: therefore, says the poet,

Change is in all things sweet.56

That is why what comes to us only at long intervals is pleasant, whether

it be a person or a thing; for it is a change from what we had before,
and, besides, what comes only at long intervals has the value of rarity.
(30) Learning things and wondering at things are also pleasant as a rule;
wondering implies the desire of learning, so that the object of wonder is
an object of desire; while in learning one is brought into one’s natural
condition. Conferring and receiving benefits belong to the class of
pleasant things; to receive a benefit is to get what one desires; to confer
a benefit implies both possession and superiority, both of which are
things we try to attain. [1371b] It is because beneficent acts are
pleasant that people find it pleasant to put their neighbours straight
again and to supply what they lack. Again, since learning and wondering
are pleasant, it follows that such things as acts of imitation must be
pleasant—for instance, (5) painting, sculpture, poetry—and every product
of skilful imitation; this latter, even if the object imitated is not itself
pleasant; for it is not the object itself which here gives delight; the
spectator draws inferences (‘That is a so-and-so’) and thus learns
something fresh.57 Dramatic turns of fortune and hairbreadth escapes
from perils are pleasant, (10) because we feel all such things are
wonderful.
And since what is natural is pleasant, and things akin to each other
seem natural to each other, therefore all kindred and similar things are
usually pleasant to each other; for instance, one man, horse, or young
person is pleasant to another man, horse, or young person. (15) Hence the
proverbs ‘mate delights mate’, ‘like to like’,58 ‘beast knows beast’,
‘jackdaw to jackdaw’, and the rest of them. But since everything like and
akin to oneself is pleasant, and since every man is himself more like and
akin to himself than any one else is, it follows that all of us must be
more or less fond of ourselves. For all this resemblance and kinship is
present particularly in the relation of an individual to himself. (20) And
because we are all fond of ourselves, it follows that what is our own is
pleasant to all of us, as for instance our own deeds and words. That is
why we are usually fond of our flatterers, [our lovers,] and honour; also
of our children, for our children are our own work. It is also pleasant to
complete what is defective, (25) for the whole thing thereupon becomes
our own work. And since power over others is very pleasant, it is
pleasant to be thought wise, for practical wisdom secures us power over
others. (Scientific wisdom is also pleasant, because it is the knowledge of
many wonderful things.) Again, since most of us are ambitious, it must
be pleasant to disparage our neighbours as well as to have power over
them. (30) It is pleasant for a man to spend his time over what he feels he
can do best; just as the poet says,

To that he bends himself,

To that each day allots most time, wherein
He is indeed the best part of himself.59

Similarly, since amusement and every kind of relaxation and laughter

too belong to the class of pleasant things, it follows that ludicrous things
are pleasant, whether men, words, or deeds. [1372a] We have
discussed the ludicrous separately in the treatise on the Art of Poetry.60
So much for the subject of pleasant things: by considering their
opposites we can easily see what things are unpleasant.

12 The above are the motives that make men do wrong to others; we
are next to consider the states of mind in which they do it, (5) and the
persons to whom they do it.
They must themselves suppose that the thing can be done, and done
by them: either that they can do it without being found out, or that if
they are found out they can escape being punished, or that if they are
punished the disadvantage will be less than the gain for themselves or
those they care for. The general subject of apparent possibility and
impossibility will be handled later on,61 since it is relevant not only to
forensic but to all kinds of speaking. (10) But it may here be said that
people think that they can themselves most easily do wrong to others
without being punished for it if they possess eloquence, or practical
ability, or much legal experience, or a large body of friends, or a great
deal of money. Their confidence is greatest if they personally possess the
advantages mentioned: but even without them they are satisfied if they
have friends or supporters or partners who do possess them: they can
thus both commit their crimes and escape being found out and punished
for committing them. (15) They are also safe, they think, if they are on
good terms with their victims or with the judges who try them. Their
victims will in that case not be on their guard against being wronged,
and will make some arrangement with them instead of prosecuting;
while their judges will favour them because they like them, (20) either
letting them off altogether or imposing light sentences. They are not
likely to be found out if their appearance contradicts the charges that
might be brought against them: for instance, a weakling is unlikely to be
charged with violent assault, or a poor and ugly man with adultery.
Public and open injuries are the easiest to do, because nobody could at
all suppose them possible, and therefore no precautions are taken. The
same is true of crimes so great and terrible that no man living could be
suspected of them: here too no precautions are taken. (25) For all men
guard against ordinary offences, just as they guard against ordinary
diseases; but no one takes precautions against a disease that nobody has
ever had. You feel safe, too, if you have either no enemies or a great
many; if you have none, you expect not to be watched and therefore not
to be detected; if you have a great many, you will be watched, and
therefore people will think you can never risk an attempt on them, (30)
and you can defend your innocence by pointing out that you could never
have taken such a risk. You may also trust to hide your crime by the way
you do it or the place you do it in, or by some convenient means of
disposal.
You may feel that even if you are found out you can stave off a trial,
or have it postponed, or corrupt your judges: or that even if you are
sentenced you can avoid paying damages, or can at least postpone doing
so for a long time: or that you are so badly off that you will have
nothing to lose. (35) You may feel that the gain to be got by wrongdoing
is great or certain or immediate, and that the penalty is small or
uncertain or distant. It may be that the advantage to be gained is greater
than any possible retribution: as in the case of despotic power, according
to the popular view. [1372b] You may consider your crimes as
bringing you solid profit, while their punishment is nothing more than
being called bad names. Or the opposite argument may appeal to you:
your crimes may bring you some credit (thus you may, incidentally, be
avenging your father or mother, like Zeno), (5) whereas the punishment
may amount to a fine, or banishment, or something of that sort. People
may be led on to wrong others by either of these motives or feelings; but
no man by both—they will affect people of quite opposite characters.
You may be encouraged by having often escaped detection or
punishment already; or by having often tried and failed; for in crime, as
in war, there are men who will always refuse to give up the struggle. (10)
You may get your pleasure on the spot and the pain later, or the gain on
the spot and the loss later. That is what appeals to weak-willed persons
—and weakness of will may be shown with regard to all the objects of
desire. It may on the contrary appeal to you—as it does appeal to self-
controlled and sensible people—that the pain and loss are immediate, (15)
while the pleasure and profit come later and last longer. You may feel
able to make it appear that your crime was due to chance, or to
necessity, or to natural causes, or to habit: in fact, to put it generally, as
if you had failed to do right rather than actually done wrong. You may
be able to trust other people to judge you equitably. You may be
stimulated by being in want: which may mean that you want
necessaries, (20) as poor people do, or that you want luxuries, as rich
people do. You may be encouraged by having a particularly good
reputation, because that will save you from being suspected: or by
having a particularly bad one, because nothing you are likely to do will
make it worse.
The above, then, are the various states of mind in which a man sets
about doing wrong to others. The kind of people to whom he does
wrong, and the ways in which he does it, must be considered next. The
people to whom he does it are those who have what he wants himself,
(25) whether this means necessities or luxuries and materials for

enjoyment. His victims may be far off or near at hand. If they are near,
he gets his profit quickly; if they are far off, vengeance is slow, as those
think who plunder the Carthaginians. They may be those who are
trustful instead of being cautious and watchful, since all such people are
easy to elude. Or those who are too easy-going to have enough energy to
prosecute an offender. (30) Or sensitive people, who are not apt to show
fight over questions of money. Or those who have been wronged already
by many people, and yet have not prosecuted; such men must surely be
the proverbial ‘Mysian prey’.62 Or those who have either never or often
been wronged before; in neither case will they take precautions; if they
have never been wronged they think they never will, and if they have
often been wronged they feel that surely it cannot happen again. (35) Or
those whose character has been attacked in the past, or is exposed to
attack in the future: they will be too much frightened of the judges to
make up their minds to prosecute, nor can they win their case if they do:
this is true of those who are hated or unpopular. [1373a] Another
likely class of victim is those who their injurer can pretend have,
themselves or through their ancestors or friends, treated badly, or
intended to treat badly, the man himself, or his ancestors, or those he
cares for; as the proverb says, ‘wickedness needs but a pretext’. A man
may wrong his enemies, because that is pleasant: he may equally wrong
his friends, because that is easy. Then there are those who have no
friends, (5) and those who lack eloquence and practical capacity; these
will either not attempt to prosecute, or they will come to terms, or
failing that they will lose their case. There are those whom it does not
pay to waste time in waiting for trial or damages, such as foreigners and
small farmers; they will settle for a trifle, and always be ready to leave
off. Also those who have themselves wronged others, either often, (10) or
in the same way as they are now being wronged themselves—for it is felt
that next to no wrong is done to people when it is the same wrong as
they have often themselves done to others: if, for instance, you assault a
man who has been accustomed to behave with violence to others. So too
with those who have done wrong to others, or have meant to, or mean
to, or are likely to do so; there is something fine and pleasant in
wronging such persons, (15) it seems as though almost no wrong were
done. Also those by doing wrong to whom we shall be gratifying our
friends, or those we admire or love, or our masters, or in general the
people by reference to whom we mould our lives. Also those whom we
may wrong and yet be sure of equitable treatment. Also those against
whom we have had any grievance, or any previous differences with
them, as Callippus had when he behaved as he did to Dion: here too it
seems as if almost no wrong were being done. (20) Also those who are on
the point of being wronged by others if we fail to wrong them ourselves,
since here we feel we have no time left for thinking the matter over. So
Aenesidemus is said to have sent the ‘cottabus’ prize to Gelon, who had
just reduced a town to slavery, because Gelon had got there first and
forestalled his own attempt. Also those by wronging whom we shall be
able to do many righteous acts; for we feel that we can then easily cure
the harm done. (25) Thus Jason the Thessalian said that it is a duty to do
some unjust acts in order to be able to do many just ones.
 Among the kinds of wrong done to others are those that are done
universally, or at least commonly: one expects to be forgiven for doing
these. Also those that can easily be kept dark, as where things that can
rapidly be consumed like eatables are concerned, (30) or things that can
easily be changed in shape, colour, or combination, or things that can
easily be stowed away almost anywhere—portable objects that you can
stow away in small corners, or things so like others of which you have
plenty already that nobody can tell the difference. There are also wrongs
of a kind that shame prevents the victim speaking about, such as
outrages done to the women in his household or to himself or to his
sons. (35) Also those for which you would be thought very litigious to
prosecute any one—trifling wrongs, or wrongs for which people are
usually excused.
The above is a fairly complete account of the circumstances under
which men do wrong to others, of the sort of wrongs they do, of the sort
of persons to whom they do them, and of their reasons for doing them.

13 [1373b] It will now be well to make a complete classification of

just and unjust actions. We may begin by observing that they have been
defined relatively to two kinds of law, and also relatively to two classes
of persons. By the two kinds of law I mean particular law and universal
law. Particular law is that which each community lays down and applies
to its own members: this is partly written and partly unwritten. (5)
Universal law is the law of nature. For there really is, as every one to
some extent divines, a natural justice and injustice that is binding on all
men, even on those who have no association or covenant with each
other. It is this that Sophocles’ Antigone clearly means when she says
that the burial of Polyneices was a just act in spite of the prohibition: she
means that it was just by nature. (10)

Not of to-day or yesterday it is,

But lives eternal: none can date its birth.63

And so Empedocles, when he bids us kill no living creature, (15) says that
doing this is not just for some people while unjust for others,
 Nay, but, an all-embracing law, through the realms of the sky
Unbroken it stretcheth, and over the earth’s immensity.

And as Alcidamas64 says in his Messeniac Oration.…

The actions that we ought to do or not to do have also been divided
into two classes as affecting either the whole community or some one of
its members. (20) From this point of view we can perform just or unjust
acts in either of two ways—towards one definite person, or towards the
community. The man who is guilty of adultery or assault is doing wrong
to some definite person; the man who avoids service in the army is doing
wrong to the community. (25)
Thus the whole class of unjust actions may be divided into two classes,
those affecting the community, and those affecting one or more other
persons. We will next, before going further, remind ourselves of what
‘being wronged’ means. Since it has already65 been settled that ‘doing a
wrong’ must be intentional, ‘being wronged’ must consist in having an
injury done to you by some one who intends to do it. In order to be
wronged, a man must (1) suffer actual harm, (2) suffer it against his will.
(30) The various possible forms of harm are clearly explained by our

previous66 separate discussion of goods and evils. We have also seen that
a voluntary action is one where the doer knows what he is doing.67 We
now see that every accusation must be of an action affecting either the
community or some individual. The doer of the action must either
understand and intend the action, or not understand and intend it. In the
former case, (35) he must be acting either from deliberate choice or from
passion. (Anger will be discussed when we speak of the passions68; the
motives for crime and the state of mind of the criminal have already69
been discussed.) Now it often happens that a man will admit an act, but
will not admit the prosecutor’s label for the act nor the facts which that
label implies. [1374a] He will admit that he took a thing but not that
he ‘stole’ it; that he struck some one first, but not that he committed
‘outrage’; that he had intercourse with a woman, but not that he
committed ‘adultery’; that he is guilty of theft, but not that he is guilty of
‘sacrilege’, the object stolen not being consecrated; that he has
encroached, but not that he has ‘encroached on State lands’; (5) that he
has been in communication with the enemy, but not that he has been
guilty of ‘treason’. Here therefore we must be able to distinguish what is
theft, outrage, or adultery, from what is not, if we are to be able to make
the justice of our case clear, no matter whether our aim is to establish a
man’s guilt or to establish his innocence. Wherever such charges are
brought against a man, (10) the question is whether he is or is not guilty
of a criminal offence. It is deliberate purpose that constitutes wickedness
and criminal guilt, and such names as ‘outrage’ or ‘theft’ imply
deliberate purpose as well as the mere action. A blow does not always
amount to ‘outrage’, but only if it is struck with some such purpose as to
insult the man struck or gratify the striker himself. Nor does taking a
thing without the owner’s knowledge always amount to ‘theft’, (15) but
only if it is taken with the intention of keeping it and injuring the owner.
And as with these charges, so with all the others.
We saw that there are two kinds of right and wrong conduct towards
others, one provided for by written ordinances, the other by unwritten.
We have now discussed the kind about which the laws have something
to say. (20) The other kind has itself two varieties. First, there is the
conduct that springs from exceptional goodness or badness, and is
visited accordingly with censure and loss of honour, or with praise and
increase of honour and decorations: for instance, gratitude to, or requital
of, our benefactors, readiness to help our friends, and the like. The
second kind makes up for the defects of a community’s written code of
law. (25) This is what we call equity; people regard it as just; it is, in fact,
the sort of justice which goes beyond the written law. Its existence partly
is and partly is not intended by legislators; not intended, where they
have noticed no defect in the law; intended, (30) where they find
themselves unable to define things exactly, and are obliged to legislate
as if that held good always which in fact only holds good usually; or
where it is not easy to be complete owing to the endless possible cases
presented, such as the kinds and sizes of weapons that may be used to
inflict wounds—a lifetime would be too short to make out a complete
list of these. If, then, a precise statement is impossible and yet legislation
is necessary, (35) the law must be expressed in wide terms; and so, if a
man has no more than a finger-ring on his hand when he lifts it to strike
or actually strikes another man, he is guilty of a criminal act according
to the written words of the law; but he is innocent really, and it is equity
that declares him to be so. [1374b] From this definition of equity it is
plain what sort of actions, and what sort of persons, are equitable or the
reverse. Equity must be applied to forgivable actions; and it must make
us distinguish between criminal acts on the one hand, (5) and errors of
judgement, or misfortunes, on the other. (A ‘misfortune’ is an act, not
due to moral badness, that has unexpected results: an ‘error of
judgement’ is an act, also not due to moral badness, that has results that
might have been expected: a ‘criminal act’ has results that might have
been expected, but is due to moral badness, for that is the source of all
actions inspired by our appetites. (10)) Equity bids us be merciful to the
weakness of human nature; to think less about the laws than about the
man who framed them, and less about what he said than about what he
meant; not to consider the actions of the accused so much as his
intentions, nor this or that detail so much as the whole story; to ask not
what a man is now but what he has always or usually been. (15) It bids us
remember benefits rather than injuries, and benefits received rather than
benefits conferred; to be patient when we are wronged; to settle a
dispute by negotiation and not by force; to prefer arbitration to litigation
—for an arbitrator goes by the equity of a case, (20) a judge by the strict
law, and arbitration was invented with the express purpose of securing
full power for equity.
The above may be taken as a sufficient account of the nature of equity.

14 The worse of two acts, of wrong done to others is that which is

prompted by the worse disposition. Hence the most trifling acts may be
the worst ones; as when Callistratus charged Melanopus with having
cheated the temple-builders of three consecrated half-obols. (25) The
converse is true of just acts. This is because the greater is here
potentially contained in the less: there is no crime that a man who has
stolen three consecrated half-obols would shrink from committing.
Sometimes, however, the worse act is reckoned not in this way but by
the greater harm that it does. (30) Or it may be because no punishment
for it is severe enough to be adequate; or the harm done may be
incurable—a difficult and even hopeless crime to defend; or the sufferer
may not be able to get his injurer legally punished, a fact that makes the
harm incurable, since legal punishment and chastisement are the proper
cure. Or again, the man who has suffered wrong may have inflicted
some fearful punishment on himself; then the doer of the wrong ought in
justice to receive a still more fearful punishment. (35) Thus Sophocles,
when pleading for retribution to Euctemon, who had cut his own throat
because of the outrage done to him, said he would not fix a penalty less
than the victim had fixed for himself. [1375a] Again, a man’s crime is
worse if he has been the first man, or the only man, or almost the only
man, to commit it: or if it is by no means the first time he has gone
seriously wrong in the same way: or if his crime has led to the thinking-
out and invention of measures to prevent and punish similar crimes—
thus in Argos a penalty is inflicted on a man on whose account a law is
passed, (5) and also on those on whose account the prison was built: or if
a crime is specially brutal, or specially deliberate: or if the report of it
awakes more terror than pity. There are also such rhetorically effective
ways of putting it as the following: That the accused has disregarded and
broken not one but many solemn obligations like oaths, promises,
pledges, or rights of intermarriage between states—here the crime is
worse because it consists of many crimes; and that the crime was
committed in the very place where criminals are punished, (10) as for
example perjurers do—it is argued that a man who will commit a crime
in a law-court would commit it anywhere. Further, the worse deed is
that which involves the doer in special shame; that whereby a man
wrongs his benefactors—for he does more than one wrong, by not
merely doing them harm but failing to do them good; that which breaks
the unwritten laws of justice—the better sort of man will be just without
being forced to be so, (15) and the written laws depend on force while the
unwritten ones do not. It may however be argued otherwise, that the
crime is worse which breaks the written laws: for the man who commits
crimes for which terrible penalties are provided will not hesitate over
crimes for which no penalty is provided at all. (20)—So much, then, for
the comparative badness of criminal actions.

15 There are also the so-called ‘non-technical’70 means of persuasion;

and we must now take a cursory view of these, since they are specially
characteristic of forensic oratory. They are five in number: laws,
witnesses, contracts, tortures, oaths.
First, (25) then, let us take laws and see how they are to be used in
persuasion and dissuasion, in accusation and defence. If the written law
tells against our case, clearly we must appeal to the universal law, and
insist on its greater equity and justice. We must argue that the juror’s
oath ‘I will give my verdict according to my honest opinion’ means that
one will not simply follow the letter of the written law. (30) We must urge
that the principles of equity are permanent and changeless, and that the
universal law does not change either, for it is the law of nature, whereas
written laws often do change. This is the bearing of the lines in
Sophocles’ Antigone, where Antigone pleads that in burying her brother
she had broken Creon’s law, but not the unwritten law: [1375b]

Not of to-day or yesterday they are,

But live eternal: <none can date their birth.>
Not I would fear the wrath of any man,
<And brave Gods’ vengeance> for defying these.71

We shall argue that justice indeed is true and profitable, but that sham
justice is not, and that consequently the written law is not, because it
does not fulfil the true purpose of law. Or that justice is like silver, (5)
and must be assayed by the judges, if the genuine is to be distinguished
from the counterfeit. Or that the better a man is, the more he will follow
and abide by the unwritten law in preference to the written. Or perhaps
that the law in question contradicts some other highly-esteemed law, or
even contradicts itself. Thus it may be that one law will enact that all
contracts must be held binding, (10) while another forbids us ever to
make illegal contracts. Or if a law is ambiguous, we shall turn it about
and consider which construction best fits the interests of justice or
utility, and then follow that way of looking at it. Or if, though the law
still exists, the situation to meet which it was passed exists no longer, we
must do our best to prove this and to combat the law thereby. If
however the written law supports our case, (15) we must urge that the
oath ‘to give my verdict according to my honest opinion’ is not meant to
make the judges give a verdict that is contrary to the law, but to save
them from the guilt of perjury if they misunderstand what the law really
means. Or that no one chooses what is absolutely good, but every one
what is good for himself.72 Or that not to use the laws is as bad as to
have no laws at all. Or that, as in the other arts, it does not pay to try to
be cleverer than the doctor: for less harm comes from the doctor’s
mistakes than from the growing habit of disobeying authority. (20) Or
that trying to be cleverer than the laws is just what is forbidden by those
codes of law that are accounted best.—So far as the laws are concerned,
the above discussion is probably sufficient. (25)
As to witnesses, they are of two kinds, the ancient and the recent; and
these latter, again, either do or do not share in the risks of the trial. By
‘ancient’ witnesses I mean the poets and all other notable persons whose
judgements are known to all. Thus the Athenians appealed to Homer73
as a witness about Salamis; and the men of Tenedos not long ago
appealed to Periander of Corinth in their dispute with the people of
Sigeum; and Cleophon supported his accusation of Critias by quoting the
elegiac verse of Solon, (30) maintaining that discipline had long been
slack in the family of Critias, or Solon would never have written,

Pray thee, bid the red-haired Critias do what his father commands him.

These witnesses are concerned with past events. As to future events we

shall also appeal to soothsayers: thus Themistocles quoted the oracle
about ‘the wooden wall’ as a reason for engaging the enemy’s fleet.
[1376a] Further, proverbs are, as has been said,74 one form of
evidence. Thus if you are urging somebody not to make a friend of an
old man, you will appeal to the proverb,

Never show an old man kindness. (5)

Or if you are urging that he who has made away with fathers should also
make away with their sons, quote,

Fool, who slayeth the father and leaveth his sons to avenge him.75
‘Recent’ witnesses are well-known people who have expressed their
opinions about some disputed matter: such opinions will be useful
support for subsequent disputants on the same points: thus Eubulus used
in the law-courts against Chares the reply Plato76 had made to Archibius,
(10) ‘It has become the regular custom in this country to admit that one is
a scoundrel’. There are also those witnesses who share the risk of
punishment if their evidence is pronounced false. These are valid
witnesses to the fact that an action was or was not done, that something
is or is not the case; they are not valid witnesses to the quality of an
action, (15) to its being just or unjust, useful or harmful. On such
questions of quality the opinion of detached persons is highly
trustworthy. Most trustworthy of all are the ‘ancient’ witnesses, since
they cannot be corrupted.
In dealing with the evidence of witnesses, the following are useful
arguments. If you have no witnesses on your side, you will argue that
the judges must decide from what is probable; that this is meant by
‘giving a verdict in accordance with one’s honest opinion’; that
probabilities cannot be bribed to mislead the court; and that
probabilities are never convicted of perjury. (20) If you have witnesses,
and the other man has not, you will argue that probabilities cannot be
put on their trial, and that we could do without the evidence of
witnesses altogether if we need do no more than balance the pleas
advanced on either side.
The evidence of witnesses may refer either to ourselves or to our
opponent; and either to questions of fact or to questions of personal
character: so, (25) clearly, we need never be at a loss for useful evidence.
For if we have no evidence of fact supporting our own case or telling
against that of our opponent, at least we can always find evidence to
prove our own worth or our opponent’s worthlessness. Other arguments
about a witness—that he is a friend or an enemy or neutral, (30) or has a
good, bad, or indifferent reputation, and any other such distinctions—we
must construct upon the same general lines as we use for the regular
rhetorical proofs.77
Concerning contracts argument can be so far employed as to increase
or diminish their importance and their credibility; we shall try to
increase both if they tell in our favour, and to diminish both if they tell
in favour of our opponent. [1376b] Now for confirming or upsetting
the credibility of contracts the procedure is just the same as for dealing
with witnesses, for the credit to be attached to contracts depends upon
the character of those who have signed them or have the custody of
them. (5) The contract being once admitted genuine, we must insist on its
importance, if it supports our case. We may argue that a contract is a
law, though of a special and limited kind; and that, while contracts do
not of course make the law binding, the law does make any lawful
contract binding, and that the law itself as a whole is a sort of contract,
so that any one who disregards or repudiates any contract is repudiating
the law itself. (10) Further, most business relations—those, namely, that
are voluntary—are regulated by contracts, and if these lose their binding
force, human intercourse ceases to exist. We need not go very deep to
discover the other appropriate arguments of this kind. If, however, the
contract tells against us and for our opponents, in the first place those
arguments are suitable which we can use to fight a law that tells against
us. (15) We do not regard ourselves as bound to observe a bad law which
it was a mistake ever to pass: and it is ridiculous to suppose that we are
bound to observe a bad and mistaken contract. Again, we may argue
that the duty of the judge as umpire is to decide what is just, and
therefore he must ask where justice lies, (20) and not what this or that
document means. And that it is impossible to pervert justice by fraud or
by force, since it is founded on nature, but a party to a contract may be
the victim of either fraud or force. Moreover, we must see if the contract
contravenes either universal law or any written law of our own or
another country; and also if it contradicts any other previous or
subsequent contract; arguing that the subsequent is the binding contract,
(25) or else that the previous one was right and the subsequent one

fraudulent—whichever way suits us. Further, we must consider the

question of utility, noting whether the contract is against the interest of
the judges or not; and so on—these arguments are as obvious as the
others. (30)
Examination by torture is one form of evidence, to which great weight
is often attached because it is in a sense compulsory. Here again it is not
hard to point out the available grounds for magnifying its value, if it
happens to tell in our favour, and arguing that it is the only form of
evidence that is infallible; or, on the other hand, for refuting it it tells
against us and for our opponent, when we may say what is true of
torture of every kind alike, that people under its compulsion tell lies
quite as often as they tell the truth, sometimes persistently refusing to
tell the truth, (5) sometimes recklessly making a false charge in order to
be let off sooner. [1377a] We ought to be able to quote cases, familiar
to the judges, in which this sort of thing has actually happened. [We
must say that evidence under torture is not trustworthy, the fact being
that many men whether thick-witted, tough-skinned, or stout of heart
endure their ordeal nobly, while cowards and timid men are full of
boldness till they see the ordeal of these others: so that no trust can be
placed in evidence under torture.]
In regard to oaths, a fourfold division can be made. A man may either
both offer and accept an oath,78 or neither, or one without the other—
that is, he may offer an oath but not accept one, (10) or accept an oath
but not offer one. There is also the situation that arises when an oath has
already been sworn either by himself or by his opponent.
If you refuse to offer an oath, you may argue that men do not hesitate
to perjure themselves; and that if your opponent does swear, you lose
your money, whereas, if he does not, you think the judges will decide
against him; and that the risk of an unfavourable verdict is preferable,
(15) since you trust the judges and do not trust him.

If you refuse to accept an oath, you may argue that an oath is always
paid for; that you would of course have taken it if you had been a rascal,
since if you are a rascal you had better make something by it, and you
would in that case have to swear in order to succeed. Thus your refusal,
you argue, must be due to high principle, not to fear of perjury: and you
may aptly quote the saying of Xenophanes,

’Tis not fair that he who fears not God should challenge him who doth. (20)

It is as if a strong man were to challenge a weakling to strike, or be

struck by, him.
If you agree to accept an oath, you may argue that you trust yourself
but not your opponent; and that (to invert the remark of Xenophanes)
the fair thing is for the impious man to offer the oath and for the pious
man to accept it; and that it would be monstrous if you yourself were
unwilling to accept an oath in a case where you demand that the judges
should do so before giving their verdict. (25) If you wish to offer an oath,
you may argue that piety disposes you to commit the issue to the gods;
and that your opponent ought not to want other judges than himself,
since you leave the decision with him; and that it is outrageous for your
opponents to refuse to swear about this question, when they insist that
others should do so.
Now that we see how we are to argue in each case separately, we see
also how we are to argue when they occur in pairs, namely, (30) when
you are willing to accept the oath but not to offer it; to offer it but not to
accept it; both to accept and to offer it; or to do neither. [1377b]
These are of course combinations of the cases already mentioned, and so
your arguments also must be combinations of the arguments already
mentioned.
If you have already sworn an oath that contradicts your present one,
you must argue that it is not perjury, since perjury is a crime, and a
crime must be a voluntary action, whereas actions due to the force or
fraud of others are involuntary. (5) You must further reason from this that
perjury depends on the intention and not on the spoken words. But if it
is your opponent who has already sworn an oath that contradicts his
present one, you must say that if he does not abide by his oaths he is the
enemy of society, and that this is the reason why men take an oath
before administering the laws. ‘My opponents insist that you, the judges,
must abide by the oath you have sworn, (10) and yet they are not abiding
by their own oaths.’ And there are other arguments which may be used
to magnify the importance of the oath.—[So much, then, for the ‘non-
technical’ modes of persuasion.]

1 ‘Rhetoric’ and ‘Dialectic’ may be roughly Englished as ‘the art of public speaking’ and ‘the art of
logical discussion’. Aristotle’s philosophical definition of ‘Rhetoric’ is given at the beginning of c.
2.
2 Here, and in what follows, the English reader should understand ‘judge’ in a broad sense,
including ‘jurymen’ and others who ‘judge’.
3 The words ‘orator’ and ‘oratory’ have the advantage of brevity, but the reader will bear in mind
that ‘public speaker’ and ‘public speaking’ are in some ways nearer the Greek conception of
‘rhetor’ and ‘rhetoric’.
4 1354a 22.

5 Topics, i. 2, 101a 30–4.

6 i. e. the right, fit, required frame of mind.

7 ii, cc. 2–11.

8 i. 1. 1354a 1.

9 Anal. Pr. ii. 23, 24. Anal. Post. i. 1. Cp. 68b 13.

10 Top. i. 1 and 12.

11 A lost logical treatise of Aristotle.

12 ii, cc. 20–4.

13 An. Pr. i. 8, 12–14, 27.

14 An. Pr. ii. 27.

15 Or Topics, Commonplaces.

16 i. e. the topic of degree.

17 Cp. Top. 1. 10, 14; iii. 5; Soph. El. 9.

18 Or: deliberative (advisory), legal, and epideictic—the oratory respectively of parliamentary

assemblies, of law-courts, and of ceremonial occasions when there is an element of ‘display’,
‘show’, ‘declamation’, and the result is a ‘set speech’ or ‘harangue’.
19 i. e. of Complete Proofs, Probabilities, and Signs relating to the three subjects of the expedient,
the just, and the noble.
20 i. 2. 1356a 25 ff.

21 i. c. 9.

22 in c. 9.

23 Iliad, i. 255.

24 Iliad, ii. 160.

25 Iliad, ii. 298.

26 1362a 23.

27 i. e. we have already (1363b 15) said that what is productive of good is good; it follows, then,
from our way of looking at ‘productivity’ and ‘degree’, that what is productive of a greater good
is a greater good.
28 1362a 22.

29 Pindar, Olympians, i. 1.

30 Cp. 1363b 14.

31 1363b 14.

32 Iliad, ix. 592–4.

33 Simonides.

34 Odyssey, xxii. 347.

35 Politics, iii and iv.

36 1356a 2 and 5.

37 i. e. enough to make our meaning clear.

38 Cp. 1362b 10–28.

39 Cp. Plato, Menexenus, 235 D.

40 Cp. i. 7, 1365a 24–8, for this and the previous quotation.

41 Cp. Isocrates, Evagoras § 45 and Panath. § 32.

42 i. e. and therefore conscious.

43 i. e. and therefore voluntary.

44 i, c. 9.

45 ii, cc. 1–11.

46 ii, cc. 12–17.

47 i, c. 6.

48 ii, c. 2.

49 i, c. 6.

50 Evenus.

51 Euripides.

52 Cp. Odyssey, xv. 400, 401.

53 Iliad, xviii. 109.

54 Iliad, xxiii. 108; Odyssey, iv. 183.

55 i, c. 10, 1369b 16.

56 Euripides, Orestes, 234.

57 Cp. Poetics, c. 4, 1448b 5–19.

58 Odyssey, xvii. 218.

59 Euripides.

60 Not found in the Poetics, as it exists to-day. Aristotle probably analysed the causes and
conditions of laughter, when treating of Comedy in his lost Second Book.
61 ii, c. 19.

62 i. e. an easy prey.

63 Sophocles, Antigone, 456, 7.

64 According to the scholiast, the words of Alcidamas were, ‘God has left all men free; Nature has
made no man a slave’.
65 i, c. 10.

66 i, c. 6.

67 i, c. 10.

68 ii, c. 2.

69 i, cc. 11 and 12.

70 Cp. c. 2, supra.

71 Sophocles, Antigone, 456.

72 sc, and our written laws, which were made for us, may not reach the abstract ideal of
perfection, but they probably suit us better than if they did.
73 Iliad, ii. 557.

74 A general statement, apparently.

75 Stasinus, Cypria.

76 Disputed whether the Comic Poet or the Philosopher.

77 ‘enthymemes’: Cp. ii, c. 23

78 i. e. both demand an oath from his adversary (call upon him to swear to the truth of his
statements) and take an oath himself.
 BOOK II

1 We have now considered the materials to be used in supporting or

opposing a political measure, in pronouncing eulogies or censures, and
for prosecution and defence in the law courts. We have considered the
received opinions on which we may best base our arguments so as to
convince our hearers—those opinions with which our enthymemes deal,
and out of which they are built, in each of the three kinds of oratory,
according to what may be called the special needs of each. (20)
But since rhetoric exists to affect the giving of decisions—the hearers
decide between one political speaker and another, and a legal verdict is
a decision—the orator must not only try to make the argument of his
speech demonstrative and worthy of belief; he must also make his own
character look right and put his hearers, who are to decide, into the
right frame of mind. Particularly in political oratory, but also in lawsuits,
it adds much to an orator’s influence that his own character should look
right and that he should be thought to entertain the right feelings
toward his hearers; and also that his hearers themselves should be in just
the right frame of mind. (25) That the orator’s own character should look
right is particularly important in political speaking: that the audience
should be in the right frame of mind, in lawsuits. (30) When people are
feeling friendly and placable, they think one sort of thing; when they are
feeling angry or hostile, they think either something totally different or
the same thing with a different intensity: when they feel friendly to the
man who comes before them for judgement, they regard him as having
done little wrong, if any; when they feel hostile, they take the opposite
view. [1378a] Again, if they are eager for, and have good hopes of, a
thing that will be pleasant if it happens, they think that it certainly will
happen and be good for them: whereas if they are indifferent or
annoyed, (5) they do not think so.
There are three things which inspire confidence in the orator’s own
character—the three, namely, that induce us to believe a thing apart
from any proof of it: good sense, good moral character, and goodwill. (10)
False statements and bad advice are due to one or more of the following
three causes. Men either form a false opinion through want of good
sense; or they form a true opinion, but because of their moral badness do
not say what they really think; or finally, they are both sensible and
upright, but not well disposed to their hearers, and may fail in
consequence to recommend what they know to be the best course. These
are the only possible cases. It follows that any one who is thought to
have all three of these good qualities will inspire trust in his audience.
(15) The way to make ourselves thought to be sensible and morally good

must be gathered from the analysis of goodness already given:1 the way
to establish your own goodness is the same as the way to establish that
of others. Good will and friendliness of disposition will form part of our
discussion of the emotions,2 to which we must now turn. (25)
The Emotions are all those feelings that so change men as to affect
their judgements, and that are also attended by pain or pleasure. Such
are anger, pity, fear and the like, with their opposites. We must arrange
what we have to say about each of them under three heads. Take, for
instance, the emotion of anger: here we must discover (1) what the state
of mind of angry people is, (2) who the people are with whom they
usually get angry, (25) and (3) on what grounds they get angry with them.
It is not enough to know one or even two of these points; unless we
know all three, we shall be unable to arouse anger in any one. The same
is true of the other emotions. So just as earlier in this work we drew up a
list of useful propositions for the orator, (30) let us now proceed in the
same way to analyse the subject before us.

2 Anger may be defined as an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a

conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without
justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns
one’s friends. If this is a proper definition of anger, it must always be felt
towards some particular individual, e. g. Cleon, and not ‘man’ in general.
It must be felt because the other has done or intended to do something
to him or one of his friends. [1378b] It must always be attended by a
certain pleasure—that which arises from the expectation of revenge. For
since nobody aims at what he thinks he cannot attain, the angry man is
aiming at what he can attain, and the belief that you will attain your
aim is pleasant. Hence it has been well said about wrath, (5)
 Sweeter it is by far than the honeycomb dripping with sweetness,
And spreads through the hearts of men.3

It is also attended by a certain pleasure because the thoughts dwell upon

the act of vengeance, and the images then called up cause pleasure, like
the images called up in dreams.
Now slighting is the actively entertained opinion of something as
obviously of no importance. (10) We think bad things, as well as good
ones, have serious importance; and we think the same of anything that
tends to produce such things, while those which have little or no such
tendency we consider unimportant. There are three kinds of slighting—
contempt, spite, and insolence, (1) Contempt is one kind of slighting:
you feel contempt for what you consider unimportant, (15) and it is just
such things that you slight. (2) Spite is another kind; it is a thwarting
another man’s wishes, not to get something yourself but to prevent his
getting it. The slight arises just from the fact that you do not aim at
something for yourself: clearly you do not think that he can do you
harm, for then you would be afraid of him instead of slighting him, (20)
nor yet that he can do you any good worth mentioning, for then you
would be anxious to make friends with him. (3) Insolence is also a form
of slighting, since it consists in doing and saying things that cause shame
to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to yourself, or
because anything has happened to yourself, (25) but simply for the
pleasure involved. (Retaliation is not ‘insolence’, but vengeance.) The
cause of the pleasure thus enjoyed by the insolent man is that he thinks
himself greatly superior to others when ill-treating them. That is why
youths and rich men are insolent; they think themselves superior when
they show insolence. One sort of insolence is to rob people of the honour
due to them; you certainly slight them thus; for it is the unimportant, for
good or evil, (30) that has no honour paid to it. So Achilles says in anger:

He hath taken my prize for himself and hath done me dishonour,4

and:

Like an alien honoured by none,5

meaning that this is why he is angry. A man expects to be especially
respected by his inferiors in birth, in capacity, in goodness, and
generally in anything in which he is much their superior: as where
money is concerned a wealthy man looks for respect from a poor man;
where speaking is concerned, the man with a turn for oratory looks for
respect from one who cannot speak; the ruler demands the respect of the
ruled, and the man who thinks he ought to be a ruler demands the
respect of the man whom he thinks he ought to be ruling. [1739a]
Hence it has been said

Great is the wrath of kings, whose father is Zeus almighty,6

and

Yea, (5) but his rancour abideth long afterward also,7

their great resentment being due to their great superiority. Then again a
man looks for respect from those who he thinks owe him good
treatment, and these are the people whom he has treated or is treating
well, or means or has meant to treat well, either himself, or through his
friends, or through others at his request.
It will be plain by now, from what has been said, (1) in what frame of
mind, (2) with what persons, and (3) on what grounds people grow
angry. (10) (1) The frame of mind is that in which any pain is being felt.
In that condition, a man is always aiming at something. Whether, then,
another man opposes him either directly in any way, as by preventing
him from drinking when he is thirsty, or indirectly, the act appears to
him just the same; whether some one works against him, or fails to work
with him, or otherwise vexes him while he is in this mood, (15) he is
equally angry in all these cases. Hence people who are afflicted by
sickness or poverty or love or thirst or any other unsatisfied desires are
prone to anger and easily roused: especially against those who slight
their present distress. Thus a sick man is angered by disregard of his
illness, a poor man by disregard of his poverty, a man waging war by
disregard of the war he is waging, a lover by disregard of his love, (20)
and so throughout, any other sort of slight being enough if special slights
are wanting. Each man is predisposed, by the emotion now controlling
him, to his own particular anger. Further, we are angered if we happen
to be expecting a contrary result: for a quite unexpected evil is especially
painful, just as the quite unexpected fulfilment of our wishes is specially
pleasant. (25) Hence it is plain what seasons, times, conditions, and
periods of life tend to stir men easily to anger, and where and when this
will happen; and it is plain that the more we are under these conditions
the more easily we are stirred.
These, then, are the frames of mind in which men are easily stirred to
anger. The persons with whom we get angry are those who laugh, mock,
or jeer at us, for such conduct is insolent. Also those who inflict injuries
upon us that are marks of insolence. (30) These injuries must be such as
are neither retaliatory nor profitable to the doers: for only then will they
be felt to be due to insolence. Also those who speak ill of us, and show
contempt for us, in connexion with the things we ourselves most care
about: thus those who are eager to win fame as philosophers get angry
with those who show contempt for their philosophy; those who pride
themselves upon their appearance get angry with those who show
contempt for their appearance; and so on in other cases. (35) We feel
particularly angry on this account if we suspect that we are in fact, or
that people think we are, lacking completely or to any effective extent in
the qualities in question. [1379b] For when we are convinced that we
excel in the qualities for which we are jeered at, we can ignore the
jeering. Again, we are angrier with our friends than with other people,
since we feel that our friends ought to treat us well and not badly. We
are angry with those who have usually treated us with honour or regard,
if a change comes and they behave to us otherwise: for we think that
they feel contempt for us, (5) or they would still be behaving as they did
before. And with those who do not return our kindnesses or fail to return
them adequately, and with those who oppose us though they are our
inferiors: for all such persons seem to feel contempt for us; those who
oppose us seem to think us inferior to themselves, and those who do not
return our kindnesses seem to think that those kindnesses were
conferred by inferiors. And we feel particularly angry with men of no
account at all, if they slight us. For, (10) by our hypothesis, the anger
caused by the slight is felt towards people who are not justified in
slighting us, and our inferiors are not thus justified. Again, we feel angry
with friends if they do not speak well of us or treat us well; and still
more, if they do the contrary; or if they do not perceive our needs,
which is why Plexippus is angry with Meleager in Antiphon’s play; for
this want of perception shows that they are slighting us—we do not fail
to perceive the needs of those for whom we care. (15) Again, we are angry
with those who rejoice at our misfortunes or simply keep cheerful in the
midst of our misfortunes, since this shows that they either hate us or are
slighting us. Also with those who are indifferent to the pain they give us:
this is why we get angry with bringers of bad news. (20) And with those
who listen to stories about us or keep on looking at our weaknesses; this
seems like either slighting us or hating us; for those who love us share in
all our distresses and it must distress any one to keep on looking at his
own weaknesses. Further, with those who slight us before five classes of
people: namely, (25) (1) our rivals, (2) those whom we admire, (3) those
whom we wish to admire us, (4) those for whom we feel reverence, (5)
those who feel reverence for us: if any one slights us before such
persons, we feel particularly angry. Again, we feel angry with those who
slight us in connexion with what we are as honourable men bound to
champion—our parents, children, wives, or subjects. And with those
who do not return a favour, (30) since such a slight is unjustifiable. Also
with those who reply with humorous levity when we are speaking
seriously, for such behaviour indicates contempt. And with those who
treat us less well than they treat everybody else; it is another mark of
contempt that they should think we do not deserve what every one else
deserves. (35) Forgetfulness, too, causes anger, as when our own names
are forgotten, trifling as this may be; since forgetfulness is felt to be
another sign that we are being slighted; it is due to negligence, and to
neglect us is to slight us.
The persons with whom we feel anger, the frame of mind in which we
feel it, and the reasons why we feel it, have now all been set forth.
[1380a] Clearly the orator will have to speak so as to bring his hearers
into a frame of mind that will dispose them to anger, and to represent
his adversaries as open to such charges and possessed of such qualities as
do make people angry.

3 Since growing calm is the opposite of growing angry, (5) and

calmness the opposite of anger, we must ascertain in what frames of
mind men are calm, towards whom they feel calm, and by what means
they are made so. Growing calm may be defined as a settling down or
quieting of anger. Now we get angry with those who slight us; and since
slighting is a voluntary act, it is plain that we feel calm towards those
who do nothing of the kind, (10) or who do or seem to do it involuntarily.
Also towards those who intended to do the opposite of what they did do.
Also towards those who treat themselves as they have treated us: since
no one can be supposed to slight himself. Also towards those who admit
their fault and are sorry: since we accept their grief at what they have
done as satisfaction, (15) and cease to be angry. The punishment of
servants shows this: those who contradict us and deny their offence we
punish all the more, but we cease to be incensed against those who agree
that they deserved their punishment. The reason is that it is shameless to
deny what is obvious, and those who are shameless towards us slight us
and show contempt for us: anyhow, (20) we do not feel shame before
those of whom we are thoroughly contemptuous. Also we feel calm
towards those who humble themselves before us and do not gainsay us;
we feel that they thus admit themselves our inferiors, and inferiors feel
fear, and nobody can slight any one so long as he feels afraid of him.
That our anger ceases towards those who humble themselves before us is
shown even by dogs, who do not bite people when they sit down. (25) We
also feel calm towards those who are serious when we are serious,
because then we feel that we are treated seriously and not
contemptuously. Also towards those who have done us more kindnesses
than we have done them. Also towards those who pray to us and beg for
mercy, since they humble themselves by doing so. Also towards those
who do not insult or mock at or slight any one at all, or not any worthy
person or any one like ourselves. In general, (30) the things that make us
calm may be inferred by seeing what the opposites are of those that
make us angry. We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as long
as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person and also at
the same time angry with him. Again, we feel no anger, or
comparatively little, with those who have done what they did through
anger; we do not feel that they have done it from a wish to slight us, (35)
for no one slights people when angry with them, since slighting is
painless, and anger is painful. [1380b] Nor do we grow angry with
those who reverence us.
As to the frame of mind that makes people calm, it is plainly the
opposite to that which makes them angry, as when they are amusing
themselves or laughing or feasting; when they are feeling prosperous or
successful or satisfied; when, in fine, they are enjoying freedom from
pain, or inoffensive pleasure, or justifiable hope. (5) Also when time has
passed and their anger is no longer fresh, for time puts an end to anger.
And vengeance previously taken on one person puts an end to even
greater anger felt against another person. Hence Philocrates, being asked
by some one, at a time when the public was angry with him, ‘Why don’t
you defend yourself?’ did right to reply, ‘The time is not yet.’ ‘Why,
when is the time?’ ‘When I see some one else calumniated.’ (10) For men
become calm when they have spent their anger on somebody else. This
happened in the case of Ergophilus: though the people were more
irritated against him than against Callisthenes, they acquitted him
because they had condemned Callisthenes to death the day before.
Again, men become calm if they have convicted the offender; or if he
has already suffered worse things than they in their anger would have
themselves inflicted upon him; for they feel as if they were already
avenged. (15) Or if they feel that they themselves are in the wrong and
are suffering justly (for anger is not excited by what is just), since men
no longer think then that they are suffering without justification; and
anger, as we have seen, means this. (20) Hence we ought always to inflict
a preliminary punishment in words: if that is done, even slaves are less
aggrieved by the actual punishment. We also feel calm if we think that
the offender will not see that he is punished on our account and because
of the way he has treated us. For anger has to do with individuals. This
is plain from the definition.8 Hence the poet has well written:

Say that it was Odysseus, sacker of cities,9

implying that Odysseus would not have considered himself avenged

unless the Cyclops perceived both by whom and for what he had been
blinded. (25) Consequently we do not get angry with any one who cannot
be aware of our anger, and in particular we cease to be angry with
people once they are dead, for we feel that the worst has been done to
them, and that they will neither feel pain nor anything else that we in
our anger aim at making them feel. And therefore the poet has well
made Apollo say, in order to put a stop to the anger of Achilles against
the dead Hector,

For behold in his fury he doeth despite to the senseless clay.10

It is now plain that when you wish to calm others you must draw upon
these lines of argument; you must put your hearers into the
corresponding frame of mind, (30) and represent those with whom they
are angry as formidable, or as worthy of reverence, or as benefactors, or
as involuntary agents, or as much distressed at what they have done.
4 Let us now turn to Friendship and Enmity, and ask towards whom
these feelings are entertained, and why. We will begin by defining
friendship and friendly feeling. (35) We may describe friendly feeling
towards any one as wishing for him what you believe to be good things,
not for your own sake but for his, and being inclined, so far as you can,
to bring these things about. [1381a] A friend is one who feels thus and
excites these feelings in return: those who think they feel thus towards
each other think themselves friends. This being assumed, it follows that
your friend is the sort of man who shares your pleasure in what is good
and your pain in what is unpleasant, (5) for your sake and for no other
reason. This pleasure and pain of his will be the token of his good wishes
for you, since we all feel glad at getting what we wish for, and pained at
getting what we do not. Those, then, are friends to whom the same
things are good and evil; and those who are, moreover, friendly or
unfriendly to the same people; for in that case they must have the same
wishes, (10) and thus by wishing for each other what they wish for
themselves, they show themselves each other’s friends. Again, we feel
friendly to those who have treated us well, either ourselves or those we
care for, whether on a large scale, or readily, or at some particular crisis;
provided it was for our own sake. And also to those who we think wish
to treat us well. And also to our friends’ friends, and to those who like,
or are liked by, those whom we like ourselves. (15) And also to those who
are enemies to those whose enemies we are, and dislike, or are disliked
by, those whom we dislike. For all such persons think the things good
which we think good, so that they wish what is good for us; and this, as
we saw,11 is what friends must do. And also to those who are willing to
treat us well where money or our personal safety is concerned: and
therefore we value those who are liberal, (20) brave, or just. The just we
consider to be those who do not live on others; which means those who
work for their living, especially farmers and others who work with their
own hands. We also like temperate men, because they are not unjust to
others; and, for the same reason, (25) those who mind their own business.
And also those whose friends we wish to be, if it is plain that they wish
to be our friends: such are the morally good, and those well thought of
by every one, by the best men, or by those whom we admire or who
admire us. And also those with whom it is pleasant to live and spend our
days: such are the good-tempered, (30) and those who are not too ready
to show us our mistakes, and those who are not cantankerous or
quarrelsome—such people are always wanting to fight us, and those who
fight us we feel wish for the opposite of what we wish for ourselves—
and those who have the tact to make and take a joke; here both parties
have the same object in view,12 when they can stand being made fun of
as well as do it prettily themselves. (35) And we also feel friendly towards
those who praise such good qualities as we possess, and especially if
they praise the good qualities that we are not too sure we do possess.
[1381b] And towards those who are cleanly in their person, their
dress, and all their way of life. And towards those who do not reproach
us with what we have done amiss to them or they have done to help us,
for both actions show a tendency to criticize us. And towards those who
do not nurse grudges or store up grievances, but are always ready to
make friends again; for we take it that they will behave to us just as we
find them behaving to every one else. (5) And towards those who are not
evil speakers and who are aware of neither their neighbours’ bad points
nor our own, but of our good ones only, as a good man always will be.
And towards those who do not try to thwart us when we are angry or in
earnest, (10) which would mean being ready to fight us. And towards
those who have some serious feeling towards us, such as admiration for
us, or belief in our goodness, or pleasure in our company; especially if
they feel like this about qualities in us for which we especially wish to
be admired, esteemed, or liked. And towards those who are like
ourselves in character and occupation, (15) provided they do not get in
our way or gain their living from the same source as we do—for then it
will be a case of ‘potter against potter’:

Potter to potter and builder to builder begrudge their reward.13

And those who desire the same things as we desire, if it is possible for us
both to share them together; otherwise the same trouble arises here too.
And towards those with whom we are on such terms that, (20) while we
respect their opinions, we need not blush before them for doing what is
conventionally wrong: as well as towards those before whom we should
be ashamed to do anything really wrong. Again, our rivals, and those
whom we should like to envy us—though without ill-feeling—either we
like these people or at least we wish them to like us. And we feel
friendly towards those whom we help to secure good for themselves,
provided we are not likely to suffer heavily by it ourselves. (25) And those
who feel as friendly to us when we are not with them as when we are—
which is why all men feel friendly towards those who are faithful to
their dead friends. And, speaking generally, towards those who are really
fond of their friends and do not desert them in trouble; of all good men,
we feel most friendly to those who show their goodness as friends. Also
towards those who are honest with us, including those who will tell us of
their own weak points: it has just been said that with our friends we are
not ashamed of what is conventionally wrong,14 (30) and if we do have
this feeling, we do not love them; if therefore we do not have it, it looks
as if we did love them. We also like those with whom we do not feel
frightened or uncomfortable—nobody can like a man of whom he feels
frightened. Friendship has various forms—comradeship, intimacy,
kinship, and so on.
Things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them
unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done, (35) which
shows that they were done for their own sake and not for some other
reason.
[1382a] Enmity and Hatred should clearly be studied by reference
to their opposites. Enmity may be produced by anger or spite or
calumny. Now whereas anger arises from offences against oneself,
enmity may arise even without that; we may hate people merely because
of what we take to be their character. Anger is always concerned with
individuals—a Callias or a Socrates—whereas hatred is directed also
against classes: we all hate any thief and any informer. (5) Moreover,
anger can be cured by time; but hatred cannot. The one aims at giving
pain to its object, the other at doing him harm; the angry man wants his
victims to feel; the hater does not mind whether they feel or not. All
painful things are felt; but the greatest evils, injustice and folly, (10) are
the least felt, since their presence causes no pain. And anger is
accompanied by pain, hatred is not; the angry man feels pain, but the
hater does not. Much may happen to make the angry man pity those
who offend him, but the hater under no circumstances wishes to pity a
man whom he has once hated: for the one would have the offenders
suffer for what they have done; the other would have them cease to
exist. (15)
It is plain from all this that we can prove people to be friends or
enemies; if they are not, we can make them out to be so; if they claim to
be so, we can refute their claim; and if it is disputed whether an action
was due to anger or to hatred, we can attribute it to whichever of these
we prefer.

5 To turn next to Fear, what follows will show the things and persons
of which, and the states of mind in which, (20) we feel afraid. Fear may
be defined as a pain or disturbance due to a mental picture of some
destructive or painful evil in the future. Of destructive or painful evils
only; for there are some evils, e. g. wickedness or stupidity, the prospect
of which does not frighten us: I mean only such as amount to great pains
or losses. And even these only if they appear not remote but so near as
to be imminent: we do not fear things that are a very long way off: for
instance, (25) we all know we shall die, but we are not troubled thereby,
because death is not close at hand. From this definition it will follow
that fear is caused by whatever we feel has great power of destroying us,
or of harming us in ways that tend to cause us great pain. Hence the
very indications of such things are terrible, (30) making us feel that the
terrible thing itself is close at hand; the approach of what is terrible is
just what we mean by ‘danger’. Such indications are the enmity and
anger of people who have power to do something to us; for it is plain
that they have the will to do it, and so they are on the point of doing it.
Also injustice in possession of power; for it is the unjust man’s will to do
evil that makes him unjust. (35) [1382b] Also outraged virtue in
possession of power; for it is plain that, when outraged, it always has the
will to retaliate, and now it has the power to do so. Also fear felt by
those who have the power to do something to us, since such persons are
sure to be ready to do it. And since most men tend to be bad—slaves to
greed, (5) and cowards in danger—it is, as a rule, a terrible thing to be at
another man’s mercy; and therefore, if we have done anything horrible,
those in the secret terrify us with the thought that they may betray or
desert us. And those who can do us wrong are terrible to us when we are
liable to be wronged; for as a rule men do wrong to others whenever
they have the power to do it. (10) And those who have been wronged, or
believe themselves to be wronged, are terrible; for they are always
looking out for their opportunity. Also those who have done people
wrong, if they possess power, since they stand in fear of retaliation: we
have already said that wickedness possessing power is terrible. (15) Again,
our rivals for a thing cause us fear when we cannot both have it at once;
for we are always at war with such men. We also fear those who are to15
be feared by stronger people than ourselves: if they can hurt those
stronger people, still more can they hurt us; and, for the same reason, we
fear those whom those stronger people are actually afraid of. Also those
who have destroyed people stronger than we are. Also those who are
attacking people weaker than we are: either they are already formidable,
or they will be so when they have thus grown stronger. (20) Of those we
have wronged, and of our enemies or rivals, it is not the passionate and
outspoken whom we have to fear, but the quiet, dissembling,
unscrupulous; since we never know when they are upon us, we can
never be sure they are at a safe distance. All terrible things are more
terrible if they give us no chance of retrieving a blunder—either no
chance at all, or only one that depends on our enemies and not
ourselves. (25) Those things are also worse which we cannot, or cannot
easily, help. Speaking generally, anything causes us to feel fear that
when it happens to, or threatens, others causes us to feel pity.
The above are, roughly, the chief things that are terrible and are
feared. Let us now describe the conditions under which we ourselves feel
fear. If fear is associated with the expectation that something destructive
will happen to us, (30) plainly nobody will be afraid who believes nothing
can happen to him; we shall not fear things that we believe cannot
happen to us, nor people who we believe cannot inflict them upon us;
nor shall we be afraid at times when we think ourselves safe from them.
It follows therefore that fear is felt by those who believe something to be
likely to happen to them, at the hands of particular persons, in a
particular form, and at a particular time. (35) People do not believe this
when they are, or think they are, in the midst of great prosperity, and
are in consequence insolent, contemptuous, and reckless—the kind of
character produced by wealth, physical strength, abundance of friends,
power: nor yet when they feel they have experienced every kind of
horror already and have grown callous about the future, like men who
are being flogged and are already nearly dead—if they are to feel the
anguish of uncertainty, there must be some faint expectation of escape.
[1383a] This appears from the fact that fear sets us thinking what can
be done, (5) which of course nobody does when things are hopeless.
Consequently, when it is advisable that the audience should be
frightened, the orator must make them feel that they really are in danger
of something, pointing out that it has happened to others who were
stronger than they are, and is happening, (10) or has happened, to people
like themselves, at the hands of unexpected people, in an unexpected
form, and at an unexpected time.
Having now seen the nature of fear, and of the things that cause it,
and the various states of mind in which it is felt, we can also see what
Confidence is, about what things we feel it, and under what conditions.
(15) It is the opposite of fear, and what causes it is the opposite of what

causes fear; it is, therefore, the expectation associated with a mental

picture of the nearness of what keeps us safe and the absence or
remoteness of what is terrible: it may be due either to the near presence
of what inspires confidence or to the absence of what causes alarm. We
feel it if we can take steps—many, or important, (20) or both—to cure or
prevent trouble; if we have neither wronged others nor been wronged by
them; if we have either no rivals at all or no strong ones; if our rivals
who are strong are our friends or have treated us well or been treated
well by us; or if those whose interest is the same as ours are the more
numerous party, or the stronger, or both.
As for our own state of mind, we feel confidence if we believe we have
often succeeded and never suffered reverses, (25) or have often met
danger and escaped it safely. For there are two reasons why human
beings face danger calmly: they may have no experience of it, or they
may have means to deal with it: thus when in danger at sea people may
feel confident about what will happen either because they have no
experience of bad weather, (30) or because their experience gives them
the means of dealing with it. We also feel confident whenever there is
nothing to terrify other people like ourselves, or people weaker than
ourselves, or people than whom we believe ourselves to be stronger—
and we believe this if we have conquered them, or conquered others
who are as strong as they are, or stronger. Also if we believe ourselves
superior to our rivals in the number and importance of the advantages
that make men formidable—wealth, (35) physical strength, strong bodies
of supporters, extensive territory, and the possession of all, or the most
important, appliances of war. [1383b] Also if we have wronged no
one, or not many, or not those of whom we are afraid; and generally, (5)
if our relations with the gods are satisfactory, as will be shown especially
by signs and oracles. The fact is that anger makes us confident—that
anger is excited by our knowledge that we are not the wrongers but the
wronged, and that the divine power is always supposed to be on the side
of the wronged. Also when, at the outset of an enterprise, (10) we believe
that we cannot and shall not fail, or that we shall succeed completely.—
So much for the causes of fear and confidence.

6 We now turn to Shame and Shamelessness; what follows will

explain the things that cause these feelings, and the persons before
whom, and the states of mind under which, they are felt. (15) Shame may
be defined as pain or disturbance in regard to bad things, whether
present, past, or future, which seem likely to involve us in discredit; and
shamelessness as contempt or indifference in regard to these same bad
things. If this definition be granted, it follows that we feel shame at such
bad things as we think are disgraceful to ourselves or to those we care
for. (20) These evils are, in the first place, those due to moral badness.
Such are throwing away one’s shield or taking to flight; for these bad
things are due to cowardice. Also, withholding a deposit or otherwise
wronging people about money; for these acts are due to injustice. Also,
having carnal intercourse with forbidden persons, at wrong times, or in
wrong places; for these things are due to licentiousness. Also, making
profit in petty or disgraceful ways, or out of helpless persons, (25) e. g. the
poor, or the dead—whence the proverb ‘He would pick a corpse’s
pocket’; for all this is due to low greed and meanness. Also, in money
matters, giving less help than you might, or none at all, or accepting
help from those worse off than yourself; so also borrowing when it will
seem like begging; begging when it will seem like asking the return of a
favour; asking such a return when it will seem like begging; praising a
man in order that it may seem like begging; and going on begging in spite
of failure: all such actions are tokens of meanness. (30) Also, praising
people to their face, and praising extravagantly a man’s good points and
glozing over his weaknesses, and showing extravagant sympathy with
his grief when you are in his presence, (35) and all that sort of thing; all
this shows the disposition of a flatterer. Also, refusing to endure
hardships that are endured by people who are older, more delicately
brought up, of higher rank, or generally less capable of endurance than
ourselves; for all this shows effeminacy. [1384a] Also, accepting
benefits, especially accepting them often, from another man, and then
abusing him for conferring them: all this shows a mean, ignoble
disposition. Also, talking incessantly about yourself, making loud
professions, and appropriating the merits of others; for this is due to
boastfulness. (5) The same is true of the actions due to any of the other
forms of badness of moral character, of the tokens of such badness, &c.:
they are all disgraceful and shameless. Another sort of bad thing at
which we feel shame is, lacking a share in the honourable things shared
by every one else, or by all or nearly all who are like ourselves. By ‘those
like ourselves’ I mean those of our own race or country or age or family,
(10) and generally those who are on our own level. Once we are on a level

with others, it is a disgrace to be, say, less well educated than they are;
and so with other advantages: all the more so, in each case, if it is seen
to be our own fault: wherever we are ourselves to blame for our present,
past, (15) or future circumstances, it follows at once that this is to a
greater extent due to our moral badness. We are moreover ashamed of
having done to us, having had done, or being about to have done to us
acts that involve us in dishonour and reproach; as when we surrender
our persons, or lend ourselves to vile deeds, e. g. when we submit to
outrage. And acts of yielding to the lust of others are shameful whether
willing or unwilling (yielding to force being an instance of
unwillingness), (20) since unresisting submission to them is due to
unmanliness or cowardice.
These things, and others like them, are what cause the feeling of
shame. Now since shame is a mental picture of disgrace, in which we
shrink from the disgrace itself and not from its consequences, (25) and we
only care what opinion is held of us because of the people who form that
opinion, it follows that the people before whom we feel shame are those
whose opinion of us matters to us. Such persons are: those who admire
us, those whom we admire, those by whom we wish to be admired,
those with whom we are competing, and those whose opinion of us we
respect. We admire those, and wish those to admire us, who possess any
good thing that is highly esteemed; or from whom we are very anxious
to get something that they are able to give us—as a lover feels. (30) We
compete with our equals. We respect, as true, the views of sensible
people, such as our elders and those who have been well educated. And
we feel more shame about a thing if it is done openly, before all men’s
eyes. Hence the proverb, ‘shame dwells in the eyes’. For this reason we
feel most shame before those who will always be with us and those who
notice what we do, since in both cases eyes are upon us. We also feel it
before those not open to the same imputation as ourselves: for it is plain
that their opinions about it are the opposite of ours. [1384b] Also
before those who are hard on any one whose conduct they think wrong;
for what a man does himself, he is said not to resent when his
neighbours do it: so that of course he does resent their doing what he
does not do himself. (5) And before those who are likely to tell everybody
about you; not telling others is as good as not believing you wrong.
People are likely to tell others about you if you have wronged them,
since they are on the look out to harm you; or if they speak evil of
everybody, for those who attack the innocent will be still more ready to
attack the guilty. And before those whose main occupation is with their
neighbours’ failings—people like satirists and writers of comedy; these
are really a kind of evil-speakers and tell-tales. (10) And before those who
have never yet known us come to grief, since their attitude to us has
amounted to admiration so far: that is why we feel ashamed to refuse
those a favour who ask one for the first time—we have not as yet lost
credit with them. Such are those who are just beginning to wish to be
our friends; for they have seen our best side only (hence the
appropriateness of Euripides’16 reply to the Syracusans): and such also
are those among our old acquaintances who know nothing to our
discredit. (15) And we are ashamed not merely of the actual shameful
conduct mentioned, but also of the evidences of it: not merely, for
example, of actual sexual intercourse, (20) but also of its evidences; and
not merely of disgraceful acts but also of disgraceful talk. Similarly we
feel shame not merely in presence of the persons mentioned but also of
those who will tell them what we have done, such as their servants or
friends. And, generally, we feel no shame before those upon whose
opinions we quite look down as untrustworthy (no one feels shame
before small children or animals); nor are we ashamed of the same
things before intimates as before strangers, (25) but before the former of
what seem genuine faults, before the latter of what seem conventional
ones.
The conditions under which we shall feel shame are these: first,
having people related to us like those before whom, as has been said,17
we feel shame. These are, as was stated, persons whom we admire, (30) or
who admire us, or by whom we wish to be admired, or from whom we
desire some service that we shall not obtain if we forfeit their good
opinion. These persons may be actually looking on (as Cydias
represented them in his speech on land assignments in Samos, when he
told the Athenians to imagine the Greeks to be standing all around them,
actually seeing the way they voted and not merely going to hear about it
afterwards): or again they may be near at hand, (35) or may be likely to
find out about what we do. This is why in misfortune we do not wish to
be seen by those who once wished themselves like us; for such a feeling
implies admiration. And men feel shame when they have acts or exploits
to their credit on which they are bringing dishonour, whether these are
their own, or those of their ancestors, or those of other persons with
whom they have some close connexion. [1385a] Generally, we feel
shame before those for whose own misconduct we should also feel it—
those already mentioned; those who take us as their models; those whose
teachers or advisers we have been; or other people, (5) it may be, like
ourselves, whose rivals we are. For there are many things that shame
before such people makes us do or leave undone. And we feel more
shame when we are likely to be continually seen by, and go about under
the eyes of, those who know of our disgrace. Hence, when Antiphon the
poet was to be cudgelled to death by order of Dionysius, and saw those
who were to perish with him covering their faces as they went through
the gates, (10) he said, ‘Why do you cover your faces? Is it lest some of
these spectators should see you tomorrow?’
 So much for Shame; to understand Shamelessness, we need only to
consider the converse cases, and plainly we shall have all we need. (15)

7 To take Kindness next: the definition of it will show us towards

whom it is felt, why, and in what frames of mind. Kindness—under the
influence of which a man is said to ‘be kind’—may be defined as
helpfulness towards some one in need, not in return for anything, nor for
the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the person helped. (20)
Kindness is great if shown to one who is in great need, or who needs
what is important and hard to get, or who needs it at an important and
difficult crisis; or if the helper is the only, the first, or the chief person to
give the help. Natural cravings constitute such needs; and in particular
cravings, accompanied by pain, for what is not being attained. The
appetites are cravings of this kind: sexual desire, for instance, and those
which arise during bodily injuries and in dangers; for appetite is active
both in danger and in pain. (25) Hence those who stand by us in poverty
or in banishment, even if they do not help us much, are yet really kind
to us, because our need is great and the occasion pressing; for instance,
the man who gave the mat in the Lyceum.18 The helpfulness must
therefore meet, preferably, just this kind of need; and failing just this
kind, some other kind as great or greater. (30) We now see to whom, why,
and under what conditions kindness is shown; and these facts must form
the basis of our arguments. We must show that the persons helped are,
or have been, in such pain and need as has been described, and that
their helpers gave, (35) or are giving, the kind of help described, in the
kind of need described. We can also see how to eliminate the idea of
kindness and make our opponents appear unkind: we may maintain that
they are being or have been helpful simply to promote their own interest
—this, as has been stated,19 is not kindness: or that their action was
accidental, or was forced upon them; [1385b] or that they were not
doing a favour, but merely returning one, whether they know this or not
—in either case the action is a mere return, and is therefore not a
kindness even if the doer does not know how the case stands. (5) In
considering this subject we must look at all the ‘categories’:20 an act may
be an act of kindness because (1) it is a particular thing, (2) it has a
particular magnitude or (3) quality, or (4) is done at a particular time or
(5) place. As evidence of the want of kindness, we may point out that a
smaller service had been refused to the man in need; or that the same
service, or an equal or greater one, has been given to his enemies; these
facts show that the service in question was not done for the sake of the
person helped. Or we may point out that the thing desired was worthless
and that the helper knew it: no one will admit that he is in need of what
is worthless. (10)

8 So much for Kindness and Unkindness. Let us now consider Pity,

asking ourselves what things excite pity, and for what persons, and in
what states of our mind pity is felt. Pity may be denned as a feeling of
pain caused by the sight of some evil, destructive or painful, which
befalls one who does not deserve it, (15) and which we might expect to
befall ourselves or some friend of ours, and moreover to befall us soon.
In order to feel pity, we must obviously be capable of supposing that
some evil may happen to us or some friend of ours, and moreover some
such evil as is stated in our definition or is more or less of that kind. It is
therefore not felt by those completely ruined, (20) who suppose that no
further evil can befall them, since the worst has befallen them already;
nor by those who imagine themselves immensely fortunate—their
feeling is rather presumptuous insolence, for when they think they
possess all the good things of life, it is clear that the impossibility of evil
befalling them will be included, this being one of the good things in
question. Those who think evil may befall them are such as have already
had it befall them and have safely escaped from it; elderly men, (25)
owing to their good sense and their experience; weak men, especially
men inclined to cowardice; and also educated people, since these can
take long views. Also those who have parents living, or children, or
wives; for these are our own, and the evils mentioned above may easily
befall them. And those who are neither moved by any courageous
emotion such as anger or confidence (these emotions take no account of
the future), (30) nor by a disposition to presumptuous insolence (insolent
men, too, take no account of the possibility that something evil will
happen to them), nor yet by great fear (panic-stricken people do not feel
pity, because they are taken up with what is happening to themselves);
only those feel pity who are between these two extremes. In order to feel
pity we must also believe in the goodness of at least some people; if you
think nobody good, (35) you will believe that everybody deserves evil
fortune. [1386a] And, generally, we feel pity whenever we are in the
condition of remembering that similar misfortunes have happened to us
or ours, or expecting them to happen in future.
So much for the mental conditions under which we feel pity. What we
pity is stated clearly in the definition. All unpleasant and painful things
excite pity if they tend to destroy and annihilate; and all such evils as
are due to chance, (5) if they are serious. The painful and destructive
evils are: death in its various forms, bodily injuries and afflictions, old
age, diseases, lack of food. The evils due to chance are: friendlessness,
scarcity of friends (it is a pitiful thing to be torn away from friends and
companions), (10) deformity, weakness, mutilation; evil coming from a
source from which good ought to have come; and the frequent repetition
of such misfortunes. Also the coming of good when the worst has
happened: e. g. the arrival of the Great King’s gifts for Diopeithes after
his death. Also that either no good should have befallen a man at all, (15)
or that he should not be able to enjoy it when it has.
The grounds, then, on which we feel pity are these or like these. The
people we pity are: those whom we know, if only they are not very
closely related to us—in that case we feel about them as if we were in
danger ourselves. For this reason Amasis did not weep, they say, at the
sight of his son being led to death, (20) but did weep when he saw his
friend begging: the latter sight was pitiful, the former terrible, and the
terrible is different from the pitiful; it tends to cast out pity, and often
helps to produce the opposite of pity. Again, we feel pity when the
danger is near ourselves. Also we pity those who are like us in age, (25)
character, disposition, social standing, or birth; for in all these cases it
appears more likely that the same misfortune may befall us also. Here
too we have to remember the general principle that what we fear for
ourselves excites our pity when it happens to others.21 Further, since it is
when the sufferings of others are close to us that they excite our pity (we
cannot remember what disasters happened a hundred centuries ago, nor
look forward to what will happen a hundred centuries hereafter, (30) and
therefore feel little pity, if any, for such things): it follows that those
who heighten the effect of their words with suitable gestures, tones,
dress, and dramatic action generally, are especially successful in exciting
pity: they thus put the disasters before our eyes, and make them seem
close to us, just coming or just past. [1386b] Anything that has just
happened, or is going to happen soon, is particularly piteous: so too
therefore are the tokens and the actions of sufferers—the garments and
the like of those who have already suffered; the words and the like of
those actually suffering—of those, for instance, who are on the point of
death. (5) Most piteous of all is it when, in such times of trial, the victims
are persons of noble character: whenever they are so, our pity is
especially excited, because their innocence, as well as the setting of their
misfortunes before our eyes, makes their misfortunes seem close to
ourselves.

9 Most directly opposed to pity is the feeling called Indignation. (10)

Pain at unmerited good fortune is, in one sense, opposite to pain at
unmerited bad fortune, and is due to the same moral qualities. Both
feelings are associated with good moral character; it is our duty both to
feel sympathy and pity for unmerited distress, (15) and to feel indignation
at unmerited prosperity; for whatever is undeserved is unjust, and that is
why we ascribe indignation even to the gods. It might indeed be thought
that envy is similarly opposed to pity, on the ground that envy is closely
akin to indignation, or even the same thing. But it is not the same. It is
true that it also is a disturbing pain excited by the prosperity of others.
But it is excited not by the prosperity of the undeserving but by that of
people who are like us or equal with us. (20) The two feelings have this in
common, that they must be due not to some untoward thing being likely
to befall ourselves, but only to what is happening to our neighbour. The
feeling ceases to be envy in the one case and indignation in the other,
and becomes fear, if the pain and disturbance are due to the prospect of
something bad for ourselves as the result of the other man’s good
fortune. The feelings of pity and indignation will obviously be attended
by the converse feelings of satisfaction. (25) If you are pained by the
unmerited distress of others, you will be pleased, or at least not pained,
by their merited distress. Thus no good man can be pained by the
punishment of parricides or murderers. These are things we are bound to
rejoice at, as we must at the prosperity of the deserving; both these
things are just, (30) and both give pleasure to any honest man, since he
cannot help expecting that what has happened to a man like him will
happen to him too. All these feelings are associated with the same type
of moral character. And their contraries are associated with the contrary
type; the man who is delighted by others’ misfortunes is identical with
the man who envies others’ prosperity. [1387a] For any one who is
pained by the occurrence or existence of a given thing must be pleased
by that thing’s non-existence or destruction. We can now see that all
these feelings tend to prevent pity (though they differ among
themselves, for the reasons given), so that all are equally useful for
neutralizing an appeal to pity. (5)
We will first consider Indignation—reserving the other emotions for
subsequent discussion—and ask with whom, on what grounds, and in
what states of mind we may be indignant. These questions are really
answered by what has been said already. Indignation is pain caused by
the sight of undeserved good fortune. It is, then, plain to begin with that
there are some forms of good the sight of which cannot cause it. (10) Thus
a man may be just or brave, or acquire moral goodness: but we shall not
be indignant with him for that reason, any more than we shall pity him
for the contrary reason. Indignation is roused by the sight of wealth,
power, and the like—by all those things, roughly speaking, which are
deserved by good men and by those who possess the goods of nature—
noble birth, beauty, (15) and so on. Again, what is long established seems
akin to what exists by nature; and therefore we feel more indignation at
those possessing a given good if they have as a matter of fact only just
got it and the prosperity it brings with it. The newly rich give more
offence than those whose wealth is of long standing and inherited. The
same is true of those who have office or power, plenty of friends, a fine
family, (20) &c. We feel the same when these advantages of theirs secure
them others. For here again, the newly rich give us more offence by
obtaining office through their riches than do those whose wealth is of
long standing; and so in all other cases. The reason is that what the
latter have is felt to be really their own, but what the others have is not:
what appears to have been always what it is is regarded as real, (25) and
so the possessions of the newly rich do not seem to be really their own.
Further, it is not any and every man that deserves any given kind of
good; there is a certain correspondence and appropriateness in such
things; thus it is appropriate for brave men, (30) not for just men, to have
fine weapons, and for men of family, not for parvenus, to make
distinguished marriages. Indignation may therefore properly be felt
when any one gets what is not appropriate for him, though he may be a
good man enough. It may also be felt when any one sets himself up
against his superior, especially against his superior in some particular
respect—whence the lines

Only from battle he shrank with Aias Telamon’s son;

Zeus had been angered with him, had he fought with a mightier one;22

but also, even apart from that, when the inferior in any sense contends
with his superior; a musician, for instance, with a just man, for justice is
a finer thing than music. [1387b]
Enough has been said to make clear the grounds on which, and the
persons against whom, Indignation is felt—they are those mentioned,
and others like them. As for the people who feel it; we feel it if we do
ourselves deserve the greatest possible goods and moreover have them,
(5) for it is an injustice that those who are not our equals should have

been held to deserve as much as we have. Or, secondly, we feel it if we

are really good and honest people; our judgement is then sound, and we
loathe any kind of injustice. Also if we are ambitious and eager to gain
particular ends, (10) especially if we are ambitious for what others are
getting without deserving to get it. And, generally, if we think that we
ourselves deserve a thing and that others do not, we are disposed to be
indignant with those others so far as that thing is concerned. Hence
servile, worthless, unambitious persons are not inclined to Indignation,
since there is nothing they can believe themselves to deserve.
From all this it is plain what sort of men those are at whose
misfortunes, (15) distresses, or failures we ought to feel pleased, or at
least not pained: by considering the facts described we see at once what
their contraries are. If therefore our speech puts the judges in such a
frame of mind as that indicated and shows that those who claim pity on
certain definite grounds do not deserve to secure pity but do deserve not
to secure it, (20) it will be impossible for the judges to feel pity.
10 To take Envy next: we can see on what grounds, against what
persons, and in what states of mind we feel it. Envy is pain at the sight
of such good fortune as consists of the good things already mentioned;
we feel it towards our equals; not with the idea of getting something for
ourselves, but because the other people have it. We shall feel it if we
have, or think we have, equals; and by ‘equals’ I mean equals in birth,
(25) relationship, age, disposition, distinction, or wealth. We feel envy

also if we fall but a little short of having everything; which is why

people in high place and prosperity feel it—they think every one else is
taking what belongs to themselves. Also if we are exceptionally
distinguished for some particular thing, and especially if that thing is
wisdom or good fortune. (30) Ambitious men are more envious than those
who are not. So also those who profess wisdom; they are ambitious—to
be thought wise. Indeed, generally, those who aim at a reputation for
anything are envious on this particular point. And small-minded men are
envious, for everything seems great to them. The good things which
excite envy have already been mentioned. The deeds or possessions
which arouse the love of reputation and honour and the desire for fame,
and the various gifts of fortune, are almost all subject to envy; and
particularly if we desire the thing ourselves, or think we are entitled to
it, or if having it puts us a little above others, or not having it a little
below them. [1388a] It is clear also what kind of people we envy; that
was included in what has been said already: we envy those who are near
us in time, (5) place, age, or reputation. Hence the line:

Ay, kin can even be jealous of their kin.23

Also our fellow-competitors, who are indeed the people just mentioned
—we do not compete with men who lived a hundred centuries ago, or
those not yet born, or the dead, or those who dwell near the Pillars of
Hercules,24 or those whom, in our opinion or that of others, (10) we take
to be far below us or far above us. So too we compete with those who
follow the same ends as ourselves: we compete with our rivals in sport
or in love, and generally with those who are after the same things; and it
is therefore these whom we are bound to envy beyond all others. (15)
Hence the saying:
 Potter against potter.

We also envy those whose possession of or success in a thing is a

reproach to us: these are our neighbours and equals; for it is clear that it
is our own fault we have missed the good thing in question; this annoys
us, (20) and excites envy in us. We also envy those who have what we
ought to have, or have got what we did have once. Hence old men envy
youngermen, and those who have spent much envy those who have
spent little on the same thing. And men who have not got a thing, or not
got it yet, envy those who have got it quickly. We can also see what
things and what persons give pleasure to envious people, and in what
states of mind they feel it: the states of mind in which they feel pain are
those under which they will feel pleasure in the contrary things. (25) If
therefore we ourselves with whom the decision rests are put into an
envious state of mind, and those for whom our pity, or the award of
something desirable, is claimed are such as have been described, it is
obvious that they will win no pity from us.

11 We will next consider Emulation, showing in what follows its

causes and objects, (30) and the state of mind in which it is felt.
Emulation is pain caused by seeing the presence, in persons whose
nature is like our own, of good things that are highly valued and are
possible for ourselves to acquire; but it is felt not because others have
these goods, but because we have not got them ourselves. It is therefore
a good feeling felt by good persons, whereas envy is a bad feeling felt by
bad persons. (35) Emulation makes us take steps to secure the good things
in question, envy makes us take steps to stop our neighbour having
them. Emulation must therefore tend to be felt by persons who believe
themselves to deserve certain good things that they have not got, it
being understood that no one aspires to things which appear impossible.
[1388b] It is accordingly felt by the young and by persons of lofty
disposition. Also by those who possess such good things as are deserved
by men held in honour—these are wealth, (5) abundance of friends,
public office, and the like; on the assumption that they ought to be good
men, they are emulous to gain such goods because they ought, in their
belief, to belong to men whose state of mind is good. Also by those
whom all others think deserving. We also feel it about anything for
which our ancestors, relatives, personal friends, race, or country are
specially honoured, looking upon that thing as really our own, and
therefore feeling that we deserve to have it. (10) Further, since all good
things that are highly honoured are objects of emulation, moral
goodness in its various forms must be such an object, and also all those
good things that are useful and serviceable to others: for men honour
those who are morally good, and also those who do them service. So
with those good things our possession of which can give enjoyment to
our neighbours—wealth and beauty rather than health. We can see, too,
what persons are the objects of the feeling. (15) They are those who have
these and similar things—those already mentioned, as courage, wisdom,
public office.25 Holders of public office—generals, orators, and all who
possess such powers—can do many people a good turn. Also those whom
many people wish to be like; those who have many acquaintances or
friends; those whom many admire, or whom we ourselves admire; and
those who have been praised and eulogized by poets or prose-writers. (20)
Persons of the contrary sort are objects of contempt: for the feeling and
notion of contempt are opposite to those of emulation. Those who are
such as to emulate or be emulated by others are inevitably disposed to
be contemptuous of all such persons as are subject to those bad things
which are contrary to the good things that are the objects of emulation:
despising them for just that reason. (25) Hence we often despise the
fortunate, when luck comes to them without their having those good
things which are held in honour.
This completes our discussion of the means by which the several
emotions may be produced or dissipated, and upon which depend the
persuasive arguments connected with the emotions. (30)

12 Let us now consider the various types of human character, in

relation to the emotions and moral qualities, showing how they
correspond to our various ages and fortunes. By emotions I mean anger,
desire, and the like; these we have discussed already.26 By moral
qualities I mean virtues and vices; these also have been discussed
already,27 as well as the various things that various types of men tend to
will and to do.28 By ages I mean youth, the prime of life, (35) and old age.
By fortune I mean birth, wealth, power, and their opposites—in fact,
good fortune and ill fortune. [1389a]
To begin with the Youthful type of character. Young men have strong
passions, and tend to gratify them indiscriminately. Of the bodily
desires, it is the sexual by which they are most swayed and in which
they show absence of self-control. (5) They are changeable and fickle in
their desires, which are violent while they last, but quickly over: their
impulses are keen but not deep-rooted, and are like sick people’s attacks
of hunger and thirst. They are hot-tempered and quick-tempered, and
apt to give way to their anger; bad temper often gets the better of them,
(10) for owing to their love of honour they cannot bear being slighted,

and are indignant if they imagine themselves unfairly treated. While

they love honour, they love victory still more; for youth is eager for
superiority over others, and victory is one form of this. They love both
more than they love money, which indeed they love very little, not
having yet learnt what it means to be without it—this is the point of
Pittacus’ remark about Amphiaraus.29 (15) They look at the good side
rather than the bad, not having yet witnessed many instances of
wickedness. They trust others readily, because they have not yet often
been cheated. They are sanguine; nature warms their blood as though
with excess of wine; and besides that, (20) they have as yet met with few
disappointments. Their lives are mainly spent not in memory but in
expectation; for expectation refers to the future, memory to the past, and
youth has a long future before it and a short past behind it: on the first
day of one’s life one has nothing at all to remember, and can only look
forward. They are easily cheated, owing to the sanguine disposition just
mentioned. (25) Their hot tempers and hopeful dispositions make them
more courageous than older men are; the hot temper prevents fear, and
the hopeful disposition creates confidence; we cannot feel fear so long as
we are feeling angry, and any expectation of good makes us confident.
They are shy, accepting the rules of society in which they have been
trained, (30) and not yet believing in any other standard of honour. They
have exalted notions, because they have not yet been humbled by life or
learnt its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition
makes them think themselves equal to great things—and that means
having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than
useful ones: their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by
reasoning; and whereas reasoning leads us to choose what is useful, (35)
moral goodness leads us to choose what is noble. They are fonder of
their friends, intimates, and companions than older men are, because
they like spending their days in the company of others, and have not yet
come to value either their friends or anything else by their usefulness to
themselves. [1389b] All their mistakes are in the direction of doing
things excessively and vehemently. They disobey Chilon’s precept by
overdoing everything; they love too much and hate too much, (5) and the
same with everything else. They think they know everything, and are
always quite sure about it; this, in fact, is why they overdo everything. If
they do wrong to others, it is because they mean to insult them, not to
do them actual harm. They are ready to pity others, because they think
every one an honest man, or anyhow better than he is: they judge their
neighbour by their own harmless natures, and so cannot think he
deserves to be treated in that way. They are fond of fun and therefore
witty, (10) wit being well-bred insolence.

13 Such, then, is the character of the Young. The character of Elderly

Men—men who are past their prime—may be said to be formed for the
most part of elements that are the contrary of all these. They have lived
many years; they have often been taken in, (15) and often made mistakes;
and life on the whole is a bad business. The result is that they are sure
about nothing and under-do everything. They ‘think’, but they never
‘know’; and because of their hesitation they always add a ‘possibly’ or a
‘perhaps’, putting everything this way and nothing positively. They are
cynical; that is, (20) they tend to put the worse construction on
everything. Further, their experience makes them distrustful and
therefore suspicious of evil. Consequently they neither love warmly nor
hate bitterly, but following the hint of Bias they love as though they will
some day hate and hate as though they will some day love. They are
small-minded, because they have been humbled by life: their desires are
set upon nothing more exalted or unusual than what will help them to
keep alive. (25) They are not generous, because money is one of the things
they must have, and at the same time their experience has taught them
how hard it is to get and how easy to lose. They are cowardly, and are
always anticipating danger; unlike that of the young, (30) who are warm-
blooded, their temperament is chilly; old age has paved the way for
cowardice; fear is, in fact, a form of chill. They love life; and all the
more when their last day has come, because the object of all desire is
something we have not got, and also because we desire most strongly
that which we need most urgently. (35) They are too fond of themselves;
this is one form that small-mindedness takes. Because of this, they guide
their lives too much by considerations of what is useful and too little by
what is noble—for the useful is what is good for oneself, and the noble
what is good absolutely. [1390a] They are not shy, but shameless
rather; caring less for what is noble than for what is useful, they feel
contempt for what people may think of them. They lack confidence in
the future; partly through experience—for most things go wrong, or
anyhow turn out worse than one expects; and partly because of their
cowardice. (5) They live by memory rather than by hope; for what is left
to them of life is but little as compared with the long past; and hope is of
the future, memory of the past. This, again, is the cause of their
loquacity; they are continually talking of the past, because they enjoy
remembering it. (10) Their fits of anger are sudden but feeble. Their
sensual passions have either altogether gone or have lost their vigour:
consequently they do not feel their passions much, and their actions are
inspired less by what they do feel than by the love of gain. Hence men at
this time of life are often supposed to have a self-controlled character;
the fact is that their passions have slackened, (15) and they are slaves to
the love of gain. They guide their lives by reasoning more than by moral
feeling; reasoning being directed to utility and moral feeling to moral
goodness. If they wrong others, they mean to injure them, not to insult
them. Old men may feel pity, as well as young men, but not for the same
reason. Young men feel it out of kindness; old men out of weakness, (20)
imagining that anything that befalls any one else might easily happen to
them, which, as we saw,30 is a thought that excites pity. Hence they are
querulous, and not disposed to jesting or laughter—the love of laughter
being the very opposite of querulousness.
Such are the characters of Young Men and Elderly Men. (25) People
always think well of speeches adapted to, and reflecting, their own
character: and we can now see how to compose our speeches so as to
adapt both them and ourselves to our audiences.

14 As for Men in their Prime, clearly we shall find that they have a
character between that of the young and that of the old, (30) free from the
extremes of either. They have neither that excess of confidence which
amounts to rashness, nor too much timidity, but the right amount of
each. They neither trust everybody nor distrust everybody, but judge
people correctly. [1390b] Their lives will be guided not by the sole
consideration either of what is noble or of what is useful, but by both;
neither by parsimony nor by prodigality, but by what is fit and proper.
So, too, in regard to anger and desire; they will be brave as well as
temperate, (5) and temperate as well as brave; these virtues are divided
between the young and the old; the young are brave but intemperate,
the old temperate but cowardly. To put it generally, all the valuable
qualities that youth and age divide between them are united in the
prime of life, while all their excesses or defects are replaced by
moderation and fitness. (10) The body is in its prime from thirty to five-
and-thirty; the mind about forty-nine.

15 So much for the types of character that distinguish youth, old age,
and the prime of life. We will now turn to those Gifts of Fortune by
which human character is affected. (15) First let us consider Good Birth.
Its effect on character is to make those who have it more ambitious; it is
the way of all men who have something to start with to add to the pile,
and good birth implies ancestral distinction. The well-born man will look
down even on those who are as good as his own ancestors, (20) because
any far-off distinction is greater than the same thing close to us, and
better to boast about. Being well-born, which means coming of a fine
stock, must be distinguished from nobility, which means being true to
the family nature—a quality not usually found in the well-born, most of
whom are poor creatures. In the generations of men as in the fruits of
the earth, (25) there is a varying yield; now and then, where the stock is
good, exceptional men are produced for a while, and then decadence
sets in. A clever stock will degenerate towards the insane type of
character, like the descendants of Alcibiades or of the elder Dionysius; a
steady stock towards the fatuous and torpid type, like the descendants of
Cimon, Pericles, (30) and Socrates.

16 The type of character produced by Wealth lies on the surface for

all to see. Wealthy men are insolent and arrogant; their possession of
wealth affects their understanding; they feel as if they had every good
thing that exists; wealth becomes a sort of standard of value for
everything else, and therefore they imagine there is nothing it cannot
buy. [1391a] They are luxurious and ostentatious; luxurious, because
of the luxury in which they live and the prosperity which they display;
ostentatious and vulgar, because, like other people’s, their minds are
regularly occupied with the object of their love and admiration, (5) and
also because they think that other people’s idea of happiness is the same
as their own. It is indeed quite natural that they should be affected thus;
for if you have money, there are always plenty of people who come
begging from you. Hence the saying of Simonides about wise men and
rich men, in answer to Hiero’s wife, who asked him whether it was
better to grow rich or wise. (10) ‘Why, rich,’ he said; ‘for I see the wise
men spending their days at the rich men’s doors.’ Rich men also consider
themselves worthy to hold public office; for they consider they already
have the things that give a claim to office. In a word, the type of
character produced by wealth is that of a prosperous fool. There is
indeed one difference between the type of the newly-enriched and those
who have long been rich: the newly-enriched have all the bad qualities
mentioned in an exaggerated and worse form—to be newly-enriched
means, (15) so to speak, no education in riches. The wrongs they do others
are not meant to injure their victims, but spring from insolence or self-
indulgence, e. g. those that end in assault or in adultery.

17 As to Power: here too it may fairly be said that the type of

character it produces is mostly obvious enough. (20) Some elements in
this type it shares with the wealthy type, others are better. Those in
power are more ambitious and more manly in character than the
wealthy, because they aspire to do the great deeds that their power
permits them to do. (25) Responsibility makes them more serious: they
have to keep paying attention to the duties their position involves. They
are dignified rather than arrogant, for the respect in which they are held
inspires them with dignity and therefore with moderation—dignity being
a mild and becoming form of arrogance. If they wrong others, they
wrong them not on a small but on a great scale.
Good fortune in certain of its branches produces the types of character
belonging to the conditions just described,31 since these conditions are in
fact more or less the kinds of good fortune that are regarded as most
important. It may be added that good fortune leads us to gain all we can
in the way of family happiness and bodily advantages.32 [1391b] It
does indeed make men more supercilious and more reckless; but there is
one excellent quality that goes with it—piety, and respect for the divine
power, in which they believe because of events which are really the
result of chance.
This account of the types of character that correspond to differences of
age33 or fortune34 may end here; for to arrive at the opposite types to
those described, (5) namely, those of the poor, the unfortunate, and the
powerless, we have only to ask what the opposite qualities are.

18 The use of persuasive speech is to lead to decisions. (When we

know a thing, and have decided about it, there is no further use in
speaking about it.) This is so even if one is addressing a single person
and urging him to do or not to do something, (10) as when we scold a
man for his conduct or try to change his views: the single person is as
much your ‘judge’ as if he were one of many; we may say, without
qualification, that any one is your judge whom you have to persuade.
Nor does it matter whether we are arguing against an actual opponent or
against a mere proposition; in the latter case we still have to use speech
and overthrow the opposing arguments, (15) and we attack these as we
should attack an actual opponent. Our principle holds good of
ceremonial speeches also; the ‘onlookers’ for whom such a speech is put
together are treated as the judges of it. Broadly speaking, however, the
only sort of person who can strictly be called a judge is the man who
decides the issue in some matter of public controversy; that is, in law
suits and in political debates, in both of which there are issues to be
decided. In the section on political oratory an account has already been
given of the types of character that mark the different constitutions.35 (20)
The manner and means of investing speeches with moral character
may now be regarded as fully set forth.
Each of the main divisions of oratory has, we have seen,36 its own
distinct purpose. With regard to each division, we have noted the
accepted views and propositions upon which we may base our
arguments—for political,37 for ceremonial,38 and for forensic speaking.39
We have further determined completely by what means speeches may be
invested with the required moral character. (25) We are now to proceed to
discuss the arguments common to all oratory. All orators, besides their
special lines of argument, are bound to use, for instance, the topic of the
Possible and Impossible; and to try to show that a thing has happened,
or will happen in future. (30) Again, the topic of Size is common to all
oratory; all of us have to argue that things are bigger or smaller than
they seem, whether we are making political speeches, speeches of eulogy
or attack, or prosecuting or defending in the law-courts. Having analysed
these subjects, we will try to say what we can about the general
principles of arguing by ‘enthymeme’ and ‘example’, by the addition of
which we may hope to complete the project with which we set out.
[1392a] Of the above-mentioned general lines of argument, that
concerned with Amplification is—as has been already said40—most
appropriate to ceremonial speeches; that concerned with the Past, (5) to
forensic speeches, where the required decision is always about the past;
that concerned with Possibility and the Future, to political speeches.

19 Let us first speak of the Possible and Impossible. It may plausibly

be argued: That if it is possible for one of a pair of contraries to be or
happen, then it is possible for the other: e. g. if a man can be cured, (10)
he can also fall ill; for any two contraries are equally possible, in so far
as they are contraries. That if of two similar things one is possible, so is
the other. That if the harder of two things is possible, so is the easier.
That if a thing can come into existence in a good and beautiful form,
then it can come into existence generally; thus a house can exist more
easily than a beautiful house. (15) That if the beginning of a thing can
occur, so can the end; for nothing impossible occurs or begins to occur;
thus the commensurability of the diagonal of a square with its side
neither occurs nor can begin to occur. (20) That if the end is possible, so is
the beginning; for all things that occur have a beginning. That if that
which is posterior in essence or in order of generation can come into
being, so can that which is prior: thus if a man can come into being, so
can a boy, since the boy comes first in order of generation; and if a boy
can, so can a man, for the man also is first. That those things are possible
of which the love or desire is natural; for no one, (25) as a rule, loves or
desires impossibilities. That things which are the object of any kind of
science or art are possible and exist or come into existence. That
anything is possible the first step in whose production depends on men
or things which we can compel or persuade to produce it, by our greater
strength, our control of them, or our friendship with them. That where
the parts are possible, the whole is possible; and where the whole is
possible, (30) the parts are usually possible. For if the slit in front, the toe-
piece, and the upper leather can be made, then shoes can be made; and
if shoes, then also the front slit and toe-piece. [1392b] That if a whole
genus is a thing that can occur, so can the species; and if the species can
occur, so can the genus: thus, if a sailing vessel can be made, so also can
a trireme; and if a trireme, then a sailing vessel also. That if one of two
things whose existence depends on each other is possible, so is the other;
for instance, if ‘double’, then ‘half’, (5) and if ‘half’, then ‘double’. That if
a thing can be produced without art or preparation, it can be produced
still more certainly by the careful application of art to it. Hence Agathon
has said:

To some things we by art must needs attain,

Others by destiny or luck we gain.

That if anything is possible to inferior, (10) weaker, and stupider people,

it is more so for their opposites; thus Isocrates said that it would be a
strange thing if he could not discover a thing that Euthynus had found
out.41 As for Impossibility, we can clearly get what we want by taking
the contraries of the arguments stated above.
Questions of Past Fact may be looked at in the following ways: First,
(15) that if the less likely of two things has occurred, the more likely must

have occurred also. That if one thing that usually follows another has
happened, then that other thing has happened; that, for instance, if a
man has forgotten a thing, he has also once learnt it. That if a man had
the power and the wish to do a thing, he has done it; for every one does
do whatever he intends to do whenever he can do it, there being nothing
to stop him. That, further, (20) he has done the thing in question either if
he intended it and nothing external prevented him; or if he had the
power to do it and was angry at the time; or if he had the power to do it
and his heart was set upon it—for people as a rule do what they long to
do, if they can; bad people through lack of self-control; good people,
because their hearts are set upon good things. Again, that if a thing was
‘going to happen’, (25) it has happened; if a man was ‘going to do
something’, he has done it, for it is likely that the intention was carried
out. That if one thing has happened which naturally happens before
another or with a view to it, the other has happened; for instance, if it
has lightened, it has also thundered; and if an action has been
attempted, it has been done. That if one thing has happened which
naturally happens after another, or with a view to which that other
happens, then that other (that which happens first, or happens with a
view to this thing) has also happened; thus, if it has thundered it has
also lightened, (30) and if an action has been done it has been attempted.
Of all these sequences some are inevitable and some merely usual. The
arguments for the non-occurrence of anything can obviously be found by
considering the opposites of those that have been mentioned.
How questions of Future Fact should be argued is clear from the same
considerations: That a thing will be done if there is both the power and
the wish to do it; or if along with the power to do it there is a craving for
the result, or anger, or calculation, prompting it. [1393a] That the
thing will be done, in these cases, if the man is actually setting about it,
or even if he means to do it later—for usually what we mean to do
happens rather than what we do not mean to do. (5) That a thing will
happen if another thing which naturally happens before it has already
happened; thus, if it is clouding over, it is likely to rain. That if the
means to an end have occurred, then the end is likely to occur; thus, if
there is a foundation, there will be a house.
For arguments about the Greatness and Smallness of things, the
greater and the lesser, and generally great things and small, (10) what we
have already said will show the line to take. In discussing deliberative
oratory we have spoken about the relative greatness of various goods,
and about the greater and lesser in general.42 Since therefore in each
type of oratory the object under discussion is some kind of good—
whether it is utility, nobleness, or justice—it is clear that every orator
must obtain the materials of amplification through these channels.43 (15)
To go further than this, and try to establish abstract laws of greatness
and superiority, is to argue without an object; in practical life, particular
facts count more than generalizations.
Enough has now been said about these questions of possibility and the
reverse, (20) of past or future fact, and of the relative greatness or
smallness of things.

20 The special forms of oratorical argument having now been

discussed, we have next to treat of those which are common to all kinds
of oratory. These are of two main kinds, ‘Example’ and ‘Enthymeme’; for
the ‘Maxim’ is part of an Enthymeme.
We will first treat of argument by Example, (25) for it has the nature of
induction, which is the foundation of reasoning. This form of argument
has two varieties; one consisting in the mention of actual past facts, the
other in the invention of facts by the speaker. Of the latter, again, there
are two varieties, the illustrative parallel and the fable (e. g. the fables of
Aesop, (30) or those from Libya). As an instance of the mention of actual
facts, take the following. The speaker may argue thus: ‘We must prepare
for war against the king of Persia and not let him subdue Egypt.
[1393b] For Darius of old did not cross the Aegean until he had seized
Egypt; but once he had seized it, he did cross. And Xerxes, again, did not
attack us until he had seized Egypt; but once he had seized it, he did
cross. If therefore the present king seizes Egypt, he also will cross, and
therefore we must not let him.’
The illustrative parallel is the sort of argument Socrates used: e. g.
‘Public officials ought not to be selected by lot. That is like using the lot
to select athletes, (5) instead of choosing those who are fit for the contest;
or using the lot to select a steersman from among a ship’s crew, as if we
ought to take the man on whom the lot falls, and not the man who
knows most about it.’
 Instances of the fable are that of Stesichorus about Phalaris, (10) and
that of Aesop in defence of the popular leader. When the people of
Himera had made Phalaris military dictator, and were going to give him
a bodyguard, Stesichorus wound up a long talk by telling them the fable
of the horse who had a field all to himself. Presently there came a stag
and began to spoil his pasturage. The horse, (15) wishing to revenge
himself on the stag, asked a man if he could help him to do so. The man
said, ‘Yes, if you will let me bridle you and get on to your back with
javelins in my hand’. The horse agreed, and the man mounted; but
instead of getting his revenge on the stag, the horse found himself the
slave of the man. ‘You too’, said Stesichorus, ‘take care lest, in your
desire for revenge on your enemies, you meet the same fate as the horse.
(20) By making Phalaris military dictator, you have already let yourselves

be bridled. If you let him get on to your backs by giving him a

bodyguard, from that moment you will be his slaves.’
Aesop, defending before the assembly at Samos a popular leader who
was being tried for his life, told this story: A fox, in crossing a river, was
swept into a hole in the rocks; and, not being able to get out, (25) suffered
miseries for a long time through the swarms of fleas that fastened on
her. A hedgehog, while roaming around, noticed the fox; and feeling
sorry for her asked if he might remove the fleas. But the fox declined the
offer; and when the hedgehog asked why, she replied, ‘These fleas are by
this time full of me and not sucking much blood; if you take them away,
others will come with fresh appetites and drink up all the blood I have
left.’ (30) ‘So, men of Samos’, said Aesop, ‘my client will do you no further
harm; he is wealthy already. But if you put him to death, others will
come along who are not rich, and their peculations will empty your
treasury completely.’ [1394a]
Fables are suitable for addresses to popular assemblies; and they have
one advantage—they are comparatively easy to invent, whereas it is
hard to find parallels among actual past events. You will in fact frame
them just as you frame illustrative parallels: all you require is the power
of thinking out your analogy, (5) a power developed by intellectual
training. But while it is easier to supply parallels by inventing fables, it is
more valuable for the political speaker to supply them by quoting what
has actually happened, since in most respects the future will be like what
the past has been.
Where we are unable to argue by Enthymeme, we must try to
demonstrate our point by this method of Example, and to convince our
hearers thereby. (10) If we can argue by Enthymeme, we should use our
Examples as subsequent supplementary evidence. They should not
precede the Enthymemes: that will give the argument an inductive air,
which only rarely suits the conditions of speech-making. If they follow
the Enthymemes, they have the effect of witnesses giving evidence, and
this always tells. For the same reason, (15) if you put your examples first
you must give a large number of them; if you put them last, a single one
is sufficient; even a single witness will serve if he is a good one. It has
now been stated how many varieties of argument by Example there are,
and how and when they are to be employed.

21 We now turn to the use of maxims, in order to see upon what

subjects and occasions, and for what kind of speaker, (20) they will
appropriately form part of a speech. This will appear most clearly when
we have defined a maxim. It is a statement; not about a particular fact,
such as the character of Iphicrates, but of a general kind; nor is it about
any and every subject—e. g. ‘straight is the contrary of curved’ is not a
maxim—but only about questions of practical conduct, (25) courses of
conduct to be chosen or avoided. Now an Enthymeme is a syllogism
dealing with such practical subjects. It is therefore roughly true that the
premisses or conclusions of Enthymemes, considered apart from the rest
of the argument, are maxims: e. g.

Never should any man whose wits are sound

Have his sons taught more wisdom than their fellows.44 (30)

Here we have a maxim; add the reason or explanation, and the whole
thing is an Enthymeme; thus—

It makes them idle; and therewith they earn

Ill-will and jealousy throughout the city.45

[1394b] Again,
 There is no man in all things prosperous,46

and

There is no man among us all is free,

are maxims; but the latter, (5) taken with what follows it, is an
Enthymeme—

For all are slaves of money or of chance.47

From this definition of a maxim it follows that there are four kinds of
maxims. In the first place, the maxim may or may not have a
supplement. Proof is needed where the statement is paradoxical or
disputable; no supplement is wanted where the statement contains
nothing paradoxical, (10) either because the view expressed is already a
known truth, e. g.

Chiefest of blessings is health for a man, as it seemeth to me,48

this being the general opinion: or because, as soon as the view is stated,
(15) it is clear at a glance, e. g.

No love is true save that which loves for ever.49

Of the maxims that do have a supplement attached, some are part of an

Enthymeme, e. g.

Never should any man whose wits are sound, &c.50

Others have the essential character of Enthymemes, but are not stated as
parts of Enthymemes; these latter are reckoned the best; they are those
in which the reason for the view expressed is simply implied, (20) e. g.

O mortal man, nurse not immortal wrath.

To say ‘it is not right to nurse immortal wrath’ is a maxim; the added
words ‘O mortal man’ give the reason. Similarly, with the words
 Mortal creatures ought to cherish mortal, not immortal thoughts.51

What has been said has shown us how many kinds of maxim there are,
(25) and to what subjects the various kinds are appropriate. They must

not be given without supplement if they express disputed or paradoxical

views: we must, in that case, either put the supplement first and make a
maxim of the conclusion, e. g. you might say, ‘For my part, since both
unpopularity and idleness are undesirable, (30) I hold that it is better not
to be educated’; or you may say this first, and then add the previous
clause. Where a statement, without being paradoxical, is not obviously
true, the reason should be added as concisely as possible. In such cases
both laconic and enigmatic sayings are suitable: thus one might say what
Stesichorus said to the Locrians, ‘Insolence is better avoided, lest the
cicalas chirp on the ground.’52 [1395a]
The use of maxims is appropriate only to elderly men, and in handling
subjects in which the speaker is experienced. For a young man to use
them is—like telling stories—unbecoming; to use them in handling
things in which one has no experience is silly and ill-bred: a fact
sufficiently proved by the special fondness of country fellows for striking
out maxims, (5) and their readiness to air them.
To declare a thing to be universally true when it is not is most
appropriate when working up feelings of horror and indignation in our
hearers; especially by way of preface, or after the facts have been
proved. Even hackneyed and commonplace maxims are to be used, (10) if
they suit one’s purpose: just because they are commonplace, every one
seems to agree with them, and therefore they are taken for truth.
Thus, any one who is calling on his men to risk an engagement without
obtaining favourable omens may quote

One omen of all is best, that we fight for our fatherland.53

Or, if he is calling on them to attack a stronger force—

The War-God showeth no favour.54 (15)

Or, if he is urging people to destroy the innocent children of their

enemies—
 Fool, who slayeth the father and leaveth his sons to avenge him.55

Some proverbs are also maxims, e. g. the proverb ‘An Attic neighbour’.
You are not to avoid uttering maxims that contradict such sayings as
have become public property (I mean such sayings as ‘know thyself’ and
‘nothing in excess’), (20) if doing so will raise your hearers’ opinion of
your character, or convey an effect of strong emotion—e. g. an angry
speaker might well say, ‘It is not true that we ought to know ourselves:
anyhow, if this man had known himself, he would never have thought
himself fit for an army command.’ It will raise people’s opinion of our
character to say, (25) for instance, ‘We ought not to follow the saying that
bids us treat our friends as future enemies: much better to treat our
enemies as future friends.’56 The moral purpose should be implied partly
by the very wording of our maxim. Failing this, we should add our
reason: e. g. having said ‘We should treat our friends, not as the saying
advises, but as if they were going to be our friends always’, we should
add ‘for the other behaviour is that of a traitor’: or we might put it, (30) ‘I
disapprove of that saying. A true friend will treat his friend as if he were
going to be his friend for ever’; and again, ‘Nor do I approve of the
saying “nothing in excess”: we are bound to hate bad men excessively.’
[1395b] One great advantage of maxims to a speaker is due to the
want of intelligence in his hearers, who love to hear him succeed in
expressing as a universal truth the opinions which they hold themselves
about particular cases. I will explain what I mean by this, indicating at
the same time how we are to hunt down the maxims required. The
maxim, (5) as has been already said,57 is a general statement, and people
love to hear stated in general terms what they already believe in some
particular connexion: e. g. if a man happens to have bad neighbours or
bad children, he will agree with any one who tells him, ‘Nothing is more
annoying than having neighbours’, or, ‘Nothing is more foolish than to
be the parent of children.’ The orator has therefore to guess the subjects
on which his hearers really hold views already, (10) and what those views
are, and then must express, as general truths, these same views on these
same subjects. This is one advantage of using maxims. There is another
which is more important—it invests a speech with moral character.
There is moral character in every speech in which the moral purpose is
conspicuous: and maxims always produce this effect, because the
utterance of them amounts to a general declaration of moral principles:
so that, (15) if the maxims are sound, they display the speaker as a man of
sound moral character. So much for the maxim—its nature, varieties,
proper use, and advantages.

22 We now come to the Enthymemes, and will begin the subject with
some general consideration of the proper way of looking for them, (20)
and then proceed to what is a distinct question, the lines of argument to
be embodied in them. It has already58 been pointed out that the
Enthymeme is a syllogism, and in what sense it is so. We have also noted
the differences between it and the syllogism of dialectic. Thus we must
not carry its reasoning too far back, or the length of our argument will
cause obscurity: nor must we put in all the steps that lead to our
conclusion, (25) or we shall waste words in saying what is manifest. It is
this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the
educated when addressing popular audiences—makes them, as the
poets59 tell us, ‘charm the crowd’s ears more finely’. Educated men lay
down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from common
knowledge and draw obvious conclusions. (30) We must not, therefore,
start from any and every accepted opinion, but only from those we have
defined—those accepted by our judges or by those whose authority they
recognize: and there must, moreover, be no doubt in the minds of most,
if not all, of our judges that the opinions put forward really are of this
sort. [1396a] We should also base our arguments upon probabilities as
well as upon certainties.
The first thing we have to remember is this. Whether our argument
concerns public affairs or some other subject, we must know some, (5) if
not all, of the facts about the subject on which we are to speak and
argue. Otherwise we can have no materials out of which to construct
arguments. I mean, for instance, how could we advise the Athenians
whether they should go to war or not, if we did not know their strength,
whether it was naval or military or both, and how great it is; what their
revenues amount to; who their friends and enemies are; what wars, (10)
too, they have waged, and with what success; and so on? Or how could
we eulogize them if we knew nothing about the sea-fight at Salamis, or
the battle of Marathon, or what they did for the Heracleidae, or any
other facts like that? All eulogy is based upon the noble deeds—real or
imaginary—that stand to the credit of those eulogized. (15) On the same
principle, invectives are based on facts of the opposite kind: the orator
looks to see what base deeds—real or imaginary—stand to the discredit
of those he is attacking, such as treachery to the cause of Hellenic
freedom, or the enslavement of their gallant allies against the barbarians
(Aegina,60 Potidaea,61 & c.), (20) or any other misdeeds of this kind that
are recorded against them. So, too, in a court of law: whether we are
prosecuting or defending, we must pay attention to the existing facts of
the case. It makes no difference whether the subject is the
Lacedaemonians or the Athenians, a man or a god; we must do the same
thing. (25) Suppose it to be Achilles whom we are to advise, to praise or
blame, to accuse or defend; here too we must take the facts, real or
imaginary; these must be our material, whether we are to praise or
blame him for the noble or base deeds he has done, to accuse or defend
him for his just or unjust treatment of others, or to advise him about
what is or is not to his interest. (30) The same thing applies to any subject
whatever. Thus, in handling the question whether justice is or is not a
good, we must start with the real facts about justice and goodness. We
see, then, that this is the only way in which any one ever proves
anything, whether his arguments are strictly cogent or not: not all facts
can form his basis, but only those that bear on the matter in hand: nor,
plainly, can proof be effected otherwise by means of the speech.
[1396b] Consequently, as appears in the Topics,62 we must first of all
have by us a selection of arguments about questions that may arise and
are suitable for us to handle; and then we must try to think out
arguments of the same type for special needs as they emerge; not
vaguely and indefinitely, (5) but by keeping our eyes on the actual facts
of the subject we have to speak on, and gathering in as many of them as
we can that bear closely upon it: for the more actual facts we have at our
command, (10) the more easily we prove our case; and the more closely
they bear on the subject, the more they will seem to belong to that
speech only instead of being commonplaces. By ‘commonplaces’ I mean,
for example, eulogy of Achilles because he is a human being, or a demi-
god, or because he joined the expedition against Troy: these things are
true of many others, (15) so that this kind of eulogy applies no better to
Achilles than to Diomede. The special facts here needed are those that
are true of Achilles alone; such facts as that he slew Hector, the bravest
of the Trojans, and Cycnus the invulnerable, who prevented all the
Greeks from landing, and again that he was the youngest man who
joined the expedition, and was not bound by oath to join it, and so on.
Here, then, we have our first principle of selection of Enthymemes—
that which refers to the lines of argument selected. (20) We will now
consider the various elementary classes of Enthymemes. (By an
‘elementary class’ of Enthymeme I mean the same thing as a ‘line of
argument’.) We will begin, as we must begin, by observing that there are
two kinds of Enthymemes. One kind proves some affirmative or negative
proposition; (25) the other kind disproves one. The difference between the
two kinds is the same as that between syllogistic proof and disproof in
dialectic. The demonstrative Enthymeme is formed by the conjunction of
compatible propositions; the refutative, by the conjunction of
incompatible propositions.
We may now be said to have in our hands the lines of argument for
the various special subjects that it is useful or necessary to handle,
having selected the propositions suitable in various cases. We have, (30)
in fact, already ascertained the lines of argument applicable to
Enthymemes about good and evil, the noble and the base, justice and
injustice, and also to those about types of character, emotions, and moral
qualities.63 Let us now lay hold of certain facts about the whole subject,
considered from a different and more general point of view. [1397a]
In the course of our discussion we will take note of the distinction
between lines of proof and lines of disproof:64 and also of those lines of
argument used in what seem to be Enthymemes, but are not, since they
do not represent valid syllogisms.65 Having made all this clear, we will
proceed to classify Objections and Refutations, (5) showing how they can
be brought to bear upon Enthymemes.66

23 1. One line of positive proof67 is based upon consideration of the

opposite of the thing in question. Observe whether that opposite has the
opposite quality.68 If it has not, you refute the original proposition; if it
has, you establish it. e. g. (10) ‘Temperance is beneficial; for licentiousness
is hurtful’. Or, as in the Messenian speech,69 ‘If war is the cause of our
present troubles, peace is what we need to put things right again.’ Or—

For if not even evil-doers should

Anger us if they meant not what they did,
Then can we owe no gratitude to such
As were constrained to do the good they did us. (15)

Or—

Since in this world liars may win belief,

Be sure of the opposite likewise—that this world
Hears many a true word and believes it not.70

2. Another line of proof is got by considering some modification of the

key-word, (20) and arguing that what can or cannot be said of the one,
can or cannot be said of the other: e. g. ‘just’ does not always mean
‘beneficial’, or ‘justly’ would always mean ‘beneficially’, whereas it is not
desirable to be justly put to death.71
3. Another line of proof is based upon correlative ideas. If it is true
that one man gave noble or just treatment to another, you argue that the
other must have received noble or just treatment; or that where it is right
to command obedience, it must have been right to obey the command.
(25) Thus Diomedon, the tax-farmer, said of the taxes: ‘If it is no disgrace

for you to sell them,72 it is no disgrace for us to buy them’. Further, if

‘well’ or ‘justly’ is true of the person to whom a thing is done, you argue
that it is true of the doer. But it is possible to draw a false conclusion
here. It may be just that A should be treated in a certain way, and yet
not just that he should be so treated by B. (30) Hence you must ask
yourself two distinct questions: (1) Is it right that A should be thus
treated? (2) Is it right that B should thus treat him? and apply your
results properly, according as your answers are Yes or No. [1397b]
Sometimes in such a case the two answers differ: you may quite easily
have a position like that in the Alcmaeon of Theodectes:

And was there none to loathe thy mother’s crime?

to which question Alcmaeon in reply says,

Why, there are two things to examine here.

And when Alphesiboea asks what he means, (5) he rejoins:

They judged her fit to die, not me to slay her.

Again there is the lawsuit about Demosthenes and the men who killed
Nicanor; as they were judged to have killed him justly, it was thought
that he was killed justly. And in the case of the man who was killed at
Thebes, the judges were requested to decide whether it was unjust that
he should be killed, (10) since if it was not, it was argued that it could not
have been unjust to kill him.
4. Another line of proof is the a fortiori. Thus it may be argued that if
even the gods are not omniscient, certainly human beings are not. The
principle here is that, if a quality does not in fact exist where it is more
likely to exist, it clearly does not exist where it is less likely. Again, the
argument that a man who strikes his father also strikes his neighbours
follows from the principle that, (15) if the less likely thing is true, the
more likely thing is true also; for a man is less likely to strike his father
than to strike his neighbours. The argument, then, may run thus. Or it
may be urged that, if a thing is not true where it is more likely, it is not
true where it is less likely; or that, if it is true where it is less likely, it is
true where it is more likely: according as we have to show that a thing is
or is not true. This argument might also be used in a case of parity, as in
the lines:

Thou hast pity for thy sire, who has lost his sons:
Hast none for Oeneus, whose brave son is dead? (20)

And, again, ‘if Theseus did no wrong, neither did Paris’; or ‘if the sons of
Tyndareus did no wrong, neither did Paris’; or ‘if Hector did well to slay
Patroclus, Paris did well to slay Achilles’. And ‘if other followers of an
art are not bad men, neither are philosophers’. And ‘if generals are not
bad men because it often happens that they are condemned to death,
neither are sophists’. And the remark that ‘if each individual among you
ought to think of his own city’s reputation, (25) you ought all to think of
the reputation of Greece as a whole’.
5. Another line of argument is based on considerations of time. Thus
Iphicrates, in the case against Harmodius, said, ‘if before doing the deed
I had bargained that, if I did it, I should have a statue, you would have
given me one. Will you not give me one now that I have done the deed?
You must not make promises when you are expecting a thing to be done
for you, (30) and refuse to fulfil them when the thing has been done.’ And,
again, to induce the Thebans to let Philip pass through their territory
into Attica, it was argued that ‘if he had insisted on this before he helped
them against the Phocians, they would have promised to do it.
[1398a] It is monstrous, therefore, that just because he threw away his
advantage then, and trusted their honour, they should not let him pass
through now’.
6. Another line is to apply to the other speaker what he has said
against yourself. It is an excellent turn to give to a debate, (5) as may be
seen in the Teucer.73 It was employed by Iphicrates in his reply to
Aristophon. ‘Would you’, he asked, ‘take a bribe to betray the fleet?’ ‘No’,
said Aristophon; and Iphicrates replied, ‘Very good: if you, who are
Aristophon, would not betray the fleet, would I, who am Iphicrates?’
Only, it must be recognized beforehand that the other man is more likely
than you are to commit the crime in question. (10) Otherwise you will
make yourself ridiculous; if it is Aristeides who is prosecuting, you
cannot say that sort of thing to him. The purpose is to discredit the
prosecutor, who as a rule would have it appear that his character is
better than that of the defendant, a pretension which it is desirable to
upset. But the use of such an argument is in all cases ridiculous if you
are attacking others for what you do or would do yourself, or are urging
others to do what you neither do nor would do yourself.
7. Another line of proof is secured by defining your terms. (15) Thus,
‘What is the supernatural? Surely it is either a god or the work of a god.
Well, anyone who believes that the work of a god exists, cannot help
also believing that gods exist’. Or take the argument of Iphicrates,
‘Goodness is true nobility; neither Harmodius nor Aristogeiton had any
nobility before they did a noble deed’. (20) He also argued that he himself
was more akin to Harmodius and Aristogeiton than his opponent was.
‘At any rate, my deeds are more akin to those of Harmodius and
Aristogeiton than yours are.’ Another example may be found in the
Alexander. ‘Every one will agree that by incontinent people we mean
those who are not satisfied with the enjoyment of one love’. A further
example is to be found in the reason given by Socrates for not going to
the court of Archelaus. (25) He said that ‘one is insulted by being unable to
requite benefits, as well as by being unable to requite injuries’. All the
persons mentioned define their term and get at its essential meaning,
and then use the result when reasoning on the point at issue.
8. Another line of argument is founded upon the various senses of a
word. Such a word is ‘rightly’, as has been explained in the Topics.
9. Another line is based upon logical division. Thus, (30) ‘All men do
wrong from one of three motives, A, B, or C: in my case A and B are out
of the question, and even the accusers do not allege C’.
10. Another line is based upon induction. Thus from the case of the
woman of Peparethus it might be argued that women everywhere can
settle correctly the facts about their children. [1398b] Another
example of this occurred at Athens in the case between the orator
Mantias74 and his son, when the boy’s mother revealed the true facts:
and yet another at Thebes, in the case between Ismenias and Stilbon,
when Dodonis proved that it was Ismenias who was the father of her son
Thettaliscus, and he was in consequence always regarded as being so. A
further instance of induction may be taken from the Law of Theodectes:
‘If we do not hand over our horses to the care of men who have
mishandled other people’s horses, (5) nor ships to those who have
wrecked other people’s ships, and if this is true of everything else alike,
then men who have failed to secure other people’s safety are not to be
employed to secure our own.’ Another instance is the argument of
Alcidamas: ’Every one honours the wise. (10) Thus the Parians have
honoured Archilochus, in spite of his bitter tongue; the Chians Homer,
though he was not their countryman; the Mytilenaeans Sappho, though
she was a woman; the Lacedaemonians actually made Chilon a member
of their senate, though they are the least literary of men; the Italian
Greeks honoured Pythagoras; the inhabitants of Lampsacus gave public
burial to Anaxagoras, though he was an alien, (15) and honour him even
to this day. [It may be argued that peoples for whom philosophers
legislate are always prosperous] on the ground that the Athenians
became prosperous under Solon’s laws and the Lacedaemonians under
those of Lycurgus, while at Thebes no sooner did the leading men
become philosophers than the country began to prosper.
11. Another line of argument is founded upon some decision already
pronounced, whether on the same subject or on one like it or contrary to
it. Such a proof is most effective if every one has always decided thus;
but if not every one, (20) then at any rate most people; or if all, or most,
wise or good men have thus decided, or the actual judges of the present
question, or those whose authority they accept, or any one whose
decision they cannot gainsay because he has complete control over
them, or those whom it is not seemly to gainsay, as the gods, or one’s
father, or one’s teachers. Thus Autocles said, when attacking
Mixidemides, that it was a strange thing that the Dread Goddesses could
without loss of dignity submit to the judgement of the Areopagus, (25)
and yet Mixidemides could not. Or as Sappho said, ‘Death is an evil
thing; the gods have so judged it, or they would die’. Or again as
Aristippus said in reply to Plato when he spoke somewhat too
dogmatically, as Aristippus thought: ‘Well, (30) anyhow, our friend’,
meaning Socrates, ‘never spoke like that’. And Hegesippus, having
previously consulted Zeus at Olympia, asked Apollo at Delphi ‘whether
his opinion was the same as his father’s’, implying that it would be
shameful for him to contradict his father. [1399a] Thus too Isocrates
argued that Helen must have been a good woman, because Theseus
decided that she was;75 and Paris a good man, because the goddesses
chose him before all others;76 and Evagoras also, (5) says Isocrates, was
good, since when Conon met with his misfortune he betook himself to
Evagoras without trying any one else on the way.77
12. Another line of argument consists in taking separately the parts of
a subject. Such is that given in the Topics:78 ‘What sort of motion is the
soul? for it must be this or that.’ The Socrates of Theodectes provides an
example: ‘What temple has he profaned? What gods recognized by the
state has he not honoured?’
13. Since it happens that any given thing usually has both good and
bad consequences, (10) another line of argument consists in using those
consequences as a reason for urging that a thing should or should not be
done, for prosecuting or defending any one, for eulogy or censure. e. g.
education leads both to unpopularity, which is bad, and to wisdom,
which is good. Hence you either argue, ‘It is therefore not well to be
educated, (15) since it is not well to be unpopular’: or you answer, ‘No, it
is well to be educated, since it is well to be wise’. The Art of Rhetoric of
Callippus is made up of this line of argument, with the addition of those
of Possibility and the others of that kind already described.79
14. Another line of argument is used when we have to urge or
discourage a course of action that may be done in either of two opposite
ways, and have to apply the method just mentioned to both. (20) The
difference between this one and the last is that, whereas in the last any
two things are contrasted, here the things contrasted are opposites. For
instance, the priestess enjoined upon her son not to take to public
speaking: ‘For’, she said, ‘if you say what is right, men will hate you; if
you say what is wrong, the gods will hate you.’ The reply might be, ‘On
the contrary, you ought to take to public speaking: for if you say what is
right, the gods will love you; if you say what is wrong, (25) men will love
you.’ This amounts to the proverbial ‘buying the marsh with the salt’. It
is just this situation, viz. when each of two opposites has both a good
and a bad consequence opposite respectively to each other, that has been
termed divarication.
15. Another line of argument is this: The things people approve of
openly are not those which they approve of secretly: openly, (30) their
chief praise is given to justice and nobleness; but in their hearts they
prefer their own advantage. Try, in face of this, to establish the point of
view which your opponent has not adopted. This is the most effective of
the forms of argument that contradict common opinion.
16. Another line is that of rational correspondence. e. g. Iphicrates,
when they were trying to compel his son, a youth under the prescribed
age, to perform one of the state duties because he was tall, (35) said ‘If
you count tall boys men, you will next be voting short men boys’. And
Theodectes in his Law80 said, ‘You make citizens of such mercenaries as
Strabax and Charidemus, as a reward of their merits; will you not make
exiles of such citizens as those who have done irreparable harm among
the mercenaries?’
17. [1399b] Another line is the argument that if two results are the
same their antecedents are also the same. For instance, it was a saying of
Xenophanes that to assert that the gods had birth is as impious as to say
that they die; the consequence of both statements is that there is a time
when the gods do not exist. (5) This line of proof assumes generally that
the result of any given thing is always the same: e. g. ‘you are going to
decide not about Isocrates, but about the value of the whole profession
of philosophy.’ Or, ‘to give earth and water’ means slavery; or, (10) ‘to
share in the Common Peace’ means obeying orders. We are to make
either such assumptions or their opposite, as suits us best.
18. Another line of argument is based on the fact that men do not
always make the same choice on a later as on an earlier occasion, but
reverse their previous choice. (15) e. g. the following Enthymeme: ‘When
we were exiles, we fought in order to return; now we have returned, it
would be strange to choose exile in order not to have to fight.’81 On one
occasion, that is, they chose to be true to their homes at the cost of
fighting, and on the other to avoid fighting at the cost of deserting their
homes.
19. Another line of argument is the assertion that some possible motive
for an event or state of things is the real one: e. g. that a gift was given in
order to cause pain by its withdrawal. (20) This notion underlies the lines:

God gives to many great prosperity,

Not of good will towards them, but to make
The ruin of them more conspicuous.

Or take the passage from the Meleager of Antiphon:

To slay no boar, (25) but to be witnesses

Of Meleager’s prowess unto Greece.

Or the argument in the Ajax of Theodectes, that Diomede chose out

Odysseus82 not to do him honour, but in order that his companion might
be a lesser man than himself—such a motive for doing so is quite
possible. (30)
20. Another line of argument is common to forensic and deliberative
oratory, namely, to consider inducements and deterrents, and the
motives people have for doing or avoiding the actions in question. These
are the conditions which make us bound to act if they are for us, and to
refrain from action if they are against us: that is, we are bound to act if
the action is possible, easy, and useful to ourselves or our friends or
hurtful to our enemies; this is true even if the action entails loss, (35)
provided the loss is outweighed by the solid advantage. A speaker will
urge action by pointing to such conditions, and discourage it by pointing
to the opposite. [1400a] These same arguments also form the
materials for accusation or defence—the deterrents being pointed out by
the defence, and the inducements by the prosecution. As for the defence,
… This topic forms the whole Art of Rhetoric both of Pamphilus and of
Callippus.
21. Another line of argument refers to things which are supposed to
happen and yet seem incredible. (5) We may argue that people could not
have believed them, if they had not been true or nearly true: even that
they are the more likely to be true because they are incredible. For the
things which men believe are either facts or probabilities: if, therefore, a
thing that is believed is improbable and even incredible, it must be true,
since it is certainly not believed because it is at all probable or credible.
An example is what Androcles of the deme Pitthus said in his well-
known arraignment of the law. (10) The audience tried to shout him down
when he observed that the laws required a law to set them right. ‘Why’,
he went on, ‘fish need salt, improbable and incredible as this might seem
for creatures reared in salt water; and olive-cakes83 need oil, incredible
as it is that what produces oil should need it.’
22. Another line of argument is to refute our opponent’s case by
noting any contrasts or contradictions of dates, (15) acts, or words that it
anywhere displays; and this in any of the three following connexions. (1)
Referring to our opponent’s conduct, e. g. ‘He says he is devoted to you,
yet he conspired with the Thirty.’ (2) Referring to our own conduct, e. g.
‘He says I am litigious, and yet he cannot prove that I have been engaged
in a single lawsuit.’ (20) (3) Referring to both of us together, e. g. ‘He has
never even lent any one a penny, but I have ransomed quite a number of
you.’
23. Another line that is useful for men and causes that have been
really or seemingly slandered, is to show why the facts are not as
supposed; pointing out that there is a reason for the false impression
given. Thus a woman, who had palmed off her son on another woman,
(25) was thought to be the lad’s mistress because she embraced him; but

when her action was explained the charge was shown to be groundless.
Another example is from the Ajax of Theodectes, where Odysseus tells
Ajax the reason why, though he is really braver than Ajax, he is not
thought so.
24. Another line of argument is to show that if the cause is present, the
effect is present, and if absent, absent. For by proving the cause you at
once prove the effect, and conversely nothing can exist without its cause.
(30) Thus Thrasybulus accused Leodamas of having had his name

recorded as a criminal on the slab in the Acropolis, and of erasing the

record in the time of the Thirty Tyrants: to which Leodamas replied,
‘Impossible: for the Thirty would have trusted me all the more if my
quarrel with the commons had been inscribed on the slab. (35)’
25. Another line is to consider whether the accused person can take or
could have taken a better84 course than that which he is recommending
or taking, or has taken. If he has not taken this better course, it is clear
that he is not guilty, since no one deliberately and consciously chooses
what is bad.85 [1400b] This argument is, however, fallacious, for it
often becomes clear after the event how the action could have been done
better, though before the event this was far from clear.
26. Another line is, when a contemplated action is inconsistent with
any past action, to examine them both together. Thus, (5) when the
people of Elea asked Xenophanes if they should or should not sacrifice to
Leucothea and mourn for her, he advised them not to mourn for her if
they thought her a goddess, and not to sacrifice to her if they thought
her a mortal woman.
27. Another line is to make previous mistakes the grounds of
accusation or defence. Thus, in the Medea of Carcinus the accusers allege
that Medea has slain her children; ‘at all events’, they say, (10) ‘they are
not to be seen’—Medea having made the mistake of sending her children
away. In defence she argues that it is not her children, but Jason, whom
she would have slain; for it would have been a mistake on her part not
to do this if she had done the other. This special line of argument for
enthymeme forms the whole of the Art of Rhetoric in use before
Theodorus. (15)
 28. Another line is to draw meanings from names. Sophocles, for
instance, says,

O steel in heart as thou art steel in name.

This line of argument is common in praises of the gods. Thus, too, Conon
called Thrasybulus rash in counsel. And Herodicus said of Thrasymachus,
‘You are always bold in battle’; of Polus, (20) ‘you are always a colt’; and of
the legislator Draco that his laws were those not of a human being but of
a dragon, so savage were they. And, in Euripides, Hecuba says of
Aphrodite,

Her name and Folly’s rightly begin alike,86

and Chaeremon writes

Pentheus—a name foreshadowing grief to come.

The Refutative Enthymeme has a greater reputation than the

Demonstrative, (25) because within a small space it works out two
opposing arguments, and arguments put side by side are clearer to the
audience. But of all syllogisms, whether refutative or demonstrative, (30)
those are most applauded of which we foresee the conclusions from the
beginning, so long as they are not obvious at first sight—for part of the
pleasure we feel is at our own intelligent anticipation; or those which we
follow well enough to see the point of them as soon as the last word has
been uttered.

24 Besides genuine syllogisms, there may be syllogisms that look

genuine but are not; and since an Enthymeme is merely a syllogism of a
particular kind, (35) it follows that, besides genuine Enthymemes, there
may be those that look genuine but are not.
1. Among the lines of argument that form the Spurious Enthymeme
the first is that which arises from the particular words employed.
[1401a]
(a) One variety of this is when—as in dialectic, without having gone
through any reasoning process, we make a final statement as if it were
the conclusion of such a process, ‘Therefore so-and-so is not true’,
‘Therefore also so-and-so must be true’—so too in rhetoric a compact
and antithetical utterance passes for an enthymeme, (5) such language
being the proper province of enthymeme, so that it is seemingly the form
of wording here that causes the illusion mentioned. In order to produce
the effect of genuine reasoning by our form of wording it is useful to
summarize the results of a number of previous reasonings: as ‘some he
saved—others he avenged—the Greeks he freed’.87 (10) Each of these
statements has been previously proved from other facts; but the mere
collocation of them gives the impression of establishing some fresh
conclusion.
(b) Another variety is based on the use of similar words for different
things; e. g. the argument that the mouse must be a noble creature, since
it gives its name to the most august of all religious rites—for such the
Mysteries are. (15) Or one may introduce, into a eulogy of the dog, the
dog-star; or Pan, because Pindar said:

O thou blessed one!

Thou whom they of Olympus call
The hound of manifold shape
That follows the Mother of Heaven:

or we may argue that, because there is much disgrace in there not being
a dog about, there is honour in being a dog.88 Or that Hermes is readier
than any other god to go shares, since we never say ‘shares all round’
except of him. (20) Or that speech89 is a very excellent thing, since good
men are not said to be worth money but to be worthy of esteem—the
phrase ‘worthy of esteem’ also having the meaning of ‘worth speech’.
2. Another line is to assert of the whole what is true of the parts, or of
the parts what is true of the whole. A whole and its parts are supposed
to be identical, though often they are not. (25) You have therefore to
adopt whichever of these two lines better suits your purpose. That is
how Euthydemus argues: e. g. that any one knows that there is a trireme
in the Peiraeus, since he knows the separate details that make up this
statement. There is also the argument that one who knows the letters
knows the whole word, since the word is the same thing as the letters
which compose it; or that, if a double portion of a certain thing is
harmful to health, (30) then a single portion must not be called
wholesome, since it is absurd that two good things should make one bad
thing. Put thus, the Enthymeme is refutative; put as follows,
demonstrative: ‘For one good thing cannot be made up of two bad
things.’ The whole line of argument is fallacious. Again, there is
Polycrates’ saying that Thrasybulus put down thirty tyrants, where the
speaker adds them up one by one. Or the argument in the Orestes of
Theodectes, where the argument is from part to whole:
’Tis right that she who slays her lord should die. (35)

‘It is right, too, that the son should avenge his father. Very good: these
two things are what Orestes has done.’ [1401b] Still, perhaps the two
things, once they are put together, do not form a right act. The fallacy
might also be said to be due to omission, since the speaker fails to say by
whose hand a husband-slayer should die.
3. Another line is the use of indignant language, whether to support
your own case or to overthrow your opponent’s. (5) We do this when we
paint a highly-coloured picture of the situation without having proved
the facts of it: if the defendant does so, he produces an impression of his
innocence; and if the prosecutor goes into a passion, he produces an
impression of the defendant’s guilt. Here there is no genuine
Enthymeme: the hearer infers guilt or innocence, but no proof is given,
and the inference is fallacious accordingly.
4. Another line is to use a ‘Sign’, or single instance, as certain
evidence; which, again, yields no valid proof. Thus, (10) it might be said
that lovers are useful to their countries, since the love of Harmodius and
Aristogeiton caused the downfall of the tyrant Hipparchus.90 Or, again,
that Dionysius is a thief, since he is a vicious man—there is, of course,
no valid proof here; not every vicious man is a thief, though every thief
is a vicious man.
5. Another line represents the accidental as essential. (15) An instance is
what Polycrates says of the mice, that they ‘came to the rescue’ because
they gnawed through the bowstrings. Or it might be maintained that an
invitation to dinner is a great honour, for it was because he was not
invited that Achilles was ‘angered’ with the Greeks at Tenedos. As a fact,
what angered him was the insult involved; it was a mere accident that
this was the particular form that the insult took.
6. Another is the argument from consequence. In the Alexander, (20) for
instance, it is argued that Paris must have had a lofty disposition, since
he despised society and lived by himself on Mount Ida: because lofty
people do this kind of thing, therefore Paris too, we are to suppose, had
a lofty soul. Or, if a man dresses fashionably and roams around at night,
he is a rake, since that is the way rakes behave. (25) Another similar
argument points out that beggars sing and dance in temples, and that
exiles can live wherever they please, and that such privileges are at the
disposal of those we account happy; and therefore every one might be
regarded as happy if only he has those privileges. What matters,
however, is the circumstances under which the privileges are enjoyed.
Hence this line too falls under the head of fallacies by omission.
7. (30) Another line consists in representing as causes things which are
not causes, on the ground that they happened along with or before the
event in question. They assume that, because B happens after A, it
happens because of A. Politicians are especially fond of taking this line.
Thus Demades said that the policy of Demosthenes was the cause of all
the mischief, ‘for after it the war occurred’.
8. Another line consists in leaving out any mention of time and
circumstances. e. g. the argument that Paris was justified in taking
Helen, (35) since her father left her free to choose: here the freedom was
presumably not perpetual; it could only refer to her first choice, beyond
which her father’s authority could not go. [1402a] Or again, one
might say that to strike a free man is an act of wanton outrage; but it is
not so in every case—only when it is unprovoked.
9. Again, a spurious syllogism may, as in ‘eristical’ discussions, be
based on the confusion of the absolute with that which is not absolute
but particular. As, in dialectic, for instance, it may be argued that what-
is-not is, (5) on the ground that what-is-not is what-is-not; or that the
unknown can be known, on the ground that it can be known to be
unknown: so also in rhetoric a spurious Enthymeme may be based on the
confusion of some particular probability with absolute probability. Now
no particular probability is universally probable: as Agathon says,
 One might perchance say this was probable—
That things improbable oft will hap to men. (10)

For what is improbable does happen, and therefore it is probable that

improbable things will happen. Granted this, one might argue that ‘what
is improbable is probable’. But this is not true absolutely. As, in eristic,
the imposture comes from not adding any clause specifying relationship
or reference or manner; so here it arises because the probability in
question is not general but specific. (15) It is of this line of argument that
Corax’s Art of Rhetoric is composed. If the accused is not open to the
charge—for instance if a weakling be tried for violent assault—the
defence is that he was not likely to do such a thing. But if he is open to
the charge—i. e. if he is a strong man—the defence is still that he was
not likely to do such a thing, (20) since he could be sure that people
would think he was likely to do it. And so with any other charge: the
accused must be either open or not open to it: there is in either case an
appearance of probable innocence, but whereas in the latter case the
probability is genuine, in the former it can only be asserted in the special
sense mentioned. This sort of argument illustrates what is meant by
making the worse argument seem the better. Hence people were right in
objecting to the training Protagoras undertook to give them.91 It was a
fraud; the probability it handled was not genuine but spurious, (25) and
has a place in no art except Rhetoric and Eristic.

25 Enthymemes, genuine and apparent, (30) have now been described;

the next subject is their Refutation.
An argument may be refuted either by a counter-syllogism or by
bringing an objection. It is clear that counter-syllogisms can be built up
from the same lines of arguments as the original syllogisms: for the
materials of syllogisms are the ordinary opinions of men, and such
opinions often contradict each other. (35) Objections, as appears in the
Topics,92 may be raised in four ways—either by directly attacking your
opponent’s own statement, or by putting forward another statement like
it, or by putting forward a statement contrary to it, or by quoting
previous decisions.
1. By ‘attacking your opponent’s own statement’ I mean, for instance,
this: if his Enthymeme should assert that love is always good, the
objection can be brought in two ways, either by making the general
statement that ‘all want is an evil’, or by making the particular one that
there would be no talk of ‘Caunian love’93 if there were not evil loves as
well as good ones. [1402b]
2. An objection ‘from a contrary statement’ is raised when, for
instance, the opponent’s Enthymeme having concluded that a good man
does good to all his friends, (5) you object, ‘That proves nothing, for a
bad man does not do evil to all his friends’.
3. An example of an objection ‘from a like statement’ is, the
Enthymeme having shown that ill-used men always hate their ill-users,
to reply, ‘That proves nothing, for well-used men do not always love
those who used them well’.
4. The ‘decisions’ mentioned are those proceeding from well-known
men; for instance, if the Enthymeme employed has concluded that ‘Some
allowance ought to be made for drunken offenders, (10) since they did not
know what they were doing’, the objection will be, ‘Pittacus, then,
deserves no approval, or he would not have prescribed specially severe
penalties for offences due to drunkenness’.
Enthymemes are based upon one or other of four kinds of alleged fact:
(1) Probabilities, (2) Examples, (3) Infallible Signs, (15) (4) Ordinary
Signs.94 (1) Enthymemes based upon Probabilities are those which argue
from what is, or is supposed to be, usually true. (2) Enthymemes based
upon Example are those which proceed by induction from one or more
similar cases, arrive at a general proposition, and then argue deductively
to a particular inference. (3) Enthymemes based upon Infallible Signs are
those which argue from the inevitable and invariable. (4) Enthymemes
based upon ordinary Signs are those which argue from some universal or
particular proposition, (20) true or false.
Now (1) as a Probability is that which happens usually but not always,
Enthymemes founded upon Probabilities can, it is clear, always be
refuted by raising some objection. The refutation is not always genuine:
it may be spurious: for it consists in showing not that your opponent’s
premiss is not probable, but only in showing that it is not inevitably
true. (25) Hence it is always in defence rather than in accusation that it is
possible to gain an advantage by using this fallacy. For the accuser uses
probabilities to prove his case: and to refute a conclusion as improbable
is not the same thing as to refute it as not inevitable. Any argument
based upon what usually happens is always open to objection: otherwise
it would not be a probability but an invariable and necessary truth. But
the judges think, if the refutation takes this form, (30) either that the
accuser’s case is not probable or that they must not decide it; which, as
we said, is a false piece of reasoning. For they ought to decide by
considering not merely what must be true but also what is likely to be
true: this is, indeed, the meaning of ‘giving a verdict in accordance with
one’s honest opinion’. Therefore it is not enough for the defendant to
refute the accusation by proving that the charge is not bound to be true:
he must do so by showing that it is not likely to be true. (35) For this
purpose his objection must state what is more usually true than the
statement attacked. It may do so in either of two ways: either in respect
of frequency or in respect of exactness. It will be most convincing if it
does so in both respects; for if the thing in question both happens oftener
as we represent it and happens more as we represent it, the probability is
particularly great. [1403a]
(2) Fallible Signs, and Enthymemes based upon them, can be refuted
even if the facts are correct, as was said at the outset.95 For we have
shown in the Analytics96 that no Fallible Sign can form part of a valid
logical proof.
(3) Enthymemes depending on examples may be refuted in the same
way as probabilities. (5) If we have a negative instance, the argument is
refuted, in so far as it is proved not inevitable, even though the positive
examples are more similar and more frequent. And if the positive
examples are more numerous and more frequent, we must contend that
the present case is dissimilar, or that its conditions are dissimilar, or that
it is different in some way or other.
(4) It will be impossible to refute Infallible Signs, (10) and Enthymemes
resting on them, by showing in any way that they do not form a valid
logical proof: this, too, we see from the Analytics.97 All we can do is to
show that the fact alleged does not exist. If there is no doubt that it does,
(15) and that it is an Infallible Sign, refutation now becomes impossible:

for this is equivalent to a demonstration which is clear in every respect.

26 Amplification and Depreciation are not an element of Enthymeme.
By ‘an element98 of Enthymeme’ I mean the same thing as ‘a line of
Enthymematic argument’—a general class embracing a large number of
particular kinds of Enthymeme. (20) Amplification and Depreciation are
one kind of Enthymeme, viz. the kind used to show that a thing is great
or small; just as there are other kinds used to show that a thing is good
or bad, just or unjust, and anything else of the sort. All these things are
the subject-matter of syllogisms and Enthymemes; none of these is the
line of argument of an Enthymeme; no more, therefore, are
Amplification and Depreciation.
Nor are Refutative Enthymemes a different species from Constructive.
(25) For it is clear that refutation consists either in offering positive proof

or in raising an objection. In the first case we prove the opposite of our

adversary’s statements. Thus, if he shows that a thing has happened, we
show that it has not; if he shows that it has not happened, we show that
it has. This, then, could not be the distinction if there were one, (30) since
the same means are employed by both parties, Enthymemes being
adduced to show that the fact is or is not so-and-so. An objection, on the
other hand, is not an Enthymeme at all, but, as was said in the Topics,99
it consists in stating some accepted opinion from which it will be clear
that our opponent has not reasoned correctly or has made a false
assumption.
Three points must be studied in making a speech; and we have now
completed the acccount of (1) Examples, (35) Maxims, Enthymemes, and
in general the thought-element—the way to invent and refute arguments.
[1403b] We have next to discuss (2) Style, and (3) Arrangement.

1 i, c. 9.

2 ii, c. 4.

3 Iliad, xviii. 109.

4 Iliad, i. 356.

5 Ib. ix. 648.

6 Iliad, ii. 196.

7 lb. i. 82.

8 ii, c. 2, init.
9 Odyssey, ix. 504.

10 Iliad, xxiv. 54.

11 ii, c. 4, init.

12 i. e. both wish to pass the time pleasantly.

13 Hesiod, Works and Days, 25.

14 1381b 20.

15 1382a 34.

16 The scholiast tells us that Euripides was sent to negotiate peace with the Syracusans, and
finding them unwilling said: ‘You ought, men of Syracuse, to respect our expressions of esteem if
only because we are new petitioners.’ The Euripides in question may well have been the tragic
poet: the popularity of whose poems at Syracuse, and whose turn for rhetorical argument, are
beyond dispute.
17 1384a 27.

18 Particulars unknown.

19 1385a 18.

20 Cp. Categ. Ib 25 ff.

21 Cp. 1382b 26, 27.

22 Iliad, xi. 542. The second line is not found in the existing manuscripts of the Iliad.

23 Aeschylus.

24 i. e. those who dwell at the farthest limits of the western world.

25 Cp. 1388b 5 and i, c. 6.

26 ii, cc. 1 ff.

27 i, c. 9.

28 i, c. 6, 1363a 19.

29 The remark is unknown.

30 ii, c. 8, 1386a 24 and 29.

31 viz. good birth, wealth, and power.

32 Cp. 1360b 19–23.

33 ii, cc. 12–14.

34 ii, cc. 15–17.

35 i, c.8.

36 i, c.3.

37 i, cc. 4–8.

38 i, c. 9.

39 i, cc. 10–14.

40 i, c. 9.

41 Cp. Isocr. xviii. 15.

42 i, c. 7.

43 i. e. some kind of good.

44 Euripides, Medea, 295.

45 ib. 297.

46 Euripides, fragm.

47 Euripides, Hecuba, 864 f.

48 Possibly a fragment of Epicharmus.

49 Euripides, Troades, 1051.

50 Euripides, Medea, 295.

51 Epicharmus?

52 The cicalas would have to chirp on the ground if an enemy cut down the trees.

53 Iliad, xii. 243.

54 Ibid. xviii. 309.

55 Cp. i, c. 15, 1376a 7.

56 Cp. ii, c. 13, 1389b 23–5.

57 1394a 23.

58 i, c. 2, 1356b 3, 1357a 16.

59 Cp. Euripides, Hippolytus, 989.

60 Cp. Thucyd. ii. 27; iv. 57.

61 Cp. Thucyd. ii. 70.

62 Cp. Top. i, c. 14.

63 i, cc. 4–14; ii, cc. 1–18.

64 ii, c. 23.

65 ii, c. 24.

66 ii, c. 25.

67 Positive proof, as opposed to Refutation.

68 i. e. the quality opposite to that which, in the proposition under examination, is said to attach
to the original thing.
69 Cp. 1373b 18.

70 Euripides, Thyestes, fragm.

71 Cp. i, c. 9, 1366b 33.

72 i. e. the right of collecting them.

73 Of Sophocles.

74 Cp. Demosth., Or. xviii, Boeot. de nom., §§7, 10.

75 Isocrates, Helen, 18–38.

76 Ibid., 41–8.
77 Isocrates, Evagoras, 51 ff.

78 Cp. Top. ii. 4; iv. 1.

79 ii, c. 19 supra.

80 Cp. 1398b 6.

81 Cp. Lysias, Or. xxxiv, § 11.

82 Cp. Iliad, x. 218–54.

83 i. e. cakes made of dried olives.

84 i. e. better suited to effect the evil purpose with which he is charged.

85 i. e. bad means to effect his purpose.

86 Euripides, Troades, 990.

87 Isocrates, Evagoras, 65–9.

88 viz. a dog-philosopher, a Cynic.

89 The same Greek word logos is here used for ‘speech’ and ‘esteem’: hence what follows.

90 Cp. Plato, Symposium, 182 B, C.

91 Cp. Plato, Protag., 319 A.

92 Cp. Topics, viii. 10, and Anal. Pr., ii. 26.

93 The incestuous love of Byblis for her brother Caunus.

94 Fallible signs.

95 i, c. 2, 1357b 13, 14.

96 Anal. Pr., ii. 27.

97 Anal. Pr., ii. 27.

98 i. e. an elementary class a primary type: cp. 1396b 21.

99 Cp. Top., viii. 10.

 BOOK III

1 In making a speech one must study three points: first, the means of
producing persuasion; second, the style, or language, to be used; third,
the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech. We have
already specified the sources of persuasion. We have shown that these
are three in number;1 what they are; and why there are only these three:
for we have shown that persuasion must in every case be effected either
(1) by working on the emotions of the judges themselves, (10) (2) by
giving them the right impression of the speakers’ character, or (3) by
proving the truth of the statements made.
Enthymemes also have been described, and the sources from which
they should be derived; there being both special and general lines of
argument for enthymemes.2
Our next subject will be the style of expression. (15) For it is not enough
to know what we ought to say; we must also say it as we ought; much
help is thus afforded towards producing the right impression of a speech.
The first question to receive attention was naturally the one that comes
first naturally—how persuasion can be produced from the facts
themselves. The second is how to set these facts out in language. A third
would be the proper method of delivery; this is a thing that affects the
success of a speech greatly; but hitherto the subject has been neglected.
(20) Indeed, it was long before it found a way into the arts of tragic drama

and epic recitation: at first poets acted their tragedies themselves. It is

plain that delivery has just as much to do with oratory as with poetry.
(In connexion with poetry, (25) it has been studied by Glaucon of Teos
among others.) It is, essentially, a matter of the right management of the
voice to express the various emotions—of speaking loudly, softly, or
between the two; of high, low, or intermediate pitch; of the various
rhythms that suit various subjects. (30) These are the three things—
volume of sound, modulation of pitch, and rhythm—that a speaker bears
in mind. It is those who do bear them in mind who usually win prizes in
the dramatic contests; and just as in drama the actors now count for
more than the poets, so it is in the contests of public life, owing to the
defects of our political institutions. (35) No systematic treatise upon the
rules of delivery has yet been composed; indeed, even the study of
language made no progress till late in the day. Besides, delivery is—very
properly—not regarded as an elevated subject of inquiry. [1404a] Still,
the whole business of rhetoric being concerned with appearances, we
must pay attention to the subject of delivery, unworthy though it is,
because we cannot do without it. The right thing in speaking really is
that we should be satisfied not to annoy our hearers, without trying to
delight them: we ought in fairness to fight our case with no help beyond
the bare facts: nothing, (5) therefore, should matter except the proof of
those facts. Still, as has been already said, other things affect the result
considerably, owing to the defects of our hearers. The arts of language
cannot help having a small but real importance, whatever it is we have
to expound to others: the way in which a thing is said does affect its
intelligibility. (10) Not, however, so much importance as people think. All
such arts are fanciful and meant to charm the hearer. Nobody uses fine
language when teaching geometry.
When the principles of delivery have been worked out, they will
produce the same effect as on the stage. But only very slight attempts to
deal with them have been made and by a few people, (15) as by
Thrasymachus in his ‘Appeals to Pity’. Dramatic ability is a natural gift,
and can hardly be systematically taught. The principles of good diction
can be so taught, and therefore we have men of ability in this direction
too, who win prizes in their turn, as well as those speakers who excel in
delivery—speeches of the written or literary kind owe more of their
effect to their diction than to their thought.
It was naturally the poets who first set the movement going; for words
represent things, (20) and they had also the human voice at their disposal,
which of all our organs can best represent other things. Thus the arts of
recitation and acting were formed, and others as well. Now it was
because poets seemed to win fame through their fine language when
their thoughts were simple enough, (25) that the language of oratorical
prose at first took a poetical colour, e g. that of Gorgias. Even now most
uneducated people think that poetical language makes the finest
discourses. That is not true: the language of prose is distinct from that of
poetry. This is shown by the state of things to-day, (30) when even the
language of tragedy has altered its character. Just as iambics were
adopted, instead of tetrameters, because they are the most proselike of
all metres, so tragedy has given up all those words, not used in ordinary
talk, which decorated the early drama and are still used by the writers of
hexameter poems. It is therefore ridiculous to imitate a poetical manner
which the poets themselves have dropped; and it is now plain that we
have not to treat in detail the whole question of style, (35) but may
confine ourselves to that part of it which concerns our present subject,
rhetoric. The other—the poetical—part of it has been discussed in the
treatise on the Art of Poetry.3

[Chapter 2–12 omitted.]

13 [1414a] A speech has two parts. You must state your case, and
you must prove it. You cannot either state your case and omit to prove
it, or prove it without having first stated it; since any proof must be a
proof of something, and the only use of a preliminary statement is the
proof that follows it. Of these two parts the first part is4 called the
Statement of the case, the second part the Argument, just as we
distinguish5 between Enunciation and Demonstration. The current
division is absurd. (35) For ‘narration’ surely is part of a forensic speech
only: how in a political speech or a speech of display can there be
‘narration’ in the technical sense? or a reply to a forensic opponent? or
an epilogue in closely-reasoned speeches? Again, introduction,
comparison of conflicting arguments, and recapitulation are only found
in political speeches when there is a struggle between two policies.
[1414b] They may occur then; so may even accusation and defence,
often enough; but they form no essential part of a political speech. Even
forensic speeches do not always need epilogues; not, for instance, (5) a
short speech, nor one in which the facts are easy to remember, the effect
of an epilogue being always a reduction in the apparent length.6 It
follows, then, that the only necessary parts of a speech are the Statement
and the Argument. These are the essential features of a speech; and it
cannot in any case have more than Introduction, Statement, Argument,
and Epilogue. ‘Refutation of the Opponent’ is part of the arguments: so is
‘Comparison’ of the opponent’s case with your own, for that process is a
magnifying of your own case and therefore a part of the arguments, (10)
since one who does this proves something. The Introduction does nothing
like this; nor does the Epilogue—it merely reminds us of what has been
said already. If we make such distinctions we shall end, like Theodorus
and his followers, by distinguishing ‘narration’ proper from ‘post-
narration’ and ‘pre-narration’, and ‘refutation’ from ‘final refutation’. But
we ought only to bring in a new name if it indicates a real species with
distinct specific qualities; otherwise the practice is pointless and silly, (15)
like the way Licymnius invented names in his Art of Rhetoric
—‘Secundation’, ‘Divagation’, ‘Ramification’.

14 The Introduction is the beginning of a speech, corresponding to the

prologue in poetry and the prelude in flute-music; they are all
beginnings, (20) paving the way, as it were, for what is to follow. The
musical prelude resembles the introduction to speeches of display; as
flute-players play first some brilliant passage they know well and then fit
it on to the opening notes of the piece itself, so in speeches of display the
writer should proceed in the same way; he should begin with what best
takes his fancy, and then strike up his theme and lead into it; (25) which
is indeed what is always done. (Take as an example the introduction to
the Helen7 of Isocrates—there is nothing in common between the
‘eristics’8 and Helen.) And here, even if you travel far from your subject,
it is fitting, rather than that there should be sameness in the entire
speech. (30)
The usual subject for the introductions to speeches of display is some
piece of praise or censure. Thus Gorgias writes in his Olympic Speech,
‘You deserve widespread admiration, men of Greece’, praising thus those
who started the festival gatherings. Isocrates, on the other hand,
censures them for awarding distinctions to fine athletes but giving no
prize for intellectual ability.9 Or one may begin with a piece of advice,
(35) thus: ‘We ought to honour good men and so I myself am praising

Aristeides’ or ‘We ought to honour those who are unpopular but not bad
men, men whose good qualities have never been noticed, like Alexander
son of Priam.’ [1415a] Here the orator gives advice. Or we may begin
as speakers do in the law-courts; that is to say, with appeals to the
audience to excuse us if our speech is about something paradoxical,
difficult, or hackneyed; like Choerilus in the lines—
 But now when allotment of all has been made …

Introductions to speeches of display, (5) then, may be composed of

some piece of praise or censure, of advice to do or not to do something,
or of appeals to the audience; and you must choose between making
these preliminary passages connected or disconnected with the speech
itself.
Introductions to forensic speeches, it must be observed, have the same
value as the prologues of dramas and the introductions to epic poems;
the dithyrambic prelude resembling the introduction to a speech of
display, (10) as

For thee, and thy gifts, and thy battle-spoils …

In prologues, and in epic poetry, a foretaste of the theme is given,

intended to inform the hearers of it in advance instead of keeping their
minds in suspense. Anything vague puzzles them: so give them a grasp of
the beginning, (15) and they can hold fast to it and follow the argument.
So we find—

Sing, O goddess of song, of the Wrath …10

Tell me, O Muse, of the hero …11

Lead me to tell a new tale, how there came great warfare to Europe Out
of the Asian land …12

The tragic poets, too, let us know the pivot of their play; if not at the
outset like Euripides, at least somewhere in the preface to a speech like
Sophocles—

Polybus was my father …;13

and so in Comedy. (20) This, then, is the most essential function and
distinctive property of the introduction, to show what the aim of the
speech is; and therefore no introduction ought to be employed where the
subject is not long or intricate.
The other kinds of introduction employed are remedial in purpose, (25)
and may be used in any type of speech. They are concerned with the
speaker, the hearer, the subject, or the speaker’s opponent. Those
concerned with the speaker himself or with his opponent are directed to
removing or exciting prejudice. But whereas the defendant will begin by
dealing with this sort of thing, the prosecutor will take quite another line
and deal with such matters in the closing part of his speech. The reason
for this is not far to seek. The defendant, (30) when he is going to bring
himself on the stage, must clear away any obstacles, and therefore must
begin by removing any prejudice felt against him. But if you are to excite
prejudice, you must do so at the close, so that the judges may more
easily remember what you have said.
The appeal to the hearer aims at securing his goodwill, or at arousing
his resentment, or sometimes at gaining his serious attention to the case,
(35) or even at distracting it—for gaining it is not always an advantage,

and speakers will often for that reason try to make him laugh.
You may use any means you choose to make your hearer receptive;
among others, giving him a good impression of your character, which
always helps to secure his attention. He will be ready to attend to
anything that touches himself, and to anything that is important,
surprising, or agreeable; and you should accordingly convey to him the
impression that what you have to say is of this nature. [1415b] If you
wish to distract his attention, you should imply that the subject does not
affect him, or is trivial or disagreeable. But observe, all this has nothing
to do with the speech itself. (5) It merely has to do with the weak-minded
tendency of the hearer to listen to what is beside the point. Where this
tendency is absent, no introduction is wanted beyond a summary
statement of your subject, to put a sort of head on the main body of your
speech. Moreover, calls for attention, when required, may come equally
well in any part of a speech; in fact, (10) the beginning of it is just where
there is least slackness of interest; it is therefore ridiculous to put this
kind of thing at the beginning, when every one is listening with most
attention. Choose therefore any point in the speech where such an
appeal is needed, and then say ‘Now I beg you to note this point—it
concerns you quite as much as myself’; or

I will tell you that whose like you have never yet
heard for terror, or for wonder. This is what Prodicus called ‘slipping in
a bit of the fifty-drachma show-lecture for the audience whenever they
began to nod’. (15) It is plain that such introductions are addressed not to
ideal hearers, but to hearers as we find them. The use of introductions to
excite prejudice or to dispel misgivings is universal—

My lord, I will not say that eagerly …14

or (20)

Why all this preface?15

Introductions are popular with those whose case is weak, or looks weak;
it pays them to dwell on anything rather than the actual facts of it. That
is why slaves, instead of answering the questions put to them, make
indirect replies with long preambles. (25) The means of exciting in your
hearers goodwill and various other feelings of the same kind have
already been described.16 The poet finely says

May I find in Phaeacian hearts, at my coming, goodwill and compassion;17

and these are the two things we should aim at. In speeches of display we
must make the hearer feel that the eulogy includes either himself or his
family or his way of life or something or other of the kind. For it is true,
(30) as Socrates says in the Funeral Speech,18 that ‘the difficulty is not to

praise the Athenians at Athens but at Sparta’.

The introductions of political oratory will be made out of the same
materials as those of the forensic kind, though the nature of political
oratory makes them very rare. The subject is known already, and
therefore the facts of the case need no introduction; but you may have to
say something on account of yourself or your opponents; or those
present may be inclined to treat the matter either more or less seriously
than you wish them to. (35) You may accordingly have to excite or dispel
some prejudice, or to make the matter under discussion seem more or
less important than before: for either of which purposes you will want an
introduction. You may also want one to add elegance to your remarks,
feeling that otherwise they will have a casual air, like Gorgias’ eulogy of
the Eleans, in which, without any preliminary sparring or fencing, he
begins straight off with ‘Happy city of Elis!’

15 In dealing with prejudice, one class of argument is that whereby

you can dispel objectionable suppositions about yourself. [1416a] It
makes no practical difference whether such a supposition has been put
into words or not, (5) so that this distinction may be ignored. Another
way is to meet any of the issues directly: to deny the alleged fact; or to
say that you have done no harm, or none to him, or not as much as he
says; or that you have done him no injustice, or not much; or that you
have done nothing disgraceful, or nothing disgraceful enough to matter:
these are the sort of questions on which the dispute hinges. Thus
Iphicrates, replying to Nausicrates, admitted that he had done the deed
alleged, (10) and that he had done Nausicrates harm, but not that he had
done him wrong. Or you may admit the wrong, but balance it with other
facts, and say that, if the deed harmed him, at any rate it was
honourable; or that, if it gave him pain, at least it did him good; or
something else like that. Another way is to allege that your action was
due to mistake, or bad luck, or necessity—as Sophocles said he was not
trembling, as his traducer maintained, in order to make people think him
an old man, (15) but because he could not help it; he would rather not be
eighty years old.19 You may balance your motive against your actual
deed; saying, for instance, that you did not mean to injure him but to do
so-and-so; that you did not do what you are falsely charged with doing—
the damage was accidental—‘I should indeed be a detestable person if I
had deliberately intended this result.’ Another way is open when your
calumniator, or any of his connexions, (20) is or has been subject to the
same grounds for suspicion. Yet another, when others are subject to the
same grounds for suspicion but are admitted to be in fact innocent of the
charge: e. g. ‘Must I be a profligate because I am well-groomed? Then so-
and-so must be one too.’ Another, if other people have been calumniated
by the same man or some one else, or, without being calumniated, have
been suspected, (25) like yourself now, and yet have been proved
innocent. Another way is to return calumny for calumny and say, ‘It is
monstrous to trust the man’s statements when you cannot trust the man
himself.’ Another is when the question has been already decided. So with
Euripides’ reply to Hygiaenon, who, in the action for an exchange of
properties, (30) accused him of impiety in having written a line
encouraging perjury—

My tongue hath sworn: no oath is on my soul.20

Euripides said that his opponent himself was guilty in bringing into the
law-courts cases whose decision belonged to the Dionysiac contests. ‘If I
have not already answered for my words there, I am ready to do so if
you choose to prosecute me there.’ Another method is to denounce
calumny, showing what an enormity it is, (35) and in particular that it
raises false issues, and that it means a lack of confidence in the merits of
his case. [1416b] The argument from evidential circumstances is
available for both parties: thus in the Teucer Odysseus says that Teucer is
closely bound to Priam, since his mother Hesione was Priam’s sister.
Teucer21 replies that Telamon his father was Priam’s enemy, and that he
himself did not betray the spies to Priam. Another method, suitable for
the caluminator, is to praise some trifling merit at great length, (5) and
then attack some important’ failing concisely; or after mentioning a
number of good qualities to attack one bad one that really bears on the
question. This is the method of thoroughly skilful and unscrupulous
prosecutors. By mixing up the man’s merits with what is bad, they do
their best to make use of them to damage him.
There is another method open to both calumniator and apologist.
Since a given action can be done from many motives, (10) the former
must try to disparage it by selecting the worse motive of the two, the
latter to put the better construction on it. Thus one might argue that
Diomedes chose Odysseus as his companion22 because he supposed
Odysseus to be the best man for the purpose; and you might reply to this
that it was, on the contrary, because he was the only hero so worthless
that Diomedes need not fear his rivalry.

16 We may now pass from the subject of calumny to that of

Narration. (15)
Narration in ceremonial oratory is not continuous but intermittent.
There must, of course, be some survey of the actions that form the
subject-matter of the speech. The speech is a composition containing two
parts. One of these is not provided by the orator’s art, viz. the actions
themselves, of which the orator is in no sense author. (20) The other part
is provided by his art, namely, the proof (where proof is needed) that the
actions were done, the description of their quality or their extent, or
even all these three things together. Now the reason why sometimes it is
not desirable to make the whole narrative continuous is that the case
thus expounded is hard to keep in mind. Show, therefore, from one set of
facts that your hero is, e. g. brave, and from other sets of fact that he is
able, just, &c. A speech thus arranged is comparatively simple, instead of
being complicated and elaborate. You will have to recall well-known
deeds among others; and because they are well-known, (25) the hearer
usually needs no narration of them; none, for instance, if your object is
the praise of Achilles; we all know the facts of his life—what you have to
do is to apply those facts. But if your object is the praise of Critias, you
must narrate his deeds, which not many people know of …
Nowadays it is said, absurdly enough, that the narration should be
rapid. Remember what the man said to the baker who asked whether he
was to make the cake hard or soft: ‘What, (30) can’t you make it right?’
Just so here. We are not to make long narrations, just as we are not to
make long introductions or long arguments. Here, again, rightness does
not consist either in rapidity or in conciseness, (35) but in the happy
mean; that is, in saying just so much as will make the facts plain, or will
lead the hearer to believe that the thing has happened, or that the man
has caused injury or wrong to some one, or that the facts are really as
important as you wish them to be thought: or the opposite facts to
establish the opposite arguments. [1417a]
You may also narrate as you go anything that does credit to yourself,
e. g. ‘I kept telling him, to do his duty and not abandon his children’; or
discredit to your adversary, e. g. ‘But he answered me that, wherever he
might find himself, there he would find other children’, (5) the answer
Herodotus23 records of the Egyptian mutineers. Slip in anything else that
the judges will enjoy.
The defendant will make less of the narration. He has to maintain that
the thing has not happened, or did no harm, or was not unjust, or not so
bad as is alleged. He must therefore not waste time about what is
admitted fact, (10) unless this bears on his own contention; e. g. that the
thing was done, but was not wrong. Further, we must speak of events as
past and gone, except where they excite pity or indignation by being
represented as present. The Story told to Alcinous24 is an example of a
brief chronicle, when it is repeated to Penelope in sixty lines.25 Another
instance is the Epic Cycle as treated by Phayllus, (15) and the prologue to
the Oeneus.26
The narration should depict character; to which end you must know
what makes it do so. One such thing is the indication of moral purpose;
the quality of purpose indicated determines the quality of character
depicted and is itself determined by the end pursued. Thus it is that
mathematical discourses depict no character; they have nothing to do
with moral purpose, for they represent nobody as pursuing any end. (20)
On the other hand, the Socratic dialogues do depict character, being
concerned with moral questions. This end will also be gained by
describing the manifestations of various types of character, e. g. ‘he kept
walking along as he talked’, which shows the man’s recklessness and
rough manners. Do not let your words seem inspired so much by
intelligence, in the manner now current, as by moral purpose: e. g. ‘I
willed this; aye, it was my moral purpose; true, (25) I gained nothing by
it, still it is better thus.’ For the other way shows good sense, but this
shows good character; good sense making us go after what is useful, and
good character after what is noble. Where any detail may appear
incredible, then add the cause of it; of this Sophocles provides an
example in the Antigone, where Antigone says she had cared more for
her brother than for husband or children, (30) since if the latter perished
they might be replaced,

But since my father and mother in their graves

Lie dead, no brother can be born to me.27

If you have no such cause to suggest, just say that you are aware that no
one will believe your words, but the fact remains that such is your
nature, (35) however hard the world may find it to believe that a man
deliberately does anything except what pays him.
Again, you must make use of the emotions. Relate the familiar
manifestations of them, and those that distinguish yourself and your
opponent; for instance, ‘he went away scowling at me’. [1417b] So
Aeschines described Cratylus as ‘hissing with fury and shaking his fists’.
These details carry conviction: the audience take the truth of what they
know as so much evidence for the truth of what they do not. Plenty of
such details may be found in Homer:

Thus did she say: but the old woman buried her face in her hands:28

a true touch—people beginning to cry do put their hands over their eyes.
(5)

Bring yourself on the stage from the first in the right character, that
people may regard you in that light; and the same with your adversary;
but do not let them see what you are about. How easily such impressions
may be conveyed we can see from the way in which we get some inkling
of things we know nothing of by the mere look of the messenger
bringing news of them. (10) Have some narrative in many different parts
of your speech; and sometimes let there be none at the beginning of it.
In political oratory there is very little opening for narration; nobody
can ‘narrate’ what has not yet happened. If there is narration at all, it
will be of past events, the recollection of which is to help the hearers to
make better plans for the future. Or it may be employed to attack some
one’s character, (15) or to eulogize him—only then you will not be doing
what the political speaker, as such, has to do.
If any statement you make is hard to believe, you must guarantee its
truth, and at once offer an explanation, and then furnish it with such
particulars as will be expected. Thus Carcinus’ Jocasta, in his Oedipus,
keeps guaranteeing the truth of her answers to the inquiries of the man
who is seeking her son; and so with Haemon in Sophocles.29

17 The duty of the Arguments is to attempt demonstrative proofs. (20)

These proofs must bear directly upon the question in dispute, which
must fall under one of four heads. (1) If you maintain that the act was
not committed, your main task in court is to prove this. (25) (2) If you
maintain that the act did no harm, prove this. If you maintain that (3) the
act was less than is alleged, or (4) justified, prove these facts, just as you
would prove the act not to have been committed if you were
maintaining that.
It should be noted that only where the question in dispute falls under
the first of these heads can it be true that one of the two parties is
necessarily a rogue. Here ignorance cannot be pleaded, as it might if the
dispute were whether the act was justified or not. This argument must
therefore be used in this case only, not in the others. (30)
In ceremonial speeches you will develop your case mainly by arguing
that what has been done is, e. g., noble and useful. The facts themselves
are to be taken on trust; proof of them is only submitted on those rare
occasions when they are not easily credible or when they have been set
down to some one else.
In political speeches you may maintain that a proposal is
impracticable; or that, (35) though practicable, it is unjust, or will do no
good, or is not so important as its proposer thinks. Note any falsehoods
about irrelevant matters—they will look like proof that his other
statements also are false. Argument by ‘example’ is highly suitable for
political oratory, argument by ‘Enthymeme’ better suits forensic.
[1418a] Political oratory deals with future events, of which it can do
no more than quote past events as examples. Forensic oratory deals with
what is or is not now true, which can better be demonstrated, because
not contingent—there is no contingency in what has now already
happened. Do not use a continuous succession of Enthymemes:
intersperse them with other matter, (5) or they will spoil one another’s
effect. There are limits to their number—

Friend, you have spoken as much as a sensible man would have spoken.30—

‘as much’ says Homer, not ‘as will’. Nor should you try to make
Enthymemes on every point; if you do, (10) you will be acting just like
some students of philosophy, whose conclusions are more familiar and
believable than the premisses from which they draw them. And avoid
the Enthymeme form when you are trying to rouse feeling; for it will
either kill the feeling or will itself fall flat: all simultaneous motions tend
to cancel each other either completely or partially. (15) Nor should you go
after the Enthymeme form in a passage where you are depicting
character—the process of demonstration can express neither moral
character nor moral purpose. Maxims should be employed in the
Arguments—and in the Narration too—since these do express character:
‘I have given him this, though I am quite aware that one should “Trust
no man”.’ Or if you are appealing to the emotions: ‘I do not regret it, (20)
though I have been wronged; if he has the profit on his side, I have
justice on mine.’
Political oratory is a more difficult task than forensic; and naturally so,
since it deals with the future, whereas the pleader deals with the past,
which, as Epimenides of Crete said, even the diviners already know.
(Epimenides did not practise divination about the future; only about the
obscurities of the past. (25)) Besides, in forensic oratory you have a basis
in the law; and once you have a starting-point, you can prove anything
with comparative ease. Then again, political oratory affords few chances
for those leisurely digressions in which you may attack your adversary,
talk about yourself, or work on your hearers’ emotions; fewer chances,
indeed, than any other affords, unless your set purpose is to divert your
hearers’ attention. Accordingly, if you find yourself in difficulties, (30)
follow the lead of the Athenian speakers, and that of Isocrates, who
makes regular attacks upon people in the course of a political speech,
e. g. upon the Lacedaemonians in the Panegyricus,31 and upon Chares in
the speech about the allies.32 In ceremonial oratory, intersperse your
speech with bits of episodic eulogy, like Isocrates, who is always
bringing some one forward for this purpose.33 And this is what Gorgias
meant by saying that he always found something to talk about. For if he
speaks of Achilles, (35) he praises Peleus, then Aeacus, then Zeus; and in
like manner the virtue of valour, describing its good results, and saying
what it is like.
Now if you have proofs to bring forward, bring them forward, and
your moral discourse as well; if you have no Enthymemes, then fall back
upon moral discourse: after all, it is more fitting for a good man to
display himself as an honest fellow than as a subtle reasoner. [1418b]
Refutative Enthymemes are more popular than demonstrative ones: their
logical cogency is more striking: the facts about two opposites always
stand out clearly when the two are put side by side.
The ‘Reply to the Opponent’ is not a separate division of the speech; it
is part of the Arguments to break down the opponent’s case, (5) whether
by objection or by counter-syllogism. Both in political speaking and
when pleading in court, if you are the first speaker you should put your
own arguments forward first, and then meet the arguments on the other
side by refuting them and pulling them to pieces beforehand. If,
however, the case for the other side contains a great variety of
arguments, begin with these, like Callistratus in the Messenian assembly,
when he demolished the arguments likely to be used against him before
giving his own. (10) If you speak later, you must first, by means of
refutation and counter-syllogism, attempt some answer to your
opponent’s speech, especially if his arguments have been well received.
For just as our minds refuse a favourable reception to a person against
whom they are prejudiced, so they refuse it to a speech when they have
been favourably impressed by the speech on the other side. (15) You
should, therefore, make room in the minds of the audience for your
coming speech; and this will be done by getting your opponent’s speech
out of the way. So attack that first—either the whole of it, or the most
important, successful, or vulnerable points in it, and thus inspire
confidence in what you have to say your-self—

First, champion will I be of Goddesses … (20)

Never, I ween, would Hera …:34

where the speaker has attacked the silliest argument first. So much for
the Arguments.
With regard to the element of moral character: there are assertions
which, (25) if made about yourself, may excite dislike, appear tedious, or
expose you to the risk of contradiction; and other things which you
cannot say about your opponent without seeming abusive or illbred. Put
such remarks, therefore, into the mouth of some third person. This is
what Isocrates does in the Philippus35 and in the Antidosis,36 and
Archilochus in his satires. The latter represents the father himself as
attacking his daughter in the lampoon

Think nought impossible at all,

Nor swear that it shall not befall …
and puts into the mouth of Charon the carpenter the lampoon which
begins

Not for the wealth of Gyges.… (30)

So too Sophocles makes Haemon appeal to his father on behalf of

Antigone as if it were others who were speaking.37
Again, sometimes you should restate your Enthymemes in the form of
maxims; e. g. ‘Wise men will come to terms in the hour of success; for
they will gain most if they do’.38 (35) Expressed as an Enthymeme, this
would run, ‘If we ought to come to terms when doing so will enable us
to gain the greatest advantage, then we ought to come to terms in the
hour of success.’

18 Next as to Interrogation. [1419a] The best moment to employ

this is when your opponent has so answered one question that the
putting of just one more lands him in absurdity. Thus Pericles questioned
Lampon about the way of celebrating the rites of the Saviour Goddess.39
Lampon declared that no uninitiated person could be told of them.
Pericles then asked, ‘Do you know them yourself?’ ‘Yes’, answered
Lampon. ‘Why,’ said Pericles, ‘how can that be, (5) when you are
uninitiated?’
Another good moment is when one premiss of an argument is
obviously true, and you can see that your opponent must say ‘yes’ if you
ask him whether the other is true. Having first got this answer about the
other, do not go on to ask him about the obviously true one, but just
state the conclusion yourself. Thus, when Meletus denied that Socrates
believed in the existence of gods but admitted that he talked about a
supernatural power, (10) Socrates proceeded to ask whether ‘supernatural
beings were not either children of the gods or in some way divine?’ ‘Yes’,
said Meletus. ‘Then’, replied Socrates, ‘is there any one who believes in
the existence of children of the gods and yet not in the existence of the
gods themselves?’40 Another good occasion is when you expect to show
that your opponent is contradicting either his own words or what every
one believes. A fourth is when it is impossible for him to meet your
question except by an evasive answer. If he answers ‘True, and yet not
true’, (15) or ‘Partly true and partly not true’, or ‘True in one sense but not
in another’, the audience thinks he is in difficulties, and applauds his
discomfiture. In other cases do not attempt interrogation; for if your
opponent gets in an objection, you are felt to have been worsted. You
cannot ask a series of questions owing to the incapacity of the audience
to follow them; and for this reason you should also make your
enthymemes as compact as possible.
In replying, you must meet ambiguous questions by drawing
reasonable distinctions, (20) not by a curt answer. In meeting questions
that seem to involve you in a contradiction, offer the explanation at the
outset of your answer, before your opponent asks the next question or
draws his conclusion. For it is not difficult to see the drift of his
argument in advance. This point, however, as well as the various means
of refutation, may be regarded as known to us from the Topics.41
When your opponent in drawing his conclusions puts it in the form of
a question, (25) you must justify your answer. Thus when Sophocles was
asked by Peisander whether he had, like the other members of the Board
of Safety, voted for setting up the Four Hundred, he said ‘Yes.’ ‘Why, did
you not think it wicked?’—‘Yes.’—‘So you committed this
wickedness?’—‘Yes’, said Sophocles, ‘for there was nothing better to do.’
(30) Again, the Lacedaemonian, when he was being examined on his

conduct as ephor, was asked whether he thought that the other ephors
had been justly put to death. ‘Yes’, he said. ‘Well then’, asked his
opponent, ‘did not you propose the same measures as
they?’—‘Yes.’—‘Well then, would not you too be justly put to
death?’—‘Not at all’, said he; ‘they were bribed to do it, and I did it from
conviction’. (35) Hence you should not ask any further questions after
drawing the conclusion, nor put the conclusion itself in the form of a
further question, unless there is a large balance of truth on your side.
[1419b]
As to jests. These are supposed to be of some service in controversy.
Gorgias said that you should kill your opponents’ earnestness with
jesting and their jesting with earnestness; in which he was right. (5) Jests
have been classified in the Poetics.42 Some are becoming to a gentleman,
others are not; see that you choose such as become you. Irony better
befits a gentleman than buffoonery; the ironical man jokes to amuse
himself, the buffoon to amuse other people.

19 The Epilogue has four parts. (10) You must (1) make the audience
well-disposed towards yourself and ill-disposed towards your opponent,
(2) magnify or minimize the leading facts, (3) excite the required state of
emotion in your hearers, and (4) refresh their memories.
(1) Having shown your own truthfulness and the untruthfulness of
your opponent, the natural thing is to commend yourself, (15) censure
him, and hammer in your points. You must aim at one of two objects—
you must make yourself out a good man and him a bad one either in
yourselves or in relation to your hearers. How this is to be managed—by
what lines of argument you are to represent people as good or bad—this
has been already explained.43
(2) The facts having been proved, (20) the natural thing to do next is to
magnify or minimize their importance. The facts must be admitted
before you can discuss how important they are; just as the body cannot
grow except from something already present. The proper lines of
argument to be used for this purpose of amplification and depreciation
have already been set forth.44
(3) Next, when the facts and their importance are clearly understood,
(25) you must excite your hearers’ emotions. These emotions are pity,

indignation, anger, hatred, envy, emulation, pugnacity. The lines of

argument to be used for these purposes also have been previously
mentioned.45
(4) Finally you have to review what you have already said. Here you
may properly do what some wrongly recommended doing in the
introduction—repeat your points frequently so as to make them easily
understood. (30) What you should do in your introduction is to state your
subject, in order that the point to be judged may be quite plain; in the
epilogue you should summarize the arguments by which your case has
been proved. The first step in this reviewing process is to observe that
you have done what you undertook to do. You must, then, state what
you have said and why you have said it. Your method may be a
comparison of your own case with that of your opponent; and you may
compare either the ways you have both handled the same point or make
your comparison less direct: ‘My opponent said so-and-so on this point; I
said so-and-so, (35) and this is why I said it’. Or with modest irony, e. g.
‘He certainly said so-and-so, but I said so-and-so’. [1420a] Or ‘How
vain he would have been if he had proved all this instead of that!’ Or put
it in the form of a question, ‘What has not been proved by me?’ or ‘What
has my opponent proved?’ You may proceed, then, either in this way by
setting point against point, or by following the natural order of the
arguments as spoken, first giving your own, and then separately, if you
wish, those of your opponent. [1420b]
For the conclusion, the disconnected style of language is appropriate,
and will mark the difference between the oration and the peroration. ‘I
have done. You have heard me. The facts are before you. I ask for your
judgement.’46

1 i, c. 2.

2 i and ii.

3 Poetics, cc. 20–2.

4 sc. in rhetoric.

5 sc. in dialectic.

6 A good effect where a speech may seem too long; bad, where it may seem too short already.

7 Isocrates, Helena, 1–13.

8 i. e. the disputatious dialecticians to whom Isocrates refers in the introduction to his Helena, 3,
4: Protagoras, Gorgias, &c.
9 Isocrates, Paneg. 1, 2.

10 Iliad, i. 1.

11 Odyssey, i. 1.

12 Choerilus?

13 Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus, 774.

14 Sophocles, Antigone, 223.

15 Cp. Euripides, Iph. Taur., 1162.

16 ii, cc. i ff.

17 Odyssey, vi. 327.

18 Cp. Plato, Menexenus, 235 D.

19 sc. but he was.

20 Euripides, Hippolytus, 612.

21 Sophocles.
22 Cp. Iliad, x. 242–7.

23 Cp. Herodotus, ii. 30.

24 Odyssey, ix–xii.

25 Odyssey, xxiii. 264–84 and 310–43.

26 Euripides.

27 Sophocles, Antigone, 911, 912.

28 Odyssey, xix. 361.

29 Cp. Sophocles, Antigone, 635–8, 701–4.

30 Odyssey, iv. 204.

31 Isocrates, Paneg., 110–14.

32 Cp. Isocrates, De Pace, 27.

33 Isocrates has episodic passages on Theseus (Helena 23–38), on Paris (Helena 41–8), on
Pythagoras and the Egyptian priests (Busiris 21–9), on the poets (Busiris 38–40), and on
Agamemnon (Panathenaicus, 72–84).
34 Euripides, Troades, 969 and 971.

35 Isocrates, Philippus, 4–7.

36 Ib., Antidosis, 132–9, 141–9.

37 Sophocles, Antigone, 688–700.

38 Cp. Isocrates, Archidamus, 50.

39 sc. Demeter.

40 Cp. Plato, Apology, 27 c.

41 Topics, viii.

42 Not in the existing Poetics. Cp. 1372a 1.

43 i, c. 9.

44 ii, c. 19.

45 ii, cc. 1–11.

46 Cp. Lysias, Eratosthenes, fin.

 De Poetica

Translated by Ingram Bywater

 CONTENTS

(A) Preliminary discourse on tragedy, epic poetry, and comedy, as the chief forms of
imitative poetry.
CHAPTER
1. The poetic arts distinguished (1) by the means they use.
2. “ “ (2) by their objects.
3. “ “ (3) by the manner of their imitations.
4. Origin and development of poetry and its kinds.
5. Comedy and epic poetry.
(B) Definition of a tragedy, and the rules for its construction.
6. Definition, and analysis into qualitative parts.
7–11. The plot.
7. Arrangement and length of the play.
8. Unity of action.
9. The poet must depict the probable and the universal.
10. Simple and complex plots.
11. Peripety, Discovery, and Suffering.
12. The quantitative parts of a tragedy.
13–14. How the plot can best produce the emotional effect of tragedy.
13. The tragic hero.
14. The tragic deed.
15. Rules for the character of the tragic personages; note on the use of stage-artifice.
16–18. Appendix to discussion of plot.
16. The various forms of discovery.
17–18. Additional rules for the construction of a play.
19. The thought of the tragic personages.
20–22. The diction of tragedy.
20. The ultimate constituents of language.
21. The different kinds of terms.
22. The characteristics of the language of poetry.
(C) Rules for the construction of an epic.
23. It must preserve unity of action.
24. Points of resemblance and of difference between epic poetry and tragedy.
(D) 25. Possible criticisms of an epic or tragedy, and the answers to them.
(E) 26. Tragedy artistically superior to epic poetry.
 DE POETICA

(Poetics)

1 [1447a] Our subject being Poetry, I propose to speak not only of

the art in general but also of its species and their respective capacities; of
the structure of plot required for a good poem; of the number and nature
of the constituent parts of a poem; and likewise of any other matters in
the same line of inquiry. (10) Let us follow the natural order and begin
with the primary facts.
Epic poetry and Tragedy, as also Comedy, Dithyrambic poetry, and
most flute-playing and lyre-playing, are all, viewed as a whole, (15)
modes of imitation. But at the same time they differ from one another in
three ways, either by a difference of kind in their means, or by
differences in the objects, or in the manner of their imitations.
I. Just as colour and form are used as means by some, who (whether
by art or constant practice) imitate and portray many things by their aid,
and the voice is used by others; so also in the above-mentioned group of
arts, (20) the means with them as a whole are rhythm, language, and
harmony—used, however, either singly or in certain combinations. A
combination of harmony and rhythm alone is the means in flute-playing
and lyre-playing, and any other arts there may be of the same
description, e. g. imitative piping. Rhythm alone, (25) without harmony,
is the means in the dancer’s imitations; for even he, by the rhythms of
his attitudes, may represent men’s characters, as well as what they do
and suffer. There is further an art which imitates by language alone,
without harmony, in prose or in verse, and if in verse, either in some one
or in a plurality of metres. [1447b] This form of imitation is to this
day without a name. We have no common name for a mime of Sophron
or Xenarchus and a Socratic Conversation; and we should still be
without one even if the imitation in the two instances were in trimeters
or elegiacs or some other kind of verse—though it is the way with
people to tack on ‘poet’ to the name of a metre, (10) and talk of elegiac-
poets and epic-poets, thinking that they call them poets not by reason of
the imitative nature of their work, (15) but indiscriminately by reason of
the metre they write in. Even if a theory of medicine or physical
philosophy be put forth in a metrical form, it is usual to describe the
writer in this way; Homer and Empedocles, however, have really nothing
in common apart from their metre; so that, if the one is to be called a
poet, (20) the other should be termed a physicist rather than a poet. We
should be in the same position also, if the imitation in these instances
were in all the metres, like the Centaur (a rhapsody in a medley of all
metres) of Chaeremon; and Chaeremon one has to recognize as a poet.
So much, then, as to these arts. There are, lastly, certain other arts, (25)
which combine all the means enumerated, rhythm, melody, and verse,
e. g. Dithyrambic and Nomic poetry, Tragedy and Comedy; with this
difference, however, that the three kinds of means are in some of them
all employed together, and in others brought in separately, one after the
other. These elements of difference in the above arts I term the means of
their imitation.

2 [1448a] II. The objects the imitator represents are actions, with
agents who are necessarily either good men or bad—the diversities of
human character being nearly always derivative from this primary
distinction, since the line between virtue and vice is one dividing the
whole of mankind. It follows, therefore, that the agents represented must
be either above our own level of goodness, or beneath it, (5) or just such
as we are; in the same way as, with the painters, the personages of
Polygnotus are better than we are, those of Pauson worse, and those of
Dionysius just like ourselves. It is clear that each of the above-mentioned
arts will admit of these differences, and that it will become a separate art
by representing objects with this point of difference. Even in dancing,
flute-playing, (10) and lyre-playing such diversities are possible; and they
are also possible in the nameless art that uses language, prose or verse
without harmony, as its means; Homer’s personages, for instance, are
better than we are; Cleophon’s are on our own level; and those of
Hegemon of Thasos, the first writer of parodies, and Nicochares, the
author of the Diliad, are beneath it. (15) The same is true of the
Dithyramb and the Nome: the personages may be presented in them
with the difference exemplified in the … of … and Argas, and in the
Cyclopses of Timotheus and Philoxenus. This difference it is that
distinguishes Tragedy and Comedy also; the one would make its
personages worse, and the other better, than the men of the present day.

3 III. A third difference in these arts is in the manner in which each

kind of object is represented. (20) Given both the same means and the
same kind of object for imitation, one may either (1) speak at one
moment in narrative and at another in an assumed character, as Homer
does; or (2) one may remain the same throughout, without any such
change; or (3) the imitators may represent the whole story dramatically,
as though they were actually doing the things described.
As we said at the beginning, therefore, the differences in the imitation
of these arts come under three heads, their means, their objects, and
their manner.
So that as an imitator Sophocles will be on one side akin to Homer, (25)
both portraying good men; and on another to Aristophanes, since both
present their personages as acting and doing. This in fact, according to
some, is the reason for plays being termed dramas, because in a play the
personages act the story. Hence too both Tragedy and Comedy are
claimed by the Dorians as their discoveries; Comedy by the Megarians—
by those in Greece as having arisen when Megara became a democracy,
(30) and by the Sicilian Megarians on the ground that the poet

Epicharmus was of their country, and a good deal earlier than Chionides
and Magnes; even Tragedy also is claimed by certain of the
Peloponnesian Dorians. In support of this claim they point to the words
‘comedy’ and ‘drama’. (35) Their word for the outlying hamlets, they say,
is comae, whereas Athenians call them demes—thus assuming that
comedians got the name not from their comoe or revels, but from their
strolling from hamlet to hamlet, lack of appreciation keeping them out
of the city. [1448b] Their word also for ‘to act’, they say, is dran,
whereas Athenians use prattein.
So much, then, as to the number and nature of the points of difference
in the imitation of these arts.

4 It is clear that the general origin of poetry was due to two causes,
each of them part of human nature. Imitation is natural to man from
childhood, (5) one of his advantages over the lower animals being this,
that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by
imitation. And it is also natural for all to delight in works of imitation.
The truth of this second point is shown by experience: though the
objects themselves may be painful to see, (10) we delight to view the most
realistic representations of them in art, the forms for example of the
lowest animals and of dead bodies. The explanation is to be found in a
further fact: to be learning something is the greatest of pleasures not
only to the philosopher but also to the rest of mankind, however small
their capacity for it; the reason of the delight in seeing the picture is that
one is at the same time learning—gathering the meaning of things, (15)
e. g. that the man there is so-and-so; for if one has not seen the thing
before, one’s pleasure will not be in the picture as an imitation of it, but
will be due to the execution or colouring or some similar cause. (20)
Imitation, then, being natural to us—as also the sense of harmony and
rhythm, the metres being obviously species of rhythms—it was through
their original aptitude, and by a series of improvements for the most part
gradual on their first efforts, that they created poetry out of their
improvisations.
Poetry, however, soon broke up into two kinds according to the
differences of character in the individual poets; for the graver among
them would represent noble actions, (25) and those of noble personages;
and the meaner sort the actions of the ignoble. The latter class produced
invectives at first, just as others did hymns and panegyrics. We know of
no such poem by any of the pre-Homeric poets, though there were
probably many such writers among them; instances, however, may be
found from Homer downwards, e. g. his Margites, (30) and the similar
poems of others. In this poetry of invective its natural fitness brought an
iambic metre into use; hence our present term ‘iambic’, because it was
the metre of their ‘iambs’ or invectives against one another. The result
was that the old poets became some of them writers of heroic and others
of iambic verse. Homer’s position, however, is peculiar: just as he was in
the serious style the poet of poets, (35) standing alone not only through
the literary excellence, but also through the dramatic character of his
imitations, so too he was the first to outline for us the general forms of
Comedy by producing not a dramatic invective, but a dramatic picture of
the Ridiculous; his Margites in fact stands in the same relation to our
comedies as the Iliad and Odyssey to our tragedies. [1449a] As soon,
however, as Tragedy and Comedy appeared in the field, those naturally
drawn to the one line of poetry became writers of comedies instead of
iambs, (5) and those naturally drawn to the other, writers of tragedies
instead of epics, because these new modes of art were grander and of
more esteem than the old.
If it be asked whether Tragedy is now all that it need be in its
formative elements, to consider that, and decide it theoretically and in
relation to the theatres, is a matter for another inquiry.
It certainly began in improvisations—as did also Comedy; the one
originating with the authors of the Dithyramb, (10) the other with those
of the phallic songs, which still survive as institutions in many of our
cities. And its advance after that was little by little, through their
improving on whatever they had before them at each stage. It was in
fact only after a long series of changes that the movement of Tragedy
stopped on its attaining to its natural form. (15) (1) The number of actors
was first increased to two by Aeschylus, who curtailed the business of
the Chorus, and made the dialogue, or spoken portion, take the leading
part in the play. (2) A third actor and scenery were due to Sophocles. (3)
Tragedy acquired also its magnitude. Discarding short stories and a
ludicrous diction, (20) through its passing out of its satyric stage, it
assumed, though only at a late point in its progress, a tone of dignity;
and its metre changed then from trochaic to iambic. The reason for their
original use of the trochaic tetrameter was that their poetry was satyric
and more connected with dancing than it now is. As soon, however, as a
spoken part came in, nature herself found the appropriate metre. The
iambic, we know, is the most speakable of metres, as is shown by the
fact that we very often fall into it in conversation, (25) whereas we rarely
talk hexameters, and only when we depart from the speaking tone of
voice. (4) Another change was a plurality of episodes or acts. As for the
remaining matters, the superadded embellishments and the account of
their introduction, these must be taken as said, as it would probably be a
long piece of work to go through the details. (30)
5 As for Comedy, it is (as has been observed1 an imitation of men
worse than the average; worse, however, not as regards any and every
sort of fault, but only as regards one particular kind, the Ridiculous,
which is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a
mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others; the mask,
(35) for instance, that excites laughter, is something ugly and distorted

without causing pain.

Though the successive changes in Tragedy and their authors are not
unknown, we cannot say the same of Comedy; its early stages passed
unnoticed, because it was not as yet taken up in a serious way.
[1449b] It was only at a late point in its progress that a chorus of
comedians was officially granted by the archon; they used to be mere
volunteers. It had also already certain definite forms at the time when
the record of those termed comic poets begins. Who it was who supplied
it with masks, or prologues, or a plurality of actors and the like, has
remained unknown. The invented Fable, or Plot, however, (5) originated
in Sicily with Epicharmus and Phormis; of Athenian poets Crates was the
first to drop the Comedy of invective and frame stories of a general and
non-personal nature, in other words, Fables or Plots.
Epic poetry, then, has been seen to agree with Tragedy to this extent,
that of being an imitation of serious subjects in a grand kind of verse. (10)
It differs from it, however, (1) in that it is in one kind of verse and in
narrative form; and (2) in its length—which is due to its action having
no fixed limit of time, whereas Tragedy endeavours to keep as far as
possible within a single circuit of the sun, or something near that. This, I
say, is another point of difference between them, (15) though at first the
practice in this respect was just the same in tragedies as in epic poems.
They differ also (3) in their constituents, some being common to both
and others peculiar to Tragedy—hence a judge of good and bad in
Tragedy is a judge of that in epic poetry also. All the parts of an epic are
included in Tragedy; but those of Tragedy are not all of them to be
found in the Epic.

6 Reserving hexameter poetry and Comedy for consideration

hereafter,2 (20) let us proceed now to the discussion of Tragedy; before
doing so, however, we must gather up the definition resulting from what
has been said. A tragedy, then, is the imitation of an action that is
serious and also, (25) as having magnitude, complete in itself; in language
with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts
of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents
arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such
emotions. Here by ‘language with pleasurable accessories’ I mean that
with rhythm and harmony or song superadded; and by ‘the kinds
separately’ I mean that some portions are worked out with verse only,
(30) and others in turn with song.

I. As they act the stories, it follows that in the first place the Spectacle
(or stage-appearance of the actors) must be some part of the whole; and
in the second Melody and Diction, these two being the means of their
imitation. Here by ‘Diction’ I mean merely this, (35) the composition of
the verses; and by ‘Melody’, what is too completely understood to
require explanation. But further: the subject represented also is an
action; and the action involves agents, who must necessarily have their
distinctive qualities both of character and thought, since it is from these
that we ascribe certain qualities to their actions. [1450a] There are in
the natural order of things, therefore, two causes, Thought and
Character, of their actions, and consequently of their success or failure in
their lives. Now the action (that which was done) is represented in the
play by the Fable or Plot. The Fable, in our present sense of the term, is
simply this, the combination of the incidents, or things done in the story;
whereas Character is what makes us ascribe certain moral qualities to
the agents; and Thought is shown in all they say when proving a
particular point or, (5) it may be, enunciating a general truth. There are
six parts consequently of every tragedy, as a whole (that is) of such or
such quality, viz. a Fable or Plot, Characters, Diction, Thought,
Spectacle, and Melody; two of them arising from the means, one from
the manner, (10) and three from the objects of the dramatic imitation; and
there is nothing else besides these six. Of these, its formative elements,
then, not a few of the dramatists have made due use, as every play, one
may say, admits of Spectacle, Character, Fable, Diction, Melody, and
Thought.
II. The most important of the six is the combination of the incidents of
the story. (15) Tragedy is essentially an imitation not of persons but of
action and life, of happiness and misery. All human happiness or misery
takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of
activity, not a quality. Character gives us qualities, but it is in our
actions—what we do—that we are happy or the reverse. In a play
accordingly they do not act in order to portray the Characters; they
include the Characters for the sake of the action. (20) So that it is the
action in it, i. e. its Fable or Plot, that is the end and purpose of the
tragedy; and the end is everywhere the chief thing. Besides this, a
tragedy is impossible without action, but there may be one without
Character. The tragedies of most of the moderns are characterless—a
defect common among poets of all kinds, (25) and with its counterpart in
painting in Zeuxis as compared with Polygnotus; for whereas the latter is
strong in character, the work of Zeuxis is devoid of it. And again: one
may string together a series of characteristic speeches of the utmost
finish as regards Diction and Thought, and yet fail to produce the true
tragic effect; but one will have much better success with a tragedy
which, (30) however inferior in these respects, has a Plot, a combination
of incidents, in it. And again: the most powerful elements of attraction in
Tragedy, the Peripeties and Discoveries, are parts of the Plot. A further
proof is in the fact that beginners succeed earlier with the Diction and
Characters than with the construction of a story; and the same may be
said of nearly all the early dramatists. (35) We maintain, therefore, that
the first essential, the life and soul, so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot;
and that the Characters come second—compare the parallel in painting,
where the most beautiful colours laid on without order will not give one
the same pleasure as a simple black-and-white sketch of a portrait.
[1450b] We maintain that Tragedy is primarily an imitation of action,
and that it is mainly for the sake of the action that it imitates the
personal agents. Third comes the element of Thought, (5) i. e. the power
of saying whatever can be said, or what is appropriate to the occasion.
This is what, in the speeches in Tragedy, falls under the arts of Politics
and Rhetoric; for the older poets make their personages discourse like
statesmen, and the modern like rhetoricians. One must not confuse it
with Character. Character in a play is that which reveals the moral
purpose of the agents, i. e. the sort of thing they seek or avoid, where
that is not obvious—hence there is no room for Character in a speech on
a purely indifferent subject. Thought, (10) on the other hand, is shown in
all they say when proving or disproving some particular point, or
enunciating some universal proposition. Fourth among the literary
elements is the Diction of the personages, i. e., as before explained,3 the
expression of their thoughts in words, (15) which is practically the same
thing with verse as with prose. As for the two remaining parts, the
Melody is the greatest of the pleasurable accessories of Tragedy. The
Spectacle, though an attraction, is the least artistic of all the parts, and
has least to do with the art of poetry. The tragic effect is quite possible
without a public performance and actors; and besides, the getting-up of
the Spectacle is more a matter for the costumier than the poet. (20)

7 Having thus distinguished the parts, let us now consider the proper
construction of the Fable or Plot, as that is at once the first and the most
important thing in Tragedy. We have laid it down that a tragedy is an
imitation of an action that is complete in itself, (25) as a whole of some
magnitude; for a whole may be of no magnitude to speak of. Now a
whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end. A beginning is that
which is not itself necessarily after anything else, and which has
naturally something else after it; an end is that which is naturally after
something itself, (30) either as its necessary or usual consequent, and with
nothing else after it; and a middle, that which is by nature after one
thing and has also another after it. A well-constructed Plot, therefore,
cannot either begin or end at any point one likes; beginning and end in
it must be of the forms just described. Again: to be beautiful, a living
creature, and every whole made up of parts, (35) must not only present a
certain order in its arrangement of parts, but also be of a certain definite
magnitude. Beauty is a matter of size and order, and therefore
impossible either (1) in a very minute creature, since our perception
becomes indistinct as it approaches instantaneity; or (2) in a creature of
vast size—one, say, 1,000 miles long—as in that case, instead of the
object being seen all at once, the unity and wholeness of it is lost to the
beholder. [1451a] Just in the same way, then, as a beautiful whole
made up of parts, or a beautiful living creature, must be of some size,
but a size to be taken in by the eye, so a story or Plot must be of some
length, (5) but of a length to be taken in by the memory. As for the limit
of its length, so far as that is relative to public performances and
spectators, it does not fall within the theory of poetry. If they had to
perform a hundred tragedies, they would be timed by water-clocks, as
they are said to have been at one period. The limit, however, set by the
actual nature of the thing is this: the longer the story, (10) consistently
with its being comprehensible as a whole, the finer it is by reason of its
magnitude. As a rough general formula, ‘a length which allows of the
hero passing by a series of probable or necessary stages from misfortune
to happiness, or from happiness to misfortune’, may suffice as a limit for
the magnitude of the story. (15)

8 The Unity of a Plot does not consist, as some suppose, in its having
one man as its subject. An infinity of things befall that one man, some of
which it is impossible to reduce to unity; and in like manner there are
many actions of one man which cannot be made to form one action. One
sees, therefore, the mistake of all the poets who have written a Heracleid,
(20) a Theseid, or similar poems; they suppose that, because Heracles was

one man, the story also of Heracles must be one story. Homer, however,
evidently understood this point quite well, whether by art or instinct,
just in the same way as he excels the rest in every other respect. In
writing an Odyssey, he did not make the poem cover all that ever befell
his hero—it befell him, for instance, (25) to get wounded on Parnassus
and also to feign madness at the time of the call to arms, but the two
incidents had no necessary or probable connexion with one another—
instead of doing that, he took as the subject of the Odyssey, as also of the
Iliad, an action with a Unity of the kind we are describing. The truth is
that, just as in the other imitative arts one imitation is always of one
thing, (30) so in poetry the story, as an imitation of action, must represent
one action, a complete whole, with its several incidents so closely
connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will
disjoin and dislocate the whole. For that which makes no perceptible
difference by its presence or absence is no real part of the whole. (35)

9 From what we have said it will be seen that the poet’s function is to
describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might
happen, i. e. what is possible as being probable or necessary. The
distinction between historian and poet is not in the one writing prose
and the other verse—you might put the work of Herodotus into verse,
and it would still be a species of history; it consists really in this, that the
one describes the thing that has been, and the other a kind of thing that
might be. [1451b] Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of
graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather
of universals, whereas those of history are singulars. (5) By a universal
statement I mean one as to what such or such a kind of man will
probably or necessarily say or do—which is the aim of poetry, though it
affixes proper names to the characters; by a singular statement, (10) one
as to what, say, Alcibiades did or had done to him. In Comedy this has
become clear by this time; it is only when their plot is already made up
of probable incidents that they give it a basis of proper names, choosing
for the purpose any names that may occur to them, instead of writing
like the old iambic poets about particular persons. (15) In Tragedy,
however, they still adhere to the historic names; and for this reason:
what convinces is the possible; now whereas we are not yet sure as to
the possibility of that which has not happened, that which has happened
is manifestly possible, else it would not have come to pass. Nevertheless
even in Tragedy there are some plays with but one or two known names
in them, (20) the rest being inventions; and there are some without a
single known name, e. g. Agathon’s Antheus, in which both incidents and
names are of the poet’s invention; and it is no less delightful on that
account. So that one must not aim at a rigid adherence to the traditional
stories on which tragedies are based. (25) It would be absurd, in fact, to
do so, as even the known stories are only known to a few, though they
are a delight none the less to all.
It is evident from the above that the poet must be more the poet of his
stories or Plots than of his verses, inasmuch as he is a poet by virtue of
the imitative element in his work, and it is actions that he imitates. And
if he should come to take a subject from actual history, (30) he is none the
less a poet for that; since some historic occurrences may very well be in
the probable and possible order of things; and it is in that aspect of them
that he is their poet.
Of simple Plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a Plot
episodic when there is neither probability nor necessity in the sequence
of its episodes. (35) Actions of this sort bad poets construct through their
own fault, and good ones on account of the players. His work being for
public performance, a good poet often stretches out a Plot beyond its
capabilities, and is thus obliged to twist the sequence of incident.
[1452a] Tragedy, however, is an imitation not only of a complete
action, but also of incidents arousing pity and fear. Such incidents have
the very greatest effect on the mind when they occur unexpectedly and
at the same time in consequence of one another; there is more of the
marvellous in them then than if they happened of themselves or by mere
chance. (5) Even matters of chance seem most marvellous if there is an
appearance of design as it were in them; as for instance the statue of
Mitys at Argos killed the author of Mitys’ death by falling down on him
when a looker-on at a public spectacle; for incidents like that we think to
be not without a meaning. A Plot, therefore, (10) of this sort is necessarily
finer than others.

10 Plots are either simple or complex, since the actions they represent
are naturally of this twofold description. The action, proceeding in the
way defined, as one continuous whole, I call simple, (15) when the change
in the hero’s fortunes takes place without Peripety or Discovery; and
complex, when it involves one or the other, or both. These should each
of them arise out of the structure of the Plot itself, so as to be the
consequence, necessary or probable, of the antecedents. There is a great
difference between a thing happening propter hoc and post hoc. (20)

11 A Peripety is the change of the kind described from one state of

things within the play to its opposite, and that too in the way we are
saying, in the probable or necessary sequence of events; as it is for
instance in Oedipus: here the opposite state of things is produced by the
Messenger, (25) who, coming to gladden Oedipus and to remove his fears
as to his mother, reveals the secret of his birth.4 And in Lynceus:5 just as
he is being led off for execution, with Danaus at his side to put him to
death, the incidents preceding this bring it about that he is saved and
Danaus put to death. A Discovery is, (30) as the very word implies, a
change from ignorance to knowledge, and thus to either love or hate, in
the personages marked for good or evil fortune. The finest form of
Discovery is one attended by Peripeties, like that which goes with the
Discovery in Oedipus. There are no doubt other forms of it; what we have
said may happen in a way in reference to inanimate things, even things
of a very casual kind; and it is also possible to discover whether some
one has done or not done something. (35) But the form most directly
connected with the Plot and the action of the piece is the first-
mentioned. [1452b] This, with a Peripety, will arouse either pity or
fear—actions of that nature being what Tragedy is assumed to represent;
and it will also serve to bring about the happy or unhappy ending. The
Discovery, then, being of persons, it may be that of one party only to the
other, the latter being already known; or both the parties may have to
discover themselves. (5) Iphigenia, for instance, was discovered to Orestes
by sending the letter;6 and another Discovery was required to reveal him
to Iphigenia.
Two parts of the Plot, then, Peripety and Discovery, are on matters of
this sort. (10) A third part is Suffering; which we may define as an action
of a destructive or painful nature, such as murders on the stage, tortures,
woundings, and the like. The other two have been already explained.

12 The parts of Tragedy to be treated as formative elements in the

whole were mentioned in a previous Chapter.7 (15) From the point of
view, however, of its quantity, i. e. the separate sections into which it is
divided, a tragedy has the following parts: Prologue, Episode, Exode, and
a choral portion, distinguished into Parode and Stasimon; these two are
common to all tragedies, whereas songs from the stage and Commoe are
only found in some. (20) The Prologue is all that precedes the Parode of
the chorus; an Episode all that comes in between two whole choral
songs; the Exode all that follows after the last choral song. In the choral
portion the Parode is the whole first statement of the chorus; a Stasimon,
a song of the chorus without anapaests or trochees; a Commos, a
lamentation sung by chorus and actor in concert. (25) The parts of
Tragedy to be used as formative elements in the whole we have already
mentioned; the above are its parts from the point of view of its quantity,
or the separate sections into which it is divided.
13 The next points after what we have said above will be these: (1)
What is the poet to aim at, and what is he to avoid, in constructing his
Plots? and (2) What are the conditions on which the tragic effect
depends?
We assume that, (30) for the finest form of Tragedy, the Plot must be
not simple but complex; and further, that it must imitate actions
arousing fear and pity, since that is the distinctive function of this kind
of imitation. It follows, therefore, that there are three forms of Plot to be
avoided. (1) A good man must not be seen passing from happiness to
misery, or (2) a bad man from misery to happiness. (35) The first situation
is not fear-inspiring or piteous, but simply odious to us. The second is
the most untragic that can be; it has no one of the requisites of Tragedy;
it does not appeal either to the human feeling in us, or to our pity, or to
our fears. [1453a] Nor, on the other hand, should (3) an extremely
bad man be seen falling from happiness into misery. Such a story may
arouse the human feeling in us, but it will not move us to either pity or
fear; pity is occasioned by undeserved misfortune, (5) and fear by that of
one like ourselves; so that there will be nothing either piteous or fear-
inspiring in the situation. There remains, then, the intermediate kind of
personage, a man not preeminently virtuous and just, whose misfortune,
however, is brought upon him not by vice and depravity but by some
error of judgement, of the number of those in the enjoyment of great
reputation and prosperity; e. g. Oedipus, Thyestes, and the men of note
of similar families. (10) The perfect Plot, accordingly, must have a single,
and not (as some tell us) a double issue; the change in the hero’s
fortunes must be not from misery to happiness, but on the contrary from
happiness to misery; and the cause of it must lie not in any depravity, (15)
but in some great error on his part; the man himself being either such as
we have described, or better, not worse, than that. Fact also confirms
our theory. Though the poets began by accepting any tragic story that
came to hand, in these days the finest tragedies are always on the story
of some few houses, on that of Alcmeon, Oedipus, Orestes, (20) Meleager,
Thyestes, Telephus, or any others that may have been involved, as either
agents or sufferers, in some deed of horror. The theoretically best
tragedy, then, has a Plot of this description. The critics, therefore, are
wrong who blame Euripides for taking this line in his tragedies, and
giving many of them an unhappy ending. It is, (25) as we have said, the
right line to take. The best proof is this: on the stage, and in the public
performances, such plays, properly worked out, are seen to be the most
truly tragic; and Euripides, even if his execution be faulty in every other
point, is seen to be nevertheless the most tragic certainly of the
dramatists. After this comes the construction of Plot which some rank
first, (30) one with a double story (like the Odyssey) and an opposite issue
for the good and the bad personages. It is ranked as first only through
the weakness of the audiences; the poets merely follow their public,
writing as its wishes dictate. (35) But the pleasure here is not that of
Tragedy. It belongs rather to Comedy, where the bitterest enemies in the
piece (e. g. Orestes and Aegisthus) walk off good friends at the end, with
no slaying of any one by any one.

14 The tragic fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle; but they
may also be aroused by the very structure and incidents of the play—
which is the better way and shows the better poet. [1453b] The Plot in
fact should be so framed that, even without seeing the things take place,
(5) he who simply hears the account of them shall be filled with horror

and pity at the incidents; which is just the effect that the mere recital of
the story in Oedipus would have on one. To produce this same effect by
means of the Spectacle is less artistic, and requires extraneous aid.
Those, however, who make use of the Spectacle to put before us that
which is merely monstrous and not productive of fear, (10) are wholly out
of touch with Tragedy; not every kind of pleasure should be required of
a tragedy, but only its own proper pleasure.
The tragic pleasure is that of pity and fear, and the poet has to
produce it by a work of imitation; it is clear, therefore, that the causes
should be included in the incidents of his story. Let us see, then, (15) what
kinds of incident strike one as horrible, or rather as piteous. In a deed of
this description the parties must necessarily be either friends, or
enemies, or indifferent to one another. Now when enemy does it on
enemy, there is nothing to move us to pity either in his doing or in his
meditating the deed, except so far as the actual pain of the sufferer is
concerned; and the same is true when the parties are indifferent to one
another. Whenever the tragic deed, however, (20) is done within the
family—when murder or the like is done or meditated by brother on
brother, by son on father, by mother on son, or son on mother—these
are the situations the poet should seek after. The traditional stories,
accordingly, must be kept as they are, e. g. the murder of Clytaemnestra
by Orestes and of Eriphyle by Alcmeon. (25) At the same time even with
these there is something left to the poet himself; it is for him to devise
the right way of treating them. Let us explain more clearly what we
mean by ‘the right way’. The deed of horror may be done by the doer
knowingly and consciously, as in the old poets, and in Medea’s murder
of her children in Euripides.8 Or he may do it, (30) but in ignorance of his
relationship, and discover that afterwards, as does the Oedipus in
Sophocles. Here the deed is outside the play; but it may be within it, like
the act of the Alcmeon in Astydamas, or that of the Telegonus in Ulysses
Wounded.9 A third possibility is for one meditating some deadly injury to
another, (35) in ignorance of his relationship, to make the discovery in
time to draw back. These exhaust the possibilities, since the deed must
necessarily be either done or not done, and either knowingly or
unknowingly.
The worst situation is when the personage is with full knowledge on
the point of doing the deed, and leaves it undone. It is odious and also
(through the absence of suffering) untragic; hence it is that no one is
made to act thus except in some few instances, e. g. Haemon and Creon
in Antigone.10 [1454a] Next after this comes the actual perpetration of
the deed meditated. A better situation than that, however, is for the deed
to be done in ignorance, and the relationship discovered afterwards,
since there is nothing odious in it, and the Discovery will serve to
astound us. But the best of all is the last; what we have in Cresphontes,11
(5) for example, where Merope, on the point of slaying her son,

recognizes him in time; in Iphigenia, where sister and brother are in a

like position; and in Helle,12 where the son recognizes his mother, when
on the point of giving her up to her enemy.
This will explain why our tragedies are restricted (as we said just
now)13 to such a small number of families. It was accident rather than
art that led the poets in quest of subjects to embody this kind of incident
in their Plots. (10) They are still obliged, accordingly, to have recourse to
the families in which such horrors have occurred.
 On the construction of the Plot, and the kind of Plot required for
Tragedy, enough has now been said. (15)

15 In the Characters there are four points to aim at. First and
foremost, that they shall be good. There will be an element of character
in the play, if (as has been observed)14 what a personage says or does
reveals a certain moral purpose; and a good element of character, if the
purpose so revealed is good. Such goodness is possible in every type of
personage, even in a woman or a slave, though the one is perhaps an
inferior, (20) and the other a wholly worthless being. The second point is
to make them appropriate. The Character before us may be, say, manly;
but it is not appropriate in a female Character to be manly, or clever.
The third is to make them like the reality, which is not the same as their
being good and appropriate, in our sense of the term. (25) The fourth is to
make them consistent and the same throughout; even if inconsistency be
part of the man before one for imitation as presenting that form of
character, he should still be consistently inconsistent. We have an
instance of baseness of character, not required for the story, in the
Menelaus in Orestes; of the incongruous and unbefitting in the
lamentation of Ulysses in Scylla,15 and in the (clever) speech of
Melanippe;16 and of inconsistency in Iphigenia at Aulis,17 (30) where
Iphigenia the suppliant is utterly unlike the later Iphigenia. The right
thing, however, is in the Characters just as in the incidents of the play to
endeavour always after the necessary or the probable; so that whenever
such-and-such a personage says or does such-and-such a thing, (35) it
shall be the necessary or probable outcome of his character; and
whenever this incident follows on that, it shall be either the necessary or
the probable consequence of it. From this one sees (to digress for a
moment) that the Dénouement also should arise out of the plot itself,
and not depend on a stage-artifice, as in Medea,18 or in the story of the
(arrested) departure of the Greeks in the Iliad.19 [1454b] The artifice
must be reserved for matters outside the play—for past events beyond
human knowledge, (5) or events yet to come, which require to be foretold
or announced; since it is the privilege of the Gods to know everything.
There should be nothing improbable among the actual incidents. If it be
unavoidable, however, it should be outside the tragedy, like the
improbability in the Oedipus of Sophocles. But to return to the
Characters. As Tragedy is an imitation of personages better than the
ordinary man, we in our way should follow the example of good
portrait-painters, (10) who reproduce the distinctive features of a man,
and at the same time, without losing the likeness, make him handsomer
than he is. The poet in like manner, in portraying men quick or slow to
anger, or with similar infirmities of character, must know how to
represent them as such, and at the same time as good men, as Agathon
and Homer have represented Achilles.
All these rules one must keep in mind throughout, (15) and, further,
those also for such points of stage-effect as directly depend on the art of
the poet, since in these too one may often make mistakes. Enough,
however, has been said on the subject in one of our published writings.20

16 Discovery in general has been explained already.21 As for the

species of Discovery, (20) the first to be noted is (1) the least artistic form
of it, of which the poets make most use through mere lack of invention,
Discovery by signs or marks. Of these signs some are congenital, like the
‘lance-head which the Earth-born have on them’,22 or ‘stars’, such as
Carcinus brings in his Thyestes; others acquired after birth—these latter
being either marks on the body, e. g. scars, or external tokens, like
necklaces, or (to take another sort of instance) the ark in the Discovery
in Tyro.23 (25) Even these, however, admit of two uses, a better and a
worse; the scar of Ulysses is an instance; the Discovery of him through it
is made in one way by the nurse24 and in another by the swineherds.25 A
Discovery using signs as a means of assurance is less artistic, as indeed
are all such as imply reflection; whereas one bringing them in all of a
sudden, as in the Bath-story,26 is of a better order. (30) Next after these are
(2) Discoveries made directly by the poet; which are inartistic for that
very reason; e. g. Orestes’ Discovery of himself in Iphigenia: whereas his
sister reveals who she is by the letter,27 Orestes is made to say himself
what the poet rather than the story demands.28 This, (35) therefore, is not
far removed from the first-mentioned fault, since he might have
presented certain tokens as well. Another instance is the ‘shuttle’s voice’
in the Tereus of Sophocles. (3) A third species is Discovery through
memory, from a man’s consciousness being awakened by something
seen. [1455b] Thus in The Cyprioe of Dicaeogenes, the sight of the
picture makes the man burst into tears; and in the Tale of Alcinous,29
hearing the harper Ulysses is reminded of the past and weeps; the
Discovery of them being the result. (4) A fourth kind is Discovery
through reasoning; e. g. in The Choephoroe;30 ‘One like me is here; there
is no one like me but Orestes; he, (5) therefore, must be here.’ Or that
which Polyidus the Sophist suggested for Iphigenia; since it was natural
for Orestes to reflect: ‘My sister was sacrificed, and I am, to be sacrificed
like her.’ Or that in the Tydeus of Theodectes: ‘I came to find a son, and
am to die myself.’ Or that in The Phinidae:31 on seeing the place the
women inferred their fate, (10) that they were to die there, since they had
also been exposed there. (5) There is, too, a composite Discovery arising
from bad reasoning on the side of the other party. An instance of it is in
Ulysses the False Messenger:31 he said he should know the bow—which he
had not seen; but to suppose from that that he would know it again (as
though he had once seen it) was bad reasoning. (15) (6) The best of all
Discoveries, however, is that arising from the incidents themselves,
when the great surprise comes about through a probable incident, like
that in the Oedipus of Sophocles; and also in Iphigenia;32 for it was not
improbable that she should wish to have a letter taken home. These last
are the only Discoveries independent of the artifice of signs and
necklaces. (20) Next after them come Discoveries through reasoning.

17 At the time when he is constructing his Plots, and engaged on the

Diction in which they are worked out, the poet should remember (1) to
put the actual scenes as far as possible before his eyes. In this way, (25)
seeing everything with the vividness of an eye-witness as it were, he will
devise what is appropriate, and be least likely to overlook incongruities.
This is shown by what was censured in Carcinus, the return of
Amphiaraus from the sanctuary; it would have passed unnoticed, if it
had not been actually seen by the audience; but on the stage his play
failed, the incongruity of the incident offending the spectators. (2) As far
as may be, too, the poet should even act his story with the very gestures
of his personages. (30) Given the same natural qualifications, he who feels
the emotions to be described will be the most convincing; distress and
anger, for instance, are portrayed most truthfully by one who is feeling
them at the moment. Hence it is that poetry demands a man with a
special gift for it, or else one with a touch of madness in him; the former
can easily assume the required mood, and the latter may be actually
beside himself with emotion. (3) His story, again, whether already made
or of his own making, he should first simplify and reduce to a universal
form, before proceeding to lengthen it out by the insertion of episodes.
[1455b] The following will show how the universal element in
Iphigenia, for instance, may be viewed: A certain maiden having been
offered in sacrifice, and spirited away from her sacrificers into another
land, (5) where the custom was to sacrifice all strangers to the Goddess,
she was made there the priestess of this rite. Long after that the brother
of the priestess happened to come; the fact, however, of the oracle
having for a certain reason bidden him go thither, and his object in
going, are outside the Plot of the play. On his coming he was arrested,
and about to be sacrificed, when he revealed who he was—either as
Euripides puts it, (10) or (as suggested by Polyidus) by the not improbable
exclamation, ‘So I too am doomed to be sacrificed, as my sister was’; and
the disclosure led to his salvation. This done, the next thing, after the
proper names have been fixed as a basis for the story, is to work in
episodes or accessory incidents. One must mind, however, that the
episodes are appropriate, like the fit of madness33 in Orestes, (15) which
led to his arrest, and the purifying,34 which brought about his salvation.
In plays, then, the episodes are short; in epic poetry they serve to
lengthen out the poem. The argument of the Odyssey is not a long one. A
certain man has been abroad many years; Poseidon is ever on the watch
for him, and he is all alone. (20) Matters at home too have come to this,
that his substance is being wasted and his son’s death plotted by suitors
to his wife. Then he arrives there himself after his grievous sufferings;
reveals himself, and falls on his enemies; and the end is his salvation and
their death. This being all that is proper to the Odyssey, everything else
in it is episode.

18 (4) There is a further point to be borne in mind. Every tragedy is in

part Complication and in part Dénouement; the incidents before the
opening scene, and often certain also of those within the play, forming
the Complication; and the rest the Dénouement. (25) By Complication I
mean all from the beginning of the story to the point just before the
change in the hero’s fortunes; by Dénouement, all from the beginning of
the change to the end. In the Lynceus of Theodectes, for instance, the
Complication includes, together with the presupposed incidents, (30) the
seizure of the child and that in turn of the parents; and the Dénouement
all from the indictment for the murder to the end. [1456a7] Now it is
right, when one speaks of a tragedy as the same or not the same as
another, to do so on the ground before all else of their Plot, i. e. as
having the same or not the same Complication and Dénouement. Yet
there are many dramatists who, after a good Complication, fail in the
Dénouement. But it is necessary for both points of construction to be
always duly mastered. [1455b32] (5) There are four distinct species of
Tragedy—that being the number of the constituents also that have been
mentioned:35 first, the complex Tragedy, which is all Peripety and
Discovery; second, the Tragedy of suffering, e. g. the Ajaxes and Ixions;
third, the Tragedy of character, e. g. The Phthiotides36 and Peleus37 The
fourth constituent is that of ‘Spectacle’, exemplified in The Phorcides,38 in
Prometheus,39 and in all plays with the scene laid in the nether world.
[1456a] The poet’s aim, then, should be to combine every element of
interest, if possible, or else the more important and the major part of
them. This is now especially necessary owing to the unfair criticism to
which the poet is subjected in these days. Just because there have been
poets before him strong in the several species of tragedy, (5) the critics
now expect the one man to surpass that which was the strong point of
each one of his predecessors. (6) One should also remember what has
been said more than once,40 (10) and not write a tragedy on an epic body
of incident (i. e. one with a plurality of stories in it), by attempting to
dramatize, for instance, the entire story of the Iliad, In the epic owing to
its scale every part is treated at proper length; with a drama, however,
on the same story the result is very disappointing. This is shown by the
fact that all who have dramatized the fall of Ilium in its entirety, (15) and
not part by part, like Euripides, of the whole of the Niobe story, instead
of a portion, like Aeschylus, either fail utterly or have but ill success on
the stage; for that and that alone was enough to ruin even a play by
Agathon. Yet in their Peripeties, as also in their simple plots, (20) the
poets I mean show wonderful skill in aiming at the kind of effect they
desire—a tragic situation that arouses the human feeling in one, like the
clever villain (e. g. Sisyphus) deceived, or the brave wrongdoer worsted.
This is probable, however, only in Agathon’s sense, when he speaks of
the probability of even improbabilities coming to pass. (25) (7) The
Chorus too should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an
integral part of the whole, and take a share in the action—that which it
has in Sophocles, rather than in Euripides. With the later poets, however,
the songs in a play of theirs have no more to do with the Plot of that
than of any other tragedy. Hence it is that they are now singing
intercalary pieces, (30) a practice first introduced by Agathon. And yet
what real difference is there between singing such intercalary pieces,
and attempting to fit in a speech, or even a whole act, from one play into
another?

19 The Plot and Characters having been discussed, it remains to

consider the Diction and Thought. As for the Thought, (35) we may
assume what is said of it in our Art of Rhetoric,41 as it belongs more
properly to that department of inquiry. The Thought of the personages is
shown in everything to be effected by their language—in every effort to
prove or disprove, to arouse emotion (pity, fear, anger, and the like), or
to maximize or minimize things. [1456b] It is clear, also, that their
mental procedure must be on the same lines in their actions likewise,
whenever they wish them to arouse pity or horror, (5) or to have a look
of importance or probability. The only difference is that with the act the
impression has to be made without explanation; whereas with the
spoken word it has to be produced by the speaker, and result from his
language. What, indeed, would be the good of the speaker, if things
appeared in the required light even apart from anything he says?
As regards the Diction, one subject for inquiry under this head is the
turns given to the language when spoken; e. g. the difference between
command and prayer, (10) simple statement and threat, question and
answer, and so forth. The theory of such matters, however, belongs to
Elocution and the professors of that art. Whether the poet knows these
things or not, his art as a poet is never seriously criticized on that
account. (15) What fault can one see in Homer’s ‘Sing of the wrath,
Goddess’?—which Protagoras has criticized as being a command where a
prayer was meant, since to bid one do or not do, he tells us, is a
command. Let us pass over this, then, as appertaining to another art, and
not to that of poetry.

20 The Diction viewed as a whole is made up of the following parts:

the Letter (or ultimate element), (20) the Syllable, the Conjunction, the
Article, the Noun, the Verb, the Case, and the Speech. (1) The Letter is
an indivisible sound of a particular kind, one that may become a factor
in an intelligible sound. Indivisible sounds are uttered by the brutes also,
but no one of these is a Letter in our sense of the term. These elementary
sounds are either vowels, semi-vowels, (25) or mutes. A vowel is a Letter
having an audible sound without the addition of another Letter. A semi-
vowel, one having an audible sound by the addition of another Letter;
e. g. S and R. A mute, one having no sound at all by itself, but becoming
audible by an addition, that of one of the Letters which have a sound of
some sort of their own; e. g. (30) G and D. The Letters differ in various
ways: as produced by different conformations or in different regions of
the mouth; as aspirated, not aspirated, or sometimes one and sometimes
the other; as long, short, or of variable quantity; and further as having
an acute, grave, or intermediate accent. The details of these matters we
must leave to the metricians. (2) A Syllable is a non-significant
composite sound, (35) made up of a mute and a Letter having a sound (a
vowel or semi-vowel); for GR, without an A, is just as much a Syllable as
GRA, with an A. The various forms of the Syllable also belong to the
theory of metre. [1457a] (3) A Conjunction is (a) a non-significant
sound which, when one significant sound is formable out of several,
neither hinders nor aids the union, and which, if the Speech thus formed
stands by itself (apart from other Speeches), must not be inserted at the
beginning of it; e. g. . Or (b) a non-significant sound
capable of combining two or more significant sounds into one; e. g.
&c. (5) (4) An Article is a non-significant sound marking
the beginning, end, or dividing-point of a Speech, its natural place being
either at the extremities or in the middle. (5) A Noun or name is a
composite significant sound not involving the idea of time, (10) with parts
which have no significance by themselves in it. It is to be remembered
that in a compound we do not think of the parts as having a significance
also by themselves; in the name ‘Theodorus’, for instance, the
means nothing to us. (6) A Verb is a composite significant sound
involving the idea of time, with parts which (just as in the Noun) have
no significance by themselves in it. (15) Whereas the word ‘man’ or
‘white’ does not imply when, ‘walks’ and ‘has walked,’ involve in
addition to the idea of walking that of time present or time past. (7) A
Case of a Noun or Verb is when the word means ‘of’ or ‘to’ a thing, (20)
and so forth, or for one or many (e. g. ‘man’ and ‘men’); or it may consist
merely in the mode of utterance, e. g. in question, command, &c.
‘Walked?’ and ‘Walk!’ are Cases of the verb ‘to walk’ of this last kind. (8)
A Speech is a composite significant sound, some of the parts of which
have a certain significance by themselves. It may be observed that a
Speech is not always made up of Noun and Verb; it may be without a
Verb, (25) like the definition of man; but it will always have some part
with a certain significance by itself. In the Speech ‘Cleon walks’, ‘Cleon’
is an instance of such a part. A Speech is said to be one in two ways,
either as signifying one thing, or as a union of several Speeches made
into one by conjunction. Thus the Illiad is one Speech by conjunction of
several; and the definition of man is one through its signifying one thing.
(30)

21 Nouns are of two kinds, either (1) simple, i. e. made up of non-

significant parts, like the word , or (2) double; in the latter case the
word may be made up either of a significant and a non-significant part
(a distinction which disappears in the compound), (35) or of two
significant parts. It is possible also to have triple, quadruple, or higher
compounds, like most of our amplified names; e. g. ‘Hermocaïcoxanthus’
and the like.
[1457b] Whatever its structure, a Noun must always be either (1)
the ordinary word for the thing, or (2) a strange word, or (3) a
metaphor, or (4) an ornamental word, or (5) a coined word, or (6) a
word lengthened out, or (7) curtailed, or (8) altered in form. By the
ordinary word I mean that in general use in a country; and by a strange
word, one in use elsewhere. So that the same word may obviously be at
once strange and ordinary, (5) though not in reference to the same
people; , for instance, is an ordinary word in Cyprus, and a
strange word with us. Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that
belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to
species, or from species to genus, or from species to species, or on
grounds of analogy. That from genus to species is exemplified in ‘Here
stands my ship’;42 for lying at anchor is the ‘standing’ of a particular
kind of thing. (10) That from species to genus in ‘Truly ten thousand good
deeds has Ulysses wrought’,43 where ‘ten thousand’, which is a particular
large number, is put in place of the generic ‘a large number’. That from
species to species in ‘Drawing the life with the bronze’,44 and in
‘Severing with the enduring bronze’;44 where the poet uses ‘draw’ in the
sense of ‘sever’ and ‘sever’ in that of ‘draw’, (15) both words meaning to
‘take away’ something. That from analogy is possible whenever there are
four terms so related that the second (B) is to the first (A), as the fourth
(D) to the third (C); for one may then metaphorically put D in lieu of B,
and B in lieu of D. Now and then, too, they qualify the metaphor by
adding on to it that to which the word it supplants is relative. (20) Thus a
cup (B) is in relation to Dionysus (A) what a shield (D) is to Ares (C).
The cup accordingly will be metaphorically described as the ‘shield of
Dionysus’ (D + A), and the shield as the ‘cup of Ares’45 (B + C). Or to
take another instance: As old age (D) is to life (C), so is evening (B) to
day (A). One will accordingly describe evening (B) as the ‘old age of the
day’ (D + A)—or by the Empedoclean equivalent; and old age (D) as the
‘evening’46 or ‘sunset of life’47 (B + C). It may be that some of the terms
thus related have no special name of their own, (25) but for all that they
will be metaphorically described in just the same way. Thus to cast forth
seed-corn is called ‘sowing’; but to cast forth its flame, as said of the sun,
has no special name. This nameless act (B), however, stands in just the
same relation to its object, sunlight (A), as sowing (D) to the seed-corn
(C). Hence the expression in the poet, ‘sowing around a god-created
flame’48 (D + A). There is also another form of qualified metaphor. (30)
Having given the thing the alien name, one may by a negative addition
deny of it one of the attributes naturally associated with its new name.
An instance of this would be to call the shield not the ‘cup of Ares’, as in
the former case, but a ‘cup that holds no wine’ …. A coined word is a
name which, being quite unknown among a people, is given by the poet
himself; e. g. (for there are some words that seem to be of this origin)
for horns, and for priest.49 A word is said to be
lengthened out, (35) when it has a short vowel made long, or an extra
syllable inserted; e. g.
. [1458a] It is said to be curtailed,
when it has lost a part; e. g. and
.50 It is an altered word, (5) when part is left as
it was and part is of the poet’s making; e. g. in
.51
The Nouns themselves (to whatever class they may belong) are either
masculines, feminines, or intermediates (neuter). All ending in N, P, Σ,
or in the two compounds of this last, Ψ and , (10) are masculines. All
ending in the invariably long vowels, H and Ω, and in A among the
vowels that may be long, are feminines. So that there is an equal number
of masculine and feminine terminations, as Ψ and are the same as Σ,
and need not be counted. There is no Noun, (15) however, ending in a
mute or in either of the two short vowels, E and O. Only three (
) end in I and five in γ. The intermediates, or
neuters, end in the variable vowels or in N, P, Σ.

22 The perfection of Diction is for it to be at once clear and not mean.

The clearest indeed is that made up of the ordinary words for things, (20)
but it is mean, as is shown by the poetry of Cleophon and Sthenelus. On
the other hand the Diction becomes distinguished and non-prosaic by the
use of unfamiliar terms, i. e. strange words, metaphors, lengthened
forms, and everything that deviates from the ordinary modes of speech.
—But a whole statement in such terms will be either a riddle or a
barbarism, (25) a riddle, if made up of metaphors, a barbarism, if made up
of strange words. The very nature indeed of a riddle is this, to describe a
fact in an impossible combination of words (which cannot be done with
the real names for things, but can be with their metaphorical
substitutes); e. g. ‘I saw a man glue brass on another with fire’,52 (30) and
the like. The corresponding use of strange words results in a barbarism.
—A certain admixture, accordingly, of unfamiliar terms is necessary.
These, the strange word, the metaphor, the ornamental equivalent, &c.,
will save the language from seeming mean and prosaic, while the
ordinary words in it will secure the requisite clearness. [1458b] What
helps most, however, to render the Diction at once clear and non-prosaic
is the use of the lengthened, curtailed, and altered forms of words. Their
deviation from the ordinary words will, by making the language unlike
that in general use, give it a non-prosaic appearance; and their having
much in common with the words in general use will give it the quality of
clearness. (5) It is not right, then, to condemn these modes of speech, and
ridicule the poet for using them, as some have done; e. g. the elder
Euclid, who said it was easy to make poetry if one were to be allowed to
lengthen the words in the statement itself as much as one likes—a
procedure he caricatured by reading
as
verses. (10) A too apparent use of these licences has certainly a ludicrous
effect, but they are not alone in that; the rule of moderation applies to
all the constituents of the poetic vocabulary; even with metaphors,
strange words, and the rest, the effect will be the same, if one uses them
improperly and with a view to provoking laughter. The proper use of
them is a very different thing. (15) To realize the difference one should
take an epic verse and see how it reads when the normal words are
introduced. The same should be done too with the strange word, the
metaphor, and the rest; for one has only to put the ordinary words in
their place to see the truth of what we are saying. The same iambic, for
instance, is found in Aeschylus and Euripides, and as it stands in the
former it is a poor line; whereas Euripides, by the change of a single
word, (20) the substitution of a strange for what is by usage the ordinary
word, has made it seem a fine one. Aeschylus having said in his
Philoctetes:

Euripides has merely altered the here into . Or suppose

 53

to be altered, (25) by the substitution of the ordinary words, into

Or the line
54

into

Or 55 into Add to this that

Ariphrades used to ridicule the tragedians for introducing expressions
unknown in the language of common life, (30) (for
), ,56 (for
), and the like. [1459a] The mere fact of their not
being in ordinary speech gives the Diction a non-prosaic character; but
Ariphrades was unaware of that. It is a great thing, indeed, to make a
proper use of these poetical forms, as also of compounds and strange
words. But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. (5) It is
the one thing that cannot be learnt from others; and it is also a sign of
genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the
similarity in dissimilars.
Of the kinds of words we have enumerated it may be observed that
compounds are most in place in the dithyramb, (10) strange words in
heroic, and metaphors in iambic poetry. Heroic poetry, indeed, may
avail itself of them all. But in iambic verse, which models itself as far as
possible on the spoken language, only those kinds of words are in place
which are allowable also in an oration, i. e. the ordinary word, the
metaphor, and the ornamental equivalent.
Let this, (15) then, suffice as an account of Tragedy, the art imitating by
means of action on the stage.
23 As for the poetry which merely narrates, or imitates by means of
versified language (without action), it is evident that it has several
points in common with Tragedy.
I. The construction of its stories should clearly be like that in a drama;
they should be based on a single action, one that is a complete whole in
itself, with a beginning, middle, and end, (20) so as to enable the work to
produce its own proper pleasure with all the organic unity of a living
creature. Nor should one suppose that there is anything like them in our
usual histories. A history has to deal not with one action, but with one
period and all that happened in that to one or more persons, however
disconnected the several events may have been. (25) Just as two events
may take place at the same time, e. g. the sea-fight off Salamis and the
battle with the Carthaginians in Sicily, without converging to the same
end, so too of two consecutive events one may sometimes come after the
other with no one end as their common issue. Nevertheless most of our
epic poets, one may say, ignore the distinction.
Herein, (30) then, to repeat what we have said before,57 we have a further
proof of Homer’s marvellous superiority to the rest. He did not attempt
to deal even with the Trojan war in its entirety, though it was a whole
with a definite beginning and end—through a feeling apparently that it
was too long a story to be taken in in one view, (35) or if not that, too
complicated from the variety of incident in it. As it is, he has singled out
one section of the whole; many of the other incidents, however, he
brings in as episodes, using the Catalogue of the Ships, for instance, and
other episodes to relieve the uniformity of his narrative. As for the other
epic poets, they treat of one man, or one period; or else of an action
which, although one, has a multiplicity of parts in it. [1459b] This last
is what the authors of the Cypria58 and Little Iliad have done. (58) And the
result is is that, whereas the Iliad or Odyssey supplies materials for only
one, or at most two tragedies, the Cypria does that for several and the
Little Iliad for more than eight: for an Adjudgment of Arms, (5) a Philoctetes,
a Neoptolemus, a Eurypylus, a Ulysses as Beggar, a Laconian Women, a Fall
of Ilium, and a Departure of the Fleet; as also a Sinon, and a Women of
Troy.

24 II. Besides this, Epic poetry must divide into the same species as
Tragedy; it must be either simple or complex, a story of character or one
of suffering. Its parts, too, with the exception of Song and Spectacle,
must be the same, as it requires Peripeties, Discoveries, (10) and scenes of
suffering just like Tragedy. Lastly, the Thought and Diction in it must be
good in their way. All these elements appear in Homer first; and he has
made due use of them. His two poems are each examples of
construction, the Iliad simple and a story of suffering, the Odyssey
complex (there is Discovery throughout it) and a story of character. (15)
And they are more than this, since in Diction and Thought too they
surpass all other poems.
There is, however, a difference in the Epic as compared with Tragedy,
(1) in its length, and (2) in its metre. (1) As to its length, the limit
already suggested59 will suffice: it must be possible for the beginning
and end of the work to be taken in in one view—a condition which will
be fulfilled if the poem be shorter than the old epics, (20) and about as
long as the series of tragedies offered for one hearing. For the extension
of its length epic poetry has a special advantage, of which it makes large
use. In a play one cannot represent an action with a number of parts
going on simultaneously; one is limited to the part on the stage and
connected with the actors. (25) Whereas in epic poetry the narrative form
makes it possible for one to describe a number of simultaneous incidents;
and these, if germane to the subject, increase the body of the poem. This
then is a gain to the Epic, tending to give it grandeur, and also variety of
interest and room for episodes of diverse kinds. Uniformity of incident
by the satiety it soon creates is apt to ruin tragedies on the stage. (30) (2)
As for its metre, the heroic has been assigned it from experience; were
any one to attempt a narrative poem in some one, or in several, of the
other metres, the incongruity of the thing would be apparent. The heroic
in fact is the gravest and weightiest of metres—which is what makes it
more tolerant than the rest of strange words and metaphors, (35) that also
being a point in which the narrative form of poetry goes beyond all
others. The iambic and trochaic, on the other hand, are metres of
movement, the one representing that of life and action, the other that of
the dance. [1460a] Still more unnatural would it appear, if one were
to write an epic in a medley of metres, as Chaeremon did.60 Hence it is
that no one has ever written a long story in any but heroic verse; nature
herself, as we have said,61 teaches us to select the metre appropriate to
such a story.
Homer, (5) admirable as he is in every other respect, is especially so in
this, that he alone among epic poets is not unaware of the part to be
played by the poet himself in the poem. The poet should say very little in
propria persona, as he is no imitator when doing that. Whereas the other
poets are perpetually coming forward in person, and say but little, and
that only here and there, as imitators, (10) Homer after a brief preface
brings in forthwith a man, a woman, or some other Character—no one of
them characterless, but each with distinctive characteristics.
The marvellous is certainly required in Tragedy. The Epic, however,
affords more opening for the improbable, the chief factor in the
marvellous, because in it the agents are not visibly before one. (15) The
scene of the pursuit of Hector would be ridiculous on the stage—the
Greeks halting instead of pursuing him, and Achilles shaking his head to
stop them;62 but in the poem the absurdity is overlooked. The
marvellous, however, is a cause of pleasure, as is shown by the fact that
we all tell a story with additions, in the belief that we are doing our
hearers a pleasure.
Homer more than any other has taught the rest of us the art of framing
lies in the right way. (20) I mean the use of paralogism. Whenever, if A is
or happens, a consequent, B, is or happens, men’s notion is that, if the B
is, the A also is—but that is a false conclusion. Accordingly, if A is
untrue, but there is something else, B, that on the assumption of its truth
follows as its consequent, the right thing then is to add on the B. Just
because we know the truth of the consequent, we are in our own minds
led on to the erroneous inference of the truth of the antecedent. (25) Here
is an instance, from the Bath-story in the Odyssey.63
A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing
possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents;
there should be nothing of the sort in it. If, however, such incidents are
unavoidable, they should be outside the piece, (30) like the hero’s
ignorance in Oedipus of the circumstances of Laius’ death; not within it,
like the report of the Pythian games in Electra,64 or the man’s having
come to Mysia from Tegea without uttering a word on the way, in The
Mysians.65 So that it is ridiculous to say that one’s Plot would have been
spoilt without them, since it is fundamentally wrong to make up such
Plots. If the poet has taken such a Plot, however, and one sees that he
might have put it in a more probable form, he is guilty of absurdity as
well as a fault of art. (35) Even in the Odyssey the improbabilities in the
setting-ashore of Ulysses66 would be clearly intolerable in the hands of
an inferior poet. [1460b] As it is, the poet conceals them, his other
excellences veiling their absurdity. Elaborate Diction, however, is
required only in places where there is no action, and no Character or
Thought to be revealed. Where there is Character or Thought, on the
other hand, an over-ornate Diction tends to obscure them. (5)

25 As regards Problems and their Solutions, one may see the number
and nature of the assumptions on which they proceed by viewing the
matter in the following way. (1) The poet being an imitator just like the
painter or other maker of likenesses, he must necessarily in all instances
represent things in one or other of three aspects, (10) either as they were
or are, or as they are said or thought to be or to have been, or as they
ought to be. (2) All this he does in language, with an admixture, it may
be, of strange words and metaphors, as also of the various modified
forms of words, since the use of these is conceded in poetry. (3) It is to
be remembered, too, that there is not the same kind of correctness in
poetry as in politics, or indeed any other art. There is, however, within
the limits of poetry itself a possibility of two kinds of error, (15) the one
directly, the other only accidentally connected with the art. If the poet
meant to describe the thing correctly, and failed through lack of power
of expression, his art itself is at fault. But if it was through his having
meant to describe it in some incorrect way (e. g. to make the horse in
movement have both right legs thrown forward) that the technical error
(one in a matter of, say, medicine or some other special science), (20) or
impossibilities of whatever kind they may be, have got into his
description, his error in that case is not in the essentials of the poetic art.
These, therefore, must be the premisses of the Solutions in answer to the
criticisms involved in the Problems.
I. As to the criticisms relating to the poet’s art itself. Any
impossibilities there may be in his descriptions of things are faults. But
from another point of view they are justifiable, if they serve the end of
poetry itself—if (to assume what we have said of that end)67 they make
the effect of either that very portion of the work or some other portion
more astounding. (25) The Pursuit of Hector is an instance in point. If,
however, the poetic end might have been as well or better attained
without sacrifice of technical correctness in such matters, the
impossibility is not to be justified, since the description should be, if it
can, entirely free from error. One may ask, (30) too, whether the error is
in a matter directly or only accidentally connected with the poetic art;
since it is a lesser error in an artist not to know, for instance, that the
hind has no horns, than to produce an unrecognizable picture of one.
II. If the poet’s description be criticized as not true to fact, one may
urge perhaps that the object ought to be as described—an answer like
that of Sophocles, who said that he drew men as they ought to be, (35)
and Euripides as they were. If the description, however, be neither true
nor of the thing as it ought to be, the answer must be then, that it is in
accordance with opinion. The tales about Gods, for instance, may be as
wrong as Xenophanes thinks, neither true nor the better thing to say; but
they are certainly in accordance with opinion. [1461a] Of other
statements in poetry one may perhaps say, not that they are better than
the truth, but that the fact was so at the time; e. g. the description of the
arms: ‘their spears stood upright, butt-end upon the ground’;68 for that
was the usual way of fixing them then, as it is still with the Illyrians. As
for the question whether something said or done in a poem is morally
right or not, (5) in dealing with that one should consider not only the
intrinsic quality of the actual word or deed, but also the person who says
or does it, the person to whom he says or does it, the time, the means,
and the motive of the agent—whether he does it to attain a greater good,
or to avoid a greater evil.
III. Other criticisms one must meet by considering the language of the
poet: (1) by the assumption of a strange word in a passage like
,69 where by (10) Homer may perhaps
mean not mules but sentinels. And in saying of Dolon,
,70 his meaning may perhaps be,
not that Dolon’s body was deformed, but that his face was ugly, as
is the Cretan word for handsome-faced. So, too,
71 may mean not ‘mix the wine stronger’, (15) as though
for topers, but ‘mix it quicker’, (2) Other expressions in Homer may be
explained as metaphorical; e. g. in
72 as compared with what he

tells us at the same time,

,73 the
word ‘all’, is metaphorically put for ‘many’, since ‘all’ is a
species of ‘many’. So also his 74 is metaphorical, (20) the

best known standing ‘alone’. (3) A change, as Hippias of Thasos

suggested, in the mode of reading a word will solve the difficulty in
75 and in .76 (4)
Other difficulties may be solved by another punctuation; e. g. in
Empedocles,
. Or (5) by the assumption of an equivocal
term, (25) as in ,77 where is
equivocal. Or (6) by an appeal to the custom of language. Wine-and-
water we call ‘wine’; and it is on the same principle that Homer speaks
of a ,78 a ‘greave of new-
wrought tin’. A worker in iron we call a ‘brazier’; and it is on the same
principle that Ganymede is described as the ‘wine-server’ of Zeus,79
though the Gods do not drink wine. This latter, however, may be an
instance of metaphor. (30) But whenever also a word seems to imply some
contradiction, it is necessary to reflect how many ways there may be of
understanding it in the passage in question; e. g. in Homer’s
80 one should consider the possible

senses of ‘was stopped there’—whether by taking it in this sense or in

that one will best avoid the fault of which Glaucon speaks: ‘They start
with some improbable presumption; and having so decreed it
themselves, (35) proceed to draw inferences, and censure the poet as
though he had actually said whatever they happen to believe, if his
statement conflicts with their own notion of things.’ [1461b] This is
how Homer’s silence about Icarius has been treated. Starting with the
notion of his having been a Lacedaemonian, the critics think it strange
for Telemachus not to have met him when he went to Lacedaemon. (5)
Whereas the fact may have been as the Cephallenians say, that the wife
of Ulysses was of a Cephallenian family, and that her father’s name was
Icadius, not Icarius. So that it is probably a mistake of the critics that has
given rise to the Problem.
Speaking generally, one has to justify (1) the Impossible by reference
to the requirements of poetry, or to the better, or to opinion. (10) For the
purposes of poetry a convincing impossibility is preferable to an
unconvincing possibility; and if men such as Zeuxis depicted be
impossible, the answer is that it is better they should be like that, as the
artist ought to improve on his model. (2) The Improbable one has to
justify either by showing it to be in accordance with opinion, or by
urging that at times it is not improbable; for there is a probability of
things happening also against probability. (15) (3) The contradictions
found in the poet’s language one should first test as one does an
opponent’s confutation in a dialectical argument, so as to see whether he
means the same thing, in the same relation, and in the same sense,
before admitting that he has contradicted either something he has said
himself or what a man of sound sense assumes as true. But there is no
possible apology for improbability of Plot or depravity of character, (20)
when they are not necessary and no use is made of them, like the
improbability in the appearance of Aegeus in Medea81 and the baseness
of Menelaus in Orestes.
The objections, then, of critics start with faults of five kinds: the
allegation is always that something is either (1) impossible, (2)
improbable, (3) corrupting, (4) contradictory, or (5) against technical
correctness. The answers to these objections must be sought under one
or other of the above-mentioned heads, (25) which are twelve in number.

26 The question may be raised whether the epic or the tragic is the
higher form of imitation. It may be argued that, if the less vulgar is the
higher, and the less vulgar is always that which addresses the better
public, an art addressing any and every one is of a very vulgar order. It
is a belief that their public cannot see the meaning, (30) unless they add
something themselves, that causes the perpetual movements of the
performers—bad flute-players, for instance, rolling about, if quoit-
throwing is to be represented, and pulling at the conductor, if Scylla is
the subject of the piece. Tragedy, then, is said to be an art of this order—
to be in fact just what the later actors were in the eyes of their
predecessors; for Mynniscus used to call Callippides ‘the ape’, (35) because
he thought he so overacted his parts; and a similar view was taken of
Pindarus also. [1462a] All Tragedy, however, is said to stand to the
Epic as the newer to the older school of actors. The one, accordingly, is
said to address a cultivated audience, which does not need the
accompaniment of gesture; the other, an uncultivated one. If, (5)
therefore, Tragedy is a vulgar art, it must clearly be lower than the Epic.
The answer to this is twofold. In the first place, one may urge (1) that
the censure does not touch the art of the dramatic poet, but only that of
his interpreter; for it is quite possible to overdo the gesturing even in an
epic recital, as did Sosistratus, and in a singing contest, as did
Mnasitheus of Opus. (2) That one should not condemn all movement,
unless one means to condemn even the dance, but only that of ignoble
people—which is the point of the criticism passed on Callippides and in
the present day on others, that their women are not like gentlewomen.
(10) (3) That Tragedy may produce its effect even without movement or

action in just the same way as Epic poetry; for from the mere reading of
a play its quality may be seen. So that, if it be superior in all other
respects, this element of inferiority is no necessary part of it.
In the second place, one must remember (1) that Tragedy has
everything that the Epic has (even the epic metre being admissible),
together with a not inconsiderable addition in the shape of the Music (a
very real factor in the pleasure of the drama) and the Spectacle. (15) (2)
That its reality of presentation is felt in the play as read, as well as in the
play as acted. (3) That the tragic imitation requires less space for the
attainment of its end; which is a great advantage, since the more
concentrated effect is more pleasurable than one with a large admixture
of time to dilute it—consider the Oedipus of Sophocles, for instance, and
the effect of expanding it into the number of lines of the Iliad. [1462b]
(4) That there is less unity in the imitation of the epic poets, as is proved
by the fact that any one work of theirs supplies matter for several
tragedies; the result being that, if they take what is really a single story,
(5) it seems curt when briefly told, and thin and waterish when on the

scale of length usual with their verse. In saying that there is less unity in
an epic, I mean an epic made up of a plurality of actions, in the same
way as the Iliad and Odyssey have many such parts, each one of them in
itself of some magnitude; yet the structure of the two Homeric poems is
as perfect as can be, (10) and the action in them is as nearly as possible
one action. If, then, Tragedy is superior in these respects, and also,
besides these, in its poetic effect (since the two forms of poetry should
give us, not any or every pleasure, but the very special kind we have
mentioned), it is clear that, as attaining the poetic effect better than the
Epic, it will be the higher form of art. (15)
So much for Tragedy and Epic poetry—for these two arts in general
and their species; the number and nature of their constituent parts; the
causes of success and failure in them; the Objections of the critics, and
the Solutions in answer to them.

1 1448a 17; 1448b 37.

2 For hexameter poetry cf. chap. 23 f.; comedy was treated of in the lost Second Book.

3 1449b 34.

4 O. T. 911–1085.

5 By Theodectes.

6 Iph. Taur. 727 ff.

7 Ch. 6.

8 Med. 1236.

9 Perhaps by Sophocles.

10 l. 1231.

11 By Euripides.

12 Authorship unknown.

13 1453a 19.

14 1450b 8.

15 A dithyramb by Timotheus.

16 (Euripides).

17 ll. 1211 ff., 1368 ff.

18 l. 1317.

19 ii. 155.

20 In the lost dialogue On Poets.

21 1452a 29.

22 Authorship unknown.

23 By Euripides.
24 Od. xix. 386–475.

25 Od. xxi. 205–25.

26 Od. xix. 392.

27 Iph. Taur. 727 ff.

28 Ib., 800 ff.

29 Od. viii. 521 ff. (Cf. viii, 83 ff.).

30 ll. 168–234.

31 Authorship unknown.

32 Iph. Taur. 582.

33 Iph. Taur. 281 ff.

34 Ib., 1163 ff.

35 This does not agree with anything actually said before.

36 By Sophocles.

37 Probably Sophocles’ Peleus is incorrect.

38 By Aeschylus.

39 Probably a satyric drama by Aeschylus.

40 A loose reference to 1449b 12, 1455b 15.

41 Cf. especially. Rhet. 1356a 1.

42 Od. i. 185, xxiv, 308.

43 Il. ii. 272.

44 Empedocles.

45 Timotheus.

46 Alexis.

47 Pl., Laws 770 A.

48 Authorship unknown.

49 Il. i. 11.

50 Empedocles.

51 Il. v. 393.

52 Cleobulina.

53 Od. ix. 515.

54 Od. xx. 259.

55 Il. xvii. 265.

56 Soph., O. C., 986.

57 1451a 23 ff.

58 Authorship unknown.
59 1451a 3.

60 Centaur, cf. 1447b 21.

61 1449a 24.

62 Il. xxii. 205.

63 xix. 164–260.

64 Soph. El. 660 ff.

65 Probably by Aeschylus.

66 xiii. 116 ff.

67 1452a 4, 1454a 4, 1455a 17, 1460a 11.

68 Il. x. 152.

69 Il. i. 50.

70 Il. x. 316.

71 Il. ix. 202.

72 Cf. Il. x. 1, ii. 1.

73 Il. x. 11–13.

74 Il. xviii. 489 = Od. v. 275.

75 Cf. Soph. El. 166b 1; Il. ii. 15.

76 Il. xxiii. 327.

77 Il. x. 251.

78 Il. xxi. 592.

79 Il. xx. 234.

80 Il. xx. 267.

81 1. 663.
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