Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development

ARISTOTLE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE HISTORY OF HIS DEVELOPMENT BY

WERNER JAEGER

Translated wzth the author's correctzons and addztzons by

RICHARD ROBINSON

H rAP NOY ENEPrEIA ZWH

SECOND EDITION

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

Oxford UmverSlty Press, Ely House, London W

I

Gl.ASGOW mw YOItIl: TORONTO MlUIOlJRNE WElliNGTON CAPE TOWN SAUSBVRY IBADAN NAIROBI l.USAItA ADDIS ABABA BOMBAY CALcunA MADRAS KAIIAOU l.AHORE DACCA KUALA l.UMPUR HONG KONG TOKYO

FIRST PUBl.ISHED 1934 SECOND EDITION 1948 REPRINTED l.ITHOGRAPHICAl.l.Y IN GREAT BRITAIN 1950, 1955. 1960, 196:1, 196 8

THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION N this edition I have made about a score of alterations. most of them suggested by two reviewers of the first editIon, Professor BenedIct Emarson In ClassJcal Phzlology, 1935, and Professor Harold Chermss m The Amencan Journal of Phzlology, 1935 Of the two new appendIxes, the first comes from The Phzlosophzcal Rev~ew, 1940, and was wntten In EnglIsh by Professor Jaeger The second comes from Sztzungsbenchte dey preussJSchen Akademze dey Wzssenschaften, Phdosophlschhlstonsche Klasse, 1928, and IS translated by myself The editIon has a new and more complete Index, the work of Mr James E Walsh of Harvard Umverslty, to whom the author has asked me to make thIS acknowledgement R R

I

THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE IS a translatIon of Arzstoteles, Grundlegung emer Gesemer EntwJcklung, whIch was publIshed at Berhn III 1923 by the Weldmannsche Buchhandlung I have consulted the author on the meamng of numerous sentences, and he has made several alteratIons and additIons to the Gennan text as It appeared ill 1923 The accuracy of the rendenng has been cntJclzed ill part by Dr Fntz C A KoHn The propnety of the EnglIsh has been cntIclZed almost throughout by Dr Jame5 Hutton. I am very grateful to these gentlemen ThIS translatIon IS mtellIglble to persons who know no Greek All Greek IS rendered mto English, and the books of anCIent wntmgs are referred to not by Greek letters but by Roman numerals The only exceptIon to tlus rule IS Anstotlc's Metaphys:cs, where a pecuhar SItuatIOn make:, any use of numerals confusmg For ease of recogmtIon I have adopted standard translatIons of Greek authors as far as possIble I thank the Trustees of the Jowett Copynght Fund and the Delegatt's of the Oxford Ulllver
T

HIS

sch~chte

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE GERMAN EDITION HIS

book, bemg at once treatIse and monograph, demands a

word of e>..planatIon TIt bnef does not seek to give a systematic account, but to analyse Anstotle's wntmgs so as to discover m them the half oblIterated traces of his mental progress Its bIOgraphical framework IS mtended merely to make more palpable the fact that hIS preVIOusly undifferentiated mass of composItIons falls mto three dIstInct penods of evolutIOn Owmg to the meagreness of the matenal the picture that we thus obtam IS of course fragmentary , yet Its outhnes constItute a dlstmctly clearer VIew of Anstotle's mtellectual nature and of the forces that msplred hIS thmkmg Pnmanly, thiS IS a gam to the hIstory of phIlosophICal problems dnd ongms The author's mtentlOn IS, however, not to make a contrIbutIOn to systemJ.tlc phIlosophy, but to throw lIght on the portion of the hIstory of the Greek mmd that IS deSignated by the name of Aristotle Smce 19J6 I have repeatedly given thf' results of these re'>carches as lectures at the umversltIes of Klel and Berlm, even the lIterary form, With the exception of the conclUSIOn, was establIshed III essentIals at that tIme The lIterature that has Sll1ce dppearcd IS not very Important for Anstotle lllm!>elf anyhow, and I have noticed It only !>o far as I have learnt somethmg from It or am oblIged to contradIct It The reader WIll look m vam ~r the results even of earlIer researche~ so far as they concern merely ummportant changes of opmlOn or of form, such matters have nothmg to do WIth development StIll less has my purpose been to analyse all ArIstotle's wntmgs for theIr own sake and to complete a microSCOpIC exammatlOn of all theIr stages The ann was solely to elUCidate m ItS concrete slgmficance, by mean~ of eVIdent eMmples, the phenomenon of hIS mtellectual development as such In conclUSIon I offer my profoundest thanks to the pubhsher, who, m spite of the unfavourableness of the tImes, boldly undertook the whole nsk of publlshmg thIS book.

WJ.

BERLIN,

Easte,., 1923

CONTENTS PAGE

Introduction THE PROBLEM

3

PART I

THE ACADEMY Chapter I THE ACADEMY AT THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE'S ENTRANCE

IJ

Chapter II EARLY WORKS

24

Chapter III THE E UDEM US

39

Chapter IV THE PROTREPTICUS

54

PART II

TRAVELS Chapter V ARISTOTLE IN ASSOS AND MACEDONIA

•

1°5

Chapter VI THE MANIFESTO ON PHILOSOPH"Y VChapter VII THE EARLIEST METAPHYSICS

•

-kbapter VIII THE GROWTH OF THE METAPHYSICS Chapter IX THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

•

228

Chapter X THE ORIGINAL POLITICS

259

Chapter XI THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECULATIVE PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY

293

PART III

MATURITY Chapter XII ARISTOTLE IN ATHENS

)11

Chapter XIII THE ORGANIZATION OF RESEARCH

324

Chapter XIV THE REVISION OF THE THEORY OF THE PRIME MOVER

342

Chapter XV ARISTOTLE'S PLACE IN HISTORY

368

APPENDIXES I II

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

A Nll.w

PUPIL OF ARISTOTLE

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

INDEXES

407 426

46 3

THE PROBLEM

A RISTOTLE was the first thinker to set up along Wlth rus flphl.1osophya conceptIon of his own posItIon In history, he thereby created a new kind of phl.1osophlcal conSCIOusness, more responsible and Inwardly complex He was the Inventor of the notIon of Intellectual development m time, and regards even hiS own achievement as the result of an evolutIon dependent solely on ItS own law Everywhere m hiS expositIOn he makes hiS own Ideas appear as the dIrect consequences of hiS cnticlsm of hiS predecessors, especially Plato and hiS school It was, therefore, both phl1osophlcal and Anstotehan when men followed him m thiS, and sought to understand hun by means of the presuppositions out of which he had constructed hiS own theones Such attempts, however, have not given us a vIvid insight Into the mdlvldual nature of hiS phl1osophy, and thiS cannot surpnse the phl1ologlst, who IS not accustomed to use a writer's own estimate of himself as an objective document, or to take hiS standards from It It was especially unprofitable to Judge Anstotle, as was actually done, by hiS understandmg of hiS predecessors, as If any phl1osopher could ever understand hiS predecessors In thiS sense Surely there can be only one poSitive standard for Anstotle's personal achievement, and that IS not how he cntlclzes Plato but how he hlffiself Plat;)mzes (since • that IS what phllosophlZlng means to him) \\'hy he gave thiS partIcular dlrectlOn to knowledge cannot be explamed merely from prevIous history, but onlyfrom hiS own phl1osophlcal development, Just as he himself does not slffiply denve Plato's posItIon In the history of Greek thought from hiS predecessors, but explams It as the result of the meeting of those hlstoncal Influences and Plato's own creative onglnahty In the treatment of mtellectual progress, If we are to give full weight to the creatIve and undenved element In great indiViduals, we must supplement the general tendency of the times With the orgamc development of the personal1ty concerned Anstotle himself shows the close relation between development and fonn, the

4

ARISTOTLE

fundamental conception of hIS phIlosophy IS 'embodied form that hves and develops' (Goethe) The aim IS, he holds, to know the fonn and the entelechy by means of the stages of ItS growth ThiS IS the only way In whIch the element of law In an Intellectual •structure' can be directly intUIted As he says at the begInmng of hiS lecture on the prehmInary stages of pohbcallIfe, •here and elsewhere we shall not obtain the best insight Into things untIl we actually see them growing from the begmmng' It IS one of those almost incomprehensIble paradoxes m which the hIstory of human knowledge abounds, that the pnnclple of orgamc development ha'> never yet been apphed to ItS ongmator, If we exclude a few effort.. \\-hlch, though praIseworthy, have been qUIte partial and therefore Without mfluence It IS no exaggeration to say that, at a time when a whole lIterature has been assembled about the development of Plato, scarcely any one speaks of that of Anstotle and almost nobody knows anythmg about It In fact, our failure to apply the evolutionary pomt of view to hIm has finally come to be taken for an indication of hi'> objective difference from Plato' WhIle the history of the latter'!> development threaten" gradually to bhnd us to the constructIve Impulse that form ... one of the fundamental clements of hIS thought, we have become accus· tomed to regard It as almo!>t a !>Ign of phllo'>ophlCal stupidity to inqUIre Into the chronology and development of Anstotle's doctnne and Its sources For, '"c thmk, the monad, carrYing timelessly wlthm Itself the germ of all partIcular!>, ~s preCl,>ely the system 'The main reason why no attempt has yet been made to descnbe An!>totle'!> development IS, bnefly, the !>chola!>tIc nohon of hiS phIlosop~y as a static system of conceptIOn!> HIS interpreters were past masters of hiS dIalectical apparatu!>, but they had no personal expenence of the forces that prompted hiS method of mqUIry, or of hiS charactenstIc mterplay of keen and abstract apodIctIc \Hth a VIVid and orgamc sense of form. Anstotle's e;pmtuahsm IS saturated WIth an mtUltIve vIsion of reahty The stnct ngour of hie; demon!>tratIons I'> only the salutary cham WIth whIch the fourth century restrained ItS overflowmg energies The faIlure to reahze thiS goes back to the separation of the more speCIfically philosophIcal parts of hi'>

THE PROBLEM

5

doctnne, the logic and the metaphysIcs. from the studies of emplfll.al realIty, a separatIOn which was accomplished by the hme of the third generation In the Penpatos The servIce done later by the lme of commentators begmnmg With Andromcus (first century Be), to whom we owe the preservatIon of the treatIses, was very great By chngmg to the letter of the tradition they far surpassed the pitIable successors of Theophrastus and Strato In e},.actness of plulo~ophlcal comprehenSIOn But even they could not restore the ongmal spmt There was no 'iteady advance of natural and mental SCIence to 'ierve as breedmg-ground, and therefore none of that frUItful mteractIOn between expenence and conceptIOn flOm \\hlch ATlstotle's speculatlve notlons had drawn theIr fleXibIlIty and theIr adaptlve power Smce then there has been no break m the contmUIty of our Idea of Anstotle Without a gap the Onental tradItion follows that of the commentators, and OCCIdental ArIstotehamsm follo\\s the OrIental Each of them had an educatIOnal effect on ItS age that cannot be overestlmated, but their peculIar characterIstlc IS Just that purely conceptual scholastlclsm which had already barred the anCIent world from a hvmg under:>tandmg of Anstotle Men were unable to apprehend hIS phIlo~ophy as the product of hiS speCIal gemus workmg on the problems set him by hIS age, and so they confined theIr attentIOn to the form m whIch It was expressed, WIthout havmg any notion ho\\ It had grown to be what It was In the meantlme one of the mam sources for hiS development, the dIalogues and letters, had been lost, and the tradItIonal attItude alone was to blame ThIS prevented aJl access to hiS personahty So It came about that the new love whIch the humamsts aroused for antlql1lty dId not make any dIfference to An<;totle, espeCIally a~ he was accounted the pnnce of medIeval ~cholastlclsm, whIch was thoroughly despised by Luther and the humamsts alIke Anstotle IS the only great figure of anCIent phIlosophy and hterature who has never had a Renascence Everybody knew, mdeed, that he was a power to be reckoned WIth, and one of the foundatlons of the modern world, but he remamed a tradItion, for the rCJ.son, If for no other, that even after the days of humamsm and the retonnatlon men <,t111 had far too much need of Ius content Melanchthon and the JeSUIts both bUIlt their theology on Ius M etaphyslcs Machlavelh

6

ARISTOTLE

got lus rules from the Pol,e~cs, the French cntIcs and poets them from the Poehcs MorallSts dnd Junsts have drawn on the EthlCS, and all phLlosophers down to Kant and far beyond on the lOgIC As to the phlloiogists, what has prevented them from penetratmg to the mner form of Anstotle's thoughts 15 not so much an excesslVely strong mterest m the content as the narrow and superficIal conceptIon of anCIent hterary prose remtroduced by the humamsts They have made acute studIes of the wntmgs that remam, and attempted to determme the text But wIth the new feehng for style the unfimshed state m whIch these works have come down to us was aesthetically dlspleasmg They were Judged by the standard of hterary wntmg, whIch they constantly flouted and whIch IS wholly alIen to theIr nature Men naively compared the' style' of the treatises WIth Plato's dIalogues, and then lost themselves m enthUSIasm for the marvellous art of the latter By all kmds of ratIonalIzmg mterference, by declanng dlsturbmg passages spunous and transposmg sentences or whole books, they tned to force the AnstotelIan wntmgs mto the shape of readable handbooks The reason for thIS sort of cnhCIsm was the fallure to understand that provlSlonal fonn whIch, bemg thoroughly charactenstIc of Anstotle's phllosophy, conshtutes the mevltable startmg-pomt for every hlstoncal understandmg of It Even m the case of Plato, the Importance of the form for the understandmg of hIS pecuhar thought has often been overlooked for long penods , departmental phllosophers and students of lIterature, m particular, are always prone to conSider It as .;>ometlung lIterary, whIch had no matenal sIgmficance for Plato, m spIte of the fact that It IS umque m the history of phIlosophy By now, however, most persons know that the study of the development of the form of hIS wnhngs IS one of the mam keys to a phIlosophIcal understandmg of hIm WIth Anstotle, on the other hand, they still devote themselves exclusIvely to the content, all the more so because they suppose that he 'has no form whatever' The HellemstIc rhetoncians' narrow notIOn of what constItutes lIterary form almost lost us lus treatises, and IS actually responsIble for the dlSappearance of the StOIC and EpIcurean wntmgs As soon as we abandon It the questIon of lustoncal development naturally anses, for It IS absolutely ImpoSSIble to explam the peculIar state of the extant

THE PROBLEM

7

writIngs wIthout the SupposItion that they contam the traces of dIfferent stages 10 hIS evolutIOn AnalysIs of the treatises would lead us of Itself to thIS conclusIOn, and the fragments of hlS lost lIterary works confirm It The mam purpose of thIS book must be, therefore, to show for the first hme, by means of the fragments of the lost works and through the analysIs of the more Important treatIses, that at the root of them there IS a process of development It IS 10 fact out of the 1OterpretatIon of thf'se documents, for an edItIon of the Metaphys"cs, that the present work arose PhIlologIcal cntIclsm, however, IS here drrectly subc;erVlent to phIlosophIcal 1Oqurry, smce we are concerned not merely WIth the outward condItIon of the wntmgs as such, but also WIth the revelatIon whIch thIS condItIon glVes us of the dnvIng energy of Anstotle'~ thought

PART ONE

THE ACADEMY

CHAPTER I

THE ACADEMY AT THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE'S ENTRANCE ACCORDING to the eVIdence of hIS bIOgrapher, whIch IS re_f'l.l1able, Aristotle wrote to Kmg Ph!!!!> of _Macedon thathe had sj5eiif1wenty years wIth Plato . Smce he wasa meml>er of the Academy down t~ !...he time of t!!.e latter'Sdeath (:348/7), he must nave-entered It dunng 368/7- At that time hewasa youth of about 17 years I Whenlie~t he was approachmglilsTOrtles These acknowledged facts have aroused far too httle remark That a man of such profoundly ongInal talent should have remaIned for so long a penod under the mfluence of an outstandmg gemus of a totally dIfferent compleXIOn, and should have grown up wholly m hiS shadow, IS a fact WIthout parallel In the hIstory of great thInkers, and perhaps of all mdependent and creative natures whatever There IS no safer mdex to a diSCIple's powers of asslmtlatIon, and at the same time to the strength and sureness of hiS creative InstInct, than hIS relation to a great master to whom he dedIcates hiS youthful affectIons The Impersonal spmtual force that works through such a master frees the pUpil'S powers by constraInmg them, and npens him until he IS ready to stand alone Such was Anstotle's mtellectual development It was hiS expenence of Plato's world that e~ed hlffi to break through mto hIS ow~as thetwo togl~ther th'at • gave hiS mtellect the marvellous tautness, speed, and elaStiCIty, by m~nsof wi;~h he reached a hIgher level than Plato had-:-Tn spite of the defimte difference between Plato's unlwuted and !tEi own hmltec!Be_mus Thereafter, to retreat from that level would have been to turn the wheel of fate backwards Right down to the present day, Anstotle's .e.hllosopblCaJ relation to Plato ha,s fr.tquentljC been SUpPOs.ed to be hke that Qf a modem ac_~~~~!~ ]?htlosopher to Kant That IS to say, In a " -

_

w

---

__ _

_

__

_

The letter IS mentjoned In the VIta Marclana (Rose. Ap'ulotelu Pp'agmenla. P '427,1 18. see also PlI Ammon, Ibid. P 4]8,1 13. and the Latin trans, p 443, I 12) The figure 17 does not appear In thiS passage, but had been !Joked up With It at least as early as the Alexandnan bIOgrapher, cf Dlonys Hal ad Amm. S (R 728) I

I2

THE ACADEMY

mechanical way, he accepted certaIn bits of his master'~~..Ectnne and reJected- oth~rs...,..tPlato's unIqueness, and hl~ pictorIal way of phIlosophlzmg, naturally gave nse to the SusplclOn that Anstotle faJ.1ed to understand his archetype It was supposed that he missed the mythical, the plastIc, and the IntUItIve In Plato, and, because they omitted these fundamental aspects, his cnticlsms seemed almost entIrely beSIde the pomt Bemg thoroughly abstract, they really Involved a transItIon _to another genus (~6:l3cxalS' elS' aAAo yEVos-J / What a shortSighted and pettIfoggmg charge IS clear from several passages that Anstotle w'!s well aware of thiS featur!..m Plato's thought before he ever began to cntIClze h)m_ How could the founder of psychology, and of ItS applIcatIon to Intellectual and aesthetIc processes, pOSSibly have been Ig1!.!?rant of It ;I It was preCisely Anstotle who first described, In short and tellmg words, the poetIc and prophetIc elements which the modems suppose they were the first to dIscover In Plato, and hiS definitIon of the aesthetIc nature of the dIalogues~etter than !!!ost-of theirs He never for a moment Imagmed that in descnbmg the lOgIcal and ontological dIfficultIes of Plato'., theory he had disposed either of ItS hlstoncal Significance or of the absolute value of ItS content~ ThIS assertlOn does not need to be supported by quotatlOn It IS self-eVIdent to anyone who knows that Anstotle did not approach Plato's VIews In a cold and cntIcal SpInt, but was at first spellbound for many years by the overwhelmmg personal ImpresslOn that they made on him ~s a whole It IS, however, one thing to understand, and qUIte another to want to Imitate and perpetuate In ItS entIrety, such a complIcated world as Plato's, so manifold In Its mtellectual tendenCIes and so mdlvldual In ItS presentatlOn \ Here IS where profitable and unprofitable PlatOnIsm part companyv«' IS unprofitable to cultIvate an 'aesthetIc' and InSmcere apmg of the PlatOniC spmt, makmg great play With ItS favounte Images and expresSlOns It IS profitable to work at Its problems, and this, whIch Plato himself recognIzes as the most Important thmg, necessanly leads beyond hun It IS also profitable to realIze the onesldedness of our modem thought, IneVitable though thIS onesldedness IS, by surveymg With Anstotle the contrast between our sCIences

'",it

AT THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE'S ENTRANCE

13

dnd Plato's Irrecoverable spmtual umty/Aristotle's attItude to this problem was different at different times Begmmng by naively trymg to Imitate and contInue the Platomc manner, he came to (:lstmgUlsh between the abidIng essence and the outward formulation, the latter of which IS either detemuned by the aCCidents of the age or umque and so Inumtable He then sought to remove the form while retammg the essence From bemg a perfected form the Platomc phIlosophy became to hun the matter or VAT) for somethIng new and higher ~ had accepted Plato's doctrines With his whole soul, and the effo-~ 0discover his own relation to them occupied all hIs-life, and IS the clue to hl§ development It IS possible -to discern a gradual progress, In the vanous stages of which we can clearly recogmze the unfoldIng of hiS own essential nature Even hiS latest productions retaIn c;;ome trace of the PlatOnIC spmt, but It IS weaker than In the earher one~ HIS own notion of development can be applIed to hImself however strong the mdividualIty of the' matter', the new form finally overcomes Its resistance/It grows untIl It ha~ ~haped the matter from WithIn m accordance with Its own law, and Imposed ItS own shape upon It Just as tragedy attaInS It<; own speCial nature (eoxe TftV ~avriis epuaw) . out of the dIthyramb' by leading the latter through vanou~ form'>, so Anstotle made hImself out of the Platomc philosophy The history of hiS development-and the order of the documents for thl<; can be determIned With certaInty-represents a defimte scale of graduated progre~Cj In thiS dIrectIOn, although he never got beyond compromises In ~ome matters In these matters hl~ pupIls very often understood him better than he did himself, that IS to 'idy, they eXCIsed the Platomc element m him and tned to retam only what WdS pure Anstotle The speCific Anstotle IS, however, only half the real Anstotle ThiS hiS dlsclples faIled to grasp, but he hunself was always conscIOUS of It .., The Academy that An~totle entered m 367 was no longe! that of the _~Ime of the Sym~nctwhose table Philo m the full tide ~enthuslasm had ImagIned the leaders of art and ~clence and the representatIve~ of Hellemc youth gathercd to hear from the hps of the prophetess the great mystery of the birth of the mtellect out of Ero~ The esc;;ence of Plato's philosophy had long ceased tolle-in the figure that he had created m B

14

THE ACADEMY

hIS early works. the central figure of the philosopher Socrates In content and method It was now far beyond the SocratIc field of problems It was only by readmg, and not through any lIvmg presence of the SocratIc spmt m the Academy of the slXtIes, that ArIStotle learnt what Socrates had meant to Plato and hIS early disciples The Phaedo and the GorgJas, the Repubhc and the SymposJum, were now the eVidences, already classical. of a closed chapter In the master's lIfe, and they towered above the busy realItIes of the school lIke motionless Gods Anyone whom these dIalogues had drawn from distant places to enJoy Plato's actual presence must surely have been surpnsed to find no mystenes celebrated among the phdosophers They certamly radIated a revolutIOnIZIng force and a new senousness, and these Anstotle found m the Academy also, but theIr claSSIc doctnnes about the Ideas, about umty and multiplICIty, about pleasure and pam, about the state. about the !>oul and virtue, were by no means mVlOlable sanctuanes In the dlscusc;lOns of the students They were constantly bemg tested, defended, and altered, m the lIght of acute dlstmctlOns and labonous exammatlOns of theIr logIcal valIdIty The dlst10ctlve feature was that the learners themselves took part In thIs common effort The Images and myths of the dIalogues remamed Plato's mo~t charactenshc and urecapturable work. but. on the other hand, the dlscusc;lon of conceptIons became along WIth the Academy's relIgIOus tendency the essentIal pnnclple of the school These were the only two elements In Plato's thought that were transferable, and the more students he attracted the more they preponderated over the artIstIc sIde of hIs nature Where the opposing forces of poetry and dIalectic are mIxed In a SIngle mInd It IS natural for the former to be progressIvely stIfled by the latter, but 10 Plato's case the school carrIed hIm Irre,>l<,tlbly 10 thIS dIrectIon The set of Anstotle's m10d was deCided by the fact that he entered the Academy Just as thIS momentous alteratIon, the development of Plato's later dIalectIc. was begmmng to make headway Thanks to the recent advances of research we can follow thlS process WIth chronologIcal exactitude m the great methodologIcal dialogues that Plato wrote dunng these years, Theaetetus, Soplust, Statesman. Parmenzdes. and PhJlebus The first dla10gue of the group, the Theaetetus, was wntten soon after

AT THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE'S ENTRANCE

1.5

the death 10 369 of the famous mathematIcIan whose memory It honours I It IS the more charactenstic of the Academy at the time of An~tot1e's entrance because 10 thIS and the follow1Og dialogues (Sophtst and Statesman) the work of the school, whIch had been almost entIrely concealed 10 the wnt10gs of the claSSIcal penod, begms to press Plato's whole hterary actIVIty IOta ItS serVIce, and has thus left a pIcture of Itself that lacks no essentIal feature 2. Jon order to understand Anstotle and hIS relatIOn to Plato It IS unportant not to set out from the vague nohon of •Plato' as a whole, but to substItute the preCIse conception of hIS last penod, the abstract and methodologIcal penod that began about 369 ThIs gave Anstotle a defimte dIrectIOn, and opened up a field of work SUitable to hIS particular dIsposItion JSocratlc thought always kept close to real hfe, and the early Plato was a reformer and an artist In contrast to thIS, Anstotle's thought was abstract, and hI<; attitude was that of the pure sCIentI~t But the<;e traIts were not hIS pnvate property, they were common to the whole Academy dunng the time when he belonged to It In the Theaetetus we have the apotheosIs of the un-SocratIc phI1o<;opher of Plato's later days The machmery of the dIalogue gIVf>S the dehneatIon of the type to Socrates, but the pIcture hf> draws has no re<;emblance to hImself, accord 109 to hIS own faIthful charactenzatIOn of hImself 10 the Apology, but to the mathematICal reclu<;e, and It I~ ObVIOUS that the new conI For the external reasons for thiS date see the conclusive arguments of Eva Sachs, De Theaeteto AthemenH Mathemat>co, Berhn, 1914, pp 18 ff The main eVHleru:e, of course, comes from th, ~tyhStiL and philosophical analysE's of the dialogue both of which confirm the Lxternal arguments for lateness The SophIst, which IS the posItive rlLvdopmrnt of the problem of the 1 heaetet14s, retams ItS settmg as docs the State, man but no one nowadays conSiders the SOPhHt an 'L1ementary dialogue comlllg at thL bLgmnmg of Plato's development, as did Zeller and those who preceded him Campbell's fundamental researches took some time to make their way mto Germany, but have since been confirmed on all sHlLs by later mvestlgatlons The final touch has been glvLn by the history of the development of Plato's dl.J.lectic, which IS a later addItion, see espeCIally J ~tenzel's Stud,en z14r Lntw,cklung der platonlschen D,alekhk (ErLslau, 1917). to which I am much mdebted ~ Smce the appearOLnce of the German LdltJOD of thiS booJ.. Fnednch Solmsen has tned to determlDe more exactly how far the picture presented by the dialectical dialogues agrees with the adual philosophical activIties of the Academy, and how far It falls short of It See hIS . Die Entwlcklung der anstoh.hschcn Loglk und Rhetonk' (Neue Ph,lologlSche Untersuchungen, cd by Werner Jaeger vol IV Berhn, 1929), p 240 HI~ observatIOns form a valuable addItIOn to what IS saId above

16

THE ACADEMY

ceptIon of the •theoretical' hfe has helped to determ10e Its features Socrates had concerned himself solely wIth man, and not with that whIch IS above the heaven or under the earth The Theaetetus, on the other hand, speaks of the phIlo!>ophlcal soul as . geometnz1Og' and . a!>tronomlz1Og' 1 She IS mdlfferent to what IS near at hand, she despIses precIsely those practical actIvItIes that occupIed the hves of Socrates' favounte hearers. and she roams m lofty dl!>tances, a., IS solemnly quoted from Pmdar The Tlzeaetefus unmistakably refers to the forthcom1Og appearance of the Parmcmdes The latter wa!> pretty certamly wntten before the formcr\ .,equeb, the Sophtst and the Statesman; hence It was probably fimshed when Anstotle entered the school, and cannot 10 any case be much later Those who suggest that Anstotle was the author of the ObjectIOns whIch thIS dIalogue raISt'S to the theory of Ideas, are makmg the unhkely supposItIon that he took the InltIatlve In a rt'voluhonary manner while he was shll extremely young .md had only Just entered the society The dIalogue shows that before Amtotle the Academy had already gone far 10 cnhclz10g the hybnd character of the Ideas, half substances and half abstractIOns It could not be long before the two ""ere separated Plato himself, mdeed, thought that he could overcome the dJfncultIe." nevertheless he prepared the way for what happened when he recogmzed It as m pnnclple correct to make labonou,> logical and ontological exammations of the Ideas, as I!> done m thiS dialogue and m later ones Anstotle's speculatIon'> cannot be hnked up With the Phaedo or the Repubhc and the Idea-theory as It appears 10 them In the Theaetetus Theaetetus and Theodorus are opposIte types One represents the young generatIOn of mathematICIans, who are mterested In phJ.1osophy , the other the old, who will not hear of It, though they are c;xperts In theIr own subject It was not an accIdent that Plato's relations to famous mathematlcIans found expreSSIOn m a dialogue preCIsely at thIS tIme For about the year 367 Eudoxus of CyZlcuS brought hIS school to Athens, In order to dISCUSS With Plato and hiS followers the problems that mterested both partIes ~ I Theaet 173 E-I74 A , Tannery's cODJecture

(liJsto~,e

de Z'ast,onomu. p

~96,

n 4)

IS

confirmed by

AT THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE'S ENTRANCE

17

ThIS event attracted a good deal of attention, and from that time on we constantly find members of thIs school of mathematICians and astronomers 10 commumcatIon wIth the Academy Hehcon and Athenaeus are examples As early as the RepublIC we can observe the effects of Theaetetus' dIscovery of solId geometry After thell" 1Otercourse wIth Eudoxus, Plato and hls followers took a very great 10terest 10 the attempts of the CyZIceman school to explam the Irregular movements of the planets by sImple mathematical SupposItions ThIS was not the only way 10 whIch Eudoxus stimulated them He tremendously enlarged theIr notiOns of geography and human culture by bnngmg exact reports of ASia and Egypt, and by descnb10g from extended personal expenence the status of astronomy 10 those parts HIS contnbutIon to ethical questIons was also Important The problem of the nature and meamng of pleasure and pam, which was to be so central 10 Anstotle's ethiCS, led to one more great debate wlthm the Academy 10 Plato's later years Xenocrates, SpeusippuS, and Anstotle contnbuted works On Pleasure to It, Plato contnbuted the Phtlebus Many years afterwards Anstotle, who met Eudoxus nght at the beg10mng of hIS stay 10 the Academy, could stIll speak of hiS personal ImpreSSiOn WIth real warmth, when he was recalhng the stImulus that Eudoxus gave Eudoxus also raIsed difficulties about the Ideas and suggested an alteratiOn of the theory I In every field Plato's school began to attract more and more strangers, some of them of the most dIverse types HIS travel., had brought hIm mto close connexiOn \-\lth the Pythagoreans gathered rour,d Archytas at Tarentum TheIr mfluence reached as far as SIcIly, and 10 SIcily at thIS tIme there flounshed the medIcal school of PhillstIon, whose Importance wa., so great that we must reckon the LIfe (Rose, p 429, I 1) accordmg to which Anstotle entered the Academy under Eudoxus Some excerptor must have misunderstood the statement and taken Eudoxus for an archon What hiS authonty told him was Simply that Anstotle's entry comclded With Eudoxus presf'nce Cf Eva Sachs (who follows F Jacoby). op cit. P 17 n 2 I For Anstotleon Eudoxus' character and theory of pleasure see Eth Nac X 2 For the latter's proposed reform illation of the Idea-theory see Metaph A 9, 991& 17, and at greater length In the second book On Ideas (Rose, frg 18g), which has been preserved by Alexander m hiS commentary on the pa.ssage Endoxus proposes to regard participation as the Immanence of the Ideas In the thmgs, and to thiS Anstotle strongly objects That partiCipatIOn was the most debated problem of the time IS clear from Plato s later dialogues

18

THE ACADEMY

among Its spmtual members such an author and physIcIan as DIOcles of Carystus In Euboea, Plato must have had relations wIth PhlhstIon The author of the spunous second letter appears to know that Plato VISIted Phlhshon, and even seemIngly that the latter was InvIted to Athens If not PhuIst!on hImself, at any rate some real member of hIS school IS concealed behInd the unnamed 'SIcIhan doctor' whose ImpatIence at the 10glcal haIrsplIttmgs of the Academy IS descnbed by a contemporary comic poet I IncIdentally thIS story shows that, although Plato was accustomed to converse WIth speciahsts In all fields, the result was often merely to reveal the unbndgeable gulf between IOniC or SIClhan SCIence and what Plato understood by that word The fact that he makes COpiOUS use of the latest researches In medICine, mathematIcs, and astronomy, In order to construct hIS story of creation In the T~maeus, must not blmd us to the Independent manner In which he handles thIS matenal fihe Academy of Plato's later days dId Indeed get through a great mass of matenal. and thIS enVIronment no doubt made It possIble for an Anstotle to learn by hiS own efforts the Significance of empIrIcal facts, which later became so Integral to hiS researches, but the present universal custom of speakIng of an . organization of the sCIences' In the Academy IS wrong Z Modem academIes and umversltIes cannot claim Plato as theIr model The notIon of a systematic umty of all SCIences was totally foreign to hIm, and stIll more so was ItS reahzatIon m an encyclopaedic orgamzatIon of all subjects for purposes' of teachIng and research MediCIne, mathematIcs, astronomy, geography, and anthropology, the whole system of historIcal SCiences, and that of the rhetoncal and dIalectIcal arts, to mentlOn only the mam channels of Greek thought, arose each by Itself, though several were sometImes combIned In one person, and went each on Its own way undisturbed To a Theodorus or a Theaetetus It would have seemed a very peculIar notIon to combme mto one universal system of SCIences theIr mathematIcs and the researches that some SOphIStS were makmg mto Greek I Eplcrates frg 287 (Kock) SeealsoM Wellmann's Fragm~llt~d~r slkBI~sch~fl

Arm (Berhn, 1907), p 68, and my artIcle 'Das Pneuma 1m LykelOn'

(H"m~s,

vol 48), P 51, n 3 • It has been unIversal SlOce H Usener's now famous article In vol 53 (1884) of the Pr~usSischB JahrbUcll~r, repnnted 10 Vorlr4ge ufld Aufs4tz~, p 69

AT THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE'S ENTRANCE

19

culture or archaeology The physIcians also stood qUIte alone Democntus, and after him Eudoxus, who to some extent antIcipates the type that Anstotle represented, are abnormal phenomena Eudoxus was marvellously manysided To mathematIcs and astronomy he Jomed geography, anthropology, medlcme, and philosophy, and was himself productive m the first four fields Plato was concerned exclUSively with •Bemg' If we are to gIve hIm hIs place m the traditIon of Greek thought, he IS one of the representatIves of the speculation about substance (ovalo) WIth his theory of Ideas he gave It a new tum, m fact, he really restored It to life Startmg from the Ideas, and bemg concerned solely with umty and the supersenslble, he does not at first touch the mamfold and empIrIcal world at any pomt The dIrection of hi'> mqUlnes IS away from phenomena towards somethmg •higher' The sheer necessities of his speculatIOn about concepts did mdeed lead him to develop the method of divIsIOn, whIch latcr became enormously Important for Anstotle's attempt to get an empIrIcal grasp of plants and ammals, as well as of the mental world But Plato himself was not concerned to reduce mdlvlduals to a system They lay bclow the realm of Ideas, ami, bemg completely mfimte (c5:rrElpOV), were unknowable HIS notion of the mdlvIdual (6:TOlJ.ov) was that of the lowest Form, which IS not further dIVI,>lble and he~ on the border between phenomena and Platomc ,>clence and reahty The many claSSIficatIOns of plants, &c , that Eplcrates speaks of, which were g-enerally felt to be the most charactenstIc and pecuhar occupation followed m the Academy (even Speuslppus' great Resemblances was apparently concerned solely thereWIth), \\-ere pursued not from mterest m the objects themselves, but m order to learn the logical relatIOns of conceptJOns, thiS IS Illustrated by the quantIty of books put forward m the school at thiS time With the title of Cla!>stficattons In classIfymg plants the members no more aimed at producmg a real botamcal system than Plato m the Sophtst alms at a hlstoncal study of the real SOphlStS,1 I In the fragment preVIOusly referred to Eplcrates does not Imply that the Platomsts pursued botamcal mqumes In a posItive spmt What he IS laughmg at IS the enthUSIasm for clasSIficatIon that led them to hold relations between conceptIOns more Important than the thmgs themselves 'They were definmg the world of nature and dllnd'ng the hfe (~lov) of ammals and the nature of trees

THE ACADEMY

20

It IS no great distance from such classificatIOns of the real to the notIon of a smgle sCience embracmg as many departmental sCiences as there are departments of realIty (6v) And although , the artIculatIOn of the pO~lhve 'iClences was not effected unhl Anstotle's nohon of realIty hdd replaced Plato's transcendental bemg,l It remams d remarkable fact that the Idea of a systematizatIon of the departmental suences, each of whIch had ansen mdependently, was an afterthought due to the Attic phllo'>ophy of conceptIOns and Its enthUSiasm for classIfic,ltJon It IS almost too late now to estimate the advantage'> and disadvantage~ of carrymg thiS systemdtIzatlOn through In dt-tail Presumably both have been pretty Idrge At no perIod when research wa" truly fiounshmg has the general ~PJrlt of a Pdrticular phIlosophy ever thoroughly penneated all the "uence", dnd thiS IS natural smce each sCience has Ib own 'ipmt and It<; o\\n pnnclple Only through dual natures, or where the lead m phIlo,",ophy ha.. been taken by famou'S sClentI'its who Imbued It With the SpIrIt of particular branches of research, ha" d pd.rtIal permeation occurred Anstotle, Lelbmz, and Hegel, very dIfferent types, are the most Important example" of thiS Plato hImself had some "peclahzed understanding of mathematical questions, which enabled hIm to follow the Important contemporary developments of the 'iClence He was also mterested 10 astronomy 50 far as It could then be treated mathematically In later hfe he devoted hlm5elf senously to the phySICS of the elements, hopmg to be able to gIve a mathematical denvatIon of the qualItatIve difference" between the so-called and the ~pecles of vegetables and among these latter they were examining what IS the specIes of the pumpkin n.pl ylJp cpva."'S 6:cpoPll6~,vol 1.IEXc.>PI]OV ]v T' CPU"'V ~CI)(6:vc.>v TO ylvT}. K,p' Iv To\rrOIS T'l'iv KO~OKVVTTJV 1~"'Ta:lOV ICTTI ylvov<;

"vos

Here Illoo; does not mean the habIts of ammals which would be 1.Ia'Ta It IS the same as 'nature' and . genus', and these are actual terms from Plato ~ dialectic, as are defimtlon', 'divIsion', and . examinatIOn' of conceptIOns The fragments of Speuslppus' ·O~ola have been collected by P Lang De Speuslppl Academlcl scnplls (Bonn, 1911, D1SS) The title Itself shows what the aIm of the book was I • There are all many parts of plulo80phy as there are kinds of substances', Anst Metaph r 2, 100.' 2

AT THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE'S ENTRANCE

21

elements of Empedocles, whIch he regarded as mere phases HIS only other mterests m phenomena lay m the sphere of medlcme and m that of ethics and pohtlcs In the latter he colJected, especIally for the Laws, exten.,lve matenal on cnmmal law and the hIstory of Clvlhzatlon It was thus dunng the pf'nod when,Anstotle was a member of the school that he turned hIS attentlOn to partlculars And the stlmulus that hIS collectIon of new hlstoncal and pohtlcal matter gave to Anstotle IS clear from the numerous comcldences between the Laws and the Pohtus On the other hand, Anstotle lacked the temperament and the ablhty for anyth10g more than an elementary acquamtance wIth the Academy's chIef preoccupatIon, mathematIcs, while the Academy, contranwlse, could not stImulate hIm 10 the field of blOloglcal sCIence m whIch hIS own true gemus lay FruItful and congemal as was the youthful Anstotle's expenence of the stnct and methodIcal procedure of the vanous SCIences, the ImpresslOn made upon hIm by Plato's personahty was the strongest of all Plato surveyed J.ll those fertl1e plams from the hIgh vantage-pomt of hI" o\\,n creatIve spmt and mward VlSlOn, and Anstotle was wholly preoccupIed wIth hIm It IS not our purpose here to dISCUSS the 10fluence of Plato's personahty on hIS contemporanes, or to reduce hIS posItIon m the hIstory of knowledge to a formula, although to a man hke An!>totle thIS latter que!>tIon was naturJ.lly the kernel of hiS whole attItude to Plato The elements out of whIch hIS work arose dId not mclude elthcr lomc lO"Topla (1Oqmry) or the ratIonahz1Og Enhghtenment of the sophists, although these two, m spIte of theIr dlspanty. together constItuted the forms of knowledge par excellence at thc tIme The first of these elements was (1) the phroneszs or wIsdom of Socrates ThIS bore only a superficial resemblance to the fatlOnahsm of the sophIsts EssentIally It was rooted 10 the realm, hItherto undIscovered by Greek sCience and plulosophy, of an ethIcal conSClOusness of absolute standards It demanded a new and superempmcal conceptIon of mtellectual mtmtlOn The .,econd and thIrd elements, which were also foreIgn to contemporary thought, were two new addItIon., to the SocratIc philosophy, produced by glvmg phronesJs a !>upersenslblc object and mak10g thiS a .form . These were (2) the Idea, which was the result of a long process

22

THE ACADEMY

of vlSual and aesthetic development m the Greek mmd, and (3) the long-neglected study of ovala or substance, to whIch Plato gave new matenal by the problem of the one and the many, and hvmg and tangIble content by the InventIon of the Ideas The last element was (4) the duahsm of the OrphIC myth of the soul, to whIch hIS whole constItutIOn mclmed hun, and whIch, watered by hIS fertIle ImagmatIon, took firm root m the new conception of bemg When we consIder these four elements It IS not dIfficult to suppose that he affected the ordmary educated person as a mIxture of poet, reformer, cntlc, and prophet (The stnctness WIth whIch he Imposed hIS new method on hImself would not at first make any dIfference to thIs ImpressIon) Hence It IS not surpnsmg that, m vIew of the gulf between hIm and all other SCIence, both anCIent and modern, he has been called a mystIc and expelled from the hIstory of thought If thIs sImple solutIon were nght, however, It would be very hard to understand why he has had such a great Influence on the destimes of human knowledge, and the fact that he was the sun around whIch revolved persons hke Theaetetus, Eudoxus, and Anstotle, that IS to say, the most talented pIOneers of sCIentIfic research that the fourth century produced, IS suffiCIent to condemn the cheap WIsdom whose notIon of the complexIty of mtellectual currents IS so madequate that It would stnke the most revolutIonary of all phIlosophers out of the hIstory of knowledge, because he dIscovered not merely new facts but also new dImenSIOnS Anstotle saw as clearly ac; Eudoxus that Plato, In hIS phIlosophIcal work, had welded together sCIentIfic dIscoverIes, elements of myth, and mysterIous spmtual realms to whIch the eye of knowledge had never penetrated ThIS weld was by no means the mere result of the creator's subjective mclmatIon, It was necessarIly deternlmed by the hlstoncal SItuatIon, the elements In whIch were later analysed by Anstotle WIth a profound understandmg alIke of the creatIon and of ItS creator At first, however, he abandoned hunself WIthout reserve to thiS mcomparable and IndiVISible world, as is shown by the fragments of hIS early wntmgs, and It was preCIsely the non-SCIentIfic elements In Plato's phIlosophy, that IS, the metaphYS1Cal and rellgJ.ous parts of 1t, that left the most lastmg

AT THE TIME OF ARISTOTLE'S ENTRANCE

23

Imprmt on hIS mmd He must have been unusually receptIve for such unpresslOns It was theIr confhct WIth hIS own sCIentIfic and methodIcal tendenCIes that later gave nse to most of lus problems, and theIr strength IS beautIfully shown by the fact that he never sacnficed them, although m SCIentIfic matters he went beyond Plato at every pomt ~n Plato he sought and found d. man to lead hun m a new hie, Just as m hIS dIalogue Nermthus he makes the sImple CorInthIan countryman, enthralled by the Gorg~as, abandon hIS plough to seek and follow the master Plato explams the conneXlOn between knowmg the good and followmg It m hIS seventh letter The knowledge whIch accordmg to Socrates makes men good, and that whIch IS commonly called SCIentific knowledge, are dlstmct The former 15 creatIve, and can only be attamed by souls that have a fundamental affinIty to the obJect to be known, namely, the good, the Just, and the beautIful There 15 nothIng to whIch Plato nght down to the end of hIS hfe was more passlOnately opposed than the statement that the soul can know what IS Just WIthout bemg Just I ThIS, and not the systematIzatlOn of knowledge, was hIS amI In foundmg the Academy It remamed hIS aIm to the end, as IS shown by thIS letter that he wrote In hIS old age Let there be a commUnIon (01.J3i\V) of the elect. of those who, once theIr souls have grown up m the atmosphere of good, are able by vIrtue of theIr supenor eqUipment to share at last III the knowledge that IS 'hke a hght kmdled by leapmg fire' It seems to hun, Plato says, that the search after thIS knowledge IS a thIng not for the mass of mankmd. but only for the few who WIth a shght hmt can find It for themselves 2 I

Ep VII 3HA

• Ibid

3iI C-R

CHAPTER II

EARLY WORKS

I\. RISTOTLE wrote a series of \\ Clrks m dIalogue form The n.fragments that remam of them are not studIed as much as they should be, partly because It IS pleasanter to leave such troublesome work to phIlologIst,>, but dlso because of the convIctIon, whIch has always obtamed In the PenpatetIc school, that the true Anstotle IS to be found m the treatIses Even]f we only WIsh to understand the treatises, however, the fragments of the lost dIalogues can teach us a great deal If we knew nothmg else about the relatIOn between the two kmds of wntmg, It would be hIghly !>lgmficant to be ablE' to determme that the dIalogues, modelled on those of Plato, belong almost entirely to Anstotle's early year!>, and that m hIS later penod he practIcally abandoned lIterary actIVIty (smce the treatise,> are merely thc wntten baSIS of hIS very extenSIve dctIvltIe~ as teacher and lecturer) There are mdeed exceptIons to thIS statement Alexander or Colomzatwn mu,>t, to Judge from It!> title, have been a dIalogue belongmg to the tIme when Alexander's raCIal polIcy m ASia oblIged Anstotle to make publIc announcement of hIS dIsapproval to the Greek-readmg world ThIS <;traggler therefore had a speCIal reason m Anstotlc's polItIcal posItion M utatls mutandts, the same IS true of the collectIOn of 158 Constitutions, whIch was mtended for publIcatIOn and was wntten m a clear and lIvely stylc, a,> we can tell from that of the Constitution of Athens In spIte of these c),ceptlons, however, It remaUls true to say that m the course of hIS development Anstotle radIcally altered hIS VIews about the necessity of pre!>entmg SCIence m hterary form, and about the relatIon between hterary and truly productive work WIth Plato the pnmary Impulse was ongmally the formative one He dId not wnte m order to set out the contents of hIS doctnne HIS deSIre was to show the phIlosopher 1fl the dramatic Instant of seekmg and findmg, and to make tht' doubt and can· thct vIsIble, and that not In a mere mtellectual operatIon, but m the fight dgamst pseudO-SCIence, polItical power, 50clety, and

EARLY WORKS

25

his own heart, for the spmt of Plato's phIlosophy necessarily colhded with all these forces ~ordIng to his anginal view of It, philosophy IS not a sphere of theoretIcal dlscovenes but a reorgamzatlOn of all the fundamental elements of hfe Consider, for example, the paradOXical picture of the phIlosopher In the Theaetetus, or the duel between the Socrates of the Gorgfas and Calhcles, who represents the egOIstical, mlght-ls-nght view of state and SOCIety These dialogue!> have nothIng but the name 10 common wlth,the didactic conversations of GIOrdano Bruno, Hume, or Schopenhauer Plato was wntIng the phIlosopher's tragedy Unhke hIS Imitators he never gave mere theoretical differences of opinIOn under a styh!>bc veneer The Theaetetus, whIch IS contemporary With Anstotle's entrance Into the Academy, IS the first of a group of dialogues that are radically different from the earher ones both m form and m content, and It ushers m the transference of Plato's maIn phIlosophical Interests to methodologIcal, analytical, and abstract studies I In thiS group the eqUlhbnum between the aesthetic and the philo<;ophlcal elements m Plato's mind IS destroyed for the sake of the latter The dl<;cords, cleally perceptible to dehcate ear!>, begIn to appear m the Theaetetus They ;ue due not so much to the lack of out\\ard pohsh In the form as to the conquest of Plato's dramatiC Impulse by hiS abstract mterest m method, to the conSIstent pursUIt of a SIngle quesbon along a smgle let el track A man can mdeed find Plato the dramatI'>t even here, ~o long as he I'> able to detect rever<;al of fortunes (lTEpI'lTETEIO) ar.d comphcatIon (lTAOKt'j) eVfn m the development of methodological and abstract Ideas But m "plte of the artIstIc elaboratene<;s of Its constructIOn It remams slgmficant that thiS very dialogue seems to most modern phIlosophers Plato's •greate~t phl1osopblCal achievement' It IS In fact almost a treatise, posItive though cntIcal, and It IS not an aCCident that m the Introduction Plato refers to hiS prevIous J J Stenzel was the first to !pve any thorough account of the conneXIOD betwc"n Plato s phl1o.ophlcal development and hiS form See hiS
PP 45 If

26

THE ACADEMY

method of wntmg dIalogues, and announces slmphficatlons the aim of whIch 15 to glVe greater sCIentific lUCIdIty and dll"ectness to the exposItion 1 The SopJu,st and the Statesman show more clearly the dIfficulty that Plato now has wIth the dIalogue form The apphcatIon of the method of dIvIsIon to a partIcular conceptIOn, descendmg step by step from the universal to the parhcular, IS such an undramatic and monotonous procedure that at the begmnmg of the Sophtst the leader of the dISCUSSIon IS obhged to tell hIS mterlocutors not to mterrupt him too often, or preferably to IlSten to a contmuous speech z ThIs amounts to openly abandon109 Socrates' r obstetnc' method of dIScussIon, and announcIng that from now on the dIalogue form IS nothmg but an unessential styhstIc ornament The Ttmaeus and the Phtlebus are not exceptIOns, what they offer to the reader as dialogue IS merely a transparent vell of style thrown over a purely doctnnal content It IS not any VIvaCIty 10 the conversation that gIves the Tunaeus Its tremendous effectIveness The Pkdebus could be transformed Without dIfficulty mto a methodIcal and umfied treatise much lIke Anstotle's Ethtcs In the Laws the last trace of scemc llltlSIOn IS gone The delmeahon of character (Tj601Totla) IS conscIOusly renounced, and the whole 15 a solemn address or proclamatIOn, not by Socrates but by Plato hImself, the stranger from Athens J As was logIcal, the figure of Socrates, after havmg been releI Theaet 143 B The Theaetetus retams the outward form of a SocratIc dialogue, and frequently makes express reference to Socrates' IIIldWlfery But tlus very selfCOIlSCIOUS reflection on the nature and hmlts of the Socratic method, wluch 15 strongly emphaslZed, shows that Plato IS now purposely uSIng the old form of cross-examinatIon (~os) merely to clear the ground for Ius question about the de.fimtIon of knowledge Stenzel I1ghtly POlOtS out the close connexlon between the Theaetetus and the Soph.st, the latter solves the problems raISed by the former. and It does not use' midwifery' Cf Socrates' .final words at Theaet 210 c 'These are the hmlts of Illy art, I can no farther go • a Saph 217 D It 19 true that they are stilI gomg to gIve remark for remark (~ 'I1"pO; mos), It beIng assumed that the answerer Wlll always say yes, but that IS something qUite different from the old 'obstetnc' conversation 'by questxon and answer', where the questIoner puts forward no VIewS hut only gets the answerer to do so • The author of the Ep.?lomls Judges the real state of aflalr9 correctly In 980 D He makes the Athemall relDlnd the two others of a. famous passage of the Laws In words that absolutely abandon all dralDatlc reahty 'If you remelDber, for, to be sure, you made notes (Vrro\lVl\l!OTa) at the tu:ne' Here we are suddenly 10 the middle of a lecture

EARLY WORKS

27

gated to mmor roles from the Soph~st onwards, IS finally dropped the Laws In the Ph~lebus he appears once more, for the last tIme, because thIS dIalogue dIscusses questions that had been raised by the real Socrates (The answers are obtamed, however, by means of methods that would never have occurred to hun ) In thIS last perIod the separation between the histOrIcal Socrates and Plato's own philosophlZmg IS complete And that IS another Sign that hIS general tendency towards SCIence, lOgIC, and dogma IS seekmg self-expressIOn The last fruit of the theory of Forms was the methods of classification and abstractlOn, WhICh are what Plato means by dIalectic In the narrow sense of hIS later works These methods had revolutIonIZed the form of the controversIal dialogue that arose out of the SocratIc crossexarnmatlOn They had made It psychologIcally meamngless and almost turned It 1Oto a treatIse No further progress was pOSSIble m thiS dIrectIon It was only a question of tune before the great art of the claSSIcal Platomc dramas died out, for ItS root was dead ThiS was the moment at which the young Anstotle began " to take a hand I All members of the Academy wrote dialogues, though none wrote more and weIghtIer ones than ArIstotle ThIS fact IS SignIficant for the relatIon of the new generatIOn to Plato They all used the dialogue as a ready-made form, WIthout askmg themselves how far such an ImltatlOn was pOSSible The Greeks naturally tended to Imitate everythmg once It was ' dIscovered' , and they had not yet reahzed that Plato's dIalogue m ItS claSSIcal perfechon was somethmg absolutely Immltable, the flower of a umque combmation of hIstOrIcal neceSSIty, mdlvldual creatIve power, and partIcular expenence HIS pupils regarded the dIalogue as the estabhshed vehIcle for gIvmg hvmg form to esotenc philosophy, and hence every one deSired to see the master's effect on himself reproduced 10 such a medIUm But the more they realIZed that, because of the 10tunate umty of hiS personality, hfe, and works, Plato was an mdlvlSlble In

I No one has yet tned to connect Anstotle's dialogue WIth the development of Plato's form R Hirzel (Der DJQlog p 275) does not even put the question Usmg a merely general Impression of Plato's dialogues, he can only 6ee the Anstotehan type as opposed to It He regards the two kinds as due Simply to the difference In the characters of the two authors, and does not do Justice to the factors mherent In the SituatIon

28

THE ACADEMY

magmtude that could not be taken over as a whole WIthout producIng either a dead scholasticism or a literary duettantlsm, the more they conscIOusly set themselves to find fundamentally new forms for that which was sCientIfic and objective In hlID and so could be detached These attempts properly took therr departure not from the dialogues but from Plato's oral teachIng It IS slgtuficant both of the youthful Anstotle's natural affimty to Plato and of his InabIlIty to view him objectIvely that he dId not at once take thiS WoiY, but began by contInuIng the dialogue Clearly he found the es!:>entlal Plato more ahve, more powerful. and more obJectIve, 111 the dialogue than In any other fonn The remammg fragments of hiS dialogues, together WIth the reports of antIqUity and the ImItatIOns of later wnters (he had an especially powerful mfluence on CIcero), enable us to mfer that AnstotIe Invented a ne\\. kmd of lIterary dialogue, namely the dialogue of sCIentIfic diSCUSSIOn He nghtly saw that the shadow-eAlstence of the' obstetnc' questIOn and answer must be done away, smce It had lost Its real function by becommg a mere cloak for' long speeches' , but, while Plato In hiS later days was tendmg to replace dIalogue by dogmatIc lecture, Anstotle set speech agamst speech, thus reproducmg the actual hfe of research 111 the later Academy One of the speakers took the lead, gave the subject, and summed up the result!> at the end ThiS naturally put narrow lImIts to the delIneatIOn of personahty The art of wntmg the speeches was taken over from rhetOrIC and developed m accordance With the precepts of Plato's Phaedrus The dIalogue now depended for ItS eftect more on ItS character (i'i6os) as a whole than on the ethopoe~a of particular person'>, and, whl1e It 10'>1 In ae<;thetIc obJectIVIty, It pre'>umably gamed In umty of mood and tendency It was, therefore, only logIcal for Anstotle finally to make himself the leader In hIS own dialogues ThIS alteratIon, whIle It did not restore the ongmal Socratic purpose of the dialogue (that was Irretnevably lost), gave It once more a real content, one that corresponded to the new form of the conversatIOns 111 WhICh It had alway'> had Its root Instead of the arena of arguments, WIth the dramatIc thrust and counterthru<;t of enshcal rluels, there were long theoretlcalexammatlOns d.nd demon,>tratlOns, conducted d.ccordmg to stnct method The change meL} be deplored, but it was mevitable. a!> Pl.lto had

EARLY WORKS

29

recognIzed when he abandoned' obstetnc ' conversation and the dehneatIon of character The hlstonans of hterature, who do not see what mner forces were at work, suppose themselves to have estabhshed that Anstotle brought about the declme of the dIalogue On the contrary, he merely perfonned the mevltable transltlOn to another stage The dialogue of dIScussIon IS sImply an expreSSIOn of the fact that the sClentIfic element m Plato finally burst ItS form and remoulded It to SUIt Itself It was not a mere matter of aesthetics, It was a development of the philosophIc mmd, WhICh necessanly produced ItS own new form It IS customary to apply the casual remarb of later WrIters about the charactenstics of Anstotle's dIalogue to all of them, but the mere titles ~how that that IS Impos<;Ible Eudemus or On the Soul and Gryllus or On Rhetorzc cannot have been very dIfferent from the earher PlatOniC type of whIch the Phaedo and the Gorgzas are examples One of the fragments of the Eudemus still retaIn" the Socratic technique of que<;tIon and answer I Whether Anstotle appeared as leader of the dISCUSSIOn m dialogue<; of thIS type IS to be doubted Those In WhICh we are toid that he was the leader, the Statesman In two books and the Phzlosophy In three, v.ere ObVlOU,>ly almost dIdactic works, and thu~ entirely dIfferent 2 Plato's example ought to be enough to I Frg 44 (I glvL thL number~ of the fral{ments accordwl{ to the Teubner edItion of HObe b Arlstote/" J ~aEim"nta 1886 They are dIffcrent from thobe In the earlier Academy edItion) There IS ho"ever, no midWIfery about thiS question and anbwer It IS thL Icarner who asks questions, while the other gives him systematic IllformatlOn ThL conversatIOn IS nportLd by a third person, as III the ..arlier PI,lto An~totll thu. does not use the pnnclple laid down at the bl gIllnlng of the 1 heaet
C

30

THE ACADEMY

prevent us from supposmg that Aristotle had a fixed fonn whIch he never changed As a matter of fact, hIS development as a writer of dIalogue mcludes all stages from 'obstetriC' conversabon to the pure treatise It runs parallel to hIS development as a philosopher, or rather IS ItS orgamc expressIOn It 15 often poSSIble to show that parbcular AristotelIan dIalogues are modelled on particular PlatonIc ones, especIally m thelI' contents The Eudemus IS related m thIS way to the Phaedo, the GTyllus to the Gorgtas, and the books On Justtce to the Republtc I The Sophtst and the Statesman, lIke the Sympostum and the Menexenus, were naturally suggested by Plato's dIalogues of the same name The Protrepttcus, WhICh was not a dIalogue, reveals the mfluence of the protreptic passages m Plato's Euthydemus, even to verbal echoes Plato may have appeared as a speaker m the dIalogues The style also shows very clo<;e dependence It seems mdeed that Aristotle soon attamed hIS own manner, a style whose only aIm was to be pure and clear, such as naturally belongs to the pure SCIentist ,2. but the Eudemus, for example, contamed myths, and It had other lIvely graces, such as frequent slmJ.1es, partly based on well-known Platomc models, which were famous m later antiqUity In the Simile of the subterranean men commg up mto the lIght and seemg the heaven, the power of the language carnes one away The myth of Midas echoes the apocalyptiC style of the Fates m the la<;t book of the Repubhc Cicero pra15es the golden stream of the prose m An<;totle's Anstotehan dtalogue out of our authontIes fhe same IS true of the statement that Anstotle attacked the theory of Forms m the dIalogues' I That the books On JustIce are moddkd on the Republtc can be mferred WIth certainty from (I) the eXistence of so many correspondmg dIalogues and (2) the fact that CIcero m hIS De RepublIca makes use of both works In Plato's RepublIC the polItIcal phtlosophy dcvelops out of the problem of Justice. Just as It must have done m the books On JustIce The RepublIC must have already obtamed the subtitle On JustICe by the time of Anstotle, a fact Important for the hIstory of the ongm of the subtitles of the PlatOnIC dIalogues 2 The only mark of good style laid down by prevIOus rhetonclans that AnstotJe recogniZes IS lUCIdIty (Rhet. If I. 1404b I, 1414" 19, Poet 1458' 18 Cf J Stroux, De Theophrastt v,rtutlbus d,cend,. LClpzlg, 1912, p 30) LUCidity IS said to Include everything ThIS Ideal IS mtended not 50 much for practical oratory as for the creation of a pure and SCientifically accurate style It was dropped again by Theophrastus and all later students of rhetonc They bowed to the taste of the bmes but Anstotle thinks of knowledgc as a force that must alter everyth!Dg, language !Deluded

EARLY WORKS

31

dialogues Rhetoncal affectations are entIrely absent, clear and exact In thought, fine and movmg In character, these wntmgs appealed to the best men of later antIqmty It IS eVIdence of theIr Intellectual breadth that Crates the Cymc and Phlhscus the cobbler read the Protrept1,cus together m the shop, that Zeno and Chryslppus, Cleanthes, Posldomus, Cicero, and Philo, were strongly Influenced In relIgIOus considerations by these works of Anstotle's youth, and that AugustIne, who came to know the Protrept1,cus through Cicero's Hortens1,us, was led by It to relIglOn and ChnstIamty I The Neo-Platomsts lIved by Anstotle's dialogues as much a~ by Plato's, and the Consolat1,o of BoethlUs sounds the last medieval echo of the relIgious element m them As works of art antiqUIty did not mention them In the same breath With Plato's, though It valued them greatly, but theIr relIgIOUS Influence on the HellemstIc age was almo')t more Important than Plato's thoroughly dIstant, obJective, and nonInspIrational art But what was Anstotle's phtlosophtcal relatlOn to Plato m those works ~ It would be strange If the Influence of hie; model had been confined to the chOice of subject-matter, and to details of style and content, whIle the general attitude to Plato was one of reJection, as It later became Sympostum, M enexenus, Sophtst, Statesman-were they really wntten to outdo Plato's dialogues of the same names, and to show how the questions discussed In them ought to have been handled ~ Did the diSCiple obstInately and pedantically dog the master's footsteps In order to reduce each one of hiS works to shreds In tum ~ Before ascnbIng to him such a malady of taste and tact men should have glVen more senousattentlOn tothe other posslbulty that the purpose of these dialogues was Simply and solely to follow Plato, In phIlosophy as well as In all other respects The understandIng of the dialogues has had a CUrIously unfortunate destIny ever sInce the recovery of the treatises through Andromcus In the time of Sulla At that tIme they I For the Pro/rep/letts In the cobbler's shop see frg 50 For Augustine's conversion by the Hcwtens.us see Confess III 4. 7 'HIe vero hber mutavlt affectum meum et ad te Ipsum, domme, mutavlt prcces meas et vota ac desldcna mea fecit aha Vl1Ult mJhl repente omDIS vana spes et IrnmortalItatem saplenbae concupiscebam aestu cordiS lDcredlbl1l et surgere coeperam, u t ad te redU'em' (c1 also VIII, 7, 17)

3%

THE ACADEMY

were still much read and hIghly thought of , but they soon began to lose ground, when the learned PerIpatetIcs undertook the exact InterpretatIon of the long-neglected treatIses and wrote commentary after commentary upon them The Neo-Platomsts made some use of them, In contrast to the treatIses, as sources of uncontamInated Platomsm , but a strIctly PerIpatetIc Interpreter lIke the acute Alexander of AphrodlSlas does not know what to make of them, though he must have read most of them More naive In phIlologIcal matters than was nece'>sary at that tIme, he explamed the relatIon between them and the treatIses by sayIng that the latter contaIned Anstotle's true VIews, and the fanner the false opInIOns of other persons II It was therefore recognIzed at that tIme that there were contradIctions between the two kmds The unsucce'isful efforts of the later PerIpatetIcs to explam thIS puzzhng state of affaIrs can be detected m the notOrIOUS tradItIon about the dIfference between the exotenc and the esotenc wntIngs Students naturally looked for an explanatIOn of the dIalogues In the treatIse~ They found It In the phrase 'exotenc dIscourses', whIch occurs several times and m some Instances can eaSIly be referred to the publIshed dIalogues In oppOSItion to these exotenc dIscourses, WhICh were Intended for the outSIde world, they then set up the treatises as a body of secret esotenc doctnne, although there IS no hmt of any such notion or expreSSIOn m Anstotle Thus the relatIOn between the contents of the dIalogues and those of the treatIses appeared to be lIke that of oplmon to truth In ,;orne pa~sages, Indeed, Anstotle must have been purposely desertmg the truth, because he thought that the masses were Incapable of graspIng It Even the dIfficulty of the techmcal tenns m the treatises, WhICh gave later scholars many headache'>, was pressed mto the serVIce of thIS my~tIcal Interpretation, and a letter \\-as forged in whIch Anstotle wrote to Alexander that the terms were purposely made obscure m order to mIslead the ummtIated I Ehas III Anst Categ 24 b 33 Alexander explainS the dIfference between the lecture-notes and the dIalogues dIfferently, namely that 10 the lecturenotes he gives hIS own opinIOns and the truth. whJ1e In the dIalogues he gIves the opinions of othus. whIch are false' In spite of the nawetr! of the expresSIOn the commentator surely represents the essence of Alexander's view correctly Contradlcbons between the two k10ds of wntmg were noted as early as Cicero (De Fm V 5, 12) In those days they were ascnbed to the literary form of popular wnbng

EARLY WORKS

33

Modern cnticism has been sceptical about thIS mystIfication. whIch IS ObvIously a late 1Ovention ong1Oatmg 10 the SpIrIt of Neo-Pythagoreamsm I Nevertheless It has not got nd of the prejUdICe agamst the dIalogues ~ ThIS IS. of course, more dlfficult for the moderns than It was for the anCIents, because we now have only fragments to work wIth Rather, therefore, than beheve these few but preCIOUS remnants, scholars have relIed on . the authontIes·. and espeCIally on two statements. one 10 Plutarch and one In Proclus, both com1Og from the same source, whIch speak of the cntIcisms of the Idea-theory that Anstotle made m hIS EthfCS. PhYSfCS. and Metaphysfcs, • and m hIS exotenc dIalogues' 3 These passages seemed to prOVIde unshakable proof that 10 the dIalogues Anstotle had already adopted the posItion III whICh he stands In the cntical \\Iorks It was therefore necessary eIther to put hIS' defection' from Plato early dunng hIS stay In the Academy or to put the dialogues later It was not dIfficult to find another' authonty' for the first SupposItion DlOgene<; LaertlUs says that Anstotle fell away whIle Plato was ~hll ahve, whereat Plato remarked, 'Anstotle has kIcked me, as foals do theIr mothers when they are born '4 Under the 10fluence of these passages Bernays, In hIS colourful book on Anstotle's dIalogues, made a determmed attempt to explam away every I It was Andromcu5' revival of the study of the treatises that first raised the problen. of the relation between these sources of 'pun,' Anst:Jtehan doctnne dnel the exotenc wntIngs which up to that tIme had been almost the only "r1stotle read ThiS reVival occurred dunng the full tide of Neo-PythagoreanIsm, whIch m accordance wIth Its nature always looked for a ~peclal secret doctnne m all preVIOUS thmkers ThIS notion was then applIed '0 Anstotle s \Hlbngs z Ju~t recently two works have appeared m whIch for the first tIme It IS recogmzed that the contents of the dialogues are PlatOniC In' Ober AnstotdL5' Entwlcklung' (Feslgabe fur Georg von Herllmg. FrLlburg. 1913), Dyroff has collected m a bnef form numerous echoes of Plato In thf' dialogues HIS pomt of view IS moslly systematic He does not go closely mto thL particular work5 as mdeed was Impossible III hIS lImits HIS paper dId not come mto my hands until thcsL studIes had been wntten down It confirms me In my view yet we now need exact Interpretation. as I~ shown by Dyroff's VICW of the dialogue On PhIlosophy A Kall s dlsscrtahon for the doctorate dt Vienna (DBs PhIl VIndob XI 67) also reached me subsf'quent to my own lllvcstlgatlOn5 He dIscusses the l:.udemus and the dialogue On PhIlosophy only HIS general standpOlnt~. which are von Amlm's are nght and he gets good results In detaIl but philosophically he IS not profound Nelthu of these works has any notIOn of hnkIng up the problem of the dialogues With that of the growth of the treatl5es 3 rrg 8 • DlOg L V 2

34

THE ACADEMY

PlatonIc tum in the fragments as an outburst of lyrical feelmg ContranWISe. Valentm Rose fastened upon them eagerly as proofs of his fantastical view that all the lost dialogues were SpuriOUS 1 \Vhat both scholars had m common was sunply the Irrational conVIction that a man of such stnct and systematic mmd as Anstotle would never abandon opmlOns once formed They supposed that from the very begmmng hiS own wnhngs were sharply cntIcal of Plato. and the Idea that he went through a Platomc phase seemed to them an mtolerable contradiction of the sober. cool, and cntIcal nature of hiS own understandmg The conclUSIOn IS obVIOUS If thiS mwardly consistent view IS untenable as a whole, U Anstotle began by gomg through a Platomc penod that lasted a score of years, If he wrote works m Plato's spmt and supported hiS view of the umverse, then our whole prevIOus notIOn of the man's nature IS destroyed. and we must hammer out a new conceptIon both of hiS personalIty and Its history and of the forces that moulded hiS philosophy In fact, thIS myth of a cool, static, unchangmg, and purely cntIcal Anstotle, without illUSIOns, expenence~, or hl!ltory. breaks to pieces under the weIght of the facts which up to now have been artIfiCially suppressed for ItS sake It IS not really surpnsmg that the ancient Anstotehans did not know what to make of the dIalogues, espeCIally as It was to theIr mterest to draw a clear dlstmctlOn between Plato and ArIstotle and make the latter's doctnne as much of a umty as pOSSIble To them the collection of treatises was a smgle systematic umty WIthout chronological dlStmctlOns They had not yet learnt to apply the nohon of development, whIch Anstotle himself could have gIven them, to the hIStOry of a philosophy or an mdIvIdual So there was nothmg for It but to dismISS the dialogues as gwmg unAnstotelIan VIews, and to explam them as a pIece of popular lIterary hackwork In any case. even before we begm to mterpret them, It IS certain that the dIalogues contradIct the treatises Where theIr affimtIes he IS shown by the fact that the NeoPlatomsts and other adnurers of Plato's rehglOn and phIlosophy valued them and ranked them equal to Plato's own wntmgs I J Bemays, Die Dlaloge des Anstoteles In Ihrem Verh41tnls IU semen tUw.gen Werken, Berlln, 1863. Valenbn Rose, Arutoteles Pseudep.graphus. LeipZig, 1863

EARLY WORKS

35

Examples of thIs will be gIven later It only remams to consIder the eVIdence of Plutarch and Proc1us, WhICh made Bemays feel obliged to deny a prMrt all traces of PlatonIsm In the dIalogues ThIS argument also gIves way as soon as we examme It closely In the first place, It IS not two dIfferent pIeces of eVIdence, the correspondence In the expressIOn makes It certaIn that both authors were followmg the same authonty, smce Proclus does not seem to have followed Plutarch What the passage says IS that ArIstotle opposed Plato's theory of Forms not merely In hiS Ethtcs, Phystcs, and Mdaphystcs, but also In the exotenc dialogues As eVIdence for this Plutarch and Proc1us quote, both from the same source, a passage from one of the dtalogues where Anstotle represents himself as sayIng that he cannot sympathIze WIth the dogma of Forms, even If he should be suspected of dIsagreeIng out of contentIousness I ThiS shows that both accounts are founded on a concrete hlstoncal situatIOn In a particular dialogue (most probably that On Phtlosophy, m whIch we know that Anstotle attacked other parts of Plato's I Frg 8 Proclus (m hIS work Examlnat,on of ArlOtotle's ObjectIOns to Plato's T,maeus m Joannes Phl!oponus De Mund, Aetern II 2, P 31, 17 Rabe) 'There 15 none of Plato's doctnnes that that man [I e Anstotle] rejected more deCidedly th,tn the theory of Ideas Not merely does hL call the Forms sounds m the logIcal works, but m the Eth,cs ht> attacks the good-ID-Itsdf and In the phySical works he demes that commg-to-bt. Call be explamcd by the Ideas ThiS he says In the work On Commg-to-be and PassIng-away, ,md much more so In the Metaphysus, for there he JS concuned With first ?rmclples, and he makes long objections to the Idea~ both In the beglOnmg and In the middle and In the end of that work In tM dtalogues also he exclaIms unmistakably that he cannot sympathJze WI th thiS dogma, even If he should be suspeded of d,s agreeing out oj contentlou,n,ss (K6v TIS ClVTOV OITlTal :lila qnAoVlIKlav avnMY"w) , Plutarch adu Colot 14 (I IJj 0) 'ArIstotle IS alwdys hafJllng on the Ideas, With regard to which he objects to Plato. and he raises all sorts of difficulty about them In hiS etrucal (In hiS metaphYSical,) and In hiS phySICal notes, and also by means oj hIS exoter,C dialogues ro that SO"" thought hIm contentIous rather than philosophical these dogmas as If he were proposIng to undermine Plato s phllosophy' ("AoVlIKrnpov !V(OIS (Ao~.v) The onglnal source, which both follow, and which the later author, Proclus reproduces more accurately, hsted separately all the places In ArIstotle's works that attack the theory of Forms Thus three passages are mentioned from the MetaphySICS, Books A, Z and MN The mention of Post Anal I 22, 83 a 33, hk.. that of N,c Eth I 4. recalls the actual words of the ongInal It IS the same WIth the passage that I have pnnted In ltahcs (which comes from the dialogue 0" PJlIlosophy) ThIS was the only passage that the author could discover 1D the dialogues although hiS hst IS obViously very careful and complete ThiS catalogue IS thus direct proof that thIS polemlL was unique In the dIalogues

36

THE ACADEMY

metaphYSICS) To umversalize this and apply 1tto all the dialogues IS J.1legItImate All It proves IS, what we already knew, that there were one or two dIalogues m WhICh Anstotle opposed Plato ThIs gIves us no JustIficatIon whatever for explaInIng away the Platomc VIews that we find In other dIalogues Rather we must recogmze that these works eVInce a development 10 philosophIcal matters, preCisely as we demonstrated that they do In form As a matter of fact, Plutarch hunself, although he has hItherto been supposed to show that Anstotle was completely opposed to Plato even In hIS dialogues, gIves us explICIt and ummstakable proof of the fact of Anstotle's phIlosophIcal development In a passage that has been entIrely neglected I he actually mentions Aristotle as the outstandIng example of the fact that the true phJ.1osopher WIll alter hIS VIews WIthout regret, and Indeed WIth JOY, as soon as he perceives hIS error ArIstotle, DemocrItus, and ChrysippuS all changed theIr earlIer phIlosophical OpInIOnS In thIS .... ay, and the word that Plutarch uses for the change (lJFTcrrI6ecrl}ol) proves that he cannot be refernng to que<;t1ons of mmor Importance, sInce It was a techmcal tenn In HellemstIc phIlosophy for the passage from one school to another Moreover he must have known that the' earlIer vIews' In questIOn (TO: 1Tp6creev mrrc? apE01
EARLY WORKS

37

As we saw above, these facts were not so clear to everybody later antlqUlty as they were to Plutarch ThIS IS shown by an unportant statement of Eusebms' about the great polemIcal work wntten agamst Anstotle by Isocrates' pupil CephlSodorus I This work must have been a product of the competItion between the Academy and the school of Isocrates, belongIng to the time when Anstotle, then a youthful member of Plato's school, was Introducmg the study of rhetonc there and thus causmg the latent nvalry of the two InstItutIOns to break out mto the open Eusebms tells us that Cephlsodorus took up arms agamst Plato's theory of Ideas and all hIS other doctnnes m turn, and he expresses surprIse that Cephlsodorus should have saddled ArIstotle WIth these OpInIOnS In accordance \Hth the prevailmg notion Eusebms thought of Anstotle as the natural antipode of Platu He (or hIS authonty Numemus) did not know, and hardly could have known at that late date, that the Anstotle ",horn Cephlsodams had In mInd was entirely dIfferent from the one that the treatises, not publIshed untl1 centunes later, made faml1Iar to readers of Impenal times Cephlsodorus knew Anstotle only through hIS lIterary publIcatIOns, that IS to say, through the dIalogues that he wrote while stIll a member of the Academy, and SInce when he wntes a book agamst Anstotle he attacks the theory of Ideas, we have SImply got to learn that up to that time 10

on Plato, but If, as IS hkely the phrase' the PlatoniC "'arks had become an estabhshed name for the whole group of dialogues, there was nothmg to prevent that On Phtlosophy fTOm bemg also descnbed m thIS way The maJonty of these wntmgs were really PlatOniC not merely m form but also 1Il doctrme I Euseb Praep Evang XIV 6 (he tells us that he IS here followmg Numemus) 'Now tl1ls Cephlsodorus, when he saw hiS teacher IsocratLs bemg cntlclzed by Anstotle, was tgnorant of and unfatmhar wdh Aristotle hlrn 'elf , but since he saw that Plato's views were celebrated, and "nce he thought that Ar.stotle ph.losophtzed after the manner of Plato he attacked A Tlstotle wtth cTtltnsms that apphed 10 Plato, and argued agamst htm begmmng ultth the Form, and endzng With the rest about which he lumself kncw nothmg but merely guessed at the common opmIOn about them At the fnd of thiS section there IS another passagL to the same effect 'This Cephlsodorus argued not agamst the person he was attackmg [I e Anstotle], but agamst some one he did not wI~h to attack' [I e Plato] As to the ..xplanathJn here gnen of why Cephlsodorus m hiS polemiC agalDst Anstotle attacked the doctrme not of Aristotle but of Plato, It IS a threadbare IDventIOn ad hoc, and cannot be taken senou~ly for an mstant To say that he was not acqUaInted WIth Anstotle's own phtlosophy, and attacked Plato's Instead because It ",as more famons IS a solution that could occur only to some one who had not the famtest notIOn of the rcal situation tlunng Anstotle's stay 10 the Academy

38

THE ACADEMY

all of Anstotle's wTltmgs had been based entIrely on the phIlosophy of Plato Our mterpretatlOn of the sUrviVing fragments of the dlalogue!! must defend thIS VIew 10 detaIl, and the questIons that we ralse must concern the fragments that actually remam, and not be merely general As startmg-pomt we must take whatever chronological and phIlosophIcal matters can be defimtely fixed by means of the fragments. Even the earlmess of the dIalogues can be adequately proved only by the mterpretatIOn of each one separately

CHAPTER III

THE EUDEMUS HE

date of the DIalogue Eudemus, whIch IS named after

T Anstotle's Cypnan fnend, IS giVen by the motive for ItS composItion, whIch can easLly reconstructed from CIcero's be

account of the dream of Eudemus 1 ThIS pupLl of Plato's, bamshed from hIS country, became gravely Lli durmg a Journey through Thessaly The physIcIans of Pherae, where he lay, had desparred of hIS hfe, when there appeared to hun In a dream a beautiful young man who promIsed hun that he would shortly get well, that soon afterwards the tyrant Alexander of Pherae would meet hIS death, and that when five years had elapsed Eudemus would return to hIS country Anstotle related, obvlOusly In hIS mtroductlOn, how the first and second promiSes qwckly came true, Eudemus recovered, and soon afterwards the tyrant was assassmated by hIS WIfe's brothers (359) All the more fervent was the exLle's hope that five years would see the thrrd promIse fulfilled and hImself back In Cyprus Dunng the Interval DlOn, who had been bamshed from Syracuse, was at Athens WIth the support of the Academy he assembled a company of resolute volunteers. prepared to nsk therr hves for the lIberation of hIS CIty Out of enthusIasm for Plato's pohticalldeals, whIch DlOn was supposed to be gomg to realIze, some of the young phLlosophers )'Jilled the expedItion Among them was Eudemus, but he was killed ill one of the engagements outsIde Syracuse, preciSely five years after the dream (354) ThIS unexpected fulfilment of the VISIon was mterpreted In the Academy to mean that what the God had foretold was the return of the soul not to ItS earthly but to It:. eternal home In thIS dIalogue Anstotle unmortallZed the memory of hIS beloved fnend and sought comfort for hIS sorrow He began by relating the story of the dream of Eudemus, ill order to show I Anst frg 37 (CIC De Dill I 25 53) The Eudemus IS mentioned as a de&1deratum In a catalogue of the Hurd century A D (papyrus). edited by Medea Nona In Agyptus, vol 11(1921), P 16 Undoubtedly, therefore It was still read at that date

40

THE ACADEMY

that by Its fulfilment the deIty Itself confirmed the truth of Plato's doctrme of the heavenly ongm of the soul and Its future return thither ThIS provIded the startmg-pomt for a metaphySIcal conver5atIon ' on the soul', the central portIon of whIch was the questiOn of unmortahty The conception" of the Phaedo, asceticIsm and the practIce of death, lIve agam In thIS early work of ArIStotle's The earthly hfe of the soul 10 the chams of corporeahty, which the Phaedo lIken" to a pnson, becomes for him a penod of exile from an eternal home In the pIcture of the fugItive In a foreIgn country, gazrng toward'S the home from which he has been driven, there lIes a fervour of longmg for the peace and secunty of the heavenly plams The Eudemus was a book of consolation Not a word need be wasted on the s10gular InsensIbilIty that cannot see In It anythrng but a fngid stylIstic exerCIse m the manner of the Phaedo The only thmg that could gwe genume comfort \\'~s a hvmg faith m that reversal of the values of hfe and death which Plato had accomphshed m the Phaedo The author of the Eudemus had surrendered hImself absolutely to this behef m another lIfe, and to the correspondmg VIews of the world and the soul Hence the Neo-Pld.tomsts use the Eudemus and the Phaedo as equally valuable 'iources for Plato's doctnne of Immortahty We shall examme the fragments of Anstotle's work In the lIght of that doctnne LIke Plato 10 the Phaedo, Anstotle 10 the Eudemus attacked the matenalIstIc view that IS opposed to the doctnne of ImmortalIty And he attacked It m the same form as It has m the Phaedo, namely that the soul IS nothmg but the hannony of the body, that IS to say, while different from the sum of the body's elements, It IS the product of the nght arrangement of themthiS IS also the modern matenahst's account of the soul Out of the cntICism of thiS view m the Eudemus two counter-arguments remam The first runs thus 'Harmony has a contrary, namely disharmony But the soul has no contrary Therefore the soul IS not a hannony ' I Here we have the non-IdentIty of two conceptIOns proved from the non-Identity of theIr marks Hence Anstotle I!:l presupposmg knowledge of the Important fact that the Identity of objects depends on the Identity of theIr attnbutes The I

Anst frg 45

THE EUDEMUS

41

attnbute that he here takes as a means of companson IS one belongmg to formal lOgic-the possibility of produclOg a contrary opposite to the conceptIons that are to be exammed, namely soul and harmony This IS found to be possible wlth harmony, but the soul has no such opposite Anstotle formulates his syllogIsm tersely and trenchantly, and IS obvIOusly pleased at Its laconIc cogency It IS not ImmedIately obvIOus what led hlffi to choose precisely this hne of argument m order to demonstrate the non-IdentIty of the two conceptIons and theu contents, but this becomes clear as soon as we conSider the followlOg propo<;Itlon from hIS doctnne of the categones .substance (ovala) admIts no contrary', that IS, It IS not pOSSible to conceive of any contrary opposItIon to It I In reality, therefore, thiS syllogism docs not merely contam the proof that the soul IS not a harmony , It ..lIsa ImplICitly presupposes-and thIS IS very lffiportant for the plulosophlcal standpomt of the dIalogue-that the soul IS a 'Subst..lnce It IS easy to see how a thmker for whom thIS was established doctnne mIght be led to use the above pnnclple of formal lOgIC m attackmg the matenalist VIew, and thIS pnnclple undoubtedly takes the opponent on hiS weakest Side It 1<; mterestmg to observe the relatJQn between the Anstotehan argument and that of Plato m the Phaedo (93 c ff ) The latter IS more complicated Accordmg to Plato the soul IS either moral, ratIonal, and good, or Immoral, IrratIonal, and bad He ..,hows that these opposed states or constItutIOns are a sort of order and harmony, or disorder and disharmony, m the soul There can be vanous degrees of these attnbutes In the soul Therefore harmony It.:;elf, or ItS OppOSite, can be harmomous m greater or less degree If the opponent's propOSItIOn were true, d.ud the soul were nothmg but a harmony of certam states, It would be pOSSible SImply to replace the conceptIOn of harmony With that of the soul, which would gIve the absurdity that the soul could be more or less soul 2 Hence hannony can be only an attnbute of the soul, and not the soul Itself Anstotle's aIteratlOnof the proof-for hIS argument is nothing but a reformulatIOn of Plato'i-shows clearly what he as a lOgiCian took exceptIOn to m hiS ongmal The demonstratIOn III the Phaedo has ItS own logical pnnclple as baSIS, ..lud thiS IS formulated m the I

[Anst] Categ 3 b 24 fI

• Plato, Phaedo 93

B-D

42

THE ACADEMY

Anstotehan doctnne of the categones thus 'substance (oua{a) does not appear to admIt of vanatIon of degree (TO IJQhAOV Kal TO f)TTOV) I do not mean by thIS that one substance cannot be more or less truly substance than another, but that no substance can be more or less that whIch It IS For eXaJl7.ple, a man cannot now be man In a hIgher degree than he was, but he can well be paler than he was The category of qUalIty by its nature admIts a more or less, but that of substance does not '. It follows from thIS law, 1£ one belIeves WIth Plato that the soul IS a substance, that there cannot be vanations of degree 10 the soul, whIle there can be m harmony and m dIsharmony, as m all relatives that have contranes, for example VIrtue and VIce or knowledge and Ignorance Z Thus Plato also mfers the nonIdentIty of soul and harmony from the ImpossIbIlIty of applying one and the same logIcal pnnclple to both conceptIons, or, 10 Anstotehan terms, from theIr belonging to dIfferent categories We can now see clearly why Anstotle altered the argument of the Phaedo as he dId On Plato's VIew a 'more or less', a vanatIon of degree, can occur only 10 the mdetermInate (Ci:TTelpov), never In anyth10g absolutely determmed (nepas) Now we have a 'more or less', a vanable scale of degrees, an mtermedlate between two extremes, wherever we have contrary OpposItes Thus the proposItion that the Phaedo employs, namely that substance admIts no more or less, IS referred by the Eudemus to the pnor proposItIon on WhICh It depends, namely that substance admIts no contrary OpposIte Hence the reductIOn of the proof to a s1Ogle, sunple syllogIsm, WIth WhICh Anstotle achIeves the same result At the same tune he gets a second counter-argument out of what IS left of Plato's proof after the extractIOn of ItS kernel He sets thIS out m the followmg way •Opposed to the harmony of the body IS the disharmony of the body, but the dIsharmony of the hvmg body IS dIsease and weakness and ughness Of these b I [AnstJ Caleg 3 33-4" 9 • [AnstJ Caleg 6b 15 'It IS possible for relatives to have contranes Thus VIrtue bas a contrary, Vice, these both bemg relatives. knowledge, too, has a contrary, Ignorance' From tlus It follows In 6 b 20 that 'It also appears that relatives can admit of vanatlon of degree', just as the Incompatibility of substance With the' more and less' follows from Its Incompatibility With contrary opposition (lvcwnbnlsl

THE EUDEMUS

43

disease IS a lack of symmetry m the elements, weakness a lack of symmetry In the homogeneous parts (OIJ010IJEp;;). and ughness d. lack of symmetry In the members If, therefore, disharmony IS disease and weakness and ughness, harmony IS health and strength and beauty But I say that the soul IS none of these, neither health nor strength nor beauty For even Thersltes had a soul In spite of all hiS uglmess Therefore the soul IS not a harmony 'I ThiS argument follows directly from Plato's anthropology Plato distingUIshes virtues of the soul and of the body Those of the soul are Wisdom, courage, Justice, and temperance, those of the body health, strength, and beauty Parallel to these IS the senes of opposite qualIties, the VICes of body and soul The virtues depend on the harmony (symmetry), the vices on the disharmony (lack of symmetry), of the soul or body as the case may be ThiS explanation of disease, weakness, and uglmess, a3 lack of symmetry In the body and ItS parts or their relatIOns, was taken over by Plato from contemporary mediCIne, on which he based hiS whole SCIence of ethiCS or therapy of the soul, and In which he saw the pattern of true sCience and stnct method HIS doctnne of virtue IS a doctnne of the Illness and health of the soul, modelled on mediCIne and havmg for pnnclple the conception of measure (lJhpov) and of symmetry or harmony But If It IS estabhshed that harmony IS the pnnCIple of the bodily Virtues, health, strength. and beauty, It IS not poscilble at the same tune to explaIn the soul as a harmony of the body ThiS argument has the advantage of attackIng the rna tenahst opponent on hiS own ground The explanatIOn of health as the c;ymmetry of the body, and of disease as the lack of It, might be expected to meet With approval from the representatives of natural SCience, not so the explanatIOn of virtue as the symmetry of the soul, which was the startIng-poInt of the Phaedo ThiS Platomc doctnne of the VlTtues of soul and body, whIch Anstotle here follows and develops In detail, IS wholly foreign to the treatises It IS In the spmt of Pythagorean mathematics AccordIng to Plato the correct ethical state of the soul, Just hke the normal and natural state of the body, IS only a speCial case of the umversal cosmic law of symmetry, as that IS developed 'ArIat frg 45 (Rose, p 50, I 13)

44

THE ACADEMY

m the Phtlebus as a part of Plato's lat~r VIew of the nature of things I The analysIs of these two arguments has yIelded a double result In the first place, It has shown us that 10 the Eudemus Anstotle IS still completely dependent on Plato In metaphysIcs, not only In the rejection of matenalIsm, but also In posItive matters It has not Indeed been prevIously recognIZed that hIS proofs rest on the same basIs as Plato's metaphysIcs and doctnne of ImmortalIty, namely Plato's conceptIOn of substance and the soul, but thIS IS to be ascnbed merely to the lack of thorough mterpretatIOn That Anstotle here still regards the soul as an absolute substance IS clear from hIS later ImItators For example, OlymplOdorus gIves the first mference m thIS form 'harmony has an oppoSIte, but the soul has not, for It IS a substance' (Anst frg 45) The assertIOn that there IS a pettttO pnnetptt In thiS fonnulatIOn IS true, but It IS equally true of the angInal form, where the peittto IS qUIetly presupposed Z It goes back to Plato hImself, as we have shown, for the same presuppositlOn IS made In the Phaedo The dogmatic character of the proof IS brought out stIU more clearly by PlotInus, when he says SImply , the soul IS a substance but harmony IS not' J I For the doctnne of the three virtues of the body see Plato, Rep IX 591 B, Laws, I 631 C, and PhIl 25 D ff (espeCially 26 B) el passIm He IS fond of drawmg the parallel bet",eLn them and the vutUf'S of the ~oul In PhIl 26 B they are reduced to a numencally determmed relation between certam opposites, the ongm of thiS theory IS clearly revealed by the Eudemus ThiS dialogue also shows that the ethlc~ of measure or utTpov rest on a transference mto the mental sphere of contemporary mathematical views In mediCine lhf' Anstotehan mean (1.IE0-6"'1I) IS a conscIOus return to thiS pomt of departure, and carnes the analogy through still more stnctly The phySICians' mf'asurc or ..npov was Itself a correct mean that had to be determmed subJeclwely, and to be •aimed at' (a-roX0:3Ea&a,) , thiS was me
THE EUDEMUS

4S

Anstotle's later doctnne lIes midway between the matenalIstic View that the soul IS the harmony of the body, and the Platonic view of the Eudemus that It IS a substance of ItS own The soul IS substance only as being . the entelechy of a natural body potentially possessing hfe' I It IS not separable from the body, and therefore not Immortal, but In conneXlOn with the body It IS the formulatlve pnnclple of the organism To the soul In the Eudemus, on the contrary, can be apphed the remarks that Plotlnus makes In his rejection of Anstotle's entelechy-soul from the PlatOniC POint of view . The soul does not possess being because It IS the form of someth~ng , on the contrary, It is absolute reahty (ovalo) It does not take ItS eXistence from the fact that It IS In a body, It eXISts before ever It belongs to a body'Z Now, smce we find the doctnne of pre-existence In the Eudemus, thiS alone IS enough to show that the soul IS there a substance (ovalo), and hence It IS not surpnslng that Plotlnus, who combats the Anstotehan conceptiOn of the soul, can nevertheless make the argument In the Eudemus completely hIS own, whIle contranwIse thIS syllogIsm IS attacked by the supporters of the 'genume' Anstotle, such as Alexander and follOWing him PhIloponus Accordmg to these latter the soul has an OppOSIte, namely pnvatIOn, and so the argument falls to the ground ThiS view pre<;upposes the conception of entelechy, and IS a correct deduction therefrom In reJechng the Inference Alexander connects It WIth the argument In the Phaedo, out of WhICh It IS developed J What dI<;hngUlshes Anstotle's early VIew of the ,>oulls In fact that the soul IS not yet the form of someth~ng, but a form In It'lelf (not yet eI210s TIV6S but eT216s TI), an Idea, or of 18B4, edited by Volkmann) It IS clear that Plotmus IS us10g the Eudemus and not the Phaedo, because he brcak~ up the one proof of the Phaedo (93 B ff ) mto the two arguments that Anstotle gets out of It He Silently substitutes them for Plato's proof wlule he reproduces the first two arguments of the Phaedo (92 A-C and 93 A) wIthout change 1 EVTEAlXEla er",~ClTOS cpvcnKOV 2.VVQ~E1 3"'1'\v IXOVTOS, De A n II I 41Z' 19 fi In the whole chapter Anstotle examlOes hiS earher Vlew of the soul as a substance, and quahfies It wIth the doctnne that the soul IS not separable from the body, but IS simply' substance as notion or form' ("J overla "J KClTQ TOV Myov, 412b 10)

• PIOtlOUS, E.nn IV 7, B (Volkmann, p 134 I 19. and esp, p 135,1 31 ff) J Alex 10 Anst De An apud Phllop comm 10 Anst De An, p 144.11 25 ff (Hayduck) Form and pnvatIOn are the opposItion whose substratum IS matter (rf Metaph 1\ 2, 1069b 3 ff • esp b 32- 34 and 1070b lB. et passIm) Thus the soul as an Anstotelian form has an opposIte lust as much as harmony D

46

THE ACADEMY

somethmg of the nature of an Idea We are expressly told thiS, and It IS now for the first bme possible really to understand It I Anstotle hlIDself has left us an Important piece of eVidence that throws lIght on the facts of his development When attackmg the theory of harmony in his work on the soul he quotes hIS earher wntmg. He takes from the Eudemus the second and sClentmc argument, whIch he develops somewhat, but he sIlently abandons the argument from the substantIalIty of the soul 2 The second fact that we dIscover by our analYSIS IS that the young Anstotle was completely mdependent of Plato m the sphere of logiC and methodology Though dependent on hIm for hIS VIew of the world, he 15 here qUIte free, and perhaps even has a slIght feelIng of supenonty HIS reductIOn of Plato's proof to ItS elements, and the techmcal excellence of the two proofs that he constructs out of them, reveal long expenence m these thmgs, and the knowledge embodied m the doctnne of the categones forms the presupposItIon of hIS correctIons It IS nothmg agamst thiS that the work which we have on the categones cannot have been wntten before the days of the Lyceum, and IS not by Anstotle himself at all (It IS charactenstIc of the penod of naturalIsm and empmcIsm, which arose m rus school after hiS death) The fundamental attItude embodied In the doctnne of the categones, and the mam portIons of the doctnne Itself, had been developed before Anstotle dared to shake the metaphYSical foundatIons of Plato's philosophy J I Anst frg 46 (Rose, p '12,1 19) 'And In the Eudemus he shows that the soul IS a Form '(E1J.6sTI) The Important pOInt IS the absence of any genItIve such as' of a body' or 'of somethIng' , and we must not follow Bernays (op CIt, p 25) In supplyIng one and then explaInIng that the expressIOn was purposely made ambIguous In order to conceal a secret opposItIOn to Pldto Slmphclus thought It contrary to Anstotle's usual vIew • Anst De An I 4. 408" I ff • The Categol'us cannot be an early work because the Lyceum IS gIven as an example of the category of place and thIS undoubtedly refers to the school, WhICh also prOVIded several other example~ of logIcal conceptIOns One need only thInk of Conscus the pomt of the frequent use of hiS namc as an example becomes clear when one ImagInes the lectures In Assos, at whIch he was present In the Catego7'>es Anstotle's doctnne of first and second substdnce IS made nommahsttc, thlq cannot be removed or explamed away. and the very form IS un-Anstotellan The Importance of these qllght and unmtentIonal verbal mdlcatlOns must not be underestImated Moreover the author assumes that the doctnne of the categones IS already known he takes up only a few quesbons All thIS, however, does not prevent us from seemg that most of the detaIls are Anstoteh"n m content, the Ludemus show~ how early III hIS develop-

THE EUDEMUS

47

ThIS shows how weak was the ongInal conneXIOn between 10glc and metaphysIcs In Anstotle's mInd, as opposed to Plato's He IS the real father of lOgIc and devoted an unmense amount of acute thInkIng to It But he never recognized It as a part of phJ.1osophy and as havIng ItS own proper obJect, he always treated It merely as an art or faculty (2l\Jvaj..lIS) With special fonnal rules, more or less lIke rhetonc He had already become the first specialIst In lOgIC before he deduced from his new doctnne of abstractIon consequences that ran counter to the theory of Ideas The Influence of his studIes In logic can also be seen m some of the other fragments of the argument for ImmortalIty 10 the Eudemus, and espeCIally m hIS fondness for what he called dIalectIc By thiS word Anstotle means, m contra!>t to Plato, all tho'>e arguments that rest on merely probable premIsses and have only subjectIve cogency Plato hImself makes extensIve use of them m his dIalogues AlongSIde the stnctly apodlctIc arguments they serve to support the proof as peltast'5 serve alongSide hophtes (The enstIc SIde of Plato's and Anstotle's logIc must always be kept m mmd) They do not possc<.,s complete SCIentIfic exactItude (axpl13Ela) Nevertheles'>, who could despI'>e the weight of the arguments for an after-hfe that Anstotle makes out of the rehgIOus behefs of natIOns, the customs of ntual, and the most anCIent myths ~I Even m hIS treatIses he usually start" from the general VIew or from the opmlOns of great men He tnes to combme ratIonal and purely phJ.1osophical knowledge \'Ilth the kernel of truth that hes hIdden m thos( sources Because of thIS he has been accused of a tendency towards 'common sense' by those who love the radIcal and the extreme (and SInCP the RomantIc revolutIOn we have generally reckoned !>uch persons as the most profound thInkers, at any rate m the Intellectual sphere) As a matter of fact thIS dialectIc conceals a pecuhar theory of expenence, m the histoncal and concrete sense of the word In gIVmg a hpanng not merely to his own ment they must be placed Ernst Hambruch shows m hl~ Loglsche Regeln der plat SchUll" In der anst Toplk' that a large number of Important Items of lOgIcal knOWledge contamed m the TOpics were discovered dunng Anstotle's tIme 10 the Academy (Wlssenschaflhche Betlage .rum Jah,.esbencht des Askantschen GymnaStums, Berlin, 1904) I Anst frg 44 (Rose, P 48, 11 11-22)

48

THE ACADEMY

reason, but also to what has hlstoncally been beheved, to the collectIve expenence of men or to the Ideas of famous persons, Anstotle IS not so much lazily relymg upon the general opmlOn as dlsplaymg mSlght mto the 111mtatlons of every merely Intellectual argument about such matters To sound the metaphysIcal depth!> of the Eudemus we must go to the myth of MIdas and Sl1enu'> When the kmg asks hIm what IS the hIghest good (TO nO:vLwv alpETt::lTaTOV), Sl1enus unwlllmgly reveals the mIsery and wretchedness of man's estate The style shows the Influence of the speech of maId Lachesl", daughter of Ananke, m the tenth book of the Republtc (617 D if) In word and shape Sdenus breathes the melancholy humour of nature's earthbound stupor A cleverly disgUIsed PlatOnIC termInology conveys the pnnclples of the dualist philosophy, •It IS altogether ImpossIble that men should attam to the hIghest good, they cannot share In the nature of the hIghest (~aaxEiv Tfie; TOU 13EATIc-rov lble '1 The speCIal attrachon, the real oracle, of these elevated words lies In theIr mtentlonal amblgmty Popular WIsdom recommended torpid resIgnatIon, the best thmg IS to dIe In thl<; naIve pes5lml,>m there IS no hope whatever of another and a perfect world, or of a higher eXIstence beyond the grave Anstotle, on the contrary, Introduces mto Sl!l:'nus' words the fundamental conceptwn of Plato's metaphySICS To 1.111 yevemloL IS not merely' not to be born' , It also means .not to enter Into BecomIng' To Becommg the Philebus (53 c if) opposes the pure Bemg of the world of Ideas as at once ItS complete OppOSIte and ItS hIghest aIm All that IS valudble, all that IS perfect, all that IS absolute, belongs to BeIng, all that IS bad, Imperfect, and relahve, belongs to BecomIng Whereas Anstotle in hIS later ethICS dIffers from Plato In that he seeks not for an absolute good but for the bes tfor man (av6pt::lmvov aya66v) , In this dIalogue he IS completely on PlatOnIC ground It IS shU self-evIdent to hIm that when we dISCUSS the hIghest value we mu~t thmk of the transcendental Bemg or the absolute Good, and not of what the Greeks called happIness (Eli1.OIl.lovla) In the absolute Good no 1

Anst frg 44 (Rose. P 48. 1 23-P 49. 1

1 I)

THE EUDEMUS

49

earthly actIvIty can share We must get back as qUIckly as possIble out of the realm of BecomIng and ImperfectlOn mto the unseen world of BeIng Anstotle's Platonism comes out most clearly m the mam subject of the dIalogue, the doctnne of Immortahty Later on he held that the essentIal problem of psychology was the conneXlOn between the soul and the bodtly orgamsm, and he clatrns to have been the first to recogmze the psycho-physIcal nature of mental phenomena The first result of the dIscovery of these psychophySIcal relatIons was mevitably to undermme the PlatOniC bebef m the permanence of the mdIvIdual soul, and the only part of hIS ongmal conVIctIon that Anstotle could retam was the behef that pure Ntis Ii> llldependent of the body All the other functIOns of the 'iouI, such as reflectIon, love and hate, fear, anger, and memory, mvolve the p'iyeho-physlcal umty ai> theIr substratum and dISappear together \\-Ith It I ThIS dIsbelIef ill the trnmortahty of . the whole soul' (thIS I'i the only hlstoncally accurate way of descnbmg what moderns often anachromstIcally call IndIVIdual ImmortalIty) appears qmte early m Ani>totle Among the treatIses Book 1\ of the M etaphys1c!> tend" to lImIt surVIval to Nus, and thIi> wa" wntten soon after Plato'" death 2 And even In an excerpt made by lamblIchus out of Anstotle's Protrept1cus we read •Man has nothmg dlvme or blessed except the one thmg worthy of trouble, whatever there IS In us of Nus and reason ThIS alone of what we have seems Immortal and dlvme '3 ThIS hmitatIOn causes hIm to value Nus all the hIgher, It IS actually God m us-whIch recalls the doctrme of . Nus entering from outsIde' HIs ethIcal doctnne of happmess and hIS theologIcal doctnne of the thought of thought depend on thIS VIew It IS therefore comprehensIble that as early as the NeoPlatomsts men began to try to refer the arguments of the Eudemus to Nus alone ThemistlUs connects up thIS dIfficult questIon WIth the problem of how to understand the conceptlOn of the soul lD the Phaedo, whIch hkewlse contams certam ambIgUItIes I For the InseparabIlity of the mental functions from the body see De An I I 40,· 16, el pass"" I'or tllL dilferenu between the ~eparate 1\'115' amI the P~ycho-physlcalfunctIons see I 4. 408 b 18-30 • Anst Metaph 1\], 1070' 24 3 Anst frg 61

SO

THE ACADEMY

Themlshus mdeed, or hIS source, ascnbed to the Phaedo the secret mtentlOn of makmg only Nus eternal, but here he IS confusIng the mtentIon of Plato's arguments wIth theIr consequences I The myths of the pumshment of sms and of the rewardIng of souls m the after-hfe mevltably mvolve the survIval of •the whole soul', and lose all sense if applIed to Anstotle's Nus Nevertheless, It cannot be demed that the more •earnest' of the proofs m the Phaedo (to use Themlstms' expressIOn) prove the etermty of reason only, for mstance that from recollectIon and that from the soul's kInshIp ~ Ith God The fact IS that Plato dId not clearly dI,>hngmsh the two problems m hIS dIalogues, they were first mastered m the dISCUSSIOns m the Academy, whIch gave nse to Anstotle's cauhous later fonnula In the Phaedo we can shll clearly dIscern the ongmal currents of thought that were umted m Plato's relIgIOn of ImmortalIty The one comes from the Anaxagorean speculatIOns about pure Nus. thIS rested on an apotheOSIS of sCIentIfic reason, and constItuted the phIlosophIcal hIgh-water mark of fifth-century ratIOnalIsm The other current IS of OpposIte ongIn It anc;es out of the OrphIC behef m another hfe, out of the cathartIC relIgIOn that preaches repentance and punficatlOn m order that the soul (\lNXf)) may not suffer the most fnghtful penalties on the other '>Ide In thIS there IS no speculatIon, It IS the ethIcal and rehglOus feehng of the Independence and IndestructIbIlIty of the soul's essence In Plato thec;e two currents coalesced mto a seemmg umty ThiS umty was based, however, not on a real kmshIp m ItS elements, but on the marvellous combmatIOn of ratIOnal clanty and fervent relIgiOUS longmg m Plato's own soul Beneath the probe of the analyttcal mtellect the creatiOn breaks up again mto ItS ongmal parts After all thIS It cannot surpnse us that In the Eudemus Anstotle follows the VIew of the Phaedo even In holdIng that 'the whole soul' IS Immortal 2 ThIS realIstIc VIew IS the only one that can gIve relIgIOUS comfort to the heart of man, whIC!1 cares nothmg for the etermty of the unpersonal reason, WIthout love I Anst frg 38 • Tlus IS perfectly clear [rom Themlsbus' words, which Imply that It would need' mterpretatlOn' to apply the Eudetllus' proofs of the surVIval of the soul to Nus alone

THE EUDEMUS

51

and without memory of thIS hfe But Anstotle has wrestled with doubts, and they have left traces In his notIon of PlatonIc recollectIOn We know that m his psychology he rejects recollection along with the Idea-theory and the survival of •the whole soul' 1 The Eudemus, on the other hand, IS still based on thiS theory But at the time of wntmg It Anstotle had already put to himself, and attempted to answer by Plato's method,>, the psychological question whether conscIOusness IS continUOUS In the hfe after death ThiS IS the question on which Immortahty In the sense meant In the Phaedo later seemed to him to founder The contmUlty of conSCIOusness depends on memory Whereas he later demes that Nus possese;es thiS, In the Eudemus he tnes to save It for the soul that has returned to the other world He does thiS by enlargmg Plato's recollectIOn Into a doctnm' of the contInUIty of conscIOusness m all three phases of the soul's eXistence-Its former eXistence, ItS hfe on thl~ earth, and Ite; hfe after death Alongside the PlatOniC view that the soul remembers the other world he sets hIS theSIS that It remembers thiS one He supports thIS by an analogy When men fall III they sometimes lose theIr memones, even to the extent of forgettmg how to read and wnte, whIle on the other hand those who have been restored from illness to health do not forget what they e;uffered whIle they were III In the same WdY the soul that has descended mto a body forgets the ImpressIOns recelwd durmg ItS fanner eXIstence, whJ.1e the soul WhICh death has restored to ItS home m the other world remembers ItS expenences and suffenngs (nOei\lJCITO) here 1 Life without a b.Jdy IS the <"oul's nonnal state (KCITel: Ci'vaw) , ItS sOjourn m the body IS a severe Illness Our Lethe of ",hat we beheld In our prevIOus lIves IS only a temporary mterruptIon and obscuratIOn of our memones and of the contmUlty of our consclOue;ness Smce nothmg of thl~ kmd IS to be feared when we grow well again, I e when our souls are freed from theIr bodIes, thiS view appears to guarantee the ImmortalIty of • the whole soul' The valIdity of the proof depends on the correctness of ItS presupposItion, that man's knowledge IS a recollection of . the VlSlOne; there' (Tel: tKEI 6EaIJCITO) The personal ImmortalIty that the Eudemus teaches necessanly stands or falls along With thiS Platomc dogma Plato I

De An III 5, 430· 13. Metaph A 9,993· 1

•

Anst frg 41

52

THE ACADEMY

had supported hIs great logtcal dIscovery, the a pl'~or~, with the myth of recollectIon At first the young ArIstotle followed along the hnes of thIS myth, and we should not be JustIfied m regardmg thIS way of thmkmg, whIch IS a fundamental dogma m the Meno and the Phaedo, as a mere metaphor m the pupl1 But the moment that he had clearly grasped the speCIfically logIcal nature of pure thought, and realIzed that memory IS a psycho-physIcal phenomenon, he demed that Nus was capable of recollectIOn and dropped pre-exIstence and Immortahty In the Eud-emus, however, he has not yet reached the mstant at WhICh Plato's realIstIc myth was to fall apart mto Its two elements, poetry and conceptIOn The Circle of PlatOnIC vIews that surrounds the fortunes of the soul m the Eudemus IS now closed but for the last hnk, namely the Forms A sober and unprejudIced cntIc WIll certamly feel that It would be unreasonable to stnke out of Proclus' account, whIch he descnbes as authentic AnstotelIan doctnne, Just that lInk m the cham of conceptIons whIch alone gIVes meamng and logical conneXIOn to the whole expOSItIon, or to declare It an additIon of hiS own ThIS IS the theory of Forms It IS preCIsely the Forms of the Phaedo that are hIdden behmd •the VISIOns there' QUIte apart from the language, whIch IS pure Plato, Anstotle could never have spoken In thIS way on the baSIS of hIS later psychology and epistemology And even If Proclus' quotatIOn dId not exphCltly guarantee the occurrence of the Forms m the Eud-emus, the adoptIon of the doctrmes of pre-eXIstence and recollectIon would be enough by Itself to make them necessary As Plato says m the Phaedo, you can admIt or deny the Fonns, but you cannot separate them from recollection and preeXIstence These doctnnes stand or fall together, and the necessIty for both of them IS one and the same I Later on, when ArIstotle abandoned the theory of Forms, he mevltably dropped recollectIOn along WIth It ThIS then IS the relatIOn In whIch Anstotle stood to Plato at about the year 354/3, after at least thIrteen years of study I Plato, Phaedo 76 D Bernays's mam argument to prove that the outlook of lOhe l:.udemus cannot be based on the doctnne of Forms IS once agam the testimony of Proclus and Plutarch, that Anstotle attacked the Forms even m the dIalogues (op CIt, p 25) AgaInst thIS see P 35 above

THE EUDEMUS

53

under hun HIS Platomc penod extends nearly down to the death of h1S teacher In so far as early works glVe us any mformahon about the nature of a wnter, 1t IS qUlte possIble to IDfer some of ArIstotle's typical charactenstIcs from the Eudemus The pecuhar thmg IS that he was already a master In the realm of method and 10glcal techmque at a time when he was stIll completely dependent on Plato In metaphySICS ThIS dependence was ObVIOusly rooted m the depths of hIS unreasoned rehgIOus and personal feehngs The corrections that he undertakes to mtroduce mto hIS Platomc archetype are cautlOus and conservahve He even attempts to follow along Plato's own most IndIvIdual path, mto the realm of the myth of the soul's progres~ ThIS 1S the home of one of Plato's greatest phIlosophical powers, the power of shapmg a Weltanschauung In the Eudemus It I~ already clear that Amtotle's capacity In thIS matter IS less, m spite of the mtenslty of hiS mner need for It, than hiS gemu~ m sCience m the narrower sense

CHAPTER IV

THE PROTREPTICUS I

EXT

FORM AND PURPOSE

to the Eudemus the Protrept1cus IS for us the most

N Important work of all those wntten before Plato's death,

both because of the extent to whIch It IS preserved and because of ItS actual sIgmficance FIrst, however, we reqUire a proof that It was wntten before Plato's death, for as yet scarcely the shadow of one has been offered Even the problem of Its hterary form, though much dIscussed until recently, has not been completely explamed Still less has any attempt been made to determme Its phIlosophIcal contents. The Protrept1cus holds an exceptIOnal pOSItion among Anstotle's early wntmgs It IS addressed to Themison, a pnnce of Cyprus Although we know notlllng further of thIS man and hIS Circumstances, It IS easy to Imagme what sort of person a small enhghtened despot would be at the begmmng of the HellemstIc age We know two other Cypnan pnnces from Isocrates' encomlUm to Evagoras and hIS open letter to Evagoras' son Nlcocles The address to Nlcocles IS a protreptIc, It prescnbes to the young ruler the best prmCIples of Just and mtellIgent government In the fourth century the schools competed m thiS way for the attentIon of the temporal powers, m order to obtam mfluence m pohtIcs We do not know whether It was through his Cypnan frIend Eudemus that Anstotle came to know Themlson We mu"t certamly suppose that the purpose which his letter served formed part of the far-reachmg pohtIcal actIvIties of the Academy at that tune Anstotle addressed Themlson m the mtroductlOn He there saId that ThcmIson's wealth and pOSItIon made hIm peculIarly sUitable for phIlosophy 1 ThiS IS not a piece of flattery, as It seems at first Sight We must remember that on Plato's view the only persons who can hope to reahze the greatest good m the state, and to give help to suffermg humamty, are phIlosophers who obtam polItical power, or kmgs who devote themselves I

Anst frg 50

THE PROTREPTlCUS

55

senously to phIlosophy Thus Plato too holds that riches and power are mdispensable mstnunents of the Idea I ThetnlSon IS to help to realIZe the polItIcal phIlosophy of the Academy The fonn of the work IS closely connected With thIS purpose, and thIS IS one of the matters m whIch we suffer from havmg usually treated the two questIons separately The protreptIc fonn took ItS ongIn m the new educatIonal method of the SOphIStS It IS not a development of the Socratic method It by no means necessarIly demands the dIalogue dress, although that has often been regarded as the natural thmg for Anstotle's exotenc wntmgs Z When CIcero 10 hIS Hortensius put the Ideas of Anstotle's Protrepttcus mto dIalogue form, he thought It necessary to announce the alteratIOn even In the tItle And the fonn of the protreptIcs that are preserved, although they belong to the tIme of the emperors, allows us to mfer that a protreptIc was an exhortatIOn, somethmg lIke the HellemstIc proselytIzmg sennon, whIch IS connected wIth It m fonn and spmt, and whIch has been taken over by the ChnstIan church Probably protreptIc Ideas were often converted lllto dIalogues, as has happened In the Table! of the so-called Cebes Whether thIS was so WIth Antlsthenes' Pro!rept~cus IS not certam, but everybody knows that Plato dId It WIth Socratic arguments m the Euthydemus In that dIalogue Socrates gIves to the sophISts \\'ho are takmg part In the conversation examples of a protreptIc dIscus SlOn WIth a pupIl, m hIS own peculIar form of questIOn and an~wer, Just dS he often makes fanCIful play WIth the SOphIStiC fonus of expreSSIOn Anstotle expressly follows thIS claSSIcal eXdmple of Platomc protreptIc-but only m content In fonn he here for once takes the path not of Plato but of Isocrates The fonn of a personal letter IS not the only thmg that Anstotle borrowed from thIS source, for exhortatIOn (lTapa[vEClIS) I The author of the second PlatOniC letter IS expressmg a thoroughly PlatOnIC nohon when he says (310 E) 'It IS a natural law that WIsdom and great power attract each other They are always pursumg and seekmg after each other and Commg together' • In our catalogues of Anstotle's works, both In DlOgenes and In HesychlUs and Ptolemy the Prolrepltcus IS l1sted among the exotenc WritIngs, whIch are glVtn first But thIS Implies nothmg "bout Its form, since It IS pOSSible that other wntmgs beSides the dialogues were exoteJlc The Prolrephcu; would be reckoned exoteric Just as much If It were In the form of a speech or an open letter

56

THE ACADEMY

was a standmg part of the Isocratean method of educatIOn To address oneself to a particular person 15 a very anCIent pomt of 'ityle In every kmd of moral maXIm and dIdactic speech In the penod dunng whIch the accepted means of exertmg a spmtual mfluence on mankmd was poetry. we can follow the address to an mdividual from HesIOd'~ exhortations to Perses down to the dIdactic poem of Empedocles and the maXIms that Theogms addressed to Cyrnus, the schools were still usmg the latter for the moral educatlOn of boys at the time of Socrates and the sophIsts The sophIsts replaced thIS old-fashlOned maXlIl1-poetry WIth a new prose form, whIch began to compete successfully WIth the tradItional method I The pattern of a pnnce that Isocrates gives us In hiS Ad N'tcoclem IS the sophistIc counterpart of the pattern of chIvalry In Thf'ognis Both belong to the same genus Anstotle's Protrept'tcus IS, however, more than a phI1osophlcal pattern for prInces It proclauns the new Ideal of the purely phllosophic hfe, whIch Plato demanded from the man of action as much as from anyone (for to exhort a practIsmg pohtIcIan to cultivate the' theoretIc hfe' IS a Platomc traIt, foreIgn to the later Anstotle) InCIdentally thl~ work IS not, as IS generally saId, . dedIcated' to Amtotle'~ pnncely friend The dedIcation of dIalogues and trf'atIses belong.., to the hterary customs of HellemstIc courtesy, no such artifiCIal usage ",as known to the better penod WIth An'itotle the address to a partIcular person IS still the hvmg eA-preSSIOn of the mood of earnest ethIcal exhortatIOn It IS orgamc to the protreptic style as such There are other traces of the ImItatIOn of the Isocratean exhortatIOn or 1Tapaivecn~ It IS true that even here we find the peculiar form that stamps everythmg commg from Amtotle, the predommance of the arrangement of chams of thought In apodictIc syllogIsms It IS true that precI~ely hf're thIS form could wm easy and mgemous vlctones (' Ought we to philosophIze ~ , was the question that preoccupIed every exhortatIOn to the study of phIlosophy ArIstotle's answer came pat EIther we ought to phIlosophIZe or we ought not If we ought, then we I P Wendland gives the true account of the development of the prose protrepbc out of the maxim-poetry of the 'YlTo6i'iKQ, In hIS Anaxlmenes von Lampsakos (Berhn, 1905) pp 81 ff Cf Isocr Ad N.cocl 3

THE PROTREPTICUS

57

ought If we ought not, then also we ought (In order to Jushfy thIS vIew) Hence in any case we ought to phIlosophlZe I Most of the remaInIng fragments have a sImIlar SyllOgIStic form) Nevertheless, the Ideas of the older exhortations often shIne through thIS veIl of dIalectic The rnterplay between the old !>tore of Ideas and the new and stnkIng way of supportIng them comes out particularly clearly In one of the longer fragments This passage survIved long enough to get Into the ByzantIne anthologies. ItS ongmal, unabndged form has lately been dIScovered In a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus z . BelIeve that man's happmess hI's not m the magmtude of hIs possessIOns but m the proper condItIOn of hl~ soul Even the body IS not called blessed because It IS magnIficently clothed, but because It 15 healthy and In good condItIOn, even If It lacks thl~ del araban In the same way only the cultIvated soul IS to be Lalled happy and only the man who IS such. not the man who IS magmficently decorated With external goods, but IS hImself of no value \Ve do not LalI a bad hor~e valuable because It has a golden bIt and costly harne~s, we reserve our pral~e for the horse that IS In perfect conditIon'

Or agaIn . Just as a man would be a ridIculous figure If he were Intellectually and morally mfenor to hl~ slave~. m the same way v.e must belIeve a man ml'ierable If hls possessIOns are more valuable than hlmself Sabety begets wantonness, says the proverb Vulganty lInked With power and possessions bnngs forth folly'

These Ideas are not peculIar to PlatOniC WIsdom, but the apodiCtIc form of expOSItIon IS new The frequent' we must belIeve' IS Itself one of the techmcal deVIce" of SOphIstIC exhortatIOn Isocrates In hIS addres!:> to Nlcocles, and the author of the protreptIc To DemomcU';, begm therr maXImS In thIS way no less than fifteen trrnes Our phIlosophIcal analySIS WIll show that Anstotle effectIvely transfonned not merely the InexhaustIble storehouse of ancient Greek proverbial WIsdom, but also Plato's ethICS and metaphySICS He makes the hortatory content of the GOTg~as and the Phaedo coalesce WIth the UnIform prose of the Isocratean protreptIc ThIS syntheSIS IS the frUIt of the young PlatOnIst's efforts to make techmcal rhetonc at home In the Academy, and to tum It mto a SCIentIfic dIsclplme In thIS way the PTotTept~cus comes to be a manIfesto on behalf of Plato's school and ItS nohon of the aim of hfe and culture 1

Frg 51

• Frg 57 U Pap Oxy,ll, vol

IV,

pp 83 fI

THE ACADEMY

S8

Isocrates had been combmmg mmd-trammg, by means of fonnal exerClSes m WrItIng and speakmg, with mstruchon m the pnnClples of ethics and of practical statesmanship HlS cucle now found Itself publicly opposed by a new competitor The Protreptlcus showed that the Academy could hold Its own m the sphere of rhetOrIC BeSides thiS, Its contents must have seemed to the followers of Isocrates an open attack on their Ideal of culture Isocrates' polemical remarks on the Platomc Ideal of educatIng the young by means of pure phuosophy, and hiS recommendatIOn of the banal viewpoInt of utulty m education, deSigned to smt the psychology of the average PhulStme-these thmgs had long called for an answer from the Academy In the Protreptlcus Anstotle refuted the tnvlal proposItion that the value of knowledge IS to be measured accordmg to ItS utulty m practical life But what refuted banauslc persons even more convIncmgly than the acuteness of hiS syllogisms was the demonstratlOn, renewed m every lme, uf hiS own mtellectual supenonty He showed that neither a good style of wntmg, nor a senSible dispOSItion of one's life, nor a productive statesmanshl~the almS towards which Isocrates professed to lead-IS pOSSible Without solidity m the ultlmate pnnclples of human conviction It appears that the school of Isocrates did not fau to produce a reJomder, and that an aCCident has preserved It for us among the speeches of Isocrates It IS the anonymous exhortation To Demonlcus, a wretched piece of work by an mfenor mmd, betraymg the spmt of sheer envy and competitIveness The author can be recognized as a pupu of Isocrates by the arsenal from which he draws lus Intellectual weapons-the arrangement and the commonplaces of the speech show that It cannot have been wntten appreCiably later Presumably It IS preserved sunply because It was commissioned by the school In the mtroduchon the author explams hiS mtentlons m the followmg manner I 'Those who compose protrepbc dlscourse~ addressed to their own fnends are, no doubt, engaged in a laudable employment, yet they do not occupy themselves w,th the most Vital part of plulosophy Those, on the contrary, who pomt out to the young. not by what means they may cultivate slull m mere dialectic (:~,' WII Tl111 2.E1116"TT\Ta """II fll ToiS I

[boer] Ad D,mon 3

THE PROTREPTICUS

59

A6yOlS aaKl'jaovalv).' but how they may Win repute as men of sound

charader, are rendenng a greater service to their hearers, In that, while the fonner exhort them to proficiency In argument, the latter Improve their moral conduct'

ThIS appears to be dIrected agamst a protreptic addressed to a frIend from a phIlosophIcal pomt of VIew, conscIOusly theoretical, and calhng for the study of dIalectIc Surely no such work can have become suffiCIently famous to seem dangerou~ to the Isocratean Circle, except the Protrepttcus of Amtotle ThiS fits 10 speCially well WIth what the follower of Isocrates says about hIS opponent's hostIle attitude towards hfe and the world, as dIsplayed 10 hIS view of the aIm of educatIon It was the first phIlosophIcal protreptIc, and so far as we know the only one, defimtely to put the controversial question whether we really ought to educate merely for' hfe' Agamst the bourgeOIS world of Isocrates It set up Its bold demand for' the theoretic hfe' \Ve need not, however, content ourselves WIth general consideratIOns, It IS pOSSIble to gIve more tangible proof of ItS mfluence on the Ad Demomcum 2. Ad Demon 19 'Do not heSitate to travel a long road to thuse who profess to offer some u~eful mstructIon, for It were a !.hame, when merchants cross va~t ~LdS In order to mcred~e theIr store of wealth,

Anst frg 52 (Rose, p 62, 1 7) 'We ought not to shun philosophy, If philosophy IS as we thmk the pO%e~~lOll and use of Wisdom, and Wisdom IS onc of the greate!.t goods We ought not to sail to the pillars

I The author'~ notIon of phIlosophy IS that of Isocrates, wh,ch reo;embles our notIon of general culture 1 hL skill m argumult' that he comlemns, and the cultI\atIon' of thiS IS as WLndland ~aw not the cle\crness of the rhl'tonclan He IS not 0PP(J~Ing protn'pbcs on bl'h,l1f of rhetonL, but logical or dialectIcal phIlosophy cf hocr Hil 2 when the saine things are dgaIn descnbed as 'Lxcesslve mtere~t m ,"rguffiLnts' (mplEpyla Iv Tol~ ;>'6yol~) In the Anttdos.. (2.58 ff) dialectIC gLomctry, and astronomy are associated as formmg the opponent s charactLrlstlc educatIOnal programme As In the speech To Demomcus, they arc saId to be useful Indeed as mtdlectual diSCiplines (265), but not helpful for gnat actlOlls and Ideals • In hiS excellent dlscu"IOn of the Ad DemontLum P Wendland (op Cit, PP 92 ff) l.alls attentIOn to ItS relations to Anstotle's l'rolrept,C14s, and POints out the parallel given m the ted Although he does not draw It, It seems to me the IDLvltable consequence of these observatIOns that the Ad DenlOnlCUm IS maInly aImed at thc Protreptlells, and Wa.!> dctual1y written WIth the mtLntlon of setting up ,mother goal agaInst the Ideal of that work It IS not of course necessary that the f'Cho followed ImmedIately on the appearance of Anstotle's ","ork, but It was certamly wntten Wh1iL he was stIll alive Durmg the'IleJl.t hundred years the Influence of thL Protrept.C14s was eon~tantly mueasmg (cf Allst frg 50), which makes such a cntIclsm of It perfectly comprLhenslbk

THE ACADEMY

60

that the young should not endure even Journeys by land to Improve their understandmg , Cf the begmmng of thIS section 'Beheve that many precepts are better than much wealth, for ~ealth qUickly falls us, but precepts abide through all time, for wISdom alone of all possesSIOn" I~ Impenshable '

of Hercules and run many dangers for the sake of wealth, whl1e we spend neither labour nor money for wisdom Venly It IS slavISh to long for hfe mstead of for the good hfe, and to follow the opmIOns of the many mstead of demandmg that the mdny follow our own, and to seek for money but pay no attenbon whatever to the noble'

The correspondence between the two passages cannot be accidental, for the followmg reason In Anstotle the picture of the sauors n!>kmg all dangers m their hunger for wealth provides a very good contrast to the men who must make sacnfices m order to cultivate the hIghest goods The pupu of Isocrates, on the other hand, bnngs It m loosely, Just as a rhetonclan would collect tncks of style m hiS readmg and afterwards make use of them He IS unable to get the proper effect With It HIS antithesIS seems stramed and fngld To the borrowed lmage of the seafanng merchants he opposes the safe travel of the student overland, gOing to Athens to attend the umverslty HIS surpnsmg admomtlOn that . many lectures' are worth more than .much wealth' IS for once not altogether lacklOg m ongmahty, for 10 the school of Isocrates mstructlon was expenslVe 2

PRESERVATION AND RECONSTRUCTION

In hiS penetratmg book on Anstotle's dIalogues Bemays directed the attentIon of phllologlSts to the works of the NeoPlaton1!>ts, by glvmg some examples of theIr predIlection for these dialogues ThiS brought forth excellent fnnt m 1B69, when Ingram Bywater showed that there are large portions of Anstotle's Protrephcus m Iambhchus' work of the same name, where they he buned under numerous excerpts from Plato's dIalogues I As luck would have It, Bemays had by that time completed hIS researches, and hiS conclUSIOn, that Anstotle never had a Platomc penod, barred hun from understandmg the new diScovery Even Bywater hImself remamed entIrely convmced by Bemays's argument HIS debght at hIS find led hIm to ha!>ty I

The Journal of PhIlology, vol

\1,

PP 55 ff

THE PROTREPTICUS

61

publication, wIthout any careful attempt to make sure of what he had got, or to establish the lImIts of the new fragments The Protreptuus of Iamblichus IS a reader for begInners In phIlosophy It IS put together out of such works as taught a genuInely Pythagorean doctnne accordIng to the Neo-Platomsts subsequent to Porphyry These were (I) theIr own, (2) the wntIngs, mo<;tly spunous, of the older Pythagoreans whom they quote, and above all (3) those of Plato and the early Anstotle, who were regarded as genuIne esotencs The sacredness of these wntIngs IS an example of the tremendous power then exercIsed by tradItion as embodied In books, we see It also In contemporary ChnstIamty and JudaIsm, and later In Islam Out of loosely connected passages from Plato'<; dialogues, mostly well-known ones, Iamblichus weaves a vanegated carpet The tranSItIons a.re Inadequate and stereotyped, <;0 that the seams are everywhere vIsIble at first sIght The conversational parts are transformed mto contInUOUS prose, not \Hthout senous maccuraCIeS Although It IS not expliCItly saId that Plato and ArIstotle are bemg quoted, there IS no questIOn of an attempt to deceIve, for every scholar was famIlIar wIth the passages Even so, It IS a sorry pIece of work, and gIves eVIdence of the fact that literary culture and SCIentIfic Independence were steadIly declImng at the tIme Iamblichus took account of An<;totle's Protrepttcus because It was the archetype of thI'; form of wntIng, If for no other reason, and he got hIS excerpts from hIs own readmg of It The Neo-PlatonIsts were attracted by the ascetic and religIOUS character of the book They conSIdered It eVIdence of Anstotle's supposed PlatOnIsm, or at any rate a mean<; of reconcilIng the contradlctlOns between Plato and the PenpatetIc doctrIne One may go so far as to say that the Neo-PlatonIsts cau<;ed a reVIval of the book, for almost everyone of them reveals traces of It We now corne to the determInatIOn of the extent of the excerpts m Iamblichus, a task already attempted by Bywater, HIrzel, and Hartlich I The mam portIOn of hIS book, chapters 5-19, IS made up of quotatIons from Plato's dIalogues In chapters 6-12 thIS senes IS mterrupted by passages from Anstotle I Hlrzel, Hermes, vol x, pp 83 fi Paul Hartlleh 'De exhortabonum a Graccls Rom.lnIsque scnptarum hlstona ct !Odole' (Lelpz Studlen, vol Xl, l'.lrt ~ LeIpZIg, 1889)

f

62

THE ACADEMY

They all come from a lost work, and that thIS 15 the Protreptzcus was first recognIzed by Bywater hunself IdentificatIon was not dIfficult, because portlOns of these chapters are to be found In CIcero, AugustIne, Praclus. and Boethms, eIther verbally the same or nearly so, and eIther ascnbed to Anstotle or In ObvlOusly protreptIc passages and m wntmgs that can be proved to be dependent on hIS Protreptzcus Impressed by the lack of order In the excerpts, HIrzel and Harthch asserted that Iambllchus must have used other wrItmgs of Anstotle's as well, but thIS has not been proved In additIon to Plato and Anstotle another wnter IS used In chapter 5. and to hIm are ascnbed the parts of that chapter that cannot be referred to Plato The end of It IS generally reckoned along wIth the demonstrably Anstotehan excerpts begInnIng In chapter 6 (as In the latest edItIon, that of PistellI), but I hope to show In another place that It comes from Porphyry ThIS would make It probable that Porphyry Ie; also the author of the three other umdentIfied sectlOns of chapter 5. smce they are clearly Neo-Platomc 10 ongm The excerpts from Anstotle begIn WIth some loosely connected arguments on behalf of the value of phl1osophy They are based on Plato's Euthydemus. bemg taken over more or less verbally from Socrates' protreptlc conversatIon (278 E ff), a fact that has escaped notice \Vhat 15 more Important IS that thIS IS the very part of the Euthydemus that Iambhchus also uses as the begmnmg of hIS quotations from Plato (p 24, II 22 ff) SInce It IS Improbable that the repetition of It here IS an oversIght, and smce the words are not a pIam CItatIOn from the Euthydemus, but a compresslOn of Plato's exposItIon mto several faIrly long syllogIsms, In whIch there are some Anstotehan terms, It IS obVIOUS that Iambhchus IS here usmg not Plato dIrectly, but an IntermedIate source That source IS Anstotle's Protreptzcus Just as In the Eudemus Anstotle took the Phaedo for model, so 10 the Protreptzcus he frequently followed the work that contaIned Plato's cntIclsm of the SOphIStS' protrephcs, namely the Euthydemus ThIS bnngs us another step forward Bywater compared the followmg passages together Cle HortenslUS (ed Balter) frg 26. (ed Mueller, frg 36) Bean certe ornnes esse "olumus

Iambl Protr (ed Plstelh) p

24.

22

All we men

wl~h

to fare well

THE PROTREPTICUS

63

That Cicero made use of Anstotle's Protrept~cus In hIS protrepbc dialogue IS so Indubitably certaIn on other grounds that It scarcely needed the support of this verbal agreement Bywater supposed that here agaIn Anstotle was the common source The passage m Iambhchus, however, along wIth Its whole context (p 24,1 22,-p 27,1 10), belongs to a dIrect quotatIon from the Euthydemus, and this makes Bywater's Inference mvahd for Iambhchus On the other hand, the view that Cicero also made direct use of the Euthydemus lITIputes to hlITI a more piecemeal method of workIng than he had TIus sentence, which formed the begmnlng of a syllogIsm, was doubtless really taken from Anstotle's Protreptuus, and It was Anstotle and not Cicero who got It out of the Euthydemus, along with all the passages that we have recovered above He was unwillmg, It seems, to leave out the famous opemng sentence of the protreptIc conversatIOn In the Euthydemus IamblIchus, on the other hand, omIts It when quotmg Anstotle, because a few pages earher he has copied It dIrectly out of Plato It IS thiS method of making excerpts that Ie; responsible for the complete lack of conneXIOn In the first senes of arguments (p 37, 11 3-22) that he takes over from the Protrept~cus

The next passage reveals Iambhchus' method still more deCiSIvely (Anst frg 52) It consIst., of a Single complete argumentatIOn, extending over several pages (p 37, I 22-P 41, I 5) At first Sight It seem,; to be all of a pIece Smce 11 15-24 of P 40 are also quoted by Proclus, and by him expressly ascnbed to Anstotle, IT has been mferred that not merely thiS passage but the whole proof IS borrowed from the Protrept1cuS That work must certainly have discussed the POSSlblhty of philosophy as a department of human knowledge, ItS Importance for hfe, and the rate of Its advance Besides thiS, the whole proof reappears In another book of Iambhchus', where It IS Incongruously used as a defence of mathematIcs There It IS preceded by a cntlclsm of philOsophy from the Side of ItS enemIes, those who are opposed to all mere theory on pnnclple, and thiS passage also bears all the marks of Anstotehan ongm Rose therefore connects the two verSIOns (frg 52) Inner eVIdence shows that there can be no doubt of the

64

THE ACADEMY

nghtness of thIS ascriptIon The only questIOn IS whether Iambbchus took over the proof as a whole, or put It together for hlffiself out of Anstotellan matenal In the first place, whue the excerpts from Plato are throughout laid side by side Without any conneXlOn, we notIce that those from Anstotle evmce an Inner relation In his Anstotellan source Iambbchus found a complete tram of protreptIc thought, which he naturally de~lred to lImtate But the hope that he has preserved to us undamaged ,.. hole trams of argument from Anstotle's Protrepttcus unfortunately turns out to be Illusory HIs model has mdeed mstIgated him to attempt a connected proof of the mdependent value of phIlosophy But the chapters m which he has articulated thIS tram of thought, though outwardly polIshed, are a pretty crude and VIOlent combmatlOn of AristotelIan materials Their outward conJunctIon does not allow us to lOfer that they are undamaged, or that they really belong togl'ther Fragment 52 Will "erve as an example of the polOt The whole IS a tnpartIte defence of phIlosophy The opemng and clOSing words, and those m the middle, by means of whIch the three parts are held together, are remlnl'5cent of Anstotle's manner m hiS treatIses But If we compare the other verSIOn of thIS excerpt 10 Book III, we find that Iambhchus there omits the mtroductIon altogether and gives the conclUSIOn m another fonn It follows that It IS he who 1'5 responsible for the structure of the proof and for the words that mdlcate' It He has u<;ed Anstotle's Ideas as buIldmg stones, and crudely forced them mto hIS own miserable framework No trace of the ongmal architecture remams The same conclUSIOn follo\\~ from the words that both Iambhchus and Proclus have preserved at the end of the fragment It 15 clear from theIr close and detaI1ed correspondence that they are throughout the onglnal words of Anstotle The only dlfterence hes In the pomt of view from which the quotation 1'5 mtroduced In each case Proclus uses It to prove that phIlosophy IS an end m Itself (:t.I' MO alpET6v), a theSIS that receIVed exhau!>tIve treatment 10 the Protrepttcus Iambhchus Wishes to demonc;trate by Its means that philosophy cannot be a very difficult study, which was certamly not Anstotle's mtentIon ThiS arouses the SuspiCIOn that the rest of the construction of the proof 15 equally un-Anstotehan Iambllchus' arrangement of hiS

THE PROTREPTICUS

65

matenalls superficIal, and we should be equally superficIal m our analySIS of It If we dIvIded It by chapters, and still more so 1£ we assIgned them to different wntmgs of Anstotle's There IS no ground for the supposItIon that he used more than one work It has been urged that such and such a chapter cannot be from the Protrept~cus because It mentIons thmgs that have already been partly dIscussed m another chapter Such arguments are not cogent The' chapters' are phantom buIldmgs They crumble as soon as one taps the bnttle mortar that holds theIr members m place Only the members themselves, falhng out of theIr settmgs, will stand investIgatIon WIthout pulvenzmg TheIr substance IS bound together by the stony lOgIC of Anstotle's syllOgISms Through parallels m CIcero or Augustme and BoethlUs l the followmg passages are also proved to be excerpts from the Protrept~Cfts chap 8, p 47, I 5-P 48, I 21 (frgs 59, 60, and 6r) , and chap 9, p 52, I 16-p 54, I 5 (frg 58) To these must be added the begInnIng of chap 8, p 45, I 6-p 47, I 4 (frg 55) ThIS whole porhon IS denved from a smgle source It IS charactenzed by dIalectIcal mferences (' from the thIngs that seem clear to all '), whIch Anstotle IS especIally fond of usmg In hIS literary works, and by a peculiar use of the conceptIOn of WIsdom (cpp6vTl CrlS), of whIch we shall speak hereaftf'r But there are 5tdl further excerpts I begIn WIth chapter 7, whIch IS especIally Important and has up to now been held not to come from Anstotle's Protrept~cus The opemng words are Iambhchus' own (p 41, II /)-r5) He proposes to show (1) that thInkmg (TO CPpOVEIV, whIch 1" here a genumely PlatOnIC term meamng the whole of pure philosophy) IS valuable for men m Itself, (2) that It IS useful m hfe, because WIthout thought and mference man cannot attam to anythmg profitable, and (3) that philosophy IS essentIal to the attamment of happmess, whatever outlook on hfe you may have, and whether you understand by happmess a maXImum of pleasant sensahons (';:Aov';)' or a hfe completely Imbued WIth ethical I Usener's expectation (Rhem Mus, vol 28, P 400) of finding substantial porbons of the HOtlenHus In Boetluus has not been fulfilled In fact, Boethlus cannot have used thf' HortenHus at all as Usener hunself was later obhged to adrmt (A need Holden, p 52) Augustine, on the other band was an a55lduous reader of the dialogue

66

THE ACADEMY

pnnclples and occupied m their reahzatlOn (apET1'}), or the hfe of the pure mtellect (cppOV1'lCl"Is) These three pomts correspond exactly to the sequence of the chapters (I) chaps 7-9, (2) chap la, and (3) chaps 11-12 Now It IS pOSSible to doubt how far these chapters are copied from an Anstotehan source (It IS shown below that as a matter of fact they are all excerpts from the Protrept.cus) , but no one 15 gomg to belteve that m the order gIVen to them m Iambhchus they constitute a smgle contmuous fragment of Anstotle Therefore Iambhchus htmself must be responsible for the mtroductory words m which the scheme of the SIX follOWing chapters IS announced What he does 15 to take thiS outlme and fill It out With selected passages from hiS source (although no doubt the three dlvlSlons of the outhne are themselves copied from the same source) ThiS IS clear at the start, after announcmg hiS plan he makes no attempt to smooth over the transItion to verbal quotatIOn, but begms With Anstotle's schematic phrase hi Tolvvv (p 41, I IS) The proof thus maugurated extends down to p 43, I 25. and fonns on the Whole a smgle tram of thought, though P 42, I 5, is undoubtedly abbreViated At I 25 of P 43 some more eXCISIOns begm, but the conclUSIOn of the precedmg part (p 43, 11 22-5) shows how close was ItS anginal conneXlOn With the argument that follows (p 43. I 27, to the end of chapter 7) I t is obvIOUS that all thiS consists of disconnected quotations from an earher author. and the style and the Ideas reveal at every turn that that author IS Anstotle It was a very unmethodical proceedmg to exclude these pages merely because there seemed to be no external eVidence for them, when they are surrounded on all Sides by demonstrably Anstotehan passages. The mam thought of the first section (p 41, I I5-P 43, I 25) IS speCifically Anstotehan, and so IS the way 10 which It IS developed In order to determme what IS favourable and advantageous for each nature, the author makes use of the notion of TEAOS" The' aun' of eveIY nature must be sought m some slgmficant actiVity, some hvmg effectiveness that It has In the mass of ItS effects or functIOns (!pyov) one wtll stand out as its peculiar strength (o!lce(a apE"rlj) over agamst all other mdIvlduals or SpeCIes, thiS IS the work that II) essentIal to It and constItutes ItS TEAOS The task of every nature LI) determmed

THE PROTREPTICUS

67

by Its mborn capacIty The scale of functIons accordmg to theIr value IS gIven by nature, for the mstrumental ones are always bIOlogIcally the lower, and the governmg ones the hIgher Such IS the relatIOn, for example, of the bodIly to the mental functIons In thIS sense the ~pyov of the mental capacItIes has greater value than that of the bodIly The hIghest of allIS that capacIty of the soul whose value does not he In effectmg a mere result (lpyov) dIstinct from Its own actIvity (t\lepyela) ThIS capaCIty does not aun at the productIOn of any external object, and m It actIvIty and product are one Its name IS phrones~s, which IS perhaps to be rendered as ' pure reason' Phrones~s has only Itself for object and aun, and produces nothing but Itself It IS pure IntwtIOn (6ewpla) In the conceptIon of IntUItion beIng, actIon, and productIon, are resolved mto a umty The highest fonn of lIfe IS neIther ordInary productIOn nor ordmary action, but the contemplatIve VISion of the mtellect, whIch IS actIve and productIve In a hIgher sense The followmg elements In thIS can be seen at a glance to be AnstotelIan In content the companson of the pleasures of contemplatIon wIth those of the dISInterested use of the eyes, the Importance of the notIOn of functIOn and work (evepyEla, epyov), the dIstInctIon between functIons perlonned tn actIvItIes and those that are merely perlonned through them, the distInctIon between the productive, the practIcal, and the theoretIcal actIVities, and the IdentIty of subject and object In the actIve Intellect I In the doctnne of levels. whIch IS presupposed here and receives express mentIon somewhat further on, we have the fundamental pnnclple of Anstotle's teleology, namely that In every sphere of reahty the hIgher levels Include the lower Lastly, Anstotle was faImlIar WIth the doctnne of the three lIves and three pomts of VIew, the hedomstIc-sensual, the ethIcal, and the mtellectual BeSIdes thI'> mternal eVIdence we have a convIncIng external proof In the chapter on the ongmal fonn of the EthJCS It will be shown that large and connected portIOns of the Eudem~an Eth~cs correspond exactly In content and language to the excerpts that Iambhchus has preserved Some of them are one of the most Important elements

In

Anstotle's theory of value. IS present throughout the passage It appears the follOWing places p "2. II 5. IS, 19. 20, 22. P '13. II 6 9. 18, 21

In

I

The conceptIOn of Ipyov. which

IS

68

THE ACADEMY

passages of whIch the author of the Eudemlan EthlCS expressly says that he IS takIng them from' the exotenc works' Now If we compare these passages wIth the excerpts In Iambhchus we find that the latter are the archetypes It follows that the work from whIch Iambhchus took these quotatIOns was one of those lost works of Anstotle the apphcahan to whIch of the word 'exotenc' was so long m dIspute, but IS now beyond doubt Now Iambhchus' seventh chapter IS one of these excerpts Therefore It must be AnstotelIan It IS equally certam that It must be from the Protrephcus, SInce thIS IS true of the other passages m the Eudemlan EthlCS that are known to be borrowed, and smce the whole tram of thought IS protreptlc m tone In hIS later lectures Anstotle frequently touched on the questIOn of the value of the dIfferent kmds of lIfe, and put the chOIce before hIS hearers In such places he mvanably dlstmgUlshed the hfe of pleasure and gam, the lIfe of action, and that of the student and phllosopher The Protrept~cus IS the ongm both of the questIOn and of the answer, which IS that the hfe of pure knowledge IS preferable to all other modes of human eXistence, even from the ethIcal pomt of VieW But the slgmficance of the quotation 10 Iambhchus' seventh chapter IS "till not exhausted Every reader of the M etaphys~cs has been earned away agam and agam by the force of ItS opemng pages Anstotle there develops wIth IrreSIstible power the vIew that, far from Its bemg contrary to man's nature to occupy hImself wIth theoretical studIes, the pleasure of "eeIng, of understandmg, and of knowmg, IS rooted deep wlthm hIm, and merely expresses Itself dIfferently at the dIfferent levels of hiS conSCIOU'iness and culture It IS really the fulfilment of man's hIgher nature, It IS not a mere means to the satisfaction of the nsmg standards of clvlhzed hie, but the highest absolute value and the summit of culture, and of all studIes the hIghest and most deSirable IS the one that produces the most exact SCIence, and reahzes m Its perfect fOIm the dISInterested VISlOn of pure knowledge The protreptlc power of these Ideas WIll be felt by all who have learnt through expenence the supreme value of thIS actiVIty when pursued for Its own sake Knowledge has never been understood and Iccommended more purely, more earnestly, or more sublImely,

THE PROTREPTICUS

69

and It IS still a dead letter to-day for those who cannot pursue It m thIS spmt Now to teach us to understand It m thIS profound sense was what Anstotle aImed at m the Protreptzcus, and the famow, mtroductIon to the 111 etaphyszcs IS m essence nothmg but an abbrevIated verSlOn of hIS claSSIcal expoSItIon of the matter there ThIS IS shown by a campanson of lambhchus' seventh chapter (p 43, I 20), WhICh develops the same Idea at greater length, and carrIes the argument mto more detail We find that the mtroductory chapter of the Metaphyszcs IS sImply a collection of matendl e)..traeted from thIS source for the purpose of a lecture, and that It IS not even qUIte firmly cemented mto place

Protr, p 43, I

20

l1-fetaph A I,

980~21

Thought and contemplation All ll1en by nature deSIre to IS the rYlO~t deSIrable of all tlilngs Jor know An llldicahon of thIS IS the men, as IS (I thmk) the scn~e of delight we takc III our sense~, for "lght, wInch a man would choo~e even aps to pos~e~~ even If nothing were they ave lOlled for themselves, and gOIng to come of It eucpt the ~lght ,Ibove all others thc sense of SIght Itself For not only WIth a vIew to achon. Agam, If we love SIght for Itself, but wen uhen we are not gomg to thiS IS suffiCIent proof that all mcn do anythmg, '/lie prefer uelng (one love thought and kno\'<\edge exmIght say) to everythIng else The ceedmgly But 1\ hat dI~ reason l~ that thIS, most of all the tmgUl~hes life from non-hfe I~ ,Olses, mallCs us know and brings perceptIon, and hfe l~ detLrmmed /0 llght many d~fftl ences between thzng' By nature ammals dre born by the pre"ence of thIS cap.luty The power of SIght dlffen from the With the faculty of SLl1SatJOn other 5en~es bt bemg tIn ella/elt, and thzs IS the reason whyUf plefer It to alt If then life '" to b~ cho5en bec,m<;e of perceptIOn, and If pe" eptlOn IS a kznd of knowledge whlLh we dlOo<;e becduse It enahle<; the soul to know, and If as Wi have ~azd a/Jove the prejeralJ/e one oj two tlll7lg, IS that whzeh has Hune oj the lall/t thwg,' It nue,>sd-nI} folIo"., OJ it SIght 1., the mo.,t de"lrable dud honoUfdule of the seme5, but thd.t Wisdom IS more desnable than thl~
The meamng of the conCIse word &yCrrrT1O"IS m the second sentence of the M etaphyszcs, namely the love of an actiVIty for Its own sake, receIves much clearer cxpresslOn III the I Readmg OT! Instead of oTlmp

z

Readmg KVp,cuTlpa ovcra

70

THE ACADEMY

correspond1Og passage of the excerpt from the Protrepttcus. as was necessary 10 an exotenc exposItIon Every word IS obvlOusly Anstotehan. but the excerptor has put together several distInct passages from the Protrepttcus because of the sumlanty of theIr contents, and as the weld IS pretty roughly made the whole gives a tautologous effect It IS, however, qUlte Impossible to suppose that we have here a mere paraphrase of the passage 10 the M etaphystcs These excerpts defimtely go beyond what IS saId 10 that work ThIs IS espeCially clear m the emphasIs put on correct logical reasomng, which corresponds to the pIcture of Anstotle's early manner that we have received from the Eudemus Examples are the use as a premIss of the topical pnnclple that of two objects that whIch possesses a valuable quahty In a higher degree IS It"elf valuable In a higher degree, I and the use of defimtlOns In ordrr to prove that Wisdom IS good by means of the conceptIOn of hfe Both In the M etaphyszcs and 10 the Protrepttcus the method of proof IS dialectIcal, and this also agrees WIth what we observed m the Eudemus The first twu chapters are of thiS nature throughout, and smce they teach the same fundamental prInciple as the Protrepttcus, namely the self-sufficiency of pure theoretIcal knowledge, It IS natural to suppose that they are substantially or wholly borrowed thelefrom ThiS can easIly be demonstrated m detail In both wrItmgs the conceptIon of pure knowledge IS developed by contrastmg It WIth the activity of the practical man, which fests on mere expenence or routme It IS not the emplncal and practIcal man who stands higher, but the theoretIcal and contemplatIve one, for ernpmclsm never attams that mSlght mto the causes and reasons for phenomena which the theoretIcal man possesses OWIng to hiS mastery of the umversal The more empmcal you are, and the more you rely on perceptlOn (npoaeEal~), the less exad your knowledge The only truly exact knowledge IS that of what IS most knowable, namely those most general pnnclples (Tel npc7na) whIch form the subject-matter of the highest theoretical studIes It may well be that m practice I In the Ewlemus the logical proposItion that the IdentIty of the oblect depends on the IdentIty of the attnbutes was employed to refute the doctnne that the Boul IS a harmony of the body In referring the greater value of the object to the presence (V'rr1!1PXElv) of more valuable attnbutes Anstotle IS here proceeding 1.0 a Slml]ar manner

THE PROTREPTICUS

71

the mere empmc will have more success than a theonst who has had no actual expenence, but the former never attams to action that really depends on secure pnnclples and on Insight mto the necessIties of the case, he remaInS banauslc • The concealed polemiC agamst banauslc persons and their contempt for theory, which IS contmuous throughout the first chapters of the M etaphySfCS, was modelled on the Protreptzcus, In which Anstotle had refuted the attacks of the empmclsts In detail Fortunately we still possess a fragment that goes deeply mto the arguments of the opposite Side (frg 52, Rose, p 59, 11 17 ff ) I

•That philosophy IS useless m practical hfe may be seen m the followmg manner The best example that we have I~ the relation between the theoretical or pure studies (hnlTTiiIJOI) and the apphed dlsClplmes that are subordmate to them (VTTOKElIJfVOI 66~ol) For we notice that the geometrICians are qUIte unable to apply their SCIentific proofs In practice When It comes to dIvldmg a piece of land, or to any other operation on magmtudes and space!., thl' surveyor~ can do It because of their expellence, but those who are concerned wIth md.thematlcs and with the reasons for these thmgs, while they may know how It ought to be done, cannot do It .

The demand for exactitude (6:l
72

THE ACADEMY

devastations of the great flood men were at first oblIged to devote themselves to the dIscovery of the mere necessItIes of food and hie (TO: 1TEpl Tt'}v TPOcpTjV Kol TO 3iiv 1TpWTOV 1)Vexyt
the Meta.physlcs

THE PROTREPTICUS

73

the Protrept~cus In content It fonns part of Anstotle's reply to the obJectIon that phIlosophy IS useless for hfe We know from CIcero that he actually used the dIVISIon of goods mto necessary and valuable m themselves (ciVa:yKOio and 1.1' aV-r0: aycrrrWIlEVO or tAEV6epa), and also the beautIful descnptlOn of the Isles of the blest, whose mhabltants, havmg no earthly needs, are wholly devoted to pure contemplatIOn I Nevertheless, Iambhchus has largely oblIterated the force of the passage Anstotle was not merely pamtmg a pleasant pIcture He also mtended to show mankInd Isolated, as It were, from the needs (xpela) of lIfe In usmg an Image for such a purpose he was followmg Plato In the RepublIc, \\here the story of Gyges IS employed m order to observe the behavIOur of a man who can do whatever he likes, WIthout havmg to take any account of other men and theIr Judgements It IS commonly held that Iambhchus gIves the ongmal more truly than CICero ThIS 15 wrong Cicero says supposmg we were on the Islands of the blessed, what need should we have of oratory, smce there are no JudICIal proceedmgs there) What need ~hould we have of the virtues of Justice, courage, temperance, and even etlucal prudence) Only knowledge and pure contemplatIOn would stIll be deSIrable It follows that we love knowledge for Its own sake, and not because of Its usefulness or of any need of ours Iambhchus omIts all thIS, and thereby obscures the pomt of the pIcture CIcero ha~ preserved the tenor of the ongmal on the whole pretty accurately HIS only alteratIon IS the addItIOn of eloquence to the four cardmal virtues adduced In the Protrept~cus ThIS was obVIOusly done because of HortenslUS, who reckoned not philosophy but eloquence the hIghest good The proof of CIcero's supenor accuracy IS to be found m the tenth book of the N~comacheanEthzcs Here agam a remInISCenCe of hIS early work has mfluenced Anstotle's pen 2 The subject 15 the same as that of the Protreptzcus, namely pure contemplatIOn He contrasts It WIth the lIfe of actIOn The latter reqUIres many external aIds for the reahzatlOn of the ethIcal dIspoSItIon (ti ~KTOs xopTlyia T] Ti6IKi]) GeneroSIty reqUIres money So does Justice, If you WIsh to return equals for equals Courage reqUIres "trength Temperance can be tested only by the I

l'rg 58

%

Elk Ntc X 8, 1178& :Z4- b 5

74

THE ACADEMY

opportumty to abandon one's self-control How else can a good disposItIon be exerclsed;l And without exercise It never reaches fulfilment The knower, on the other hand, needs no external aid m order to exercise his vIrtue, on the contrary, such aids could only be a hmdrance to hlITl There, moreover. Anstotle represents contemplatIOn (eewpla) as Isolated and mdependent of the necessItIes of hfe The Idea IS somewhat dIfferently turned, Plato's doctnne of the four vIrtues IS conscIOusly reJected, through the InclUSIOn of generosIty the whole regams 10 effectiveness what It loses 10 enthusiasm through the suppressIOn of the Isles of the blest In spIte of retouchmg, however. the angInal pIcture IS stIll recogmzable, because the old method of presentmg the thought IS retamed The essentIal pomt, both here and m CIcero, IS the dIsappearance of the' ethIcal VIrtues' 10 the state of pure bhss that belongs to mtellectual VISIOn ThIS proves that CIcero's versIOn IS the more complete The first part of the mnth chapter al50 comes from the Protrephcus ThIS IS as certam from the contents as It IS from the style Anstotle starts by dlvldmg the causes of becommg mto nature art and chance. a dIstInctIon that he makes mother places as well, though nowhf're ,,0 pregnantly as here I It IS a charactenstIcally Anstotehan VIew that nature IS purposIve III a hIgher degree even than art, and that the purposIveness that rules 10 handIwork, whether art or craft. IS nothmg but an ImItation of the purpOSIveness of nature The same view of the relation between these two thmgs IS often bnefl.y expressed m the second book of the Phys~cs, whIch IS one of Anstotle's earhest wnhngs It IS occaSIOnally alluded to In other places also, but never so well developed and artIculated as here An expressIOn hke the followmg IS stnkmgly angInal 'Nature does not umtate art,z but art nature, and art eXIsts to help and to make up what nature leaves undone' (p 49. I 28) The means I We shall nreet thIS tnpartlte diVISion of the causes of becommg again m the dialogue On PhIlosophy There Its authentiCity has been doubted, but In reahty It IS a part of the mechanistic phySICS that obtained before Plato In Laws X 888 E, Plato had already used It preCisely as Anstotle does In the Protreptlcus, to show that nature (cpvall) IS not behind art ("TtxYT)l In Intellect and resourcefulness. and to develop hiS new conception of cpU"11 by thiS means The realIshc manner In which the Idea IS worked out In the P,otr'N'cus shows how closely Ar'lltotle followed the later Plato even In hiS philosophy of nature • That It did was the view of the Presocrabc sophists who were thoroughly

THE PROTREPTICUS

75

taken to recommend thIS VIew are agam IndubItably Aristotehan He offers examples from agnculture and from the care that the hIgher organIsms requIre before and after bIrth He estabhs~les the propositIOn that there IS a UnIversal purposIveness In organIC nature by examples from the mechanIcs of the human body and ItS self-protectIng devIce!' I EverythIng comes mto bemg for the sake of an end An end IS that whIch always appears as the final result of a development, In accordance WIth natural law and by a contmuous process, and m whIch the process attaInS Its completlOn Thus In the process of becomIng the mental IS later than the physIcal, and In the mental realm the mtellectual element In Its pure form IS agam the later Therefore Pythagoras was nght In calhng pure contemplatIon the end of man, 1 e the completlOn of human nature To the queshon what we are born for he rephed, 'to gaze upon the heavens' Anaxagoras also expressed hImself to the same effect Anaxagoras' apophthegm reappears In the Eudemlan Ethzcs. Imbued With the ratlOnah.t .pmt, and taught the eXistence of a mechamcal d.daptatlOn of means to enu m nd.ture d.nd e.peclally III the human orgamsm Traces of 9uch a system are presC'rved In Xen ]',ftm I 4 b if, dnel Anst Part A mmal II 15 Aristotle's philosophy of nature depenu. on an LntIrely dIffereD t attItude, as he himself says here It IS teleologIcal Fdr from nature's exhlbltmg mClplent' tendencle. to nval the art of ollr machInes, all d.rts are merely man's attempt to compete With orgamc and creative nature and thiS competition necessarily takes placE. III another medIUm (that of artlhClal constructIon). m which It IS never pOSSible to speak uf an LUU (TIAO~) III the highest or organll SLn.e I Bemays (Gesammelte Abhandlungen vol 1, P 23) believed Heraclitus to bL the ongmator of the proposItIon that art IS an II111tatlOn of nature becauge the duthor of the De Mundo (5 396 b 7 ff) Lxplams the process of natural becommg ,IS hcmg a harmonIOus amalgdm.ltlOn ot oppo.,tes, .wl! pro""9 thiS from the example of tht. d.rts, WhICh he declares to bL nothmg but ImItdtIons of nature, but what the De Mundo quotes from Helachtus In thIS connexlOn ( that WhICh agrees and that whJCh dIlleN, that wluch produce. harmony and that whIch produces discord ') shows no trace of such a VIeW So far as concerns the mference from art to nature, and thL conclUSIOn that the latter IS the archetype, thIS view IS PenpatetIc and has nothmg to do With the sag.. of Ephesus Demoentus has a sunIlar but distInct doctnne when he calls men the pupIls of tht. ammals, of the spIder In weavmg and mendmg of the swallo\\ In bUIldIng, and of the songbIru. In soug (frg 154) (With the last cf LucretIus V 1379 Lucretius also denves cookery (1 IlOZ) and sowmg and graftmg (1 1361) from the ImitatIOn of nature, which he cutamly got from Dt.nIOCrltus by way of Eplcurus) But Anstotle IS concerned WIth somethmg entIrely new He refers the propOSItion that art IS an llllltatIOn of nature to the teleologIcal "hard.cter oj dll human constructIOn, dOll grounds It Ln th" teleological VIew of nature

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and the verbal correspondence 15 such that eIther Iambhchus must have got It thence or he must have preserved for us the source from whIch It came to the Eudemtan Ethtcs Later on, when we analyse the whole tram of thought of the Ethtcs, It will appear that the latter IS the fact Here agam, therefore, the Eudemtan EthtcS reproduces the Protrepttcus, and thIS proves that the latter 15 the source from whIch Iambhchus took not merely the apophthegm of Anaxagoras but the whole argument of whIch that IS a part ThIS can be substantIated mdrrectly The doctnne that art umtates nature IS further developed 10 Posldomus' theory of the ongm of CIvilizatIOn \Vhat thIS was we know 10 outlme from Seneca's mnetIeth letter, Posldomus held that the advances of clvlhzatlOn are phtlosophlcal dlscovene'i He dId a great deal to spread 10 later antIqUlty the AnstotelIan doctnne that the arts arose 10 stages, first those necessary to hfe, then those of pleasure, and lastly pure contemplatlOn It has been plausibly suggested that he expressed thiS VIew 10 hiS Protrepttcus I If thIS hypotheSIS IS correct, we have here another of the many pomts 10 whIch he attached hImself to the doctrIne of Anstotle's work of the same name WIth the partIcular nuance that he gIves It we are not concerned, the Important thmg IS that the Anstotehan archetype lends substantIal support to the VIew that Posldomu'>' expresslOn of It was to be found 10 hIS Protrepttcus The demonstratIon that the rest of IamblIchus' excerpts from Anstotle (chaps 10-12) are also from the Protrepttcus need not take so long Chapter 10 begms WIth the proposItIon that art IS an ImItatIOn of nature, whIch has already been shown to come from the Protrepttcus From thIS It IS deduced that even the SCIence of polItIcs needs a phIlosophIcal foundatIon, SInce It requrres, still more than medICIne and the lIke, to take Its start from nature 10 the proper sense of the word, that IS, from true bemg Nothmg but the knowledge of thIS can give the 'itatesman 10Sight mto the ultrrnate norms (OpOl) 10 accordance WIth wluch he must dIrect hIS actIVIty Pohtics can become an exact art only when It becomes through and through philosophy As was remarked above (p 71), thIS passage on the Ideal of exactII See Gerhausser. De.- Prolrepttkos des Poseldomos (a Heidelberg thesls) Munich, 1912. PP 18 fI

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77

tude In pure sCience IS one of the parts of the Protrept~cus that are reproduced m the first book of the M etaphys~cs Its Platonic colounng In I ambhchus, which IS mtentIonally removed m the Metaphys~cs, fits the Protrepttcus very well, as the phIlosophical mterpretatIon of the fragments (pp 90-91) Will show m detaIl, Hirzel and Dlels recognized that this colounng constitutes no reason for asslgnmg the passage to the Neo-Platomc excerptor, the thoughts are too ongInal for that Anstotle pomts out that only when polItics IS studied on sCientIfic prmclples and regarded as a normative dlsclphne will It be freed from ItS present unfruitfulness and Instability (a remark espeCially SUItable m a work addressed to a practical statesman) ThiS tram of thought culmmates m the proof that m the long run pohtIcs IS theoretIcalm character The only foundatIon for creative statesmanship IS, not the mere analogies of expenence, but theoretical knowledge of the ultImate standards Here agam Anstotle's mam purpose IS to refute the mere emplncs, who know of nothmg better than the so-called model constItutIOns (EVvoJ.lkXl) of Sparta and Crete (He seems to mean Isocrates and the sophistIc theory of the state) From thiS we learn that the cntIcal diSCUSSIOn of the three Ideal states (Sparta, Crete, Carthage), which now constItutes the second book of the Poltltcs, goes back m content to Anstotle's AcademiC perIod We thereby obtam a very mterestmg fragment of hiS early views on polItIcs For all Its Platomc presupposItions no other Platomst could have wntten It, because of Its predommantly methodologIcal mterests I t shows that the Protrepltcus took direct account of the Academy's polItIcal alIDS The fact that chapter 10 IS' polItical' m content has been supposed to prove that It must come from some purely polItical work of ArIstotle's, but thiS IS superfiCial The deCISive thmg IS not the content but the pomt of VIew from which It IS presented, and the pomt of view of thIS fragment-the emphaSIS on the theoretical character of normative polItics-shows that It belongs to the praise of pure' theory' m the Protrepttcus The eleventh chapter IS concerned With the relation between Wisdom (~p6VT\C"IS) and pleasure ThiS tOpiC has been held inappropnate for a protreptic, on the ground that It does not appear In the later ones But such a method of argument IS fundamentally unsound What was fittmg m a protrepbc F

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emanatmg from Plato's school cannot be mechamcally deduced from the commonplaces of the later protreptlcs of 1mpenal tImes The method has been used only too enthusIastIcally m lIterary research. but It can never be successful when we have to deal wIth wnters ltke Plato or ArIstotle, whose fonn IS the mdlvldual and orgamc result of the necessItIes of theIr matter It IS really self-evIdent that the relatIon between wIsdom (~p6VT)0"IS) and pleasure, a tradItIonal subJect of dIScussIon m the Academy, would be In place In a protreptIc whIch attempted to show that true happmess IS Platomc knowledge (~p6VT)0"Is) The thesIS posItively could not be proved m any other way Anstotle was unable to conceIve of happmess wIthout pleasure, It was therefore nece!'>sary to mqUire what kmd of pleasure wIsdom can gIve If the Ideal of pure contemplatIOn was to be establIshed, thIS problem had to be faced It IS dlscu-.sed as early as the Republtc,' and then more thoroughly m the Phtlebus The Ntcomachean Ethtcs agam, In the tenth book of whIch the 'theoretic lIfe' IS shown to be true happiness, exammes both the relatIon of pleasure to perfect actiVity and, more especIally, the sensatIon of pure pleasure accompanymg knowledge We have already shown that thIS portIOn of the tenth book IS partly dependent for Its content on the Protrrpttcus, and has the same theme Hence the pleasure of contemplatIon was a necessary part of the ~ubJect-matter of the Protrepttcus, as wIll be proved once more when we show that the Eudemtan Ethtcs make!> use of the Protreptuus Both m the Protrepttcus and In the Ethtcs wIsdom, pleasure, and VIrtue are lI'ited a'i the three possIble kmd'i of happmess In the Protrepttcus the demonstratIOn culmmates m the proof that the lIfe of pure contemplatIon affords the most complete satisfaction of the demands of all three of these Ideals Contemplation IS there found to be not merely the clImax of phIlosophIcal knowledge, but also the completIon of man's ethical development and the pure happmess of umnterrupted intellectual JOy No element m thIS constructIOn can be removed wIthout destroymg the whole ThIS proves that the first part of the twelfth chapter IS also an extract from Anstotle's work It IS certainly not too bold to Imagme that the Protrepttcus, lIke the later examples of thIS kmd of lIterature, cuhnmated m a I

Plato, Rep VI 506 B

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descnptIon of the v~ta beata Both Its matter and Its form demand such an arrangement, 50 that the mference from the later and denvatIve to the earher and ongmalls here free from danger What would we not gIve to possess that epilogue m which Anstotle rose to the heIghts of hIS ultImate convIctIons 1 But to suggest that he IS the author of the conclUSIOn actually found m Iambhchus (p 60, I 7-P 61, I 4) 15 to let desire stIfle cntIcal reflectIOn I Enthusiastic the sentences may be, and even mspIred, but It IS not the controlled enthusiasm of Anstotle, who never forgoes the stnct rhythm of hIS apodlchc advance, and values form higher than the highest msplratIOn, often a~ hIS arguments perceptIbly overflow wIth the latter Most of the detaIls of Iambhchus' passage could mdeed well have been taken from the ProtYept~cus, and they may be so Such are the unnaturalness of our earthly and corporeal eXIstence, the nIggardlmess of all our knowledge and apprehenSIOn, the contrast between our present unstable abodes and that place from \\'hlCh we come and towards whIch we stnve, and the disproportIOn between the labour reqUIred to obtam the mere neceSSities of hfe and the time that we are able to devote to the only valuable, the eternal thIngs But the loose and merely aSSOCiatIve conJunction of these notIOns mto an edlfymg summons to the other world, the confUSIOn of Ideas that can be detected In them, the sacerdotal unctIOn WIth WhICh the wnter mtroduces some of Plato's ceremOnIal words, the presence of certaIn dIstInctly NeoPlatOnIC phrases hke . the heavenly path' and' the realm of the gods', and lastly the eAceSSIve loquaCIty of the conclUSIOn, WIth ItS mablhty to come to an end-all these thIngs betray retouchIng by Iambhchus Then follow excerpts from Plato 3 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE PROTREPTICUS

The Protrept~cus has no SIngle problem Its Importance reaches beyond the hmlts of departmental philosophy, and hes In the unIversahty of the questIOn that It raIses about the conduct of lIfe-the questIon of the meamng and JustIficatIOn of plulosophy and of Its place m man's hfe as a whole 2. Not that It I Harthch. op Cit. pp 254 fI • With regard to the philosophy of the P"ot"epheus I find myself 1D Opposition not merely to Bernays's attempt at harmomzation, but also to the View

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was Plato's philosophy which first confronted men with thIS question, It persistently recurs 10 the legends about Thales, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, and Democntus But every new generation of genume students revives It and argues passIOnately about It agamst the mass of mankmd , for m Its most thqroughgomg fonn •the theoretic hfe' remams a postulate of the born student, which, though ItS nghtness IS always bemg re-expenenced, can presumably never be made to seem JustIfiable to the common sense of the generahty It demands a strong and aboundmg faIth In the power of knowledge to hft Its finder hIgher than men are otherwIse pnvileged to attam Out of thIS faIth, WhICh IS utterly dIfferent from the mtellectual pnde of the pedant, Anstotle's Protrept~cus IS wntten The expenence of which It gives eVidence IS no commonplace Idyll of scholarship. but the beatItude of the man who has learnt to see the world through the eyes of Plato 1 hus It becomes a mamfesto for the Platomc hfe, and for Platomc phIlosophy as the means thereto For us It has the advantage of bemg the confessIOn that we are lookmg for out of Anstotle's own mouth It was not an aCCident that one of the younger generatIon of AcademiCians undertook to JustIfy the Ideal of the !>cholarly hfe to the outer world ThIS generatIOn suffered the old conflIct between theory and practIce WIth renewed VIOlence Plato hImself never demed, even m hIS mo!>t theoretIcal penods, that he had been to school under Socrates, who put hiS pamful questIons to hIS fellow-men at the blddmg of conSCIence and of the needs of hfe Plato's own phIlosophy was equally rooted m the needs of the tune and of pracbcal hfe, only ItS culmmatIon, the apprehenSIOn of the Forms, reaches up mto the regIOn of pure theoretIcal knowledge In hIS hands the SocratIc demand that we shall expressed m the Archlv fur Geschlchte der Phltosophle (vol I, p 493) by Dlels, who at that bme WIshed to explaJD a"ay the obvIOUS traces of PlatoDlsm m the fragments as mere stylIstIc ornaments lhe real state of affalTS had been suggested by l:hrzel (Hermes, vol x, p 98) He was too tImid, however, to oppose the relgnmg preJudice, as would have been logIcal, and Dlels put rum to SIlence SlDce then Dlels has changed hiS View about the development of Anstotle, as IS clear from the Z eltsch"'ft fur verglotchende Sprachforschung, vol xlVll, p 20r, n 4 He there recognJzes that my £ntstchungsgeschtchte dey Afetaphyslk has demonstrated that Anstotle had a PlatOniC penod But the exotenc wntmgs are In part still earher than the oldest passages m the treatises, and 10 contents they constitute the stage pnor to the cntlcally reVIsed 1'latonJsrn of those works

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know the nature of vIrtue becomes a doctnne of the pnmacy of the creatIve mtellect, whIch contemplates pure bemg and reorgamzes hfe accordmgly He dIsputes the nght of every other kmd of hfe to thIS pOSItion ThIS IS not an attempt to prove to the mcornglbly practIcal that a . gift' for theory has a certam JustIficatIon for eXlstmg along WIth other actIVItIes, because It does no one any harm, It IS the bold behef that nothmg but the knowledge of the hIghest truth can form the foundatIOn of a hfe that 15 worthy of ItS name Plato never relaxed thIS claIm, even when he had gIVen up trymg to reform reahty and was devotmg hImself exclUSIvely to research, but the younger generatIon was oblIged to ask Itself the questIon afresh, Just because It had never expenenced anythmg but the theoretical lIfe, and It had to find the value of thIS Me m the mner man, m the pure bhss of contemplatIOn, and m the umon of the intellect WIth the eternal Thus the Platonlc Ideal, ongmally so full of reformmg zeal, tnok a contemplative and relIgIOUS turn ThIS exuberant Ideal of contemplatIOn can be Justified only by means of some conception that Imphes the IdentIty of theoretical knowledge and practical conduct Such a conceptIOn IS that of phronests I Phrones'/-s IS central to the Protreptuus, WhICh IS concerned WIth the pOSSIbIlIty, subject-matter, use, growth, and happmess, of theoretical knowledge It may be mterpreted as the creative apprehensIOn of pure goodness through the mner mtmtIOn of the soul and at the same time as an apprehensIOn of pure bemg, and also as the denvatIOn of valuable actIVIty and true knowledge from one and the same fundamental power of the rmnd It IS one of the' mnate Ideas' of the Greek spmt It went through a long development, but no penod brought It nearer to ItS fulfilment than that from Socrates to Anstotle In the ProtrepttCus Its meamng IS purely Platonlc For a long tIme It had been spht mto two systems, one predommantly practIcal and economIC, the other moral and relIgIOUS Tlils very spht made It SUItable to be the crystalllzmg pomt of the thought of Socrates It was then taken over by I [Translator's note The word q>p6"'1C7JII9 usually translated by 'wIsdom In Plato In Anstotle's NIcomachean EthICS W DRoss ren(lprs It by •proictlcal wIsdom' SometImes the best translatIon IS 'prudence' The correspondmg ~ erb means 'to take thought' ]

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Plato, who strongly emphasIzed the element of mtellectual knowledge lD It, and exammed the specIal nature of this knowledge' It now took to Itself the Form or standard as Its object, and thus became the mtellectual mtUltlOn of the good and the beautiful m themselves The Form had first occurred to Plato m conneXlOn wIth Socrates' problems, that IS to say, m the ethical sphere, but as It wIdened Its sway until It finally became the general pnnclple of all bemg, phroneszs received more and more content It became the EleatIc SCIence of bemg It became the Anaxagorean Nus In a word, It became pure theoretIcal reason, the opposite of what It had been m Socrates' practIcal sphere At this pomt Plato diVIded hIs system mto dIalectIc, ethIcs, and physIcs From then on there were several phronesetS Frequently the word meant no more than '5peclal sClence', gymna~tlc~ and medlcme, and all dl,;clphnes whatsoever, ~ere phrone~ezs ThIS development Can be understood only by means of the development of Plato's phIlosophy as a whole, and its final divislOn mto three phIlosophIes At the ~ame hme a developmen t took place m the theory of the first pnnCIples, m the course of which the Form became mathematical, and ended m a theology and a monadology In the Protreptzeus phroneszs has thiS med.nmg almost exclUSively It IS Nus, metaphysical '>peculatIon, that which is really dlvme mus, a power wholly distmct from the other faculties of the soul, as it IS m the Ttmaeus J.nd the Phzlebus, In the Laws or the Epznomzs Whereas the ProtreptzCZts under~tand,; phroneszs m the full Platomc seme, as eqUIvalent to philosophIcal knowledge as such, when we come to the Metaphyszes the conceptIon has dISappeared The Nzcomaehean Ethzes also presents a wholly different picture In thiS work the phroneszs of the Protreptzeus 1<; defimtely relected In the SIxth book consIderable space IS devoted to the que<;hon of the posItion of phroneszs among the mtellectual facultieS Everywhere a polemIcal mtentIon appears between the hnes Anstotle reduces the word to Its meamng In ordmary usage, 1 e to the sense that it had before Plato He depnves It of all theoretical slgmficance, and sharply dlStmgmshes Its sphere from that of sophza and Nus I In common I

I

Lth Nit VI 5 if Ordmary usage 15 emphasIZed In 1140' 2.5 and 29. b 8, 10, 1141' 25. 27. and b 5 [Tr -Ioq>la 15 practIcally IdentIcal WIth

and II and 'wIsdom' ]

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83

usage It IS a practical faculty, concerned both wIth the chotee of the ethIcally deSIrable and WIth the prudent perceptIOn of one's own advantage Such IS Anstotle's later tenmnology He IS at the farthest remove from the standpomt of hIS early penod when he concedes phroneszs to ammals I In conneXlOn WIth ethIcs Jt now means an habItual dISposlbon of the mmd to delIberate practically about everythmg concermng human weal and woe 2 (E~IS 1TPCIK'TII are not called phrommo~ but sophm, precIsely because whIle they mqmred Into the eternal laws of the Universe they dId not understand theIr own advantage 4 Beneath thIS change In terminology hes a change m the fundamental pnnclplec; of Anstotle'~ metaphYSICS and ethICS To Socrates phronesfs had meant the ethIcal power of reason, a sense modelled on the common usage that Anstotle restores to Its nghts m the Nfcomachean Ethzcs Plato analysed the nature of thIS ethICal inSIght more exactly, and denved It from the contemplation of eternal Norm~. and m the la<;t re<;ort from the Good ThI~ changed It mto the SCIentific apprehemlOn of mdependent obJects, but Plato was Justtfied m retammg the name phroneszs, m as much as the knowledge of true bemg was m fact a knowledge of the pure Norms by reference to WhICh man should oroer hIS lIfe In the contemplatlOn of the Forms bemg and value. knowledge and acbon, coalesce When the theory of Forms was abandoned bemg and value fell apart, and maleette thereby lost ItS dIrect sIgmficance for human lIfe, WhICh to Plato was an essentIal feature of It The dlstmcban between I

3

4

Eth Ntc VI 7 II41" 27 2 Eth Ntc VI 5. II40b 4 and 20 Eth N.c VI 8 II41b9 and 14.1141" 21 and 33 ff ,1142" 24 Frg 52 (p 59. 1 3 In Rose) Eth Ntc VI 7. 1141 b 3-5

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THE ACADEMY

metaphysIcs and ethics became much sharper than before I To one lookmg backwards from this pomt of view Plato appears , mtellectualIst '. because he based ethical actIOn entirely on the knowledge of bemg Anstotle drew a hne between the two He dIscovered the psychologIcal roots of moral action and evaluation In character (~6os), and from then on the exammabon of i']6os took the foremost place In what came to be called ethtcal thought, and suppressed transcendental phronests The result was the fruItful dIstmctlOn between theoretIcal and practical reason, which had lam together as yet unseparated m phronests From this sketch of the hlstoncal development It follows necessanly that 10 the Protrepttcus Anstotle based hImself on a dIfferent metaphysIcs It was the abandonment of the Ideatheory that led to the break WIth Plato's doctnne of the pnmacy of phronesfs, and WIth hIS onesldedly theoretIcal denvatlon of the ethical hfe Therefore the Protrepttcus, which IS stIll completely dommated by the conceptIOn of phronesfs 10 the old sense, must have been based on Plato's ethical metaphysIcs, that IS, on the UnIty of bemg and value All the essentIal part" of It are In fact PlatOnIC, not merely 10 language but also m content Nowhere ebe does Anstotle sanctIon the AcademiC diVISIOn of philosophy IOta dialectiC, phYSICS, and ethICS (except 10 the TOpfCS, but there It IS merely mentioned In passmg, and the TOPfCS IS presumably one of hiS earhest efforts) z Moreover, I ThiS IS true of all speCifically human values, but not of absolute value or good Anstotle beheved as much as Plato that bemg and value m the absolute sense COInCide In the conceptIOn of God In that respect he remamed a PlatOnist to the ddy of hiS death The highest bemg IS also the highest good At the pomt that IS farthest removed from human affairs metaphySICS penetrates mto ethICS and ethlcs-mto metaphySICS The perspectIVe, however, has shifted completely It IS only In the far distance that the motionless pole appears, an ultimate signpost, on the honzon of eXistence The conneXlQn of thiS metaphySICS With particular actions IS too loose to Justify Its bemg called pMoneSls • In frg 52 (p 60,1 17 10 Rose), m the course of a proof that we can attain to real knowledge, Anstotle c1eMly dlst10glllshes knowledge (I) of the Just and the benefiCial', (2) of' nature', and (3) 'of the re~t of truth' He does not yet possess an expressIOn for' first philosophy' (cf P S9, II 1-4, In Rose, where the conception of It IS agam hnked With the knowledge of the Just and unjust and the knowledge of nature, and agam expressed by a penphrasls) At any rate, Plato's word' dialectic' seems to him not to be charactenshc enough It falls to dlstmgulsh ontology from ethiCS and pohtlcs, and It does not contain any reference to an object For the latter reason Anstotle hmlts It to formal lOgIC, which has no object In harmony With the tnparbte diVISion of phl1osophy IS the proof (I) about substance (p 60 1 21-J;l 61,1 I, m Rose),

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there IS as yet no trace of what we find 10 the Ethtcs, the supplementation of the doctnne of VlTtue by psychologIcal analysIs, mstead of that we have Plato's archltectomc doctnne of the four VIrtues I The decIsive thmg, however, IS what the Protrepttcus says about the method of ethics and polItics The opponents of philosophy are there made to descnbe ethics 10 accordance \Hth Plato's nohon of It, as If the correctness of that nohon were self-evident It IS a sCience of the Just and unjust, of the good and bad, like geometry and ItS related sCiences:2 Anstotle IS here callmg attentIOn to a pomt that had ObVIOusly aroused severe cntIclsm, the view that ethics IS an exact sCience In another place he de~cnbe'i polItics (which he consIders mseparable from ethics) as a sClCnce that seeks for absolute norms (OpOl) To phIlosophICal polItIcs he opposes the . arts', whIch use merely second-hand knowledge He reckons ordmary empmcal politIcs as one of them, because ItS deCISIOns are based only on the analogies of expenence and It IS therefore mcapable of ever glvmg nse to creatIve action Philosophical politIcs has' the exact m Itself' for object It IS a purely theoretIcal sCience J ThIS Ideal of mathematical exactnes'i IS contrary to everythmg that Anstotle teaches m hiS Ethtcs and PoltttCS about the method of those studies In the Ntcomachean Ethtcs he expliCItly opposes the demand for an exact methoJ, as bemg mcompatIble With the nature of the matenal In thiS respect he equates ethiCS and politics With rhetonc rather than With mathematics 4 Their proposItIons are merely typICal, never umver<;al, their mferences are vahd at best as a general rule, and not Without exceptIon. To the Ideal of method that he !:.tood for 10 the Protreptuus Anstotle here replies that the more general ethical propOSItions are the more empty and meffectlve they arc 5 Vutuallyevery (2) about the virtues of the soul (p 61, 11 2-8 In Rose). and (3) about nature (p 61. 11 8-17, In Rose) In Top I 14, 105 b 20 fl. Anstotle distingUishes between ethIcal, phYSical, and logIcal premisses. here agam . dialectIcal' IS aVOided. cf Xenocrates frg I (Heinze) I For the four PlatOnIC vlrtlle~ see frg 52 (p 62, I I. In Rose) and frg 58 (p 68. 11 6--<}) 1 Frg 52 (p 58. I 23. In Rose) 3 Iambl Protr. p 55, 11 I and 6 ff , In Plstelh 4Elh Nu r I,I094bll-:27,r 13,1102'23 , Eth N1C II 7, 1107" 29

86

THE ACADEMY

word that the Ntcomachean Ethtcs contams about thIS matter IS wrItten WIth a polemIcal ImphcatlOn, and we must learn to read It WIth thIS In mmd In the Protreptzcus It was saId that the phIlosophIcal statesman IS distIngmshed from the common run of pohhcIans by the exactness of hIS knowledge of the norms, he beholds thmgs m themselvc'i, and does not rest content wIth their vanegated reproductIons 10 empmcal reahty There IS an mtentlOnal remlmscence of thIS passage, almo~t to the very same words, m the Nzcomachean Ethzcs, but there the VIew is converted mto ItS exact 0ppo~Ite We read that one must dIstmgmsh between the way In which a geometer and the way m which a carpenter (i e an empmc) measures a right angle The former beholds truth Itself, the latter mqmres mto the nature of rectangulanty only so far as it IS necessary for hIS practical purpo'ies And It IS WIth the latter, not WIth the geometer, that Anstotle compares the SCIence of ethiCS or pohtIcs I Plato's Ideal of an ethICS proceedmg more geometrtco I'i here emphatically rejected, whereas In the ProtreptlcuS It 'itIll hold'i undIsputed sway ,I and when Anstotle here InSists that for the <,tatesman, and even for the student hstemng to lectures on ethICS, practical expenence IS far more important than theoretical eqmpment, that also IS polemIC agamst hiS own earher PlatOnIC VIew. 2 Of late ongm agam IS the declaratIOn that philosophy IS not necessary for a kmg, but rather a hmdrance, he should, however, give ear to truly philoc;ophical counCillors ThIS appears to come from d. work addressed to Ale:xander, and to refer to a particular 'iituatIon, which may be dated dunng the A~latIc expeditIon 3 Between the time of the letter to Themison, which mVited hIm to theoretIcal statesmanshIp based on the Forms, and the tIme when Anstotle wrote thIS pIece of adVIce, a change had occurred In the fundamentals of hIS thought I Eth N1C I 7. logS· 26 . And we must also remember what ha~ been ~ald before, and not look for preCISion III all things ahkl', but In each class of things such preciSion as accords With the subject-matter and so much as IS appropnate to the mqUlry For a carpenter amI a gl.Ometer investigate the nght angle In different ways. the former does so In so far as the fight angle IS Ilseful lor hiS work, while the latter mqUires what It IS or what sort of thing It IS lor he IS a spectator of the truth We must act III the same way. then, In all other matters as well that our mam task may notbesubordlnated tomIllorquestions' Cf Iambl Protr. p 55, II 1-14 m Pistelh 'Elh Nlc X 10,118['1 and 10,1 13. 110~.lyfj J Frg 647

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87

The Ideal of geometncal ethics could have been conceived only on the basIs of the later theory of Ideas To Plato knowledge was measurement By an exact sCience he understood one that measures thmgs In accordance wIth an absolute and completely determmate measure Hence the mdetermmate (a-rTElpov), the mamfold of the sensIble world, IS never an object of pure SCIence The PhJlebus shows how m his old age he tned to make ethics an exact SCIence on the mathematIcal pattern by means of the pnnciples of lumt (nEpos) and measure (lJhpov) In that dIalogue the notion of measurement IS constantly recurrIng, It IS the Sign of the mathematIcal stage of the Idea-theory Smce all that IS good IS measurable and determmate, whIle all that IS evIl IS Immeasurable and mdetermmate, both m the cosmos and m the soul, Plato's later politIcs and ethics are really nothmg but a theoretical SCIence of measure and the norm In the second book of hi'> lost Statesman Anstotle wrote 'th€' good IS the most c,act measure' I The PlatOnist Synanu~ quotes these wOP.b agamst theIr author, and argues from them that Anstotle understood Plato's doctnne better at other times Anstotle meant preCIsely the same thmg m the ProtreptJcus when he demanded exactness and descnbed polItIcs as a <;CIence of pure norms ThiS IS the phIlosophy of the PhJlebus, WhICh gives the first place m the table of goods to measure (IJE-rpov), the second to the measurable (cruIlIlETpOV), and the thIrd to the rea'>on that apprehends measure (phronesJS) 2 In the RepublJc the Form of lhe Good had been the ground of the bemg and knowa.bIhty of the whole real world AccordIng to the Plnlebus and to Anstotle's Statesman the reason why It IS so IS that It IS the hIghest and umversal measure, the absolute umty that makes the world of Forms detenmnate, •symmetncal', and thereby real, good, and knowable All that IS mdetermmate IS excluded from It We need not here InqUire what part Plato's later VIew that the Fonns are numbers has to play In thI5 doctnne Anstotle mentions It frequently In the ProtreptJcus HIS later ethICS IS an Intentional contradIctIOn of the view represented there and 10 the Statesman accordmg to It there are no umversal norms, there IS I

I Frg 79 Synan's remarks on thIS statement whIch Ro~e dOl>S not reproduce, are Important because they show that he was fully conS('JOll~ of Ull con· tradlctlOn between It and Anstotk'5 latu HOI ~ Ph,1 60 A

88

THE ACADEMY

no measure except the indIvidual hvmg measure of the autonomous ethIcal person, and phronesJs IS concerned not with the unIversal but wIth the partIcular ' 'The good IS the most exact measure' means precisely the same as Plato's dictum m the Laws. 'God IS the measure of all thmgs' ThIS pomted attack on Protagoras' statement that man IS the measure of all thmgs was mtended to set the absolute nonn on the throne of the UnIverse. Z God IS the good m Itself, the pure monad. the measure of measures Thus polItIcs and ethIcS become theology and take theIr stand at the head of theoretIcal phtlosophy. what 15 and what ought to be are IdentIcal In the absolute sense. and human actIOn IS done With Immediate reference to the hIghest value and meanmg m the world In accordance With Its pnnclples the NJcomachean EthJCS demes that polItics has thiS leadmg posItIon. polItIcs can no more be the hIghest WIsdom than the alms of human hfe can aspIre to the highest good. whIch IS glImpsed only by the wise man m hiS mtUltIon of the dlvlmty J The view of the Ph~lebus, that phIlosophy ought to be made an exact and mathematIcal sCIence,4 did not mfluence the ProI 'The good man Judges each class of thmgs nghtly, and m each the truth appears to him And perhaps the good man differs from others most by seemg the truth 10 each class of thmgs, beUlg as ,t were a norm and measure of them', Etk Ntc 111 6,1113" 29 If 'The refined and well-bred man therefore, being I1S d were a law to hImself', IV 14,1128" 3' 'If virtue and the good man as such are the measure of tach thmg, those also WIll be pleasures which appear so to him, and those thmgs pleasant whIch he enJoys', X 5, 1176" I b Incidentally, these rcmarkablt stntences prove once more If only we look at them m the hght of the Protreptleus th.1t An:.totJe's ethical mqumcs were ongmally entirely dommateu by Plato's problem of the measurablhty and measure of moral phenomena, hiS change consisted sImply In reJectmg the universal norms, and recognJzmg no measure but the autonomous conscience of the ethically educated person (' the good man '), a measure which can claIm no exactness' m the epistemological sense Thus he refers every man to himself, and recogOlzes the mexhaustlble vanety of the conditions of mdlvldual moral action Without undermmmg the mVlOlablhty of the \Dner norm The famous notion of Virtue as a mean between excess and defect IS also treated as a problem 10 the measurement of contlDuous quantitIes (II 5, 1106" 26), and It IS thIS treatment that gives sense to the method employed a fact whIch IS usually complettly mIsunderstood, because everybody Ignores the actual hlstoncal conneXlons out of which Anstotle's problem arose 2 Plato, Laws IV 716 c 'God ought to be to us the measure of .111 thmgs, and not man as men commonly say' I Eth Nu VI 7,1141"20 fI • For exactness (&xpl~E1a) as the SIgn of a dISCIpline's bemg SCIentIfic m character see Phli 50 B-C, 57 C-E, 58 c., 59 A 59 D, dnd so on

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89

treptJcus merely wIth regard to the nature of ethICS and polItics It IS also the underlymg reason for the account there gIven of the relatIOn between empmcal and pure SCIence Plato's later doctrme took from mathematIcs not merely the conceptIOn of measure and the Ideal of exactness, but also the problem of drawmg the lme between pure and applIed SCIence In the Protrephcus the opponents of pure phIlosophy and sCience dre represented as couplmg geometry and surveYIng, the theory of harmony and mUSIC, astronomy and the saIlor's knowledge of sky and weather, In order to prove that theory IS actually a handiCap In any department of practIcal actIVIty, because It prevents the student from gettmg practIce and often even ImpaIrs the certamty of hIS natural InstInct 1 We should lIke to know how Anstotle replIed to thIS cntIcIsm, but unfortunately hiS answer IS lost The Idea of couplmg together paIrS of pure and empmcal SCIences was naturally not Invented by hIS opponents, It was first used by Plato The Phtlebus dIstmgUIshes an anthmetIc of the philosophers from the anthmetic of the many ,2 It IS SCIence In a greater or less degree accordIng as the umts With which It operates are lIke or unlIke SlITularly there are two' arts' of computatIOn and two of mensuratIOn, In fact, there are many' arts' where such a tWill brotherhood eXIsts, WIthout theIr bemg dlstmglllshed by name' Those With whIch the true phIlosophers are occupIed are Ulcomparahly supenor to the others because of their exactness and truth In matters of measure and number Presumably Anstotle's answer to the empmcists was SimIlar to Plato's III the PhllebltS It does not matter which •art' IS most serviCeable and which IS of the greatest use, but WhICh altns at the greatest accuracy, clanty, and truth 'A lIttle pure white IS whiter and fairer and truer than a great deal that IS mixed'. and the lover of pure colours will therefore prefer It unconditIonally 4 ThiS View, that knowledge ought to be made exact even If It thereby becomes u!>eless, IS also the conVictIon of the ProtreptJcus It anses out of thp artIstIc attitude to mathematics that IS charactenstIc of Plato's Frg 52 (p 59. II 1811, III Rose) • Ph.l 56 D Ph1l 57 D. Cf Ep1n 990 A, where the mathematIcal astroDomer IS CODtrasted WIth the empmc and the man who IS weathecwlse • PhIl 53 A 1

3

THE ACADEMY

90

later theory of Ideas, and wIthout thIS artistIc feelmg for method Anstotle IS InconceIvable The Protreptzcus gIves clear expreSSIOn not merely to the consequences of the theory of Fonns but also to Its actual contents I Just as m the arts and crafts man's best tools, by WhICh he measures and tests the straIghtness or smoothness of perceptIble thmgs, are copIed from nature, so too the statesman accordmg to Anstotle has definIte nonns (OpOI), WhICh he receIves' from nature ~tselfand from the truth', and by reference to whIch he Judges what IS Just, noble, good, and advantageous Just as the tools that are taken from nature are supenor to all others, so the best law IS that whIch mo'>t accords WIth nature It IS, however, ImpOSSIble to produce thIS law WIthout first haVIng learnt to know beIng and truth by means of phllosophy NeIther the tools of the other arts nor theIr most accurate calculatIOns are dIrectly denved from the hIghest pnncIples (OUK O:rr' atlTwv TC:lV np,;m:.:lv), they come from sources once, tWIce, or many tImes removed, and theIr rules are obtaIned by mere expenence Only the ImitatIon (j..djJ11O'I'i) of the philosopher IS exercised directly upon the exact 'In ~tself (lilT' a (IT Wv TWV OOcpl(3wV) , for he IS a contemplator of thmgs In themselves, dnd not of ImitatIOns (crVrwv y6:p bTl aECXT~'i, O}..}..'

ou

lJlIJ11lJa-rWV)

Both the language and the phdo~ophlcal content of thiS passage are pure Plato, a fact whICh had already been notIced In the days when the Idea that Anstotle had a PlatOnIC penod was InconceIvable 2 So long a<; It was conSidered In IsolatIon It may have seemed a suffiCient explanatIOn to say that It was an ImItation of Plato's style, and that the PUpil'S own opInIOn lay hIdden discreetly and cautIOusly beneath, but the meanIng of these words cap be really understood only by reference to their organIC conneXIOn WIth the phIlosophy of the Protrept~cus, and the latter necessItates the dualIst metaphysIcs of the Fonns as I Iambl Prot, P 54. I 22-p 55, I 14 (not m Ro~e) • In Hermes. X 99. Hirzel Tightly compared thIS fragment, where the ruler and statesman IS called upon to study phtlosophy, WIth Plato's dl'mand that kmgs philosophIze or only philosophers be kings HIrzel also says that lamblichus tenth chapter belongs not to the P,otTephcu, but to some purely political "ntlllg of AnstotlL'~ early penorl but WL have dlready shown th.lt tIllS IS an t.rror

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91

the theoretIcal basIs of the above-descnbed doctrmes of values The 'first thmgs' that are here spoken of are not the same as those m ArIstotle's Metaphys~cs and Analyt~cs It IS true that m the Metaphys~cs as well as here we read that the philosopher apprehends the highest prInciples. the th10gs that are most umversal (lTpc7>Ta),' and we have shown that Its first two chapters are closely dependent on the Protrept~cus throughout, but thiS only makes It the more slgmficant that Anstotle there purposely aVOIds the Platomc expressIOn' the first thmgs m themselves' (MO TO lTpCna) by excls10g the' 10 themselves' (aVTCx)-that IS to say. by eXClsmg the very word that makes the expressIOn' first th1Og~' 10 the Protrephcus a piece of speCifically PlatOnIC term1Oology Even apart from that the expressIOn 'first thmgs' cannot here refer to the abstract unIversal 10 ArIstotle's later sense, because the abstract umversalls not contrasted WIth any 'ImitatIOns' (1-.1I1l"llaTa) , ImitatIOns' IS agam a specIfically Platomc term, and cannot be sIgmficantly used apart from the doctrIne that the Forms are archetypes (lTapa2.elYlJaTa) 10 whIch the thmgs of sense partiCIpate To suppose that such an acute 10glClan and stylIst a~ Anstotle could use 'Imltahon' merely m the etIOlated seme of 'percephble thmgs' IS SImply ImpOSSible 2 Metaph A.l 982" 25 The expressIOn' ImitatIOn I; ffiLant to emphaSIZe the greater realIty of the archetype Hence It Lan no longer be used as soon as th.. Forms hdVL ceas('cl to be substance; and become merdy the highest ulllversals 5tlllless would It be pOSSIble to "dY that on Anstotle s view the parbculdr thmgs of VISible nature, whIch dre made up of math'r and torm an lITlltdtlons' of the nntelechlCs or forms that are aLtlve In them 'ImitatIOns' presuppose PlatolllC' tranqC'endence. the' separateness of archetype and copy 1 he questIOn IS decldf'd by the fact that Anstotle also uses Plato s techmcal term when cntlclzmg the Forms m later works. he often calls them Simply 'themselves' (avra) WIthout any accompanymg words, Just as he does here when he says' for he IS a contemplator of themselues. and not of .mltahons' (avrwv yap taT! 8EQT~S, aAA ou J,1'J,11J,1err",v. lambl p 55. I 13) Here the pronoun does not refer to anythmg that has gone before, It Is used absolutely 1 hIS way of wntmg I~ not lUCid unless the Forms are bemg contrasted With the correspondmg senSible phenomena or copies, and hence we find It only when thIS IS so Cf l\lelaph 991" 5, 'm Itself and In the particular' (I1T( T avriis kal Tiis T.v6s) , "30, 'not only of senSible thmgs, but of themselve; also' (ov J,lOVOV TW' al~,llIv aAAII kal mrrwv) b 30, between the tllIngs here and themselves (J,lfTa~u TWV :AEiip6 T !OTa, oa\ avTWV) , 997 b I", I

2

besldps themselves and thL senSible ones' (Trap avT~ oal T~ al~Tas), b 2"" 'brtween themselves and the penqhabk ones' (J,lE"1a~u mrrwv TE oal TWV

92

THE ACADEMY

Such a way out of the difficultIes that entangle every Anstotellan mterpretatlOn of the passage would be desperate, and there IS sttll another fact that precludes It These PlatonIc expressIOns are equated WIth the phrase 'nature Itself and the truth' Now this cannot be the AnstotelIan conceptIon of nature In the first place, the additIon of 'Itself' would not be JustIfiable Secondly, thiS nature IS the source of absolute and exact standards for polItIcs and ethiCS, which Anstotle's IS not 1 Lastly, Aristotle could not say that the philosopher who InvestIgates nature IS mvestIgatmg 'the first thIngs themselves', while the other arts, whose Instruments and rules are equally obtamed from vlSlble nature, are concerned only With copies t",o, three, or many degrees removed, for If both have nature In the same sense as the subject-matter of theIr Imitation, what dlstmgUlshes phIlosophy from the other arts In thiS respect ~ ThIS companson between philosophy, whlCh contemplates thmgs m themselves, and the arts, which merely ImItate copIes of caples, bnngs us a little farther It comes from the account of the theory of Forms In the tenth book of the Republzc 2 The tertzum comparatzoms IS the fact that both of them have their archetype In somethmg objective and external to themselves, from which they as It were read oft the law Qf their subJectmatter For the arts and crafts the archetype IS the nature that IS perceptible For phIlosophers It 1<; 'nature Itself', which can be grasped only by pure thought It IS real bemg, and It can also be descnbed as 'the first thmg<; them,elves' (exu-n:X TCr TIpWTa)3 It follows that these' first thmgs ' cannot pOSSIbly be the hIghest universals, because, whereas theIr equatIon wIth' nature Itself' gIves them obJective realIty, Anstotle m hiS matunty demed that unIversals possess thiS The only pOSSible mference from these facts IS that m thiS passage the highest universals and the I Plato's Statesman, 297 C and 300 C fI is the orlgm of the application of the terms' imitation' and' COpies of the truth' to a politics that proceeds by earthly models and in accordance WIth wntten laws and constitutions, and is not creative because not based on the eternal norm In that dialogue it occurs frequently, as does the companson of the true ~tatesman With a helmsman (et 297 E) The problem itself also comes from the same place In 308 C Plato's ideal pohbcs is called' the true and natural art of statesmanship' • Plato, Rep X 599 A, 600 E. 602 C, 60) A, 605 B s Plato Pa~m 132 D 'the Ideas are as it were, patterns fixed ill nature' The equation 01 nature, bemg, and truth, i~ Platolllc

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93

most 'exact' thlIlgs are still considered Identical With the essentially real-and that IS true only of the Platomc Idea Only of the Idea could one say that It IS nature Itself, the dlvme, the steadfast, the abIdmg, and the eternal, by the Sight of which the philosophical statesman hves, and to which like a good helmsman he moors his ship I The mam function of the Forms m the Protreptzcus IS to support ItS theory of knowledge by provIdmg an exact object for pure knowledge, and secondanly to provide ethical norms ThIS IS the dIrectIOn m which Plato's development finally took hIm, and Anstotle follows It leads to greater emphaSIS on method, and to the suppressIOn If not to the demal of the eXistential character of the Forms The very proof that they do possess real eXistence IS now made to rest mamly on the reqUIrements and presupposItIons of conceptual knowledge If the only real objects were sensible phenomena, conceptual thmkmg, which alone IS exact, would have no real obJect, and m that case It would not be knowledge at all, accordmg to the outlook of the tIme The view that pure knowledge IS exact thus becomes really the cardmal pomt m Plato's later thought The Form IS the pure object revealed by exact thmkmg ThiS was one of the Academy's mam arguments Anstotle reproduced It In hIS lost work On Ideas, and Alexander of AphTOdl~las has preserved It therefrom 2 It explams why the Protreptzws calls the Forms 'the exact m Itself' Even the tcchmcal term that was used 10 the AcademiC proof reappears here, namely •the absolutely detenmnate' (TO: WPIO"IJEva) 3 In later days It was one of Anstotle's hardest problems to deCide whether we can have any SCientIfic knowledge of the supersenslble, If Plato's Forms do not eXist, It IS not clear how the essences of thmgs can be grasped by general conceptIOns The Protreptzcus, on the other hand, argues WIth remarkable determmatIOn, and ObVlOU'>ly from qUIte different presuppOSItions, that It IS possible to have a sCience of the Just and the good, of nature, and of 'the rest of truth' (1 e the 'really real', OVTCUS ov) For Its author that which IS first m order of bemg comcldes With that which IS most knowable, and the latter, which IS also called the determmate I Iambl Protr, p 55, II 21 fI • Frg 187 ] Frg 52 (p 60.1 21.10 Rose) Cf 01'1 Forms. frg 187 (p 149.1 22,

G

In

Rose)

94

THE ACADEMY

and the orderly, cOIncIdes wIth the good and the cause I It IS true that expressIOns hke 'pnor by nature', and 'pnor wIth reference to us', and 'first thmgs' In the sense of •ultunatc grounds'. occur elsewhere also m Anstotle's phtlosophy But there]s no doubt that they arose ongmally out of Plato's arguments for the Forms They fit them best, and must have been invented pnmartlY for them Therr meamng ]5 clear only so long as they are apphed to a transcendental reahty such as Plato beheved m, they become ambIguous If referred to unmanent essence Hence Anstotle IS obhged to dIfferentiate theIr meamng and to add quahficatlons (such as 'by nature' and 'wIth reference to us ') They cannot be used absolutely, as they are m the Protrepttcus, unle'is truth and be10g and value comclde 10 the most perfect object of knowledge (as they do on the theory of Fonns) The amalgamahon of ethICS and ontology. WhICh also occurs 10 thIS argument, IS exphcable only on the SuppOSItIon that the words 'pnor' and 'good' refer to the Forms The final prpof IS gIVen by the vIew taken m the Protrepttcus of the elements (O"TOIxeia) of realIty, a vIew whIch the M etaphys~cs combats 10 detail 2 In the earher work Anstotle wntes as follows .the pnor IS cause 10 a greater degree than the postenor. for when It ]S destroyed the thmg" that receIve their substance (i"1)v ovalav) from ]t are destroyed along WIth ]t, hnes along With numbers, planes along WIth hnes, and sohds along With planes' The M etaphystcs on the other hand demes all substantIahty to the objects of mathemahcs, numbers, po1Ots, hnes. planes, and sohds. while ]t mentIOns that the Platomsts held thIS VIew We read there . We call that substance (ovalO') also by whose destructIOn the whole IS destroyed, as the body IS by the destructIon of the plane, as some say. and the plane by the destructIOn of the lme, and In general number IS thought by some to be of thiS nature' In the oldest porbons of the M etaphysf,cS the cntIClsm of Platomsm ]S mainly drrected agamst thIs, the final form of the theory of Ideas, accord1Og to whIch the Ideas either have mathematIcal objects eXlst10g as substances alongSIde of them, or actually are numbers themselves Anstotle there calls thIS' a remarkably weak argument' Th]s only 1 Frg 52 (p 60, II 17 ff , In Rose) • FTg 52 (p 60, 1 26, In Rose), cf

Metaph 68, IOl7 b 18, N 3, lO9Ob 5

THE PROTREPTICUS

9S

makes It the more sIgnIficant that he hImself had formerly mamtamed the doctnne he here attacks It stands or falls together wIth the PlatOnIC VIew of ~ubstance, and wIth the doctnne that the Ideas and the objects of mathematIcs possess transcendental actuahty Anstotle allows It to be seen that there was controversy 10 the Academy about the elements of realIty . It IS ImpossIble to know anythmg else until we know the causes and pnncIples of thmgs. whether they are fire or aIr [1 e the elements of the phYSICIStS] or number or some other natures repVOl:IS. 1 e the Ideas] . I Plato hImself gIves sImuar hmts 10 hIS later dIalogues. WIthout actually hftmg the veIl In the PhJlebus he speaks openly of the •strong feehng' (1TOAA'tt OiT'ov2.rl) about the theory of Forms, and the' controversy about dIvIsIOn' (IJETCr 41CllpeO"EWS O:\Jep I O"l3ilTTl 0" IS) m conneXIOn WIth them z Anstotle took a hvely share m these diSCUSSIOns, WhICh only makes It more remarkable that 10 the ProtreptJcus he subordmates hIS prIvate OpinIOn to the prevallmg AcademIC doctnne Two conclUSIOns may be drawn WIth certamty FIrst, even m those early days he dId not maintam the theory of Form!> as a statIc dogma, he was an adherent of It, but he spoke of It WIth full conscIOusness of ItS difficultIes These dIfficultIes. however-and thIS IS the second conclusIon--did not yet seem to him suffiCIently fundamental to enable hIm defimtely to refute Plato's doctrIne, as he dId 10 lus work On PhJlosophy and In the MetaphysJcs soon after 348 And so perhaps we may ~ay that neither In the ProtreptJcus nor m Plato's later dialogues does the Academy's lIterary portraIt of It~elf qmte reveal the true state of Its esoterIC dIScu"'sIon~ It IS sIgmficant that the most Interestmg thIng In Anstotlt:'s early works and In the later dIalogues of hIS master is often preCIsely that whIch they do not say ThIS gIves the more value to thIS confeSSIOn of the representatIve of the young generatIOn, as an addItIon to Plato's own embodIment of the SpInt of the Academy m hIS wntmgs We learn from It what seemed to hIm essentIal in the work of the Academy When he mentIons WIth enthUSIasm the recent rapid advance (E1TIAo(llS) of phIlosophy along the road of exact SCIence. we I

Frg 52 (p 61, I 13. m Rose)

Z

Pl"l 15

A

Cf Pa,m 130

B

ff

96

THE ACADEMY

feel ourselves dIrectly transported mto the midst of Plato's commumty of students In the Academy men felt that they were swmunmg m the mam current of progress, In companson With which the other •arts' were stagnant water Anstotle speaks of the pace of the movement, and he bebeves that the completion of knowledge IS at hand He shares m the confidence wluch hiS generation denved from the conviction that It possessed creative power and had made unexampled progress Men beheved that genume mqUiry can make men happy, and thiS behef arose not from any artifiCial arguments but from actual good fortune and mtensdied expenence, If It ever has been true it was true then The outSider may thmk It thankless work, exclaims Anstotle, but he who has once tasted of It can never be satiated I It IS the only fann of human activity that IS not restncted to any tIme or place or Instrument It does not requITe any encouragement from external gam He who lays hold of It 19 laid hold of by It, thenceforward he knows of nothmg pleasanter than 'slttmg down to It (lTpoO'e2l.pelo:) It was thiS crrcle of students that gave birth to Amtotle's ideal of 'the theoretic hfe'-not, that IS to say, the ammated gymnaSIUm of the Lym or the Charmtdes, but the cabm (KcxAVI3,,) m the secluded garden of the Academy Its qUIetude IS the real ongmal of the Isles of the blest m the Protrephcus, that dreamland of phIlosophical otherworldhness z The new type of philosopher models himself not on Socrates but on Pythagoras or Anaxagoras or Pannemdes The Protrephcus names these three as founders ThiS change 15 Important enough to reqUIre our attention a httle longer ThIS seems to have been the moment at which the Academy first raised the problem of the hlstoncal and the Platomc Socrates, because the members were becommg more and more conscIOus of theIr distance from the Socratic type In therr earbest attempts to dlstmgulsh hiS share from Plato's they naturally demed to the hlstoncal Socrates almost every piece of phIlosophical knowledge that IS ascnbed to him m Plato's J

, Frg 5Z (p 62. I 20 In Rose) • Frg 58 (p 68,1 3. and p 69. I I. In Rose) The hterary model for tlus was Plato, GorK 526 c. and Rtp VII 540 B The Platol11Bts referred these two passages to hfe In the Academy The Epmom,s (992 II) takes over the same Idea

THE PROTREPTICUS

97

dlalogues Later on this radIcalism was followed by a reaction, so that Anstotle obtained the followmg result 'Two thmgs must m faIrne51S be ascrIbed to Socrates, mductlve arguments and unIversal defimtIon ' I In any case there IS no conneXIOn between Socrates and the theoretIcal phIlo<;ophy of the Protrept~cus In that work metaphysIcs, which has not yet receIved the name 'first phIlosophy', lS descnbed as 'speculatIon of the type mtroduced by Anaxagoras and Parmemdes', and the ancestor of Plato's phtlosophy 1<; consIdered to be Pythagoras 1 Even m the first book of the M etaphys~cs Anstotle shll holds that Plato's doctnne was essentially Pythagorean m ongm, though ]t added 'some pecuhantIes of Its own' 3 ThiS View, whIch must often have astomshed the reader, 15 not mtended to belIttle Plato It was the offiCial VIew of the Academy, and An<;totle stIll held ]t when he wrote the<;e words about 348/7 The PlatoDlc Socrates had been the result of the artIst's dc'me to mould and create, the Academy's cult of Pythagoras, one of the most remarkable examples of relIgIOUS auto-suggestIOn there have ever been, was a projectIon of the Academy Itself and Its number-metaphySICS mto the half-mythIcal personality of Pythagoras, whom the PlatoDl!>ts venerated as the founder of .the theoretIc hIe' and whom they soon freely credIted wIth the VIews of theIr own hme and school The tale about Pythagoras In the Protreptleus, ummportant as It IS, enables us to !>ee wIth our own eye" how story-teIlmg developed and came to have Its fateful mfluence on the hIstory of Greek phIlosophy Pythagoras IS asked what 15 the purpose of human lIfe He replIes, 'to contemplate the heavens'_i In J

I Mefaph M 4, 107gb 27 1hl~ cautIous formula ~efms to me to be stIll the fairest account of the hlstoncal facts Maler (SoMa/e" IubIllgen, 1913 PP 77 ff) was no doubt nght In denyIng that Socrates had any logical theory of theum~ersa] and muuctlOll It IS hIgh time that we ceased callmg Socrates the first logICian on the strength of Anstot]e s statement But hIS actual words give no ~anctlon whatever to such a View, he merely descnbes the logIcal operatIOns that Socrates pracltsed He conSIders Socrates, however, from hiS own pmn/ of VIew HIS aIm IS not In the least to gl~e . d picture of the man but to dl~­ COV!'f In hIm as In Democntus and the Pythagoreans, the pnnutIve ongms of logl<-3.1 method (cf 107gb 20) 1 lambl PTotr, P 51, II g and II, frg 52 (p 59,] .; In Rose)

] Metaph A 6, 9S7a 30 • lamb] Protr, P 51,] B. The dIctum of Anaxagoras at] 13 IS a vanant of thIS

98

THE ACADEMY

answer to a second question he describes hlITlself as such a contemplator (eew~) With thiS story let us compare the ClaSSiCal account of the ongm of the word 'phllosopher' m Cicero's Tusculan D~sputat1,ons, whIch comes from HeraclIdes of Pontus, a fellow-student of Aristotle's I Here agaIn Pythagoras is being questioned He calls hlITlself a philosopher, and to explaIn thIS new name he tells the followmg story He compares human hfe WIth the great festival at OlympIa, where all the world comes together in a motley throng Some are there to do bUSIness at the faIr and to enJoy themselves, others WISh to WID the wreath ID the contest. others are merely spectators The last are the phllosophers, of whom there are but few After readmg the PTotrept~cus one recogmzes In the first two groups the representatives of pleasure and VIrtue, that IS of the' apolaustlc' and the' practIcal' lIves The philosopher lIves entirely for' theory', for pure phronesls Attractive as thiS story sounds It 15 neIther a umty nor ongInal HeraclIdes, the most aSSiduously Pythagorean of all the Platomsts, has ObVIOusly been stunulated by the Protrept~cus He projects the mstmchon of the three hves into the dim past The kernel of the tale lIes In the word 'theory', WhICh InevItably suggests a double meamng The Protreptzcus had already drawn the parallel between the phIlosopher's contemplatIOn of realIty and the sacred spectacle of OlympIa, and had done so III a passage close to that descnbIng the answers of Pythagoras Z HeraclIdes slITlply combmed these two elements mto a short story and gave It a little embellIshment What to Anstotle was merely a stylIstic deVIce now becomes a slITlIle of the three hves (since not every one who goes to OlympIa IS a spectator), and IS ascnbed to Pythagoras hlIl'lself (MOS @cpa) In reahty the tale presupposes the fundamental nohons of Plato's later ethiCS and metaphysIcs Lastly, we must consider what the Protrepticus can tell us about Anstotle's early attitude towards hfe and relglOn In thIS respect It IS supplementary to the Eudemus, It shows that the VIew that he had there establIshed about the other world made a radIcal dIfference to hIS OpinIOn of th15 one In both works he IS thoroughly pesslITllShc about earthly lIfe and temporal goods and mterests He exhorts us to throwaway hfe of our own I

CIC

ruse V 3. 8

• Iambl Protr. P 53. 1

19

THE PROTREPTICUS

99

accord, In order to obtaIn a hIgher and purer good In exchange But whereas the Eudemus, wIth Its doctnne of the soul and Immortahty, IS predommantly speculattve. the Protrept~cus mtroduces us to a more personal atmosphere Followmg Plato's example and doctnne, Anstotle IS convInced that there are higher, Impenshable values, and that there IS a truer world, towards which genuIne knowledge leads For the sake of that good he abandons all the seemmg goods of power, possessIons, and beauty 1 The worthlessness of all earthly thmgs has never been more contemptuously denounced As to the dream of the aesthetic eIghteenth century-harmony, c1oudlessseremty, and the enJoyment of beauty-theProtreptzcus feels nothmg but the profoundest disgust for It Probably It never really appealed to the Greek spmt There were moments, as m the fourth century, when the aesthetiC attItude seemed to be tnumphant m hfe and mart, but they were soon overtaken by the reflectIOn that •strength, beauty and stature are but a laughmg stock, and utterly valueless' When these words were wntten the beauty of the body m Its subhme austenty had long ceased to seem dIVIne, and the art that should have Interpreted It was hvmg on a mere semblance, the empty cult of form In the Protreptzcus Anstotle lays hands on the beautIful AlcIbiades, who was the Idol of that age, and In whom It dehghted to find Its own Image He puts hiS finger on the weakness of the tIme when he says that If a man could sce mto the m~Ide of that muchadmrred body •with the eyes of Lynceus'. he would find a picture of uglIness and nausea z He hImself 1<; USIng the LynceusVISIOn of another attItude towards hfe when he penetrates thIS VISIble matenal partitIOn that surrounds us and discovers behmd the scenes of appearance a new and hItherto mVISlble world, the world of Plato On thiS view the perfection of all the Imperfections of human hfe mu~t he In the transcendental world Thus hfe becomes the death of the soul, and death the escape mto a hIgher lIfe Anstotle borrows the language of the Phaedo and declares that the hfe of the true phIlosopher must be a contmual practIce of death J He Will find nothmg harsh m that, for to hun the I J

Iambl P"ot" , P 53,1 19 2 Frg 59 (p 70,1 II, In Rose, cf 11 7 fI) See DICls, A "chw fu" Ge$,h.,hte de" Phtlosoph " , vol" P 479

100

THE ACADEMY

Impnsonment of the soul In the body IS an unnatural state full of mexpressible sufferIng I ThIs IS pictured In hornble colours In the SimIle of the Etruscan pirates In order to torture their pnsoners, these pIrates bound theIr lIVIng bodies face to face With corpses and left them to pensh slowly. thus constraIning hfe and putrefaction Into an unnatural UnIon In spite of the self-tormentIng crassness of thiS SimIle, It bears the marks of genume personal expenence and sensItIve emotIOn The young ArIstotle had really felt the pams of man's dualIstIc eXistence, as Plato and the Orphlcs had felt them before him It IS an absolutely Intolerable and blasphemous nohon that thiS PlatOnIC Imagery IS nothing but a conventIonal mask, concealIng a spIrit In realIty playful and easy-goIng We must Simply relearn our history The fact IS that there was a time when these Ideas seemed to Ano:;totle an Inseparable part of hiS own ego He uses every kind of phrase and metaphor to Inculcate them He is fond of takIng words from the vocabulary of the mystenes, because only by means of relIgIOn can he understand and overcome the constraInt of man's duahstIc eXIstence As the ancIent mystIc doctrInes whIsper, the whole of human hfe I~ a penance for some heavy gudt that the soul has Incurred In an earher eXistence The supersenslble process of the soul's home-coming IS made to mclude man's moral obhgatIons as well EthICS IS thus depnved of Its absolute vahdlty and Independent worth Far removed though Anstotle IS from redUCIng the vanous aspects of actual moral hfe to the Single gaze of the mystIcal VISion, or from haVIng recourse to ecstasy, he nevertheless does uncondItIonally subordmate the realm of wIll and actIon to the contemplatIon of the eternal good I The final section of the excerpts from the Protreptlcus which was worked over by Iambhchus (see page 79 above}, IS contamInated With Neo-PlatonIsm. but the followlDg passage seems to me unmIStakably genume 'Here, however, because It IS perhaps unnatural to our race to be here, It IS hard to learn and to examme anytJung, and only With difficulty would a man perceive anythmg because of the awkwardness and unnaturalness of our hfe. but If ever we can get safely back whence we came [the Eudemus agam l], It IS obVIOUS that we shalJ all do It more pleasantly and easily' (Iambl Protr, p 60, II 10-15)

<

•AM' tvTail6C1 IIiv 11a 'TO napa 'l'v,nv lcrc.>s dvCII ~> 'TO ytvoc; !\\IWV XaM1TOV 'TO \Iav6av.1V 'TI KClI ""olTllv tcr'T1 I1\v, lrv :At nan :AV"'le",~ a",~val nO},III 6e£V th'lhv8allEv, 1ijhov c.>s i')110v KClI f>9ov ClV'TO nOI1\aollEv ~ The repetitIon of 'IrClf'a 'l'V171Y shows that here, too, the ongInal has been

e>

clumsily abbreVIated

THE PROTREPTICUS

101

The phl1osopher must keep hImself as free as possible from the dIstractIons of practIcal hfe The ProtreptJcus warns us not to become too deeply mvolved m mortal affarrs, and not to lose ourselves on the false traIls that hwnamty follows All such thmgs only hmder our return to God Our sole aspIratIon should be that we may one day dIe In peace, and so return from thls close Imprisonment to our home We ought eIther to seek truth and devote ourselves to It, or to have done wlth hfe altogether, for all else IS but folly and ldle talk I I Frg 61 (p 72, I 20, ID Rose) Cicero put thiS passage at the end of hiS Hcwlennus, along With SimIlar thoughts also borrowed from the Prolrepluus Presumably they came at the end In the ongmal too

PART TWO

TRAVELS

CHAPTER V

ARISTOTLE IN ASSOS AND MACEDONIA Plato died, and at almost the same mstant Stagrra I was348/7destroyed by the ravagmg and burnmg troops of Phulp N

of Macedon, who was attackmg the commercial cIties of the Chalcidlc penmsula Thus at one stroke Anstotle was depnved both of his ancestral and of his spmtual home (for such had Plato's presence made Athens to hIm) In spite of hIs Increasmg mdependence m mtellectual matters he had refused to leave Plato, so long as the latter lIved, but, the master's eyes once closed for ever, the be that bound him to hiS fellow-students was soon broken In the very same year he departed for ASia Mmor, leavmg hiS Circle of fnends and the scene of twenty years of ennoblmg expenence and devoted common work In the absence of any mfonnahon about the true reason for thiS momentous step, which was perhaps decided even before Plato's death, wud suggestlOns have been put forward In hiS wntmgs Anstotle frequently apphes sharp cntIclsm to Plato's doctnnes, hence It was not difficult to find supporters for the conjecture that he had broken away from Ius teacher, and that hiS departure from Athens was the expressIOn of the break HiS character was ~crutImzed m the hope of dlscovenng personal reasons HiS mockmg way affected dehcate nerves unpleasantly (although It always gives place to the greatest respect when he speaks of Plato), and he was particularly obnoxIOUS to those who took hiS all-commandmg mtellect and hiS mSistence on logical punty for the SignS of a destructive spmt He hlffiself protests agamst tbe inSinuatIOn that a cntIclsm must always have personal motlves, even If It happens to be true In late antiqUIty gossIp openly charged hun With mahce and Ingratltudf", and the motIves of hiS departure were shrouded m a thick fog of SuspiCIOn, the express disperSIOn of WhiCh, although we have become more sceptical about conventIOnal moral Judgements, IS not yet superfluous, e!>peclally as the real reasons for the step are still unexplamed Z I

I Apollodorus m DlOg L V 9 (cf V 3. where the chronology IS hopelessly confused). Dlonys Hal ep ad Amm 5 • Anstotle protests agaInst charges Wlbated by Plato's followers In E/h N,~.

106

TRAVELS

A clever and cultivated scholar of Impenal times, Anstocles of Messana, had the moral force to tear down thIs vell of legend. Re put an end to the perslStent tradItion of the compilers by gomg back to the pnmary sources and demonstratmg the miser· able msufficiency of the groWlds on whIch the gOSSIp rested Chance has kmdly preserved to us the part of hIs cntIcal mqurry where, after tnumphantly destroymg the threadbare tissue of lIes, he shows that the rumours of a break between Plato and Anstotle rest on a crymg mIsmterpretahon of a passage m the latter's pupu Anstoxenus of Tarentum' In all probabulty It was Anstocles who, after demohshing these apocryphal tales, restored to lIght that precIOUS personal document whIch gIVes us Anstotle's real attItude to hIS master better than all the hypotheses of aben malIce, namely the altar-elegy dedIcated to Eudemus z The asserbon, that the man to whom Anstotle IS enthUSIastically teshfymg m tlus fragment IS not Plato but Socrates (whom Anstotle had never seen m h15 hfe) , IS self-contradIctory and psychologically unprobable 3 It would never have been put forward If scholars had kept steadily m mmd the fact that thIS rare Jewel owes ItS rediscovery solely to a cntIcal bIOgrapher's search for first-hand mfonnahon, and therefore must have contamed Anstotle's own explICIt account of h15 relatIOn to Plato and hIS reply to the mahcIQus cntIcs of that relatIOn The later NeoPlatomsts took the poem from a learned work on thIS subject, where It was quoted only so far as It threw a dIrect hght thereon It IS therefore clear that by the man' whom bad men have not even the nght to praIse' IS meant m thIS elegy none other than Plato, and that the •bad men' whose praise Anstotle thmks J 6, l096" ll-l6, and frg 8 Our InfOrmatIOn about the gossip In the schools has been cnbcally examlIled by Stahr (Arutoteha, Halle, 1830, vol" PP 46 tf) He takes lus matenal from FranclSCus PatntJus (DJscussJones penpIJtetJcae, Basle, 1581) The latter, a PlatonIst of the Renascence, was qUIte blInded by hIS hate of Anstotle, he put ImpliCIt faith In any accusatIon however absurd I ATistocles In Euseb praep ell XV 2, 3 • Thl8 18 the vIew of bnIDl8Ch (PJnlologus, vol lxv, p II) It IS rendered probable by the fact that, as Stahr has shown (IbId vol I, P 6l)' what the Ammonlus-lrfe of ATlStotle tells us about hIS relatIon to Plato must be referred, on account of Its verbal echoes, to the fragment of AIlstocles preserved In Euseblu! 3 Bernays, GesarrJmelte Abhandlwngen, vol I, pp l4311 IUghtly rejected by WllamoWlu (Arlstolelu wnli A then, vol u. p "l3). and more recently by

Imn:usch (loc. CIt ).

ARISTOTLE IN ASSOS AND MACEDONIA

107

damagmg to the master are not Just any m~sera plebs, but those mistaken adnurers who thought It theIr duty to defend Plato agamst Anstotle's cntIclsm of hiS doctnne I A hteral translatIon may be added here ComlDg to the famous plam of Cecropia He pIOusly set up an altar of holy Fnendshlp For the man whom It 15 not lawful for bad men even to pr31se. Who alone or first of mort.us clearly revealed. By hlS own hfe and by the methods of hIS words. That a man become~ good and happy at the same time Now no one can ever attaIn to these thmgs agam

The dedicator of the altar, here spoken of In the thIrd person, IS unknown to us The statement that the poem was addressed to Eudemus IS no help, because we cannot detennme whether the Cypnan or the Rhodlan IS meant The latest Neo-Platomsts, In then confused verSIOn of the hfe of Anstotle, professed to be able to descnbe the InSCnptIOn on the altar, and accordmg to them the dedIcator was Anstotle It IS qUIte unsafe to make thiS the baSIS of an InterpretatIOn Fortunately, the vanous remammg versIOns of the bIOgraphIcal tradition enable us to follow the growth of the legends so clearly that we can detect the stages III the gradual development of thiS supposed InscnptlOn Z Though there IS some obscunty In the outward situatIon as depleted by Anstotle, there IS none whatever In the Inner, and J Only ~o can we gIve concrete meamng to thiS passJOnate repudlatJOn of the profane In Anstotle's style an empty rhetoncal hyperbole IS unthmkable. and to refer It to Dlogenes the CynIc (as JS done by Gomperz, GrlecJusche Denkey, vol II, p 539, and by Immlsch, loc CIt, P 21), because he also tau'1ht the selfsJ.fficll~ncy of virtue seems altogether too ~tra.lned Dlogenes rould perhaps have appealed to Socrates m support of hIS own doctnnes, but never to a thmker so thf'orettcal and so far removed from himself as Plato 2 Immlsch conSIders the InscnptlOn genUine (loc Cit. P 12), but In the VIta MarClana thc SpUrIOUS hexamrter, •Anstotle set up thIS altar for Plato', IS quoted by Itself, a~ I~ nght (p 432 m Rose) . and then we read, 'and tn and/ler place he says of rum, .. a man whom It IS not lawful for bad men even to praise' , ThiS second lme IS a pentameter, and what happened IS that the careless compIler of the so-called LIfe AccordIng to AmmonJus put the pentameter and the hexameter togethu (p 439 In Rose), supposmg that •man' was In apposItion to 'Plato • and that the two lines formed a smgle distich, although they were gIVen separately m hIS source It IS lDconcetvable that thmgs can have gone the other way, namely that the author of the V,ta MarClana can have had the distich before hIm as a whole, and then broken It up and saId that the pentameter came from anothcr poem Ortglnally the quotation probably lDcluded the whole of the fragment of the elegy, for It IS ohvlous that It was ohtamed from Anstocles (see above. P 106, D 2)

108

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that IS what we are concerned with The first lme tells of a man, presumably a pupl1 of Plato's, who carne to Athens and set up an altar there That thiS was an altar to Plato, I e that the latter was accorded dIVIDe honours, I cannot admit At first Sight we may be confused by the fact that' altar' governs two gemtlves, . Fnendshlp' and' man', but a Greek would surely have assumed WIthout questIOn that what was meant was that he set up an altar to most honourable Phlha, In honour of the fnendshlp of the man whom bad men may not even praISe I The adjectIve 'holy' puts It beyond all doubt that the diVInity In whose name the altar was !let up was Phlha On the other hand, the second gemtlve makes It equally certam that thiS altar of fnendshlp was to be sacred not to any rationalIstic allegory. not to any bloodless and hfeles" abstraction, but to the man In whose person and achons the goddess had revealed herself to his disciples as a very present help:t The apotheOSIS of the human person IS ImpoSSible In Plato's concept of rehgIOn, and the examples of AleAander, Lysander, and EplCUruS, are mapphcable here. Only that which ]S of the nature of a Form can be fully dlvme J For an eAample of thiS speCifically PlatOniC rehglOus feeling we may take Anstotle's hymn to Hermlas (below, p lI8) Here too we find that neither IS the poem addressed to the dead human bemg nor IS the abstract nohon of Virtue I WdamoWltz (loe Cit, pp 413 ff) takes IApuCJCrTo 1l"'lIOv avApOoI together ( set up an altar to a man', I e to Plato), and regards' of holy Fnendshlp' as a gemtlve of cause. or as an lomclsm, though he thmks thiS less good, but either would be somewhat far-fetched for the SImple and prosaic speech that had been the rule m elegiac poetry SJnce the days of Evenus and Cntlas Immlsch, feelmg thIS, but wantmg to preserve the altar dedicated to Plato, emended the text to Naill''''v CJll.lvTtv ,11IIav (' 10 worship of holy Fnendshlp he set up an altar to the man whom' &c J, wfuch IS Simply ImpOSSible (In hIS commentary on Heslod's Works Qnd Days Wliamowitz has Since called Z'lvOs ,vACD;I' av6pwrr",v (v ::53) •a locus clasHcus for one noun govemmg two gemtlves' ) • Anstotle, Xenoerates, SpeUSlppus. and Phlhp of Opus, all wrote works On Fr.endslnp m the Academy A whole hterature of the subject arose round Plato In hi! old age It IS true that 'erotic theses' were stili dlBCussed lD the traditional fashIon, but Eros was no longer the unifYIng symbol of the group AnstoUe projected him lDtO metaphYSICS, where he llved on as the amor De~ that moves the world 'It moves the world by bemg loved' The neuter IS slgmficant of the change • W.lamowlu's conception of Plato the God, to whom he supposes the altar to be dedicated (loe Cit, vol u, pp 'P3 ff J, IS certainly fine, but It scarcely fits the temper of the stern and piOUS men of Plato's Circle To Anstotle Plato does mdeed hold an exceptIOnal place among' mortals' (I 4), but he always remams the mortal who leads towards the diVine goal

ARISTOTLE IN ASSOS AND MACEDONIA

log

persomfied VIrtue here means the dIvIne Form of human vutue (he tWIce uses the word IJOpcpTj) stnvIng for the greatest pnze of eXIstence, such as Anstotle and hIs fnends expenenced It In the hfe and death of Hermlas, and therefore It IS 'the vIrtue of Hermlas' The hymn !>Ings the praIses of an InvlSlble goddess, never to be seen by man, but It smgs them m honour of her latest vlSlble embodIment on earth In fine, the altar carned only one word, 'To Fnendshlp', but Anstotle, who IS here Interpretmg the mscnptlOn In the manner of a plOUS exegete before a sacred object, nghtly refers It to 'The Fnendshlp of Plato' We do not mIss the second name, although fnendshlp Involves two persons, for In the band of 'fnends' (cplAol, as the members of the Academy called themselves) whIch one of them could lay eJo.cluslve claIm to thIS posItIon? Plato's fnendshlp was holy to them all, because 1t was the mnermost bond of theIr commumty There IS a close conne).lOn between the dedlcatlOn and the attnbutes whIch the last hnes ascnbe to Plato In the manner of a hymn The fundamental prInCIple, both of Plato's theory of fnendshlp and of the actual hfe of the Academy, was that the true fnend IS SImply the perfectly good man Hence the last hnes pra1se Plato as the mortal through whom thIS tran~cendental Form has been reahzed I He alone has shown us, or he first at any rate, that man IS the free master of hI'> own hfe and fate If he IS good, and he dId not merely teach It In theory, but was a hvmg e).ample of It to hIS fnends No one WIll ever be able to do so agaIn-so says Anstotle, If we are to conclude from the uncomprom1smg 'he alone of all mortals', but who c~n tell the future, or say what 1S poss1ble to man? So Anstotle modIfies , alone' WIth 'or first', and m the last hne he modIfies 'ever agam' w1th 'now'-at any rate It 1S ImpOSSIble for the present generatIon ever to equal hIm 2 In thl!> contrast between the I Smce thiS hook was wntten I have agam dIsc-ussed the poem In ddaIl m the Clas5tcal Quarterly (vol XXI, '927, pp 13 ff), and shown that Kart21ElfEV (' revealed ') IS commonly used of founders of religIOns and such persons ThIS makes It qUite unmistakable what pOSitIOn Anstotle assigns to Plato m the elegy • On the understandmg of the final line depends the understandmg of the whole poem In content It IS unexceptIOnable Its Interpreters have faIled to notIce that ow (eTTI hallElv ( It '" ImpOSSIble to attam ) IS a standmg expreSSIOn In Anstotle's treatIses for the unattamablhty of the Ideal In Pol VIII I 332b 23 he says of a polItIcal Ideal, 'smce thiS IS not easy to attain' (ov ~~IOV

H

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present generatIon and the superhuman leader there IS a tragIC resignatIon, In VIrtue of whIch thIS memonal poem IS not a mere pIece of exalted praIse but a human and movIng confeSSIOn The fact 15 that Anstotle In hIS Ethus demes Plato's doctnne that man's happmess depends only on the moral power of hIS soul I He would prevent the chatterers from copYIng thIS subhme dIctum But to Plato, ItS ongmator, It was absolute truth Where IS the man that can follow up hI') steep path ;l Earth's InsuffiCiency Here grows to Event, The Indescnbable, Here It IS done

Nevertheless, Anstotle's departure from Athens was the expreSSIon of a cnSIS In hIS Inner hfe The fact remaInS that he never came back to the school In whIch he had been educated ThIS was presumably connected WIth the questIon of Plato's successor, whIch would IneVItably detenmne the spmt of the Academy for a long tIme to come, and the deCISIOn of whIch could not meet WIth Anstotle's approval In any event The chOlce, whether Plato's own or that of the members, fell on Plato's nephew SpeusIppus HIS age made It ImpOSSIble to pass hIm over, however ObVIOUS Anstotle's supenonty mIght be for all who had eyes to see The deCISIve conSIderatIOn was perhaps certaIn external cIrcumstances, such as the dIfficulty of conveyIII I z86 b 7, •anstocracy would be more deSirable than monarchy, If It were poSSible to obtam many men of the same kmd' (lrv ~ A~ElL', I e to discover m realIty, or to make real) Objection ha~ becn taken to the Juxtaposition of •ever again' and' now' ThiS manner of speech IS due to the compactness that compresses two pOSSible expressIOns mto one, namely' never or at least not now' and' none of those now lIvIng' (ovl.ul TWU y. viiu) Anstotle wntes hiS own language, and It cannot be reduced to a ~et of rules H(' IS Interested solely 1D the accuracy of the Intellectual nuance that he Wishes to convey. and not In the smoothness of the diction, e g the preCIse dlstmctlOn of 'or first' In the fourth hne IS more SUItable to a lecture than to an elegy The master has shown us the goal-such IS the meanIng of the concluslOn-but we men of the present cannot fly so hIgh It follows that the poem was wntten after Plato s death, and IS addressed to Eudemus of Rhodes The feelmg IS too dU'ect, however for It to have been wntten dunng Anstotle's latest penod It seems to be the offspnng of strong emotion and mner conflIct If, as I beheve, It was at Assos that both Theophrastus and Eudemus became students of An~­ totle's, the eh'gy may have been wntten shortly after Plato's death At the moment when Anstotle was abandomng the master In matters of doctrme, the Impulse of hIS heart drove hIm to declare hIS mner relationship to him In the form of an mtlmate personal confessIon I ImmlSCh nghtly emphasIzes thIS, lac CIt, P 17 "$Iu)

ARISTOTLE IN ASSOS AND MACEDONIA

III

mg the Academy to a mebc, although thIS was afterwards overcome The chOice of SpeusippuS contmued Plato's famIly In the posseSSIOn of the property Whether, In addItion to such reasons of external expedIency, personal anbpathies also played a part, It IS no longer possIble to say, but on general grounds It IS practically self-eVIdent that they must have done so One thmg, however, IS certam, It was not Anstotle's cntIcism of Plato's fundamental doctnnes that prevented hIm from succeedmg to the headshIp of Plato's Academy SpeusippuS hImself had declared the theory of Ideas untenable dunng Plato's own hfetIme, and had also abandoned the Ideal numbers suggested by Plato m hIS last penod, he ffiffered from hIm m other fundamental partIculars as well And that Anstotle was not meanly but highly thought of m the school when he left Athens IS proved by the person who accompamed him, namely Xenocrates, the most conservatIve of all Plato's students With regard to alteratIons of the doctrme, but at the same tIme a thoroughly upnght man The departure of Anstotle and Xenocrates was a seceSSIOn I They went to ASia Mmor m the conVIctIon that SpeusippuS had mhented merely the office and not the spmt The spmt had become homeless, and they were settmg out to budd It a new place For the next few years the scene of their actIvity was Asso~ on the coast of the Troad, where they worked m common With two other Platomsts, Erastus and Conscus from Scepsls on Ida The Importance of thiS penod has not been recogmzed Plato's Sixth letter, the genumeness of which has been conVInCIngly demonstrated by Bnnckmann,z IS addressed to Erastus and Conscus, two former students now m ASia Mmor, and to their fnend Hermlas, lord of Atarneus The two phIlosophers .ire to put themselves under the protection of HermIas, smce, while persons of excellent character, they are deVOId of worldly I Strabo XlII 57. P 610 • Rhelmsches Museum. N F . vol lXVI, 1911. pp 226 ff In our VIewS of the external events connected With Hermlas we agree almost entirely (see my Lnlstchungsgesch.chte der Melaphy .. /l de< AT.sloleles, 1912 pp 34 ff ). and thiS IS all the stronger eVidence because Bnnckmann started from a qUIte dIfferent pomt and we reached the same conclUSIOn mdependently of each other Although my book was not pubhshed until 1912. It had already been submitted dS a theSIS to the phIlosophical faculty at Berlin when Bnnckmann's miscellany appeared

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expenence, Henmas on hIS part IS to learn to appreciate theIr steadfast and trustworthy fnendshlp ThIs remarkable relatIOn between the two compamons of Plato and the pnnce of Atarneus has been illummated by an mscnptIon first pubhshed by Boeckh,1 m WhICh . Hermlas and the compamons' (the formal phrase 'EPlllas Kat 01 haipol occurs five times m the ongmal) make an alliance wIth the people of the CIty of Erythrae The newly dIscovered commentary of Dldymus on Demosthenes' Ph~ltpp~cs leaves no doubt that the compamons who here appear along WIth Hermlas as legal parties to the contract are none other than the two phl1osophers from the nelghbounng town of Scepsls, as was already probable from Plato's letter Henmas was a man of lowly ongm That he was a eunuch IS not to be demed Even the story that m earher years a bank had employed hIm as money-changer at the counter presumably rests on fact, although It IS related by Theopompus, who descnbes hIm as unpleasantly as possIble 2 He began by gettmg possrsslOn of some mountam vl1lages m the neIghbourhood of Ida J Later he obtamed pubhc recogmtIon from the Persian admmlstratIon, and was allowed to adopt the tItle of prmce, presumably after the payment of an adequate sum HIS reSIdence was at Atarneus HIS steadl1y growmg pohtIcal mfluence extended the area under hIS control to an astomshmg SIze In the end he must have mamtamed a substantial contmgent of mercenanes, for he reduced rebelhous places to obedIence by mlhtary raIds, and he afterwards WIthstood a SIege by the PerSIan satrap Erastus and Conscu~ had hved for a long tIme m the Academy, and then returned to theIr natIve town of Scepsls HennIas' ongmal reason for entenng mto relatIons WIth them was certamly not theoretIcal enthUSIasm for Plato's phIlosophy They must I

Boeckh, 'Herlll.\as von Atarneus' In A bhllndlungen del' Berl
1853, HlStonsch-phl1osophlSche Klasse, pp 133 ff (KleInere SckYlflen, vol v, p 189) The Inscnptlon appears In Dlttenberger's Sylloge vol 13 • p 307

• He was certaInly a Greek. or Anstotle In hIS hymn could never have represented h,m as the upholder of the true tradItIon of HellenIC vIrtue, In contrast to the barbanans who treacherol'5ly kIlled hIm (et the epIgram Rose. frg 674) In the letter to Phlhp Theopompus says (Dldymus
ARISTOTLE IN ASSOS AND MACEDONIA

II)

have been persons of Importance m that httle Clty The community was proud of Its two learned sons It was not uncommon for small Greek CltIes to call for laws from cltlzens who had become famous The mathematician Eudoxus, who returned to Cmdus as a great scholar, was hIghly respected there, he was voted an honorary decree and entrusted With the task of wntmg neW laws for the CIty I Erastus and Conscus no doubt tned to mtroduce m Scepsls varIOUS pohtlcal reforms that had been suggested m the Academy. as other Platomsts did In other places, some as dictators or the advisers of pnnces, others as commumsts and tyranmcides Presumably Plato Wished to m~tltute a fnendshlp between the two compamons and their neighbour' Hermlas, because, whIle he recogmzed theu noble l1lsposltlon, he was afraId they might be somewhat doctnnaue The letter that we possess IS the solemn record of thIS peculIar pact between Realpohttk and theoretIcal schemes of reform The spmt of Plato hovers over the mstItutIon, and, although he IS not acquamted With HermIas,2 whom he supposes to be an unphrlosophlcal and purely practIcal man, he exhorts the three partIes to read the letter m common whenever they come together, and, If there should be any dIsagreement, to have recourse to the arbItratIOn of the Academy at Athen~ The movement towards reform thus appears as the result of a phIloSOphIC polItical system, WhICh IS to be realIzed throughout Greece wherever the opportumty occurs, and m whIch the Academy mtends to retam the lead When thIS olIgarchy of WI~e men was establIshed the phIlosophers naturally demanded that Hermias study geometr) and dIah:ctIc,3 Just as Plato had once demanded It of DlOnyslUs, hiS pupl1 Euphraeus of Perdlccas kmg of Macedon, and Anstotle of Themlson of Cyprus, and, hke those other knowledge-hungry men of a busy and enlIghtened but mwardly vacillatmg century, Hermlas applIed himself to study with mcreasmg zeal, and, what I DlOg I VIII 88 • See Plato, Letter VI, 322 E Strabo. on the contrary (XIII 57. P 610). wrongly makes Hermlas a phIlosopher and one-tIme student of Plato's, In order to explaIn hIS conneXlOn WIth the Academy For some mexplIcable reason thIS contradIctIon was formerly supposed to prove the letter SpUriOUS, although <;trabo'saccount contams many other maccuracles (Bnnckmann,loc CIt, P 228) J Plato, Leiter VI ]22 0

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IS more, wrected Ius hfe on moral pnnclples, WhICh Theopompus, perhaps not wIthout some JustIficatIon, declares that he had not done dunng the first years of hIs nse From the contradIctory Judgements of the Chlan, who consIdered hIm absolutely unscrupulous, and of the Platomsts, whose honest admIratIOn for hIm IS reflected by Anstotle and Calhsthenes, I we may conclude that he was an unusual person, a mIxture of natural IntellIgence, enterpnsmg energy, and great will-power, but at the same tune full of unresolved contradIctIons At any rate the benefit that he receIved from the men of Scepsls was not merely In regard to the health of hIS soul, we now know from Dldymus that they gave Ium correct pobtlcal adVIce, for WhICh he presented them WIth the town of Assos On theIr recommendatIOn he voluntanly changed hIS tyranny' Into a mIlder form of constItutIon' ThIS step conCllIated the AeolIan peoples of the coast, and the consequence was that the terntones from the Ida-range down to the coast of Assos came over to hIm of theIr own free will In the mllder form of constItutIOn we may recogmze the Idea of Plato and DlOn, who had Intended to consolIdate the Syracusan tyranny by the adoptIOn of a constItutIOnal form, and then to umte the CIty-states of SIcIly, for purposes of foreIgn pohtIcs, under Its strIctly monarchIcal leadershIp \\That could not be reamed In SIcIly became a polItIcal realIty In mInIature In ASia MInor 2 I See the JuxtaposItion of favourable and unfavourable Judgements In D,dymus, col 4, 60 if He quotes In tum Book XLVI of Theopompu5 Ph,lzpp,c H,stones, hIS letter to Plul,p, CallIsthenes' encomIum on Hermlas, ArIstotle's poem to hIm, Hermlppus' hfe of ArIstotle, and Book VI of Anaxlmenes' Phll,pp,c HIS/ones , Dldymus, col 5, 52, Dlels-Schubart I have added some tentative nstorabans at the begmmng

Kal •]Is (Tilv IT ]tPI~ tcrrpaTilY(1')a., 'I'IAOUS 21' rnol1\acrro KoplaKOY] Kal "EpapT1'J[ aov .Is lTpalO]-ripav 2Iuvacrrdav 21.0 Kal lTc!m[1')S Ti'iS O'W].[ yy]us rni'ip~ Ie.><; Aaaoii, &TIl [211\ Kall/lT£p1')a]eds Tol! .1P'lIlivoIS 'I'.Aoa6q>
"'err<-

The text,together WIth the restoratIons,may be translated as follows

And Into

ARISTOTLE IN ASSOS AND MACEDONIA

IIS

The reforms of Erastus and Conscus must have occurred before Plato's death, because, smce m 347 Anstotle Jomed them not m Scepsls but m Assos, Hermlas' gift must have been an accomplIshed fact at that time Dldymus expressly tells us, what we did not know before, that HermIas heard the phIlosophers and lIved with them for a considerable penod, and, m fact, Plato could not have referred m hiS sixth letter to such purely theoretical questions as the doctnnc of Forms (322 D) unless he had known that each of the three recipients was mterested thercm Thc language of Dldymus compels us to Imagme not merely casual philosophical dISCU'iSlOnS but actual lectures In thiS group the lead naturally fell to Anstotle, and the fact that Hermla'i felt 5pccmlly obhged to him seems to show that he took the outstandmg part m the lectures Nothmg less than a colony of the Athcman Academy was takmg shape In A'iso'i at thl'i time, and there was laid the foundatIOn of the 5chool of Anstotle It must have been here that CallIsthenes enjoyed the mstructlon of hiS unde, for he did not hear him m Athens, m any case we have to assume that he was personally acquamted with Hermlas, because he wrote an encommm on him In later days Nelcus, the son of Con5cus, was one of the most active and Important AnstotelIans, and Thcophrastus came from the nelghbourmg town of Eresus on Lesbo5 'Nhen, at the end of three years, Anstotle left A'iSOS and settled himself at Myhlene m Lesbos, It was probably the Influence of Theophrastus that led to the deCISIOn I He It was abo, as IS well known, who bequeathed the ~urroundmg country, he made expedition" and he made fnends of Corl'cus and Erastus and Anstotle and Xenocrates, hence all these men lived with Hermlas afterwards he h~tened to them h<- gave them gifts he actually changed the tyranny mto a mlld!'r rule, therefore he also came to rule over all the nelghbounng country a~ far as Assos, and then bemg excel'dmgly pleased With the said phllosopher~, he allotted them th<- city of Assos He accepted Anstotle most of all of th('m and was very mtlmate With hlnI I That Theophrastus lamed Anstotle J.t least as early as the Macedoman penod IS proved by hiS personal knowledgl., of ~taglra and by the fact that he owned property there (DlOg L V 52, HfSlor,a Planlarum III I I I, IV 16 3) 1 hIS can have been acqUIred only by means of a faIrly long stay m that place, and such a stay can have occurred only dunng the penod pnor to the foundmg of the school at Athens (335). when Anstotle, together With the httle group that had followed him to MacLdon, was often away from the court for long Intervals, and espeCially dUring the years Immediately precLdmg Alexander's acceSSIOn, when the latter was already takmg part m affairs of state If thiS IS

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AnstotJe's papers and lIbrary to Neleus, who 10 turn left them to hIS relatives 10 Scepsls The close conneXlOn between Anstotle and the fnends 10 Scepsls and Assos, for the sake of studyIng phIlosophy, finally removes all appearance of romance from the oft doubted story of the redIscovery of hIS papers at Scepsls In the cellar of Neleus' dec;cendants ,I and It IS now clear that the frequent use of the name Conscus as an example In Anstotle's lectures goes back to a time when Its owner was actually SIttIng on the bench of the lecture-room In Assos In thiS conneXlOn It 15 Important to observe a traditlOn found In the JewIsh wnter Josephus (c Apwnem 176), whIch has apparently never receIved any notIce He mentIons a work of Clearchus, one of the betterknown earber Penpatehcs, on sleep Anstotle hImself appeared as a figure 10 thl!> dIalogue, and told of a Greek-speak1Og Jew who came to him dunng hIS reSIdence In ASIa Mmor 10 order to study phIlosophy' WIth hIm and some other members of the !>chool' Whether thIS story was Clearchus' own mventwn or an actual pIece of tradItion whIch he used for hIS own purpose, m eIther case he must have been convmced that there had been a tIme when Anstotle was teachmg 10 ASIa Mmor together WIth other Platomc;ts, and that can only have been the hme when he was teachmg 10 Assos In every respect the expenences of thIS stay In ASIa Mmor were deCISIve for Anstotle's later hfe Hermlas gave hIm Pythla~, hIS mece and adopted daughter, to WIfe We know nothmg about thIS marriage except that of It was born a daughter who receIved the "arne name as her mother In hIS wIll Anstotle dIrects that the bones of hIS wIfe. who had so It follows that Theophrastus acquaintance With Anstotle dates from the master S stay In ASia Minor, and that Theophra~tus followed him thence to MacedoD It IS not Indeed ImpOSSible that he had e' en heard Plato, gone through the same process of development as Anstotle (DlOg L V 36), and left Athens along WIth him, but It IS very Improbable He died m the 123rd Olympiad If he was twenty years old when hE' came to Anstotle at Assos In 34 8 /7, he would be at least eighty when he died, even supposing that It was the first year of the OlympIad (288), and may have been anythmg up to eighty-four Hence It IS scarcely poSSible that he was Plato's pupil for long It IS much more natural to thmk that he was attracted from Lesbos to the neighbounng Assos by the teaching of Anstotle and the other A(,ademlClans there HIS fnendshlp With Calhsthenes (to whom Theophrastus dedicated CallIS/henes, or On Gnef after hiS death DlOg L V 44) must also belong to a time before the foundmg of the school at Athens. Since thiS man followed Alexander to ASia In 334 and never returned I Strabo XIII 54 P 608

ARISTOTLE IN ASSOS AND MACEDONIA

I I

7

died before him, shall be laid beside his own, as was her last wish Strabo's account IS as usual romantIcally exaggerated, he tells a sensatIOnal story of Anstotle's flight with the tyrant's daughter, which he supposes to have taken place after the capture of Hemllas Here as elsewhere the new Dldymus discovery has corrected and enlarged our knowledge After three years of activity at Assos Anstotle went to Myhlene m Lesbos, where he taught until 343/2 He then accepted Kmg Phlhp's lllvltatIOn to go to the court of Macedon as tutor of the pnnce I Soon after entenng on thiS new 'Work he received news of the ternble fate of Hermlas Mentor, the PersIan general, after ~huttIng hIm up m Atarneus and unsuccessfully beleaguenng him there, treacherously enticed hlIn mto a parley and earned hIm off to Susa There he was questioned under torture about hIS secret treaties 'WIth Kmg Pluhp. and when he steadfastly preserved sIlence he was crucIfied Under the torture the kmg caused hIm to be asked what last grace he requested He answered 'Tell my fnends and companIons (lTPOS TOVS z Anl>totle's attachment to hiS fnend, and the deep emotIOn that he felt at hiS death, are stIll hvmg to-day 1Il the cenotaph at Delphi, for which he himself composed the dedIcatory epigram, and m the beautIful hymn to Hermlas While the natlOnahst party at Athens. led by Demo')thene~, wa!> blackenmg the character of the deceased, while pubhc opmlOn was dublOU,) about hIm m Hellas and feehng ran very high throughout the land agamst Phlhp and hIS partIsans, Anstotle sent out mto the world thl!> poem, ill which he declared himself passIOnately on the Side of the dead man I Cf my Enl Met Ansi. p 35 For an example of the wrong vIew see Gercke In Realenzyklopl1dte dey klasSlschen Alterlurtlsw1Ssenschafl, valli, col 1014 He regards the fall of Henmas as the reason for Anstotle s 'flight, and hence assigns It to the yLar 345. since It IS estabhshLd that Anstotle spent only three years In Assos (348-5) , but Dldymus has shown that he left Assos whIle Hermlas was stIll alIve, and that the lattu did not fall until 34J Some (mcludlng Gercke, lac Cit) have conjectured that An.totle wa. III Athens for a short Intervemng penod, dunng which he taught In the LycLum. but thiS rests on a rash mlSmterpretatIon of Isocrates ..... lI 18 2 Dldymus, col 6 J5

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Virtue towome to mortal race, FaIre~t prize In life, Even to die for thy shape, Malden, IS an envied fate 1I1 Hellas, And to endure vehement unceasmg labours Such fruit dost thou bestow on the mmd, Like to the Immortah, and bt,ttcr than gold And ancestors and languid-eyed sleep For thy sake Heracles the son of Zeus and Leda's youths Endured much 10 their deeds ~eek1Og for thy potency fhrough longmg for thee Achilles and Ajax came to the house of Hades For sake of thy dear ~hape the nur~lmg of Atarneu~ also Ha~ left the sun's beams desolate Therefore hiS deeds shall be famous III song. And he ~hall be declared Immortal by the Muses, Daugh ters oj Memory, A~ thly magmfy the guerdon of steadfast fnendshlp and the worship of Zeus the hospitable

The umque value of thiS poem for our knowledge of Anstotle's philosophICal development has never been explOIted For the most part It has been regarded merely as a human document, but It shows that when Anstotle had completed hiS destructIve cuhclsm of Plato'~ Idea, exact thmkmg and relIgIOUS feelIng went separate paths In hIm To the sCIentIfic part of hImself there was no longer any such thmg as an Idea when he wrote these hnes, but m hiS heart It hved on as a rehgIOus symbol, as an Ideal He reads Plato's works as poetry Just as In the M etaphystcs he eAplams the Idea, and the partlclpatlOn of the senSible world In Its being, as the free creahon of the contemplatIve ImaginatIOn, !>o here m hiS poem It appears to hIm again, tran!>figured mto the !>hape of a vlrgm for whom m Hellas It IS still exqUIsite to die The words' In Hella<;' must not be 0" erlooked Calhsthenes also, m the encomIUm whICh he wrote on hIm at thIS hme, u!>cs Hermias' brave death as d. picture of Greek VIrtue (cipE"TTj), In contrast WIth the character of the barbanans (6 TWV l3apf36:pcuv Tp61TOS),' and Anstotle's dedIcatory epIgram at Delphi reveals hate and contempt for the' Medes', who dId not overcome Hermld.s In open fight but craftIly broke theIr word and cruelly murdered hIm The JuxtapoSItIon of Hermlas WIth Heracles and the DlOscun, WIth Achilles and Ajax, ]S not a tnck I

Dldywus col

b

1()-13

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of the panegyric style, Anstotle does not mtend to deck out hIS ffIend m the pathetic paraphernalIa of Homer's heroe~ On the contrary, all Hellemc herOIsm, from Homer's naive kmd down to the moral herOISm of the phLlosopher, appeared to hun :u. the expressIOn of one smgle attitude towards lIfe, an attItude which scales the heights of hfe only when It overcomes It He found the soul of the Greeks' power m thiS Platomc vuiue or herOIsm, be It mlhtary prowess or steadfast sLlence m pam, and thiS he mstilled mto Alexander, so that m the mIddle of a century of enhghtenment that proud conqueror long fought and earned himself as If he were Achilles On hiS sarcophagus the sculptor represented the decldmg battle between Hellenes and ASiatIcs as an example of the same contrast-on the VIsage of the Onentals the marks of deep phySical and spmtual suffenng, m the forms of the Greeks the ongmal, unbroken, mental and bodily might of heroes The unfnendly attitude of Anstotle and hiS compamons towards Persia was at that tIme umversal m the Macedoman court Now that the testImony of Dldymu!> has rehabilItated Demosthenes' fourth Ph1hpP1C, we know for certam that as early a~ 342/1 Philip WdS already !>enously thmkmg of a plan for a natIOnal war agam!>t the hereditary foe, a war such as the Pan-Hellemc propaganda of Isocrates and hi!> crrcle had long been brewmg Only th1s could Justify the bmte force by whIch the kmg of Macedon was mlInrr over the free Greek cItIes By means of hIS secret agent') Demosthenes knew that Hennlas had made agreement!> WIth Phlhp, and thereby put himself m a senous posItIon as regards PerSIa ThiS military treaty opened the \\-ay for a Macedoman attack on Persia Hennlas, bemg a far-sighted polItICian, had been well aware that the tIme was npe to mvoke Phlhp's protection for hiS hard-won posItIon m northwest ASia Millor The clash between the Persian empire and the milItary power of Macedon seemed to hun mevltable, and he hoped to preserve hl~ mdependence by glYmg Phulp the ASiatIc bndgehead and assunng htm of a 5trong base m Aeoha We do not know who told the Persians of these plans However that may be, when the PerSIan general had taken Hermlas pn')oner, Demosthenes reJolCed to thmk that the great kmg would soon extract from htm, under torture, confeSSions such as to throw a

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glanng lIght on Ph1hp's plot, and to make PersIa ready for the a.lliance wIth Athens on behalf of whIch Demosthenes had long stnven in vam 1 It IS scarcely conceIvable that Anstotle knew nothlllg of the hIgh affaIrs of state whIch Ph1hp, at whose court he was hVing, was arrangmg wIth hIs own frIend and father-m-Iaw He removed to Pella III 342, Henmas fell m 341 We do not know whether the secret treaty was made dunng thIs year, or was already m bemg when Anstotle went to Macedon, but It IS probable that It dId not remam secret for long, and therefore was concluded not very long before the catastrophe At all events ArIstotle went to Pella WIth the approval of Herrmas and not WIthout some kmd of pobhcal mISSIon The conventional tradItIOn has It that K10g PhilIp was search10g the world for a man to ,~ducate hIS unportant son, and therefore ht upon the greatest philosopher of the age, but at the hme when Anstotle was lectunng m Assos and MytIlene he was not yet the 10tellectual leader of Greece, and Alexander was not yet an hlstonc figure Nor can the chOIce have been deCided by the fact that An~totle's father Nicomachus had been the personal phy51cIan of Amyntas .1t the court of Macedon, for smce then four decades had passed Everythmg indICates that It was the conneXIOn between Henmas and PhIlIp that really suggested thIS remarkable symbolization of world-wIde hlstoncal events, the aSSOcIatIOn of the th10ker and the great kmg Merely to play pnvate tutor would not have slllted Anstotle's vmle character, and there was never much outlook 10 Macedon for a part such as Plato had taken at the court of DIOnyslUs and Anstotle hImself towards hIS pnncely fnend In Atarneus Hence It IS Important that \\hen we analyse the Pohftcs we observe a gradual transItion from Plato's ethIcal r,tdiCahsm. and from hIS speculatIOn about the Ideal state, towards Realpohllk, and that we are led to the conclusIOn that thIS change was accomphshed mamly under the mfluence of the e\.pencnced statesman Hermlas Anstotle dId not recommend to Alexander the PlatOnIC Ideal of the httle c1ty-.,tate, such as It IS preserved 10 the oldest portions of hIS Pohhcs , although thIS I Demosthencs, OrallOns, X 31 Cf the schoha ad loe They refer the mystenous hints of the fourth Plul>f>P1C to HermlilS and thIS has been confinned by DJ(lymu~' \"omm\"ntary

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Ideal still had Its Importance for the Greek cIties, whIch had remained formally autonomous, and although he afterwards recogmzed It again when he lectured at Athens He was well aware -and that he undertook the work IS more sIgmficant of hIs character than all hIs pohtIcal theones-that he was forming the Ideas of the heIr of the leading state In Greece, the most powerful European kingdom of the age, and that he was at the same tIme a dIplomatic hnk between Phdlp and Henmas The death of the latter gave an unexpected turn to everything, but the antI-PersIan sentIment of the coahtlOn thus destroyed became a part of Anstotle's emotIonal hfe, and In that atmosphere Alexander grew up It was a matter of faIth WIth Anstotle that Greece could rule the world If It were polItIcally umted As a phdosopher he recogmzed the cultural leadershIp of thIS people, whIch, wherever It found Itself, penetrated and dominated the surrounding natIons WIth astomshIng power No race could VIe WIth the intellectual compactness of the urban Greek, both ill war and In commerce he conquered by hIS mere techmcal supenonty and personal self-rehance On the other hand, thptrd.dltIonal narrowness of pohtIcal lIfe In the autonomous CIty-state put In the way of any orgamc umon dIfficultIes that Anstotle, born In ChalCldlce, was unable to appreCIate WIth the AttIc democrat's longstandmg paSSIOn for freedom Bemg the son of a famlly that had lIved at the Macedoman rourt, It was easy for hIm to accustom hImself to the thought of Grecce umted under Macedoman leaderShIp But In such an unstable form of state there would ineVItably be an antmomy between the patnarchal or agrIcultural kmgshlp on the one hand, and the freedom of the CIty-democraCieS on the other ThI<, would make for Inner dlsumon and could be overcome only by the out!>tandIng personalIty of a real king, In whom Greece could see ItS own embodunent Anstotle knew that such a man IS a gIft of the Gods He was not a supportcr of monarchy at all costs, Grrek thought III fact never possessed-or at least that of the fourth century dId not-the ]unstIc inSIght necessary to appreCIate the value of legItImacy and a fixed succeSSIOn The less, however, that the Greeks regarded a monarch as rulIng by legal ng'ht In our sense, the more ready they were, even III the century of the greatest enhghtenment,

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to bow before the natw-al mborn kmghness of a superior mdlvidual, If he appeared as a saVlOur m chaos. and unposed upon thelI' world of outworn polItical forms the law of inexorable hlstoncal Ananke Anstotle hoped to find such a born lung 10 Alexander, and It IS due to him that the young monarch, although he always remamed enough of a Realpoht~keT to base hunself on hiS sohd household troop'>, hiS descent from Heracles, and hlS posItIon as commander-m-chlef, did sometImes honestly th10k of hiS hIStOrical mlS!:>lOn as a Hellemc proJect The tremendous dJfference between him and Phl.hp comes out most clearly m their attitude towards the Greeks Phulp knew how to make an mtelligent use of Greek clvl.hzabon, a<; IS shown by hiS mVltatIon to Amtotle, for example, and he could not Imagme a modem ~tate Without Greek techmcal skill and military SCience, or Without Greek diplomacy and rhetonc But mwardly he was Just a cunmng barbanan, and hiS gemal power only made the fact more grossly ObVIOUS, more msultmg By nature Alexander was a true SClOn of thiS wild stock, and hIS Greek contemporaries. who were deceived by hl~ excellent educatIOn 1Oto supposmg that he might be measured by Greek standards, could never understand ius combmatIon of great qualities With demomc mcalcula.b1hty, mad deSire for pleasure, and, m later days, mcreasmg outbreaks of brutalIty and cruelty Nevertheless, hiS remarkably high degree of personal and hlstoncal self-conSCIousness IS a clear sign of the mfluence of Anstotle HIS favounte plan, to set out for ASia hke a second Achilles, IS charactenstIc of the peculiar mixture In hun, and of the clearness With which he hunself apprehended It He was Greek In hiS literary and moral schoolIng He was Greek ill stnvIng for 'Virtue', I e for a higher and more harmomous mdlvlduallty But hlS defiant Imitation of Achilles expresses hIS romantic and paSSlOnate convIction that there was a contrast between hImself and the excessLvely clvtlLzed culture and pohtlcs of the fourth century, and also perhaps expresses a certaIn feehng of half-barbanan kmghthood that made It unposslble for him to merge hunself In Greek enhghtenment He marches to ASia surrounded by hlStonans and scholars, 111 Ilium he seeks out the grave of Achilles and plonounces him fortunate because he found Homer to be the

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herald of his deeds Of such a youth Anstotle might well expect that he would lead the Greeks to umty and estabhsh theIr dommIOn 10 the east over the rums of the Persian empU"e (the two thmgs were mseparably connected 10 hIS mmd) The commumty of Ideas between the two men was ObVIOusly very close, not merely while Anstotle was lIvmg 10 Macedon, but down unhl long after the begmmng of the PerSIan wars Only when the expedition mto ASia had Immeasurably extended the honzon of the Ihadlc landscape dId Alexander begm to confound the bearmg of Achilles WIth other and onental roles Then hiS Greek mISSIOn gave place to the new aun of reconcilmg peoples and equahzmg races, and Anstotle opposed hIm strongly ThIS end of their mhmate conneXlOns, however, must not be allowed to cast any shadow over the tIme when Alexander, as heU" to the throne of Macedon, laId the foundatIOns of hiS polItIcal thought under the tutorshIp of Anstotle, and the latter made a close fnendshlp WIth Anhpater, WhICh 10 some respects took the place of that WIth Hermlas, and wmch lasted even after the death of the phIlosopher When PhilIp dIed Alexander fulfilled hIS teacher's dearest WIsh by rebUIld 109 hIS bIrthplace Staglra, WhICh had bepn devastated by PhillP'~ troop~ dunng the ChalCldic war Theophrastus' mother-City, Eresus on Lesbo~, was also spared when the Macedoman~ took the Island Call1sthenes accompamed Ale~ander to ASia as hlstonan

CHAPTER VI

THE MANIFESTO ON PHILOSOPHY of the most productIve epoch m Anstotle's hfe T hashIStory prevIOusly been a blank sheet Of the penod from his HE

thrrty-seventh to his forty-mnth years, that IS, from the tune when he left the Academy to the tIme when he returned to Athens from Macedoma and founded the PenpatetIc school (347-335), nothmg has been known No essentIal conneXIOn could be traced between his' travels' and the secluded We m the Academy that had preceded them In any case they seemed to hne no speclalln1portance for the understandmg of Anstotle as a thm1.er Smce hiS wntmgs could not be accurately dated there appeared to be a complete vacuum between hIS AcademIC and hiS PenpatetIc penods, It bemg supposed that the treatIses were all wntten dunng the latter Smce nothmg preCIse was known about hiS teachmg and wntmg prevIOUS to the foundatIon of hiS '>chool, It IS not surpnsmg that scholars unagmed hiS thought as haVing reached a final shape. and regarded the treatIses as Its 'iystemahc and defimtlve expresslOn WIthm thIS system the highest place appeared to belong to metaphySICS. the study of pure being. an overarchmg dome beneath which all departmental SCIences were mcluded, presupposed, and thereby cancelled We now know from the newly dIscovered work of Dldyrnus that Anstotle resumed hIS teachmg Immediately after 347. and that hIS fir~t mdependent appearance occurred whue he was stIll at Assos 'What we hear of hI'> actIVIty dunng these years shows that It had come to be lus deSire to exert a WIdespread pubbc mfluence At the same tln1e, everythmg pomts to the conclUSIOn that hIS close affimty WIth Plato and Plato's preoccupations wntInued undisturbed He went on hVlng and teachmg among Plato's pupils As we have seen, hIS departure from the school J.t Athens was In no sense a break WIth the AcademIC commumty as such, and It would be an mtolerable contradIctIon to suppo~e that, after havmg remamed a true dISCIple throughout hiS master's bfe, he broke away from him the mstant he was dead

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On the contrary, hIs development took on more and more of the publIc character that had always determmed Plato's personalIty and mfluence He founded schools and sowed the seeds of phl1osophy 10 vanoU"i places -He took part In polItIcal affdlrs, as Plato had dont', and came to have mfluence at the courts of the most powerful ruler'> of the age For the first tIme he began to number Important men among hI'> pupl1s It IS a prlOn probable that thIs was al"o the hme of hIS fir'lt appearance before the general publIc a'l a cnhc of Plato, smce he now had .!o_~),.pl~1O the PlatoniC phl1o'>ophy on hiS own re_~ponc;lhlhty and accordmg to hIt> own conct'phon of Its nature Starting from thl'l reflectIOn, we must try to penetrate farther mto the my,>tcnoU'i darknt'ss of these deCISIve years, dunng \\ hlch he reachpd the first comprehensIVe formulatIOn of hIS own polOt of view We discover that between the early, dogmahcdBy PlatOniC, <;tage of hI<; devt'lopment, and th(' final form of hIS thought 10 ItS matunty, there was a penod of tramltIon "hose nature ran be definItely asc.ertamtd 10 many partIculars, a penod wlwn he wa'l cntIC171ng, rearrangmg, and detachmg hlm'ielf, a penod. prevIOusly wholly overlooked, wInch wa'> clearly dIstInct from the fin,t! form of hIS phIlo'>ophy, although It reveals the entelechy of the Idtter 10 all essential pomts Tht' ad"dntage of exammmg thiS SituatIOn IS not merely to obtam a pIcture of the gradual growth of hIS pr10clples Only when we know what he emphaSizes as hme goes on, what hr suppresses, and what he mtroduces, can wr form a clear conceptIOn of the deternumng forces that were workmg to bnng about a new Weltanschauung m him At the head of thIS development I place the dIalogue On Plalosophy It IS generally reckoned along WIth the earher wnt1Ogs,1 but Its doctrme IS obVIOusly a product of the transItIon The numerou!> fragments rema101Og. some of them qUIte substantial, make the attempt at reconstructIOn more hopeful than It IS With any of the other lost works Here agam we shall have to go IOta the mmutIae of interpretation 10 order to extract I Bernays and HLltz see no dIfference betwLcn thiS and the other e,
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the essential from our matenal Up to the present It has been very lIttle understood In style, m content, and m purpose, It holds a unique place In Anstotle's development On Ph~losophy IS expressly mentIOned a~.havmg attacked the doctrme of Ideal numbers, and It IS m fact the sole lIterary work of whIch we definitely know that Its contents were anti-Platonic ThIS cntlclsm apparently formed part of a general refutahon of the doctnne of Ideas, for_It deals not WIth Speuslppus' view that the mathemahcal numbers were mdependent substances, but With Plato's own later form of the doctnne, accordmg to whIch the Ideas \\ere numbers 'If the Ideas were another kInd of number, and not the mathematIcal, we should have no understandmg of It For who understands another kmd of number, at any rate among tlit' mdJonty of liS ~ 'I Synanus ha!> preserved these words for us from the second book of the dIalogue The speaker IS Anstotle himself, expressmg hIS apona about Plato's doctnne half m protest and half m mockery The same attItude seems to me to be expressed m another fragmentary cntlclsm of the Idea-theory, the OrigIn of whIch, though not defimtely recorded, IS more than probable ThiS IS the passage taken by Proclus and Plutarch from a common source to prove that Aristotle attacked Plato m the dIalogues as well as In the treahses 2 SInce the tradlhon does not mform us of a cntlClsm of Plato In any dialogue except that On Ph~losophy, and smce thIS umdentIfied cntIclsm agrees surpriSIngly well With the attitude expressed In the fragment quoted by name from thIS dialogue, It would be unnatural not to aSSIgn both to the same work, espeCially as the mere tItle of thiS work, so unusually mformatIve for a dialogue, suggests a thorough exammatIOn of the fundamental problems of phIlosophy Here agam Anstotle himself was the speaker We do not know the exact words he used, but both accounts preserve the remarkable expreSSIOn, . he cannot sympathIZe WIth the theory of Ideas, even If he should be beheved to be dlsagreemg out of mere contentiousness' ThIS protest Illummates even more clearly than the other fragment the fact that m hIS pIcture of the stubborn confhct of opmIOns Anstotle was representmg the actual sItuatlOn Somethmg had to give way FInally he appeals to the respect that all mqUIrers 1

Frg 9

• Frg 8 See above. page 35

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owe to every honest and reasoned conVlctlon He emphatically repudIates the malIcIous suggestion, whIch of course had been made m the Academy, that lus divergence of VIew was due to personal reasons This unputatlon was obvIOusly one of the malO reasons why he pubhshed hIS cnhclsm, whIch no doubt had already been a matter of dIscussIOn for some tune Wlthm the Platomc CIrcle When at length he announced to the world, 'I cannot but malOtalO my obJection', he had ceased to be greatly concerned about recovermg the good wIll of those former fnends from whom he now dIssented He was ready to submIt hiS arguments to the verdIct of the pubhc I If we may Judge from the title and the fragments, the dialogue was pecuhar In form as well as 10 content CIcero, when appeal109 to Anstotle to Jushfy hiS own procedure, tells us that the latter appeared 10 hIS own dIalogues and led the dIscussIOn We have shown, however, that this probably occurred only In a few dialogues, 10 fact only In the Statesman and the Phtlosophy 1 In the latter the promInence of Anstotle hunself IS surely connected With the nature of the work d.S a kInd of personal mamfesto The title suggests a farrly systematic treatise, and thIS the fragments confirm No doubt a supporter of the PlatOniC view made a long speech In opposlhon to Anstotle CIcero tells us, moreover, that Anstotle wrote a separate mtroductlOn for each of the books when hIS dIalogues had more than one, from thIS we may mfer that each book was complete In Itself, as In Cicero's dIalogues 3 Thus both formally and philosophIcally the work IS mIdway between the early Platomc works and the treatises, and m spmt It approxunates to the latter The date of compOSItIOn IS lOdicated by the relation between thiS cntIclsm of the Idea-theory and that 10 the first book of the I The passage owes Its preservatIon to Its pecuhar Importance for the development of Anstotle's cntlcal attitude to Plato It was uDlque Hence to uDiversahze such an IndIVIdual and Irretnevable SItuatIOn, and apply It to all the dialogues, IS a procedure that refutes Itself • See above, p 29 J CIC Ep ad All IV 16 2, 'quomarn In 910guhs hbns utor prooemus, ut Anstoteles 10 eIS quos I~"'TEPIKOVS vocat The lDtroducbons must therefore have been .. ery loosely connected WIth what followed Accordmg to Proelus (.n Parmen I 659. Cousm) tbe same was true of the dIalogues of Theophrastusand Heraelides PontIcus, which were modelled on those of Anstotle In the Eudemus, on the contrary, the dISCUSSion anses naturally out of the Introductory settIng, as It does ID Plato

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M etaphys~cs One of the few pomts that can be finnly estabhshed about the chronology of the treatIses IS thIS shortly~fte.! Plato's death Anstotle produced a happy sketch of the malO -results of the mass of dIscussIOn that had been gomg on about the Fonns wlthm the Academy. 10 whIch he attempted to outEne hIS new system of lmproved PlatOnIsm, the mtroductlOn to thIS early sketch IS contamed m the first book of the M etaphystcs I Now It IS InconceIvable that the cntIclsm 10 the dIalogue On Phtlosophy, whIch was addressed to the publIc and cast 10 literary form, came before thIS esotenc dIscussIOn, that cntIClsm wa'i not the first but the final step For the sake of the Academy Amtotle would aVOId as long as possIble a pubhc exammatlOn of the mternal controversIes of hIS school on logIcal and metaphysIcal questIons, whIch few persons were capable of Judgmg, and the remamIng fragments prove that he dId so only when "lelf-defence oblIged hIm It follows that the dIalogue was wntten at the same tIme as the cntIclsm of the Forms In the fir'it book of the M etaphystcs, or slIghtly later, and certamly after Plato'~ death Anstotle enter'i the lIsts armed not merely WIth destructIve cntIclsms but also WIth a vIew of hIS o",n UntIl Andromcus pubh'ihed the Metaphy~u_s thIS dIalogue remamed the chIef source of mformatlOn about An.,totle's general phI1osophlcJ.1 opmlOns m the ancIent world, and from It the StOICS and EpIcureans took theIr knowledge of him It ~as, however, an undeveloped Anstotle WIth '" hom they had to content themselves He began WIth the hlstoncal development of philo'iophy He dId not confine hlm"lelf to the Greek phllosopheN from Thales on",ard, who dIsplay a real contInUity, and who were pure mqUlrers, proceedmg WIthout presupposltlOns along defimte hnes Contrary to hiS procedure m the llfetaphysfcS. he went back to the Eac;t, and mentIOned ItS anCIent and tremendous creatIons \Hth Interest and respect 1n the first book of the MetaphysIcs he touches only on the EgyptIan pnests and theIr servlce~ to mathematIcs, for the sake of the e"ample of philosophIC leIsure and contemplatIon that they gave to the Greeks In hIS dIalogue, however, he penetrated to the earlIest tImeS-If ",e follow hIS own chronology-and spoke of the MagI and theIr I

See E ..I M'I AnsI. pp 28 if • esp P 33

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teachIng I Then came the venerable representatives of the oldest Hell~nIc wIsdom, the theologtans. as he calls them. th~n the doctnnes of the Orphlcs. and no doubt HeslOd, though he does not appear In the fragments, and finally the proverbIal wIsdom tradItionally ascnbed to the Seven WIse Men, the preservatIon of whIch was specIally cared for by the God of DelphI ThIs gave occaSIon to mention the old Apolhne worship It IS worth noticing that Anstotle was the first successor of Plato to nd hunself of Plato's contemptuous OpIniOn of the SOphIsts He restored the name to Its nghtful meaning as a title of honour, and he had the hlstoncal InSIght to put the Seven WIse Men at the head of thIS succeSSIOn of commandmg Intellects, whose Influence on the development of Greek thought seemed to hIm so Important that he Included It m the hlstOl1' of phIlosophIcal WIsdom Z ThIS mass of facts was cntIcally sIfted and reduced to order Anstotle raIsed the question of the genuineness of the remammg OrphIC poems He denied that Orpheus wrote verse, and he distInglllshed between the relIglOus Ideas and the fonn m whIch they were handed down, correctly as,>Ignmg the latter to a fairly late penod, about the end of the SIxth century ThIS IS the ongm of the VIew, whIch still holds the field, that the mystIficatIOn of the OrphIC poem was Invented by Onomacntus, theologIan to the PI~IstratIds, who "l:re Interested m OrphIC mystIcI~m] Anstotle aho mqUIred mto the antIqUIty of the proverb' Know thyself', WhICh ",as InSCrIbed over the entrance to the temple at DelphI He sought to determme Its date by mean'> of the hIstory of the bUIldmg 4 SImIlarly. mstead of naIvely admmng the hoar antIqUIty of EgyptIan WIsdom and of Iraman rehgIOn, he attempted to aSSIgn to them the most defimte pOSSIble dates 5 ThIS stnct chronology IS the result not of a mere antIquanan I Frg 6 • The eVIdence for these detail. In the dialogue On Plulosophy IS as foHows Apart from the datmg of the n.bglon of the Magi, only the calculation abo\' t the antiqUity of the Delph.l(" proverb' Know thy~( If', whIch led on to th". quc-<;bon of the date of the Seven Wise Men, IS defimtely ascnbed to thiS dIalogue (frg 3) Anstotle dsslgned the proverb to a time pnor to Chllon It foHows that fragments 4 and 5 come from the same context That the theologians must have be~n mentioned IS obVIOUS from the fact that 10 the Metaphystcs too he makes phIlo~ophlcal reflectIOn begm Wlth them J I'rg 7 • FIg 3 5 FIg 6

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Interest but of a phJ.1osophlcal pnnclple HIs doctnne was that the .,ame truths reappear 10 human lustory, not merely once or tWice, but mdefiDltely often 1 He therefore laid the foundation of a collection of Greek proverbs, on the ground that these laCOniC and stnkmg empmcal precepts are the survivalS of a pre-hterary philosophy, and have preserved themselves by word of mouth, through all the changes 10 the nation's SPIrIt, 10 virtue of their breVity and pregnancy HIS keen eye perceived the value of proverbs and proverbial poetry m the study of the ongms of ethical reflection To the educated Greek the detailed labour of makmg such a collection seemed banauslc, and Anstotle's attempt evoked open scorn from Isocratean Circles 2. In exammIng the antiqUity of the DelphiC maxim' Know thyself' he tned to determme the question from which of the Seven Wise Men It came By means of hiS deductions from the buJ.1dl.l1g he settled this rather empty controversy With a Judgement of Solomon, SInce the maxim IS older than Chilon It comes from none of the Wise Men, but was revealed by the Pythia herself The pOlOt of the argument becomes clear when we conSider Plutarch's statement, accordmg to which Anstotle '10 the PlatoDlc works' held that 'Know thyself' IS the most dlvUle of the precepts at Delphi, and that It was this same precept that gave Socrates hiS problem The pecuhar phrase' m the PlatoDlc works' (~v ToiS IDa- (.o)vIKois) IS parallel to '10 the Socratic works', which means Plato's Socratic dialogues, It must refer to the fonn, not the content, and It must mean Anstotle's Platomc dIalogues The relabon here estabhshed between the old DelphIC maxim and the new Socratic search for ethical knowledge fits better IOta the dialogue On PhJlosophy than lOto any other It IS an example of the doctnne that phJ.1osophlcal truths are rediScovered throughout the course of history Thus Socrates became the restorer of the ethical prl.l1clple of Apolhne rehgIOn, 10 fact, as Anstotle tned to show by the tale of the VISit to DelphI, It was from thIs ancIent centre of revelatIOn that he received the I De ClUlo I ), 270b 19. Me/eM' I Pol VII 10,1)29 b 2.,5

). 339 b 2.7. Me/4ph

/I 8, 1074 b 10.

• For Anstotle's Interest In proverbs see 'll'apol~hl In Bomtz s Index At-,s/oteFor the VIew that proverbs are •remnants of anCIent phIlosophy see frg 13 For colleclloDs of the proverbs see Dlog L V 2.6 and Athenaeu~ II 60 D

,'c......

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external unpulse leadmg to those questions that agItated all the ethIcal problems of hIS age I The conneXIOn thus dIscovered between relIgIOn and phtlosophy extends throughout the dialogue Socrates' Apollme mISSIOn had already been touched on by Plato 10 the Apology, here the doctnne of cycles IS used to broaden it mto a renascence of DelphIC wIsdom ApollImsm and SocratIcIsm are the two fOCI m the development of Greek ethIcs The InqUIry mto the date of the ongm of Orphlsm must have been part of the same Idea Anstotle never doubted the hlstonClty of Orpheus, he emphaSIzed the lateness of the lIterary formulatIOn solely In order to replace the PlslstratId versifier and oracle-monger wIth a genume prophet of Greek antIqUIty He was certam that the OrphIC poems were late, there was nothmg, however, to prevent the relIgIOUS teachIng Itself from beIng of great antIqUIty What led hlID to mqUlre mto the date of ItS ongin was doubtless Its recent return In a more spmtuahzed form m Plato's doctrme of the after-Ide and the soul's progress Another example of thIS method IS to be found In the followmgfragment In hIS Natural Hlstory Phny says (30 3) 'Eudoxus, who wished It to be thought that the most famous and most benefiCIal of the phIlosophIcal sects was that of the MagI, tells us that thIS Zoroaster hved 6,000 years before the death of Plato Anstotle ~ayc; the same' We know that Eudoxus, the astronomer and fnend of Plato, mterested hImself In Onental and Egyptian learnmg dunng hiS stay In those parts He brought WIth hIm to Greece the lore that he had gathered from the representatIves of a world shll more or less closed to the Hellenes At that tIme the Academy was the centre of a very strong mterest m the Onent Ac; an omen of Alexander's expeditIOn and the consequent rapprochement between Greek and ASIatIc thIS Interest IS of great and by no means suffiCiently recogmzed sIgmficance The channels through which the Eastern 10fluence I That fragment~ I and 2 belong With 3 cannot be doubted, a.~ soon as It IS perceived that the key to the whole IS the theory of the periodiC return of all knowledge We are not concerned here With the question whether the DelphiC precepts really helong to the ethiCS of Apollo, or are pieces of foreign wOOom avalhng themselves of the god's protection The parallel between Socrates and the Delpluc maxim also appears m Pa -Plato, A/cob I 124 B takmg the adVice of myself and of the DelphiC maxim .. Know thyself" •

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forced Its way can be traced only to a small extent From a fragment of the Academy's hst of students, preserved on a papyrus from Herculaneum, we happen to know that a Chaldaean was a regular member of the school I ThiS appears to have been dunng Plato's last decade Other signs of Onental mfluence pomt to the same penod Such are the parallel m Alnlnades I between Plato's four VIrtues and the ethIcs of Zarathustra, and the astral theology put forward as the hIghest wIsdom by Plato's pupLl and secretary, PhLlIp of Opus, In hiS postscnpt to the Laws To recommend the new rehgIOus views whIch he IS earnestly proclaImmg . to the Greeks' PhilIp openly appeals to Onental sources z These tendenCies undoubtedly ongmated dunng the time when Eudoxus was present 10 the Academy, although our matenal unfortunately does not permit us to evaluate to itS full extent the tremendous mfluence exercIsed upon the Platomsts by thIS man They are connected 10 part wIth the Academy's admiration for Chaldaean and' Synan' a"tronomy, from whose anCIent emplTlcal acquamtance with the heavens It had obtamed Its reckomng of the tunes of revolutIOn and Its knowledge of the seven planets, a knowledge that appears In PhLllp of Opus for the first tIme 10 Europe In part, agam, these tendencies are connected wIth the appeal of the relIgIOUS dualIsm of the Parsees, v. hlch seemed to lend support to the dualIstic metaphysIcS of Plato's old age The bad world-soul that opposes the good one m the Laws IS a tnbute to Zarathustra, to whom Plato was attracted because of the mathematIcal phase that hIS Ideatheory finally a'isumed, and because of the mtensified duahsm Involved therem J From that tIme onwards the Academy was keenly 10terested 10 Zarathustra and the teachmg of the MagI Plato's pupil Hennodorus dIscussed astrahsm In hIS Mathematfes, he denved the name Zarathustra from It, declanng that It means' star-worshipper' (&O"Tpo6\rrrj~) • I Tnde:c A cad H ercull1n col 111 p J 3 (Mekler) • Ep1'11 986 E 987 B, and ql!7 D-<)88 A Ps -Plato, AICtb I 121 '1>-122 " • 1.l1w< h. 896 E • Atk And as the soul orders and inhabits all things that move however movmg. mnst we not say that she orders also the heavens; Cit Of coune A til One soul or more' More than one-I will answer for you. at any rate we must not suppose that there are less than two--one the author of good. and the other of the opposite' • For Hermodorus On Matlaemahcs, used by SQbon In the Dtadoche. see DlOg L I 2 and 8. cf Schol on Ps -Plato. -4/nb I 122 A

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These mfluences gave nse to Anstotle's mterest m the Magi m the dIalogue On Phtlosophy Even the attempt to detemllne Zarathustra's date had already been made by other Academics Hennodorus, for mstance, had put hun 5,000 years before the fall of Troy The researches of thiS Platomst were still the mam authonty on the matter \\'hen the learned Alexandrian SotIon wrote his history of the philosophical schools Besides Hennodorus he mentIOned the suggestIOn of Xanthus, accordmg to which Zarathustra hved 6,000 years before the InvaSIOn of Xerxes I The date given by Anstotle and Eudoxus, as reported by Plmy, differs from the other traditIonal dates In Its pecuhar pomt of reference When we compare' 6,000 years before Plato's death' With figures reckoned from the fall of Troy or from the expeditIon of Xerxes (which later gave way to that of Alexander), It becomes obvIOUS that thiS manner of statement IS due not to chronological convemence but to the deSire to connect Zarathustra and Plato as two essentially slml1ar hl!>toncal phenomena The pomt of the companson, and of Anstotle's Interest In the round thousands of the Interval, IS clearly the view put forward m On Phtlosophy that all human truths have theIr natural and necessary cycles Now In a fragment that IS known to belong to the first book of thiS dialogue Anstotle speaks of the teachmg of the Magi, namely the !raman duah!>lU, accordmg to which there are two pnnClple." a good and a bad spmt, Ormuzd and Ahnman, and these he Identifies With the Greek dlvlmtIes Zeus and Hades, the god of heavenly hght and the god of chthomc darknes., Plutarch, also, compares Plato's doctnne of the good and the bad world-souls With the duahsm of the Chaldees and Magi It IS natural to suppose that the same conSIderatIOn was actuatmg Anstotle m the fragment where he draws a parallel between Zarathustra and Plato Z ThiS SUppOSItIon IS rendered certam by the only other passage where he mentIOns the MagI, namely one of the oldest parts of the M etaphystcs, which must be aSSIgned on other grounds to the time when On Phtlosophy was bemg WrItten Here agam the subJect IS Platomc duah"m As the earhest forerunners of thIS VIew Anstotle mentIOns m Greece Pherecydes, m ASIa the Magi 3 The Academy's • DlOg L I

2

] Melaph N 4 loglb!l

z Frg 6

Plu t,Jrch. Is el 0511' 370

E

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enthusIasm for Zarathustra amounted to IntoXIcatIon, lIke the redIscovery of IndIan philosophy through Schopenhauer TI heightened the histoncal self-conSCIOusness of the school to thmk that Plato's doctrme of the Good as a dIVIne and unIversal pnnciple had been revealed to eastern hwnanIty by an Onental prophet thousands of years before ThIs explanatIOn IS confirmed by the number 6,000 We know from Theopompus, ",ho perhaps had It from Eudoxus hImself, that the generatIOn of Eudoxus and Anstotle was aware of the great cycle In IranIan religIOn, and of the world-Wide drama of the struggle between Ormuzd and Ahnman 1 Ormuzd and Ahriman rule m turn (avo IJ~POS). each for 3,000 years For another 3,000 years they fight, and each trIes to Injure the other and destroy what he has created FInally the good SpInt gams the day The length of thIS eschatologIcal drama IS varIously estImated In IranIan tradItIon, sometImes as 9,000 years (thiS IS apparently the figure that Theopompus' source follows). and ~ometImes as 12,000 The SIgnificance of each three-thousandyear act In the world-cycle vanes accordIngly For thIS reason the means at our disposal will perhaps not allow us to determIne unambiguously the preCIse POints at whIch Zarathustra and Plato are supposed to appear,~ but It IS certaInly not an aCCIdent that the figure 6,000, whIch accordmg to Anstotle and Eudoxus IS the number of the years between the two, IS diVISIble by 3,000 Zarathustra and Plato are ObVIOusly two Important I Theopompus frg 72 (Mueller) Cf Jackson, 'The Date of Zoroaster, Journal of Ih. Ame...can 0",,"1 Soc vol XVII (1896) P 3 F Curnont, Texles .1 monum d. M,lk,a, vol I p 310, n 6 and recently Glsmger, Erdb."hr'lbung des Eudoxus (Lelp~lg, 1907) Since the creatIOn of the good God IS completed 10 6000 years, the ChnstIan fathers and philosophers of hIStory Identlfy thIS penod With the SIX days of creatIOn accord 109 to the MosaiC story • In the ongInal German edition of thiS work I tned to fix more accurately the probable pOSltlons of Zarathustra and Plato m the world-drama of Ira DIan rehglon SlIlce then my assertIOn that the assIgnment of Zarathustr... to a date 6,000 years before Plato Imphes some lOner conut-xlon between them, or rather h<'tween theIr pnnclples, has been largely taken up by onentallsts and IS perhaps generally accepted In View of recent IraDlan researches, howevLr, I now prefcr not to attempt the harmoDlzahol1 of the Greek and PersIan traditIOns slDce for my purpose the only Important thmg IS to estabhsh Ihe fact Ihat ~hortly after hIS dcath and evcn while he was still hvmg Plato was brought mto conneXlOn With Zarathustra and Wlth IraDlan teachmg about the struggle between the good pnnclple and the bad On Plato as the founder of a rellglOn, as Anstotle s altar-elegy regards hIm, see my artIcle' Anstotle's Verses m Pr,use of Plato. Th. ClaSSICal Qua,terlv, vol XXI (19:17), P 13

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stages m the world's Journey towards Its goal, the trIumph of the good The mam reason for asslgnmg Plmy's fragment to the first book of the dIalogue On Phllosophy IS that only ID thIs context can It be fully understood, but smce Rose mcluded It among the fragments of the spunous Maglcus-for no dIscoverable reason -It may be well expressly to dIsSIpate the shadow of Su"'plclOn that has thereby fallen upon It I PlIny did not get hIs mformatIon from the On the M agl of AplOn, as Rose unrea!lonably conjectures, but from the learned work of the !lame title by Henmppus, the follower of Calhmachus In the next hne he unmistakably mdlcates Hermlppus as hIs source, and expresses naive wonder at his WIde readmg 10 the ongmal texts, whICh IS very proper 10 VieW of his own lack of It It was not Phny but Hermlppus who consulted Eudoxus and Anstotle We may confirm thiS by companng the pas!lage With fragment 6, a statement about the Magi which IS defimtely known to belong to the first hou1. On Phllosophy Thl'i also comes from Hermlppus, and here agam he mentions EudoAus and Anstotle as hIS sources We give the two excerpt!:> ~lde by Side Plmy, Natural Hlstory, 30 3

DlOgenes Laertms I, Prologue 8

\Vlthout doubt It began With Zoroastu III PerSIa, d.S the authontIe~ agree It IS not so clear whether there was only one man of thiS name, or another one later on Eudoxus, who held It to be the most excellent and valuable of all phllosophlcal "ects, ,>ald that thiS Zoroa'itu lived SIX thousand yeax-~ befox-c the dCd.th of Plato Anstotle

A nstotle m the first book of hu dIalogue On PhIlosophy declax-es that the Magi are more ancient than the Egyptians, and further, that they believe III t\\O pnnclples, thc good splnt and the eVil 'pint, th(. one called Zeus or Orrnuzd, the othex- Hades or Ahnrnan ThLS IS (.onfirmed by Hermlppus m hiS first book about the Magi, Eudoxus in hiS Voyage I'ound the World, and

says the same

Hernl1ppus, who

1 Anst frg 34 Cf Rose, ArHt Pseudep'graphus, p 50 The reason why Rose assIgned the fx-agment to the Maglcus IS presumably that In DlOgene~ Laertlus (I I and 1 8) thl, wmk IS mentIOned as one ofAx-lStotle's m the Immediate contcxt of the quotatIOn fx-om On Philosophy about the Magi Precls{' exammatIon shows, however, that DlOgenes I" not followmg the same source In quoting each of the two works as Anstotle 5 The spunous lIfag1cus was ~pven as maln source by ~(,tlon and Hermodorus, for lhogenes mentIon> all three names both In I I-l ar
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wrote copIOusly about all that art, and commented on two mullon hnes wntten by Zoroa'Ster affixmg an Index to every book, 'Say!. that hi'S teacher \1 as ARonaLe" and that he hlm,elf lived five thou,,
Theopompus In the eighth book of his Phlltpplca

It IS eVIdent that Herrmppus used the same sources for both thesf' accounts of the Magi, namely the dialogue On PhzlosoPhy and the Voyage of Eudoxus He must have quoted them exactly earh hme DlOgenes preserves hiS quotatIon m full, but PlIny, as often, n<1mes only the authors Without the books Phny's fragment fib excellently With the theory of cycle,>, and With the chronological dl~cus'>lOns m the first book O,l Phzlosophy, which c,ontamed other ~tatcmcnts about the MagI, In future, therefore, It IS to be mcluded among the fragments of this dialogue The parallel posItIon of Plato and Zarathustra m the cycle does not gIve the ImpressIOn of havmg been Invented dunng Plato's bfe It was certamly not to be found m the Voyage of Eudoxus, who died long before him The ongmalIty of Eudoxus lay solely In puttmg Zarathustra •6,000 years ago' It was Anstotle who, led by hIS doctrIne of the penodiCal return of all human knowledge, first speCIfically connected thIS figure WIth the return of dualIsm, and thereby put Plato m a ...ettmg that corresponded to hIS profound reverence for hIm There can be no doubt that the dIalogue III whIch he thus dIrected the lIght of the centunes upon hIS master was wntten after the latter's death 2 I On the correct form of the name' Agonaces ' see Fr C Andreas m Reltzenstem, 'D.e Gotbn Psyche, Sltzungsbenchte der HeIdelberger Akadem.. der WlSsenschaften, PlulosophlSch-h.stonsche Klasse, vol Vlll (1917) Abh 10, P 'Ii On the s.glllficance of the above diSCUSSion of Anstotle's statements about Zarathustra s teachmg for the onent...l tradition and Its chronology see ReItzenstem-Schaeder Studun zum ant.ken Sy"kretls7llus aus Iran und Gruehellland (LClpZlg, 1926). P 3 • If PlIny's words' scx mllIbus olnnorum an te Platonls mortem' do not come from the mtermedlate source Herm'ppuS---lt IS true, as Eduard Fraenkel has pOInted out to me that In techmcal Lhronology . ante mortem ' sometimes means no more th...n ante ahquem '-but from Henmppus' authonty tbey can only be from ArIStotle, smce Eudoxus d."d before Plato (It.s .mposslble to follow GlSlnger op Cit P 5, n r m supposing on the bd.SIS of the passage In Phny that Eudoxus dlCd later than Plato) Merely on mternal grounds, however, It seems to me certam that such a companson could never have ar.sen

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The doctnne that truth returns at certam mtervals assumes that men are Incapable of permanently retammg It once It has been discovered It was not supposed, however, that humamty cannot maIntaIn Itself for long upon a high spmtuallevel, and for that reason contmually loses agam even truths that have been known for a long time The theory was that the traditIOn, and m fact cIvIlIzatIOn as a whole, IS penodlcally destroyed by vIOlent convulSIOns of nature In other words, Plato's doctnne of catastrophes was apphed to the hIstory of phl1osophy Bywater has given conVInCIng reasons for belIevIng that thiS doctnne occurred In Anstotle's dIalogues I In the T~maeus It IS !>uggested that all the more ancient traditions of the Greeks have been anmhllated by overwhelmmg natural events Such myths as those of Phaethon and of the flood are there Interpreted as traces of these events m human memory The same method of InterpretatIOn IS applIed to the oldest records of culture In the Laws, Just a~ Anstotle m the MetaphyslcS explams the stones of the Gods as remnants, distorted by tradItion, of an early stage of hIS own theory of the movers of the spheres 2 ThIS rationaliZIng procedure certaInly cannot have ongInated m Plato's ImagInative braIn It bears the stamp of loman SCIence, and presumably It comes from Eudoxus hlffiself, together wIth the theory of catastrophes Anstotle made free use of It In the M eteorolog~ca, for example, he argues from the mythical trd.dltlOn to the prehistoncal eXistence of the hypothesIs of ether, which as a matter of fact was mvented by hlffiself 3 On the other hand, Eudoxus IS certamly not the author of the VIew that all Intel· lectual thIngs recur ThiS, however, only brIngs out more clearly wlule Plato was stili ahve, and the same IS true of the attitude of the dIalogue as a whole to Plato and hIS phIlosophy I Bywolter (Jou~n of Phtlology, vol Vll, p 65) assIgn" to the On PhilOSOPhy portIOn" of PhIloponus In Nlcom a~lthm The theory of catadysms IS there connected WIth the growth of knowledge, and thiS IS an Idea that Anstotle took over from Plato and developed The form of the theory that Bywater analy,es IS, however, StOIC e~peclally the notIOn of the development of the arts and of the continual chan~e that thIS causes III the meanmg of 'wI!.dom' See my Nemeslos von Lmesa, QueUenforschungen zur GeschlChte des a1te~en Neuplatomsmus und zu pos..donlOS (Berhn, 1914), PP 124 if See also Gerhausser, Der ProtreptIllOs des Pos"donlos (HeIdelberg theSIS. 1912), pp 16 ff I Plato, Tlmaeus 22 A-C, C~ltlas 109 D ff, Laws III 677 A, Anst Metaph II 8, 1074 b 1-13 ] Meteor I J, 339 b 20 ff, De Gaelo I 3 270b 16 fI , De Ammal Mot 3, 699" 27. Pol VII 10, 1329b 25

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the effect of contemporary natural SCIence on men's thought about the hIstory of culture, on their use of the myths, and on theIr conceptIon of the human spmt, whIch, hke nature wIth her forces, IS ever bnngmg forth anew that whIch hes hIdden wIthIn Itself By representmg Plato In the first book as a man of the ages, out of the reach of every petty contradlchon, and as the culmmatIon of all prevIOus philosophy, Anstotle gave the proper perspective to the cntIcism that followed The second book was a destructIve cnhcl!>m of the Ideas The thIrd gave hIS own VIew of the world, It was a cosmology and a theology, hke the second, It took the form throughout of a cntIclsm of Plato, for the sImple reason that It was dependent on hlID at every step Its general content!> are de!>cnbed by the EpIcurean In CIcero's De Natura Dearum In essentIals Anstotle adopted the stellar theology of Plato's later days ThI:', It seemed to him, must be the pomt of departure for metaphySIC!> now that the theory of Forms had collap&ed P!ato conceived that behmd the Sidereal story of hIs loiter years there lay the supersenslble world of Ideas. of whIch the vIsIble heavens were a copy Anstotle. however, was concerned exclUSIvely wIth the cosmolOgical SIde of thIS dual world (So. though m a dlffert'nt manner, was that other pupil of Plato's, Pluhp of Opus. In the EpmamtS) In thiS way he became the r~_al founder of the cosmic rehglOn of the HellemstIc philosophers. whIch, emancIpated from popular behefs, sought Its obJects of worshIp solely In the heavenly bodies The threads connectIng on the one hand Anstotle's stellar rehglOn with the Academy. on the other StOIC theology wIth Anstotle's early Views, have not yet been laId bare In partIcular, the Importance of Anstotle In thiS conneXIOn has not been clearly recogmzed, because scholars have taken theIr start too exclUSively from the treatIses, whIch were totally unknown to the Hellemstlc age According to the unfavourable account m Cicero, whIch comes from some EpIcurean source also used by Phllodemus. anstotle In hIs thud book On Phllosophy declared now that God was mInd, now that he was the world, now that he was the ether. and now thdt he ",as some other being, to whom the world was subordInated. and who gUIded Its movement by a kmd of back\\ards turnmg (repllcahone quadam) 1 By applYing the dogma of J

Frg 26 (C1C D. Natuya D.oYlIm I 13. 33)

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the EpIcurean school the cntIc dIScovers gross contradIctIons In these statements. but, however superficIal his Judgement of them may be, the correctness of the account as such cannot be doubted The God to whom the world IS subordmated IS the transcendental unmoved mover, who guIdes the world as Its final cause, by reason of the perfectlOn of hIS pure thought ThIS JS the ongmal nucleus of AnstotelIan metaphysIcs BesIdes thIS, Anstotle descnbed the ether as a dIvme body, or as a more dIvme body, as he does m the treatises , ~ <::er~amly did not call It God 1 The dIvImty of the ether does not seem to fit very well wIth a stnct transcendental monotheIsm, but below the unmoved mover were the stargods, whose matter was ethereal There IS no real contradIctIon m the fact that Anstotle called now the world and now the ether God, I e first the whole and then the part . World' here does not mean what the EpIcurean takes It to mean It IS not the HellemstIc conceptlOn of the cosmos filled WIth hVIng creatures and contammg all thmgs, but the heavens, the mere penphery ThIS was the way m WhICh the old Academy used the word, as the Epmomts also shows In thIS work It IS saId to be mdIfferent whether we call the highest God, who IS the heaven, Uranus or Olympus or Cosmos In another passage we read that the truest descnptlon of hIm IS Cosmos 1 The mfluence of the later Plato on the dIalogue On Phtlosophy was not confined to termInology In the maIn features of theology, also, It corresponds almost perfectly With the Eptnomts It IS noteworthy that the_Epicurean, who IS lookmg for pomts of attack, says nothIng whatever about the fifty-five spheregods of the later metaphysIc~ In thIS dIalogue Anstotle obvlOusly had not yet adopted that VIew ThIS IS confirmed by a statement of Pseudo-PhIlo's m the work On the Etermty of the W orid Anstotle IS there saId to have Imputed terrIble atheIsm (1l.elvT,v &eeOTT]To) to the phIlosophers who declared that the world had a begmmng or an end, because I Cicero tra.nslates ' ether' by caeh ardor ThIS IS usual, and the descnptlon of It as dlvme IS further eVidence that what IS meant IS Anstotle's hypotheSIS of ether a~ the fifth element (cf CIC De Natura Deorum I 14, 37, ardof'em, qUI aether nomlnetUf', to whIch Pla.berg refers III commentmg on Our passage) Anstotle mu.t therefore have putforward the hypothesI. while he was still III the Academy It became fairly general there, though It suffered some excIsIons and modIficatIOns Its first presentatIOn to the pubhc was no doubt that In the On PhIlosophy • Ejnn 977 A, Band 987 B

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they thereby lInph~d that this great and vlSlble God (ToaOVTov 6pcrro\l 6e6v) was no better than a work made with hands He ~alled the cosmos a pantheon comprehendmg sun, moon, fixed stars, and planets He densively observed that, whereas formerly he had feared that hIS house mIght collapse only through tempest or old age or careless constructIOn, there was now a far greater danger unpendmg, If we belIeved the thmkers who destroyed the whole UnIverse m theIr statements I We recogmze the tone Where Anstotle IS attackmg the phYSICI5tS' VIew of the destructIOn of the world It IS bltmgly ~harp It IS dlstmctly mIlder dnd more respectful when he IS rejectIng Plato's account of creatIOn m the Tlmaeus-for that IS what ' a \\ork made WIth hands' refers to Here we have the same personal aIr as we found In the cntIcism of the Fonns m the second book The thIrd book too, as we learn from CIcero's account, was WrItten WIth polemIcal reference to Plato throughout ThiS must apply mamly to the doctnne that the world I~ eternal, for that was Anstotle's greatest mnovatlOn ,% and smce the passage doe,> not come from any of the eAI<;tIng treatIses, d.nd IS undoubtedly taken from a dialogue m VIew of Its !>tyle, the only source that can pOSSIbly be suggested for It IE. the dIalogue On Phllosophy It was thIS work, now lost but much read m d.ntIqmty, that contamed the two phIlosophical VIews then conSIdered most charactenstlc of An~totle the adoptIOn of the ether as the element of the heavens, and the assertIOn that the cosmos IS mdestructIble and uncreated The doxographers commonly mentIon the two together as hiS dlstmchve addItIons to Pldto'S cosmology, and thIS IS correct In spite of the divergence In details the doctnne of the dIalogue I~ stIll completely Platomc In ItS pOSItIve Views, and above all In the fUSIon of theology and astronomy The Laws IS the ongm of the accusatIOn of atheIsm agamst those whose astronomical VIews are unorthodox In that work Plato converted thIS SCIence, preVIOusly very atheistIcal, mto the essence of , Frg III Ps -PhIlo, De Ael Mundi 3. 10 (p 53 In Cohn-ReIter) • Frg 26 (eIC De Natura Deorum I 13 33) 'An~totele~que III tertia de phtlosophla libra Malta turbat a, magIstro suo Platone d.s;cnt.cns Ma,nutlus Inserted a non before dlSsfnllfns, and Rose follo,,~ Lambmu~ In adopting It but th,s glVeq an unacceptabll meamng ..nd Vahlen h.." ~hown that It IS also ~t) hstIcally ImpOSSIble (cf Plasberg, large ed.tion p 2Iil)

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theology 1 It agrees with Cicero's account that the above-mentIoned passage of Pseudo-PhIlo also uses the word' cosmos' In the sense of heaven For what IS the doctnne of the cosmos 'comprehending wlthm Itself' sun, moon, and stars, but a reflectIOn of the picture of the umverse In the T~maeus (30 D);> 'The Deity, Intendmg to make thiS world lIke the farrest and most perfect of intelligIble beings, framed one ViSible anlffial comprehendmg W'tthzn ztself all other anlffials of a kindred nature' It IS true that for Anstotle the heavens are no longer the VISible Image of the highest Form, 'Yhlch containS wlthm Itself all other Forms and the whole Intelhglble cosmos The world of Forms IS gone, and With It the demlUrge who made the VISible world on the pattern thereof But thiS only Increases the rehglOus and metaphysical dignity of the Image, I e of the heavenly bodies and of the cosmos Itself as the VISible unity of the world, the sole empmcal guarantees of Plato's demand that there should be something permanent and endunng m the flux of becoming The expresslOn 'vIsible God' IS Itself Platomc, and the companson of the heavens With a pantheon mcludIng all the partIcular gods, though the words may belong not to ArIStotle but to PhIlo, IS AnstotelIan In intentIon and reappears In the Epznomzs when the sky IS descnbed as Olympus z The old theory of Olympus gIVes place to the feehng that there IS dlvlmty In the cosmos, and the word thus symbohzes thiS deCISive change In the history of Greek rehglOn The stars are hvmg, rational beIngs, mhabltlng the cosmos In dlvme beauty and unchangeableness ThiS IS the theogony of Hellemstlc and late antiqUIty, and Plato stands at 1tS fountain-head In Anstotle's later metaphYSICS, as we know, the prmclple of the unmoved mover was no longer Isolated, a speCial transcendental mover was aSSigned to each of the spheres that produce the apparent progresslOns, retrogradatlOns, and stationary pomts, of the heavenly bodies Of thiS view there IS no trace In our dialogue The unmoved mover hovers above all other gods, Immatenal and separated from the world as pure Form The I Laws 821 D-822 c, 898 c, and 899 A The pact between astronomy and atheism IS dissolved In 967 A ff Z For the sky as Olympus see Ep,n 977 B for the stars as Images of the gods Within It see Ep,n 984 A

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umty of the world IS anchored In that Form The stars and the heavens, however, have souls wIthin them and follow their own Inner laws spontaneously and conscwusly This theory of Immanent star-souls excludes the other method of explanation The causes of the heavenly motions had long been discussed In the Academy In the Laws Plato mentions three hypotheses as reasonable, without defimtely deCiding In favour of anyone They are to be vahd for all heavenly bodIes without distinction Either we mu<;t thmk of the stars as bodIes WIth souls InsIde them (to Plato the ,;oulls the pnnclple of spontaneous movement), or the soul, not being inside the star, make,; Itself an external body of fire or aIr and thereWith propels the star, or finally the soul has no body at all, but guIdes the motion of the star 'by some extraordmary and wonderful power' I Plato's own theory IS probably that of the Immanent souls, for this fits best both with hIS view that the soul IS the pnnclple of all movement and with the plastic slmphclty and vltahzmg power of hiS thought He descnbes the second as 'the view of certam persons' (A6yOS TIVWV), presumably astronomers, one thmks of the spheres of Eudoxus, although he 1<; almost certamly too early to have beheved that the spheres had souls The bodIles~ soul of the third hypotheSIS IS obvIOusly a transcendental Form, movmg the star as final cause, as the beloved moves the lover It IS the pnnclple of the unmoved mover The wonderful power of which Plato speak<; may be Imagmed as SimIlar to the longmg of senSible thmgs for the Idea, or to ArIstotle's orexzs It Will presumably always remam ImpOSSible for us to determme \\
Laws X 898

E

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passage 10 Phuo, but above all from the ArIstotelIan arguments preserved by CIcero, whIch must now be exammed Accordmg to Plato one of the three hypotheses had to be true of all heavenly motIons wIthout dlstmctIon The fact that Anstotle combmes the first and the thIrd perhaps mdicates that he was not the ongmator of eIther In the second book of hIs work on the Gods CIcero gIves us proofs of theIr eXIstence from Cleanthes, from Chryslppus, from Xenophon, and several from Anstotle, whIch he obVIOusly obtamed not from hIS own read 109 but from a ready-made collectIon I Many of the arguments sImply repeat what has already been saId Even the collectIOn Itself did not denve everythmg from the ongmals, any more than Sextus, who also made a collection of arguments for the eXIstence of Gods, largely SImIlar to thIS one m content 2 Hence Cicero's account must be used crItIcally Nevertheless, It IS authentic 10 essence Both pomts can be demonstrated from the very first argument All elements gIve rIse to lIvmg thmgs, earth to some, water to others, aIr to others Hence It seem" absurd to Anstotle to !>uppose that there are no lIvmg thmgs m the element that by Its punty and power of movement IS most sUited for their production, namely the ether Now In the regIOn of the ether we find the stars Presumably, therefore, the "tar'> are lIvmg bemgs of keen mtelligence and extremely rapid motion ThiS argument has been correctly assigned to the dIalogue On Ph~losophy, but It cannot have appeared there m ItS present form We have seen that m that work An"totle was already mamtammg the doctrme of ether as a fifth element The argument preserved by CIcero presupposes only four It cannot belong to a penad pnor to the mtroductIOn of the fifth, and therefore cannot be assigned to any earlIer work of Anstotle's, It IS an adaptatIon of hIS argument to the StOIC theory of the elements, the latter bemg a compromise between the tradItional and the AnstotelIan View, by which fire and ether were regarded as a smgle element The only thmg that CIcero's StOIC authonty correctly reproduces IS the formal analOgical nature of the reasomng Anstotle began With the umversal valIdity of the 2)

I CIC De Natura Deorum II '5. 4 2-.f<j (partly reproduced In Rose as frgs and 24) • Sext Emp Adv Phys I 49

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propOSItion that there are hvmg thmgs m every element of whIch we can have expenence From thIS he mferred that there are also hvmg bemgs m the ether, although that element IS not dIrectly open to SCIentIfic mquIry The angInal sense of the argument must therefore have been thIS smce It can be demonstrated that hvmg thmgs occur In all the elements, some In earth, others 10 water, others m aIr, still others In fire, there must certamly be some 10 the ether as well, now the stars are m the ether, therefore they are hvmg thmgs ThIS was suggested by the TJmaeus (39 E), where the four elements are peopled wIth as many kmds of dlvme beIng The EpmomJs takes account of thIS theory of ether, whIch had appeared 10 the meantime, by assummg five kmds of elemental God mstead of the four of the Ttmaeus, but the author shows, by the mere order m whIch he puts the elements, that hIS mtentIon IS not to follow Anstotle ImphCltly, but to make a conservative adaptatIOn of ills hypotheSIS to that of the TJmaeus Accordmg to Anstotle ether takes the hIghest place 10 the world, then follow fire, aIr, water, earth PhIhp retams fire m the hIghest pOSItion, then follow ether and aIr, then water and earth, thus the only change m Plato's doctnne IS that 10 the place of aIr, the hIghest and purest level of WhICh had already been called ether by Plato hImself,I we have two separate elements 2 Thus the Epmomts, whIle outwardly assImIlatmg the theory of ether, Intentionally evades the really essentIal element 10 the Idea Anstotle's argument, unlIke Plato's, IS not meant to demonstrate the eXIstence of any mytillcally conceIved gods or SpIrIts It IS mtended to be a stnctly empmcal proof, and as such It presupposes that Anstotle thought he could empIrIcally demonstrate the eXIstence of hIS fireammals As late as the Htstorta Ammaltum he was stIll 10I Ploaedo 109 B. Tim 58 D • The po5.ltJon of the five elements In the world IS given In Epm 984 D if In 981 c the ether IS called the . fifth body' ThiS IS the Anstotehan expression but here It means merely the fifth and last body to be discovered, not that whIch IS farthest away from the earth That the ether was called the 'fifth body' or the 'fifth substance' In the On Phdosophy follo~s from the fact that the doxographers ",hose source IS always thiS dialogue. UnIversally employ thIS mode of refernng to the specI6cally Anstotellan view In the treatises It IS the 'tint body The EP.nomzs 15 the earhest of the many works to which the Oft PJlIlosophy gave the expressIon' fifth body' • there are also numerous other respects In WhICh It IS dependent on It SInce Isocrates (V 12) mentions the Laws In the year 346. Anstotle's dialogue must have appeared In 348/7

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terested In Insects that were supposed to fly through fire wIthout being damaged, and speaks of observatIons made upon such creatures m Cyprus I The most sIgnIficant passage, however, IS one In Apulems, not mcluded m the collectIOn of fragments, where the doctnne of .fuebom anImals' IS expressly attnbuted to ArIstotle It will be worth whIle to look closely at thIS passage, not for the sake of the mIraculous fire-dwellers, but for the tram of thought that they enable us to follow In hIS \\-ork on Socrates' dlvme SIgn ApulelUs has an argument superficIally sImIlar to ArIstotle's, but actually qUIte dIfferent both In purpose and m premIsses Smce there are hvmg bemgs In the earth and the water, and smce In fire (as ArIstotle says) there are creatures that are born m thI>, element and remam m It contInually, and smce lastly there are also hvmg thmgs m the ether, namely the stars-whose possessIOn of souls had m the meanwhIle become such an establIshed dogma that It could be treated as a matter of expenence-It follows that there are hVIng thmgs In the aIT, too, although they are InvlSlble, namely the spmts of the aIr 2 The only AristotelIan elements m thIS argument are those WhICh Apulems, follOWIng hiS source, dIrectly attnbutes to Anstotle, that IS to say, the fire-anImals That It was not Apulems but hIS authonty who remodelled the argument IS shown by several passages In PhIlo, where the same Inference occurs wIth the same emphasis on the proof of the eXIstence of spmts In the aIr, i e dngels PhIlo remarks, also parenthetIcally, that these fire-anllnals are to be found In Macedoma, that IS to say, he avoids lettIng hIS readers know of hiS heathen source, and names the country Instead of the man J ThIs correspondence between two authors WIdely separated m hme shows that some StOlC phIlosopher, hVIng before the days of ChnstIamty or of PhIlo, changed the real AristotelIan argument from a proof of the dIvImty of the cosmos Into a proof of the eXistence of angels The two forms are completely and hopelessly confused In the parallel passage of Sextus 4 J Hlst An V 19. 552b 10 , • Apul De Deo SacI' VIII 137. P 15. I 12. In Thomas , Philo De Glg 2 7-8. De Plantat 3 12. De Samn I 2l.135 In the last passage he omits the fire-antmals In the altered form of the argument they were really only a nUIsance • Sext Emp Adv Phys I B6. P 410, I 26 It 15 there IOferred both that

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Without further mqUIry concernmg the author of this alterahon, we may content ourselves with the conclUSIOn which alone IS important for the argument preserved by Cicero, namely that It ongmally mcluded the fire-ammals and the five elements, and that these were afterwards suppressed by CIcero's StOIC authonty 1 In any case the fire-ammals and the whole argument must come from a dialogue It IS ImpOSSible to refer the passage m ApulelUs to the msects that are said to fly through fire m the HtstoTla Ammahum, although this IS done by the commentators, because the essentIal pomt, whIch IS reqUIred for the argument In On Phtlosophy, namely that the ammals are born In fire and lIve their whole hIe m It, occurs only m Apulems and PhIlo, and not m the Htstorta Ammahum The passage comes from the work that Hellemc;hc phIlosophers and doxographero. used more than any other wntmg of Anstotle's there are splnts In the au and that the stars have souls The An~totehan and the ange1010glLal argument~ have been confused J The ~ource of the argument In Philo and Apulelu~ IS obvIous at first glance In remodelling Anstotle's argument In order to obtam a proof of the eXI~tence of spmts m the air the author "a~ follo"lng Ep,nomls 984 D ff where the eXistence of star-souls IS assumed, and that of aery bemg, I~ demonstrated An~totlc on the contrary, must hav(' meant by the aery bemg' certam d.n,mals known to expenence smce otherWise hl~ analogy breaks down Presumably he meant the bird, If so, It fits excellently that ApulelUs' authonty opposes thIs very supposItion 1D detail He nghtly remark, that buds ar.. 't, rrestnal aDimal. Moreover, they occupy only the lower regIOn of the aIr No bud can fly over Olympus (he gives mathematical measurements of ItS height, but the lIumber of the stades has unfortunately dIsappeared from the manuscnpts) whereas the atmosphere stretches far above It 'from the lowest tummg~ of the moon to the highest peak of Olympus This region cannot be wholly WIthout mhabltants Furthermore, the d.uthor, m order to obtam the four StOIC elements IDstead of Anstotle's five regards the fire-ammals and the .tars as both fire-dwellers HI' only conceSSlOll to Anstotle IS to separate the ether, not as a distInct element but merely as the purest upper level of fire ThIS baroque mIXture of angelology, empmcal observation, and exact SCientific thmklng corresponds to my Idea of Po"donlu~ who ha~ already been suggested as Apulelus' source by Rathke (De Apulel quem scnpslt de deo Socm!ls hbello, p 32 thC~IS, Berlm, 1911) Rathke has faJled to observe, however, that PosldonlUs makes use of the dIalogue On P1nlosophy In hiS argument and comblOes It With the Ep,nonus ReInhardt's line book on Posldonlus (Mumch ]921) seems to me far too sceptical about the rehglOus and mythIcal element In hIS thought, for Instance, It wrongly demes that he beheved m fire-ammals }.lowadays "e underestimate the mfiuence of the old Academy and of the early AnstotIe on PosldonlUs and the StOICS m general The fact that In Do:>;ograph, 432 4, only four kInds of hvmg thing are ascnbed both to Plato lind to Anstotl~ IS merely one of the many confUSIons of that textbook-WIsdom (ef Dlels 10 the Proleg , p 64)

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It IS also possIble to show how the angInal form of the argument mfluenced the literature evoked by On Ph~losophy about the eternIty of the world We can follow step by step the process by whIch thIS lIterature obtaIned ItS weapons from the armoury of thIS dialogue We have already mentIoned In thiS conneXlOn the work traditIonally attnbuted to PhIlo on the etermty of the world, WhICh uses not merely Anstotle but also other good PenpatetIc authors lIke Theophrastus and Cntolaus SInce the appearance of Anstotle's book the StOICS had come forward With their doctrIne that the world IS continually destroyed and regenerated, and the PenpatetIc VIew reqUIred to be defended agaInst the counter-arguments of the Porch Because of thiS element In the author, who lIved at about the begmnmg of the ChnstIan era and shared the contemporary tendency to harmomze Plato and Anstotle, the form of the arguments, whIch he uses WIthout mentIomng theIr ongmator, has been greatly altered, and we are by no means Justified In ascnbIng to Anstotle everythmg that IS Included among the fragments On the other hand, Just as Rose omits the fire-ammals 10 Apulems and Philo. so 10 the present work he omits an argument WhICh. whIle not Itself AnstotelIan, IS nevertheless formulated 10 words borrowed from Anstotle's . zoogomc' argument-to use the expreSSIOn 10 the Epznomls Whereas, accordIng to our hypotheSIS, Anstotle argued by analogy from the IIvmg creatures 10 the known elements to the eXIstence of star-souls 10 the ether. Pseudo-PhIlo presupposes thiS and converts the argument mto one agamst the transltonness of the world If all the hvmg creatures that maIntam themselves 10 the regIOns of the vanous elements are one day to disappear, both those on the earth and those 10 the water and those m the air and those 10 fire (lTVplyova). It follows by analogy (KaT' OvaAoylav) that the heavens also, the sun, the moon, and all the stars (1 e the IIvmg thmgs In the ether). are dedicated to destructIon ThIS, however, conflicts With theIr dIVInity, With WhICh theIr etermty stands or falls I It IS ObVIOUS that we have here a conflatlOn of two claSSIC arguments from Anstotle On Phzlosophy HIS mference from the dlvlmty of the heaven to Its etermty I'> mechamcally applIed to all celestial bodIes (By a verbal umtatlOn of the passage m I

Pseudo-PhIlo, De -tel MundI 14 45.

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which he called the heaven' this great vIsible God'i they are descnbed as . this great and blessed anny of vIsible Gods acknowledged of old', 6 T0C10Vr~ alCT6T]Twv 6ewv eV2Iall.loov TO TTOAal vOI.lIcr6els CTTpaTOs) With thIS the author conflates the zoogomc argument If In the four known elements all IIvmg things pass away, they must do so In the ether also, by analogy The logiC, which IS decidedly not hiS strong POInt, IS not Improved by the change It IS In fact an empty verbalIsm and a mere tnJ1sm, Incomprehensible until we see that he IS attemptmg to carve something apparently new and ongmal out of the famous arguments of hiS source To US, however, he does the serVIce of confinmng the occurrence of the fire-ammals, the five elements, and the mference from analogy, In the AnstotelIan clrgument that we have recovered by examinIng Cicero HIS testimony IS all the weightier because In other parts of hiS work, where he IS obVIOusly USIng a StOIC source, he recognIZes only four elements Z In order to separate the ongInal from the subsequent additIons and alterations, It has been necessary to go mto the hlstoncal effects of the dialogue With regard to those arguments for the diVInIty of the stars WhICh are next cited by Cicero, and whIch seem to be closely connected With the prevIOus one, the problem of dlstmgUlshmg the ongInal from the accretIOns and distortIOns has recently been raised for the first tIme It has been suggested that only the last argument (§ 44), which Indeed IS expressly descnbed as such, IS Anstotellan J Stnctly taken, ItS opemng words ('Nec vero Anstoteles non laudandus est In eo, quod ') Imply that the preceding ones also belong to hIm, but In case of necessity It IS poSSible to understand them as referrmg back to the first, which was expressly ascnbed to hIm The mtermedlate matter would then belong to another author, and be Inserted here merely because of ItS sImIlanty to Anstotle's arguments It IS thought that Posldomus' theory of heat can be detected In It, and certaInly, In View of what has been saId m connexlOn WIth the first argument, the pOSSIbility of StOIC colounng cannot be excluded The vanous arguments I Frg 18 • Pseudo-PhL1o, De Ael MundJ

J

II

:Z9

K Remhardt, PoseldOfllos. PP :Z28 ff

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form such a connected and significant senes, however, that we ought not to tear them apart unless we have to The tram of thought IS as follows SInce all the other elements contaIn hfe the ether must do so too Hence the stars that we see there must be hVIng thmgs, and, In keepIng with the fineness and moblhty of the ether, they must be of the highest Intelhgence and veloCity To extend this relation between the elements and the character of the bemgs hVIng In them, the relation between the mtellectual qualIty of the stars and the Vital powers of the ether IS parallel to that between the mtelligence and temperament of man and the food-supply and chmatIC conditIons of his dwellmg-place Where the air IS pure and thm the Inhabitants are more mtelligent and thmk more keenly and qUIckly than those who hve In a thick and heavy atmosphere The same appbes even to the effects of hght and heavy foods on the human mmd Smce therefore they hve 10 the regIOn of the ether, whIch IS the finest of all elements, and smce they are nounshed by the exhalatIOns of earth and sea, which are reduced to extreme thmness as they traverse the great Intervemng space, the stars must possess Intelbgence of the highest sort The correctness of thiS mference IS confirmed by a fact of external expenence-the mVlOlable order and regulanty of their motIons ThiS cannot be the product of Nature, SInce Nature does not behave lIke a conscIOus ratIOnal bemg, nor can It be explaIned by chance, for Incalculablhty and merely average results exclude constancy and design It must therefore be the result of a conscIous IntentIOn and an mner purpose With the final argument thiS tram of thought culmInates In the demonstrabvn that, as their order and constancy Imply reason and purpose, so the clTculanty of therr motion Imphes effective free Will, smce the natural movement of bodies IS always 10 a straight hne upwards or downwards, and Sln<.e no overruhng external force IS present here In the first argument Cicero expressly ascnbes to Aristotle the statement that, SInce hvmg thmgs occur m all the other elements, It IS absurd to suppose that they do not also occur m the ether, whIch IS •most sUItable' of all 'to beget ammate thmgs' Accordmg to Anstotle the pneuma of hfe IS analogous to the element of the stars, which contaInS In ItS purest form the ht:at that IS

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essenhal to lIfe' In thIs argument the vltahsm of the (professedly StOIC) doctrIne of heat 15 denved from ArIstotle's doctnne of the pneuma, whIch was the hlstoncal genn of the StOIC vIew The theory that the stars are moved by souls IS carefully developed to ItS farthest consequences The senousness wIth whIch the argument takes Plato's semI-mythIcal VIew, and Its consClentIous apphcatlOn of the categorIes of psychology, zoology, and phySICS, show that Its author IS the early ArIstotle He IS too respectful and dogmatic to doubt the correctness of the VIew, but the more serIously he takes It, and the more acutely he presses It, the qUIcker he will outgrow It Plato, agam, 1<; responsIble for the theory that clImate and dIet lllfluence man's body and mmd, and the expressIOn of It here 15 verbally slmuar to a passage of the Laws The Epmom~s, also, detects a causal conneXlOn between the matenal constItutIon of earthly creatures and the IrratIonahty and dlsorderlmess of theIr motIOns, and between the ethereal matter of the stars and theIr phySIcal beauty and spmtual perfectIon EIther thIS reflects the general AcademIc VIew, or It IS borrowed from ArIstotle's work, whIch appeared Just pnor to the Epmom~s 2 The dialogue On Ph~losophy carrIes out the analogy III more detad The stars dre surrounded by the purest atmosphere Their food IS the fine exhalatIOns of earth and sea-Anstotle here uses thIS old physlCal doctnne to support hIS view of the heavenly bemgs and their phySIOlogical processes, later he abandoned It From thiS dialogue Cleanthes took It over, together with all the rest of Anstotle's early theology, and made It at home III the StOIC school J I De Grn An II 3 736b 29 .II • Laws V 747 D Eptn 981 K , In MeteOt' II 2, 354 b 33 ff ATlstotie oppose~ th.. phySICists theory that the sun feeds on the exhalabon~ of the sea The theory must have been qUite old, .mc.. on th.. ba.. ~ of It some phySICIsts naively explamed the solstice as a change of pasture Though Anstotle Inlght smile at thiS anthropomorphic account, the general theory was qUite Lonsonant with hIS own vIew that the hot feeds on the wet (e g Metaph A 3 983b 23) When he objects that the support.... of the theory ought to have proVIded, not merely for the sun, but also for the star~ (Jjj" 19) that IS slmp)y the consequem,e that he hlJnself had formerly developed m the dialogue On Phtlosophy lIeanthes took It over from thiS work (CIC Nat Deorum II 15. iO Armm frg 504) He al<;o appropnated the explanation of the M>lstlce (Nat Deorum. III 14 37 Armm frg JOI) In LOmpanSOn with the level attamed by Anstotle StOIC phy51CS presenb many example5 of thl. sort of ataVism, namely the conflabon of Anstotle s early c<>smologlLal theology With Pre-Anstoteltan theones

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The E p'mom~s also contaInS the argument for the eXIStence of star-souls from the regulanty of the heavenly motIOns, at somewhat greater length but wIth less dialectical power, and here as In Anstotle It IS dIrectly connected with the •zoogomc' argument ThIS hItherto unnotIced correspondence oblIges us to mfer that Philip and Anstotle both glVe the ruhng AcademIc doctnne I Anstotle's formulatlOn of It was dIrectly suggested by Plato In the Laws, at the begmmng of the argument that the stars have souls, we read that some say •that all thIngs do become, have become, and will become, some by nature, some by art, and some by chance' The elements and' the bodIes whIch come next m order--earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-' . all eXIst by nature and chance, and none of them by art " for they are totally and absolutely WIthout soul 2 The phySICI'itS whom Plato IS attackmg meant by nature the same as Anstotle m these arguments (for he IS here usmg their tnchotomy cmd refutmg them WIth theIr own weapons), namely an aggregatIOn of matter WIthout mInd or soul Plato, on the contrary, makes the soul the chIef prIncIple of becommg, and hence demands a new conceptIOn of nature 3 There are, however, countless passagee; m Anstotle where thIS lower conceptIon of nature, haVIng once become famIlIar to lum, IS used WIthout hesitatIon, m the very next argument, for example, the tendency of fire and aIr to go upwards, and of earth and water to go downwards, IS saId to be a natural movement The diVISIOn of all becomIng mto natural, fortUItous, and IntentIOnal, also occurs In hIS Protreptzeus The method of the argument, namely the estdbhshment of one pOSSIbIlIty by the elImmatIOn of all other'>, IS connected WIth Plato's later dialectIc of dIVISIon, and IS charactenstIc of Anstotle The same method IS used In the last argument, a refinement of the prevIOUS one, WhICh IS expressly stated to come from Anstotle All motIon IS produced eIther by nature or by force or by free will So far as It IS natural, the motion of bodIes IS always m a straIght Ime upwards or downwards, and not CIrcular lIke the motion of the heavenly bodIes Nor can thiS CIrcular motIOn be explamed by external force, for what force can be greater than that of those bodIes themselves;l The only I

Eptn, 982 fI

1

Laws X 888 E ff

I

Laws X 892

C,

891

C

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remaining possIbIhty IS motion by free wIll For thI'> lOference too there IS a parallel 10 the Epmomf,s, where mentIOn IS made of a most perfect delIberatIOn (6:plC"TTJ ~OUAEu(n5) on the part of the star-souls I ThIS IS the ground of the unalterable necessity that guIdes the revolutIOns of the stars TheIr perfectlOn conSISts In the fact that the CIrcular path, whIch the star-soul at the same tIme contemplates and wIlls, IS the Ideal mathematical form ThIS act of will can never alter, because all true perfection excludes the tendency to detenorate Thus the law that the soul of the star Imposes on ItS matter necessanly lOvolves that the star has free will, SInce WIthout thIS there could be no reflectIOn WIth a VIew to action z To thIS extent Anstotle's notion of free WIll IS the exact complement of the notIOn of most perfect dehberatIOn In the Epmomf,s, they are adjacent elements In a smgle thought-constructIOn J The doctnne that the stars move of theIr own free will, belOg an ObVIOUS contradIction of Anstotle's later VIews, has compelled those who deny hIS development to Institute the most desperate ad-hoc conjectures It IS saId that CIcero has SImply grossly mIsunderstood hIS authOrIty 4 It IS not worth whIle to refute these extravagances 10 detaIl, our analySIS of the theory of star-souls seems to have made It clear that, even If thIS mtermedlate stage m AnstotJe's development were not so unquestionably recorded, we should be practically oblIged to reconstruct It a pnon In all ItS parts The last argument also throws much lIght on the anglO of I Lpnl 982 C • Eptn 982 B , The motIon of the stars can be due to free wIll only If It rests on conscIous pUlJlose (1Tpoa!pEaIS) The latter, however, IS . delIberatIve desIre' and therefore presupposes delIberatIOn (Eth N<e III 5) In 1112" 2 I Anstotle expressly demes that there can be delIberatIon about thmgs eternal Thus he rejects hl~ earlIer doctnne that the stars have WIlls In hIS later penod the only remnant of the old vIew IS the use of the word' actIon' (1TpanoIV) 10 connexlon WIth the heavenly motIons ThIS early doctnne that the stars have conSCIOUS wI.1ls must not be confused '\\Ith the View that God, as the final cause moves the world by means of the deSIre WIth whIch all thlDg~ stnve towards hlnl (cf Zeller, vol 11 2', P 375, n 3) The latter IDvolves neither that matter 15 an 10dependent pnnclple of acbon whIch stnves towards Form, nor that all tlung~ mcludmg the morgamc world possess souls Accordmg to Anstotle everythmg seeks to perform ItS funchon perfectly, and that IS ItS good (Ka1.ov) Because of thIS It I~ connected Wlth everythmK else (cf Metaph "10,1075.16, all thmgs are ordered together somehow') The conneXIon of all thIngs With each other IS the order (T6I;.S) of the world, whose' end' IS God, the most perfect hemg Thus every tlung seeks God In so far as It realIzes Its own •end 4 Demays, D~e Ina/oge de5 Anstohle5, p 104

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Anstotle's celestIal physIcs, I e hIS doctnne of ether Were It not that we have already proved It, It might be doubted whether 10 thIS dialogue the ether was assumed wIthout demonstratIOn, on the ground that he here reckons as •natural' only the motIOns of heavy bodies downwards and of hght ones upwards In a straIght hne, whereas he denves the CIrcular mohon of the stars not from theIr matenal constItutIOn but from their free will ContranwIse, he tells us In the De Caelo that there are five elements and a speCial kmd of motIon IS natural to each of them, motIon downwards to water and earth, upwards to fire and aIr, and In a CIrcle to ether I He expressly calls the latter the body that moves In a CIrcle, thus makmg this an essentIal property of It Here agaIn those who deny hIS development are dnven to the desperate expedIent of reducmg the account m the dIalogue On Ph~losophy to mere poetry ,z but the arguments are far too acute and senous for that, and apparently It has escaped notIce that the two VIews are mutually exclUSIve The denvatIOn of CIrcular motIon from the matenal nature of the ether reveals the mtentIon to explam all phenomena of movement whatever by the natural laws of matter, but thiS can be done only by means of a double phySICS, one terrestnal and the other cosmiC, the latter bemg exempt from the former's law of graVItatIon !he doubleentry book-keepmg thus establIshed was not abolIshed agam untIl modern phySICS At any rate It was a SCIentific IrnproveI De Caelo I 2-3 • Bemays (op CIt, p 104) was unable to conceive how Anstotle m thiS dialogue could have so utterly repudIated the fundamentals of hiS cosmology (presumably thiS means the derivatIOn of all becomIn~ from natural' causes), and could have so unhe"tatIn~ly accepted •the vulgarly anthropomorphic deificatIOn of the heavenly bodies' Such a misconceptIon was poSSible only at a tIme when Illsufficlent attentIon was paId to Plato's Laws and to the Epmom.s, before the effect of Zeller's rejectIon of the former had altogether ceased Plato's doctnne of star-souls has DothlDg to do With the naIve popular belief In Hellos and Selene To denve the Circular motion of star, and sky from an Immatenal cause was the most natural thmg for a PlatoDlst Slllce Plato thou/:ht of Nu~ as a Circular movement, and smce the new dl'l.overy of the regularIty and s1lllphclty of the heavenly motIons favoured the suggestIon that they were produced by a mathematIcal mtelligence, cf Plat T.m 34 A, 37 c and often AccordlDg to the T.maeus Nus and NeceSSity diVIded the creatIon of the cosmos between them (47 E) In De An I 3, 406b 26 ff • ArIstotle attacks III de tau the doctnne of the contlDuouS CIrcular motIOn of Nus W,th hIS abandonment of tlus PlatonIC View, and WIth hiS change In the nobon of the psychological functloll1ng of Nus, there mevltably followed the fall of the theory of Immanent star-souls

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ment on the procedure of the Academy and of Anstotle In his early years, which had gIven an anthropomorphic account of the relation between the mathematical law and. the Inert matter of the stars by Introducmg psychophysical analogies-the EjnnomJS even ascnbed leglslahve funchons to the will of the stars 1 We now see that the ongInal purpose of the ether must have been somethmg other than to denve the celeshal motions from the nature of the matter of the stars, smce It was already In eXistence as a hypothesIs before It was endowed with the attnbute of circular motion What first gave nse to It was ObvIOusly the new and preCise calculations, undertaken by the school of Eudoxus and by Phlhp of Opus, about the size and distance of sun, moon, and the other heavenly bodies These calculations rendered untenable the old physical doctrme that the upper heavens and the stars are composed wholly of fire, m VIew of the smallness of the earth and the mfimte extent of the UnIverse there was no longer any proportlOn between the quantity of fire and the other elements, and In fact It would have com.umed them all Thus the new dtscovenes upset the theory of the mutatIOn of the elements and thereby removed one of the foundatlOns of contemporary cosmology z Later on Anstotle used his hypothesIs to construct a cosmic physICS without starsouls or mythical additions We now have the later view fully developed In the first book of the De Caeto, which makes an Impressive beginnmg \\'lth the new doctnne, It IS not too rash, however, to assert that thiS lecture has undergone later alterahons, and that m ItS angInal form It belongs to the penod when the notion of ether was new In favour of thiS It may be said that m content It IS concerned almost entirely with Plato's later cosmology and cntIclzes that alone, that parts of It are still qUIte theological m colounng, and that large portIOns are taken over verbatim from the third book of the dialogue On PhJlosophy The doctnne of the star-gods and of the dlvlmty of the cosmo') (I e the sky). whIch received ItS first complete statement m thIs dialogue of ArIStotle's, constitutes, together with Plato's cosmology as a whole, the permanent expressIOn of the great IntelI Ep.., 982 B. . the necessity which belongs to the soul whtch possesses Intelhgence legtslates as ruhng and not as ruled ' , Anst Meteor I 3. 339 b .. fI • esp 3,\0' I fi

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ISS

lectua! stunulus gIven to the phllosoplucal world of the fourth century by the new astronomical dlscovenes The hypotheslS that the planetary motions are clI'cular and perfectly orderly, and that the ongma! configuration of the whole heavens penodlcally returns when the Great Year l IS complete, threw the mo~t astomshmg I1ght on Plato's fundamental prmclple that the matenal phenomena of the sensIble world are controlled by mmd and order, and opened up fruitful relatIOns between phllosophy and the study of facts The first attempt to Illustrate on d. grand scale the' rule of reason' over matter was the doctrme of star-souls ThIS went far beyond the needs of mere natural SClence, but Its myth of the soul opened up unsuspected opportumties for the constructIOn of a Weltanschauung It IS clear that to Plato the Important part of the doctnne was Its mythIcal and spmtuahstlc element Its appeal to the early Anstotle, on the other hand, rested on the fact that speculation, whose 10;,oluble problems the human mmd cannot perpetually aVOId, could here base Itself on sol1d empmcal facts, even If they were fd.cts that admitted of more than one explanatIon Thus, whlle the views of both comclde 10 content, Anstotle's close-kmt argumentatIOn breathes a new sCIentific splnt, accordmg to which all myths, however overflowmg with emotIOnal values, are Simply materIal for methodical mqUiry ThiS spmt reveals Itself most clearly 10 hiS posItIvely msatIable deSire for proof If we compare the account 10 the Ep'momH, where Plato's doctnne IS swallowed dogmatically and full rem given to the taste for edificatlon and rehglOus mystery, we percelw stlll more clearly that, 10 deahng With the Platomc myth, the chOICe lay between scholastiCism on the one hand and cntIcal SCIence on the other Plato himself understood himself 10 thiS way, and gave hiS puplb the nght to apply thiS reahstIc measure to himself, when he mtroduced hiS myth as one of several pOSSible hypotheses z But what great thmker ever understood hilllself correctly ~ The old controversy whether Anstotle understood Plato shows a The' Great Year' IS mentIoned In Anst frg 25 Rose can scarcely be nght, ID lDcludlDg thIS among the frdgments of On Ph.losophy, MnLe T J.CltuS (D.al 16, 10 ff) tells u\ that It wa~ referred to m CIcero's H ortenSJus CIcero took It presumably from the mam source, whIch wa~ Anstotle's ProIreptzeus, but v,lth thIS question we are not concerned , Plato, Laws X 898 E I

hov,e~er,

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complete lack of comprehension He appears to stand upon the same ground and wrestle with Plato for better inSight, but lus VictOry consIsts not In refutmg hlffi but In Impressmg the stamp of hiS own nature on everythmg PlatOniC that he touches The same IS true of the second mam diVision of the dialogue, namely the phllosophy of rehglOn, for In thiS work Anstotle founded not merely HellenistIc theology,I but also that sympathetIc but at the same tlffie obJective study of the Inner religiOUS Ute for which antiquity had no name and no lOdependent diSCIpline apart from metaphySICS It did not VindIcate It!> mdependence untll the modern age gave It the name of 'phlloc;ophy of rehglOn' ThiS IS another aspect of the early Anstotle which. m spite of ItS lOestImable Importance for the history of the human mmd, has been overlooked or Ignored down to the present day-perhaps because the conventional pIcture of him (as a purely mtellectuallst metaphySICIan) mIght have been dIsturbed If It had appeared that hIS dIalectIcal operatIOns were msprred from wIthin by a lIvmg relIgIOn, with which all the members of the logical organism of hIS philosophy were penetrated and Informed The history of the phIlosophy of religIOn, In the modem sense of the phrase, begms wIth the sophists and theIr first great attempts to gIve a psychological explanatIon of It~ nature and ongm Rationalism, however, can never advance more than a lIttle way along thiS road, because It lacks the organ I What he worked out under thIS name as an mdependent dlsclphne derIves mdeed In content from the later form of Plato", general vIew of the world but hIS foundation of a separate dlscJphne mdlcates an JDtense concentration of the ~PIl"Jt on the problem of God, whJch was somethmg entIrely new and had an epoch-makIng SIgnIficance for HellenIstic philosophY The StOIC theology developed the Anstotehan It IS true that owmg to ItS monIstIc tendency Jt abandoned ArIstotle's transcendent God, but COlDcldence of contcnt IS not the decISIve thmg 10 the e\aluatlon of hIS mfluence \Vll.at IS deciSIve IS the whole lOner attitude of the new age towards the problem of theology, and the poSJtIon aSSigned to It In the ~ ery centre of philosophy In content Anstotle's theolaI:)', With Its sharp dIstinctIon bet"een the hIghest God and the star-gods dId not exert Its full Influence until the begmmng of the ChrIstian era ThIS age demanded a. deus exsvpera..tus....us. who, unseen, gUIdes the world from a subluoely dIStant thTOne, hJgh above the courses of tbe stars Anstotle then began to have a strong effect on contemporary PlatoDlsm. hiS view was combmed sometlme~ With Onental rehglOus behefs, and sometuoes WIth tht' 50called negative theology, whIch WdS the clunax of relIgiOUS expenence In the Hellemsbc East, whether pagan or ChrIstian

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by whIch the phenomena of the relIgIous lIfe are properly percelved, and hence the philosophy of relIgIOn dId not enter on ItS classIcal perIod until the tlITle of the early Anstotle and the Academy In the later days of Plato Here were supphed the two condItIons essentIal for a study at once psychologIcally penetratmg and rehglously productIve-on the one hand Increased theoretIcal InsIght Into all the phenomena of the SpInt, on the other hand a pIety, arIsmg out at Plato's power of constructIng myths and symbols, whIch opened fresh sources of relIgIOus msplratlOn to a commumty Imbued WIth a new feelIng for the values of hfe It IS a fact, though the accepted hIstory of philo<;ophy may Ignore It, that almost the entIre stock of later and modem Ideas about the phIlosophy of relIgIOn can be traced to thIS SOC1t>ty The mam questIOn concerns the natural sources, and the theoretIcal JustIficatIon. of our lOner certamty about the objects of relIgIOn, that IS to say, It concerns the realIty of the numInOUS To the naive relIgIOus conscIOusness thiS IS no problem at all It becomes one only when popular faIth has been destroyed, and the Intellect has been specifically directed towards the sphere of relIgiOUS Ideas Then comes the penod of arguments for the eXistence of God After the hasty tnumph of cntIclsm With ItS destructIve ratIonalIsm, the relIgIOUS mstmct, homeless but meradicable, seeks shelter WIth Its conqueror The XenophontIc arguments for God's eXIstence arIse from thiS need for the aid of ratIonalism Now Plato 10 hiS early and middle penods had no objective and theoretical attitude towards the questIOn, such as I~ ImplIed 10 the eXistence of a philosophy of rehglOn He was engaged 10 creatIng new worlds, 10 which the only proper demeanour was that of piOUS contemplation The Fonn of the Good was not merely an etemalldeal for the state, but also the ~ymbol of a new consCIOusness of God It was m fact rehglOn It<;elf, for WIth Plato's phIlosophy rehgIon entered on the stage of speculatIOn and sCIence entered on that of the creatIOn of relIgIOUS Ideas Not untIl hIS later days do we find reflectIon on the roots of faIth and on ItS compatibility With natural sCIence In the theology of hiS old age the rulIng thought IS that of the prIonty of soul to body, and of spmt and law to blmd matter The loman conceptIOn of nature as mechamcal causatIon gives L

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way to a vIew accordmg to whIch everything IS derIved from splntual forces and IS once more . full of Gods' J The real argument for God's eXIstence first appears WIth the early ArlStotle He It was who, m the thIrd book On Phllosophy, demonstrated the reality of a hIghest bemg wIth stnctly syllogIstIc arguments, and thus gave the problem the sharp, apodlctIc form WhICh has contmually goaded keen religIOUS thmkers, m all later centunes, towards new attempts to make our expenence of the Ineffable vJSlble even to the eye of the understandIng . In general, wherever there IS a better there IS also a best Now smce among the thmgs that are one IS better than another, thrre IS also a best thmg. and thIS would be the dIvme'1 Here we stumble upon the root of the ontolOgical argument, though bound up, as Anstotle's phYSICS reqUIre, wIth the. teleologIcal one \Vherever there IS a senes of comparable thmgs dIsplayIng gradual differences of value there IS also a most perfect thIng or maXImum, even when we are concerned not WIth mere Imaginary senes, but wIth the actual senes from less to more perfect m reality In nature, whIch to ArlStotle possesses a form and purpose that work and create from wIthm, allIS gradatIOn, every lower thIng IS related to something hIgher and rulmg To hIm thIS teleologIcal order IS a law of nature and can be empIrIcally demonstrated It follows that In the realm of eXIstmg thIngs (I e among the real Forms of nature) there IS a most perfect thmg, whIch, naturally, must also be a real Form, and WhICh, as the hIghest final cause, IS the pnnclple of everythIng else ThIS IS what IS meant by the last sentence, that the most perfect bemg would be IdentIcal WIth the dlvme WIthin the AnstotelIan VIew of nature as a realm of stnctly graded Forms thIS argument IS valId, and It aVOIds the later InIstake of supposmg that the eXIstence of the most perfect beIng IS a predIcate mvolved In the very Idea of perfectIon, so that It could be obtaIned from thIS Idea by mere analySIS WIthout the aId of expenence. The Form of all real Forms must necessanly be Itself real When ArIstotle equates thIS WIth the dIVine he does not, of course, thereby prove the truth of the popular notIon of God. I Plato. Laws X 899 8 Ep.n 991 D , Frg 16 The argument reappears 10 the great schoolmen as the arsument..", ex grad,bus

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What he does IS to give a new InterpretatIon of thIS notIon, which like all human things IS subject to change, In the SpIrIt of the teleologIcal VIew of the world No doubt the dialogue also cantamed the arguments wIth whIch we are familIar from the treatises, that from the eternity of motIon, and that from the neces~Ity of supposmg a lImIt to the senes of causes In order to aVOid an mfinIte regress It was the first great attempt to render the problem of God amenable to sCIentIfic treatment, by basmg dialectically cogent mferences on a conSIstent mterpretatIOn of nature CIrcumstances Imposed the task on Anstotle, but only the greatest logIcal archItect of all tIme would have dared to compress the whole result of his Immense efforts Into these few simple-soundmg sentences The one thIng that we must not do IS to separate them from hiS phySICS and examme them by themselves They are the necessary conclUSIOn of the detaIled development of an eldologlcal theory of nature, and they enable us to be sure that Anstotle's phy"lcs was already completed In pnnnple at the tIme when he wrote the dialogue. from WhICh It follows that It was conceIved whIle he was stIll In the atmosphere of the Academy Anstotle also examIned In thiS work the psychologIcal sourCe,:; of behef In God, not out of cold SCIentIfic cunoslty, but m order that others might expenence what he had expenenced He was thus well aware that even the most gifted logiC can never attaIn to that IrresIstible force of mner conVIctIon whIch anses out of the InspIred presentiments of the soul I Nobody In the ancient world ever spoke mOl e beautifully or more profoundly about the personal and emotIOnal Side of all relIgiOUS life than Aristotle dunng the years when relIgion was the central problem In hIe; mmd In the dialogue On Phrlosophy. when he wa" preparmg to dISCUSS the dIVInity of the star", he "poke of the feeling of awe In the presence of that whIch Ie; higher than men He recognized I Dc Gada II I, 284b 3 also ~peaks of thr co-operatIOn of 'lClenbfic speCUlatIon and the mner sense of God (~OVTfla mpl Tbo 6100) which re~ts on Immediate feehng. thus It dlstmgulshe~ clearly between the two Presumably It was Plato v, ho first took the notion of mner dlvmatlOn (I'CllTT!\Jlaila.), which the poets were already usmg In the sense of the presentiment of external events, and stamped It With the phIloMlphlcalmeanmg of a dlvmatIon not of the future but of deep and hidden affimtIes An~lotle then applIed It for the first time to the problem of faith and knowledge and madt' knowledge and dlvmatlon two commensurable and complementary forms of rehglOus consciousness

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that mner composure IS the essence of all reltgtous devotion I Just as we do not venture to enter a temple unhl our feeltngs are composed, so, he declares, whenever we mquire mto the nature , of the stars, we ought to enter the temple of the cosmos In a devotIonal manner No doubt the words were mtended to prepare for the accusatIOn of godlessness whIch he then launched agamst those who demed that the heavens and the stars were dIVIne and IndestructIble 2. Towards the end of hIS work On Prayer he wrote, 'God IS eIther Nus or somethmg beyond Nus' Why wnte a book on prayer If not to show that we shall not thmk It unworthy of a phIlosopher to approach Godhead 10 prayer so long as we take It to heart that God IS Nus, or hIgher than all rea!>on, and that only through Nus can a mortal approach Hun ~3 NeIther Schlelermacher nor Kant dIstmgUIshed more sharply between faIth and knowledge, between feelIng and understandmg, than dId the ongmator of speculatIve argument for God's eXistence 10 hIS claSSIC pronouncement 'Those who are bemg ImtIated are not reqUIred to grasp anythmg WIth the understandmg (lla6Eiv). but to have a certam lOner expenence (naeelv), and so to be put mto a partIcular frame of mmd, pre· summg that they are capable of thIS frame of mmd m the first place '4 It IS not aCCIdental that he formulates thIS epochmakIng dIscovery 10 conneXIOn WIth the my~tery-rellgIOns The cults of the old gods lacked the personal relationshIp between the nghteous man and hIS God, whereas the mystenes gave It the foremo,>t place by theIr mere exclusIveness, and encouraged It still further through the varIOUS grades of InItIatIon, and through the dIfferences m fervour WIth WhICh the mdivIdual members of the faIthful receIved them It IS thIS spmtual factor, and not the 'Intellectual sIgnificance' of thelT content, which accounts for the keen mterest accorded to these cults, from the end of the fifth century onwards, m all quarters where religIOn was I Frg 14 • Cf pp 139-140 above ] Frg 40 The purpose of emphasiZing God's transcendence at the end of a work on prayer must logically have been to apply It to the question how we ought to pray Th.. demand that we should pray 10 Nus and ID truth arose In the Platoll.lc community, and through It the phlJoSQphl~1spmt of Attica restored religIon to the men of the fourth century The fact that the gospel accordlDg to St John gave It a new content (IV 24) by wntmg Pneuma (spmt) Instead of Nus (certiWlJy Without knowledge of Anstotle's works) III no way dImlnlShes the SIgnIficance of this demand for the mstory of the mlDd • Frg 15

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alIve How often do Plato and the early Anstotle borrow their language and symbols to gIve colour and form to theIr own new relIgIOUS feehng' The mystenes showed that to the philosopher relIgIOn IS poSSible only as personal awe and devotion, as a speCIal k10d of expenence enjoyed by natures that are SUItable for It, as the soul's Sp1I1tual traffic wIth God, and tills lOSIght constitutes nothing less than a new era of the relIgIOUS SpInt It IS unpossible to estImate the mfluence of these Ideas on the HellemstIc world, and on the Sp1I1tual relIgIon that was 10 process of formation Anstotle denves the subjective conVIction of God's eXIstence from two sources, from man's expenence of the msprred might of the soul, whIch, 10 the Instants when It nds Itself of the body, 10 sleep or at the approach of death, takes on Its own' real nature' and pIerces the future wIth prophetic eye, and from the sIght of the starry heavens I ThIS denvatlOn IS not to be understood hIstoncally, It does not refer to the men of pnmltIve times, It IS a pregnant JuxtaposItion of the two great wonders that all thp enlIghtenment of the enlIghtened cannot expla1O, the reSIdue that the system of rationalIStic phYSICS cannot reduce Prophecy and the Irrational and obscurer elements of the soul's hfe had always aroused great lOterest m the Academy, and the emotional relIgIOUS feelmg for the cosmos had taken ItS ongm there What Anstotle here compresses IOta a formula IS sunply the rehglOus attItude of Plato's CIrcle towards the umverse Even the formula IS borrowed from Plato, for m the Laws he denves the belIef m God from the same two sources, the everflowlOg be109 (atvaOS ova(a) of the lOner hfe of the soul, and the SIght of the eternal order of the stars 2. No other formula could express so fitly the tuneless truth of the rehgIOus element m PlatOnIsm, free from all temporary dogmatic detaLls Agam and agam It reappears 10 hIstory as the symbol of the ultunate unassaLlable postulate With which the SpInt confronts the lOexorable forces of matter and chance We naturally th10k of Kant's words at the end of the Cntzque of Practzcal Reason . Two thlOgs fill the spmt With ever fresh and 10creasmg wonder and awe, the more often and the more perSIstently they are reflected upon, the starry heavens above me and the moral law WIth10 me' The transformatIOn of the first source, the everflowmg bemg of the r

Frg

10

~

Laws XII 966

D

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soul (as Plato calls It), mto the moral law, IS charactenstic of the difference between the Platonic and the KantIan spmt, although It really goes back to the StOIC"' Kant does not defimtely say so, but It IS clear from h,s words that this' wonder and awe' are of a relIgiOUS nature, and were onglnally Introduced preCisely as sources of the behef m the eXIstence and government of God Anstotle preserves the ongmal form of the second argument also Instead of the marvel of the soul as such, he speaks of the prophetic powers that slumber withm It, awakenmg only when It has nd Itself of the body ThIS IS the PlatOniC VIew The recogmtIon of occult phenomena, maccesslble to SCIence, IS also contrary to Anstotle's later doctnne, he refutes It In detaIl III hi!> work on dreams I WIll anyone offer to explaIn all thiS as a mere concessIOn to the dIalogue-style ~ It IS the same attItude towards dlvmatlon as that III the Eudemus There IS no clearer sign of the depth to WhICh spmtuahsm had dnven ItS fOOtS m An5totle than thIS fact, that, even after he had abandoned the theory of Ideas, he still retamed for some time Plato's conceptIOn of the soul, and no doubt hIS doctrIne of Immortahty also Among those who have found thiS doctnne m our passage IS PosldonIUS 2 1 Anst De Dwtnat'one pey Somnum, c Y, 462b 20. there are no truth-tellIng dreams 'ent by God cf 462b 12 In Ttmaeus 71 A-E and Epln 985 C, on the other hand, the pos'tIon 's the ~ame a, that of On Phtlosophy, frg 10 • Po,.domus took over the passage on the prophetic power of the soul (frll: 10) m hIS book On Dw>nallo11, and C,cero makes thiS book the bas,s of h,s account ,n De DWlnatIone I 6J, as he does frequently In th,s work

Sextus Empmcus, Adversus PhySleOS I 20-21 (p ]95 I 6) A ..s/o/Ie sa,d that the nobon of gods came irom two begmnmgs from the phenomena of spmtual hfe by reason of the ecstas'es and prophecies wh'ch the soul expenences 10 sleep (21) For, he says, when the soul IS by ,tself ,n ~Ieep, then ,t puts on Its proper nature and fore&ees and foretells the future The same tlung occurs also 10 the separatIOn from the body at death At any rate he beheves that the poet Homer ha.d observed th,s when he made Patroclus, as he .. as bemg kIlled, foretell the kIllmg of Hector, and He<..tor foretell the death of Ach,lIes

C,cero, De DWlnaltone I 6J

(6]) When therefore sleep has removed the mind from the soc'ety and contact of the body, then ,t remembers the past perce,ves the present, and foresee~ the future and thus when death approaches ,t ,s much morc diVine (64) That dymg men have foreknowledge IS also proved by the examplewh'ch l'oMdoDlus adduces• An IDstance of th,s 's Homer's Hector, who when dymg declares the approa.chmg death of AchllIes

Anstotle's expression 'foresees and foretells the future' was adopted by

THE MANIFESTO ON PHILOSOPHY

163

The two sources of behef m God were also borrowed from thiS dIalogue by the Stoics Cleanthes, who puts them side by side with the hypotheses of Prodlcus and Democntus about the ongm of relIgIOn, thereby shows that he wrongly took them In the hIStOrICal sense I The great Influence of the work on the HellemstIc age appears agam In a famous passage which recurs at second hand m all StOIC theolOgIes ThiS passage has been preserved by Cicero, and certamly belongs to the proof of God's eXistence In the thrrd book On Phllosophy Z For the sake of the power wIth which It suggests the overwhelmIng expenence of the dlvlmty of the cosmos It may be translated here 'If there were men who had always lived benea.th the earth m good and shinIng habitations, adorned with statues and pictures and supplied with all the thmgs possessed m abundance by those who are conSIdered happy, and If, however, they had never gone out above the earth, but had heard by rumour and report that there IS a certam dIVine presence and power, dnd then If at some bme the gorges of the earth were opened and they were able to escape out of those hIdden places and to come forth mto these regIOns WhICh we mhablt, then, when they suddenly saw the earth and the seas and the sky, when they had learnt the greatnes~ of the clouds and the power of the wmds when they had gazed on the sun and recognized hIS greatness and beauty and the efficacy WIth WhICh he causes day by spreading hIS light through the whole sky, when moreover, mght haVing darkened the lands, they perceIved the whole sky laId out and adorned WIth stars, and the vanety of the hghts of the moon, now waxmg now wanmg, and the nsmgs and settmgs of them all and theIr cour~es ratified and Immutable to all eternIty-when they saw thIS they would ~tralghtway thmk that there are gods and that these are the mIghty works of gods'

The first thmg that we notIce IS hiS dependence on the cave In Plato's Republtc The latter IS a magnificent representation of the fundamental expenence of Plato's phIlosophy, namely the reductIOn of the VISible world to a realm of mere shadows, and Pos,doDIus In hIS defimtIOn of d,vmatlon as 'praesenslo et prae from Democntus and Prod,cus • Frg 12

J64

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the VISion of true being by which the phJ.1osopher IS separated from his brothers and rendered lonely Aristotle's simile also breathes a new attitude towards the world HIs men, however, have not lIved m caves. They are modern, cultivated, satIated, mlSeducated persons, who bury themselves lIke moles In the sunless and comfortless splendour m whIch they are seekmg theIr dubious happmess He makes them ascend one day mto the lIght, there to perceive the drama that he hImself sees, the Immeasurable marvel of realIty, the dlvme structure and motion of the cosmos He teaches them to contemplate, not a supernatural world, but that whIch IS VISIble to all and yet seen of none He Ie; conscIous of bemg the first Greek to see the real world With Plato's eyes, and hIS mtentlOnal alteratIon of Plato's smule IS a Sign of thiS view of hiS hlstoncal mission What he gIves us Instead of the Ideas IS the contemplation of the wonderful shapes and arrangements of the cosmos, a contemplatIOn WhICh, mtensIfied untIl It becomes relIgIOn, leads up to the mtUItion of the diVine dIrector of It aU By means of the Ep~nom~s, which IS equally emphatic In asslgnmg to theology the central posItIon In philosophy, we know that these lofty speculatIons met With energetic OppOSItIon from the Greeks According to the popular Greek VIew the knowledge of the dIVIne, the Gnosis of the Onentals, IS a thmg that must be for ever unattaInable to mortals, and unhappy IS the man who plagues hiS head WIth the search for the forbidden frUlt Anstotle hlffiself, at the beginmng of the Metaphys~cs, deprecates the deeply-rooted Hellemc dislIke of extravagant (lTeplepyla) and high-flown audacltIec; of thInkmg He often opposes the anCIent WIsdom accordmg to whIch a mortal should thmk mortal thmgs, and he earnestly mVltes us to bve In eternIty I Theology became poSSible to the Greeks only when the discovery of laws m the heavenly motions had led to the assumptIon of star-souls, and when assured knowledge of the 1 Ep.., 988 A 'Let none of the Greeks fear that 1t I~ not right for mortal men ever to busy themselves Wlth matters divine, they must hold entirely the opposite view' 988 II, the diVIDe power IS free from Jealousy The same Ideas reappear With verbal echoes In Anstotle's MelaPl' A 2, 982b 28 fI Cf also Elh N,c X 7, l177 b 3 I, • we must Dot follow those [e g EplcbaI1Ilus (frg 20 In Dlels), and Eunpldes (BIII:ch(K 395 and 427 f[ )] who adVlSe US, bemg men, to thmk of human tlungs, but must, so far as we can, make ourselves IrDmortal '

THE MANIFESTO ON PHILOSOPHY

165

•vIsible Gods' had brought wlthm measurable distance the possibility of an exact and astronomical theology based on expenence To thiS we must add the 10fluence of the East, as the Epmomls tells us and other eVidence confinns The Socratic 'know thyself', the qu10tessence of Apollme WIsdom, was now converted mto Its OppOSIte In his Llfe of Socrates Anstoxenus the PenpatetIc related that an IndIan, meet10g Socrates 10 Athens, asked hIm about his phl1osophy When Socrates answered that he was attemptIng to understand human hfe, the Indian repre<;ented to hIm the hopelessness of such an undertak1Og, smce man cannot know hunself untl1 he knows God I ThiS sounds apocryphal, but It IS sImply the legendary fonnulatlOn of the View, unIversal 10 the later Academy and summed up 10 the Epm01nJs as a programme for relIgIOUS refonn, that III future Onental astrallsm and theology would have to be combined WIth the DelphiC relIgIOn of Hellas, If the Greeks were to make rehglous progress 2 In the opmlOn of the author, who glvcs us the rulIng tendency 10 the Academy (he could hardly repre!>ent merely personal preference!> as the conclUSIOn of Plato's Laws), the way to thIS comb1OatlOn IS through mystICism Anstotle shares WIth him, and With all AcademICS whatever, the View that cogmtJo deJ IS conceivable only If It IS God HImself I Anstoxenu~, frg 31 In Mueller The v.s.t of the Ind.an to Athens .s al~ mentioned In the fragment of Anstotle (frg 32) pre~erved m D.ogenes Laertlu. II 45 If th.s were genUine .t would presumably have to be ass.gnt"d to the fir,t book of the d.alogue On Ph,losophy, but Rose was probably n!(ht In IDcludmg It under the remams of the spunous MaC'cus smce Its I..ontents do not "Lcord w.th Anstotle The nearest parallels to the theology of the supposed IndIan (.t .s really that of the later Plato) are Anstotle's Prolre/lleus (whose demand that human action be based on the knowledge of God reappear. In Eth Eud VIII 3 1249b 13-21) and the Ale.b.ades Major, wh.ch Fnedla.nder has recently attempted to rehablhtate, and has aSSIgned to Plato's early penod (Der grosse Alc,b.ades e.n Weg zu Plaia, Bonn, 1921) Th.s dIalogue culmmates In the thes.s, elaborately and somewhat pedant.cally developed. that the DelphIC max.m 'know thyself' can be realized only through the selfcontemplation of Nus In the mIrror of the knowledge of God (132 E-133 c) The attainment of th.s thereby becomes the real focus of all the ethKal pohtlcal, and educabonal problems that Plato s school mhented from Socrates The Epznomzs also stands for th.s reduction of all eth.cal questions both of happIness and of vIrtue. to the questIon of the knowledge of God The Alclblades IS obVIOusly an attempt, undertaken by some d,sclple at the same time as the above-menhoned works, to apply theology to the problems of Plato's early days. and to anchor them .n a finn dogmatrc prlDc.ple to Wit, the mystICiSm of Plato's later doctnne of Nus 2 Epln 98] o--g88 A

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knowmg HunseH He pIctures tlus achvlty as sometlung transcendental and beyond the merely human standard The self IS the Nus, which lS saId to •come an from without' and to be •the dJvme ill us' , and It JS through Nus that the knowledge of God enters mto us The author of the Ep~nom~s goes so far as to speak of the partIcIpatIon of the one contemplator 10 the one phronestS, whereas Anstotle never emphasIZes God's umty WIth human Nus more than HIS transcendence 1 In any event It IS ImpossIble to understand ArIstotle's anfluence on postenty unless we reahze that he breathed thiS atmosphere for many years, and that hlS metaphySICS JS rooted In It, however far Jt may have developed beyond It on the lOgIcal Side The estabhshment of the worshIp of the stars, whIch are confined to no land or nahon but shane on all the peoples of the earth,z and of the transcendental God who IS enthroned above them, maugurates the era of rehglOus and philosophIc umversahsm On the crest of thiS last wave Attlc culture streams out anto the HellenJstJc sea of peoples I In MetlJph A 2, 983" 5-1 I the knowledge of God IS Identified With God's knowledge For the unIOn of the human spmt With the dlvme see EP~'tI 986 D • Elma 984 A

CHAPTER VII

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS I THE PROBLEM HE

Importance of the dIalogue On Phtlosophy IS not ex-

T hausted by the lIght It throws on the penod between the Academy and the Lyceum It gIves us for the first tune a fixed pomt m the development of Anstotle's opmIOns, and a hlstoncdlly accurate startmg-place from whIch to analyse hIS metaphySical treatise The earlIer works ObvIOusly rest on an entirely dIfferent basIs, but what IS the relation between the doctnnes of thiS cldsslcal dialogue, m which he made It publIc that henceforth he dIssented from Plato's VIews, and the traditional Anstotehan metaphysIcs ~ Naturally, we must not take what we have learnt from the fragments and read It mto the text of the treatise-Itself, mdeed, fragmentary, but still mcomparably fuller Our recovered pIcture of the lost work would, however, become Important, If analysIS of the M etaphyszcs were of Itself to lead us along the same lmes The fundamental conceptions of the Metaphyszcs were undoubtedly already deterrmned when Anstotle wrote thp dialogue Even If we knew nothmg else but that It contamed the doctnne of the unmoved mover, we should thereby be assured that he had already estabhshed the conceptions of matter and form, of potency and act, and hiS own conceptIOn of substan( e Moreover, the three separate mqumes of which the dIalogue was composed, the hlstoncal, the cntIgl, and the the.Q~cal, have theII counterparts m the M etaphyszcs, the first m the first book, the second m the concludmg books and throughout, the thlId In Book 1\ A more difficult question IS how far the dialogue contamed any parallel to the so-called central books of the Metaphyszcs, those which develop the theory of substance and of potency and act We may say eIther that Anstotle considered these Investigations too hard and too esotenc for publIcation, or that It IS sunply an aCCident that no fragment of thIS portion remams In any event It cannot have occupIed so large a space as m the M etaphyszcs, where It outweighs everythmg else,

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especla11y 1f we OIDlt the Introduction (A-E) Theology, on the contrary, was developed much more thoroughly than It IS In Book A, for our accounts tell us much of whIch the Metaphystcs by Itself would have gIven no mklmg WIth the doctnne of star-souls we are transported mto a dIstInctly earher stage of ArIstotle's development, and there IS much to IndIcate that, If we had more of the dIalogue, ItS dIvergence would probably appear still greater That would seem to be a proof of the late ongIn of the MetaphyslcS, whIch would thus have to be aSSIgned to ArIStotle's last penod, and thIS would agree thoroughly WIth the VIew that has obtaIned up to now, for ever smce the Roman empIre It has been a wIdespread OpInIOn that the M etaphystcs was wntten late and left unfimshed 11us pIcture alters entIrely, however, as soon as we analyse the M etaphyslcs The ongIn of the book beanng thIS name now becomes Important for the ongIn of Anstotle's metaphySIcal speculatton Itself I It IS totally InadnllSSIble to treat the elements combIned In the corpus metaphystcum as If they were a umty, and to set up, for purposes of companson, the average result of these entIrely heterogeneous matenals As I have shown In another place, Internal analysI~ leads to the VIew that varIOUS penods are represented, and thIS IS confirmed by the tradItIon that the collectIon known as the M etaphyslcS was not put together untIl after ItS author's death PrevIous InVestIgations, however, have concerned only the hIstory of the text subsequent to Anstotle's death, 1 e the hIstOry of hIS lIterary remams The clanficatlOn of these matters was undoubtf'dly the first step, but It was dIrectly Important only for the hIStory of ArIstotle's mfluence, and the labour expended was out of all proportIOn to the advance made In knowledge of hIS own thought and personaltty CntIcIsm dId not regam Its meamng and Importance unhl It sought to understand the actual state of the text as the orgamc result of the lOner form of ItS author's thought:l. ThIS at once led away from the questIon of the external hterary umty of the SUrvIVIng metaphySIcal papers to that of theIr lOner phIlosophIcal umty, and thus to chronology and the analySIS of development I took the first steps along thIS road In my Entste, See

mY~JltsuhuJlgsgesclnchteder

• Cf EJlI Mel Ar,sl, pp

150, 161

Metaphysak des Anstoteles, Berlon,

1912

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

169

hungsgesch~chteder

M etaphys~k, but at that tune I was too much under the mfluence of the old plulologIcal attitude (whose problem IS, •In the Metaphys~cs as we have It, can we JustIfy the divIsIOn mto books and the order of the parts? ') to pursue my own findmgs to theIr logical conclUSIOns The questIOn of chronology, on one pomt of whIch I had already reached an assured result at that tune, must now be taken up agam In the hght of Anstotle's phIlosophIcal development ThiS will necesSItate some repetitions m detail, whIch the course of the mqUIry Itself must Justify Before begmnmg to dISCUSS the chronology we may once more bnefly remmd ourselves what, m the present condition of the MetaphysfcS, IS to be ascnbed to the edItors of Anstotle's lIterary remams Here It will be best to omIt all arguments and rely on the results of the preVIOUS mvestlgatIOn The aIm of the modern philologIst, to make the external order reflect the order of compOSItion, even at the cost of the general ImpressIOn, was qUIte foreign to anCIent edItors Anstotle's lIterary executors were philosophers They would have gIven much to be able to construct, out of the precIOus papers that they found, as true a pIcture as pOSSIble of the whole mtellectual system of 'first philosophy' as Anstotle had mtended It to be, but theIr deSIre was thwarted by the mcomplete and dIsparate character of the matenal For one thmg IS certam , the editors them~elves dId not beheve that WIth the order whIch they establIshed they were gIvmg postenty the complete course of lectures on metaphySICS They realIZed that they were offenng an unsatisfactory makeshIft, whIch was all that the condItion of theIr matenals allowed The postscnpt to the mtroductory book, the so-called lIttle a, comes after bIg A SImply because they dId not know where else to put It It IS a remnant of notes taken at a lecture by Paslcles, a nephew of Anstotle's dISCIple Eudemus of Rhodes I ABr belong together, ti, on the other hand, was still known as an mdependent work In Alexandnan I Ascleplus, In hiS commentary on the Melaphysocs (p 4. I 20, 1D Hayduck). refers thIs mformatIon which reached him as a trcuhbon handed down In the Penpatebc school. to but tllls IS a confUSion HIS account must come from Dotes taken at a lecture by AmmoDlus, and obViously he misheard The true account IS given by the schohast on httle CI In the codex Panslnus (ei Enl Met AnsI. p 114)

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tunes, as a sound blbhographlcal tradltlOn Informs us E IS a short transItIonal passage leadmg to ZHe These three form a whole, but theIr connexlOn wIth the preVIous books seems to be problematIcal I, a dISCUSSIon of bemg and umty, stands entIrely alone, and from this pomt onwards all Inward and outward conneXlOn dIsappears K sunply contams another form of BrE, to whIch are appended some excerpts from the Phys~cs, m themselves Just as Anstotehan as any other part of thIS collectlOn of manuscnpts, but out of all relatIOn to their surroundIngs SImIlarly, a passage from the Phys~cs has been Inserted Into Ii A IS an Isolated lecture, glvmg a general vIew of the whole metaphySIcal system, entIrely complete m Itself, and presentIng no trace of (anneXIOn wIth the rest The concludIng books MN have no relatIOn to the precedmg, thl'; was remarked even m antIqmty, and has led to theIr msertIon before KA m many manuscnpts, whIch, however, does not produce a more plaUSIble traIn of thought TheIr closest relatIOnshIp IS to the first two books NothIng but exact InqUiry can determIne m detaIl at what tIme and m what conneXiOn thiS matenal arose, and how It IS to be used m reconstructIng Anstotle's phIlosophy On no account must we, by assummg that It IS plulosophlcally homogeneous, cover up the problems whIch ItS content as well as Its form presents at every step We must reject all attempts to make a lIterary whole out of the remaInIng matenals by rearrangIng or remOVIng some of the books, and we must condemn the assumptIOn whIch overhastIly postulates theIr phIlosophIcal UnIty at the expense of thelr IndIVIdual peCUharItles Each of these papers IS the result of decades of untmng reflectiOn on the same questIons, each IS a fruItful Instant, a stage m Anstotle's development, an approach to the solutIOn, a step towards new formulatIon It IS true that all the details are supported by that potentIal umty of the whole system whIch IS actIve In every partIcular utterance of the phIlosopher, but no one who IS content With that has the nght to call hunself faml.lIar WIth the Anstotehan temper III ItS actuality ArIstotle has a dour, austere form, no WIde-rangIng survey, no gemal, comfortable mtUitIon, can really understand hun Rarely does he offer us a whole on whIch the eye can rest WIth pleasme Only In the concrete

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171

deta.l1s, only by mtenslve concentration, can h15 essence be grasped 'For the actuahty of Nus 15 hfe ' II THE INTRODUCTION AND THE EARLIEST DRAFT OF THE CRITICIsM OF IDEAS

The piety of the editors has preserved the famous cntIc15m of Plato's doctnne of Ideas m two verSIOns, one m the mnth chapter of Book A, and the other m chapters 4-5 of M These two verSIOns, which correspond almost letter for letter, cannot both have been mtended for the same draft of the Metaphys'/,cs If the versIOn m M, ",hlch fits perfectly mto the whole argument of that book, was meant to remam where It IS, thiS can only have been because ArIstotle mtended either to WrIte a new mtraductIOn, or at the least to omit the partly dupbcated chapters dt the end of the mtroductIon as we have It (A 8-IO) Now M frequently refers to the first two books l and thiS shows that somehow and somewhere It was meant to follow them Hence Anstotle must have mtended to detete the cntIcal matter at the end of the first book ThiS proves that he used parts of Book A as raw matenal for a subsequent reconstruction ThiS conclusIOn, that the two versIOns differ m date, IS confirmed by the few respects 10 which their language disagrees If we exclude a new argument which the later passage mtroduces agamst the Ideas,z their only difference bes 10 thp systematic removal of the first person plural, which the earber versIOn consistently uses to represent the supporters of the theory of Ideas ThIS characterIstic' we' shows that the first book was wntten at a time when ArIstotle could still call hlmself a PlatOnIst and a recent supporter of the theory 3 Hence the mterval between the two books must have been conSiderable, for m M hiS separation from the Platomc commumty IS an accompbshed fact More'M2, 1077" I ( = B 2, 997 b 12-34) M 9, 1086" 34 ( = B 6. J003" 6) M 9. 1086b 2 ( = A 6, 987b I). M 10, 1086b 15 ( = B 4, 999 b 24 and B 6 1003" 6) 1 M 4, I079b 3-11 , cf Enl Mel Ansi, pp 29-30 J The result of our InqUIry Into the doctnnes of the Eudemus and the Prolrepllcus IS thus placed beyond all dou bt, up to the moment when he first made such a crItIcism of the Ideas ArIstotle hunself ~upported the theory The passages are collected In Enl Melaph AnSI, p 33 'We' also occurs In the first book outSide the dupl!cated section. wherever the doetnne of Ideas IS mentioned Thus A 9, 992 1 I I 'we state', 25 'we have given tills up' and' we say', 27 'we assert', 28 'our account',)1 'we assert'

TRAVELS

172

over, In contrast to the considerate treatment of the first book, the tone of the later polemic 15 often sharp or posItively contemptuous As the date of the earher verslOn only one smgle fleetmg Instant m Aristotle's hie can be suggested Plato hunseU was dead, this IS the unmIStakable meamng of the lffiperfect tense m whIch he 15 spoken of, and whIch appears several tunes I In general, thlS cnhCIsm does not give the unpresslOn of havmg been Anstotle's first utteranc~ on the subject m the Academy The means by whIch Plato's arguments for the eXIstence of r separate' Ideas are here referred to-mostly abbreViated tennmoiogical descnptIons-presuppose that the hearers were constantly occupIed WIth them Anstotle even assumes that they are acquamted With the objections to them We should scarcely be able to understand hIS account, or to mfer from hiS words exactly what argument he IS cntIclzmg, If the commentary of Alexander of AphrodlSlas had not preserved theIr meanmg for us from Anstotle's lost work On Ideas 2 He IS USIng mere formulae when he refers to r the arguments from the SCIences', 'the .. one over many" argument'•. the third man' (a counter-argument that does not come from hunself at all, but from Polyxenus the sophIst,J and that Plato hunself had already puzzled over m the Parmemdes). also to r the more accurate arguments'. some of whIch assumed Ideas of relatives, and to . the argument that there IS an object for thought even when the thmg has penshed ' 4 Thus the anginal form of the cnhClsm presupposes a group of Platomc philosophers, for whom Anstotle once more sums up, In a rapId survey, all those objectIons to the doctnne of the now dead master that had occupied the Academy m the course of the years, m order to mfer the neceSSIty for a complete reorgamzatlOn of Platomsm on the baSIS of these CrIhCISms The bereaved school IS now standmg at a deCISIve turnmg-poInt of ItS career OutSide of Athens, WhICh he very soon left, Anstotle was surrounded by such a group of Platomsts, after Plato's death, only In Assos, and then never agam In Athens he can I

A 9. 99l a

20

he u~ed to obJect • 21 'he used to call', 22 'he often pOSIted

• Frgs 187-189 , AccordLDg to Phamas

l.D

the speech

In

reply to

DlQdoru~'

Mueller). quoted by Alex Aphr In Ansi Melaph. p 84 I 16, • A 9. 990 b 12 if

In

(frg 24 In Hayduck

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

173

scarcely have been sufficIently composed m mmd to work out, before hIs departure, a new lecture embracmg all the cntlcisms of Plato's doctrine and all hIs own reflections on the problems of metaphySICS In Assos, on the other hand, he had not merely the necessary leIsure, but also an audIence of sound phJ.1osophIcal Judgement, mcludmg Plato's best-known dIsciples, men who were either objective enough to lIsten to an opponent's reasons, hke Xenocrates, or themselves full of doubt about Plato's doctrine, as Erastus, Conscus, and theIr convert HermIas, seem to have been At any rate Plato hImself, In hIS letter to them, had thought It necessary to explam that •even In hIS old age' he could not gIve up the theory of Ideas He assumes that the men of Assos also have theIr controversIes about' thIS noble lore' , perhaps they had consulted hIm on some pomt He exhorts them to have recourse to the Academy 1D every dIfficulty, If dissenSIOns threaten he will exorCIze them I After hIS death the men of Assos mVIted the two representatIves of the conservatIve and the cntlcal tendenCIes respectively to VISIt them, and thIS IS the group to whom the earhest Ve£SIOn of the M etaphysu;s was read It ",as contemporary WIth the dIalogue On Ph1,losophy We can still detect that the first book IS a boldly sketched ImproVIzatIOn The famous opemng chapter IS borrowed 1D all essentIals from the Protrepttcus, as our exammatIOn of the latter showed ,~ m other words, Aristotle's fundamental attitude to knowledge had not changed The aetIology WhICh follows It, the doctnne of the four causes, IS taken, along WIth the other mam conceptIOns-form, matter, potency, act-from the PhysJcs, Anstotle expressly refers to that work as the foundatIon of what he says here It IS new, however, when he develops hIS doctnne of causes genetIcally out of the hIstory of earher philosophY, as the completIOn and fresh begmmng of WhICh he represents Plato The cntIcIsm of the Ideas, Itself also hastily thrown together, I Plato, LeUer VI, 3 22 D 'In addItIon to the love of Ideas (a noble lore, a~ I ma.mtaJ.n, even In myoid age) Erastus and Conscus have need also of the lore of self-defence agamst the base and WIcked, and of a sort of faculty of ~elf­ preservatIon' (The words Til Ka~ij TQ\FT1) 'I'1\~' ty", Kalmp yip",u WU go tOl:ether The usual VIew, that lpT]~1 goes With 1Tpoa1lflu makes nonsense of the intervenIng conceSSIve partICiple Hence We must emend 1Tpoa1.E1U to 1Tpoa1.EI) Thus thiS statement, when we restore Its angInal meanJDg, becomes highly Significant for the controversies about the Ideas \utlun the Academy dunng Plato's last years and for his own pOint of view • Above, p 6g 1\1

174

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then paves the way for his own formulation of the problems m the second book, whIch IS equally conditIoned by the SituatIOn that we have descnbed, and cannot be fully understood apart from this hlstoncal background This result completes the picture of Anstotle's relatIOn to Plato and his school that we obtamed from the dialogue On Ph~losophy It confirms the view that the publicatIOn of his cntlclsm was the very last step m a long process, the begmmngs of WhICh are lost m the darkness of the esotenc communal studies of the Academy It IS no longer possible to dlstmgUlsh Anstotle's own special ObjectIOns from those of other cntIcs, for what he gives us m the Metaphystcs IS obVIOusly a collectIon of all the essentIal arguments, IrrespectIve of ongIn At the same tIme as he publIcly attacked the offiCIal AcademIC doctnne, he attempted, by means of an esotenc lecture on metaphysIcs m Assos, to convert such of hIS fellowstudents as were more favourable to hIS cntIcal attitude to a certam conVIctIon, namely that the essence of Plato's legacy could be preserved only by the absolute abandonment of dualism and of the •separateness' of the Ideas What he proposed seemed to hlIDself to be pure Platomsm, and was meant to be nothmg else, It was to be the phl1osophlcal consummatIon of what Plato had atrned at but fal1ed to attam The most remarkable thmg about thiS estImate of hiS own pOSItIon, which enabled hIm to preserve hiS reverence m spite of VIOlent alteratIons of Plato's doctnne, IS hIS feelmg that he IS responsIble for the orgamc development of the doctnne, and hiS determmatIon to acqmt hImself well HIS contemporanes, however, Judged hIm otherwIse Beneath the conservative covenng they recogmzed a new and revolutionary attItude towards the world, and hence they no longer conSIdered hIm a Platomst He hlffiself, however, was not yet suffiCIently detached from hIS own development to perceive the truth of thIS opmlOn Only m hiS latest penod did he become wholly free and mdependent Whether hIS earher or lus later esttrnate of hlffiself seems truer to US, wdl depend on whether we look more to the hIStOrIcal presuppOSItions of hIS phLlosophy. or to hiS mdIvldual way of regardmg reality and reflectmg upon It We must call to mmd how dIfficult Plato found It to distmgulsh hIS own IdentIty from that of Socrates, If we are to understand, from the ~"atJonale of hIS dIscipleshiP

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

175

wIth Plato, Anstotle's modest repudIatIon of all and every claIm to ongmallty The next questIon IS how far thIs earhest verSIon of the M etaphystcs extends and. what Its members are In the first place, It Includes, besides the CritIcIsm of the Ideas (where the' we ' very clearly denotes the tranSItional period), the complete first book, for, SInce the umty of thIs book IS above SusplclOn, the chronological mferences that can be made about a part of It must apply also to the whole It appears that Anstotle's frequent reference to hunself as a PlatOnist was already a stumbhng-block In the days of antIqmty Alexander of AphrodISlas and Synan tell us that some anCIent scholars rejected the book Accordmg to a remark of Albert the Great the Middle Ages sometime!> ascnbed It to Theophrastus, and apparently It was lackIng m the Arabic translatIons 1 Both facts are to be explamed as the result of a tradition among learned persons m antIqUity, obViously some late editor actually omitted the book because of the assertlOn that It was !>punou'> A comment of Alexander's on the second book shows that thiS assertlOn was suggested preCisely by the obJechonable . we' of the first, which seemed to mark It off from dll the others Anstotle says (8 2, 997 b 3) 'It has been explamed m the mtroductlOn that we hold (AEyOI-lEV) the Ideas to be both causes and self-dependent substances, whIle the theory pre~ents dIfficulties m many ways, the most paradOXical thmg of all IS our statement that there are certam thmgs beSides those In the matenal umverse, and that these are the same as senSible thmgs except that they are eternal whde the latter are pen5.hable ' From thiS passage Alexander mfers that It IS wrong to reject the first book, smce It IS here expressly referred to, and SInce ItS , ethos' agrees preCisely With that of thiS passage, m both places Anstotle treats the theory of Ideas as hiS own ThiS argument presupposes that It was that .ethos' WhICh had rendered the first book SUSpiCIOUS At that time no one understood how Anstotle could call the Ideas hiS own doctnne, and even Alexander can only suppose that It IS a deVice to give VIVidness 2 I Albertus Magn I 525b •et hanc probatlonem pomt Theophrastus qUI etlam pnmum ltbrum qUI mClplt "omnes hommes 'lClre deslderant" metaphyslcae Anstotelts tradItur addldlsse. et Ideo In Arablcis tran,latlombus pnmus hber non habetur • 1 AJex Aphrod In Ar M~tap" B:z, 997 b 3 (p 196, 1 19. 1I1 Hayduck)

176

TRAVELS

The rejectIOn must therefore be due to the orthodox PenpatetIc scholars of the empIre, who erased all SIgnS of conneXIOn between Anstotle and Plato because the theory of Ideas was a heresy In whIch the master could have had no part To us thIS kmd of cnticism sunply shows, once more, how httle we can trust the PenpatetIc tradItion when It comes to the question of Anstotle's development The fact IS that thIS, our chIef Witness, IS through and through a bIassed source of mfonnatIon We have already seen (p 32 above) how the illalogues, whIch protest loudly agamst thIS dIstortIon of the truth, were reduced to sJ.1ence As a rnaHer of fact, the passage In the second book, whIch Alexander brings Into play agamst the rejectIOn of the first, shows how close IS thE' genetIc relatIOn between the two To thIS quotatIon from the begmnmg of the second book he mIght have added a SImIlar one from the end, V\
Books M and N are usually conSIdered a umty, mamly because of the urnformlty of theIr content, the cntICIsm of the AcademIC theory of Ideas and numbers In the openmg chapter (M I) Anstotle explams the purpose of the mqUIry He raIses the questIon whether, beSIdes the thmgs of the phenomenal world, there IS another kind of being, unmoved and eternal He proposes to begIn by examInmg the thmkers who have mam'Being about to speak of [the Ideas] he begins by refemng to what he 5a1d IU the first book to remmd us what the doctrIne was Hence It IS plam for many reasons that thiS book IS also Anstotehan and belongs to the same treatise Moreover, the" ethos' WIth wmch he spoke of them there IS the same as that With which he remmds us of them here In both places he wntes as If he hlm~elf held the theory of Ideas' Cp Synanus. Comm ,,. Metaph ad loc (p 23. I 9. In Kroll) • he, however. I~ probably merely followmg Alexander

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

177

tamed such a kind of bemg. namely Plato and his school He lays down a fixed plan of procedure, the mere arrangement and method of which would mVlte the closest attention Fm.t we are to consider the constructiOns of mathematics, simply as such, I e without reference to the metaphysical doctnnes that have been attached to them, such as the view that they are Ideas, or that they are the prmclples and essence of all thmgs In the sf'cond place we must examine the Ideas. here agam we must consider them not with reference to Plato's later mterpretatiOn of them as numbers, but m their anginal and genume fonn Thirdly there must be a cntIcal study of the mathematical phIlosophy of Speuslppus and Xenocrates In thiS scheme the first two parts, the diSCUSSIOn of the bemg (ovalo) of mathematIcal objects and the cntIclsm of the ongmal theory of Ideas-with both of which we are familIar from Plato's dialogues-have really no mdependent slgmficance They are Simply stages m An'itotle's methodical eXpOSitIOn of that which was their hlstoncal consequence, namely the doctnne'i of SpeuSlppU'i and Xenocrates The latter are the mam objects of mterest III the mqUlry, as would be clear merely from the length of their treatment They obVIOusly con'ihtuted the actual problem at the time when M was m the wntIng. whereas the PlatOnIC Ideas are mentiOned only for the ~ake of completene~s Anstotle defimtely tells us thiS In the pa'>sage where he IS glvmg the Idea-theory ItS place m the book Not because It "tIll has supporters In the Academy I'i he gomg to Include It In thIS dISCUSSiOn, but merely' for form'<; ~ake d'i It were' r SpeuSippUS abandoned the Ideas entIrely, replacmg them WIth numbers as a higher kmd of realIty Xenoerates, conservatively attemptmg to save Plato's later theory, IdentIfied the mathematical . essences' With th(' Ideas which Plato had regarded a<; number'i, that IS to say, he compromised between Plato J.nd Speuslppus Anstotle calls thiS the' third mode' of the th('ory. and naturally It must have been the last to appear ThiS shows that M was wntten much later than the first books It IS true that AnstotIe mentIOns speculatIon about I "0a0ll v6iJOII XaplV, Metaph M [ [0]6' 2] [W DRoss tran'ilates 'only as far as the accepted mode of treatment demands' Tr J For the expression set' Bernays, D.e D.aloge des Arlstoteles, p 150

178

TRAVELS

nwnbers a great deal earlIer-m the Protrepttcus. but dunng the penod unmedlately after Plato's death, m whIch the onginal M etaphystcs took shape, hIS manner of cntIcIzmg the Ideatheory had been the very opposIte In the first two books thIS theory IS still the acknowledged centre of phIlosophIcal mterest • he there regards It as the startmg-pomt for all metaphysIcal and lOgical speculatiOn whatever In M, on the other hand, we can already detect clear sIgns of the Academy's reactIOn to hIS cntIcisms He IS now able to treat the classIcal form of Plato's metaphySICS as admIttedly superseded To refer to It he merely appeals to hIS own earlIer, detaIled cntIcIsm-not to the first book, but to hIS exoterIc wntIngs, whIch. as they are WIdely known, he need not here repeat I In thIS reference we recognIze the dIalogue On Phtlosophy, WhICh was not mentIOned m the cntIcIsm In the first book. and presumably dId not come In to e>"Istence untIl shortly thereafter SInce then a long tIme had elapsed, thIrteen years or more In accordance WIth the new sItuatIon ArIstotle no longer gIves first place to the CrItICIsm of the Ideas, WhICh, dunng the penod ImmedIately after Plato'" death. had no doubt stIll found many supporters The altered SItuatIon IS the real reason why, m the new verSIOn, he entIrely deletes the CrItICIsm of Plato In the first book, whIch had been the burnIng questIon of hIS earlIest metaphysIcs WIth the necessary alteratIons, whIch are agaIn caused wholly by thp new external and Internal situahon,2 he Incorporates It mto hIS new work agaInst the mathematIcal phIlosophy of SpeusippuS and Xenocrates, as the forerunnprs of thIS doctnne the Ideas stIll possessed some hIstoncal Interest HIS earlIer companIons are now sharply attacked, theIr theory of numbers IS declared a hallUCInatIOn EverythIng POInts to the tIme when the PenpatetIc school was hostile to the PlatOnIC We may begIn by runmng over the structure of the book A. INTRODUCTION, M I. 1076- 8-32 B PART ONE The obJects of mathematics (purely as such). 1076 - 32-I0 78b 9 I They cannot be tn senstble tlnngs, 1076- 33- b II. , 1076- 26-31 [W D Ross's translatIon,s scarcely conSIstent WIth Prolessor ]aeger'slIIterpretatIon Tr) • See above, p 171

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

179

nor separate from them, I076b I2-I077b I t 3 The manner of their existence ~s pecuhar (they are sensIble thmgs qua quantitatIve), I077b 12-1078b 9 C PART Two Ideas (purely as such, without reference to numbers), I078b <}-1080" 11 1 H~stor~cal analys~s ofthe or~g~n oftke theory, I078b 12-3 2 2 DJalectJcal refutatum, 1078 b 3 2 - 1079 b II 3 Refutat~on by means ofphysJcal consJderattons, I079L 121080"11 D PART THREE Numbers as separable substances, loBo" 12108S b 34 I Denvatzon ofallposstbleforms ojthe theory, IOSo"I2- b 36 (a) Three forms are conceivable, lOBo" IB-b S (I) Numbers are massoclable (11) They are assocIable (m) Some are associable and others not (b) Each form has found supporters (except I), 1080 b 636 (1) Ideal number and mathematIcal number-Plato (11) MathematIcal number only-Speuslppm. (lll) Ideal and mathematical number are the sameXenocrates (' another thmker ') b 2 Refutatwn of these forms, 1080 b 37-I08S 34 b (a) RefutatIOn of Plato, I080 17-1083" 17, (I) If all umts are aSSOCiable, 1081" 5-17 (11) If they are all massoclable, 1081" q_b 35 (lll) If those In different number~ are dIfferentIated, but those m the same number undInerenhated, 1081 b 35-1082 b 1 (IV) There IS no posslblhty whatever of dlfferentIatmg umts and hence none of makmg them Ideas, loB2 b 2-1083" 17 (b) RefutatIOn of the other number-metaphysIcians, 1083" 2G-I08S b 34 (1) DIstmctIon of three poSSIble forms, 1083 a 27- b 18 (a) SpeUSlppUS, 1083" 27- b I (13) Xenocrates (' the thud verSlOn '), 1083 b 1-8 (y) The Pythagoreans, 1083 b 8-18 (11) RefutatIOn of these doctnnes, 1083 b 19-1085 b34 2

TRAVELS

ISo

CONCLUSION, Io8S b 35-1086" 20

E

The dJsagreement between these thJnkers makes their doctnnes SUSPiCWUS 2 The modern representatwes of the doctrtne have not improved on Plato 3 Their failure is due to the falsity of their first pnnciples I

ThiS tram of thought shows a stnctness of construction that we do not often find m Anstotle HIs lecture-notes are usually too hable to contmual alteratIon for any polIsh of form to appear, but thiS book IS arranged on one plan throughout, and has obVIOusly been carefully elaborated It IS a whole With begmmng, middle, and end Its orlgmalIty lIes not so much 10 the detaIls as In the totalIty Anstotle Wishes to umfy mto one last great cntIcal survey all hiS reflections on Ideas and numbers, that IS, on the problem of supersen~lble reality He conceive,> the plan, typical of hiS lOgical genms, of systematically develop109 and refutmg, not merely the doctrines actually reIgmng m the Academy, but all pOSSible forms of the Academic' fiction' whatever Into thiS framework he fits those versIOns of the theory which had found historical representatives, reducmg them to a fe\\' fundamental presuppositIOns whiCh he shows to be false The mtroduchon, and more espeCially the conclUSIOn, are carefully pohshed , towards the end the sober language take'> on an almost oratorical tmge The end, of course, IS not the end of the book, but M 9, 1086· 20 The succeedmg words are the begmnmg of a new diSCUSSIOn, thiS had already been notIced m anCient hmes, and, followmg Schwegler, I have demonstrated It m detaIll It IS espeCially clear from the sentence,> Just precedmg the break (M 9, 1086" 15-20) , they are wholly m the manner of an epilogue Anstotle loves to conclude a lecture With a lme of poetry, as 10 1\, or m the lecture on Fnendship which was later 1Ocorporated mto the NtComachean EthfCS (Books VIII and IX), so here he fimshes With a quotatIOn from Eplcharmus, and Just as he takes leave of hiS audience at the end of the Soplnstical Refutations, or completes a lecture on the Ideal state by refernng those hsteners who are still unconvmced to another occaslOn,l so here he has a partmg word for hiS hearers, who 10cluded apparently students of the opposite persuaSIOn, not yet shaken I

Eftt MelQPh Anst, PP 41 f[

•

Pol VII I. 1]2]b]6

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

lSI

their faIth 'He who IS already conv1Oced might be further convmced by a longer discuSSlOn But one still not conv1Oced ' the tram of thought breaks off Ongmal as thIS lecture IS m Its method, It IS not so m the material that It uses Anstotle appears to have worked mto it every note that he had prevIOusly made about the problem It IS not probable that nothing but the cntIcIsm of the Ideas m chapters four and five was borrowed from the earher verSlOn of the M etaphys'Ics The whole book IS a rapId sketch, everywhere It bears the marks of different styles It IS sIgmficant that perfect smoothness app~ars only m the mtroductlOn, the conclu~lOn. the detaIled programme, and the transItIons-m a word, m all the passages WrItten specially for the present formulatIOn and necessanly late m ongm The style of the CrItIcism of the Ideas, which comes from the older sketch, IS wholly distinct from that of the framework, and thiS alone would betray ItS dlspar~t(' charactt'r It IS also qUite mconceIVable that tht> long rows of counterarguments, monotonously lInked together WIth' agam' (D z(b) (11)), whIch I have not tned to systematize m the aoove analysIs, were ever worked over for the purposes of the present composItion They seem to have been adopted WIthout alteration from an eaTher work Clear proof that such was the orlgm of the book 1<; afforded by the passage attached to It at the end (M 9, 1086" 21, to the end of M ra) Some of the anCIent commentators wanted to mclude thIS m the followmg book, thmkmg that It was a preface, as mdeed It IS I Its connexlOn With Book N would have been very superfiCial, however. the edItors responsible for our manuscript tradItIon displayed more mSIght They recogIllzed that there IS no direct transition They therefore followed the procedure WhICh they have adopted m other SimIlar cIrcumstances, and Inserted thiS preface, which had been handed down by Itself, as a loosely connected additlOn to M They thereby expressed their belIef that It IS closely related to the book to whIch they attached It What the relatIOn IS becomes clear when we compare thiS preface WIth that at the begmnmg of M 10

I

Synan 1,. Ar Metaph, p

160,

I 6,

1D

Kroll

TRAVELS

182

Preface, M I, ro76"8

Preface, M 9, ro86"21.

lVe have stated what is the substance of senSible things, dealing 111 the treatise on physICS with matter. and later wIth the substance which has actual eXIstence Now SInce our mqull:Y IS whether there IS or IS not besides the senSible substances any wl12ch IS Immovable and eternal, and, If there I!>, what It I!>, we must first conSIder what IS saId by others Two opmlons are held on thiS 'iubjl'Ct, It IS said that the objects of mathcmabcs-I e numbers and lint,> and the hke-are substance!>. and agam that the Ideas are substance!> And SInCe (I) some recognlze these as two dIfferent classesthe Ideas and the mathematical numbers, and (z) !>ome recogmze both as haVing one nature, whIle (3) others say that the mathemahcal substances are the only substances, we must conSIder first the objects of mathematics, not quahfymg them by any other characteristic-not a'ikmg, for Instance, whether they are ldt'a" or not Then aftLY thIS we must separately conSIder the Ideas them"elves m a general way, and only as far a'i the accepted mode of treatment uemallds

Regardmg the first pnnclples and the fiT'lt causes and elements. the VteWS expressed by those who dIScuss only senSIble substance have been partly stated In our worRs on phySICS, and partly do not belong to the present mqmry But the VIews of those who assert that there are other substances beSIdes the senHble must be cOllHdered next after those we have been mentIOmng ~mce then some say that the Ideas and the numbers are sUl.h substances, and that the elements of these are elements and prinCiples of real thmgs v.e must mquue regardmg these what they !>ay and In what particular form they say It Those who pOSIt numbers only, and these mathematical, must be conSidered later, hu t a'i regards those who believe In the Ideas one might sun ey at the same hme their mode of thmkmg and the dIfficulty mto WhICh they fall

1 he subject-matter enVIsaged by the preface In M 9 IS preCisely what ha~ already been dlscu<;sed In the prevIOUS part of the book The reference to numbers as 'pnncIples' and , element'> . IS a pIece of AcademIC termmology that Anstotle can be ~hown to have used from the Protrephcus on We are not to suppose that In M 1-9 he has treated numbers as mdependent substances, and 1<; now gomg on to conSider their character a'> pnnclples and elements of all bemg I The sequel shows clearly I AnCient \.ommentators explained the difference between the two dlSl.usSIon, aJ> bemg that III M I-y, 10861 20, Anstotle treat,> of the PlatoDlc substances ("",ala,) as .eparate essence~ whJle from M9, 10Sf>I 21, to the end of N, he treat. (If the"" same essences as pnnClples ..nd elempnt. of reality but the ,,'Conct treo1tment 's JD no ~o1y and .It no pemt based on the first, and doe. not

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

183

that In M 9 he means, exactly as he dId In M r, the separate eXIstence (XWpIO'lJeSs) of the Ideas, of numbers, and of the other mathematical quantities such as pomts, lInes, planes, and sohds WIth thIS In mmd, let us read the folloWIng words (M 9.1086"26) . Smce, then, some say that the Ideas and the numbers are such substances, and that the elements of these are elements and pnnclples of real thmgs, we must mqmre regardmg these persons. first, what they say and, secondly, In what partIcular fonn they say It' That IS exactly the content of Book M Anstotle could not possIbly have spoken so If M had preceded, he could not possIbly have begun to discuss Ideas and numbers afresh, as If he had so far saId nothmg about them Moreover, he speaks In M 9 of the' mode' and of the' difficulty' of Plato's doctnne, two thmgs whIch he wIshes us to keep separate This dlstmctIOn rests on the same method of crItical mqmry mto the VIews of other philosophers as that employed m M 1-9 FIrst the doctnne It<;elf IS stated. then follows a cntIclsm In whIch It., dIfficulties are developed The correspondence extends even to the verbal detaIls For example, each preface starts by appealmg to the PhysJCS for the theory of sensIble substances Each has the expressIOn, we must begm by . consldenng' the kmds of supersensible essence that are' asserted' by . other' thmkers Thus both the content and the language clearly show that we have here two parallel versIOns of the preface to a crItlcal disCUSSIOn of AcademIc metaphysIcs Now what IS the relation of these two verSIOns to each other m tIme ~ At first we are tempted to suppose that M 9 IS ,>Imply a verbal vanant that Anstotle afterwards rejected The pOSSIbIlIty of a merely styhstlc dIfference IS, however, excluded by the fact that, In spIte of all theIr correspondences, the two prefaces dIverge In one decIsIve respect, the arrangement whIch they propose to gIve to the subject-matter of the work In M 9 we read 'Those philosophers who hypostaslZe numbers, and these the mathematical number,>, must be conrecogmze Its eXIStence at all It really handles both questions together, and CntlclZes Plato's supersen\lble essences both as separate ~ubstanL~s and as . element~ and prmclples of real thmgs' As we shall ,e( In th.. Lou.-e of our inquiry It agrees With the hl~tory of Anstotle's metdphyslLaJ views that the emphaSIS here lies more on the slgmficance of these essence, as elements of reabty than on their substantIa.1Jty

TRAVELS

184

sldered later But as regards those who beheve m the Ideas we can survey at the same tune their mode of thmkmg and the dIfficulty mto whIch they fall 'I The preface m M I IS far more careful m the arrangement of the same matter Anstotle there enumerates not merely Ideas and numbers, but also theIr subdIVIsions, and before both of them he places mathematical magnItudes as such, thus the mtroductIOn dIsplays the same gradual and cautIous method as we have seen to permeate the book as a whole In the preface m M 9, on the other hand, the Inqurry 1& In a somewhat more mchoate stage, and what IS lackIng IS preCIsely thIs dIstInctIve detail In the dIfferentIatIon of the problem We have here, therefore, not a merely verbal vanant, but the mtroductIOn to an earher cntIclsm of AcademIc number-metaphySICS, m WhICh the subJect was treated accordmg to a dIstmctly less developed method Z As already suggested, there are presumably other portIOns of thIS older wntmg also embedded as raw matenal In the new constructIOn, the present Book M, but we are no longer able to separate them In order to determme the date of the earher verSIOn we must make a detour, whIch will mvolve the mterpretahon of an obscure passage that has not yet been nghtly understood Here agam the opportumty which the passage offers for exact datmg has been overlooked as completely as In the decIsive portIOns of Books A and 8 In M 10, Io86 b 14, Anstotle begms hiS refutation of the Ideatheory wIth a dIfficulty WhICh he had fonnulated m 8 6, 1003 - 6 •Let us now mention a pomt which presents a certaw difficulty both to those who belJeve In the Ideas and to those who do not, and wInch was stated befOTe, at the begmnlng. among the problems (I) If we do not suppose substances to be separate, and In the way In which particular things are saId to be separate, we shall destroy substance, as may be admitted for the sake of argument, (2) but If we conceive substances to be separable, how are we to Conceive tbell' elements and theIr prmclples ? I

M 9, 1086- 29

-42 fI, I recognize that the passage from M9. 1086& 2 I, to the end of the book IS a subsequent addition, WhICh the editors attached to the complete diSCUSSIon M 1--9, 1086& 20 Strangely enough. however, I fwed to see that M I and M9. 1086- 2 I H, undoubtedly form a doublet, the two parts of whIch must have aI'lSen at Widely separated bmes Tlus diScovery alters my whole treatDlent of Books M aDd N. as the followmg pages will show 2

In my Enl Metaph Ansi, pp

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

l8S

, (A) If they are mdIvldual a.nd not umversal, real thmgs will be Just of the same number as the elements, and the elements will not be knowable (B) But if the pnnclples are universal. [either the substances composed of them are also umversal, or] non-substance will be pnor to substance, lor the umversal IS not a substance, but the element or pnnclple is Universal, and the element or pnnclple 15 pnor to the thmgs of WhiCh it is the pnnClple or element'

ImmedIately before tills passage Anstotle has explamed the dIfficultIes Involved m the Idea-theory by means of Its orlgm (r086" 3S- b 14) The mam dIfficulty arIses from the fact that the Ideas are regarded both as unIversal (Ka6oAOU), and at the same time as eXIstmg Independently and hence to a certam extent as a new lund of partIcular (Tc';)V Kcx6' EKQo-rOV) The cause of thIS peculIar duality 10 theIr nature was the fact that Plato had asserted the unreality of phenomenal thmgs, because he had been led by HeraclItus to the VIew that all perceptIble thmgs, all sensIble partIculars, are 10 cont1Oual flux and have no permanent eXIstence On the other hand, the ethIcal 10qUInes of Socrates had mdIrectly gIven nse to the new and Important dIscovery that SCIence IS of the unIversal only, though he hImself had not abstracted conceptIons from real obJects nor dechred them !>eparate Plato then went further-accordmg to Anstotle's retrospectIve account-and hypostasized unIversal conceptIOns as true be10g (ovala) Then follows the Important passage Anstotle here develops the questIOn whether the pnnciples are unIversal or In some sense partIcular ThIS IS dIfficult both for the ~upporters of the Ideas and for theIr opponents He tnes to show that eIther answer seems necessanly to lead to absurdIties If the l'nnnples dre particular they are unknowable, smce only the unIversal IS knowable If, on the other hand, they are unIversal, not-~ub­ !>tance would be pnor to substance, and we should have to denve substance, whose pr10ciples they are, from the ulllversal, WhICh IS ImpOSSIble, smce the unIversal I!> never a substance These are the logIcal consequences, Anstotle contmues, of denvmg the Ideas from elements, and of assummg alongSIde thmgs of one kmd a transcendental UnIty hke the Ideas TIllS summary Would by Itself suffice to show that what he ha!> m mmd IS really the theory of Ideas, and not speCIally ItS opponents, m spIte of lus mtroductory words, o!1ly, he needs them both m order to

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fonnulate lus questIon as a duemma He regards the dIlemma, whether the elements and pnnclples are partIcular or uruversal, as a part of a more general one, namely the followmg If we do not assume that substances (T~ ovalell;) eXIst separately as we say that particulars do, we destroy substance (,.,;v ovalav) , If, on the other hand, we assume that they do eXISt separately and mdependently, we have the above-descnbed dIfficulty whether their pnnclples are particular or unIversal The first part of the more general duemma seems to contaIn a tautology, but It only seems to The plural' substances' and the smgular 'substance' eVIdently IndIcate some dIfference of meanIng The' substances' to WhICh Anstotle IS here refernng cannot be those' recognized by every one', namely senSIble thIngs, for then It would have been meamngless to add' and In the way In which partIcular thmgs are said to be separate' On the contrary, the partIcular mode of eXIstence that senSIble thmgs exhibit serves here SImply as an analogy to illummate the manner of the mdependent eXistence of the' substances' Now thiS IS precisely Anstotle's usual way of descnbmg Plato's Ideas m therr character as real essences, hence It cannot be doubtedthIS IS also the view of Bomt?-that behmd these 'substances' he the Ideas, or some supersenslble reahty correspondmg thereto If we refuse to follow Plato and hIS school 10 assummg permanent reahtles, we destroy all ' substance' (Anstotle allows thiS for once) , If, on the other hand, we assume any mdependent and separate bemg, we are faced With the above-mentIOned dIfficult consequences about the denvatlon of ItS pnnclples So far we have not conSIdered the words' as may be admItted for the sake of argument' ThiS IS Bomtz' translatIon of ~c:; Jk>vMllE6a MyEIV, and others have followed hlffi, as they usually do In dIfficult crrcumstances I He bases thIS rendenng on the correct VIew that 10 the first alternatIve Anstotle IS grantmg somethmg that he does not really beheve Anstotle's duemmas always take thIS fonn, and we need have no uneasIness about the thought Nevertheless, hIS translatIOn IS lffipOSSIbie The Idea 'as we w111 admIt for once cannot be expressed In Greek by Ws ~ovMIJE6a AtyEIV Pseudo-Alexander IS another J

I

Anstolelts' Metapllynk I/btrsetzt

V01I

HermaKK BOKa/Z (edited from hi.

remams by Eduard Wellmann, Berlm, 1890), p 298

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

18 7

person who obvlOusly dId not understand these three words HIS foolish and hasty paraphrase cmEp ou ~UA6IJ.E6a (' which ",e do not admit ') IS SImply a Sign of complete helplessness It gives almost the Opposite of the real sense, and the suggestion that it IS actually the better readmg was properly rejected by Bomtz The commentators have failed to observe that c:,S' ~OVAO~ea is a frequent idlOm In A 9, 990b 17, we read •And 10 general the arguments for the Forms destroy the thmgs whose eXistence we [Platomsts] thmk more important (lJ.(iMov ~OVMIJ.E6a) than that of the Ideas themselves', namely the pnnclples of the Ideas The manuscnpt A b reads ~OVA01Tfal and mserts ot AEyOVTES' EtAT] (' those who beheve m the Ideas thmk' mstead of . we thmk '), the latter bemg adopted by the Byzantme mixed verSiOn E ThiS change was suggested by the parallel passage m M 4, 1079" 14, where it is guaranteed by the tram of thought In our passage, however, the context supports preCIsely the first person plural The malO reason for Bomtz's mlSlnterpretation of l3ovAEa6al was the additIOn m thls- passage of the mfimtive AEyEIV, which seems to be otIOse on thiS rendenng If it had been Simply Ws 130vA6lJ.eea or Ws AEyOIJ.EV he would scarcely have misunderstood Yet thiS very combmatlOn, l3ovAEa6cXl AtyEIV, is not unusual as an expressIOn for that wh~ch a ph~lo­ ~opheT . understands' by h~s concepttons Thus m Plato's Laws. x 892 C, we have, •by nature" the phySiCists understand commg-to-be m reference to the elementary pnnClples', where . understand' is ~OVAOVTal AEyEIV Strangely enough, thiS usage has been frequently mistaken m Anstotle In Metaph N 2, 1089" 19, he speaks of the meanmg of non-bemg m Plato's Soph~st 'He mean~ by (l3oVAETQI AEyEIV) the non-bemg the false and the character of falsity' Bomtz WrItes AtyEI m accordance Wlth Pseudo-Alexander'~ mterprctil tlOn, and Chnst follows hIm I\EyEIV should be restored, as bemg the only accredIted readmg, AEyEI IS a bad conjecture of Pseudo-Alexander's, who erroneously takes It WIth Kal TaVTJ,V T'J)v cpvalv Exactly the same mterpretatlOn apphes to N 4, :1091. 30 . A difficulty, and a reproach to anyone who finds it no difficulty, are contamed m the question how the elements and the pnnclples are related to the good and the beautiful, the 'f

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dIfficulty IS this, whether any of the elements IS such a thmg as we mean by (~ovA6~a Atyelv) the good Itself and the best, or thIS is not so, but these are later m ongm than the elements' Here again ehnst suspected MyElV of bemg a spunous adffitlOn, because he dId not understand the IdIOm Let us now apply thIS knowledge to the passage With whIch we started, I086 b 18-19 The true translation must be 'If we do not suppose substances to be separate, and In the way in which particular thmgs are said to be separate [as Aristotle hImself does], we shall destroy substance in the sense tn whtch we Platomsts understand tt' Only when we see thIS are we In a pOSItion fully to comprehend the smgular 'substance' (""v ovalav), which IS slgmficant for Plato's termmology In the hrs1. hom of the dilenuna Anstotle shows the dIfficulties mto WhICh he, as a Platontst, falls owmg to hiS rejectIOn of the Ideas and therr .separateness', the second gIves the difficulties m"olved m the theory of •separateness' So long as we do not realIZe that m the first hom the opponents of ' separateness' are Judged accordmg to Plato's nohon of substance, we do not m the least understand the pomt of the dilemma It now becomes clear that the opponents of the Ideas here are not the spokesmen of matenalIsm or of common sense-how could Anstotle ever refute them With a conception of substance whIch they must mevltably reJect as beggmg the questIOn from the start? The dilemma IS lOgically vahd only for those who stand on Platomc ground The truth IS that Anstotle here dlStmgmshes two sorts of Platomst, tho~e who mamtam the Ideas and those who do not Both are mvolved m contradictIons, because both presuppose Plato's conception of substance The conclUSIOn IS obviOUS the contradIctIOns can be resolved only by a new nohon of substance ArlStotle IS thmkmg of the Idea that the real IS the umversal ~n the particular He cannot, however, express It here (the problematic form of the passage entrrely forbids It) , he can only hmt that merely to abandon the Ideas IS not enough, thiS mroad on Plato's first pnnclples carnes With It the oblIgahon to reconstruct completely the whole view of bemg on whIch the doctnne of . separateness' rests ThiS answers the queshon of the date of the preface M 9-10 Like the first two books, It IS a part of the ongmal Metaphys~cs,

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

189

and wntten at the same tune. namely dunng the cntical penod 10 Assos, when Anstotle was attackmg the theory of Ideas as a Platomst among Platomsts Hence It IS not surpnsIng that there are stIll closer relations between these two books and thIs newlyrecovered fragment The central books of the Metaph.ys~cs, ZHao strangely enough. contaIn absolutely no quotations from the first two, not even from the problems 10 the second Altogether dIfferent IS thIS new portIon of the matter that ongmally followed A and B In spIte of ItS shortness, M 9-10 contams more references to A and B than all of Z-/\ put together I The next questIon IS, do we possess only the preface of thIS part of the ongInal Metaphys~cs, or are there some traces of the body of It? ThIS leads us to the exammation of Book N May there not be a true Idea at the bottom of the VIew of those anCIent cntIcs who separated M g-10 from M 1-9, and regarded It as an mtroduction to the followmg book? We showed above that a perfectly smooth transItwn IS not to be found, hence the question cannot be answered mechamcally by means of the conventIonal deVIce of redlvld10g the books Nevertheless, these dIssenters from the tradItIonal dIVISiOn may have based theIr expenment on a kernel of correct observatiOn, even If theIr means of expla1010g It were VIOlent and wrong And thIS IS actually so Just as M g-ro contams the old preface that was replaced by M I, so m Book N a lucky chance has thrown mto the hands of the edItors of Anstotle's remams the very portIOn of the ongmal Metaphys'tcs whIch he meant to replace, m hIS last verSIOn, WIth the much Improved and perfected dIscussIOn of M 1-9. Here agam we may take as an external cntenon the SignpO<;t that has guIded us correctly before As m A and S, we find m N an allUSIOn to the fact that Anstotle, when he was outhmng these lectures, felt hunself still a member of the Academy Th(' passage m question, WhICh has not yet been noticed m thIS connexIOn, comes 10 the cntIClsm of SpeUSIppUS (N 4, IOgI" 30-33) . A dIfficulty, and a reproach to anyone who finds It no dIfficulty, are contamed m the questIon how the elements and the prmciples are related to the good and the beautiful, the dIfficulty IS I 1086" 34 cites B 6, 1003" 6. 1086 b 2 refers to A 6, 987b 999 b 24. aDd to B 6. 1003" 6

I,

I086 b 15 to B 4.

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tius, whether any of the elements IS such a thJng as we mean by the good dsel! and the best, or this IS not so, but these are later m ongm than the elements' The IdlOm has already been explamed It only remams. therefore. to draw from this passage the same conclUSlOn about the date of Book N as we did about M 9 and 10 Not only IS the expression that of a Platomst, but the whole athtude also corresponds exactly to the hckhsh situahon m Assos We Platomsts, says Anstotle, put at the head of phIlosophy and at the begInmng of the world the Good m Itself (CXliTo TO 6:ya96\1) or the Highest Good (TO apUTTO\l) SpeUSlppUS, on the other hand, supposes an evoluhon of the Good and Perfect. WhiCh forces its way mto realIty only at the end of a gradual process of becommg (VlTTEpoyEves) I In thIS fundamental problem of Weltanschauung Aristotle feels hunself the more genume Platomst, because he puts at the begmnmg, not mdeed Plato's Good m Itself. but the ens per!ectfSSJmum. makmg It the prmciple and startmg-pomt of all movement He thereby preserves the essential nerve of Plato's thought, whereas SpeUSIppUS entirely reverses It 1 Surely we detect a note of !>elf-JustIficatIon In these words If thIS book was really wntten In Assos, hke A, B, and M <)-10. we should not expect It to attack Xenocrates, who had accompamed Anstotle thIther, m the same unspanng manner as happened later m M 1--9. after the final breach 'Mth the Academy It IS true that there too Anstotle's mam adversary IS Speuslppu!>, but It IS Xenocrates who receIves the roughest treatment. WIth the mmimum of flattery, hIS hybnd compromI<;e IS saId to be the worst of the three verSIOns That was wntten m the Lyceum, when Xenocrates had asswned the headshIp of the Academy, and hIS opmIOns were begmnmg to exert a WIder mfluence On the other hand, the earher verSlOn of the preface mentlOns. beSIdes the theory of Ideas. only that of SpeUSIppUS, and, correspondmgly. the diSCUSSIon in Book N refers to the view of Xenocrates only I SpeuSlppu9. frgs 34a ff and 3Se (Lang) • The dialogue Oft PhIlosophy also represenh the permanent essence of PlatOnism as CODSIStJDg 10 the VIew that the Good (ltycr86u, lip,,""") IS the govemmg pnnclple of the world (see above. p 134) ThiS central doctnne there earns Plato a place beSides Zarathustra It formed the POlDt of departure for Anstotle's new' theology', which attempted to preserve the Good as a substance by anchonng Its transcendental rea.1Jty 10 the teleologIcal structure of nature

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

191

once, and then bnefly and consIderately J ThIS very natural deference to the VIew of hIS fellow-worker In Assos IS a welcome confirmatIOn of our datmg InspectIOn shows that Book N as a whole really IS the diSCUSSIOn announced In the earher preface In M 9, 1086" 29, we read 'Those who POSIt numbers only, and these mathematIcal [I c SpeuslppuS], must be consIdered later', first we shall examIne the theory of Ideas The latter 15 undertaken Immediately, and 15 completed by the end of M 10 It must be what IS referred to In the first words of the next book (' regardIng thiS kInd of substance, what we have said must be taken as suffiCIent '), which then goes on to speak only of the mathematIcal essence~ and their denvatIOn We have to admit, however, that the diSCUSSIOn of the Ideas III M 9-10 IS somewhat bnef, even consldermg that III the earhest verSlOn of the M etaphyszcs the real cntIClsm of the theory had already been given 1ll the first book We seem also to need a connectmg passage, the above-quoted openmg words of the last book give the ImpreSSlOn of bemg a merely external transItIon, Illserted by an editor for want of anythmg better Hence It IS probable that III thiS aIriest verSlOn of the cntIcism as well as m the later ones Anstotle took account not merely of the Ideas and of Speuslppus' mathematical substances, but also of the Illtermedlate stage, namely Plato's later doetnne of Ideal numbers ThiS might very well have stood III the gap, and would then, presumably, have been mcorpor.lted Illto Book M when the Metaphyszcs was reconstructed However that rna y be, It IS ImpOSSIble to doubt that N belong~ wIth the older preface, smce It contams the detaIled refutatIOn of SpeuSIPPUS which was there announced As m the preface the emphaSIS hes on the SIgnIficance of the Ideas and numbers as elements and prznczples (O'TOlxeia Kai 6:pXal) of realIty, so the same pOInt of VIew determmes the eXpOSitIOn throughout Book N 2 I N 3, logob 28. whereas M 8, 1083b 2, reads' It IS eVident from thIS that the thIrd ver~lon [that of Xenocrates] I~ the wont' • See above, pp 182-183 ThIs bookshow~thatbytheelements and pnnrtple~ of realIty Anstotle understood the doctnne of the Great and Small, or IndeJimte Dyad, and the One, from which Plato denved the Ideas ThIS later form of Plato's speculation was upheld also by Speu~lppus and other AcademICS m many versIOns. the ntcetles of which we need not here consIder It makes It certam that to Anstotle In lus early days metaphySICS was a scIence of the

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ThIs IS connected histoTlcally WIth the unportance whIch the questIon about the elements and pnnclples of the Ideal numbers had for Plato's later thought It also agrees WIth the nature of the two openmg books, where first phIlosophy IS always defined as the theory of the hIghest pnnclples and causes of bemg It may be stated here, although the meVItability of the asserhon will not be clear untIl we have analysed the later passages, that the view of metaphysIcs as a study of first pnnclples, an aehology of the real-a view whIch IS connected WIth Plato's latest phase -IS a SIgn of the earlIest verSIOn of the Metaphyszcs, whereas the later fonnulatIon always devotes more attention to the problem of substance as such Even m the doctnne of supersensible reality (M 1-9) we can clearly detect the aspect of prmcIple'> Yleldmg place m the later verSIOn to that of su bstance Itself It 15 obvIOUS that In the ongmal Metaphysus the attack was directed mamly agaInst SpeUSlppUS At that time he was the leader of the Atheman school, and Anstotle threw hIS whole weight agaInst the false dIrection m WhICh he was seekmg salvation SpeuslppuS was fully convmced of the necessity of reconstructmg Plato's phIlosophy, but he took hIS start, accordmg to Anstotle, from the one pomt m whIch the Idea-theory was not capable of fruItful development He abandoned the notIOn of fonn and the relatIOn to the senSible world, he retained the untenable' separatIOn' of the universal, merely replacmg Plato's Ideal numbers With the objects of mathematics themselves as the fundamental realIty Anstotle makes the same cntlclsm of . modern thmkers' (I e SpeUSlppUS) m the first book, when he say'> that they have substItuted mathematIcs for phJ.1osophy,1 and whereas m the later cntIclsm of M the tone IS cool and CODelements and pnnclples of realIty SlDce he later vIewed It as anythlDg but thIS, at least In so far as It IS an a.ccount of substance, he can have retamed the tradItional defimtlOn of It only SO long as It was for hIm exclUSIvely theology The latter study, though not Indeed a doctrine of elements, IS one of princIples. In fact the descnptlOn 'about elements' fits nothmg whatever but a mathematical metaphYSICS such as, accordmg to Anstotle, Pla.to put forward In hIS final lecture on the Good (Anstoxenus, £1 Har". II Inlt} Thus, whereas Book N, III thoroughly PlatoDlc fashIon, examlDe5 both the reality of the supersenSible lind also Its elements and pnnclples, later on, III Book M, Anstotle confined hImself to an lIlqLUry lIlto the reality of the superseDSlble 31lbstances mamta1lled by Plato and hIS schooi • A 9,992"32

THE ORIGINAL METAPHYSICS

193

descendmg, m the oldest versIOn It IS frequently emotional or, as 10 thf' dialogue On Phdosophy, bItmgly c;harp, as when he excld.IDlS about Plato's doctnne of the Great and Small 'the elements-the great and the small-seem to cry out agamst the vIOlence that IS done to them, for they cannot m any way generate numbers'.1 I

N 3.

logl 1

9

CHAPTER VIII

THE GROWTH OF THE METAPHYSICS preval1mg view that the Metaphys'lcs IS a late work has been rendered untenable by our dIscovery that It contams large portions of an earlIer versIOn belongmg to the first half of the fortles The doctrIne that we must now hold-and It IS really obvIOUS m Itself-Is that even dunng the years Immediately before and after Plato's death metaphysIcs was the true centre of Anstotle's cnttcal actIvIty On the other hand-and thiS IS a no less Important result-he returned to the matter agam during hiS last penod and undertook a reorgamzatlOn that mtroduced fresh Ideas mto the old matenal, exclsmg parts of It and reshapmg others to fit theIr new surroundmgs The traces of thIS last alteration enable us to guess the direction III which he wIshed to develop hIS phIlosophy The mdlvIdual peculIantles of the earlier and later portions cannot be clearly grasped, naturally, except through the knowledge of theIr alternatmg harmony' wlthm the final structure that mcludes them both Our analysIs must start from that punfied torso of the MetaPhYSlCS whIch we have obtamed by exammmg the hIstory of ItS ongm, and the mner relationships of which, as Anstotle meant them to be, we have rendered more vlSlble through removmg the loose pages appended by the editors ThIS IS the compact body of books down to I, excludmg a and !:J., Bomtz hImself dISentangled It correctly 10 the mam I He al~o estabhshed the fact that the senes IS unfimshed-m partIcular, the theology as we have It (1\) IS not the mtended conclUSIOn-and thIS statement needs to be emphatically asserted m VIew of recent attempts to throw doubt on the convincmg arguments m Its favour Only m the account of the last two books does Bomtz reqUire supplementmg, he obVIOusly took less mterest m them, because hiS attention was dIrected mamly to the doctnne of substance We have shown that Book M was meant to replace N in the later verSIOn, It therefore belongs to the torso establ1shed by Bomtz

T

HE

I

I See the introductIon to hIS Kommema, zu, Melapltysoll d A" vol u He, In tum, was follOWing BrandlS (cf E'" MdlAplt Arts', PP 3 ff )

THE GROWTH OF THE METAPHYSICS

19.5

The metaphysIcs that Aristotle here offers us 10 sweepmg strokes IS the famous doctnne of substance 10 general, the phllosophy of substantial fonns, which served so many later centUries as the framework of theIr Vlews of nature and bemg To discover how this mcomplete but mighty structure grew up we must start from ItS centre, that IS from the doctnne of substance In Book B, which develops the problems of .the SCience that we are seek1Og', Anstotle IS aware of the problem of sub!>tance only m the speclahzed fonn of the question whether the supersenSible world IS real After four mtroductory problems concern10g the nature of the new science he places thiS question, hke a .far-beammg countenance', at the head of the eleven problems that carry us mto the real arena of the dlsclphne Thus he emphaSIzes ItS fundamental lffiportance by the posItion he assigns to It rEver smce Plato created the Ideas It had been absolutely the problem of phIlosophy In fommlatlOg the task of metaphYSICS as he does, therefore, Anstotle starts directly from Plato's fundamental questIOn He expresses It, 10 fact, preCisely as a PlatOnIst would the transcendental realItIes that we belIeve to eXist 10 separation from senSible phenomena, such as the Ideas and the objects of mathemabcs-do they truly eXist ~ And If not, can we POSIt, over and above senSible th1Ogs, any other kmd of supersenslble reahty ~ About the senSible world (ala6T)"ri) ovala) he says nothlOg whatever The very first sentence goes straight to the central question, that of transcendence, the succeedmg problems nse out of thIS root hke trunk, boughs, and branches A mere glance Will show that they too ongmated Without exceptIOn on Platomc territory What are the first prmclples ~ Are they the genera, as Plato rnamtams, or, as natural sCience teaches, the elements of VISible thmgs ~ If the former, are they the hIghest or the lowest genera ~ What IS the relatIOn between the umversal, which Plato regards as substance (ovala), and Bemg or RealIty ~ Is the' truly real' the rnost abstract of abstractIons, or do we approach the real more nearly the more we descend from the heights of abstraction to I The four mtroductory problems are treated In Melaph 82,996" 18--997- 33 The problem of the Bupersenalble follows m 997- 34 For the dlSunctIon between essenbaI problems. and those whIch merely mtroduce and define the SCience of metaphYSICS. see EMI MdIJpll Arlsl. p 100

196 TRAVELS concreteness, to pa.rtIculanty, to the mdlvldual? Is each of the first pnnclples one m number, as an IndIVIdual, or m kmd, as a genus? Are the pnnclples of penshable and of ImperIshable thmgs the same? Can we make bemg and umty the pnnclple and ongm of all thmgs, as Plato does, or are they mere abstractIOns vOId of all real content? Are Plato and h15 dISCIples nght m makmg substances (ovalol) out of numbers, hnes, pomts, planes, and sohds? Smce the abstract IS not real or essential, but only somethmg common to many thmgs, what has led men to assume the eXIStence of Ideas ~ Are we to thInk of the first pnnclples as mere matter and potency, after the fashIon of natural SCIence, or as somethmg that from the very begmn10g works and IS active? (ThIS was the questIOn m dIspute between Plato and SpeUSlppUS, m which, as we have already mentIOned, Anstotle SIded WIth Plato) In fine, what Book B develops IS SImply and solely the problems of the PlatOnIC doctnne, and In the earhest penod of hiS M etaphysJcs Anstotle appears as the Improver of that doctnne The questIOns here raISed he Without exceptIon 10 the sphere of the supersenslble In their totahty they make up a type of phl1osophy that not merely denves wholly from Plato, but IS PlatOnIC 10 Its very nature, m spite of the fact that It presupposes and IS actuated by a sceptical attitude towards the Ideas All the problems of' the sCience that we are seekmg' anse out of the cnsls m Plato's doctnne, and consist m efforts to rehabultate the assertIOn of supersenslble realIty We naturally look for dISCUSSIOn of these problems In the mam body of the work, whIch IS contamed, accordIng to the prevau109 View, m Books ZHS The four mtroductory problems, whIch determme the conceptIon, subJect-matter, and extent, of metaphySICS, are dealt WIth 10 the books lIDmedlately succeed10g the hst (r and E) We should expect Anstotle to follow It further, whIch would bnng hun to the questIon of supersenslble reahty m Book Z We should also expect to find, conformably to rand E, some exphCit reference to the fact that we were now approachmg the central problem of metaphySICS Instead, however, of the question about the eXIStence of the supersenslble, Book Z unexpectedly confronts us With the theory of substance m general From thIS pamt onwards, throughout the next three

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books, the lIst no longer has any significance at all Not only does It cease to dIctate the order of the eXposItIOn, but there IS not even a smgle mentIOn of It This SImultaneous disappearance both of the references to It and of the actuai discussIOn of It IS clear proof that either Anstotle abandoned m mid composItIon the ongmal plan as he had contemplated It m Book BwhIch, In a work that was one both m outhne and m performance, would be strange to the pomt of mconcelvablhty-or the books on substance (ZH8) are not the executIon of the ongmal plan at all, but somethmg new and later which either replaced It or was mserted mto It That Book B really does belong to a distinctly carher version than the books on substance can very eaSily be shown As we demonstrated above (p 176), It was wntten at the same tIme as Book A. dunng the years Immediately after Plato's death Now the ' we', With which Anstotle here deSignates hlffiself a Platomst. IS no longer to be found when we come to hiS CnhCISITI of Plato's doctnne m Book Z I On the other Side, we recovered a large part of the oldest Metaphys1cS In M 9-10 and Book N, and the assertion, that ongmally Z did not belong to the Metaphys'tcs as outhned m B, IS convmcIngly demonstrated by the facts (I) that thIS part of the oldest verSIOn, whIch IS also charactenzed by the use of 'we' In Its polemIC, concerns Itself, a'i was to be expected, exclUSIvely With the problems stated In B, that IS, WIth the question about the reality ()f the supersensIble. and (2) that as soon as we re-enter thIs field-the fidd I Namely Book Z, chapters 13 tf In thIs book Anstotle examines the questIOn of the nature of substance on the broadest pOSSIble baSIS, startlOg from the dIstInctIOn of four dIfferent meamngs of the word, as matter, as Form a' uOlversaI. and as essence HIS object IS to show that 10 the true conceptIOn of substance the three last meanmgs are uOlted In conneXlOn WIth the question how far matter contnbutes to the reality of the Form and the essence, he develops hIS double conceptIon of su bstance The same question lead s on to tl>" a~sertlon of an Immatenal and hlghe~t Form The mquuy whether the universal also possesses realIty leads to an examlOatlOn of the theory of Ide"s (Z 13 ff) wluch reproduces the essentIal notlllns of the refutation III the fir.t book, though 10 another dress and from another POlllt of view The two refutatIons can hardly have appeared m one and the same course of Iet-tures Theu relation to each other becomes mtelhglble If we suppo.e that Book Z was not onglDaIly mtended for msertlon wlthm the larger dISCU'SIOD In whIch we now find It, but was an Isolated treatment of the question of sub~tance ThIS whole work On Substance must be later than the oldest parts of the Metaphyncs, SIDce there IS no 'we' In the cntIclsm of the Ideas 10 Z 13 tI

198

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of metaphySICS In the narrower sense-the references back to Book B begm agam r ThIs result, that the books on substance had no place In the ongmal plan, seems to undennme the fundamental notIon of AnstotelIan metaphysIcs I must, therefore, take account of the objectIon that It IS the essence of thIS type of speculatIon not to grasp the supersensible dIrectly but to reveal It IndIrectly-to make It not the startmg-pomt but the conclUSIOn Must not the theory of the bemg of the hIghest pnnclple, whIch cannot be grasped by any expenence, base Itself on a theory of substance bUIlt Up step by step WIth the help of the realItIes that can be expenenced, and nsmg steadIly from the known to the unknown ~ And do not the mqulTles about substance and actuabty (ZHe) expressly lead us to the threshold of the doctrme of supersenslble bemg ~ It IS certaInly true that thIS part of the M etaphys~cs IS preparatory, and It IS obVIOUS that In hIS last versIOn Anstotle mtentIonally gave It ItS present place The theory of substance 10 general was now to form the doorway to that of the lffimatenal substance of the pnme mover We shall InqUIre later how the speCIfic character of hIS metaphySICS was Insured pnor to thIS defimtIve arrangement, but here It IS essentIal to establIsh the fact that the present verSIOn was preceded by one In whIch thIS gradual development of the conceptIOn of bemg was not to be found The sketch of the problems of metaphySICS 10 B does not enVIsage the excursus mto the general theory of substance and actuahty In ZHa, and these books themselves reveal at every step that they cannot have been ongInally wntten for the systematIc purpose to whIch they are devoted In the final scheme as we have It In VIew of the unportance of thIS POInt I will here establIsh It m still greater detaIl It IS true that Book Z begins by emphasIZmg that the best method will be to start from the substances that are perceptIble to sense It IS true that thIS IS followed by a fine and Justly famous dIgreSSIon on the nature of human apprehensIOn, and on the adVIsabilIty of startmg always from what IS known' to us', namely that whIch IS guaranteed by perception, In order to proceed to that whIch IS knowable . by nature', namely the object of pure thought as such But now thIS ext

See above, p

171,

n

1

THE GROWTH OF THE METAPHYSICS

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planation of the reasons leadmg Anstotle to prefix to his account of the supersenslble an exammation of substance m general oCCUrs 10 all manuscnpts 10 the wrong position Bomtz \\as the first to dlscover the displacement (though he drew no concluslOns), and ever Since his day our editions have given us thIS wandenng passage at the pomt where It belongs The error cannot be due to a confUSIOn In a late manuscnpt, for It Occurs m both classes of the tradition, and therefore appeared III all anCient manuscnpts The only possIble explanatIOn IS that It \\as an afterthought wntten on a loose sheet, and inserted mto the wrong part of the text by the very first editor 1 There IS a second reference to the merely preparatory nature of the mqUlry about sensIble realIty, and thIS also IS so loosely connected With the adjacent words that It seems to have been added 5ub<;equently by Anstotle z One thmg IS certam Books ZH do not dISCUSS substance m the way In whIch one would expect from these passages They lIfetaplr Z 3, 1029b 3-12 These words have got mto the begmmng of the of essence whl"re they are qUite meanmgless They really contmue the "ords 'Some of the .enslble substances are generally admitted to be .ubstances, so that we must look first among these' (1029" 33), which also belong to the subsequent addItion Clearly the first words of the Imertlon were wntten between the Ime~ of the old manuscnpt, and hence occur m theIr propel place 10 our copIes The rest for which there was DO room, was WI tten on a separate sheet Another example of an addition on a loose ~heet IS the passage'Regard1Og mtelhglble', Z II, I036b 32-1037" 5 • Metaph Z I J, 1037" 10 if , seems to me to be such an addition, mtended [0 represent the work On Substance as a prelunmary to the theory of .upersenSible substance and to Lall attention to thiS function at an early stage of the dlscus~lOn If It had lJeen IUcluded from the beglDfilng, Anstotle would ,urely, when ~peakmg of matter, have madL some reference, however slight, tL the matter which Plato po~tulated even 10 supersen~lble substance Yet there 1'1 not a smgle syllable here about the Great-and-Small, although 10 the MetaPhySICS It would necess addition and the reference to It were, hke other alterations of the same kmd, mtroduced Into the scheme of the later Metaphyucs on the OCCa810D of the IDsertlon of Books ZHB I

dlSCUS~lon

TRAVELS do not keep steadl.ly Ul view therr supposed purpose of leadmg up to the proof of the eXistence of supersenslble reality On the contrary, they gtve the Impression of being WT"tten SImply Ul order to refute Plato's conceptIOn of being, according to which the hIghest bemg IS the highest universal, and m order to confront thiS exaggerated Immatenallsm With a proof that matter and substratum have a posItive Significance for our conception of realIty We here find Anstotle's comblDdtIon of logtc and concreteness glVlOg nse to a new conception of substance as form and entelechy, the questIOn of the •separableness' of which, though deCISive for the metaphysIcIan, receives no particular attentIOn In fact, Plato's constant effort always to abstract from matter IS here rejected as one-SIded, and attention IS called to the Importance of matter for our notion of essence I In VIew of all thIS It IS not surpnslOg that the means which Anstotle uses to develop hiS notIOn of form actually consISt In an analySIS of becomJng, and that he bnngs out very clearly the fundamental Significance of hiS notion for the proper comprehensIOn of thiS phYSical conception 2. The way In which Book Z discuSses the vanous meanings of 'substance' one after the other, and the result of the inqUIry, prompt the suggestIon that we have here an orlgtnally Independent work on the problem of substance, the fundamental Importance of thiS subject havlOg already been shown by the CritIcism of the Ideas even In the earhest versIOn of the Metaphysus (above, p 188) It cannot be denied, of course, that even In the earhest period of Aristotle's phYSical speculatIon hIS new conceptIOn of substance, or rather of bemg, must be presupposed as such, but thIS conceptIon took ItS anglO Just as much In phySICS and In logtc] as Ul metaphysIcs, and It IS per200

I Metaph Z II, 1036b 22 And so to reduce all thmgs thus to Fonns and to eIJmmate the matter IS useless labour, for some thmgs surely are a parbcular form 10 a partlC\·'.r matter' • Metaph Z 8, 1033" 24 fJ 3 Anstocle's lDterest lD the problem of substance often comes out lD the book, and metaphySICS and •analybcs' are also very lnbmately concerned With It (for the latter see Z 12 and H 6) It belongs to phYSICS because of Its connexlOn WIth the theory of becommg and of change, to metaphySICS because of the conception of lmmatenal Form and because of the problem of •separateness' , and to 'analytlcs' because of 'essence' and Its relations WIth the theorle~ of defimtl0n, of abstractIOn and of the c1assJ1icatioli of conceptIOns as genera and specIes We need only reahze thIS manYSidedness 10 order to understand why thIS work stood' between' the above-mentioned dlsclplmes unW Anstotle llIcorporated It mto the MetaphysICS

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fectly possIble that hlS earhest metaphysIcs (WhICh, as we learn from the dIalogue On PhIlosophy, was still pure theology), whl1e It made clever use of the conceptions of entelechy and actuahty m attackmg the problem of God, nevertheless dId not mclude any general dISCUSSIon of substance, much less make It the central consIderatIOn The conJecture that the dISCUSSIon of substance did not ongmally stand m ItS present pOSItIOn can be further supported by a number of weIghty external mdicatIons I In the first place, there IS no reference whatever to ZH8 m the older books On the other hand, I refers to ZH, and descnbes them as 'the dISCUSSIons about substance' , thIS by Itself mdlcate,> therr relative mdependence Anstotle mentions them m the same way m e 8, 104gb 27 (' It was saId m the dISCUSSIOns about substance ') It appears from thIS that the two Books Z and H, which form a smgle whole-H begms WIth a recapitulation of Z, and offers a senes of appendIces thereto-are regarded both m e and m I as mdependent \\'hat IS still more lffiportant IS that the mtroducbon of Z IS often referred to as the begmnmg, as m Z 4, 102g b 1 (' smce at the start we dlStlngmshed the vanous marks by which we determme substance ') Usually the words 'at the start' mean the begmnmg of the whole course of lectures, namely Book A, as they do, for example m 8 and m M 9-10, passages whIch belong to the ongmal Metaphystcs We have an example of •at the start' used m a central book to refer to ItS own begmmng m the dISCUSSIOn of fnendshlp m the Ntcomachean EthtCS (VIII-IX), and there IS no doubt that thIS was ongmally an mdependent work Z was also at one tune the begmnmg (1f an mdependent work, It was m fact the first of a whole senes of lectures ThIS IS shown by e 1, I04Sb 31, where agam •m the first part of our work' means the begmnmg not at A or of e, but of Z It follows that thIS senes began WIth Z, then came H , I SInce It IS here lmportant to assemble all the proofq, I may be allowed to recapitulate bnefly the Inferences that can be drawn from the recIprocal referenCes 10 the books of the MetaphySiCS, although I have already emphaSiZed them (Ent Metaph Arlst, pp 9 0 11 and 106) It IS preclselv "Ith regard to the matter of chapter four of the first part of my earher book, namely the connected and contmuous portlOns of the MetaphysICS. that I now behevp It poSSIble to push the analySIS far enough to obtam a complete understandmg of the author's mtentlOn whereaq I have nothmg Important to add to my prevlOus remarks about the pa~sages that are Isolated and mdependent addItIons

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H was presumably followed bye, as now Whether I also belonged to the ongmal senes, or was added later when Anstotle removed ZHe from their Isolation and mserted them mto the MetaphysJcs, IS difficult to decide On the whole, It seems to have been added later I 2, 1053b 16, refers to Z, 13-17, thus. 'If, then, no umversal can be a substance, as has been said m our discussion of substance and bemg' Here ZH are still thought of as mdependent, and It does not appear that they come at the begmmng of a senes to which I also belongs On the contrary, another passage, In whIch I refers to e, makes agamst It •with regard to the substance and nature of the one we must ask m which of two ways It eXists, this IS the very question that we reviewed m our discussIOn of problems, VlZ what the one IS' (I 2, 1053 b 9) ThlS mdlcates that the ongmal mdependent work consisted only of ZHS, that I was added when Anstotle was workmg on the final verSlOn of the MetaphyslcS That IS why It regards e as the mtroductlOn If we now consider the relation of Book Z to what precedes It, we find that thiS once more confirm,; our view that It was mtroduced mto Its present place after havmg been ongmally mtended as a complete work m Itself As we have seen, Books r and E contam the dISCUSSion of the fir'>t four problems. concernmg the nature of •the sCIence that we are seekmg' ThiS dISCUSSIOn ends With E 1 Then comes somethmg new, VIZ the theory of the vanous senses of 'bemg', and the theory of the most fundamental of these, namely essence (ova-Ia:) In other words, thIS IS the begmmng of the mam part of the MetaphysJcs Anstotle starts by enumeratmg all the relevant meamngs of 'bemg' m the Wldest sense of the word 'Smce the unqualIfied term "bemg" has several meamngs, of which one was seen to be the aCCidental, and another the true (" non-bemg" bemg the false). while beSides these there are the figures of predication (e g the "what", quality, quantity, place, tune, and any slIDuarmeanmgs which "bemg" may have), andagam besides all these there IS that which "IS" potentially or actually-smce "bemg" has many meanmgs, we must first say.regardIng the aCCidental, that there can be no sCIentific treatment of It 'I He then discusses the aCCldental, and thereafter bemg In the sense of the truth or I

M,"'p.

E 2, 1026- 33

THE GROWTH OF THE METAPHYSICS

20 3

falsIty of Judgements ThIS short passage extends to the end of E Z begms the exammation of bemg 10 the fundamental sense, that IS, of the categones, and especially of substance (ovO'la), which IS the mam object of the sCience concerned Strangely enough, the new book opens WIth almost the Hienhcal words that have unmedlately preceded, and WIth the same enumeratIOn of the senses of bemg 'There are several senses 10 whIch a thmg may be said to "be", as we pomted out prevIOusly [here we expect at the least a reference to the h<;t that was gIVen m E 2, but a surpnse awaIts us] 10 our book on the vanous senses of words, for 10 one sense the" bE'mg" mean t 1<; " what a thmg IS " or a "thIS", and m another sense It means a quahty or quantity or one of the other thmgs that are predIcated .l':> these are' Here It IS perfectly clear that, If E 2 had preceded, eIther Amtotle would have referred hiS readers to the full and detaued account of the meamngs of 'bemg' there given, or he would not have enumerated these meanings at all, because everyone would have them m mmd If, on the other hand, Z was wntten mdependently of the other books of the MetaphysfcS ~s a dISCUS"IOn of substance we can at once understand why It would have to begm by bnefly determlmng the relatIOn of substance to the other pOSSIble meamngs of 'bemg', usmg the table of categones as Its startmg-pomt For thiS purpose he referred to the lecture On the Vanous Senses of Words, which no doubt he often gave ThIS dId not fonn part of the lectures on Metaph),sfCs at that time, but was an mdependent mqUlry It IS our so-called Book 6, whIch receIved ItS present unnatural pOSItion not from Anstotle but from hIS editors When, durmg the later rewntmg, the book on substance and the account of potentIahty were mtroduced mto the places that they now occupy, thIS brought about an alteratIOn 10 the whole structure of the Metaphysfcs, to put It more correctly, Anstotle mtroduced them With the mtentIon of changmg the structure m a defimte fashIOn The pattern of the new plan was the method followed 10 the diSCUSSIOn of substance (ZH), where the vanouS senses of 'substance' (matter, form, universal. essence) proVIded the gmdmg thread by mean~ of which Anstotle's conceptIOn of It wa!> gradually buJlt up, through ItS vanous hlstoncal and logical levels, before the

TRAVELS

204

re~der's eyes In the second versIOn of the MetaphysJcs he apphed thIS method to the conception of 'bemg' m Its Widest sense. and' substance' now became Just one of a whole senes of meanmgs of 'bemg' m thIS broad sense To the theory of pure, Immatenal fonn he prefixed that of fonn m general, as the true reahty and substance, In front of thIS agam he put the doctnne of the vanous senses of 'bemg'. from whIch he selects ' substance' as the only one that affects metaphysIcs The selectIOn conSIsts In startmg WIth the senses that slgmfy nothmg eXIStentIal or mdependent, but only the aCCIdental modl1icatlons of bemg or the attItudes of comCIOusness to bemg In VIew Qf Its merely preparatory nature thiS part IS gIven very summartly (E 2-4) In the present versIOn of the M etaphystcs It fonns the conneXIOn between the earher introduction (A-E I) and the new body (ZHSIM) Leadmg up to the mam dIscussIOn, and sketchmg the structure of what IS to follow, It was naturally the last part to be mserted Its mtroductJon converted the hst of the senses of 'bemg' mto the outbne of the whole composItIon We must realIze, however, that thIS compOSItIOn IS the final stage m a long process of development-mcomplete and provlSlonal, mdeed, even m thiS la"t verSIOn, but nevertheless beaTIng all the marh of the determmatIOn to make a great S} nthesls The additIons, msertIons, and eXCISIOns, which ongmated mostly m thiS final stage, eVInce a umtary aIm that was perfectly foreign to the ongmal versIOn-the construction of a theory of the mamfold sense" of 'bemg', a sort of ontological phenomenology, wlthm whIch the old PlatOnIC doctnne of transcendent and Immatenal Form still remams as conclUSIOn, but no longer holds the centre of mterest I may here mtroduce a paragraph on the last chapter of Book e, whIch I have discussed m detaIl m a prevIOUS work I ThIS passage deals With the two meanmgs of truth, first, truth and falSity 10 the ordmary sense, when we call a ludgement true or false accordmg as It Joms the predicate to the nght subject or not, and secondly the truth of metaphyslcal statements of bemg, which do not anse from discursive thmkmg and hence are never true or fabe as dIscursIve Judgements are The truth of metaphYSical statements expressmg a beIng that 15 not an object of I

E7I1 Melaph AnsI. P 49

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expenence rests. accordmg to Anstotle. on a special mtUltIve form of apprehensIOn. which resembles sense-perceptIOn more than discursive thmkmg m that It IS a sort of mtellectual VISion, a pure' contact and assertion' This IS the only remnant of Plato's contemplation of the Ideas that has survived 10 Anstotle's metaphysIcs Why he dIscusses It here IS explamed by hlm!>elf m E 4, where he shows that bemg m the common sense of the truth or falSIty of a proposItion IS not part of the metaphysIcian's problem about bemg Into this passage he mserted a later reference, which can be very sunply recognized as such by the disturbance of the sentence-constructIOn to which It has given nse, there IS also, he says, a second kmd of truth, mtUltIve apprehensIOn, on whIch all general views of the UnIverse depend, and thiS he IS gomg to discuss later The discussIOn IS the final chapter of Book e I have shown In my earher book, follOWing Schwegler. that thIS chapter IS a subsequent addItion to Book 8, and that the reference to It m E 4 must have been Inserted at the hme when the chapter Itself was attached Anstotle mtroduces hiS account of mtellectual mtUItlOn, and of the metaphySical sort of truth, at a fittIng place, namely between the end of the doctnne of potentIahty and the begmnlng of that of the reahty of the supersenslble, which was mtended to follow Immediately ThiS msertIon, WhICh must also have been made on the occa!>IOn of the mtroductIon of ZH8, shows once agam the attempt to arrange a gradual ascent up the scale of bemg to Immatenal essence, and to make the whole work smgle m ItS aim, though constructed of such dIsparate matenals That wa!> thl' spmt of Anstotle's final recensIOn By good fortune our discovery of two separate verSIOns of the preface to the theory of the supersenslble, the earher m M9, and the later m M I, enables us to test our hypotheSIS that the MetaphysJCS ongmally dId not contam the doctnne of matenal sen!>Ible form I If thIS Suppositlon be correct, the later versIOn must presuppose the books on substance, With theIr detaIled analysI,> of sensI1)le bL!ng and of Immanent form (lvv~ov el:Aos) • whereas the earlIer must proceed dIrectly to the problem of transcendental bemg, as we should expect accordmg to the early plan m Book 8, and regard the world of sense (alaful-riJ ovala) as m no respect an • See pp

182

o

ff above

TRAVELS object of 'the science that we are seekmg' It 15 necessary to examme these parallel versions once more from this pomt of View, and I pnnt them SIde by side agam for thIS purpose 206

Later Vemon (M 1) We have stated what IS the substance of sensIble thmgs, deahng 10 the treatise on physIcs wIth matter, and later w~th the substance wInch has actual eXistence Now sInce our mqulry IS whether there IS or IS not beSIdes the sensIble substances any whIch IS Immovable and eternal, and, 1f there IS, what It IS, we must first comnder what IS sald by others

Ongmal Vers~on (M 9.1086"21) Regardmgthefirstpnnclples and the first causes and elements, the vIews expressed by those who dIScus') only senSIble substance have been partly stated In our works on nature, and partly do not belong to thepresentmqulry , butthevle",s of tho!>e who assert that there are other substances beSIdes the sensIble must be consIdered next after those we have been mentlonmg

The ongmal versIOn, startmg from the defimtlOn of metaphYSICS as the theory of the first pnnclples and causes (which IS usual In the oldest parts of the work), begInS the doctnne of substance WIth Plato's dIVISion mto sensIble and supersensible As In A and B, so here the dISCUSSIon starts With the VIew'> of other thInkers The materialIstic teachmg of the PresocratIc phIlosophy of nature (' the VIews expressed by those who dISCUSS only senSible substance ') IS partly referred to the Phys~cs, and partly declared not to belong to the present mqUIry Here It IS Important to notice that Anstotle IS not speakmg of semible substance Itself, as he does In the later versIOn The VIew that senSIble substance as such has any concern WIth metaphysIcs IS still utterly foreIgn to him SenSible realIty belongs to physIcs, 'the views expressed by those who dISCUSS only senSIble substance have been partly stated 10 our works on nature' Furthermore, these VJews • do not belong to the present InqUIry' , that IS to say, they have already been cnhClzed In Book A To suppose that Anstotle IS referrIng here to Books ZH IS ImpOSSIble those books contam nothmg whatever about the thmkers \\-ho admit no realIty but what IS perceptible to sense, and beSides, It IS not to be supposed that Anstotle would have confined hImself to such a negatIve mode of expreSSIOn, If he had preVlously gIVen a detailed account of thiS very senSIble realIty 1D ZHe The underlymg view of thIS versIOn IS rather the slIDple alternative eIther there IS only senSible realIty, and then there IS no metaphySICS, and the first I

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SCIence IS physIcs, or there 15 somethIng supersenslble, and then there l!t also a sCience of that. namely metaphysIcs Hence Anstotle turns at once to the phtlosophers who mamtamed the reahty of the supersenslble. that IS to say, the school of Plato Between thiS stage of hiS development, when the problem still appeared to hun as a sunpie duahsm. and that represented by the versIOn 10 M 1, comes the InsertIon of ZHe. WhiCh m large part opened metaphysIcs to sensIble substance, and the expan!twn of thIS dISCIplIne mto a sCIence of the mamfold senses of bemg It IS true that ArIstotle shll tells us, obVIOusly borrOWIng the language of the oldest versIOn. that sensible c;ubstance has already been dIscussed m the PhysIcs, but he makes a qualIficatIon •dealmg m the treatIse on phYSiCS wzth maUer, and later WJth the substance whJch has actual exutence' Whereac; In the earher versIOn phySICS mcludes all bemg that IS perceptIble by sense, It IS here confined to the exammatIon of matter 1 hIS means that form and actual eXIstence (1') KaT' ~vtpyelav ova/a) are to be assIgned mamly to the sCience under consIderatIOn, which I!t metaphysIcs Anstotle therefore removes the words' and partly do not belong to the present mqUlry " and replaces them With a reference to the newly mtroduced diSCUSSions of ZH0, ",hICh concern preCIsely the' actual eXIstence' of thmg::. perceptIble by sense ThIS backward reference corresponds to the forwanl one Inserted m Z II, 1037' 10 ff , whICh cal1~ attentIOn to the account of supersensible realIty to be given m Book M (see J.bove. p 199) Both of them belong to the later verSiOn, and are n·.cant to umte what was ongmally separate ThIS also showc;. though It scarcely needed proof. that the later versIOn of the diSCUSSion of thf' supersenSible (M 1-9) was Intended for the latest MetaphysICS. as enlarged by the mtroductIon of ZH9 ThiS IS also Indicated by the fact that both these parts are connected With the msertIOn of Book I But Were these new passages SImply' Interpolated . ~ Could Anstotle sunply Juxtapose a theory of senSible substam.e and an mtroductlOn ongmally mtended to lead to an account of the supersenslble? Would not Insoluble contrcidlctIons necessanly follow? And SlOce the transItIon from the mtroductIOn BrE to the' mterpolated' portIOn has seemed smooth to all readeT!> down to the present day, what IS the pnnclple that enabled hun to

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connect the metaphysIc of the transcendental wIth the doctnne of unmanent entelechies ~ There really IS such a lmk between the two stages, VIZ the conceptIOn of bemg as such (c5v ij 6v), by means of which he defines the object of metaphysIcs m the mtroductIon We have been accustomed to thmk of this conception as the seed out of which the mamfold senses of bemg developed m Anstotle's mmd lIke a flower, for does It not embrace both the pure act of dIvme thought and those lower forms of changmg nature that are subject to becommg and diSsolution, and IS not he who studies bemg as such exempt from the necessIty of confimng hunself to absolute bemg, and able to mclude m hIS researches the bemg of every sort of thmg, even of the abstractIons of the understandmg ~ ThIS IS what the final form of the Metaphyszcs actually does, and that has betrayed us mto supposmg that the conceptIOn could not have been realIzed In any other way We now see, however, that thIS IS a mistake, though a very natural one. We can, m fact, show from the Metaphyszcs Itself that there was an earher stage m hIS development when he had not yet drawn thIS concluslOn from the conceptIOn of bemg as such, ",hen he did not regard metaphySICS as the dIalectical development of the mamfold senses of bemg, and when he thought of Its subject-matter sImply and exclUSively as the ImperIshable and eternal The proof of thIS IS K 1-8, a passage often declared spunous, but vmdicated once and for all by our results I have shown 10 my earher dISCUSSIOn of tlus mvaluable document that certam tmy words, the frequent use of whIch betrays a stranger's hand, although the style 15 otherWIse thoroughly Anstotehan, are the unconscIOUS addItIons of a dISCIple who was takmg down the lectures of the master But as a source for ArIStotle's doctnne the book 15 crystal-pure It reproduces the three mtroductory books, BrE, pomt for pomt throughout, usually m the same words, though 10 a much shorter fonn It cannot be explained eIther as a prelunmary sketch of the fuller verSIOn, or as a mere excerpt from It, It IS dIstinct and 10dependent It must be a note taken of thIS part of the lectures on metaphySICS dUrIng an earher stage of theIr development, for, m spIte of large resemblances, It differs characterIStically from the fuller verSIOn m some respects

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When we examme the conneXIOn between thIS earlIer introductIon and the mam body of the work, whIch IS what mterests us mostly here, It becomes clear that thIs verSIOn belongs to a tune before the InterpolatIOn of the book., on substance, ZH8, when the mtroductIon was followed ImmedIately by the theory of the supersensible In the later form of the M etaphystcs we find a transItIonal passage (E 2-4) between the end of the mtroductIOn (E 1) and the begmmng of the mam part (Z 1) The same IS true of the earher (K 8, 1064 b15-1065. 26), but the charactenstIc feature of the later tranSItIOn IS absent here, namely the enumeratIon of the senses of bemg, whIch prOVIde the framework of Books ZH8 It IS true that here also Anstotle dIscusses, as he does m E 2-4, the two senses of bemg that he sets aSIde before entenng on the mam problem of metaphySICS, (1) aCCIdental bemg and (2) the truth or falSIty of Judgements, the fanner because It IS not bemg proper at all, the latter because It IS anI" an act of conSCIOusness But the classIficatIon that he announces In E 2, and CaITleS out m the later verSIOn of the 1J;JetaphyslcS as we have It, receIves no mentIOn whatever m the older mtroductIOn We are tempted at first to eAplam thI,> by the brt.vIty of the excerpt, but now that we have dIscovered In M 9, 1086" 21 ff , the oldest verSIOn of the preface to the central portion of the work, and seen that It presupposes a M etaphystcs n0t contamIng Books ZH8, It IS no longer pOSSIble to Imagme that we have here a mere play of chance Moreover, there IS another unmI<;takable SIgn of later reVISIOn In E 2-4, 'WhICh IS also absent here, and that IS the reference that we find m E 4, 1027 b 28, to the subsequent msertIon of the mqUIry mto the conceptwn of metaphY<;lCal truth (8 10), thIS naturally does not occur m the parallel passage m K 8, 1065" 24, because there was no Book 8 m the ongmal M etaphystcs N~torp conSIdered K 1-8 spunous, on the ground that the conceptIOn of metaphyslCs therem contamed IS not to be found In the mam part of the tradItional M etaphystcs 1 He goes so far as to speak of a Platomzmg author, and of the un-Anstotehan tendency of thIS work to exclude matter and all that 15 connected I Archzv fur Geschtchte dey Phtlosophle, vol I, p 178 The standard that he uses 15 the customa.ry one, 1 e the conceptIOn of metaphySICS tn the books added dunng the composltlon of the second version (ZHe)

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with it from the investigation To hun, with the presuppositions of that tIme, this observatiOn was a serIOUS ground for SUspIcion To us the very same fact becomes a conVIncmg proof of genUineness J MetaphysIcs IS here viewed a<; a sCience of the unmaterlal, and we have shown from the remain,> of the earliest versIOn that this was the original notIOn Nothmg could be a more relIable test of the correctness of our conclusIOn than thl!> restoratIon of the oldest of the Introductory books to Its true TIghts Even the most secret doors of the enchanted castle spring open of theIr own accord, after long and hopeless efforts to bre<1k mto them by force, now that we have dIscovered that the pnnclple of development IS the real key If we compare K 1-8 step by step with the later verSIOn, \\Oe find that In all the changes whIch he mtroduced In erE, Anstotle was actuated by the smgle purpose of adapting the old mtroductlOn to the new structure of the Metaphyszcs, which mcluded matenal bemg as wdl as the other sort TIllS concessIOn to the matenal world appear'S m the formulatIon of the very fir'it fundamental problem (fifth m the whole h'it of problems), concernmg the reahty of the supersenslble \Ve preViOusly remarked that the antIquated ImpreSSIOn made by Rook e is due to the Platomc manner In which thr problems are expressed, but we now see that m thiS matter Kis still more antIquated and stnct 2 WhIle even B pas~es beyond the boundanes of the phenomend.l world In the very first problem, by askmg whether. apart from the senSible, there IS also a supersenslble substance such as the Ideas, the verSIOn In K IS more e::l.clUSIVe still An~­ totIe here asks whether 'the sci.ence that we are seekmg' deals wIth perceptible substances' or not w:th them, but wIth certain I ln my E1I! Melaph A,ul, pp f,J fJ, I defended the genumeness of K 1-8 det'l.ll agamst N
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others' I This excludes all possibilIty whatever that sensible substance should belong to metaphysIcs On the contrary, sensible and supersenslble bemg here constitute, Just as we found them to do m M 9-10, a simple dualIstic either-or 1 In the reVISion thIs eIther-or becomes a not-only-but-also, as the latest ::.tate of the Metaphys~cs presents It to US In the co-ordmatIon and superordlnatlOn of the Immanent and the tran<,cendent forms We find the same emphatic elthrr-or In the part of K where Anstotle discusses the aim of his ontological mqUlry . It IS In general hard to say whether one must assume that there IS a ::.eparable substance besides the senSible substances (I e the substances In this world), or that the:.e are the real things and Wisdom IS concerned with them For we seem to seek another kmd of substance, and this IS our problem, I e to see If there IS -,omethlng that can eXist apart by Itself and belongs to no senSible thing 'J By the 'somethlng that can eXist apart by It"elf' (XWpIOlOV Kae' ~CIVT6) Anstotle here doe::. not mean the concrete, particular eXistence of the phenomenal world, although this too IS often spoken of as . eXisting apart' , he IS USing the expressIOn 10 the sense III which Plato's Ideas' e\.lst apart', as IS shown by the quahficatlOn 'and belongs to no senSible thing' (IJTlAEvl TWV al~Twv Vrrapxov) By this addition he exphCltly ehmlnates all thought of the Immanent forms (evvAov E11.os) , m the same connexlOn the latter are said to be, so far as concerns their eXistence, penshable (cp6apT6v) On the other hand, It IS a pr~or~ cert.l1n to him a!> d. PlatonIst that the object of metaphySIcs-If there IS such a ::'clence-must be an eternal, I I',Jetaph B 2 997" 34 = K I IO~9' 39 I previously ~upposed that thiS dilemma was meant to mdlcatc that the truth hes m the middle-metaphysIcs IS the study of the Form, which mC'1udes both the substance of the world of ~enslble thmgs and also superscnslblc reahty, eXlstmg 10 the second Without matter But the passages that we are ..bout to dI5CUS~ seem to render tIns InterpretatIon ImpoSSible (see espeCially K 2, 10601 7). and It must be acknowledged that the exclUSive formulation, 'eltht'r the senSIble world or the supcr-enslble , IS absolutely essential to the gefleral view Imphed m K If Natorp had pursued throughout the whole MetaphySICS the divergences of doctrme th..t he ob~erved 10 K, he would not have declared thIS book spunous, but would have discovered the chronological and the IIIner dIfferences between the two dIstinct seb of matenal, differences that can be satlsfactonly explamed only through supposlllg that Aristotle gradually developed away from Plato • See pp 206--~o7 above J K 2, 1060' 7-13

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transcendent essence, having Its bemg In Itself (&tAIOl; ovcrla XOOplCTT'J) Kol Kae' c:n:m;,,) He tells us that we must thmk of It as analogous to Plato's Ideas, not to the objects of sense Unless there really IS somethmg of this sort, all that the best mmds have thought out must be mere sound and smoke How could there be any order m the world Without It? Order Imphes somethm~ eternal, transcendent, and endunng I The emphatic nature of these expressIOns differentIates them sharply from the later version Anstotle IS here still qmte close to Plato, and they breathe a passIOnate advocacy of Plato's demand for a supersenSible world-all the more ImpressIve because It anses duectly out of the convIction that the reIgning theory of Ideas IS ImpOSSible z The eternal, unalterable reahty, and the eternal laws of the cosmos dependmg thereon, form, accordmg to K I-B, the presupposItion of the posslblhty not merely of •the sCience that we are seekmg'. but even of any consistent logical thmkmg and any absolute and endunng truths, smce the world of sense IS m perpetual flux, and affords no foothold J Thus the law of contradIctIon IS l'!:>tabhshed In an essentially ontologIcal manner, whereas the later versIOn seems to omit the ontolOgIcal passages I K 2 1060" 21 'It would seem rather that the {arm or shape IS a more Important pnnclple than [the matter] but the form IS penshable, so that there IS no eternal substance at all which can eXist apart and mdependent But thl~ IS paradOXical, {or such a pnnclple and substance se(.ms to eXist and IS sought by nearly all the most refined thmkers as ~omethmg that eXIsts, (or how IS then' to be order unless there IS ~omethIng eternal and Independent and permanent) , See also K 2, 1060 b I-J Z See the Immediately preceding reJechon of Plato's VerSIOn of the supersen'lble. K 2, 1060" 1]-18 ThIS passage perhaps preserves more dIrectly than any other the PlatoDlI: postulate that lIes at the root of AnstotJe's metaphySICS, the postulate of the realIty o{ the transcendental It also ,haws that hi, startmg-pomt (or the rehablhtatlon of the doctnne was that order In nature which seemed to him mexplIcable WIthout the assumptIon of a transcendent , good' as the first pnnclple J K 6. 1063" II In my E,n/ Metaph Ar,s/, p 82, I pOinted out that Natorp went too far when he ascnbed to the author o{ K the view that 1D the earthly and penshable there IS no truth whatever, but I went too far m the opposIte directIOn when I denied that there wa~ any difference at all between th" and Anstotle's usual account of truth It must be alIo\\ed that thiS passage emphaSizes the eternity of cosmic reahty, and bases the pOSSlblhty of endunng truths chlelly on that. whereas In r 5, 10lQA I ff on the contrary, the maID emphaSIS IS on the POSSlblhty of obtawmg defimte proposItions even about the world o{ sense, and the COSIIlOS and 'the nature that IS changeless' are mentIOned only an second place (1010.25)

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21 3

for the most part It IS true that the conclUSion of Book r says somethmg about the conneXlOn between the possibility of knowmg permanent truths and the etermty and Immovablhty of bemg, but, smce this passage was lackmg m some of the anCient manuscnpts, It IS obvIOus that we have here a sectIon deleted by Anstotle dunng hiS recenSIOn, but discovered among hiS papers by the editors and pubhshed along With the rest In any event, thiS section Itself shows that the orIginal versIOn of r laid more emphaSIS on the metaphysical bases of the law of contradiction I Both the ontolOgical proof of the law, and the mcIuslOn of these fundamental logIcal problems m metaphysIcs, were pieces of PlatOniC tradItion So was the que<>tlOn where one should diSCUSS the matter of the obJects of mathematiCs, and whether It belongs to first philosophy Z Actually, the diSCUSSIOn of It occurs m Book N, the close relatIOn of which to K 1-8 IS another SIgn of the age of both We have already seen that In Book B the nature of the problems IS determmed by the problems and content of Plato's metaphySICS ArIstotle was somewhat superficial m altenng thiS part, and hence It has not lost Its fundamentally Pl<1tomc character Apart from the fact that m two places he actually left the old 'we' of hiS Platomc days,J of which no other trace remams In the new verSion, he obVIOusly dId not alter or modify any passages except those that exphcltly contradicted hiS new view , r Il, 1012 b 22-end of the book, was lacking 10 some of t1:le anCient manuscnpts accord1Og to Alexander In A,.sl metaph ,p 341, I 30 (Hayduck) • K I 1059b 15-21 I have discussed the conception of 'the matter of the objects of mathematics In Lnt Metaph Ar1St, P 74, and shown, contrary to Natorp, that It belongs to Plato s later metaphySICS I dId not, howe\ {r, fully answer the question \'ohy thiS problem IS stated only 1D K, and not also In B ThIS Cappear entIrely, constItute~ J. complete explanatIon why so few traces of thIs' we' remam 10 B Those that do are Mmply overSIghts

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of metaphysIcs The number and nature of the problems remamed In general untouched There IS Just one place where he Inserted a new one, and thIs IS charactenstlc, for It concerns the content of the Inserted books, ZHe Just before the last problem (B 6, IO02 b 33) he raises the questIOn of matter and of the actualIty and potentIalJty of the pnnclples, and here he also takes account of perceptIble realIty Now Since, as Natorp observed, thiS questIon doe!> not appear 10 K 1-8, we can only conclude that Anstotlc Inserted the new problem when he was alterIng the three Introductory books to make them lead up to the theory of Immanent fonn and of potentIalIty and actuahty Book K, on the contrary, IS stIll stnctly Platomc In so far as It dIvorces the notIon of pure being from all matter and equates It wIth that WhICh IS selfexlstent, unmoved, and transcendent Moreover, whereas In the last versIOn the cnhclsm of the Ideas was removed from A 9 to the new Book M, the earher form of the mtroductIon presupposes the angInal state of affairs, In whIch the cntIclsm "as stIll In the first book, SInce It refers us for the refutatIOn of the Ideas to what has preceded II ThIS proves that the three Introductory books, arE, also underwent alteration and had a new nahan of metaphySICS Introduced mto them We have now recovered the earher and the last versIOn of almost the whole M etaphyslcS It can be shown, ho\\ever, that even the earher verSIOn of the Introduction (K 1-8) IS not the anginal form of the MetaphyslcS We have seen that In K 1-8 metaphySICS IS deSCrIbed as the sCIence of that which IS unmoved and eternal and transcendent We also find there, however, the defimtlOn of It a!> the SCIence of being as such (ov;:i c5v), though not developed, c1.S It IS In the later verSIOn, mto a sCience of the mamfold meanings of bemg meludmg the perceptIble beIng of movable nature ThIS combinatIon of the two defimtIons 10 K 1-8 15 a serIOUS difficulty, and becomes only too painfully obVIOUS In the later VerSIOn of E, whIch In Its present reVised form IS meant to Introduce the sCIence of the mamfold meamngs of being Smce the earher dnd the later versIOns do not dIffer 10 thIS respect, but only In the J K J, JOS9 b 3. presupposes the refutatIon of the Ideas In A 9 B 2, 997 b 3. on the other hand, the correspondmg passage m the later verSion, presupposes only the b15toncal explanation o( the Idea-theory m A 6, which T('mamed m place when the refutation WIIS removed to M 4-5

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21 5

extensIOn that they asSIgn to the nohon of bemg, we shall not fall mto error If we use them both together m what follows In E I (= K 7) Anstotle explams what he understands by a SCIence of bemg as such All sCIences mqurre mto certam causes and pnncipies of thmgs As examples he mentions medicme and gymnastics, and-to take one With a more developed methodmathematics, 1 e the examples usual m Plato's theory of SCIence and method Each of these SCIences marks off systemattcally a defimte sphere of realIty (6\1 TI) and a defimte genus (ywOl; TI) and studIes the resultIng hmited complex of facts None of them dIscusses the beIng of ItS obJect, they all eIther presuppose It on the ground of expenence, as do natural SCIence and medICIne, or, lIke mathematics With Its aXIOms, they start from partIcular defimtIons TheIr demonstrations, whIch dIffer from each other only m degree of accuracy, deal solely WIth the propertIes and functIons followmg from these defimtIons or from facts eVl<:Ient to sense The metaphysIcian, on the other hand, mqUIres about bemg precisely as beIng He examme~ the presuppOSItIons of these SCIences, of whIch they themselves are neIther wIllmg nor able to glVe an account AnstotIe supplements thiS explanatIon at the begmmng of Book r ( = K3), where he bnngs out even more fully and clearly the dlstmctlon between first phIlosophy as UnIversal sCience and the ~peCial SCiences, between bemg as such and ItS particular realm,> Here he treats bemg not as a sort of obJert separate and distinct from others, but as the common pomt of reference for all states, propertIes, and relatIOns, that are connected WIth the problem of realIty As the mathematICIan, accordmg to hIm, looks at all thmgs solely from the pomt of VIew of quantity, so the phIlosopher studIes everythmg that belongs to bemg as such. whereas the phYSICIst, for example, conSIder<; It only as In mohon Many tlungs 'are' only because they are the affectIon or the state or the motIon or the relatIOn of some one bemgthey denve from somethmg that' 15' SImply In Plato's school the method of refemng (avaywyfl) all the affections (were,) of bemg to somethmg smgle and common (~\I TI Kal KOIV6v) was dIViSIon In the form of OppoSItions (iVCI\lTIWaeIS), whIch were referred to certaIn most general or 'first' dI<;tmctIons m bemg Anstotle presupposes a knowledge of the SpeCial work of the

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school m thIS field, and of Its lIterature He means the OppOSItion between the one and the many, the same and the other, the lIke and the unhke, m short the whole sphere of PlatonIc dialectIc, as we find It 10 the mqumes about bemg and the one (ov Kallv) m Book I, or agam an mqUlry hke that on the ultimate pnnclples of thought, the laws of contradIctIon and of excluded mIddle, WhICh he treats In r It IS true that the conneXIOn of these questions WIth hiS own theory of substance IS only medIate, but obVIously he was trymg to find a defimtIon of metaphysIcs that would make room for the tradItIonal dIalectIc To Plato dialectic was as such ontology To Anstotle It was rather a practIcal and hlstoncal questIOn whether thIS whole logIC of bemg was under all CIrcumstances to be mcluded 10 first philosophy HIS ongmal metaphySICS was theology, the doctnne of the most perfect bemg, It was hard to combme abstract dialectic WIth thIS once the Ideas were gone But he tned to lInk them up by means of theIr common relatIOn to bemg as such (ov DcSv) Whereas 10 thIS conneXlOn the highest form of phIlosophy appears as the uDlversal SCience, It IS Immediately followed by a different picture 10 E I ( = K 7). where Anstotle IS trymg to dlstmgUlsh metaphySICS, phySICS, and mathematics, by their objects He here diVides sCiences IOta theoretical, practical, and productIve PhySICS IS a theoretical SCience, It studies the bemg that IS capable of motion, and therefore regards the conceptual essence and fonn only m so far as It IS lomed WIth matter To abstract from the matter would always be a mistake 10 phySICS Even psychology must be pursued m thl~ manner, so far as we are concerned With the realm of the psychophysICal Mathematics IS also a theoretical sCience Anstotle raises the question, mdeed, whether ItS objects really have an unmoved, separate, and mdependent realIty. as the Academy mamtamed (He here deCides agamst thiS doctnne, while at the same tJrne adoptmg the Academy's tnpartlte diVISIon of theoretical phIlosophy and ItS assignment of mathematics to a place between ontology and physIcs) But, however that may be, mathematics at any rate regards ItS objects as unmoved and mdependent (is 6:JdV'TlTO Kol DXc.>PIO"TO: 6Ewpei), whIch only makes It clearer that the study of real unmoved and transcendent bemg (If there IS any such) Will be the task of a theoretIcal SCIence But what IS thIS science?

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21 7

It cannot be physIcs, for the objects of that, although mdependent (xwplO"Ta) are not unmoved, nor can It be mathematIcs, for ItS object, whIle partly unmoved, IS not mdependent and separate Only the hIghest form of phIlosophy studies a sort of bemg that IS both mdependent and unmoved 1 ThIs defimtIon by Itself would suffice to conclude that Anstotle IS thmkIng of the unmoved mover, and he says hlffiself m the next sentt'nce that the pnnclples he means are the causes of the vIsIble dlvme thmgs (aiTla Toi~ cpavepois TWV eelwv). In vIrtue of whIch he calls metaphysIcs theology (eEoAoyIK';) But now thIs detenmnahon of the nature of metaphysIcs purely by means of ItS subject-matter, namely unmoved and transcendent bemg, makes It one special sCIence among others Whereas elsewhere It IS consIdered as the unIversal SCience of bemg as such, and sharply contrasted wIth the sCiences that examme only a speCial kmd of bemg (ov TI Kol yevo~ TI),Z h~re It I!> Itself merely the knowledge of the hIghest kmd of bemg (mpl TO TI~IWTO'TOV YEV~) Its object IS saId to qe bemg of thiS kInd (TOlaV'TT] cpUC-IS), and It IS to be looked for m a particular genus of reality, namely m the cosmic reglOn of what IS VISible but lmpenshable The contradIctIOn IS undemable, and Anstotle hImself observed It In a note that obvlOusly breaks the tram of thought, and must therefore be a later addltlOn, he makes the follOWIng remarks , One mIght raIse the questIon whether first philosophy IS unIversal 01 I Metaph E r 1026' r3, as corrected by Schwegler 'For physlLs deals With thmgs whIch eXIst separately l the MSS have' mseparably' J but are not Immovable, and SOme parts of mathfmahc~ deal With thmgs which are Immovable but presumably do not eXI~t separately, but as embodied m matter whIle the first 'iC1Cnc.e deals With thmgs whIch both eXI~t separately and are Immovable' The conjecture of some reader ha~ found It~ way Into the manuscnpts--a reader who took' separately' as meanmg 'transcendentally', and reahzed that thIS would not be true of the forms' emba<:lJed tn. matter , of whIch the vl.lble world consists But' separately' means here merely 'mdcpendently', and Anstotle uses the word m thiS sense even of perceptible thIngs The object of metaphySICS, however, sIDce accordmg to thIS definrtron It IS both IDdependent and unmoved, must eXIst 'separately' In the sense of 'tran!!Cendentally', because only the supersenMble exlublts both charactenstIcs at once • Metaph E r. r02jb 8 'all these SCIences mark off some particular bemgsome genus, and IDqulIe Into thIS, but not IUtO belllg SImply nor as bemg • Contrast IOz6' r9 on metaphys.cs as the scIence of diVine thtngs 'It IS obVIOUS that If the diVIne .s present anywhere It IS present In thtncs of tJ"s SCfft And the highest science must deal With the h.ghest genus, • e the dIVIDe

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deals with one genus, I e some one kmd of bemg (qujall/ T1vC: J,Ilav) , for not even the mathematical sciences are all alike In this respect-geometry and astronomy deal with a certam particular kind of thmg, 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 fir!;t SCience, but If there 15 an Immovable substance, thiS IS 'pnor' to the world of senSible appearances, and metaphySICS IS the first SCience, and umversal Just because It l'ijil'st And It will belong to thiS to conSider bemg as being-both what It 15 and the attnbutes which belong to It a'i bf'wg 'I

ThlS gloss does not remove the contradiction On the contrary, It only makes It more ObVIOUC; In attempt10g here to combme the two defimtlOns he understands by a umversal sCience a sCience of the' first' object, whIch IS a pnnclple In a more comprehenSIve sense than are the other kmds of bemg, but 10 r I and the begmmng of E umversal meant that which does not refer to any particular part of bemg at all, and ArIstotle could not and does not assert that the Immatenal movers of the stars are not •particular be1Ogs' nor < one sort of bemg' One lmght perhaps be mclmed to suspect that neither the problem nor Its solutIOn, which looks so much lIke an observation made en passant, comes from Anstotle himself, but smce It also appears 10 the other verSIOn 10 K8, and since It expresses a contradlctlon that IS really present, there IS nothing for It but to admit that the phIlosopher dId not find the solutIOn of the problem, or at any ra te thd.t It dId not occur to hlffi until after the two verSIOns were already fused together These two accounts of the nature of metaphySICS certamly did not anse out of one and the same act of reflectIOn Two fundamentally different trams of thought are here 1Oterwoven It is obVIOUS at once that the theological and Platomc one IS the older of the two, and thiS not merely on hlStoncal grounds but also because It is far more schematic and less developed It IS a product of the PlatOniC tendency to make a sharp dIVISion between the senSible and the supersenslble spheres When metaphySICS IS defined as the study of bemg as bemg, on the other hand, reahty 15 regarded as one smgle, umfied senes of levels, and thiS therefore 1S the more Anstotellan account of the two, that IS to say, the one 1 E I. 10:26. :23-3:2 Banlu pomts out the contradJcoon ID hiS commentary He linds no explanatIon

THE GROWTH OF THE METAPHYSICS

219

that corresponds to the last and most charactenstic stage of his thought At first he proceeded stnctly m the direction mdlcated by Plato, that IS, he retamed the supersenslble world as the object of first phuosophy, as we learn from the mamfesto On PhIlosoPhy, and merely replaced the transcendental Ideas with the first mover, WhiCh, bemg unmoved, eternal, and transcendent, possessed the properties that bemg must have accordrng to Plato ThiS, hIS earlIest, metaphySICS was exclUSively a sCience of the bemg that IS unmoved and transcendent, I e theology It was not the SCIence of bemg as such ThiS result IS further confirmed by the treatIse commonly referred to Simply as •the theology', namely Book" of the M etaphystcs Bomtz saw that, whereas one would expect thiS book to give us the conclUSIOn of A-e, It actually stands m no relation to the others ThiS IS because It IS really a small mdependent work The style and the chOIce of Ideas show that It IS an Isolated lecture, composed for a speCIal occaSion, glvmg US not merely the part of metaphySICS that IS called theology but somethIng much more comprehensIve-a complete sy<;tem of metaphySICS tn nuce Aristotle here offers us a compact -ketch of hiS whole theoretical phuosophy, begmmng WIth the doctrme of substance and endmg With that of God It IS obVIOusly hIS In tentIOn, not to mtroduce hIS hearers to techmcal Inqumes, but to hft them out of themselves WIth the selfcontaIned swmg of hiS great picture of the whole WIth confident blows of the hammer he chisels magmficent sentences, which even to-day WE' mvoluntanly read aloud, m spite of the abbreVIated nature of notes made for oral delIvery 'The creative actiVIty of thought IS lIfe' 'All thIngs are ordered towards an end' 'On thIS pnnClple hang the heavens and nature' The conclUSIOn, where he addresses the PlatOniC dualIsts In the words of Odysseus (' the rule of many IS not good, one ruler let there be '), IS pflSItIvely stImng In effect It IS a docum~nt umque of Its kmd, for here, and here alone In hIS lectures, Anstotle boldly sketches hIS picture of the umverse In ItS totalIty, dlsregardmg all questIOns of detau At the same tune It IS Invaluable as a source for the hl'itory of Ius development, for In date It belongs to the theolOgical penod whose eXistence we have demonstrated It enables us to see what relation the doctrme of Immanent forms had to

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that of the transcendental mover before the hrst-named became a part of metaphysIcs Itself The lecture IS sharply divided mto two unequal portions The first of these (cc 1-5) dIscusses the doctnne of senSIble reality, Its analySIS results m the conceptIons of matter, form, potency, and act The second (cc 6-IO) begins straight away With the speculatIve Idea of the unmoved mover and With the assertIOn of a supersenslble realIty UnlIke the second, the first part IS not an end In Itself, It IS there simply for the sake of the second, to which It serves as foundatIOn From the world of movmg thmgs, which he descnbes as forms developmg and realIzIng themselves m matter, Anstotle ascends to the unmoved source and end of thclI" motIon. the form of all forms, pure act, the form that IS creative and free of all matter With thiS ,>ubJect he therefore spends almost tWice as much tune as with that of the first part To a casual glance the constructIOn seems to be the same as m the later presentation of metaphySICS In both the doctnne of substance and of actuahty precedes theology, and the earher part of 1\ IS m essentials parallel to the content of Books ZHe But the deCISive conSideration IS that m 1\ the notIon of metaphySICS IS confined to the later part, the earher IS not reckoned as belongmg thereto The conclUSIOn of the first part runs 'We have stated, then, what are the prmClples of senSible thmgs and how many they are' I The second begms . Smce there were three kmds of substance, two of them phYSICal and one unmovable, regardmg the latter we must assert that It IS necessary that there should be an eternal unmovable substance' (ou17la) Whereas later ArIStotle deSCrIbes the two kmds of senSible reahty as .m a sense' the concern of physlc'>,z he here calls them . physical' Without quahficatlOn The unmoved and eternal, on the other hand, IS the object of metaphySICS Without quahficatlOn, Just as It IS m the earher verSIOn of the mtroductlOn and m Book N, wluch we have shown to be early 3 In exactly the same I Melap1l /I 5. I071 b I • Me/ap1l Z II, 1037" 'SlDce 10 a sense the mqulry about perceptible substances IS the work of phySICS, I e of second philosophy' , The deternunatlon of 'the scll'nce that we are seeking by means of the qualItIes of eternity, mdependence. and permanence. ",hlch must belong to Its object m accordance With the example set by the theory of Ideas, appears, as we have seen. not merely In the older version of the mtroducbon (K 2, 10601 26),

I.,

THE GROWTH OF THE METAPHYSICS

221

way he here says sunply that sensible reabty IS penshable, and mfers that, If there eXists nothmg but the forms unmanent In sensible thmgs, everythmg m the umverse IS necessanly subject to the Heracbtean flux 1 Book,> K and 1\ also agree m recognlzmg a,> the object of 'the sCience that we are seekmg' only the transcendental, that which IS not unmanent In any sensible thmg ~ The three anginal kmds of bemg are clearly apportioned between phySICS and metaphysics The two kmds that belong to the '>enslble \\- arId, the unpenshable substdnce of the heavenly bodIes and the penshable substance of plants, ammals, &c ,are assigned to phySICS Without any bmltatIon, because they are bound up WIth matter and motion. unmoved substance IS the object of , another sCience', metaphysIcs J J ommg all these observations together, we may say that Book 1\ represents the stage that we have discovered to corne before the tradItIonal metaphysIcs, a stage that was stIll purely PlatOniC dnd dld not recogmze the doctrIne of sensIble substance as an mtegral part of first phIlosophy In Anstotehan language, metaphY'>lcS as 1\ understands It does not study the whole category of substance, but takes a particular part of It Its ubJect IS confined to the part of the category of substance that I'> perfect and good, namely God or reason 4 It seeks for a tran" but also in the early A 2, 9~12b 28-" I I, where thIS sCIence- IS from the fir.t a"umed to be theology, as It JS m the dJalogue On PhIlosophy That Dook N belongs to the oldest stratum of the MetaphysIcs "as proved abcne pp IR') t' Hence It IS e.peClaUy Important that m It~ opemng sentence, (1087" 30) thl~ book IS Just as defimte a. Book " in contrastmg the conception of metaphy,lC' ,,. the scIence of the' unchangeable substances' "Ith phySICS a, thp theory of lh .. "orId of motIon Anstotle IS refernng to the metaphysJc~ )f thr Platom.ts, th .. doctnne of Ideal Numbers (hence the plural 'substancL~'J, but the- contra.t between the two SCJences based on the absolute distInctness of their oblects, J,> Ob'IOusly entIrely accepted by him I Sen.lble substances, ",th the exceptIOn of the heavenly bodle~ ar.. de'"Tlbed SImply as penshabJe In 1\ 1,1069" 31, and 6, I07Ib 6, cp K 2 1060"22 lhe later account in Z B, I033b 5, and H 3, I043b 15, IS much more complex mu,t be de,tructIble WIthout bemg ever tn coune of being destroyed, and m""t have come to be" Ithout ever bemg In course of cclmlng to be' Here the world of appearances, which to Anstotle was ongmally Just changeable, !la, be..n thoroughly penetrated With the Idea that ,t too partakL. of the unchangeable because of the forms that hold sway In It • Melaph K 2, ]06oa 12 • eXlstmg apart by ,tself and bdonglDg to no senSible thlDg' Cf "6 I07Ib 19, and 7. 1073"" J " I. Io6'}a 30 and 36 • For the Vie" that the good In the category of substance ,s God or reason see Eth Nte I 4, 1096' 19 fI, esp "21 and cl Eth l:.ud I 8, 12I7b 30, an:! p

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scendental entIty such as Plato's Idea, combInIng absolute reality (ovala) with absolute value (aya66v) AccordIng to A values and realitIes are two separate ascendmg senes, convergmg towards the top They meet at the pomt where the highest value (apICTTov) comcldes WIth the purest reahty (ovala) This IS the PlatoDlc notlon of the most perfect bemg (ens perfecttSstmum), which we have already found set out In the proof of God's eXistence m the dialogue On Phtlosophy The second and still more unportant thmg to notice IS the posItion of the dodnne of immanent forms In Book 1\ we can at last see clearly how this Vital part of Anstotle's phIlosophy was related to theology whIle It was stIll a part of physIcs The gradual ascent from sensIble to pure supersenslble form, which later took place Wlthm metaphysIcs, IS effected m A by the pnmltIve deVice of lettmg metaphysIcs, as the sCience of the unmoved and transcendental, SImply rest externally on phySICS, the SCIence of the movable and unmanent By the logical maDlpulatIon of the objects of senSible expenence phySIC!> obtam'S the conceptIons of form and entelechy, which It distIngUishes from matter and potency, and the relatIOns of whIch to these other conceptIons It determmes It then hands them over to metaphYSICS Whereas phySICS, however, 15 never able to abstract from the moment of matter and motIon, which m expenence are always found along With the form, metaphySICS, standmg on ItS shoulders, reaches up to the conceptIOn of a highest and Imrnatenal form, on whIch nature, as a totahty, . depends' and In which alone phySICS receives Its completion With reference to Its functIon as the SummIt of the system of phySIcal movements thIS form IS called the first mover Here we come upon the earl1est form of Anstotle's theology-the doctrme that phYSICS IS to be completed by a transcendent 'end' (To..~). towards whIch all the VISIble motIon m the world 15 dIrected, and by which the phenomena of nature are' saved' Although the real proof of the early date of " IS ItS form, which exactly fits the results of our analySIS of the other books,! MlJlaph II 7. 1°721 34 Thus the ongmal metaphySICS was the science of pure and perfect bemg and of the highest good. not, !Ike the later. of all Iunds and senses of being I Chapter 8, which was IIlserted later aD. IS treated below III a separate dlsCUIMon

mE GROWTH OF THE METAPHYSICS

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confirmatIOn IS to be found In certam of Its external relations to them Whereas Its relatIOn to the final versIOn of the Metaphyncs, as we have It, IS entIrely negatIve, It eVIDces the closest connexlOn WIth the fragments of the ongmal versIOn, to which It stands near Ul time, and especially wIth Book N Bomtz faded to notice thIS because he was lookIng only for connectmg hnks between A. and the umfied series of books that precedes It ThIS senes, however, and the plan of It, are later than A., whereas we have shown that N, although m posItIon It comes afterwards, IS part of the earlIest state of the MetaphysJCs, and ObVIOusly precedes A 10 time In any event It would be natural to conJecture that 10 a merely occasIOnal discourse, mtended to give only a short summary of hTh whole metaphySical View, ArIstotle would make use of hIS lecture-notes And 10 fact A 15 little more than an extract from hiS more detailed esotenc lecture, 30 far as the remams of the ongmal MetaphysJcs enable us to judge It IS true that we do not possess the really posItIve part of the phIlusophy of the supersensible, I e the doctnne of God, eIther 10 the earher or m the later verSIOn, but the precedmg cntlcal portion, WhICh was directed agamst the metaphySICS of the other AcademiCians, was used hberally as a source of thiS discourse, and presumably the posItive part of /\'s theology had exactly the same relatIOn to the lost theologyofthe ongmal MetaphysJcs, that IS, was Simply an excerpt therefrom We may make the relatIOn between A. and N clearer by settmg Side uy Side some of the passages that are dependent on each other N 4, 1092'9 If then, It IS equally Impossible not to put the good among the fir~t prmClples and to put It d.mong them m thiS way eVidently the pnnClples are not being COlTectly descnbe" Nor does anyone conceiVe the matter correctly If he compares the prlTlClples of the umverse to that of anImals and plants. on the ground that the mon complete always comes from the 10defimte and lflcomplete--whlch IS what leads thIS thmker to say that thiS IS also true of the first pnn-

A. 7,

1072bJO

Those who suppose, as t[\l~ Pythagoreans and SpeUSlppUS do, that supreme beauty and goodness are not present m the beglTl7nng, because the begmmngs both of plants and of ammals are causes, but beaut-, and completeness are In the effects of these, are wrong m theIr opinIOn For the seed comes from other In. dlvlduals which are poor and complete. and the first tiling IS not seed but the complete bemg, e g we must say that before the seed the"e IS a man, -not the man produced from thl'

l:Z4

TRAVELS

clples of reahty, so that the One Itself IS not even an eXlStmg thmg This IS Incorrect, for even m thJS world of ammals and plants the prmclples from which these come are complete, for d IS a man that produces a man, and the seed IS not first

seed, but another from whom the seed comes

It IS ObVIOUS at first glance that one of these passages must have been mfluenced by the other Although A mentlOns SpeuSlppUS by name, whIle N attacks hIm anonymously, there can be no possIble doubt that N IS the ongmal and more complete verSlOn It IS much more precise It bnngs out more clearly the fact that the 'pnnclples of ammals and plants', of whIch both accounts speak, were held by SpeusippuS to provIde an analogy to the . pnnclples of the umverse'. and that thIS IS not a stnct mference but a mere companson (napelKCIJelv) The argument from the evolution of orgamsms to a correspondmg evolution of the UnIverse appears to Anstotle as a •tranSItIOn to another genus' The account In A does not even mentIOn the questIonable logrc of thls argument. It only remarks In passmg. •because the begrnmng., both of plants and of ammal., ',&c But the evolutIomst theory IS not true even of orgamsms-thls IS the second part of the account-because the first thmg IS not the seed but the actual hVIng man, he bemg pnor to the seed At the begmmng, therefore, comes pure actualIty, not potency or matter The mfluence of N also appears at the end of the lecture N 3, 1090b 13 A 10, 1075 b37 Agam, If \\e are not too eaSily satisfied, we may regarding all number and the objects of mathematlcs, press thiS difficulty, Ihal thev COJ'ltrlbule nolhlng 10 one anolher Ihe prIOr to the posterIOr, for If number did not eXISt, none the less spatial magmtudes would eXist for those who malntam the eXIstence of the objects of mathemattcs only, and If spatial magmtude'> d1d not eXist. soul and sens1ble bodies ~ ould eXlst But the observed facts show that nature .s not a series oj epISodes. lJke a bad tragedy

And those who say mathematlcal number IS first and go on to generate one kind of substance after another and give different pnnClples for each, make the substance of the unl!lerse a mere ser:es oj episodes (JOY one substance has no Influence on another by Its eXistence or non-existence). and they give us many govermng pnnclples , but the world refuses to be governed badlv . The rule of many is not good, one ruler let there be '

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ThIS makes It clear that the whole concludmg pOl han of Book A was mfluenced by the polemIc agamst SpeUSIppUS In N 3 WhIle wntmg this part of hiS sketch Anstotle had hiS earlIer techmcal work before him, or at any rate It was very present to hIS mmd Here too there can be no doubt that the ongmal version was N and not the much bnefer passage In A In Book N 'the pnor contnbute nothmg to the postenor' IS more clearly put Its VIYld expreSSIOns for the vanous levels of bemg accordmg to Speuslppus degenerate m A Into the obscure statement 'for one 'iubstance has no mfluence on another by It!> eXistence or non-existence' We know that Speuslppu<; held that every hmd of beIng has Its own pnnclples, one for numbers, another for mdgmtudes, another for the soul, and ~o on, and that between these prmclples there IS no further connexlOn I These fine dl'itmchon<; are clearly reproduced In N on Speuslppus' VieW numbers might wholly dIsappear, although they dre the highest prInCIple, Without affectmg the e:ustence of magmtudes. "hldl come next, and sImilarly magmtudes could go Without In any \\ ay changIng thp eXistence of con!>ClOu!>nes!> or of the e), tended \~orld AnstotIe aptly calls tIllS a nature composrr} of disconnected scenes lIke a bad tragedy In A the omISSIOn of the last phla"e makes the picture of 'a nature WIthout conneXIOn bet\\,een Its scene,,' ob<;cure to the pomt of mcomprehenslblht) Instead of It he here "Witches over to the magnificent SImIle of the monarch and the many rulers, which make" ,m equaily stnkIng pIcture of the "tructurelec.,s anarchy of SpcmIppus' theory of the first prInciple" Why doe!> he drop the Simile With which he began ~ PrecI!>ely becau~e he no longer fCf'l, It VIVidly enough to do It full JustIce He Simply produce::. It {rom IllS store as somethmg rcady-made and qUlte famlhar Chapters one ann twu of Book N were also u5ed 10 the composition of A The keynote of N I IS the same a-; that of the last chapter of A-polemiC agaIn"t Plato',> dualism of first prInCiples The rest Will be obvIOUS If we Juxtapose them

N

I,

ID87" 29

A la,

All ph~losophe1's make the first prtnClples contrartes But S1nce there cannot be anythmg pnor to I

10 75"

25

"" e must not f'l.ll to observe how many Imp<>'>~lble ur paradOXIcal re~ult., confront tho~e who holrl

Metaph Z 2

I02Bb 21

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226

the first pnnclple of all thmgs, the pnnclple cannot be the pnnclple and yet be an attnbute of somethmg else To suggest thiS IS hke saymg that the white IS a first pnnclple, not as anythmg else but as white, but yet that It IS predlcable of a subject, I e that ItS bemg white presupposes Its beIng somethmg else, thiS IS absurd, for then that 'Subject wt.ll be pnor But all things which are generated from thear contraries Involve an underlYing subject, a subject, then, must be present m the case of contranes, If anywhere All contranes, then, are always predicable of a subject, and none can eXISt apart But these tJlJnkers make one of the cont"ayUS matter, so~ makmg the unequal-which they take to be the essence of plurallty_altey fOY the equal,' and otheys makang plurality malter for the One

N 4,

different Vlews from our own, and what are the views of the subtler thmkers, and wluch views are attended by fewest dllnculbes All make all things out of contranes But neither' all thmgs' nor' out of contranes' IS nght, nor do these thmkers tell us how all the thmgs m wluch the contranes are present can be made out of the contranes , for contranes are not affected by one another Now fOY us thiS dlfficulty IS solved naturally by the fact that there IS a thard element These thinkers however make one of the two contraries matter, thiS IS done fOY Instance by those who make the unequal matter for the equal, OY the many matter foY the one

I09Ib 35

I\. 10, 1 °75. 34

It follows, then, that all thmgs partake of the bad except one-the One Itself (b 30) These absurdities follow, and It also follows that the contrary element IS the ballItself

Furthe", all things, except the one, Will, on the view we are CritICIZing, partake of evil, for the bad Itself IS one of the two elements

Book A concludes WIth an ImpreSSIVe account of the devIOUS consequences of duahsm as upheld by the Academy, whIch serves as a fod to the stnct monarchy of Anstotle's doctrme of the thought that thmks Itself ThIS part IS nothmg but a mosaIC of ISolated sentences and Ideas from N I It IS true that It slIghtly popularIzes and SImplJ1ies the hIghly dIfferentiated matenal of Book N, but the mam argument of that book agamst the dualIst theory of the pnnclples remams VISIble everywhere the contranes must mhere m a thud thmg as a substratum, m accordance WIth the AnstotelIan doctnne of form and pnvatIon, whIch reqUIre matter m order to change Into each other A I

OmlttIDg TIj'l Iv!

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227

simply asserts the terhum dabttur, N proves It For us, Anstotle tnumphantly exclaims, the problem IS solved without difficulty, for there IS a thud thmg and that IS not maUer, the substratum of contrary states, but absolute thought, the form that IS wlthout matter and hence not hable to any change or to any contrary The mevltable consequence of the reJechon of dualism IS not matenahsm but the absolute monarchy of nllnd

CHAPTER IX

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS HE

key to the understandmg of Anstotle's ethIcS hes m the

T problem of the relahon between the Ntcomac!tean and the Eudemtan versIOns The so-called Magna Moraha may be dISregarded It IS SImply a collectIOn of eAcerpts from the two other works, ItS author was a Penpatehc who used the longer presentations 10 order to make a bnef handbook for lectures In practIce the Nlcomachean EthlcS has always predommated over the other mam treatise almost wIthout mterference The Eudemlan has remamed entirely m the background, ItS only use has been to help occaSIOnally In the mterpretatIOn of dIfficult passages There IS good reason for thIS procedure, for the Nzcomachean Ethzcs IS deCIdedly supenor In completeness of constructIOn, clanty of style, and matunty of thought Even m antIqUIty men dIscussed the Nzcomachean only, and neglected the Eudemtan, and the latter IS stIll almost virgIn soIl Recent years have seen a commendable move towards better thmgs, but, so far as can be observed, It has not yet had much effect. In the last century an event occurred WhICh remforced the natural preference of scholars for the better work Spengel, the celebrated Anstotehan and reVIver of anCIent rhetonc, declared the Eudemtan EtJncs to be spunous I HIS famous article, WhICh ImmedIately obtamed umversal acceptance and stIll holds the field for the most part to-day, expressed the VieW that thIS work was not merely pubhshed by Anstotle's pupIl Eudernus of Rhodes, but abo wntten by hun While Its frequent and remarkable correspondences WIth the Nlcomachean EthlcS could only be explaIned as due to a close follOWIng of Anstotle's doctnne and of ItS formulatIOn 10 that work, he held that 10 Its deviatlom, which are conSiderable, the Eudemtan EthlCS betrays the mdlvlduahty of Eudemus The Nlcomachean EthlCS was so much better m many respects, and so much ncher and nper as a whole, that It was ImpOSSIble to Imagme what could have caused Anstotle to wnte such a much less happy replIca The I

Abh d bayr Akad d

WISS,

vol

111

(18.p), PP 534 fi

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

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detenoratlOn was therefore ascnbed to the pupIl Above all, the theological denvatiOn of morality m the EudemMn EthIcS seemed mcompatlble with the preval1mg Idea of Anstotle I Its differences from the other work In this respect certamly do requITe explanatiOn It was thought that they should be connected with the personal devoutneso. of Eudemus, about which, however, nothmg was known except that he "a~ piesumed to be the author of a history of theology, ~ which I~ scarcely to be taken as an expressIOn of hvmg, personal religIOn, espeCially as he also wrote a history of mathematic,> and dstronomy Mamly becau::.e of the belief that he I'> the author, there has grown up a notion of 'the pIOUS Eudemu'i' whICh a~ees very badly with the posItIve spmt of the PenpatetIc school after Aristotle J However that may be, the two German editIOn,> now available, that of FrItzsche In 1851 and that of Su'>emlhl III 1884, both entitle thiS work Eudemt Rhodn Etlaca, and. the valudble En~­ lI,>h commentarIes on the Ntcomachcan Ethtcs by Grant, Stewart, .md Burnet, as well as the German teAt by Apclt, ,Illiegard the other Eth~cs a::. a work of Eudemu'i The tradItIon gIves no support to thI" 'iUpp0'iitlOn It 1<; true that the problem of the three book.. common to both Etll1cS gave n,>p III antiqUity to the thl'ory that they belong to Eudl'mu,> .!TId were transferred to the Nlcomachean Ellu(~ to fill a gap ,4 but the mual view was the OppOSite, smce the)' do not appear In the manue;cnpts of the Eudemlan Ethtcs ThiS mIl'>t ha\ e been so de; early as the AlexandrIan perIod, for the lI<;t of ArIstotelian works known (and presumably actually III the hbrary) at Alexandna dunng the time of Calhmachus' pupil Herrnlppu" mentlOn~ only an EthtC5 10 five books, which IS obVIOusly the Eudemzan wlthI Zeller, Art,totle and the Larlur Pertpatetlcs, vol 2 (1897) PI' 4 21 -7 Grant The Eth.cs of Anstotle, vol I PI' 13 ff • Zeller,op CIt, P 417, n 3 If Eudemus dISLus~eL1 In thIS work the co~mo­ f(onles of Orpheu., Homer He'lOd, AcusIlau" l'herecydp" and EpImemdes, and of the Zoroastnan and other onentaJ theoJog'le', he dId ~o oWJn~ to the stlmulu~ of Anstotle'. remarks on the subject m hiS fir~t hook On PhilosoPhy ] FOr the pIOUS Eudemu .. ' ,ee C Plat 1rzstotele> authon~ed G~nnan edItIon by EmIl Pnnz zur Oettm!;en-Splelberg (Berlm 11)07), I' 3Q4 G"rLke finds hun remarkably rehgIOus for a PenpatetIC. (Elnl 1 d hi AI! vol u'

P 4 0 7)

• Aspaslu"Comm wAnst eth N,c p

1';1,1

24 andp

1(,1

19 mHeylbut

230

TRAVELS

out the three that were taken over later from the NJcomachean 1 Two of the tradItional hypotheses to explam the two verSIons and titles betray thelI" lateness by theIr mere Ignorance Thus CIcero suggested that the NJcomachean mIght well be by NICOmachus-a conclusIOn whIch mdeed would be Inevitable If the EudemJan were by Eudemus 2 ThIS IS a mere mventIOn, as hIS threadbare argument for It shows why should not the son of a famous father have been hunself a capable man for once? Equally late and amateurish IS the mterpretatlon of the two titles as meanmg the EthJCS to NJcomachus and to Eudemus In ArIstotle's day the dedIcation of treatIses was unknown, as IS clear when we contrast hIS genume works WIth the SpUrIOUS Rhetonca ad Alexandrum, to whIch some naIve and unhIstorlcal person, completely mIStakIng the hterary custom of the fourth century, has prefixed a foreword and dedIcatIOn Not to menhan that the two EthJCS have no dedIcatIOns and are not pubhshed works at all, but lecture-notes The general VIew of earher antIqUIty seems to favour sunply the pubhcatlon, by NIcomachus and Eudemus, of two sets of Aristotle's lecture-notes There IS nothIng agamst the SUppoSItion that Anstotle left behmd hIm more than one verSIOn of hIS lecture on ethICS, as we have discovered that he dId WIth metaphYSICS Here as there It IS a pnon probable that the earher of the two verslOns IS the one of whIch only fragments remam The deCISIOn of the questIon must come m the mam from the dIScovery of the mner lOgIC that controls the development of Anstotle's ethIcal problems Kapp has made a begmmng of thiS kmd of mqUiry m a keen and careful pIece of work that IS far the best thmg wntten on the EudemJan EthJCS and theIr phIlosophIcal poSItIon dunng recent years J He compares the two I In spIte of recent doubts thJS seems to me to be proved by the mentIOn of , five books of ethICS m DlOgenes hst, wh,ch goes back to Hernuppus That Hesychlus' list mentions ten books IS no contradiction, even Jf both h~ts denve from HermJppus' catalogue Hesychlus IS obVIOusly relernng to the Nlcomachean EthICS, and either Henmppus himself mentioned thiS 8.$ well as the Eudem,an or else the live was later altered to ten The statement l.D DlOgenes IS con finned by the fact that the manu5Cnpts of the Ewdem'lltJ EthICS gIVe only five books • See the references for thiS and the follOWlng theory In SusemJhl's edJtion of the Eud."llaft EthICS, pp xvm ff, and In Von der MtihU's dissertation D, A,. eth Eudem awctorltllt, (GOttlngen, 1909), pp 25 if J E Kapp, Dlls V,,.h41tJlls de,. ."d.much,JI zu,. 1Ilkomllchuch." Eth,k. Frelburg, 19J2 Dissertation

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

23 1

Eth,cs afresh, and comes to the conclusIon that the Eudmaan IS to be restored to ArIstotle and to be regarded as the earher Von der Muhll had reached the same result a few years prevlOusly, takmg hIS start from the specIal relatIons of the Eudennan EthJCS to the PohtJcs and to some other works 1 My own results, whIch partly agree With and partly go beyond those of my two predecessors, were reached along another path and Without knowledge of their observations Smce their View, that the Eudenuan EthJCs IS early and genume, does not seem to have gamed general acceptance, and Since I hope to be able to make the matter dear once and for all, I WIll set out my own method here It was a dIsadvantage of theIr 'Work that It was not related to Anstotle's development as a whole In particular, by confimng thetr compansons to the two great Eth,cs they gave a handle for many obJectIons, smce they had no fixed pomt of temporal reference Such an Immovable cntenon IS to be found m ArlStotle's earhest ethICS, which has never yet been 'ienously considered By means of the fragments of the ProtreptJCus, mcludmg the newly recovered matter, It IS possible to make a pIcture of the development of hIS ethICS m three clearly separated stages the late Platomc penod of the Proireptzcus, the reformed Platomsm of the EudemJan, and the late AnstotehanlSm of the NJComachean For us the most Important form of the mqUIry Will be the questIon which of the two E!h,cs IS to be regarded as the Immediate product of the problems of the Protrept,cus, and whether It IS possIble to demo:Istrate a continuous advance at all I Von der Muhll, op Cit The speCial value of thts erudite wJrk IS that It traces out very completely the relations that BendIXen (PJnlologw>, vol x (1856), pp 575 fI) had already shown to eXist betwl"en the Ewd'....an PJnes and the Pollt.cs, and add~ some further observatIOns of the same kmd We shall return to thiS question In the chapter on the Politics, a subject for which It IS Important but I would rather not make It the foundation of my lDqUlry Into the Ewd.....afl EOnes, be<.ause the correspondences do not perhaps ronsbtute a complete proof by themselves alone, lD spIte of the fact that those who favour the authorship of Eudemus might find It hard to give a satisfactory explanation of the method of work which Von der Muhll proves the author tC' have used Von der Muhll finds a Dumber of phllosophlcallnaccuranes In the treatise, and explaln~ them by the assumptIon that It IS a !let of somewhat careless notes made by Eudemus from Arutotle's lectures, but Kapp s acute InterpretatIon has cleared them up (op Cit pp 8 ft) and therefore the questIOn whether the work IS Eudemus' notes or Arllltotlc's ongLDal still remainS open

232 I

TRAVELS THE PHILOSOPHICAL RELATION OF THE EUDEMIAN ETHIC') TO THE PROTREPTICUS

The N~comachean EthJCS begms Its mqUlry mto the aun of human hfe wIth a bold sketch of the system of ends Thus from the start the problem IS put mto relatIOn with AnstotelIan teleology as a whole, and the nature of what follows IS mdlcated The begmnmg of the first book of the EudemJan EthJCS mtroduces the same mqUIry m a much less systematIc, but more VIVid and personal, form On the propylaeum of the temple of Leta on Delos, the lecturer begm~, these hnes appear Moc;t noble I!> that which IS ]ustest, and best IS health, But pleasantest I!> It to Win what we Ime

To thiS apodlctIc expressiOn of popular Greek sentiment he oppose'>, not Without feelmg, his own theSIS 'But for ourselves, let U'> not agree With thiS author, for happmess IS the noblest and best and at the same time the pleasantest' ThiS place':> the questiOn of happmess at the summit of ethiCS, and the whole of the first book IS concerned WIth It The conneXIOn between ethiCS and happmess had been traditional smce Socrates and Plato, and the N1comachean EthJCS also retams It as startmg and closmg pomt But the latter work IS much more modern m prefixmg to the diSCUSSiOn of happmess a chapter which denves from the general system of ends the formal conceptIOn of a necessary supreme end of all human effort Not until the begmmng of the next chapter IS thIS equated WIth happme~s The second pomt that Anstotle deals With m the NJcomachean EthJCS before entenng on the diSCUSSion of happmess IS the questIon of method Our study of the ProtreptJcus has shown that m the NJcomachean EthJCS he had arnved at a view about method dlametncally opposite to that of hiS early days As early as the proem he gives It clear formulatiOn I Here agam the Eudemzan I For the contrast between the p.yotreptlCus and the N.comachean EthlCs In pOInt of method see above, pp 85 ff The applIcation of the name proem' to the part whIch In the N'comachean Eth,cs precedes the place where the Evdem,an begms (I e Eth N,c I 2) comes from Anstotle himself These remarks about the student, the sort of treatment to be expected, and the purpose of the mqulry, may be taken as our proem' He then returns to the Idea oC the supreme end, usmg almo~t the same words as ill the first chapter and declares It, as m the Eudem,an Ethus, to be happmess The emphaSIS on the contrast WIth Plato's and WIth hIS own earlIer method. and Its InsertIOn

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EthICs IS less defimte It contams no reflectIons on the peculIanty of ethIcal method Instead the author dIscusses the dIfference between the philosophIcal and the unphllosophlcal treatment of ethIcal and pohtical questions, a pomt that had already receIved detailed exammatIon 10 tht' Protreptzcus t In that work empirICISm was sharply opposed to the ratIonal knowledge of the pure norms, and to dIalectic as the only phIlosophIcal method The Eudem1,an Eth1,cS does not, lIke the N1,comachean, meet thI!:> VIew WIth an absolute repudIatIOn of the demd.nd for exact geometncal treatment, on the contrary, It smoothes over the contrast on WhICh the N1,comachean verSlOn purposely throws Lt bnght lIght 'One must try to obtam conVIctIon from reasomng (MYOI), but to use the phenomena as eVIdence and as examples' Further, It IS neces'iary to bnng the phllo!:>ophical norm mto harmony WIth the prevaIlmg ethIcal VIews by reveahng theu underlymg kernel of truth through conceptual mampulatlOn Thus the conceptual analySIS of e"pencnce repldces the soul'., "'pontaneous knowledge of the ldeds a'i we find It 10 the ProIrept1,cus, although emphaSIS IS still laId on the fact that expenence by Itself IS 'confused', that only the Logos can lead to d. clear InSIght mto the cau!:>e'i of th1Og!'> The contrast between the phliosophical and the unphIlosophlCal treatment IS no longer the ~ame ac; that between the nonnative or loglcLtl and the cmpmcal It now corresponds to two speCIes of concern WIth expenence a lower one that merely a!>certLuns facts, and a hIgher thd.t seeb for the reasons of the facts The Wd.y m whIch the standpomt of the Eudem1,an Eth1,cS has been mfluenced by thp Plutrephcus ('
inqUIry

proper, I~ therefore wholly mtentlonal

10

I Von der Muhll (op Cit, P 21) sugKe~ts that LI" Lud I fi,s directed agalmt Plato and the Academy Kapp doubts thl' The truth" that An.totle .. here refernng to the remarks on method In hl~ own Pro/rep/leu> (lambl Pro/r L x). \\-hleh were PlatoOlc In essence, and IS partly ernendmg dnd partly reJectmg them Cf above, pp 85 ff

TRAVELS

234

Ethscs deprecates the phl.1osophers who burden thIS dlScJphne wIth wJde-rangmg abstract dIscussIons (thIs means the theory of Ideas and of Ideal numbers), and stigmatlZes therr thoroughness as due to nllsunderstandmg or to pomposity (~OJOVE{a) Between the Protreptscus and the Eudemsan Ethics Anstotle had In fact abandoned the theory of Ideas and separated ethics from metaphysIcs The eJghth chapter of the first book contams the refutation of the Idea of the good, which also occurs m the first book of the Nscomachean Ethscs, but whereas the latter prefaces Its cntlclsm with a sharply aggressIve statement of the revolutIon that thIS step had produced m method, the Eudemsan EtklCs tnes rather to show that sn spste of the cntJclSm of the Ideas and of the earber method very substantIal portIons of the Protreptscus retam their valIdity Closer InspectIon of the first book of the Eudemsan Etkscs shows that ItS formulatIOn of the problems IS throughout determmed to a stnkmg extent by the ProtreptJcus, and mdlrectly by Plato's way of thmklOg One of the permanent parts of Plato's theory of 'Virtue', and especially of Jts lOtroductory statement of problems, was the question whether men are 'vrrtuous' by nature or through habJtuatIon or knowledge or dlvme gIft or luck, and smce It was usual to subordmate the questIOn of the nature an~d value of vIrtue to that of true happlOess, the Eudemsan Ethscs, at the beglnmng of Its inqUIry Into happmess, combmes both questions In the form. Does happmess anse through natural constitutIOn or through InSIght or through habituation, &c ~ We are already falmhar With the answer from the Protreptscus whether It depends on one or more or all of these causes, men are essentIally agreed that happ10ess (whIch IS here suddenly equated With 'lIVing well') 15 made up of three factors, the relative unportance of which however 10 secunng the end IS variously estlffiated These are phronesss, virtue, and pleasure Men place the happy and perfect hfe sometlffies 10 one of them and sometimes In the correct mixture of them Thus Plato 10 the Phtlebus puts It In the mixture of phronesss and pleasure, whue AnstotIe's Protreptscus deCides for the umon of all three facultIes I The end of hfe (aK01T~ TOU KaAWs 3i'\v), which ethiCS has to establISh, depends on the deCISion of thiS questIon In J

Plato, PI"I

22 A.

lambl P,OI" P

41,

I

If,

and P 59, I

26

(Plstelh)

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

2JS

every event the problem of happmess leads to that of the best hIe (mpl I3lov TOU KpaTIO"TOU Kal 3c.>'iS Tiis apiaT'l')S) To speak of 'hvmg dIVmely' (IJQKap1ws) IS perhaps less deSirable than to speak of 'hvlng well and nobly', the first expresslOn might TalSe objection The correction shows once more that thiS part of the Eudem~an Eth~cs IS dependent throughout on the Protrept~cus, for the latter spoke WIthout mlSglvmg of the diVine (IJQKOPIOV) In man, and proclaImed that he should lIve for that alone I The fourth chapter, whIch contains the companson of the three 'hves', IS also based on the PTotrept~cus As In that early work, three typIcal forms of hfe are here derIved from the three fundamental forces that are the source of all human values, the know1Og mind, the moral character, and the experIence of deSIre The hfe that IS based on knowledge has Its roots In phronests, that of practIcal pohtIcs 10 VIrtue, that of enjoyment In pleasure Z The example of Anaxagoras, who, when asked who IS the happiest man, answered 'None of those that you thmk so, but someone who would seem extraordmary to you', also appears to come from the Protrcptteus, for the statement that Anaxagoras hImself held that man's happmess hes not 10 wealth or beauty, but perhaps In a Just, pure, and pamless hfe enjoYing diVine contemplation (TIVOs 6ewplas KOIVWVOVvTa 6efas), correspond", exactly to two passages In the Protrept1eu~, where the same phIlosopher descnbes the contemplatIon of the heavens as mar"s true aim, and assigns a share of the dlvme to human hfe III vIrtue of Mind J Thus we find In the denvatlon of the three lIves, as we have already found In the accounts 01 the nght method for ethiCS, that the Eudemzan EOl1es IS nearer to the Prolreplfeus In thought than I" the N1wmachean The latter IS Indeed famIharwlth the three hves that VIe for the pnze of happiness, and mentIOns them In the same cannexlOn ,4 but It menhans them In pass10g only, and as If they were an estabhshed I The dubncbon between' hvmg' and' hVlDg well (perfectly truly, nobly)' developed at length In the Protreptuus (Iambl Protr. c XI. cf eapecLall} p 46, 1 2.5. P 58, 1 I P 60, I 9) For the' dl\ Ine' (~akOpIOV) and' hVlng dl\lnely' see EtA Eud I 1,1214" 30.3. 1215" 10 and cp Iambl, P 4 8,1 9 • EtA Eud I 4. 1215" 26-b 6 J Eth Eud I 4. 1215b 6-14 Iambl Prot", p 51, II 11-15, and p 48, IS

II 13- 1 8 • £til

NJC

I

2,

I09S b 17

236

TRAVELS

tOpIC, whereas the other work lays great weIght preclSely on the systematic denvatlon of them from the three concepbons of phrones~s, vrrtue, and pleasure ThIS denvatIon reveals the ongm of the theory of the three It ves, It arose out of Plato's later ethIcs The Ph~lebus begInS by askmg what IS the hIghest good for man, and makes the two !lve" of phrones~s and pleasure compete for the posItion I The Protrept~cus adds VIrtue, and declares the best Me to conSIst m the correct admIxture of the three The E udemtan Etlnes takes Its start from thIS stage of the development The fundamental reason why the N~comachean Ethtcs, whl1e retamIng the hves, abandons the denvatIOn of them from the tnchotomy phTones~s-vlrtue-pleasure.hes m the change m Anstotle's attItude towards phronests m thIS work 2 We need mention thIS pomt only bnefly, smce we have already dIscussed the contrast between the notlOn of phronests m the Protrept~ws and III Plato, and that m the N~comachean EthtcS The two formulations of thIS notion express the two an!>wers that Plato and Anstotle gave to the questIOn of the ultimate standard and sanctlOn of morahty In the Protrepttcus. phronests retam,> the full Platomc sense of the Nus that m contemplatmg eternal bemg IS at the same time contemplatIng the hIghest good There only the phIlosopher hves the !lfe of phronests The Nteomaehean EtJnes, on the other hand, does not make moral mSIght dependent on knowledge of the transcendental, It looks for a 'natural' foundatlOn of It In practical human conSCIOusness and m moral character Phroneszs and the whole tnchotomy of the Protreptuus are aCC0rdmgly deleted from the fir"t book The Eudemtan Ethtcs, on the other hand, not only retams It m the Plato, Phil 20 E • In Eth NIC I 2, 109Sb 14, the three hves are no longer denved from the three goods On the contrary we are supposed to learn from the hves \I hat men thmk good In the hfe of enjoyment tillS IS pleasure m that of politics It IS honour (not virtue) When he comes to the contemplative life Anstotle IS In a difficulty (1096" 4). smce he cannot mention phronesls He therefore refers to the account to be given later 'Third come~ the contemplative hfe which v.e shaJl conSIder later' To thIS he adds the hfe of money-maklllg, the aim of which IS wealth He thereby purpo~ely remove~ all trace of the old tnchotomv The new hves are Simply the result of the psychological obsenation of h[e, whereas the old ones were Ideal pOints of reference We have already noticed thiS procedure of obhteratlOn In the treatment of the four PlatOniC ~lTtue~ of the Pro/rep/lelIS In Eth NIC X 4 1178a 2i (above, pp 73-74) I

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

237

eacher sense, as we have shown, hut develops the outhne and plan of the whole ethIcal system from It I It announces the plan 10 the follow1Og way 'Let us first consIder vIrtue and phrones~s [notIce the order, It corresponds to the actual order of treatment 10 the Eth~csJ, mqumng IOta the nature of each of them, and whether they are, eIther themselves or the actions that proceed from them, parts of the good hfe' Pleasure IS to be dealt With later Z Smce the central booksoftheEudem~an Eth~cs are lost, we must use the N~comaehean to see whether this proposal IS actually carned out The later versIOn has preserved the ongmal construction, although the role played by phrones~s 10 It IS essentIally different from that a~slgned to It 10 the former. The first part, 'on vIrtue', IS contamed 10 Books II-V Book VI follows with the theory of reason and knowledge, WhICh the Eudem~an Etlnes would descnbe as 'on phronesls' The nomenclature used In the N lcomachean IS 'moral' and' mtellectual virtue' (whIch also occurs In the earher work), 'moral VIrtue' bemg equated WIth the part 'on vIrtue', and '1Otellectual VIrtue' WIth that 'on phrones~s', but 10 spite of the change of name m the latter verSiOn phronesls shll remams the chief sublect of the part Book VII discusse~ pleasure, which IS also treated of In X In the last part of X An'itotle perform~ the 'iynthesls of the three bves The Interven10g books on fnend~hIp (VIII and IX), though found 10 the Euderman EthlCS too, cannot tldve been ongmally 10tended for thiS place, smce they go beyond tht' ongmal conceptual structure of the Ethtcs J WIthout the Eudemtan verSIOn It would now be llnpO'iSIble to seC' that the "ystem of Anstotle's Ethtcs IS an orgamc developrnen., III three , In A nstotle Nlcomachean Eth". Book V J (( ambndge I <j09) GrLenv.uod out that With regard to the meaning of phroneSls then I ' thL ~amL contrast between the NlComachean and the I_udemtan EtM" a~ v.e haH_ shown (pp 81 ff above) to eXist between It and the Protrept"us K.lpP makes use of thiS observatIOn (op CIt, P 4R) I Elh Eud I 5. 1216' 37 , J I have shown In my Ent Metaph Artst (pp 15" if) that An,totle , treatises arose by the combination of Isolated and ,e1f-Lontamed monographs (MYOI, 1J!901>OI, &c) ThIS does not mean that there I, ne~ er an Idea unltmg " large group of such monographs. or that thl'lr reJatlOnsblp lS one of loose JuxtaposItion In thought as well as In expressIOn I t " slmpl} an a.d to the under,tandmg of the way In which Aristotle's' ,""orks' were compo~ed and It enables us to ex pi am their Incoherences and apparent Irrelevancle, by recalling the phdosopher s manner of ,""orklng and teachmg pOlnt~

Q

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separate branches of 1OqUIry, of the tnpartIte dIVISIon 10 the ProtreptJcus The goal towards whIch each leads IS the theory of happiness 10 the final book, which IS supported by all three together The Nfcomachean EthfCS does not give thiS derIvatIon m Its Introductory book, but leaves the OrIgIn of the actual structure obscure ThiS IS another IndicatIOn of the comparatIve earhness of the Eudemlan versIOn What hght do these conslderatlons throw on the questIon of authorshlp~ It now appears Inconceivable that after the master's death Eudemus should have dehberately gone back to a stage that the master had long passed, especIally when we conSIder the close umty of the school On the baSIS, therefore, of the InSIght that we have obtamed mto the gradual development of the ethical problem we must declare It an untenable assumptIon that Eudemus IS the author of the EthJCS named after hun In the study of the hIstory of Greek phIlosophy It has often happened that men have tned to explam by means of bIOgraphical and personal conSideratIons facts that were necessItated by a law 10herent 10 the matter Itself The senes Phflebus, Protreptfcus, Eudemfan EthfCS, Nfcomachean EthfCS, evmces an Irrefutable hlstoncal logiC No member can be exchanged WIth any other PreVIOusly It was pOSSIble to be m doubt about the pOSItIon of the Eudemfan EthfCS, but now that we have fixed the two end-pomts of Anstotle's development, namely the ProtreptfCus and the Nfcomachean EthfCS, whose genumeness IS undoubted, It IS easy to see that the Eudemfan versIOn falls, not on a contmuatIon of thIS hne, but wIthm It It IS 'the ongmal EthJCS', If one may use thIS phrase to mean the earlIest fonn of 10dependent AnstotelIan ethiCS, datmg from the penod after the break With Plato's metaphysIcs The ongmal Ethus holds the same place m the development of Anstotle's moral theory, morpholOgically speakmg, as the ongmal M etaphysfCs does 10 the development of hIS metaphysIcal thought The two agree in theIr unmIstakable determmatIon to find a tenable substItute for Plato's mam doctnne, now that It has been refuted-a substItute that should also satIsfy rehgIous needs, and generally take the place of the contemplatIon of the Ideas In every partIcular CntIclsm of Plato had to be subordmated to the effort to create a new form of Platomsm which,

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

239

whLle confonnmg to the facts of expenence, should remam as conservative as possible In content the ongInal Etlucs IS related to the ongmal MetaphysIcs by the exclusively metaphYSical basIs that It assigns to morility Just as Anstotle was stIll so to speak bodLly attached to Plato's metaphysICs through theology, so, dunng thiS penod when his own philosophy was bemg born, was he attached to Plato's ethiCS through hIS theonomlc morality, thiS bemg what the conceptIOn of phronesls meant to Plato By phr01usls the Eudemlan EthICS understands, hke Plato and the Protreptlcus, the phl1050phlcal faculty that beholds the hIghest real value, God, In transcendental contemplation, and makes thiS contemplation the standard of wlli and a<..tlOn, It IS stIll both theoretIcal knowledge of supersenslble bemg and practical moral IOslght I Anaxagoras IS still the pattern of I:hls contemplatIon of truth, as he was In the Protreptlcus PhroneslS 1<; shU the essence of the phIlosophic and contemplatIve hie Hen<..e It IS stIll regarded as ruhng over all the SCIences (KVplo lToa(;)v hTlCTTT)~WV) and as the most valuable knowledge (TI~IWT the knowledge of the eternal Good mto the ethIcal movement of the will, dnd apphes It to the detalls of pra..-tIce J In the Nlcomachean Eth~cs It 1<; the 'state of capacIty to act', and 110 man ever does anything wlthout It The phIlosophIcal knowledge of Gud IS no lor,ger ItS essen hal condltIon That knowledge Ie; a !>Ollrce of higher I The dlff..rence between thiS contemplation (e.",pl...) and diSC l~~lve 'iClentlfiL thought IS dl!'cussed by Anstotle In Metaph e!O It IS an alf"u not of truth 10 the sens~ of empmcal Judgements. but of an Immediate vIsion tholt actually touches (8Iyyl!Ml) ItS object (which IS a V0'1T6v), compare the P,olr~ph,u.s (Iambl ,p 58 I 14), where the moln "ho POSSI''iSeS phronens IS defined a~' contemplating the most knowable parts of reailtv The difference also appears 10 the fa.ct that according to Elh E wi VII I 1 J ~46b 35, phroneHs IS not a !lCll'nce (hTla£c.>S) It IS a virtue of Nus 10 the P,ot,.p~w.s too (Iambl p 4 1 , 11 2~ if) This" not contradlrteJ by the fact that It IS there (p ~3. II S ff) ca.lled a science (tlTlcrn'J~'1) Thl~ mean~ here that' other !IOrt of knowledge' • For the . contemplatIOn of truth see Eth Eud I 4. IZlSb~, and Iamb! Prot,. P 47 11 15-25 For 'ruilng over all the s(aenreg' see Eth Eud VIII I, 1246b 9, and Iamb! . P 13, 11 2-7 J Etk Eud VIn 2 U1S1 29 virtue IS thf' m~trument of Nus'

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insIght revealed to few mortals, but thIS does not mean that practical WIsdom IS confined to the narrow circle of philosophers Thus Anstotle tnes to understand the fact that unphtlosophlcal morahty eXIsts by reference to the autonomous conSCIence and Its mward standard Only at the end does he add the contemplatIve hfe to thIS picture, and even then he does not make moral VIrtue completely dependent on It' In the Eudemfan verSIOn he IS stIll far from any such conceSSIOn to what Plato calls bourgeOIS moralIty (111'11.100(0 6:peTi]) There phronesfs IS sttll stnctly confined to the contemplatIOn of the dIvme pnnciple, and wIthout It ethIcdl actIOn IS ImpossIble, the only mnovatIOn IS that the objects of contemplatIOn are no longer Plato's Ideas but the transcendental God of the ongmal Metaphysfes, who IS a metamorphOSIS of the Idea of the Good In the Eudemfan Ethfes the central notIon IS sttll God, Just as It IS the unmoved mover m the M etaphysfcs, ethIcal actIon IS stnvmg towards God The Protreptteus also recogmzes only one aIm of lIfe-to escape from the semible and earthly world to God 'There IS a pnnciple beyond WhICh there 1<; no other', says the ongInal EthfCS WIth regard to the processes that go on wIthm the soul 'A~ m the umverse God moves everythmg, so IS It m the soul In a certaIn sense It IS the dIVIne m us [namely Nus] that moves everythmg For the pnnciple of reason IS not reason but somethmg hIgher And what could be hIgher than knowledge but God;i'2 ThIS IS the same thought as Anstotle had expressed at the end of hIS work On Prayer (see p 160 above) HIS earnest mterest m 'enthUSIasm' In the Eudemtan Etlnes, the great value that he sets on prophecy, fortune, and the Instmcttve, so far as It comes not from nature but from dIVIne mspIratlOn, In bnef hIS emphaSIS on the IrratIOnal, belongs to the same stage as the VIew In the dIalogue On Plulosophy, where the IrratIOnal claIrvoyant powers of the soul are descnbed dS one of the two ~ources of behef m God He here , In Etk Nlc X 7 the life of WIsdom and reason l~ called dlvme and ~uper­ human In X R' the hfe m accordance WIth the other kmd of vIrtue' I~ set agaInst thIS hIghest Ideal as takmg the second place, and as bemg the really human hfe About thiS non-phdosophlcal VIrtue we read as follows (1178. 16) 'Practical WIsdom, too IS hnked to vIrtue of character, and tlu~ to prachcal WIsdom, SInce the pnnclples of practical WIsdom are m accordance ,,,th the moral VIrtUes and nghtness m morals IS m accordance WIth practical WIsdom' Thus ethIcal vIrtue stands on ItS own base and has Its happmess m It~elf It also has Its o\\n reason ' Elk Lud VIII z, 1248.23

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

24 1

bets msplratIon above reason and moral mSlght, not because It IS IrratJonal-on that ground Plato, m genumely Socratic fashIon, had put reason above 'enthusIasm'-but because It comes from (yod RatIonal morality misses mfallibilIty It IS the product of mere sober reflectIOn The sureness of InSpIratIOn, on the other hand, IS lIke IIghtmng, as a blInd man, no longer seemg what lit's before hiS eyes, has a far better memory and see,!, everyHung clear before him wlthm, ,!,o the man whom God InspIres, though blmd, I~ surer than those that see ThiS descnptIon of the melancholic and msplred person, full of persoual expf'nence, I" of me~tImablc value for the l.:.nderstandmg of An.,totle m hiS middle vears I In the Eudemzan Ethzn Anstotle I'> still expressmg the dIrect rele ....dnce of knowledge of God to moral action, as he had done earlier, by mean" of the PlatOnIC conceptIOn of the dbsolute norm 2 In the later Etlnes thIS recedes very much mto the bdckground, for the instinctive ng-htne~s (EvCTToxla) of morally educated person~, WhICh IS a Idw to Itself, I~ not an aim that can be focu~ed clearly at cnptlOn of the mOTdlly good hfe as the Imltdtlon of ab~olute norm'i l'i to be found In the Protreptzeus In the Nzeomachran Etlnc~, on the other h,md, we ha\e the famous defimtIonofmoral behavIOur a'i a mean determmed by In<,lght m the way m whIch the man who Po~.,c~~e'S phronesH would determme 1t Th1S 11as Riven n'>f' to much contr()ver~y, smce It I~ ~omewhcl1 abslJ act, and ~mCl ItS purpose IS not clear at fir~l SIght J Now at the end of the I ror !'nthu<.la,rn· "ee I th I ud VIII 2, 124Aa 30 If , for prophf'{ v • 3S and jH Thc '" hole of Vln ~ I' d, 'oted to fortune An,totl!' d"tmgUlshes phySIcal and mrtol.ph} ';Ical ;;00,1 fortune Lme lZ4So 19 I' connected", lth On Ph,loIOphv fr!( 10 > The Plator'lc cOnrtptlOn of the 6poo; sometlmLS companYI With or equated to KW"" 1~ developed m the Protreptlcus (Iambl p 54, I 22- P .'Jb, I 7) It 19 J undamrntal f"r the method ,tnd the ml taphy,;IC' of Plato', lateY O 10 Llh Lud II 5. IlU b 7 ':n 9, U4,h )6 and U43 b 2<) and VIIf 3 1249' H b, 19 2l and 24 Alter the d"appedrancc of Lhc He~, which had been the :urn of all normative jud!(ement and effort the conc
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EudemJan EthJCs there IS a long WscusslOn of the nonn by reference to which the good man recogniZes and pursues the morally good Thts passage enables us to see how Anstotle ongInally conceived the relatIon between theorehcal and practical reason, and what he understands by 'nght reason' The physIcIan also makes use of a norm, we read, In order to determIne what IS healthy for the body and what IS not It is pOSSIble to say. therefore, that the healthy IS that WhICh medlcme and the reason employed In medIcme prescnbe, but thIs IS as Indefimte as It IS true The conception of the reason employed In medICine must take ItS content from the obJectIve pnnclple to whIch It IS relatIve, namely health and Its unalterable law Thus medlcme IS on the one hand the knowledge of health and on the other the apphcabon of thIs knowledge to the particular case In the same way moral reason IS partly the knowledge of an obJectIve value (6ECoJPTlTIKOV), and partly the apphcatlOn of thIs knowledge to human behaVIOur, the morallmperatlve (ffiITCXKTIK6v) Now the absolute value or hIghest good, which reason thus grasps, IS God I God IS to be thought of not as IssUIng laws and commands, not as duty or will, but as the hIghest Bemg, suffiCIent to Hunself Will and command anse only when reason or phronesJs devotes Itself to the contemplatIOn of thIS Bemg Hence our rational pnnclple, and by that pnnclple by which the man of practical Wisdom would determine It' Here. for once, the Idea of the norm reappears ThiS IS the most pregnant expression that could poSSibly be found of the change In Anstotle's attitude towards thiS problem The fact IS that there IS no uDlversal norm for bun a.ny more 'State of character In accordance With nght reason' was mcluded In the definition of vutue by all PlatonIsts (see VI 13, IIH b 21) In VI 1.1 138b 25, Anstotle declares that thiS. though true, IS anythmg but clear. m thIs book, therefore, he gives a more accurate account of the share that phronesls has In chOice Its function IS no longer to apprehend the unIversal norm. as It was In the Prolrephcus, but to discover the ngbt means of attammg the end (TV."", cn
THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

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most preSSIng duty IS to choose all the occupatIons and activItIes and goods that further the knowledge of God Theoretical phtlosophy IS the means to man's moral education Everything, whether possessIOn or actIon. IS morally bad and reprehensIble if It hInders a man from servIng and knowIng God (TOV 6eov 6ep retammg the abldmg essence of PlatOnIC morahty, the notIon of the absolute nonn and of the metaphY~lcal transcendence of the Good, whIch had gIven to the Pldtomst a new expenence of God No wonder that Eudemm" the supposed author of thIS EthICS, has always beelllooked on as a pIOUS man I All thIS was IncompatIble WIth men'" Idea of Anstotle ThIS first lecture on ethICS exhales the rehglC'u'> fervour of hIS youthful Platomc faIth Agamst such an ethIC,> of pure devotIon to God the famous pIcture of the contemplatIve hfe 10 book ten of the Nfcomachean EthICS fades, and becomes httle more than an objectIve If IdealIzed descnptIon of the hfe of the scholar devoted to research, nsmg at the end to the mtUlhan of the ultImate force that guIdes the sphp.res Some of the old notes sound agam m thIS pIcture, but not qUIte WIth theIr old power The strength of the later Ethfcs hes rather 10 Its parts, WIth theIr analy,>I'; of concrete moral types, and In Its nch and humane urbamty The contemplatIon of God wa!> ongmally cluselj connected WIth the theory of fnendshlp, which m the NJcomacheatJ EthICS IS expanded mto a general soclOlog} of the mamfold forms of human relatIonshIp In thIS complex phenomennlogy of socIety \\ c should be hard put to It to detect the close conneXlOn between Anstode's phIlosophy of fnendshlp and Plato'~ theory of Ideas, had we :lot the older EthICS to gIve us a clear pIcture of the method that Anstotle ongtnall y had 10 rnmJ He here replaces the tram.cendental and Universal Idea of the Good WIth Ideal types. as he does throughout hiS earher ethICS and pohhcs These Ideal types are Immanent In expenence, and yet they are nonnative and not , EtA Eud VIII 3

1249b 20

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mere descriptive averages sImply read off from experience The most Important of them IS 'first fnendshlp' (TTpWTT] the Good a concrete moral value devrlopmg \\ Ithm the character of the man hImself The supraper.,on.ll ground of the value of the human relationshIp no longer dlvt'rts ,lttentlon from the personahty of the fnend, on the contrary, It 1... concentrated ,md Incarnated thereIn Anstotle';, Idea I" therefore not Just another way of refernng all sOCIal values to the general problem of value, It!> dIm IS rather to estabhsh the mdependent worth of the moral personahty, and In the last resort of human morahty m general, a'i oppo!>ed to the cosmIC Good that l'i based on the Idea of God "I he denvatlOn of the vanoll'i form!> of fnend<;hlp from 'fir!>t fnendshlp' IS accomphshed In the carher EtJucs by mean<; of purely PlatOniC conceptIons The dl<;tmctlon between Will (!X>VAEa6a1) and deSIre (tTnav~Eiv) corresponds to Plato's dIStInction between the absolute Good, whICh I!> the natural goal of the Will, and the apparent good, whICh IS the goal of the deSires Plato IS also the ongIn of the separatIOn of the good from the pleasant, and of the doctrine that the good WIthout quahficatlon I~ Identical WIth the pleasant Without qualificatIOn. so that the fnendshlp of the really good man IS at the same hme pleasant The malO part of the diSCUSSIon In the Eudemtan EthICS 1<; devoted to shOWIng that 'first fnendshlp' combmes 10 Itself all the marks that have ever been declared charactenstlc of the es!>cnce of fncndshlp, even those that seem to be mutually exclusI\ e--a cIas~lCal examplf' of early Anstotehan dialectic The NJcomachean EthJcs, on the other hand, wntes 'perfect friendship' Instead of 'first fnendshlp·. because the latter expresI

Sf'C

Plato LISts

nil E,uJ \ II

~IQC 2,

rorthede~elopmentoltheldealof'firstfnend~hlp'

and for the first fnend VII

l

J

~J6b

28

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

245

SlOn clearly recalls the theory of Ideas, and leads one to expect a purely deductive method I It retams, mdeed, the Platomc doctnne that the other kmds of fnendshlp are not co-ordmate and can be called 'fnendshlp' only per acc~dens, and the denvahon of them from the Ideal conception of perfect fnend~hlp, but the Important thmg for Anstotle now IS the psychological and "oclOloglCal analysIs, which far outweighs the other even 10 bulk We shall see later that a similar development occurs m the Polthcs abo A mass of facts gathered from expenence, governed essentially by their own laws, and becommg more and more an mdependent object of mterest, has been mtroduced mto the framework of what wa~ prevIOusly an Ideal Platomc constructIOn If the baSIS of true fnendshlp IS personal goodness, th(' ethical relation of the ego to the non-ego must be determmed by that of the ego to It,>elf By dlstingUIshmg the ratIOnal part of the <;oul from the mfenor part'>, which nevertheless c.w be moved by rea~on, An<;totle 1<; able to represent the ethical relatIOn of tht> LgO to Itself by mean~ of the conception of self-love (cpIAOIfTfa), by which he understand" not .,elfishnes!>, which popular morality nghtly condemns, but the kmdred affection of the lower part, \\hlch I" "poken of ar., If It ",ere actually a '>rcond ego, for man'!> l\lg-her "elf (aU-r6) 2 By the self the Protreptu liS meant NII~, tll{' 'diVine 10 u<.,', m accordance "'Ith Plato',> later doctnne, and Plato's VIC" of the nght relation of the ,>oul that I!> ruled by Nus to\\ard.., Itr.,elf can be learnt from the Ttmaeu~ (34 B). where the lllghest vlSlble God IS !laid to be 'ahle to comer'll' With Ibelf. and needmg no other fnend'ihlp or acquamtance' 'Ihtl'> the selfi"hnco.s of the natural man IS cancellr d ,md IDdoe lo serve hiS Will to be hI" true self The p"ychologlc.ll problems connected With thl!:> 'lew are not formulated sharply enough for our reqUlrrments, but thl<., objection applies to the whole of Anstotle's theory of Nus, ",hleh 1<' In f.let a legacy from Plato'!, later speculatlom In the religIOUS atmosphere of the Eudemtan Ethtcs the mysticism of the doctnne of self-love, from which Elk 'V,c \'111 4 Elk r"d VII 6 and Uh ;I"c IX 4 and 8 We here have speculatIOn developing a pll'Ce of popular Gret>k .....'idam that often found expre~~lOn a'In ~ph 0 ( 309, Wbat good man l~ not fnendly to himself J' Eur Med 116 fr!/: 460 and l\fen mono~t '107 For Nus d~ man'~ ~elf 'lee lambl Protr, P '12, II 3 dnu q and Lth NlC IX /! IluMb 35, and X 7, 117/!> 2 I

Z

TRAVELS

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AnstoUe denves the charactensbcs of true fnendshlp,l 15 dlI'ectly mtelhglble Its commandment, 'to serve and contemplate God', also rests on Plato's theory of Nus Our result reqUires, naturally, to be supported 10 detail by a comparative 1OterpretatlOn of the two Ethtcs ThiS, howevel, cannot be undertaken here Philology must first make good Its neghgence With regard to the Eudemtan Ethtcs and give us a serviceable commentary, and above all a real text, which as yet IS completely lackmg For our purposes It must suffice If we have succeeded 10 show1Og that we can clearly detect 10 the development of Anstotle's ethIcal thought the same stage as IS charactenzed by theology 10 hiS metaphysIcs, and that the ongmal Eth"s IS closely connected With the ongmal M etaphystcs 2 2

THE EUDEMIAN ETHICS AND THE PROBLEM OF THE EXOTERIC DISCUSSIONS

The above conclUSIOns about the development of Anstotle's Ideas are confirmed and augmented when we discover that the Eudemtan Ethus display" d. close verbal dependence on Ius early work!> Most Important of all are It,> relatIOns to the ProtrepilCUS, whICh here too casts a wholly new hght upon our problem':> The f..lct IS that between the Eudemlan Etlacs and the parts of the Protreptlcus that we have recovered from Iambhchus there are remarkable correspondences extendmg over long passages Apparently they have never before been noticed, and yet they suffice, even apart from the question of the place of the Eudemtan EthlCS m the history of Ideas, to refute the prevailmg view that It was wntten by Eudemus and IS a late work Their Importance .1S eVidence of the way 10 which Anstotle worked, and of the relation between hiS teachmg and hiS hterary productIOn, IS 50 great that we must here dIscuss them U1 detail A welcome by product of our mqUlry will be the deCISive solutIOn of a problem that apparently has been despaired of, and that yet IS constantly I Elh EwJ VII 6, 12io. 23 J Hemays .tatement that ArIStotle's theology permeates hiS phLlosophy as little as hIS God permeates the world (IktJ0K' d.. Anslol.l.s, p 82), must now be abandoned as regards the early and IlUddle penods It remams a lIoteworthy fact, however, that the wnhngs of hIs latest penod could suggest such

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

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bemg reopened because It IS fundamental to the understandmg of Anstotle-the problem of the so-called exotenc dIscussIOns We may start from the begmnmg of the second book of the EudemJan EthJcs, where the author lays the foundation of hIS theory of vrrtue and gives a denvatIOn of the conception of It We do not need to examme m detaIl the content of this passage, whIch IS the core of the work, a short survey of the tram of thought will suffice Havmg completed the mtroductIon, which 1<; contamed m the first book, the author tells us that we are now to make a fresh start m our mqurry ThIS consists 10 dividIng all goods mto several classes For the dlvlSIon he expressly J.ppeals to the'exotenc discussions', m order to aVOId establIshmg It In detail here The kmds of value enumerated m the first buok (phronesJs, VIrtue, and pleasure) are all 'm the soul', whether they arc permanent states of character (~~E1S) or faculties (2.wCrIJElS) or actIvIties (lvtpYElal) and movements (KIVllO"elS) Now the same as'iumption, he contmues,-namely that we have to deal With eIther a state or a conditIon or a faculty In the soul-also applIes to Virtue, and must therefore form the basIs of the followmg development of the conception The text has come do""n to uS m poor condItion, for the manuscnpts have a lacuna In the divISIon of goods TT6:v'ra 2.Ti TO: aya6a ,; ExTOs ,; t ~Ti The correspondmg passage of the Ntcomachean Ethtcs giVes a threefold dIVISIon of goods 'Goods have been diVIded Into three classes, and some are descnbed a~ external, others as relatmg to soul or to body, we call those that relate to soul most properly and truly goods, and psychical actIOns and actIVIties we class as relatIng to soul" ThIS I'> ImmedIately preceded by the statement that we must get clear about the nature of happIness not merely by means of general pnnclples but also by usmg 'what IS commonly saId about It' Fmally, the same diVISion reappears m the Poltttcs 'Asswnmg that enough ha'i been already saId m the eA.otenc dISCUSSIOn!> concernmg the best hfe, we will now only repeat what IS contamed In them CertaInly no one WIll dispute the propnety of that partItIon of goods whIch 'ieparates them mto three classes, VIZ external goods, goods of the body, and goods of the soul, or deny'. &c Z Here agam we have the same dIVISIOn borrowed I

Elh Nt, I 8,

1098b 12

1

Pol

va

1,1323" 21

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from the exoterIC dIScussIOns-and not merely the dlVlSlon as such, but also Its applIcation to the mqUlry concernmg the best hfe, for the passage expressly refers to 'exoterIC discussIOns concerning the best lIfe', the fundamental notions of which are to be adopted III the present diScussion I Zeller, who supposed Eudemus to be the author of the Eudemlan EthlCS, tned to expiam this reference to the exotenc dlScuo;<,lono; by saymg that Eudemus IS really only reproducmg the passage of the Nlcomachean Eth,CS m whICh It IS said that we must ~on'5lder happmes'i III the lIght of 'what 1<; commonly said about It', and that m changm~ thl!> vague phra'ie to 'thIS distinctIOn we make even m our esoteric diSCUSSIOns' he \Vao:; copymg the passage m the POl1t,CS Z ThiS mterpretatIon lcave.. . It obscure how Eudemus could come to speak of one of Anstotle's \\ ntmgs m the first person ('wc make') We can now see, as earher scholars could not, that so long as they assumed Eudemuo; to have been the author of the Eudemwn Eth,CS It was Simply Imp0!>slble to solve the problem of the exotenc dl3CusslOns For either they followed a sound philological Instmct for style and understood by these diSCUSSIOns .lctual works of Anstotle, a'5 dId Bernal'S (amI then they carne mto IrreconCilable conflIct With the reference to exotenc dlscusMons m the Eudemlan EthlCS3) , or else they startfd from thI<; passage and constructed WIth reckles'> lOgIC a!> empty a ~ense a'i po<;slble for 'exotenc', whIch wa~ not so much an explanatIOn as a \'oay of escapmg the dilemma, and which VIOlated all the law'i of phIlological mterpretatIon 4 Now that we have rC'itored the I The Oxford tran,lators sometImes render 1~"'TEpIKol hoyol by 'ulh phra'e' 11' 'd.,cu"lon, out~lde our ~lhool thus ImplvlOf:' a ~ Ie" different from that main tamed In thl' book \\ hilI' pre,en 109 their \ er<;ton, .I, much a, pO<;<;lbll, for the ,ake of ea~y rdl rlnll 1 h ... ve been ubliguj to bnn.: them Into line ..... Ith the theory of th" chapter Tr • H"",es, vol xv p 554 ] Oddly enough He,n ...y., took no notlle o[ th1~ passage (Uh rud IT 1). 'ill far as I can 'ee although he 'ystemabc... n.,. e'l ... mmed all the place' "here An,totll' mentlon~ exotenc dlSl U5'lOno On the pre.upposltlon, of tho,e day, It would have toppled hl~ whole edlhce • H DIl'I~ t'bt'r dIe exoten..chen Reden des Anstoteles . ner Bet! 4kad 1883. pp 477 ff (the p.l~",!:e m the r.ud"'"lJn Fln,es IS d"cus~ed on P 4A1) Ib~ arl!'ument~ oippt'.Ir to ha\e found general appro\ al "hlCh I. comprehen"ble In \Ie" 01 the Mtuatlon fo-da} there I' nothIn!: for It but to admit that hl~ trail was the wrong one The slncenty of hI' ..... ork hO\"," er ha, pre\ entl'd It from being u;ele!>S

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

249

c'ltdemzan EtMes to ArIstotle there IS no longer anythmg agamst

Bernays' conjecture that the exotenc dIscussIOns were defimte \\ntlngs, and In fact the hterary works of ArIstotle It I!> confirmed by the new matenal, wIthout which It would have remamed ,1 mere hypothesIs The only alteratIOn reqUIred IS that in the present case we are concerned not ..\-lth a dIalogue, as Bernays »upposed, but with the Protreptmls Profr ,p 52, I 12 other

thm~~

[that IS external done for the sake of the good~ that haH' thl!r seat III the man himself and of the latter tho,t> that are lI1 the body should hc rlont> for the sake of those that ,Ire In the soul, and \Irtue for the <"Lke of phrones.s PhroneHs I~ the ,upreme good [Then comes .1 dt>llmtwn of good, J '-,0

thml'(~] ~hould be

Eth Eud II I, 1218 b 32 All goods are either outsIde or (m the body or) III the soul, and of these those III the soul are more de ~Irable, thIS dlstmellon we makl even tn our popular d.scusslOns

Protr ,p 59,1 26 dssume that happmess l~ {Ither phrones>' dnd ~orne kmd of \\I,dorn or VIrtue, or the greate'it !,o"Ible amount of pleasure, or all three [fhen follow, .1 more
Protr ,p 41,1 20 (Ine part of the "oul I, reason I tn~ I, the natural ruler and )udf.(e uf thmg~ concermng u~ The nature of the other part IS to fol10\\ It and submit to It~ rule

For PhIOIUHS, virtue and pleasure are m the soul, dnd 'iorne or all of these seem to all to be the lnd

EtTt Eud 1210" 28 Let It be as,umpd that thp part~ of the ..,oul partakmg of red,on .In' two, but that they partake not III the "arne \l;ay, but the < ne b} It.<. ndtural tendency to wrnman,1 thecothlr by It,> natural tendency to obec-y and listen

Element.. that have been taken over ready-maue mto the Eudemlan EOnes, and somewhat hastily put together, arc to be found In the Prolreptlcus not merely In a fonn that for the mo!>t

part verbally echoe<; them, but also, which I~ more Important, the context to WhiCh they were ongmally orgamc

In

Pmtr, p 41,1 22 The good ,tate of e~ erythmg IS that whIch I~ III ac('ordanle \\Ith It" proper vIrtue To attam to onl'~

Eth Eud II 1,1218" 37 Let thiS then be d.S'iumed, amI .11'0 that vIrtue IS the best state or conditIon or faculty of all HlIng~

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proper virtue IS good A thmg IS 10 a good state when Its most essentlal, commandmg, and valuable parts have their virtue From thIS It follows that the natural vIrtue of a thing IS betler when lhe I1nng Iiself IS beller by nature The better by nature III tholt which has more of the commandmg and leadmg element 10 Itsell, as man has compared With the other ammals Now the soul IS better than the body (becau~ It IS more commandmg), and wlthm the !>oul Itself the ratIOnal and mtellectual part IS better than the rest 11 necessanly follows, therefore, that Ihe v.rtue of IhlS pari, whalever II IS IS the 1'1I051 des.rable of alil/mlgs, not merely for us but al!O absolutely or for everyone, and everyone would hold, I presume that ",e are constituted either wholly or chiefly, by thiS part Furthermore, when a thmg olccomphshes "S work as well as p<>'i'lble, then, proVided that It IS Ih work es!>cntlally and not Just accidentollly, we must declare Ihat such a stale of affa.rs '5 also good, and that thiS accomplIShment IS the most perfeci v.rtlle, .n accordance wllh whICh II IS the nalure of each Ih.ng 10 perform tis work A complex and d'v,slble I1l1ng has severoll d.fferenl ac/IV.lles, but If a thmg IS naturally s.mplc, and.s not relative m essence .t must have only one true and proper virtue If therefore man IS a Simple ammal, and If Ihe essence of hiS substance IS reason and. nlelleel h.s work can be nothIng whalever but perfect truth -the dIscovery of the truth about thmgs, but If hIS nature IS compounded of several faculties It IS clear that when a thmg naturally fulfils more than one function .ts I

that have a use and work II ThIS IS clear by mductlon. for In all cases we lay tlus down ega garment has an excellence. for It has a work and use, and the best state of the garment IS Its excellence Similarly a vessel, house, or anytlung else has an excellence II Therefore SO also has the soul, for II has a work And let us assume thai lhe beller slate has the belter work, and as the states are to one another so let us assume the corresponding works to be to one another And the work of anythmJi: IS ItS end, It IS clear, therefore, from thiS that the work IS better than the state, for the end IS best, as bemg end for we assume lhe besl, Ihe final slage, 10 be the end for Ihe saJie of whlell all else e:nsts That the work, then, IS better than the state or conditIOn IS plaIn

Eth Eud II

1, 121gb

32

It makes no difference whether the soul IS dllllsible or .ndlvlS.ble, so long as It hoiS d.fferenl facultieS, namely those mentioned above, Just as m the curve we have unseparated the concave and the convex, or, agam, the straight and the whIte, yet the straIght IS not white except mCldentally and III not the essence of the white I We also neglect any other part of me soul that there may be, e g the vegetative, for the above-mentlCrned parts [I e Ihe rlJllonal oms] are pecul.ar

OTmttmg

ToV

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS ",ark IS always the best of these functions, for example. health IS the work of the doctor and safety that of the navIgator Now d H Impossible to mentIon any better WO'Tk of the Intellect, or of the thmk109 part of our soul, than tfuth Truth IS therefore the essential work of thIS part of the soul

25 1

to the human soul, therefore the vlrtues of the nutnbve part, that concerned with growth, are not those of man For, If we speak of !urn qua man, he must have 7eason Qnd moral Qct10n as govemmg pnn· clples And Just as general good condition of the body IS compounded of the partIal excellence~, so also the excellence of the 'loul, qua end But of virtue or excellence there are two speCies, the moral and the mtellectrfal

The Eth1CS considerably alters the order of the Ideas The logical structure IS more lummous and more systematIc m the Protrephcus For good measure the EthiCS adds examples explammg 'by mductIOn' the connexJOn between VIrtUI' and work The applIcatIon of all thiS to the soul IS perIonned III the Protrept'lcus With exemplary lUCIdIty. begmmng WIth the word~ 'nuw the ,;oul' • but the Ethzes merely mdlcate~ It WIth 'therefore ~() also has the soul', and leaves all details for oral elaboration }Jo<;slbly, mdeed, IamblIchus found the examples In h1'> ,;(mrce but left them out, yet ~mce they are extremely tnte dnd pedagogical It I~ more probable that Anstotle did not cite them at ,111 In hi" literary work, hut mtroduced them only when he came to wnte hiS lecture We must say the ~ame of the eXdmples of convex and concave by which the mseparablhty of the parts pf the~oullsexplaInedm the second paragraph There. InCidentally, the difference m man's aim as envisaged by the two work~ ('ome~ (jut clearly In the Protrepticus the sale aim of human lIfe was the theoretical knowledge of Tld~On (phronesis) The theoretic hfe hung hIgh above all other aIm~ and wa':. sharply sundered from them The soul, which was descnbed a~ man's essence, wa~ there conceIved as the mdlvlslble UnIty of the pure ratIOnal ~()111 (after the manner of Plato's later theory of Nus), which has nd Itself of ammal and vegetable eXistence a5. well as of \\'111 and de<;Ire In the lectures, on the other hand, we read that It makes no difference whether the soul IS a umty or has parts, and practice ("TTpQ~IS) now takes Its place beSide thought (AOyIO"I-lOS) a':. equally worthy Anstotle now holds that happmess depend5. upon the mteractIon and eqmhbnum of the ratIOnal and IrutlOnal

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252

power!> In the soul In sayIng this he IS not merely paymg attentIon to the clauns of ordmary hfe. he IS estabhshmg a new Ideal, and seekmg to overcome the harshness of hIS prevIOus purely mtellectual attItude (see espeCIally 121gb 39- 1220 • 5) He was therefore obhged to suppress the pas5.age In which the Protreptzeus had represented pure contemplatIOn as the only valuable and essen hal occupahon of the human soul (p 42, I 22P 43. 1 25) All the alteratIOns that he Introduce!> In the Ethus are logical consequences of Hus fundamental change In his Idea'> The Protrepttcus I::> also the root of what we read m the first book of the Eudemwn Ethzcs We have already shown thiS of the first four chapters by analysmg the tram of thought In them The !>lXth discusses the new method In ethiCS, and we have seen that It IS throughout directed agamst the Protrepttcus (above, p 233) That the greater part of the fifth also comes directly from thiS work IS clear from the follOWIng JuxtaposItion Anstotle I!> here giVIng the proof that lIfe by Itself IS not the greatest good, but receives Its value from phronests

ProtT ,p 45, I 6 It I~ obHOU'i to e"crybody that no one Ulould choose to IlVe, even If he had the A'reatc!ot wealth and power that man has ever had, If he were dl'prwed of hIS reason and mad, not ('ven If he were ~Olng to be constantly enJoymg the mo!ot vehement pleasure!>, as ~ome Insane persons do It 5<'ems therefore that everyone !ohun!o folly as much a'i po!oSlbl£' Now the 0PP0'iltc of folly l'i phroneSls, and of 0pposlte!o one IS to be 'ihunned and the othu to be deSIred As dl'ica»e IS to be shunned health IS to be de!oued AccordIng to thl'> argument too therefore, It appean. that phrones, ~ IS tllf most desirable of all things For If d. man had everythmg, but the thmkmg part of hun wa.-. C01'rupled and dIseased, hfe would not be deslrable for him The other goods would be no benefit to him ThlS IS ",hy all men beltttle all

Eth Eud I 5. I215b IS About many other thmgs It I~ dlfucult to Judge well but most difficult about that on which Judgement seems to all easiest and the knololtledge of It m the power of any man-VIZ what of all that IS found m llvmg IS deSIrable For there are manv consequences of life that make men fling away life, as dlSea5e, eXLC!o'iIVe pam, stonns, so that It IS clear that, If one ""ere gl~en the po""er of chOIce, not to be born at all would, as far .1t least as these reasons go, have been deSirable Further, the life we lead as chlldrw IS >lot desuable, for no one 1>1 }ll~ senses would consent to return again to Ous Further many mCidents Involvmg neither pleasure nor pam or Involvmg pleasure but not a 'l'Ioble kl7ul are !>uch that, a\ far as they ace concerned, non-existence IS preferable to hfe And generally, If one were to bnng together all

1HE ORIGINAL ETHICS uther goods so far as they know what reason IS and are capable of td'itlng It Thl'l IS also why none {If u, could enduye to be dywnk 01' I" be a chIld throughout life ThIS ,l;':,UIlI~ "hy sleep though extremely pleasant. I~ not de~lrable, even If "c '>uppose that the sleeper expen1 nces all the pleasures

253

that all men do and expenence but not wllImgly because not for ItS own sake, dnd were to add to thIS an eXIstence of mfimte duration, one would none the more on account of these experIences choose f'Xlstenee Bu t rathf'r than non-exIstence further. neIther for the plea.'>ure of eating alone or that of sex. If all the other pleasures were removed that knowmg or seemg or any other sen'le prOVides men With. 1IJ0uid a stnglc man value eXIstence, unless he were utterly servtle. for It I'" clear that to the man makmg thiS chOIce there would be no difference between being born a brute and a man We may 'lay the same of the pleasure of ,leeptng For what 1'1 the difference between ...Ieepmg an unbroken slet'p fmm one's fir~t day to one's last. 'lay for a thou 'land or any number of year~, and hvmg the hfe of a plan t }

(p Protr p 40. I 6 'It I~ thoroughly slaVish to long for mere Ide mstead of for the good Ide', a favounte posItion of Anstotle's

It IS not chance that these parallel trams of thought are so lIke earh other It IS Inconceivable that An.,totle unconSCIOusly formulated a view that was familIar to him In the same way In h\ 0 different place'i All doubt'i are removed by the q notatIOn from the Protrepttcus that follows a few lInes lower

Protr . PSI, 1

Eth E.ud I 5.

II

1 hey ~ay that when Anaxagoras \\,1... askLd why one should choo~L to b(' born and hve he answered the 'lulstlon thu.... 'for the sake of \ lCWlng the hcaven'i amI the thmg~ In 1t. ~tars and moon and sun. lluplYlnl'( that everythmg ebe I~

1216" II

And so they tell u'> that Anaxagora'i answered a rna" who Wd.S ral~mJi( problems of thIS sort and askmg why one should choose rather to be born than not--'for the sake of VieWIng the heavens and the "hole order of the Universe'

"orthle~~

SInce the Eudemtan EthlcS connect;, thls representative of the theoretic hfe very closely With those of the t .... o others. and SInce thls passage IS dependent on the Protrepllcus almost to the very word;" we are Justified In also ascnbIng what follo .... ~ to the same source, down to 1216" 27 We here find Sardanapallus set agaIn'it Anaxagoras as the representative of the hfe of pleasure, alongwlth R

254

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Smmdyndes the Sybante 'and others who hve the voluptuary's life' All these persons believe that happ10ess and the pleasures of the sensrs are one and the same Even If we had no eVidence, It would be probable that the P70treptteus named these representatIves of the voluptuous hfe, who are merely touched on In the Eudemtan EtJnes, and also those of the hfe of pohhcs, of WhiCh the Ethtes mentIons no examples The plastIc force of the Idea fits the style of a hterary work bettcr than a lecture, and In the Ethus Anstotle gIVes It merely a<; a bald narrative, wIthout the full vIvidness and effectJvene.,s of which It IS capable As a matter of fdrt, however, Cicero tWICe quote!> a passage from Anstotle which proves conclUSively that thiS passage too comes from thr Protrepttcus I In reJectmg Sardanapallus' View of hfe CIcero quotes hiS epitaph, translatmg it IOta Latm hexameters Haec habeo quae edl quaeque exsaturata lIbIdo hauslt, at lila lacent multa et praeclara rehcta

HE' expressly says that he get., from Anstotle both the epitaph and the witty method by which he punctures Its fnvolous view of hfe The resemblance of these passages to that 10 the Eudemtan Ethtcs mll"t not mI~lead us mto supposmg that Cicero or hiS source made use of thiS work The two mam charactenstIcs of these passages do not appear m It or 10 any of Anstotle'<; treatIses, and SInce dunng those hmes only hiS lIterary works were read, there can be no doubt that CIcero IS quotmg from one of them HIS aKreement WIth the Eudemlan EthlCS IS Simply due to thE' fact that both used the ProtreptlcuS ThiS becomes shll clearer when we examme more clo!>ely the remammg words that Cicero quotes from Anstotle 'QUId ahud, 10qUit Anstoteles, m bOVIS, non m regIS sepulcro mc;cnberes" It IS no longer pos!>lble to detenmne whether Anstotle really said that Sardanapalllls' epitaph might Just as \\ell have been wnttE'n on the tomb of a bull To me the sentence seems unmI!:>takably to reveal hIS hghtly mockmg air, but to have been I elc Tusc Dl5p V 35 101 Dc [ I tI II 3l, 106 Rose pnnL. both a~ cOffimS' from the dialogue 0" JusI.u (frg 90) Bemavs also supposed that they were fragments of an '\n.totehan dialogue. and sugge.ted the NCTlnlhus, of which we know nothmg (op Clt, P 84) He did not compare them WIth Elh Erul I 5. 1216- 16, but With the passage denved from thls one 10 Elh NlC I 3

pr~sumably

1095b 19 The latter IS only a famt echo of the Protrcpttcus like most of the tr:lCeS of that early work remammg In thls late one

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

255

somewhat vulgarIZed In the ImmedIately precedmg passage of the Eudem~an Eth~cs (I21S b 3S). on the hfe of the pure pleasures of sense, we read 'No one would value eXistence for the pleasure of eating alone or that of sex, If all the other pleasures were removed that knOWing or seemg or any other sense provIdes men wIth, unless he were utterly servIle, for It IS clear that to the man makmg tlus chOlce there would be no dIfference between be 109 born a brute and a man, at any rate the ox m Egypt, ,,\hlch they reverence as ApIS, In most of such matters has more power than many monarchs' Smce the precedmg and the followmg sentences (T21Sb15-34, 1216" 2-ID and 1216" II-16) are tdken more or less verbally from the Protrept~cus It IS probable that thIS one IS too The companson between the Apls-ammal .md the monarchs seems somewhat strange here m the Eth~cs. and IS dIfficult to understand, since prevIously Anstotle had merely sa](l that only a slave would choo<;e <;uch a hfe, but CIcero ~hows that m the ongmal a compan"on was drawn between the dlvme bull of the Egyptians and the royal voluptuary Sardanapallus, and thiS explam.', the pomt of saymg that In sen'mal enjoyment ApIs has more freedom than all the !TIonanh" 10 the world (1216" 2) An<;totle has ~ele('ted hiS quotatIOns from the Protreptzcus rather dIsJomtedly We have now traced the larger part of the fifth chapter to the Protrept~cu~ (dm\n to 1216" 27, and many more extracts from .tnd t'laboratIOn!> of the Protrepttcus than are IOdlcated by expliflt references to exotenc works And there are yet more pa"sage~ In whIch It hds undoubtedly been u">ed, espeCIally In HIe ">o-called Book VIII, who~e gospel of the 'contemplatIOn and sen'Ice of God' 1<; borrowed from the deep rehglOus feehng of that eddy ",ork VIII 3, 1248b 27-34, abo remwds one of the Protrept~cus (cp frg 57 m Rose) Fmally, there remam to be explamed certam remarkable pa~ages that have never yet received <;uffiClent attt'nhon Two of them are w the eIghth chapter of the first book Anstotle there shows that the Idea of the Good cannot be the hIghest good for which \\e are seekmg, 10 other WaTch, he draw~ the ethIcal consequences of the refutatIOn of the theory of Ideas For the refutatIon Itself he refers to a publIshed work 'ThIS has been conSIdered 10 many way" both m our exoterIC and m

256

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our philosophIC dIscuSSIOns 'I By the many 'ways' he means the refutation of the theory from the logIcal, from the ontologIcal. and from the phySIcal, pomts of VIew, whIch are clearly dlstmgulshed m the Metaphystcs By the 'exotenc' refutatIOn of the Ideas he does not mean somethmg 'popular' as opposed to phIlosophIcal. as has been supposed,~ on the contrary. the Metaphystcs. whIch also assumes thIS refutatIOn, expressly descnbes It as the most detaIled and complete diSCUSSIOn of the questIOn avaIlable He IS refernng to the second book of the dialogue On Phtlosophy. whICh had Just been publIshed at the time when he was lectunng on ethIC!> In Assos 3 By the 'phIlosophIc dIscusSIOns' he means hIS formal lectures, espeCIally those on metaphySICS. whIch were also composed at that tIme The second refercnce In thIS chapter IS to the same dIalogue 'Further, there IS the argument wntten m the dI!>COUT!>C (Myo<;)-that the Idea Itself of Good IS useful to no art or to all arts m the same way Further, It IS not practIcable', &c 4 The followmg arguments agamst the Idea of the Good, whIch are only mentIoned and not I Eth Eud I 8, 1217b 22 • And as the Oxford translation reads Tr J We must assign the lcudemlan EthICS to thiS perIod for the followmg reason~ (I) Its very close relations to the above-menboned early ",ork~ Later on, m the Nuomachean Ethus, these relatIOns were oblIterated a~ far as possible (l) I ts parallelIsm With the earlIer and theological phase of the M elaphyHcs m Ideas and problems (3) The loose way in whIch the parts CrItiCiZing Plato are worked In In I 6-B The passages that agree WIth the Prolreplleus are apparently remnants of a lecture wntten whIle ArIstotle wa~ sbllm the Academy (4) The dialogue On Phtlosophy, mentIOned In I B, IS the termmus posl quem It appeared m 34B/7 (5) Conscus of As»os who IS purpo~ely omitted or erased from the Nuomachean Ethzcs, appears as a convenbonal example In II I, 1220· 19, and VII 6, I240b 25, in each place obvlou<;ly With a humorous purpose There IS notlung m the tram of thought that obhge~ ArI<;totle to call mm 'the darkest man In the market-place' It can be explamed only bv the loltuabon m which he uttered these word_ • Eth Eud I B 121B.36 ThiS reference, together ""th that In Book VII, which IS discussed ID the next paragraph, was declared bpunous by WLlson and thereafter by Susemlhl The manner seemed unusual But In view of the number of references to exoterIC works m tlus early perIod and of the bystematlc reclprocalmtluence of wntmg and teachmg that they dIsplay, there IS really nothlDg surprIsmg m It Anstotle also refers to oral diSCUSSIOns ID the Academy, as ID Ella Eud VII 6, 1240' 22 ( By a man's attitude to hLmself the other modes of fnendslup, under which we are accustomed to conSider frIendship In our discourses are deterrmned '), and to an mqUlry, obVIOusly dialectical 10 character, conducted by means of the accepted defimtlOns 'the vanous defimbons of frIendship that we give 10 our discourse' (VII II,

1244" 20)

THE ORIGINAL ETHICS

257

developed, are also part of the extract from thIS dIalogue That whIch 15 'wntten' IS avauable to all, and may be found In 'the dIscourse' Anstotle must therefore be refemng to a work that had receIved lIterary pubhcahon, and that was too well known In the cIrcle to whIch he was lectunng for hIm to mentlOn Its name ThIS confirms the conclUSlOn that we should draw from his COpIOUS use of the Protrept1,cus when he first began to lecture he constantly referred to hIS dialogues and to the Protrcpt1,CUS, and presupposed that hIS hearers were famuIar wIth them There IS a sImIlar reference In Book VII 'as It IS wntten In the discourse' (I244b 30) And a few hnes lower we read (b 34) 'We must put together two statements made In the discourse, first that hfe IS deSirable, and secondly that the good 15 so '(:Ad yap olJa crvveElval 2vo EV Tt;J My'll, cSTi TE TO Irjv alpET6v, Kal OTI TO aya86v ) The words that follow are corrupt Now these t\\O statements ",ere actually made In the Protrept1,cus It was c,a1d there that the affirmahon of the wIll to hve IS at the same hme the affinnatlOn of the deSIre for knowledge, smce the lIfe of men, m contrast to that of ammals and plants, IS conSClOmness and knowledge (cxlcrllavEcrllal, yvwpl3EIV) 1 But thIS IS exactly what we find a few hnes hIgher up m the Eudem1,an Eth1,cS (b 23) It IS followed Immediately by the sentence contammg the phrase 'as It IS wntten In the dIscourse' Here too the text IS corrupt, a word havmg fallen out, but the sense IS clear If one could make the expenment of cuttmg conSCIOusness and knowledge out of a man, and If thIS man nevertheless retamed the power of observmg hIS state of mmd, or what was left of It, he would find hImself observmg a totally dIfferent bemg, as If 50mebody else were hVIng In hIS stead The correspondmg passage of the Protrept1,CUS IS not preberved, but It certamly must have eXIsted, for thIS very method of eXClSlOn, abstractIOn, and l!>olahon, for WhICh Anbtotle appeals to 'the discourse', IS constantly used In that work,2 and the view that knowledge and Intellect are man's true self IS used there to establIsh the Injunction that we should hve only for tlllS hIgher part We see then that dunng the hme when the earhest lectures lambl Protr. p 56 1 22, and P 44, 1 II IbId. P 44. I II. P 45, II B, lB. and 25. P 53 I 3 Cp Elh Eud I 5. 1215b 32. VII 12,1245" 14, and VII 14.1248. 39 40, a.nd b 2 I

Z

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on ethics were bemg wntten philosophical discussIOn 10 the school at Assos turned mamly on these wntmgs The anCient problem of the exotenc discourses IS now settled once and for all We have not merely demonstrated the fact that Anstotle used his lIterary works m hiS lectures-this would hardly have needed proving, smce he hImself frequently speaks of so domg m an unmistakable manner (xpfjotlal)-but also revealed, by means of our new matenal, exactly what wntmgs It was that he used, and what IS the phIlosophical explanatIon of thiS remarkable fact It IS bound up with hiS development In the earliest penod after hiS break with Plato's theory, when It became necessary completely to rewnte all the mam branches of philosophy, he took from hIS early composItIons whatever he could shll use, and constructed the new With the help of the old At the end of the first book of the earher Eth~cs, for example, the cntIcism of the Ideas, borrowed from the dialogue On Ph~lo­ sophy, stands somewhat Isolated between older passages taken from the Protrept~cus, the N tcomachean Etlncs, on the other hand, prOVIdes a whole new scheme, which naturally presupposes hiS new pomt of VIew from the outset The part played by the Protrepttcus m the earhest M etaphystcs has already been dIscussed In Assos Anstotle could still thmk that hIS distance from Plato was not so great but that he mIght everywhere connect WIth hIS AcademIC penod Later on he dIscovered more senous consequences 10 hIS new Ideas They led hIm farther and farther away from the old HIS early Platomc wntmgs then dropped entIrely out of sIght, and It seems that he even abandoned the begmmng,> of hiS emanCIpatIOn from Plato, hIS own first attempts at a cntIcal philosophy, as bemgstIll too penetrated WIth the presupPosltlOn~ of hIS dogmatic penod ThIS appears to be the explanatlOn of the fragmentary conditIon of the earhest Ethtcs and M etaphystcs I I I cannot leave thiS ~ubJect "Ithout mentlOnmg the three books that arc common to the two versions of the Eth,cs Eth N,c VI Lannot belong to the Eudem,an Etk,cs because of Its VIew of pkYonests, which I~ e~sLntlally later than that In Elk Eud I and VII. and argues agaInst It We must suppo~e that these three books entered the Eudem,an versIOn together and at a later time. and therefore that they come from the Nuomachea" edition but thIS does not prove that the latter IS all of a pIece The absencE' of connexlOn between the two accounts of pleasure m Books VII and X remains a problem That In Book VII IS presumably somewhat earher than that In Book X It presupposes a different conclUSIon

CHAPTER X

THE ORIGINAL POLITICS F

we possessed the wntmgs that the anCIents knew of we

I should have a pIcture of Anstotle's pohtIcal development

reachmg from hIs AcademIc begmmngs down to hIS old age The <;enes start,; wIth the two books on the Statesman, suggested by Plato's work of the same name, and the four 'bulky' books On J1tshce I WhIle these wntmgs would have gIven us exacter knowledge of the conneXIOn between Anstotle's pohtIcs and Plato's, Alet:ander or On Colomzatlon, a memOIr m the form of a dIalogue, also lo~t, would have mtroduced us to the late penod when the royal pupIl was breakmg and makmg empIres III ASia, \\Inle the agemg phIlosopher followed the dIZZy flIght of hIS fortunes from afar WIth anxIOUS eye~ The loss of thIs work has hIdden from u~ what ,,,e should mo~t of all have hked to know-what effect thIs world-wIde change m the hlstoncal scene had on Amtotle's political thought Z The work On Monarchy, whose gemllneness we have neither the matenal nor (m VIew of the testimony of the AlexandrIan catalogue of Anstotle's works) the nght to doubt, must belong to the time when he was prepanng Phlhp's son for hIS hIgh office, or, rather, must be the ~lgn of the close of that penod We shall not doubt for an mstant that m thIs book the pllliosopher, who wrestles WIth the problem of monarchy so senomly m hIS PohttCs, tned to gIve new ethIcal and spmtual content to the traditlOnJ.l Idea of a kmg J De Rep III 8, 12 A 51deltght IS thrown on hI' vlew~ of the problem of the relation between Greek~ and -\'ilabc~ "h,ch v.a'i nece~sanly deCISIve as regards methods of colomzatlOn, by the fragment of a letter to Alexander In whIch he advl'ie, him to behave tov.ard~ the Greek'i a'i a leader and tov.ards the barbatIan'i as an absolute and unlimited monarch, to "hlch they were accu~tomed to treat the fonner as fnends and equal'i, and the latter as 'ammal~ or plants' (frg 658) The dissent of Eratosthenes and Plutarch ~how~ how emphatically the hnmane Hellemsbc cosmopohtans rejected HilS vIew Although It IS typically Greek In Anstotle's ca'ie It wa~ certainly the result of ~ober reflection on the facts The attempt to assign thiS fragment to the work On Monarchy (Heitz, Die verlorenen SchrtfLen des Artsloleles, p 206) does not seem to me successful 3 It must have been a commuDicatlon sent to Alexander on hiS ascending the throne, somewhat hke the Prolrepllcus and lsocrates' N,cocles, that IS to say. of a more general and ethical nature To a kmg standing at the summit of I

2

(Ie

lOO TRAVELS All these are serIOUS losses as regards the history of the hme and the personahty of the thmker, but the disappearance of that monument of PerIpatetlc scholarship, the collection of 158 constltutIOns, has dealt our knowledge of Greek history and culture an Incurable wound The fortunate recovery of the first book of the collection, the Const~tutwn of Athens, wntten by Anstotle himself as a sort of canon for the whole, has at any rate made It certam that the undertakmg was not orgamzed untIl those last decades m which he reached hiS matunty Nothmg ]S more s]gmficant of the fonn hIS development took than the fact that he did not pue up thiS gigantic mass of materIal until the systematic foundations of hIs pohtIcal thought had long been laid, whereas theoretically It ought to have pret:eded them The two pomts furthest removed from each other In tIme, the books On Just~ce and on the nature of the Statesman at the begmmng, and the collectIon and claSSificatiOn of conshtuhans at the end, make the general directIOn of hiS development certam Our prIme object of mterest IS the begmnmg, the breakmg away from Plato Our mam source of knowledge must always be the analYSIS of the extant eIght books of the Pol~t~cs , but thiS analysIs can hope for results only If, here as with the Eth~cs and the Metaphys~cs, we take what remams of the early wntmgs as a CrItenon by whICh to estImate the extent ofAnstotle'scontmually mcreasmg dIstance from hIS startmg-pomt Here agam the newly recovered fragments of the Protrepttcus gIVe us some valuable matenal, and make good to some extent the ureparable loss of the mam polItIcal works of hiS early days Plato's aim was to make polItIcs a sCience by umtIng It mseparably With the theory of mdJVldual VIrtue and basmg It on knowledge of the Idea of the Good The Republtc I!> bUllt upon the mqUlry mto Justice ThiS was the model for Anstot1e'~ power and success one does not ~end philosophical adVIce as to the way In whIch he should regard Ill~ office ThIS agrees \\'Itlol what CIcero says (4d Au XII 40, 2 and XIII 28, 2) of a 'hortatory' letter of An~tolle's wntten at Alexander's request and dealmg among other matters WIth the question of true fame The ('ommumcatlon On Afonarclty Informed the Greeks of the ethical and political pnnclples m accordance WIth which Alexander had been taught, and by askmg hIS tutor to set them down and publIsh them In a 'hortatory' letter the young pnnce clearly mdIcated hIS mtentlOn of rulIng In the sPlOt of them

THE ORIGINAL POLITICS

261

books On justlce, whIch CIcero m turn name~ a~ Ius model~ In hIS Republtc In Anstotle's first Independent EthlCS the Good was no longer the real object of all ethIcal and pohtlcal sCIence, but m hIS earlIest penod It was the kernel of polItICS, Just as It IS the central theme III Plato's Republtc We know thIS from the unportant fragment of the second book of the Statesman In whIch the Good IS descnbed as the most exact of all standards ThIS presupposes Plato's later theory of Ideas, whIch, as we have already seen, was chIefly concerned, as regards ethIcs and pohtIcs, wIth the problems of exactItude and of the norm, and emphasIzed the not1Ons of measure and measurmg I The pomt IS confirmed by the Protreptwus, whIch brmgs out 10 a noteworthy manner the exactItude of polItical SCIence and contrasts It, as a new form of theoretIcal knowledge, WIth the polItIcs of practIcal statesmen Its purpose, we there learn, IS not to treat a partIcular state by all the methods that expenence suggests. such a procedure-the sole one that the Anstotle of the fourth and hUh books of the Pohbcs admIts at all for general practIce 2IS expressly condemned .Just as no man IS a good bUllder If he use~ no hne or other such tool, but lffiltates other buIld1Ogs, so perhaps If a man who IS makmg laws for a city or practIsmg pohtIcs looks to and lffiltates other human actlOO'i or conshtutIons, whether Spartan or Cretan or other such, he I~ not a good and perfect lawgIver For the copy of d thmg that IS not Ideal (KaA6v) cannot be Ideal, and the copy of a thmg that IS not dIvme and permanent cannot be dIvme and permanent '3 Only the pure phIlosopher, who nds hunself absolutely of empIrICISm See above, p 87 In Pol IV I, 128Sb 21-1289" 7, the conventlOnal theory 01 the Ideal ~tate IS cntIcl2ed for concermng Itself only WIth the construction of a st.tte m accordance v.lth Ideal standard.... and not WIth the que~tlOn, u~ually more urgent In actual politics, how to better a given state that does not conform to the Ideal standard. but IS perhaps thoroughly mfenor and rotten ThiS cannot be done, Indeed, Without the erection of a standard. but ~tlllle~s can It be done Without COPlOu~ expenence and the knowledge of analogous c.tses m reality, a~ IS shown by Books IV-VI of the Pohtus J Iambl Protr. p 55, 11 7-.lJ I t " mterestIng to note that the sophistical theory of the state. which held that the perfect con~tltutlon \\dS realized at Sparta or In Crete. I~ rejected In the Protrepttells because It " too close to emplncal reality or takes ItS standardo; therefrom, whereas In Pol IV I. I28Bb 41. It" rejected for the opposite reason that It proceeds too schematically .tnd refers everything to a norm, Instead of adaptmg ItSelf Lompletcly to the actual gl\ en case I

2

TRAVELS

262

and looks to the law of nature and of being as the hIghest archetype, who, lIke a good helmsman, casts anchor only on an eternal and permanent bottom--only he can gIve endUrIng laws, and only hl5 practIce IS rIght and normatIve 1 The nahan of nature here, occumng 5.everal hmes, I~ unambIguously dlstIngmshed from Anstotle's later conceptIon of q>Vcrl~ by the synonyms used for It It means that WhICh at once zs and ought to be, In accordance wIth Plato's metaphY!>lcs Its peculIar colOUrIng IS obtamed by thf' emphasIs of It~ archetypal character The banauslc arts construct theIr canon-tlus example must be taken symbohcallyIn accordance wIth nature In the same way the most exact of all arts, phIlosophiCal pohhcs, takes ItS canon from nature Itself (q>llO"l~ mrn;), which 15 the bemg of the Ideas It IS In fact a canOlllC of values, concerned exclUSively with absolute standards (OpOI) The relatIOn between thIS theorf'hcal pohtIcs and the practIcal kmd IS descnbed by means of the clever SImIle of the eye, which does nothmg and produces nothmg, eAcept to dlsttngUlsh vlSlble thmgs and make them clear, and WIthout whIch nevertheless we ~hould be practically helpless and unable to move 2 ThIS I~ pohtIcs as developed III Plato's Statesman The !>lugglsh mechalllsm of a system of abstract law I" there contrasted With the royal artlst In statecraft, whose hvmg knowledge of the Ideas gIves hIm an adaptablhty m hce of dIfficult cases of practIcal polItIcs such as can never be obtamed by mere chapter-and-ver5e booklearlllng, but IS to be compared rather to the art of the phySICIan, becam,e It anses from hvmg and productIve knowledge 3 I lambl Prolr, P 55 I 24 , Iambl Protr, p 5(J, I 4 For Just as SIght make, and constructs nothlllg (for It, only functIOn I~ to dlshnfi(Ulsh and re~eal each ~1~lble thmg), and yet It enable~ u~ to act and help, us very greatly m our actIOn, (for we should b" almo,t completd} unable to move If "e "ere depnvecl of It) ~o It IS plalll that, though tlll' knmdedge "theordlcal "e neverthele" do thou,and, of things III alcordanLe WIth It, and dlOose ~ome dung, and shun othErS, and m general ~el all good thing' by rLa"lll of It' Tlu~ pa"age of the l'YOl>ept~cus has mfluencul 1
c" .\

THE ORIGINAL POLITICS

263

Thus the sole fonn of polttIcal thought ongmally recogmzed by Anstotle was that handed down by Plato, the Utopia He sought for the absolute standard, WhIch IS not to be found In expenence WIth this mSlght let us approach the extant eIght books of the Poht~cs The charactenstIc feature of their constructIon IS that the whole culmmates lo an account of the Ideal state (aplO1'T'\ lTOAlTElo:) In the last two books (VII and VIII) I This high pomt rests, however, on the broad empmcal baSIS of a theory of the mamfold fonns of actual pohtIcalltfe, wIth theIr vaneties and theIr transfonnatIOns lOto one another, to WhICh IS added a casUIstry of the dIseases of the state and the methods of treat109 them (IV-VI) The precedlOg book (III) determmes the elementary presupposItions of polItics by developmg the conceptIons of CIty and cItIzen, and by denvlOg the vanous fonns of constitutIon from the vanous modes of allottmg pohtlcal nghts In the partIcular states We arc here gIvlOg only a rough outlme of the content, In order to make the mam features of the constructIOn appear as clearly as possIble In Book II Anstotle prefixes to thIs theory of the elements a crItical survey of the systems of previOUS pohtIcal theonsts To thIS agam the first book proVIdes a still more elementary mtroductiOn, dI!>cussmg the fundamental kmds of government (apxiJ) more from the SOCiOlogIcal or economIC pomt of VIew, and thus takmg ItS start genetically from the slmple5t components of polItical lIIe There IS a thoroughgomg mner logIC m the combmatiOn of these books mto a whole Evelythmg appears to lead up, m methodIcal progress, to the crowmng aIm, the Ideal standard of a state fulfillmg all wlshe!> But for centurIes, ever smce the Pol~tzcs has been systematically studIed, close CrItical exammatIon has revealed dIfficulties that make It Improbable, and m fact lffiposslble, that the treatise as we have It wac; ever planned as a whole or c;prung from a smgle creatIve act of the mmd Up to the present scholars have spoken mamly of the dIfficulties In the hterary composltlon, but we must not apply hterary • I follow the traditIonal numbering of the books, as found m the manuSCripts, and not the alteratIOn preferred by most editors I do not mean to deny that there IS a kernd of correct observatIOns at the baSl~ of their procedure, but the dilficultIes cannot be \\bolly removed by changmg the order of the book~

264

TRAVELS

standards here, and the fact IS that the problems of composItion have a deeper root, the philologIcal apona anses out of a wfficulty In the philosophIcal method and structure For the present, therefore, we WIll not enter into detailed analysIs, or follow Anstotle book by book, only to lose ourselve<;, as has so often happened, In purely external questIons about the correct posItIon of passages and books We must begm by obserVing the peculIar Janus-face that the Poltt",es presents as a whole, gazmg on the IdealIsts as If It were a PlatOniC UtopIa and on the realIsts as If a sober and empmcal SCience, and yet obVIOusly being really both at once In boldness of creative fancy and m legIslative magnIficence Anstotle's Ideal state IS not to be compared WIth Plato's Republtc or even With hIs Laws It has been truly saId that m the Laws Plato moderates hI<; state m order to bnng It closer to realIty, and that Anstotle relaxes It still further In domg thIS he IS follOWIng the path taken by Plato In hiS old age, but much more IS he follOWing hiS own Inward tendency, which seeks to reconcIle the Idea and the realIty at all cost,> He tells us hImself that for an Imaginary Ideal state we may assume conditIOns as favourable as we please, but not ImpOSSIble I The UtopIan part of hIs Pohites, however, IS not ItS real strength, although the Ideal state gIves the mark by reference to whIch the external organiZatIOn of the whole structure IS detennmed The really ongInal and charactenstIc feature of the work IS the way In which It takes over Plato's notIOn of an Ideal state and supports It WIth a broad empmcal foundatIOn amountmg to a descnptIve SClCnce of constitutions, the method of which It develops WIth profound mSlght The Important thmg for Anstotle IS the weldmg together of the two forms of polItIcs, the combmatIon of Books VII and VIII, containing the Ideal state, With IV-VI, which develop the theory of actual hIstOrIcal states, or rather of the mamfold vanetIes, dIseases, and treatments, of actual states The pnnClple of thIS arrangement IS clearly expressed by hImself at the end of the Ntcomaehean Ethtcs, where he Jams polItics to ethICS m order to umte the two mto a smgle comprehenSIve SCIence of man, Including both the indIVidual and the J Pol II 6 rz6sa 17 (rn the course of the VII 4 1]2S b ]6

cnhCl~m of

Plato s

UtopJa~).

and

THE ORIGINAL POLITICS

265

social aspects (i) nepl TO: av6pwlTlva CPIAoO"ocpia) 'Frrst, If anythmg has been said well m detall by ear11er thmkers. let us try to review It, then m the 11ght of the constitutIons we have collected (be TWV CYVVTlYI..1EVWV lTOAITElc;W) let us study what sorts of mfluence preserve and destroy states, and what sorts preserve or destroy the particular kmd~ of constltutIOn. and to what cause It IS due that some are well and others 111 admullstered When these have been studIed we shall perhaps be more hkely 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 'I ThiS programme obVIOusly lffiphes a turmng-pomt m the development of An'itotle's Pohtzcs In unambIguous language he here abandons the purely con~tructlve method that Plato and he himself had prevIOusly followed, and takes his stand on sober empmcal study What he says IS In fact-and nothmg but hIS extreme expliCitness has prevented hiS bemg understood- 'Up to now I have been usmg another method I have made my Ideal state by logical construction, Without bemg suffiCiently acquamted With the facts of expenence But now I have at my disposal the COpIOUS matenal of the 158 constltutlOm, and I am gomg to use It m order to give to the Ideal state a posItive foundatIOn 'z ThIS was wntten at the end of the latest I Eth NIC X la, 1I81b I] to the end We must always remember that the statements of Anstotle's POint of ~Iew, as we have them In the treatIses or rather In the survIvIng ver~JOns of the treatIses, can be understood only a~ stages In the hVIng whole of Ins unre~tmg rntel1ectual development Hence there I, often somethmg relatIve about them, whIch IS not fully comprehensIble to those who do not bear the other moments of the proce~~ In mInd Many passage~ III the Elh.cs and the Metaphyslcs must be taken as self-polemIC, In ",hlch the phIlosopher transcends hIS earher VIews Among such IS the conclUSIOn of the Eth,cs, 'when these have been studied we shall perhaps be more hkely to see With a comprehenSIve VIew whIch Lon~btutlon IS best' whIch refers to an earher stage when the ldea of such a pamstaklng and weanwme detour through the empmcal facts had never entered hiS head That the expressIon tK Ta.V lNVTjylJl!v",v 1ToAr""C;;v refers to the collectIOn of 158 consbtubons-awczy"'Y'1 In thIS sense IS common In Anstotle, compare avvczy"'y1\ TEXvC:;;v-has been conjectured from bme to bme, and much useless mgenUlty has been expended on denymg It, most reLently by Heitz (DIe verlo.enen Schnften des A nstotele~ pp 2]1 ff) It was, 01 course, ImpOSSIble to draw conclUSions from thc,e words about Anstotle s de\;clopment when the GonslJlutJO'n of Athens, which belongs to hiS latest penod, had not been recovered, and the Nuom(lchean had not yet been recognized as the latest edition of hl~ EthiCS I

266

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verSlOn of the Eth~cs, that IS to say, m his last decade Thecollection of constitutions came mto bemg at the same hme It was the penod dunng which he gave to hiS early theological metaphySICS the broad foundation of a theory of bemg m general, whue m ethics the psychological and descnptlve element began to oust the speculative mode of treatment Some may find It surpnsmg that thiS development took place so late We have Imagmed Anstotle as bemg on that road from the begmmng The fact that hiS progress was gradual, however, IS completely proved by the contrast between the last paragraph of the N~co­ machean Ethzcs and the method of the Protreptzcus and the Statesman, while the temporal mdlcatIons are unambiguous The remark about the mtroduction of a new and empmcal part to precede the theory of the be5t constttutlOn refers to Books IV-VI, whose content he there clearly descnbes, and It has long been mferred that these books are composed of the matenal contamed In the collectiOn of constitutiOns, because, qUIte apart from thiS passage, their attitude towards the subJect IS different and they display an meAhaustIble wealth of hlstoncal examples I They are the only books of the Pohtzcs that menhon recent hlstoncal events The aIluslOn to the murder of Kmg PhllJp (336) proves that they were wntten dunng Anstotle's second stay m Athens ~ That he took thIS opportumty to rewnte the whole Pol~tzcs IS not said and IS m Itself unhkely We must therefore mqUIre how far It IS still pOSSible to dlstmgUlsh earher and later levels In domg thl~ we may start from the results obtamed by those who have mveshgated the proper order of the books J I '" L Newman, The POIIIICS of Ansloll~, vol 1 (Oxford, 1887). p 491 WIlamo\Htz Ansloleles und Alhen, vol I, p 359 , Pol V 10 13 II b 2 The murder IS not mentIOned as a recent affaIr, nor for ItS own sake at all, but a~ one of a ~enes of SImIlar assassmatlon~ quoted as examples of the murder of pnnces for revenge (TI~"'pla<; Xap,v) Hence the passage may have been wntten much later Zeller, ArIslotle and Ihe Earlter Penpatellcs, vol I, p 154 n 4, mfers from It that the whole Po!zllcs was wntten late, but the que~tlOn IS preCisely how far Its chronological ImphcatlOn Lan be extended Only Books IV-VI, which Anstotle descnbes at the end of the ElhiCs a. ba.ed on the collection of constitutions, and which have thiS ongm uneqUivocally .tamped on theIr faces can be assigned With certamty to the last penod 10 Athen. They are contemporary With the production of the Nlcomach_an ElhiCs That the rest 15 earher Will be demonstrated bela.... The first book, however, IS an exceptIOn J Wila.mowitz .... as the first person to put forward the conjecture that 10 the Polll
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Ever smce the ItalIan humamsts of the Renascence mterested themselves In the Pohttcs cntIcs have attacked the tradItional order and tned to restore the 'genume' by means of more or less vIolent alteratIOns In the mneteenth century these theones forced theIr way mto the edItions The two concludmg books, VII and VIII, were placed after the thIrd, and IV-VI were made the end WIthIn this latter group, agaIn, the fifth and Sixth books were sometimes made to change places In recent years WilamoWltz has prote!>ted energetically agam,>t thIS rage for alteratIon, "and certamly such a mechamcal operatIOn IS unhkely to reduce the traditIon to 'order' Our first task mu!>t be to obtaIn an understandmg of the hl!:>toncal necessity of the actual state of affairs In this, however, we can get substantIal help from the facts that the cntIcs have brought to lIght Books II and III are not an mtroductIOn to d general theory of thf' state It IS clear from their method, from their problems, and from some exphclt utterances, that they arc meant to mtroduce an Idcal state 10 the manner of Plato I Those who WIshed to make the la!:>t two books, contammg the Ideal state, follow Immediately on thiS mtroductIon, \\cre able to appeal to thc fact that II and III are closely connected to VII and VIII by mutual references, whereas they do not mentIOn the mtervemng Book,> IV-VI Their conne.....IOn With the latter I" qUIte loo,>e 2 Observant readers pp 356 ff), and It wa~ h,S keen hl~toncal sense that fir,t I/;a'\e Anstotl(' place m the de"elopment of the fourth century a~ a mJ.n and ab a ~tudent of pohtlCb I It I~ dear at the first ,'ght that Book II IS a h"toncal and cntlCaI mtroducbon to d theory of the ldeal ,tate, and not to a theory 0' the ,tate wlthout quahficatlOn Book III, on the oth! r hand appear., to mtroduce more general questIOns, the conceptIOn of the Clt} ,md the clbzen a' ,uch, dnd the da~sl!ica­ tlOn of all po~slble fonns of con~tltutlOn, the b"d a~ \\LII as the good Thl" normatl'. e character of thlS lIds'lh, atlOn ,ho"~ ho"('\ er, that Anstotle " workmg up to the be,t state 1 he latter" really m h" mmd throughout, ,u' III 3, 1276" 30 ft (and cp VII 4. 1325b 39), III 4 ("here he aoks whether the VIrtue of a man and of d CitIzen arc the same or not for LX 127()b 37 and 1277" 2 and 5) ,III S, 1271\. 8 and 17 (the lDqUlry mto the POhtlCdl nghts of artisan.,) III 9, 12 Bob 5, 31, 39 and 1281" 2 (the detcrmmatwl1 of the correct Vlew of the state as an orgamzatlon for pubhc cd ucatlOn dnd the relectlon ot the Manchcbterstate') III 13 12R4' I and b 25, III 14, 12S4b 3S, III 15, 1286' B dnel 15 and III IR, 1288' 33 to the cnd z For reference~ to VII and VIII lD III see the prevlou~ note Contranwlse VII 4. 1325b 34. refers back to III b-8, and VII 14,1333" 3 refers to III 6 ('~p 1278b 32 ff , WIth the \'oord, 'a, I observed In the first part of th" treatise' VII 1(, 1335 b 4. refer. fOT\\anl to VIn Thl'> make, It the more remarkable th"t vol

1,

hl~ Ju~t

TRAVELS could not fall to notice that these mtervemng books positively mterrupt and disturb the constructlOn of the best state For, although the end of the N/'comachean Eth~cs says that they are to fonn the foundatlOn of It, this arrangement never got beyond the mere mtentIon, and m pomt of fact they do not 10 any way prepare for and estabhsh the Ideal state, or at least not directly The final consideratiOn was that m the manuscnpts the first sentence of VII also appears, with shght verbal alterations, at the end of III At the begmmng of VII It IS given the style appropnate to the opemng of an mdependent monograph, whlle at the end of III Its form IS such as to connect drrectly with the concludmg reflections of that book Anstotle's wntmgs contam several examples of such techmcal mdlcatIOns of the order of the rolls The fact that Book VII once followed III was thus no longer an hypothesIs but an express tradltlOn If we supposed that the closmg words of the N1Comaehean Etlnes, which give the outlme of the Pol~hcs, were not wntten by Anstotle hlffiself-as has actually been suggested-but by hiS editor, whether Nlcomachus or Theophrastus, then It would be the latter who mterrupted the genume Anstotehan order by msertmg Books IV-VI If, however, thiS outhne comes from Anstotle, which seems to me the only trustworthy mterpretahan, he hlffiself mserted them, and the words at the end of Book III are a rudlffient of the ongmal state of affaIrs In either case It IS proved that VII and VIII ongmally followed on II and III, but If Anstotle himself made the msertlon we have no nght to undo hiS step What we have to dlstmgmsh, therefore, IS not a true and a false, but an earlier and a later, order of the books The difficulty has ansen out of Anstotle's development, and, mstead of makmg order by force, we ought to be thankful that the tradition stlll allow,> us a ghmpse of the growth of hiS Ideas, a glImpse possible, however, only because the final enlargement does not anse orgamrally out of the earher POltt1CS, and because the parts are merely tacked, not sewn, together Revlewmg our results so far, we have first the angmal Pol1t1cs 2~

III, VII, and VIII take no account of IV-VI, e~pecially as IV-VI, on the other hand, do not lack references to III and VII These latter, however, are not ~uch as to demand the msertlOn of IV-VI between III and VII-VIII In fact, such an mserhon appeared to be excluded by the conneXion between III and VII-VIII and their references to each other (See below, pp 273-274)

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of the Ideal state, dIrectly connected wIth Plato In vIrtue of Its aIm It begIns In Book II wIth a hIStOrICal survey of the earher theonsts about the Ideal state, IncludIng Plato, and wIth a cntIcism of theIr UtoPiaS Apparently thIS book was OrIgInally the begInmng, just as the hlstoncal part IS the begInmng of the Metaphys~cs, of the dIalogue On Ph~losophy, and of the books On the Soul It was useless, however, as an IntroductIOn to anythIng but a dISCUSSlOn of the Ideal state, and hence a more general IntroductlOn had to be prefixed to It when the dISCUSSIon developed mto a general theory of the state I In Book III we have the tranSItion to the fundamental conceptions Involved In the state Its mam content IS the denvatlOn of the SIX archetypal constitutions from the amount of the share In the government enjoyed by theIr CItizens Here agaIn we have the charactenstIc search for absolute norms and standards, espeCIally In the dIstinction between the true and the degenerate forms The attItude IS just as theoretic and conceptual as that of the actual descnptIon of the best state In Books VII and VIII, to whIch It often refers We shall return to the latter Over agaInst thIS speculatIve pIcture stands the empmcal part In Books IV-VI It shows no trace of the old Platomc spmt of constructIons and Ideal outhnes ArIstotle does, however, expressly define hIS attitude towards the older part when, <1t the begInmng of IV, he explaInS that In addItIon to the constructlOn of the Ideal It IS a no less Important task of the political theonst to examIne what IS good or bad for a partIcular state m given condItlOns The constItutlOn of an absolute Ideal, and the determmatIOn of the best politics pOSSIble under gIVen condIbons, are parts of one and the same SCIence HIS remark~ on thI" POInt show that he felt a certaIn dIfficulty In combInIng Plato'" UtopIan speculatlOns WIth thIS purely empIrIcal treatment, although he belIeved hImself able to overcome It He tned to escape by POIntIng to the analogy of a double form of medICIne and gymnastICS, the one concernIng Itself WIth the pure standard and the other applyIng the knowledge thus gaIned to the gIven case Throughout the mtroducbon to the empIrIcal part one can scarcely help feehng that there IS an undertone of polemIC agaInst the mere constructIon of Ideals, and that ArIstotle was 1

POT the VIndIcatIOn of the ,lew that Book I ~

IS

late see below, p

272

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very proud of his mnovatlon The uncomprOlmsmg a~sertlOn of the unattamable Ideal could not help the rent and nven actuahties of Greek polItics The malO pomt, however, IS that 10 the empmcal mqumes of the mserted books the Ideal state IS no longer the norm that detenmnes what IS attamable and deSirable In gIven Circumstances The standard there IS Immanent and bIOlogIcal It 1'5 obtamed by Immersmg oneself sympathetically 10 the mamfold possIble forms of the state, and not by lookmg to a smgle, fi"ed, Ideal goal Hence Anstotle IS never weary of mSIstmg that there are not one kInd of democracy, one kmd of olIgarchy, and so on, but very dIvergent vanetles, and whereas 10 Book III democracy and ohgarchy are regarded as merely degenerate and contrary to the norm, In IV they are the two types to whIch almost all actual constitutIOns are 10 practice to be referred, although Anstotle still retams hIS old systematic dIVISIOn Into two categones of value, good constitutIOns and perversIOns The essentIal thmg for the understanding of Books IV-VI IS not what he preserves of the old, but hIS new method, which could never have been denved from speculatIOn about the Ideal state In that speculatIOn the rule was logical dIVISIOn, but here It IS the feeling for bIOlogical form ThIS comes out clearly In the detailed methodIcal companson between the theory of the forms of state and that of the morphology of ammals, whIch Anstotle places at the begmmng of hiS new inqUiry I ThiS IS tangIble and I Pol IV 4. I290b 25 •If we were gOIng to speak of the different specIes of ammal we should first of all detenmne the organs that are Indispensable to every ammal, as, for example, some organs of sense and the Instruments of receivIng and dlgestmg food, such a~ the mouth and the stomach, beslde~ organs of locomotIOn AssumIng now that there are only so many kInds of organ, but that there may be differences In them-I mean different kInds of mouth, and stomach, and perceptl"e and locomotIve organ-the pOSSible comblDatlOns of these dltierences Will neces~anly furnish many vane ties of aDimal (For aDimals cannot be the same which have different kmds of mouth or ear) And when all the combmations are exhausted there wIll be as molny sorts of ammal as there are combinatIOns of the necessary organs The same then, IS true of the forms of government that have been described' Then follows the parallel between the particular parts of the SOCial orgamsm and those of the !IVIng thIng By the way In which he works It out Aristotle shows that he regards thiS not as an mgemous analogy but as a revolutIOn lD method and the result, wInch he emphaSizes agam and aga.Jn lD what follows, IS Important enough the few forms of constItutIon distIngUIshed In Book III do not exhaust the hst, for each of them IS dIVISible again according to the way In which the parts arc combmed, and thiS can vary very Widely

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unnllstakable eVIdence of the mfluence exerted on the constructIve way of thmkmg that he mhented from Plato by the descnptIve sCiences of nature, especially bIOlogy and morphology, which underwent development on all Sides dunng his later penod It IS not a question merely of the control of conceptual constructIOn by expenence That had always been hIS tendency. even m the old account of the Ideal state he had had recourse to expenence to confirm or overthrow Plato's speculations But m these late books the unbiased observatIOn of empmcal reahty has led him to a wholly different mode of treatment, whIch starts from the particular phenomena and seeks to discover their mner law, hke a sCIentist observmg the charactenstIc motions and emotions of a hvmg thmg The theory of the dIseases of states and of the method of cunng them IS modelled on the physIcIan's pathology and therapy It IS scarcely pOSSIble to ImagIne a greater contrast to the doctnne of an Ideal norm, which constItuted Plato's pohtIcal theory and that of Anstotle m hIS early days, than thIS VIew, accordIng to WhICh no state IS so hopelessly dlsorgamzed that one cannot at least nsk the attempt at a cure RadIcal methods would certaInly destroy It m short order, the measure of the power" of recovery that It can exert must be determmed solely by exammmg Itself and ItS condItIon We must here content ourselves WIth thIS general charactenzatiOn, and not enter further Into the detailed analySIS of these three books It IS necessary, however, to say one more word about the first As already remarked, It was added when the eXIsting structure was enlarged mto a gem'ral theory of polItics by the msertIOn of the purely empmcal part It sets out the plan of the whole as Anstotle conceived It whIle workIng on the later ~erslon He mtended to develop m the mtroductIon the fundamental natural condItIons of all polItical eXIstence, In order to construct the state from nature, out of ItS SImplest presupposItions These presuppOSItIons are the three fundamental elements of all SOCIal hfe, master and slave, man and wIfe, parent and chud I The way m which he carnes out, or rather fads to carry out, the resultIng threefold dIVISIOn of hIS matenal shows that there were certam dIfficultIes m hIS path I

Pol I 3. 1253b 4-8

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TRAVELS

The first book dIscusses only the first of these three fundamental relatIons, the questIon of slaves and Its connexlOn wIth the economy of socIal lIfe As to the two other subjects proposed, mamage and chIldren, Anstotle consoles his readers by remarkIng at the end that these had better be dIscussed In connexlOn wIth the problem of the family, 'when we speak of the dIfferent forms of government' (tv 'Toi~ nepl 'Ta~ 1TOAl'TElo:~) At first sIght thIS looks lIke an IncomprehensIble faIlure 10 consIstency and lucIdIty, and It makes the close of thIS book very unsatIsfactory The explanatIOn IS that he was In an awkward posItion, and only VIOlent means could help hIm out of It Marnage and the famIly had already been lIberally dIscussed In the earlIer versIOn of the Polztzcs, on the occaSiOn of the cntlClsm of Plato's demand that wIves and chtldren should be common He was therefore oblIged eIther to delete thIS earher treatment, thereby destroymg the maIn attractIOn of hIS cntIclsm of Plato's Republzc, or to abandon the account of It In Book I and content hImself wIth a reference to that In II I He chose the latter The muhI Pol I 13, 1260 b 8-13 It IS not permissible to omit the article before l1'OAlTflers or to chan~e It from T~ to Tiil ThiS would make the pa~sage refer

to the part of the Poht«s that contams the Ideal state, which. however does not mentIon the problem of the famIly, and It would be poor consolatIOn to suppose that the missIng diSCUSSIOn appeared 1D the final part of the last book, whIch IS lost It IS surely a dubIOUS proceedmg to alter the traditIOn on the ground of a passage that m;!y never have eXisted The expressIOn' when we ~peak of the different forms of government (tv TOll 1I".pl T~ 1I"oAI... I~) IS ambiguous In IV 2, 1289" 26, our ongmal discussIOn about governments' means the classIficatIOn of constItutIons mto MX kmds In the thIrd book In II I. 1260 b 29, ArIstotle understands by the . other constItutIons', In contrast to hiS own Ideal state, the UtopIas propo~ed by other theonsts, whIch he critIcizes m that book, at the end of the same bool{ he agam sum~ up thiS mqulry under the name of 'our mqulry Into the various constItutIons (1274b 26) Now the problem of the famIly IS fully dIscussed In the cnticlsm of the commumty of Wives and chIldren In Plato'~ Republtc (II 3-4), and although An,totle there develops hiS own view somewha.t mdlrectly, by contrast With what seems to him a mistake, thiS very Indirectness IS mentIoned 1D the prelImmary announcement In I 13 1260b 10 'The relatIons of husband and "Ife parent and chIld, their several Virtues, what ~n the~r tntercourse wtth one another IS good and what ~s eVil, and how we may pursue the good and escape the eVil, Will have to be dISCUSSed when we speak of the different forms of government' He here Indicates a treatment of the questIon In the form of a CriticIsm of the WTong view If he had meant to diSCUSS It In the same way as he does the problem of slavery It would be ImpoSSible to conceIve any reason why he should not have done so Immediately after the fanner. but Book I was wntten to precede a pre-exlstmg treatIse In WhICh the question had already been dl~· cussed, a~ IS proved by the brusque transItion to Boo\" II, where we ,Lre told

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lated structure of the first book IS thus the consequence of ItS adaptatIon to the older verSIOn The concludmg passage, WhICh IS Intended to make the transItIon to the older part wIth ItS problem of the Ideal state, also betrays the dIfficulty of dOing so by ItS remarkable tortuousness-thIs has even been made a reason for denymg that It IS genuIne, and yet It does not succeed In dISgUISIng the abrupt change of thought WhICh stnkes the reader of the opemng sentence of Book II These results may be confirmed by examInmg the system of references There are m fact two dIstInct sets,Imposed one on the other, and partly contradIctIng each other At first, naturally. the scholar treats them as all on a level and tnes to harmOnIze them Then he sets them agamst each other and declares one half to be mterpolatIOns But the only way to untIe the knot IS to bear the facts of Anstotle's development In mmd, and so to dlstmgUIsh the references that must have occurred In the old sketch of the Ideal state (because they presuppo<;e that alone) from the later ones, whIch presuppose the whole Poltt~cs as It now stands The only dIrectly demonstrative references, naturally, are those that conflIct wIth the present state of the Polzt1CS Those pre<;upposmg It may belong to the late'it verSIOn, and hence prove nothIng If we make a dIVIsIon mto two groups on thIS pnnCIple, we find that what IS presupposed by the group conflIctmg wIth the present state of the treatise IS that the books containIng the Ideal state (II, III, VII, VIII) were ongmally umted and Independent Book III was once the real begmnIng of the treatIse, Since the contents of II are merely negatIve Hence It IS often referred to wIth the phrase 'at the commencement of our mqUIry' (ev Tois TIpWTOlS MYOIS) Even Book IV refers to III m thIS way, although It belongs to the later verSIOn, and thIS shows that IV-VI were Inserted before the first book was prefixed to the whole' Before the first book was wntten ",thout \\arnmg that the aIln of pohtIcs IS to set up an Ideal state, although unbl that moment the diSCUSSIOn had been concerned solely wIth the state m general I For Book III or the begmnmg of It referred to as 'at the commencement of our inqUiry' see III 18, 1288" 37 ( = III 4) VII 14, 1333" 3 ( = III 6) IV 2, 1289" 26 ( = III 6) IV 7, 129]b 2 ( = III 4-5), and IV 10, 1295" 4 ( = III 14-17) If SusemIhlls nght, It also conflicts wIth the present state of the Polzt.cs when IV 3. 1290"' refers to VII, B-g, with the words' which were mentIoned by us when treatmg of anstocracy', but we cannot absolutely

274

TRAVELS

Anstotle used to refer to hIs exotenc dIalogues for the matters now treated there, namely slavery and the doctnne of the three forms of rule obtammg wlthm the household (master, husband, and father) They were fully treated m those works, and so we read m III 6, 1278b 30 'There IS no difficulty In dlStmgUlshmg the vanous kmds of authonty, they have often been defined already m the exotenc works ' I He then gIves the claSSIficatIOn exactly as we find It m the first book the kmds of authonty are master and slave, husband and wIfe, father and chud That he nevertheless refers to a dIalogue for thIs c1asslficatlOn can fau to be surpnsmg only If Book III belongs to a verSlOn m whIch I dId not occur In the final versIOn he conceIved the plan of fillmg up thIs gap by gIVmg a full dlscusslOn of the matter m an Introductory book It then became necessary to Insert In the passage quoted a reference to the fact that the subJect had already been treated m the first book But the older reference to the dialogues was not removed, and the JuxtaposItion of the two IS a strange contradlctlOn 2 Anstotle Introduced another reference to I at a passage In VII where he touches on the subject of master and slave ,3 and the remarkable relation obtammg between the references m II, III, VII, and VIII, and those m 1v-vI. already dIscussed, can also be satlsfactonly explamed If we bear the development of the work In mmd 4 The reason why II, III, VII, and VIII, the books conexclude the posslblhty that the reference here IS to III 4 PolitICS of Arlstotle, vol IV, p 155) suggests III 12 1283" 14 ff

Newman (The See the next

note but one I The Oxford translation, •In dlscusslon~ outSide the school' presupposes another view of the meaning of ' exotenc', but see p 249 above Tr • Pol III 6, I278b 17 If thiS reference to Book I had been present from the beg1OnIng, and I Itself therefore were as old as III, It would be Impossible to see why ArIstotle here finds It necessary to repeat all over agam what he hold already said there about the forms of authonty, and to appeal to the exoterIc works for support It IS clear from the other references to exotenc works that we have here an extract from a dialogue, and that Anstotle mtroduces It for the want of anything bet/er. but thiS presupposes that at the bme of wnt10g III was not preceded by I ] Pol VII 3, 1325" 30 'about which I have SaId enough at the commencement of thiS treatise' Here, as 10 III 6, I278b 18 'the commencement of thiS treatISe' does not mean Book III which IS Its usual sense m the PollIICS, but Book I That IS to say. It presupposes the latest reVISion Both references were Introduced on that occasIOn That the PollI.es conta3DS any references not mserted by Anstotle himself I cannot adDllt • See p 267 above

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tammg the account of the Ideal state, are bed together with a network of mutual references, whlle they do not mentlOn the mtervenmg Books IV-VI, IS that they were wntten as one and at an earher tIme The same fact also explams why the latest and empmcal part, and especIally IV, frequently takes account of the old Let us now attempt to determme more exactly the date of the sketch of the Ideal state, as agamst that of the later books and of the collectlOn of constItutlOns As With the EthJCS and the Metaphystcs, we must start from Its conneXlOns WIth AnstotIe's early wntmgs-and It IS sIgnificant that only the older part of the PoLJtJCS shows any such conneXIOns, the later books, IV-VI, evmce not the shghtest trace of a relatIon to the dIalogues Unfortunately the matenal at our disposal for companson IS extremely poor The ProtreptJcus, the only work that we can use, helps us solely m matters where the PoLJtJCS IS directly based on the EthJCS The survlvmg remams contam httle that IS wholly pohtIcal ThiS misfortune IS to some degree counterbalanced, of course, by the fact that the conneXIOn between the PolJtJCS and the EthJCS was much closer m the early penod than afterwards Later on, whlle Anstotle stIll formally preserved the umty of the two dlsclpbnes, and even systematIzed them externally mto one great whole, the ethiCS of the IndIvidual had nevertheless been practically completely separated, beneath the surface, from ItS tradItIOnal PlatOnIC yokefellow, and a way was already open to the mdependence that It obtamed m HellemstIc tImes We start WIth the begmnmg of Book VII, which lays the foundatIon of the Ideal state It IS thoroughly PlatOnIC In IdentIfymg the end of the state WIth the ethical end of the mdlvldual, for thiS IS the meanIng of the proposItIon from which the mqmry proceeds, that the best state IS that which assures ItS cItIzens of the best hfe (atpETC';>TCXTOS, aplO"TOS I3los) In sayIng thIS Anstotle IS by no means subordInatIng the state to the welfare of the mdlvldual, as a bberal would do, but IS denvIng, as Plato does, the categones for Judgmg the value of the state from the ethIcal standards that apply to the soul of the IndIVidual To say that the 'best hfe' of the state and of the IndiVIdual are one and the same does not mean for him that thmgs are well With the state If everybody has good food and feels comfortable,

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but that the !>pmtual and moral value of the state IS based on that of ItS citizens Its ultimate source IS the evaluatmg soul of the mdlvldual On the other hand, the hIghest ethical conceptIon to which that soul attams IS the state, towards whIch man IS by nature predIsposed Plato perfonns the denvatIon of the best state from ethIcal standards wlthm a smgle SCIence WIth Anstotle, however, the dIfferentIatIOn of ethIcs and pohhcs has advanced so far that at thIS pomt he IS obhged to remmd hIS readers of the fundamental Importance of the ethical doctnne of the 'best lIfe' Now the form that the ethical question here takes ('What IS the best hfe ~ ') IS by Itself a sign of the date of thIS pIcture of the Ideal state, for, although ItS mfluence can stIll be detected even m the later Ethtcs, It there constItutes merely the tradItIonal framework wIthm which Anstotle develops hIS reahstIc and psychologIcal doctrIne of character, whereas m the Plttlebus and the Protrepttcus, and even In the angInal EthtCs, It 1<; stIll the centre of the whole problem of value When, therefore, we find that Anstotle, when he has to determme the questIon of the best lIfe m order to establIsh hI!> Ideal state, appeals to hIS exotenc works, we shall not be surprIsed, but shall give the matter our senous attentIOn, and shall not merely conSIder the lIterary form, as had been done up to now, but also eAammc the content HIS language unmIstakably ImplIes that he IS ba5mg hImself on a partIcular work on the 'best lIfe', and thIS must be the Protrepttcus I Bernays, who was the first to recogmze thIS passage as a self-quotatIon, conJectured the reference to be to the totally unknown dialogue Nerwthus,Z whICh 1<; an Incomprehensible VIew, but he dId lastmg serVIce In drawmg our attentIon to the change of style that takes place In the followmg chapter J From the unusualness of such elevated wntmg m the treatIses, and from Its COInCIdence With the reference to the eAoterIC works, he concluded that we have here an extenSIve reproductIon of one of Anstotle's dIalogues, down even to the details Du,ls afterwards put the problem of <;tyle mto a more general settmg, and explamed the stnkmg nse In tone, whIch I

Pol VII I, 1323" 21 Here agam the Oxford translatIon ImplIes a different Tr Bernays, D,e Dlalogc des Ansloleles, p 89 J Dernays, op Cit P 77

VIew >

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occurs m several passages of the treahses, as a sort of Slcrrp,~" mtended to produce an ethical effect by workmg on the hearer's subjective feelIngs He did not belIeve that any ofthese passages were borrowed from the dialogues I After what has been saId, however, the fact that the treatises frequently make use of the exotenc works reqUIres no further confirmatIOn, and the mtroduehan to Book VII of the Pol1hcs IS a case m pomt Nevertheless, the elevated style IS certamly not to be ehplamed by saymg that Anstotle has faIled to remove all traces of the ongmal tone, for It IS thoroughly SUItable to an mtroductIOn to the Ideal state, and recurs m SImIlar places where borrov.mg from the dJalogues JS not to be assumed 2 The fact IS that thIS passage happens to combme both elevahon of style and borrowmg from an early work Anstotle takes from hJS ehotenc "ource not merely the Ideas, but also the attempt to make them protrephcally effechve by means of a parhcular style The first thmg that he takes over from the ProtreptlcuS, as m the begmmng of the second book of the Eudemlan EthlCS, IS the divIsIOn of all goods mto external, bodIly, and !:>pmtual HappIness depends on the possessIOn of all three kmds, although It IS naturally not so much the phIlosopher's busmess to demonstrate the nece!:>slty of the e"Xtemal or of the bodIly goods as of those of the moral and !>pmtual personalIty 'No one would mamtam that he IS happy who has not m him a partIcle of courage or temperance or Justice or phronesls, who IS afraid of every Insect that flutters past him, and Will commit any cnme, however great. m order to gratIfy hiS lust of meat or dnnk, who wIll J D,el., review of Georg Ka,bel'. 'Shl und Text der AeTival",~ nOhl"Toia des Anstoteles' III Gott gel Anz, 1894, and' Zu Anstoteles ProtreptIkos und Ciceros HorteDslUs In Arch f Gesch d PhJlos vol I, P 478 In my Enl 1I1elaph Ansi I followed D,els (p 137), and I stili hold Jt Jmposslble to ,mpute to Anstotle .uch a manner of usmg h,s d,alogues as to fall mto mvoluntary remm,scences of their style like a late compl1l"r If the style changes ,t JS always because he mtends to produce a particular effect But whereas formerly I believed With Diels that thI~ was a reason for dispensmg entirely w,th theSUppOSJtlon that Aristotle borrowed from h,s exotenc works, thJS mference must Dow of course be abandonea Vahlen's dJSCus.lOn of the opemng of the .Jxth book of the PolzlJCs (BeY W.ene,. Akad d WJSS, vol lxxu pp 5 ff), though admirable for It~ fine ImguIstlc observatlOns does not help to sohe Bernays' problem of the ongln of the Ideas 10 tillS chapter 1 A., for example, 1D the first book On the Payts of AnJmals, whJch IS the 1OtroductIon to a long senes of lectures on ammal., and JS very general 1D character

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sacnfice hls dearest fnend for the sake of half-a-farthmg, and IS as feeble and false m mmd as a chud or a madman' The age of thIs passage IS clear from ItS mentIOn of the fOUf PlatonIc vIrtues, mcludmg phrones'J,s, whIch IS substItuted for soph'J,a m accordance wIth Plato's late VIew We have seen the same fourfold schemE" In the Protreptteus I The Importance assIgned to It 15 shown by the four examples That gIVen for the value of phronests can shll be found In our fragments of the Protrepttcus. 'No one would choose to hve, even If he had the greatest wealth and power that man has ever had, If he were depnved of hIS reason and mad, not even If he were gOIng to be constantly enjoyIng the most vehement pleasures' And later on we read 'If a man had everythmg, but the thmkmg part of hIm was corrupted and dIseased, hfe would not be desuable for him The other goods would be no benefit to hIm ThiS IS why all men behttle all other goods so far as they know what reason IS and are capable of tastIng It ThIS also IS why none of us could endure to be drunk or to be a chIld throughout hfe '2 ThiS, however, IS unIversally acknowledged, the Palthcs conhnues Men dIffer only about the degree, that IS, about the questIon WhICh sort of good we need most of 'Some tlunk that a very moderate amount of VIrtue IS enough, but set no hmlt to theIr deslfes of wealth, property, power, reputatIon, and the lIke' Yet 'happmess, whether COnSI'itmg m pleasure or VIrtue or both [thIS was the problem of the Phzlebus and the Protreptteus],J IS more often found WIth those who are most highly cultivated In theIr mmd and In theIr character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess e:\.ternal goods to a useless extent but are defiCIent In hIgher qualItIes' These words reproduce Idea!:> and phrases charactellstIc of the Protrepttws The man 'most hIghly cultIvated In mmd' IS the counterpart of the man m the Protrepttcus who IS 'decked m shmmg raiment' but whose soul IS 'Ill eVil state' .. 1 Frg 52 (p 62, II 2-4 In Rose) and frg 58 (p 68, II 6--9 In Rose) Compare Pol VII I, I 3 2 J b 33-6. and 15, 1334" 22 , Frg 55 (p 65, II 4-7 and 15-21 In Rose) , Iambl Protr, p 41, I 12, and p 59 I 27. In PIstelh • Pol VII I, 132J" J6 11 . cp frg 57 The method of determIning the parts played In happiness by external posseSSIons aud by the state of the SQulls the ~ame In both pas!.ages

THE ORIGINAL POLITICS

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Anstotle mentIons thIS mner 'state' a few hnes lower down m the Polztzcs 'The best state of one thmg m relatIon to another corresponds In degree of excellence to the Interval between the natures of whIch we say that these very states are states 'I The Protreptzcus expresses the same thmg more sImply 'If the state of a man's soul IS bad neIther wealth nor strength nor beauty IS a good for hIm On the contrary, the more the excess In whIch these states are present the more and the greater the harm they do to the man who possesses them wIthout phroneszs' (frg 57 end) External goods must have a lImIt (1TEpos) , for they are means, and every means IS useful for somethmg Treated as an end m Itself, a means becomes harmful to the man who makes hImself Its slave, or at the least It becomes useless The more we mcrease mner goods, however, the more useful they are, If the epIthet 'useful' as well as 'noble' IS appropnate to such subjects z Here agaIn the Protreptzcus IS the source In that work we read 'To look for some result from every pIece of knowledge, and to demand that It be useful, IS to be absolutely Ignorant of the fundamental dIfference between goods and necessItIes, and thIS dIfference IS very great Such thmgs as we deSIre for the sake of somethIng else, and WIthout whIch we could not hve, should be called necessary condItIons (avayKo"io lkmg 'What use IS It~' or 'How does that help us ~. , there IS an Ideal ('the noble and good') that stands above base usefulness 3 'Each one has Just so much of happIness as he has of VIrtue and phroneszs' -the formula of the Eudemzan Ethzcs 'God IS a wItness to us of thIS truth, for he IS happy and blessed, not by reason of any external good, but m I For Anstotle's tendency 10 the Protrephcus to express conclu~lOns In the manner of formal logic see Iambl PratT. p 43. I 28, and p 44, I 21 Both of these examples also refer to the ehglble and the more ehglble • Pol VII I, 1323b 7-12 J Frg 58 (p 68, I 19, In Rose) At I 1 of P 69 m Rose three Imes have fallen ou t after MyOl'£v through a pnnter'~ error, cp Iambl PTotT p 52, II 28 ff

TRAVELS

280

hlffiself and by reason of hIs own nature 'J (ThIs sort of argumentation belongs to the perIod shortly after ArIstotle's emancipation from Plato, when the theolOgical element still had the upper hand and stIll penetrated ethres and pohtIcs Later on he aVOIded mtroducIng such metaphySical matters) That thiS too IS copIed from the ProtreptIcus IS shown by the fragment that Cicero has preserved about the beata VIta on the Islands of the blest 'Una Igitur essemus beatI [SCll 51 nobiS III beatorom Insuhs Immortale aevum degere hceretJ cogmtIOne naturae et sClentIa, qua sola eham deorum est vita laudanda '2 Here too the true nature of human happIness IS Inferred from the reason of God's happmess ThIS Inference, together wIth the dIstmctIon between happIness and good fortune, whIch IS developed m the next hne of the PolItICS, 15 found both m the early works and m the oldest form of the Ethzcs and In the NIcomachean Ethzcs, but the whole manner m whIch It IS here treated IS that of the earher penod 3 The first chapter of Book VII ends wIth these words '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 lecture' (htpCIS O')(oAiis) The hearer who IS not satIsfied IS thus expressly promised another dIscussIOn of the question In the PlatOnIC Circle In WhICh these lectures were wntten ArIstotle expected opposItIon to hiS IdentificatIOn of the happmess of the state WIth that of the mdividual It would not be dIfficult for a philosopher to merge hImself In Plato's City of phIlosophers and serve ItS ends, but Anstotle's new Ideal state IS not to be ruled by Platomc kings When, III the first chapter, he speaks of the Identity of the best hfe for the state and for the mdIvldual CItIzens, It IS 5Igmficant that he recogmzes as pOSSIble kmds of hfe only two a maximum of pleasure or a hfe of ethIcal and practical goodness He does not mentIon the hfe of pure reason (phroneszs) 4 To thIS a Platomst would have to reply, 'Then there IS nothmg for the phIlosopher but to Withdraw entlTely from pohtlcal hfe', and thiS would be the necessary consequence of Anstotle's own view m the ProtreptIcus, where phIlosophy alone could determine the highest polItIcal norm, 1 J

Pol VII I, 1]2]b 21-26 Cp Eth Eud VIII 2

Frg 58 (p 68, I 10, • Pol VII I, 1]2]b J

2

In

Rose)

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and was the lawgIVer m the state Now, however, that the Ideal state had been approxImated to realIty what room was there for the contemplative lIfe of the phIlosophIcal mdlvldual ~ Here for the first tIme the antmomy between state and mdIvidual becomes a sCIentIfic problem, though as yet only m a very restncted sense, smce It IS only the phIlosophIcal ego, the ego of phronesls, that may have mterests hIgher than the state's to represent For the ordmary clhzen who IS sImply the product of the relgmng polItical pnnclples there IS no such problem m the anCIent world HIS membership m the state exhausts hIS nature But Anstotle demand'l that m the Ideal state the commumty and the mdiVIdual shall never have IrreconCilably dIvergent alms, and so m the next two chapters of the PolltlCS we have the spectacle, the mterest of whIch IS more than hlstoncal and bIOgraphIcal, of the author of the Protrepttcus, who has now abandoned Plato's City of philosophers, workmg out the resultmg mevltable conflict between hIS phIlosophIcal and hIS socIOlogIcal conSCience LIke the antmomy between faIth and knowledge m metaphySICS, and that between character and the speculative mmd m ethICS, thIS between the state and the mdlvldual (the latter bemg eqUIvalent to cultural values) 1'1 not theoretIcally pOSSIble untIl we come to Anstotle's mutIlated verSIOn of Plato The ongmal undIVIded umty of the actIve forces m Plato's romantIc myth of the state could no longer restram the tendency of these factors more and more to separate and dIverge Anstotle tnes to reconcIle them once agam mto a hIgher umty The thoroughgomg upholders of the contemplatIve hfe had long seen that the ultimate conclu~IOn of Plato's Ideal was to shun all actual states and hve as a metIc (~evIKOs I3los), for where was the phIlosoplucally adjusted state m whIch theIr Ideal could find a place ~ All actual constItutIOns, It seemed to them, were Just mIght, nothmg but mIght, tyranny, and slavery The ~olu­ han was not to act, not to rule, not to Incur the reproach of takmg part m the despotic horror of polItical actIVIty, WIth ItS selfishness and Its hunger for power WIth such thmkers Anstotle contrasts those who hold that to act forcibly and to rule IS the only thmg worthy of a man There are states whose whole constitutIOns and laws are aImed solely at breedmg a proud, masterful, and warlIke spmt m theIr CItizens And so far as

TRAVELS constItutIons are not lIfeless products of chance, WhICh most of them are, they are without exceptIOn of this character accordmg to him I Now hIS new Ideal IS constructed as a mean between these two radical e",tremes The boundless mdlVlduabsm of the thoroughgomg PlatOnIst, who prefers absolute freedom to takmg part m a despotIc state, and wishes neither to rule nor to be ruled, IS mdeed ethically better than the modern state's Ideal of power, he says, but rule IS not necessarlly despotIsm, and a large number of men are simply born to be dependent It IS also unjustIfiable to condemn actIOn and praise mactIvlty He IS mcomparably Greek when he declares that there must be truth m the view that 'he who does nothmg cannot do well' To the Hellemc mmd thiS was a certamty that reqUIred no discussIOn Clearly Anstotle can combme the philosopher's Ideal hfe with thiS view of the purpose of state and society only by representmg phIlosophiC contemplatIOn as Itself a sort of creatIve 'actIon' Here agam he IS opemng up new roads, and makmg a new tIe to replace Plato's shattered mythical syntheSIS of knowledge and hfe The actIvity of the creatIve mmd ISbulldmg Anstotle has abandoned the lonely heights of the Protrepttcus He now places himself In the midst of actIve hfe, and comes forward as an architect of thoughts (0 Tois 211ovoiOls apxnile nature he now sees more clearly, and preserves hiS youthful Ideal HIS cntlclsm of the fundamental ethical and polItIcal pnnclples of the Protrepttcus, and of Its theory of the best lIfe, IS as much to the fore In hiS early account of the Ideal state as we have found It to be at every step m the angInal Eehtcs, and. thiS fact not only proves the early date of that account, but also allows us, for the first tIme, to give It Its nght place m the history of hiS development The angInal Poltttcs comes, In fact, at the same stage as the anginal Ethtcs and the ongInal M etaphystcs 3 282

The two types are descnbed In Po~ VII 2, 1324 a 35 fI Pol VII 3. esp 1325b 15 tI J The dependence of Book VII on the Protrepticus IS by no means confined to the first three chapters. which are analysed above For example, It can be clearly detected ID chapter 15 also The mentIOn of the four PlatonIC virtues I

2

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283

ThIS gIves a fresh meanmg to the numerous passages where the old sketch of the Ideal state refers to the Ethzcs They have usually been supposed to apply to the Nzcomachean verSIOn, even when the Eudemzan was perfectly possIble There remamed, mdeed, the pecuhar fact that some of the chIef ones would fit the Eudemzan only, whIch was supposed to be by Eudemus,l but smce m these passages the Ethzcs IS not expressly quoted but tacitly made use of (which IS the ordmary thmg), It was possIble to mamtam that It was Eudemus who had the Pohtzcs before him whde wntmg, and not the other way about Now that we have disproved hiS authorship and determmed the age of the Ethzcs called after hIm, the real relation becomes clear If the sketch of the Ideal state must, m view of ItS close relatIOn to the Protreptzcus, have been wntten dunng the fortIes of the fourth century, It IS self-evident that It cannot have used any Ethtcs but the ongmal one In VII 13, for example, It quotes a long account of the fight relatIon between means and end ~ The source of thIS admittedly cannot be the Ntcomachean Eilncs Nor IS It pOSSible to suppose that these ethical reflectIons first appeared m the Polttzcs, where they are only mentIoned m passmg, whereas the Eudemzan Etlucs gwes them m their ongmal there (1334" 22 ff) IS suffiCient to show that tlps whole sketl,h of the stat!'" belongs to .1 very early date, and the tOpIC on the necessIty of phl1o'IDphy and of the moral vIrtues upon the Islands of the blest IS dIrectly borrowed from the Protrept.cu> (frg 58) Thence comes al~o the lDvective agamst persons who are unable to use the good; of hfe (frg 55), whIch follows thiS tOPiC ~o do the statements at the end of the chapter about the relatIOn betwe!"'n body and soul, and about the parts of the !>Oul (Iambl ProtO' PSI. I 18-p 52, I 2) 'lhe deficlencle; of nature are what art and education seek to fill up' (VII 17. 1337" 2) I; verbally copIed from Iamb) Protr, p 50,11 1-2 'Nature has gIveR older men wisdom' (VII q 132q' 15) comes from p 51, II 24 ff I Bendixen was the first to pomt out (Plnlologus, vol XI (1856), pp 575 fl) .lgalDst Spengel's vIew that the Eudem,an EthiCS was wntten by Eudemus, that there are se~ eral passages \\ here the POlttlCS sho,", s a relllarkable conneXlOn WIth the Eudemlan EthICS He dId not, howe\er venture to mfer definitely that ~pengel's declaratIOn of spunou;ness was untenable In the Gottmgen dls;ertation (1909) that I have already mentioned Von der Ml.lhll reopened the dlscusslOn of BendIXen's observations (p 19). but did not examlDe them m detaIl Now, however that we have adequately established the Anstotehan ongm of the Euduntan EthICS by another path, and determined that It was wntten while he was movmg away from Plato, It IS necessary to take a new Hew of Bendixen's matenal • Pol VII 13, 1331b 26 Cp Dh Eud II II, 1227b 19 That the passage IS borrowed from the EthICS IS rendered certam by the fact that thIS chapter expressly refers to 'the Fth,cs' In two other places (1332" 8 and 21)

284

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context It IS equally ImpossIble that, eIther by chance or by an accIdent of memory, Anstotle formulated the same Ideas, III the same language In two Illdependent passages Such ar. eAplanatlOn IS excluded by the eXIstence of numerous other simIlar correspondences with the Eudemlan Ethles, some of which have very charactenstIc details They all go to show the same fact, namely that when he wrote the oldest parts of the POllhcs ArIStotle had the Eudemlan Etlues before him and frequently quoted It, and the correctness of thIS vIew IS decIsIvely proved by the fact that these remarkable borrowmgs all occur m the oldest books of the Pohtles, those concermng the Ideal state I LIke the Nleomaehean Ethus and the later verSlOn of the Polzhes, the ongmal Pol1tles and the ongmal Etlnes arose 1Il close conneXlOn WIth each other ThiS same thIrteenth chapter makes use of the ongmal Etlnes m several other passages That .1t 1332" 8 IS too general to permit defimte mferences,2 but 3 21 ff can refer only to the ongmal and not to the Nlcomachean ver~lOn, because the manner m whIch It IS expressed eAactly reproduces the relevant passage m the former, while there IS nothmg correspondmg to It III the latcr (Thc passage that the edItors refer to m the Nteomaehean versIOn does not fit J) That the Eudemlan IS meant IS also shown conneXlOn Ydth our whole inqUIry thl<, POint I~ final It ha~ never been remarked Up to the present the connexlOm between the Pol>lzcs and the Eudem,an Eth,cs have been examined only III order to determme whether the latter I~ genume, and thl~ they must be allowed to be mcapable of dOing BeSides the stnkmg borrowmgs from the Eudemtan EthICS In Books II and vn of the Poltllcs, .1.0(1 abo m III the dl',tlnctlOn between two meanmg<, of 'use', a<, we fiud It III Elit Dud III 3, 1231 b 3S, al<,a occurs m Pol I () 1257" 5, that 1<, to ,ay, m one of the later parts, and sllmlarly two passage' of the latE' Book V contain proverblll maJdms that also appear In the angInal £thlcs (Bendixen, op CIt, P ,So) The~e famt ..ehoes arc not real proof" however and cannot be put on the ~ame level as the borrowmgs m II. III, and VII Some of them an rem1m~cence<" and 'orne, lIke the h,o sen~e~ of u~e', are thmgs that \\ auld necessanly be repeatpd • The passage concerns the defimbon of happIness and Anstotle refers to 'the Ethle' , for It As far as the passage 1tself goes, th1S InIght mean Eth Nlc I (, I09S" 16 1f the other e",amples d1d not make 1t l1nposs1bk The emphas1s on the realIzatIOn and perfeci exerclSc of vutuc IS, however, a sltn of t'J.e true state of affaus 1hls formulatIOn occurs In I:th Eud n I,121') 2 bound up With the determInabon of happmess It IS the standing dehmtlon In the earher PO/lileS, cp VII 8, 1328338 ] The verbal parallel to Elh Eud VIII 3, 1248b 26, IS clear at first Sight, whereas there IS no ab~olutely convmcIng cornspondenee to Elh N1C III 6, 1113" IS II I

Taken

preHou~ly

III

THE ORIGINAL POLITICS

285

by the quotation In 1334" 40 ff , where the thoroughly charactenstlc story of the Spartan VIew of VIrtue IS taken from Eth Eud 1248b 37 ff , as It IS also In II, 1271b 4 ff The Eudem~an dlstmctIon between genume vIrtue and the spunous Spartan kmd necessanly assumed speCIal Impol tance for Anstotle when he was layIng the foundatIons of hIS archetypal state Moreover, Its conneXIOn WIth 1332" 21 ff IS so close as to prove that all three places refer to the same paragraph of the Eudem~an Eehus In 1332" 21 we read 'ThIs also has been determIned In accordance WIth ethIcal arguments, that the good man IS he for whom, because he IS VIrtuous, the thmgs that are absolutely good are good' Eek Eud 1248b 26 runs 'A good man, then, IS one for whom the natural goods are good', followed by the reason, on WhICh Anstotle IS relYing In thIS passage of the Poht~cs There IS also a quotation from the anginal Eth~cs In the thIrd book of the Pohtzcs (1278b 20 ff) In contrast to thIS dependence of the earher books of the Pollt~CS on the Eudaman verSIOn there IS not a Single demonstrable trace of theIr dependmg on the N~comachean Another part of the early sketch of the Ideal state enables us to determIne ItS date more accurately by means of an entIrely dIfferent approach ThIS part IS Book II, whIch contains the cntIcism of the earher wnters of UtopIas, ItS chIef attractIon bemg the cntIcIsm of Plato, far the most detaIled that we have from Anstotle BesIdrs the genume UtopIas he dIscusses Sparta and Crete, whIch \\-ere regarded by Greek pohtIcal theonsts of the fourth century as haVing exemplary comtItutIons (EVvOIJOUIJEval lTOAITEIal) He also dlscussec; Carthage I In theIr present I Book II as a whole IS early. but the much dIscussed concludmg chapter may be an exceptIOn In date as well as III other respects Anstotle there gIve~ a catalogue of lawgIvers. and determllle~ the charactenstlc or I1.IOV of the statesmanshIp or wntlDg'5 of each Scholars have always recognIzed that ItS conneXIOn WIth the precedlllg book IS loose If It were ongInally Intended for I ts present posItion It would be hard to se" why Plato and Phaleas are dIscussed a second tune For thIS reason Wilamowltz rejects I:!74bg-I5 (Arzstoteles lind A the", vol 1 pp 64 ff) But obVIously the catalogue of lawgI\;erS arose mde pendently and was added to the book subsequently as I have shown m Ent Metaph Anst, p 45 The tendency to collect all p~slble IndIVIdual cases, and the method of e"amlOlOg charactenstIcs, suggest that It belongs to the late penod when Anstotle was uSlllg SImIlar methods m the descnptIon of nature The Importance of the study of charactenstIcs III Hellemstlc SCIence, for eXaIn)l)e In ethnography. IS well known

T

286

TRAVELS

fonn these chapters must have been written shortly after 345. smce the departure to Crete of Phalaecus. the Phoclan mercenary captam. IS mentIoned as havmg recently occurred .. but In substance they are older, for the Protrepttcus demes that Crete or Sparta 'or any other such' IS an exemplary constItutIOn In the very same way These states are 'there described as 'human states'. the ImItatIOn of whIch can gIve only a human constructIon, and never anythmg endunng and dIVIne 2. Moreover, the matenal that Aristotle uses must surely have been collected before hIs stay m A'isosand MytIlene, when Plcitowas workmg on the Laws and Spartan and Cretan 1OstItutIOns were a favounte subject of dISCUSSIOn 10 the Academy The new 1Ofonnatton about Crete came from the hIstory of Ephorus, and appeared sImultaneously 10 Pol."ttCS II and m the spunous Platomc dIalogue Mmos, WhICh was probably wntten shortly after Plato's death J We do not know Anstotle's authonty for the CarthagIman constItutIOn, but at any rate he had exammed thIS also long before the collectIon of constItutIOns was made In these studIes he was gUIded by the Idea of a standald As 10 the Protrept."cus, hIS purpose was to show that the best state does not occur anywhere m reahty The notIOn of the nonn or opo~, whIch retIres to the background 10 the N."comachean, but whIch we hav!' found stIll 10fluentIal 10 the ongmal Ethtcs, IS nowhere so consIstently apphed as m the account of the Ideal Pol II 10, 1 272b 20 where pace Newman (op CIt, vol 11, P 360) .".oA.~~ means not a foreIgn but d mercenary "ar, as Fullebom and Oncken have already poInted out The former meamng IS later Greek [The Oxford translatIOn follows Newman -Tr] z Iambl Protr, P 55 I 17 J It IS not possIble to decide With certaInty the old controversy whether Anstotle used Ephorus for the traditIon about Crete or contranwlse What IS excluded of course I~ that Ephorus used Anstotle's Cretan Constzlutzon, the collectIon of constItutions waS made much laLer, for Ephorus's work was known to Calhsthenes, who went to ASIa WIth Akxander In 334 (see Wrlamowltz, 1'1'"toteles und At/len, vol I P 305) 1 hat ArIstotle should have used Ephorus for hIS cntIclsm of Cretan affaIrs In Pol II 10 dunng the latter half of the fortIes, IS not at "ll Imposslbll" In Itself, either chronologically or otherwIse, SInce he was stIll far from the real study of partIculars that characterIzed hIS latest penod On the other hand In the early VII 14, 1333 b 18, he speaks of Tlnbron's work on the Spartan state. and of 'all those who have wntten about the Lacedaemoman constItutIon', and hence he may have had local sources for Crete as well Thl" nature of the Inferences about Crete IS, however, so SImIlar In Anstotle and In Ephorus, and so modem, that one would prefer to suppose that a hIstOrian ltke EphOlus was theIr ongInator I

~EVlK6s

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state, and thIS IS yet another reason for placmg thIs account In the same penod as the Eudemtan Ethtcs I The cntlclsm of Plato's Republu IS very Important for our knowledge of the contrast between Anstotle's nature and Plato's because It IS not buned 10 abstract epIstemological fonnulae. It was probably fimshed, together With the malO body of the account of the Ideal state. before the Laws appeared. which happened whl1e Anstotle was 10 Assos The account was then completed. whIle the ImpressIOn created by this work was still fresh ThIS can be detected throughout In fact, the actual cntlcism of the Laws Itself seems to have been wntten rather hastIly As IS well known, It con tams all sorts of IllaccuraCles that suggest superficIal readmg Anstotle's remams mcluded COpIOUS extracts from the Laws as well as from the Republtc. they were undoubtedly made for cntIcal purposes At thIs tIme he lacked the patIence to form an exhaustIve Judgement on the work as a whole He approached It With hiS opmlOns more or less made up beforehand. thmkmg himself already beyond It and therefore not bound to lIsten With an open mmd In spite of many correspondences III detaIl he was conscIOus of follow 109 another pnnciple All the more. however. did ItS powerfully realIstIc method of treatment compel him to make frequent Isolated references to It, usually of a cntIcal kmd, of course For example, 'we must not overlook the fact that even the number that Plato now proposes for the cltll;em,2 Will reqUIre a temtory as large as Babylon, or some other huge Site, If 5,000 per"ons are to bp. supported III Idlenes~, together wIth theIr women and attendants. who WIll be a multitude many tIme" as great' J HIS general opmIOn IS 'The dIscourses of Socrates always exhibIt grace, ongInahty, and thought'. but whether they are nght 1" another questIOn I A few examples must suffice In many passages the meaning of the word 6pos vacillates between norm as essence (the necessary determination o[ the essence) and norm as end In Book VII thf' actual outhne of the Ideal state, I have noted the followmg examples 2 1324b 4 4 1120" 35-36 1326b 23 and 32 1327" 6 7. 1327b 19, 13 1331b 36 (6pos directly synonymous With <7k01TOs. TIAOS) , 15. 1334" 12, l71
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It IS signIficant that one of hIs cntIclsms of Plato's Ideal states IS that. they take no account of forelgn affaIrs Plato constructs hIS state In a perfectly empty space As to the brutal conflIcts that anse In actual polItIcal eXIstence, he eIther Imagines them removed or-what would be worse-never thInks of them at all It was certamly a clever and accurate observatIon 'that the legIslator ought to have hIS eye dIrected to two pOints, the people and the country', but what about the nelghbounng states' Smce there are always neighbours, and since It IS ImpossIble to lIve the Ideal eAlstence Isolated and undisturbed, whether one IS an mdlvldualm a state or a state 111 the communIty of states, It lS necessary to have a mIlItary org2:llzatlOn adjusted not merely to the cucumstances of one's own land but also to the nature of foreign countnes I The state must not merely meet the foe bravely In case of mvaSlOn, as Plato demands, but also prevent all other powers from desmng to attack It Anstotle IS Just as sharp as hIS master m condemnmg the glonficatlOn of power and empIre as the ultImate alm of the state, he demes that the people should be orgamzed exclUSIvely for the sake of war, and that the state should concentrate onesldedly on thIS smgle way of developmg Its powers The charactensbc part of hIS VIew, however, lS what he adds to thIS The necessItIes of foreIgn polItIcs force the state IOta the struggle of conflIctmg natIOnal Interests, and are lIable to give It a duectlOn dIfferent from that dIctated by Its ethICal end What led hIm as a Platomst to thiS change of vIew' Clearly It was not theoretIcal reflectIons, but personal contact WIth actual foreIgn polItICS The PhzhPPtcs of Demosthenes would hardly have thIS effect on a mmd hke Anstotle's, though they began before he left Athens On the other hand, contmuous mtercourse wlth a practIcal polItICian lIke Hermlas of Atarneu~ must have gIVen a new Impulse to hIS polItIcal thmkmg, Just as he m turn convmced HermIa!> of the necessIty of ethIcal alms In polItIcs HIS account of the Ideal state was completed m Assos and shortly afterwards No Greek state of the penod was more dependent on 'nelghbounng countnes' than that of Hermlas Its unstable eqmlIbnum, WIth Phulp's milItary natIon reachmg out powerfully I

Pol II 6, 1265" 18 ff

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on the .l:!:uropean sIde of the Hellespont, and the PersIan empIre Jealous of ItS overlordshlp on the ASiatic bank, demanded unremlttmg VIgilance of eye and ear And It IS remarkable how the un-Platomc Idea of the necessity for armaments, along wIth the fear of powerful and hostile neIghbours, pervades the whole account I In an mterestmg passage Anstotle attacks Plato's pecuharly Spartan Idea that towns should not be fortIfied 1 He declares that 10 vIew of modem SIege-weapons and the new inVentIOns 10 artillery thIS 1'5 an old-fashIOned preJudIce, although perhaps It was JustIfiable when one was surrounded only WIth enemIes weaker than oneself, as Sparta used to be, and not WIth opponents of crushmg supenonty ThIS fits the sItuatIOn of Hermlas, who had, 10 fact, strongly fortified Atarneus, and was afterwards actually beSIeged by the PersIans WIthout success And the other passage already mentIOned refers exphcltly to an earlIer sIege of thIS place 3 It IS ObVIOUS that here Hermlas hImself was the source of mformatlon After obJecting to Phaleas, as he had to Plato, that he takes no account of the neceSSIty for an energetic foreIgn pohcy and for mIlItary armament 10 hIS descnptIOn of the Ideal state, Anstotle demands that domestic pohtIcs also, 10 whIch most of these theonsts are unfortunately too exclUSIvely mterested, shall always be conducted 10 the closest connexlOn WIth external affaIrs Above all, one must aVOId amass109 wealth Jarge enough to excIte the attacks of more powerful enemIes and too large to be defended by Its owners In thIS respect the proper standard was set up by Eubulus of Atameus, the predecessor of HermIas, who had prevIOusly been a banker He saId that 'a more powerful neIghbour must have no mducement to go to war WIth you by reason of the excess of your wealth' , and when Autophradates, the PerSIan satrap, proposed to beSIege hIm 10 Atarneus he mVlted hIm to calculate the cost of the SIege, takmg mto account the length of tIme reqUIred He declared hImself ready to leave Atameus at once for thIS amount, and so brought hIm to realIze that the expense of the project would have been out of all proportIon to ItS Importance Autophradates made the calculation and deSIsted from the sIege I Z

1

Pol II 7,1267"19, II 9,126<)"40 and VII II,I33oh31 Pol VII II, 1330b 32 to the end of the chapter Pol II 7, 1267" 19-37

TRAVELS Thus the local colour of Atarneus IS reflected 10 the early pIcture of the Ideal state Such a whImsIcal treatment must have been wntten before It wal> besIeged for the second tune by the same fnghtful enemy, before the death of Herrmas had dunmed the amus10g memory of the sly tncks of old Eubulus, hIS teacher 10 statecraft, and shattered the pnvate happmess of Anstotle and hIS family In thIS passage we seem to be hstemng to the actual conversations, whIle Henmas calls the attentIOn of the PlatOnist, whose mmd IS open to all ImpresslOns, away from the Ideals and towards the facts HermIas's efforts 10 thIS respect, and hiS voluntanly takmg the adVice of the phIlosophers at As<;os and changmg hIS tyranny mto a more moderate constItutIon, are reflected 10 the hIgh value accorded to thIS mode of government m Anstotle's outhne of the Ideal state, and 10 hIS exphclt hrmtatIon of the cIty's sIze and temtory I conclude wIth a word or two about the character of Anstotle's method In constructIng an Ideal state The foundation, whIch he lays 10 Book III, IS the famous dlvlSlon of all pOSSIble constitutIOns mto SIX, three true and three degenerate (lTOpEKI3ci:O"EIS) He takes over thIS normatIve attitude from the polItIcal works of hIS AcademIC penod, to WhICh he expressly refers In the passage where he develops hIS sIxfold claSSIfication Chapters 6 and 7 of the thIrd book are essentIally nothmg but extracts from those works Here the course of hIS development IS espeCIally pIam Plato had descnbed the vanous types of constItutIon In the last part of the Republtc In the Statesman thIS led to the construction of a systematIc conceptual scheme of true and perverted constItutions Anstotle's methodIcal and archItectomc traIt led hIm to fasten on thiS pomt, as also dId the fact that the Statesman appeared dunng hIS most receptIve years as a member of the Academy For these reasons hIS study of Plato's polItIcal doctnnes IS concerned mamly WIth thIS work, although It seems that from the first he emphaSized the economIC and SOCIal aspects of the vanous constItutIOns more than the purely formal ground of the classIficatIon The Influence of ItS denvatory, conceptual, and constructIve method appears chIefly 10 the fact that he does not make hIS Ideal state SImply grow out of the earth, as Plato does 10 the Republ~c and the Laws, but develops It from a complete classIfication of constItutions accord2~

THE ORIGINAL POLITICS

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mg to their value This enables him to mtroduce mto the que<;tIon of the best state, so far as the subJect allows, the apodlctIc stnctness that was essential to hIs nature He IS always stnvmg for precIse conceptIOns I HIs Ideal state IS logIcal in framework, It IS a pIece of thought-construction in whIch the state IS based ngtdly on ItS fundamental elements and conceptIOns He IS very httle Interested in the VIVId and realistic exposItIon of detail that makes the Laws hVIng and effective In the seventh book, for example, the dISCUSSIon of a POint as Important as land and populatIon IS scarcely more than a bare enumeratIOn of the vanous necessary condItIOns The same IS true of the sketchy sectIOn on the fundamental conditIons (wv OVK avev) of the eXIstence of the state 2 Plato's sovereIgn legIslative art of buildIng the state becomes In Anstotle, in accordance WIth hIS pnnclples, a SCIentific deductIon, no longer purely PlatOnIC III anythIng except Its aIm, whIch remaInS the knowledge of the absolutely standard constitution Anstotle looks to expenence to confirm hiS conceptual constructIOns, but thIS IS somethmg entirely dIfferent from the empmcal method of the later books, whIch contain the mere morphology of the actual state It IS pnor to that not merely as the whole IS pnor to the part or the end to the means, but because bIOgraphIcally speaking It IS an earher and less developed stage of hIS polItICal theory Apart from many famous Isolated remarks, ItS speCIal nature and value he maInly in ItS dehberate employment of the method of denvatlOn Anstotle's greatec;t creative power, hIS sense of concrete form, hIS ablhty to see the Idea movmg in the flux of the lIvmg, reached ItS matunty only In hIS last penod, when he wrestled successfully WIth the unlImIted matenal of partIcular phenomena At that tIrot', I In thiS claSSification every constitution IS a fixed conception Anstotle IS stIlI far removed from the Idea of the later books of the Polzl1cs, that there may be vanous sorts of olIgarchy and democracy, val)'lng greatly III value, accordIng to the nature and combmatlOns of the vanous parts of the state For tius reason It IS not probable that the development of the vanous forms of monarchy at the end of III belongs to the book m Its earhest shape that IS, to the account of the Ideal state as wntten dUlIng the forties, espeCially as It IS also eonsidered In IV A more exact analysIS would have to determme how ArIstotle regarded the tranSitIOn from III to IV when he was mtroducmg Books IV-VI, and how far he altered the conclUSion of IlIon that account • Pol VII 4, 1326" 5. and VII 8. 1328b 2 ff

29Z

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however, the framework and comprehensIve fonn of hIS Polztzcs had long been fixed, and mto It the new matter had to go, though It almost burst It No wonder men have not felt themselves bound by thIS synthesIs, but entitled to use whatever parts appealed to them and supported theIr own posltlons Neverthele'5s, It IS not a true estlmate of ArIstotle's achIevement to take from hIs pobtlcal or hIs ethIcal constructlon notlung but ItS nch expenmental matenal, as the empmcIst so often does, or to thmk, wIth the normatlve theonst, that one IS Justified In regardmg It as a secondhand Ideal of the PlatOnIC type The great, the new and comprehensIve feature m Anstotle's work IS hIS combmatIOn of normatlve thought, whIch had led hIm to set up a fresh Ideal state better adapted to reabty, WIth a sense of form capable of mastenng and organIzmg the multlpbclty of actual pohbcal facts ThIS sense of form kept hIS stnvmg for the absolute standard from leadmg to stiffness, and revealed to hIm a thousand kmds of pohtlcal e:ll.lstence and methods of Improvement, whIle hIS stern grasp of the end preserved hIm from the relatIVIty so easrly mduced by abandOnIng oneself mdIfferently to the comprehenSiOn of all that IS In both respects, and m the UnIon of the two, he may well serve as the pattern of the mental and moral SCIences to-day

CHAPTER XI

THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECULATIVE PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY N

Anstotle's sCientific works it is conSiderably harder than

10

I those that are stnctly phIlosophical to corne at the essentIal nature of hIS development LIttle can be saId about the detaIls of the growth of hIS sCientIfic thought. and presumably even the most searchmg mqmry mto the compOSItIOn of these wntmgs, and the companson of all detads, would not overcome thIS mIsfortune, although we can say wIth perfect certamty that m VIew of the mtensity of hIS research hIS progress was perhaps more astoundmg m thIS field than m all others, and that here, far more even than elsewhere, he must be understood through hIe; development If we are really to grasp hIm m hIsmdividuahty It would be absurd to suppose that there IS nothmg to be diScovered but relatively ummportant details, such as the gradual mcrease of hIS vast mass of matenal and the date of that partIcular draft of hIS lectures which happens to have been preserved We have already pomted out that there are Important differences m phySical doctnne between the dIalogue On Ph1losophy and the work On the Heaven (p 153) We have found him gradually emancIpatmg hImself from the preSUppOSItIOns of the mythical mterpretatIOn of nature, which always retamed a po\\'erful mfluence over the Greek mmd, and had received fresh Impetus from Plato's theory that the stars have souls To examme thIS effort more accurately by means of COpIOUS examples would certamly be of the greatest mterest for the hIstory of Anstotle even as a phIlosopher, for It would bnng the Immanent tendenCies of hiS thought clearly to hght The mere order lD which he devoted himself to the different parts of nature would give us a curve WhIch would be e;omethmg qmte other than a senes of aCCIdental pomts along the course of hIS biOgraphy-so much can be confidently affirmed beforehand, smce we are dealIng With the mmd of an Anstotle Up to the present, however, we have unfortunately not attamed thIS InSIght, and therefore we must here confine ourselves towhat our mqumes have already revealed to us

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It IS necessary to begm wIth a warnmg agamst the perpetually recumng attempt to detenmne the temporal order of Anstotle's sCIentIfic works by means of theIr forward and backward references Such references constItute a chronologIcal cntenon only when they contradIct each other or the actual outhne of a work, and when these contradIctIOns are supported by other observabans concermng the subject-matter Itself Now the works on natural sCIence dIsplay a ngId system of references, and Zeller beheved that hiS vIew of the order m whIch they were wntten could be based on thIS system I Accordmg to thIS View the AnlZlyt~cs envisages the Phystcs as somethmg not yet wntten, whereas the Metaphystcs and the EthJcs, together WIth most of the other SCientific works, quote It or presuppose It. from which It IS Inferred that the PhysJCS was wntten between the Analyttcs on the one hand and the Metaphystcs, Ethtcs, and so on, on the other, a conclUSIOn further supported by the fact that It does not Itself quote or presuppose any of these latter works The order of composItion would therefore be Phystcs, On the Heaven, On Comtng-to-be and Passtng-away , Meteorology, and thiS appears to be confirmed by the Meteorology, which lIsts the other works as havmg preceded Itself m preCisely thIS order 2 For the present we may disregard Zeller's further Inferences about the Htstory of Ammals, the work On the Soul, and the other wntmgs on organIc nature We have here one of those deeply rooted mlsunderstandmgs to whose meradlcable mfluence we owe the fact that scholars have mostly belIeved that any exact determmatlOn of the order of composItIOn was ImpOSSIble on pnnclple What thIS method gIVes us IS at best only the order that Anstotle at the close of hIS literary actIvIty belIeved to be demanded by the nature of the subject-matter or by pedagogical conslderabons, It WIll never gIve us a glImpse of hIS development or even of the mere order of the composItIon of parbcular works We can no more raIse a chronologIcal structure on the senes of references m the phySIcal wntlngs than we can argue from a mention of the Ethtcs In the Pol~ttcs, or of the Pol1,t1,CS m the Eth1,cs, or of the Ethtcs m the Metaphystcs, to the pnonty of the work m I Zeller, Artstotle rmd the Later Penpatehcs, p 158 Cf L Spengel, 'Ober dIe ReIhenColge der naturwlssenschaCthchen Schnften des Anstoteles', Abh d Munch Al,01 v, pp 150 ft. • Meteor I 1,338" 20

THE SPECULATIVE PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY

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questIOn or of Its content, wIthout carefully exammmg the fonn of the quotatIOn and the way 10 whIch It IS used, and takmg account of the posSIbilIty that the verSIOn referred to IS earber or later than the one that has come down to us The supposed chronologIcal order IS nothmg but the general scheme-perhaps a thoroughly late Idea-mto whIch at the end of hIS researches Anstotle forced the mass of hiS detailed mqumes It agrees wIth the order as gIven In the best manuscnpts,l and that thIs IS factual and not temporal has presumably never been doubted We must beware of confusmg temporal wIth systematIc pnonty, as It IS easy to do, and of equatmg the tIme when an Idea receIved lIterary form wIth the tIme when It first occurred to the philosopher The value of beanng all thIS m mmd would prevIOusly have been purely theoretIcal, smce the dates of compOSItIon of the Metaphysus, Eth1CS, and so on, were themselves unknown, and all the wntmg'> that we possess were supposed to have been crowded together m the last penod The mqumes of the foregomg chapters have altered thIS, however, and hence It IS Important to steer clear of a procedure that has thus far aVOIded contradIctIons only because It has not been applIcable at all On the other hand, however, we cannot altogether dIspense WIth the references to the SCIentIfic works In the other wntmgs, because the nature of the subJect excludes all or practIcally all references to contemporary hIStOry, and because the development of Anstotle's method here does not fall mto such sharply dIstIngUIshed penods as are gIven for Instance by the break WIth Plato's doctnne In the Eth1CS and the Metaphys1cS When we use these references, therefore, we must first e>.amlne them carefully Of all the references to the PhYS1CS there IS only one group that really has chronologIcal SIgnificance, namely those In the oldest parts of the Metaphys1cS We have shown that the first book of the Metaphys1cS was wntten shortly after Plato's death, at a tIme when ItS author was still a PlatOnIst, For the teleolOgIcal doctnne of the four causes, on whIch Anstotle bases I For further detaIls about the order of exposItion 1D the lectures, so far as concerns the works followmg the Meteorology on anthropology and orgamc nature, see my artIcle 'Das Pneuma 1m LykeJOn', Hermes, vol xlvlJI, P 38 For the order see Anst de an mot et de an me ,p VJI1, ] aeger

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metaphysIcs, thIS book slDlply refers to the Phys~cs, wIthout gIVIng any arguments for the exhaustIveness of the classI1icabon ThIS IS not an Isolated quotatIOn such as could be Imagmed away wIthout hurtIng the context, and therefore mIght have been added later There IS a whole senes of passages m whIch Anstotle keeps on returnIng to the fact that hIS hlstoncal survey of the doctnnes of earher thmkers throughout confirms the theory of the four causes as stated In the Physzcs I The whole first book of the M etaphyszcs rests on thrs presupposItIon, and would collapse If the aetIology of the P hyszcs were not behmd It In every lIne ThIS IS Incontrovertible proof that not only the second book of the Physzcs, whIch sets out the theory of the causes, but a complete senes of InvestIgatIOns fallIng under the general notIOn of 'physIcal works' (
2

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That IS not true wIthout qualIficatIon, however, of our presept versIOn of the Phys~cs In Its whole extent ThIS work resembles the phIlosopher's others In contaInmg both early and late matenal The present pOSItIon of the seventh book IS not due to Anstotle hunself at all, for In content It comes too close to the other parts of the PhysJCs In whIch the problem of motIon IS also dIscussed I That It belongs to the oldest part, and arose at a tIme when he dId not yet regard the theory of Ideas as SImply exploded, IS more than probable 1 LIke the M etaphys~cs and the known reference to Philip's death In Pol V IO,I3IIb2 I draw attention to thiS only because ItS occurrence In such an authontatlve positIOn IS hkely to lead many reader& astray It IS true that our verSIOn of the PhySICS belongs to the late~t penod, but the reasom. that Gercke gives for thiS fact do not prove It (even the fact that It was WrItten after the Ana/ytles cannot possibly prove It as late as thiS), and anyhow thl~ IS a questIOn merely of reVISion and has no slgmficance whatever for Anstotle's philosophical development I Eudemus omitted It m hiS paraphrase of the Phyncs (see the preliminary remarks on Book VII In the commentary of SlmphclUs, vol u, p 1036, 1D Dlels) which shows that It did not belong to the collection entitled PhYSICS that Anstotle himself put together and bequeathed to hiS disciples ThiS, however naturally does not pro"e that the work was completely unknown 1D the Penpatos It was 10 fact, hke some of the books of the MetaphySICS that were ongmaUy handed down mdependently, preserved as bemg an Important hlstoncal document but havmg, In View of the 'great and comprehensive theorems' of the la&t book-to use SlmpllclUs'S expressIOn-scarcely any practical value It appears to have been the generation of AndroDlcus With Its piOUS deSire to produce a complete collectIOn, that first mcorporated It m the PhySICS SlmphclUs compared the two versions 1D which It IS preserved Without bemg ahle to discover any differences of content worth mentIOning He IS nght 10 pomtmg out, however, that the proofs of the first mover 10 Book VII &tand on a lower level than those In Book VIII and presumably thiS IS the reason why Anstotle replaced It With the latter Cp E Hoffmann De At'lstntells Physlcorum lIbn septlml ongme et auctot'ltate (Berhn, D,ss , 190.'» • Phys VII 4 249 b 19-26, IS difficult and requlfes Intf'rpretatIon SlnLe SlmpllclUs no one has tned to explam It If we except the translation by Puntl (LeIpZig, 1854. p 367), who did not understand the tram of thought In the fourth chapter Anstotle shows that the vanous sorts of motion, for example quahtatlve alteration (aAAol",a'l) and locomotion (",pa) , are mcommensurable The Idea of equal velOCity (6~01"CI)(!1) can be apphed only to spectfically slmuar and commensurable motIOns For example, quahtatlve motions can be compared With each other, and quantitative motIOns can he compared With each other In the first example we speak of the hkeness or unhkeness (4vo~OI6'T'lS) of thequahtatlve alterations ,ID the second we speak of the equahtyorJnequality (avllra,."s) of the quantitative motions Inequahty anses from the 'gnater or ~maller' of the quantitative motions when they are compared together, unhkene's from the more or less' of two quabtatlve alteratIOns when they are compared There IS another kmd of motion that concerns the sub.tance and not merely the quality or quantity, namely becomlDg and penslung Two becommg~ caD be compared m pomt of velOCity only when we are concerned With two thlDgs of the same species (6~0£,21T\), as for example, men Speech ha. no

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Etkscs the Phys~cs IS a compIlatIOn of at least two parts, each of whIch agam consIsted of several monographs These two parts, On the F~rst Prtnc~ples and On Mohon, are always carefully dIst1OgUIshed, not merely 10 the works On the Heaven and On Commgto-be and Passmg-away, but also 10 the last book of the Phys~cs (VIII) ThIS book IS really no part of the Phys~cs, for It quotes passages from these two parts WIth the fonnula 'as we have prevIOusly shown In the Phys~cs' I Presumably It was ongmally, hke the books On Substance and Be1ng, WhICh ongmally stood outSide the M etaphys~cs (that 15, before It). one of the lllqumes that Anstotle reckoned as half physIcs and half metaphysIcs, and as category, however, that can pregnantly expres~ the nature of the difference between two becommgs and Anstotle therefore asks to be pardoned for merely spealung of their 'dIfference' (lnpOTns) 10 a general and colourless manner, and for not bemg able to mention any palT of correlatlve~, like more and less 10 quahtatlve alteratlon and greater and smaHer 10 locomotion, that would make It clear that the distinction here IS neither mtenslve nor extcnMve, but ~ome­ thlOg different Then foHows the remark that IS Important for the Lhronology "the substance With who~e becommg we are concerned lS a number (as Plato and the Academy suppo~ed), then the difference III \eloclty between the becomlOgs of two sub~tances IS to be regarded as the anthmetlcal difference between two numbers of Ihe same speete, With regard to the more and the les~ There IS however, no common term for thiS difference 10 velOCity The last sentence IS corrupt but ItS meanmJ:: obvlOu~ly I' that there IS also no term correspondlOg to 'more and less and 'greater and smaller' to descnbe the two becomlOgs that are bemg compared Now the statement that the substances whose becommgs are compared must be of the same species (6~OfI2>EII) foHows from the whole argument of the fourth chapter, but what IS the ~ense of thiS demand 10 the case of the numbers' We must remember that accordmg to Melaph M 7, IOB ob 37 ff, one of the mam dIfficulties of the theory of Ideal numbers wa~ the questIOn whether the monads of which they are compo~ed are perfectly commensurable hke those of anthmetlc, or whether every 'first number', th, fir~t dyad tnad, tetrad, and on, I~ composed of monads of a special kmd, so that only the monads Inside a particular number are commensurable and 'of the same species' (the expre~slOn oCCurs m A 9, 991b 24) The phrase of the ~ame speCies, therefore, proves that ID our passage Anstotle IS stIli contemplatmg the posslblhty that substance may be a number, which he elsewhere combat~ Otherwise ODe might thmk that "e have here only an example mtended to make the meanmg concrete as SlmphclUs does when he doubts whether Anstotle refers here to Ideal numbers or merely to the view that the- nature of e\erythmg depends upon a particular numencal relatlon of ItS parts but the as!>ertlOn that the numbers must be 'of the same species' excludes the latter mterpretatloD, for, If It IS not ObVIOUS ID Itself that they must, the refe:rence can only be to the Ideal number~ If so, the cha:racte:r of the arguments lD Book VII whIch ~lImp1Jclus calls 'weaker or as Alexander [more correctly] says more verbal' (op Cit, P 1036 I 12), wIll be best explamed by supposmg that In the course of the years Anstotle perfected them more and more For another mdlcatlon of the early anglO of Book VII see above, P 41, n 1 I S~ Bomtz, Ind A~ 98" 27

,0

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proVIdmg the transItIon from the one to the other I Its temporal posItIon can be determIned by Its treatment of the theory of the movers of the spheres, whIch IS not worked out In so decIdedly unIfied a fashIOn as In the later verSIOn In Book 1\ of the M etaphySfCS Z Yet we can clearly recogmze that Book VIII IS Intended to glVe a very careful re-estabhshment of the theory of the first mover on a phySical baSIS, and to defend It agaInst all sorts of obJections that had already been brought from the astronofiucal side, probably by Call1ppUS J Fauly certamly, therefore, It was not wntten until the time of Anstotle's greatest power, and SInce even then It was not yet a part of the Phys~cs (and hence presumably never at all dunng Its author"s hfe) , the Phys~cs, as we know It, dId not yet eXist as a whole ThiS IS supported by the fact that the M etaphys~cs quotes as 'phYSICS' the two works On the Heaven and On Com~ng-to-be and Passmg-away At that time, therefore, thiS word did not mean our Phys~cs, but a larger group of mdependent monographs Among ItS oldest parts were that on thp first pnnclples, to Judge from the first book of the Metaphy~~cs, and that on matter and form, to Judge from Book N of the same work, that IS to say, the first two books of our Phys~cs We may suppose, however, that m substance these works go back as far as hIS PlatOnIC penod, although certaIn passages, such a!> the mentIon of the Lyceum III Book IV, reveal later reVISIOn of the detaIl!> 4 For the history of Anstotle's phIlosophical development the date of completIOn IS more or less ummportant compared With the discovery that the speculatIve character of what IS called the Phys~cs In the narrow sense 15 connected With Its dIrectly PlatOnIC ongIn It \\>as worked out as part of a PlatOnIC theory of the world, and stands on the same ground ThiS IS espeCially clear when we come to the problems of concrete detaIl In the books On the Heaven, whIch are also referred to m the oldest parts of the M etaphys~cs 5 The begmmng of the first of these books must be early m essence, I Phys VIII 1,251' 5 on the eterOltyof motion We mustcon~lder,then, how thiS matter stands, 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 Frrst Pnnclple ' Z The proof that chapter 8 of Book A of the MetaphySICS WIth Its theory of the movers of the spheres IS a later addItion IS given below 10 chapter XIV J Phys Vln 6 4 Phys IV II,2IQb2I , See Bomtz, lnd Ar IOI' 7

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smce It places tnumphantly at the start of the whole course of lectures the young Academician's own discovery that there IS a fifth element, the ether As we have already shown, this theory IS older than the books On Phzlosophy, which are based on It, and 15 necessanly connected with the first begmmngs of the theory of the unmoved mover and the heavenly bodies I The fonn that Anstotle gives to hiS theory of ether In the first chapters On the Heaven IS later than the account In the exotenc work (above, p 154) The VIew prevIOusly held, that In the dialogue he did not express hiS real OpInIOn, but rather gave a poetIc embellIshment of It, IS untenable, for what he preserves m hiS work On the Heaven IS precisely the pomt that was supposed to be poetIc, the theory that the heavenly bodies have souls 2 The difference between the two comes In the phYSical theory of the natural motIon of SImple bodIes, and m ItS conneXIOn With the theory of weight, which IS establIshed m a wholly different manner m the dialogue At thiS pomt we realIze only too clearly what Important matters are hIdden from us by the dearth of sourcematenal Nevertheless, the dl~poslbon of the books On the Heaven does at any rate enable us to observe how Anstotle's cosmology arose out of Plato's We know the latter directly only from the Ttmaeus, behmd which lIe the far-reachIng Pythagorean speculatIons of the school, and It IS therefore very Important that thiS work of Anstotle's allows us a glImpse of the diSCUSSIOns that went on about the subJect m the Academy That thiS IS true of the problem of ether has already been shown It connects directly With the Ttmaeus, and we find It I For the ongm of the theory of ether ~ee the exhaustIve dISCUSSion of Eva Sachs, Die funf platomschen Korper (Berhn 1917) She, too. comes to the concluSIon that the read mess WIth WhICh Plato's followers accepted the theory shows that It arose m the Academy and Anstotle therefore put It forward before Plato's death Compare what was saId above about the relatIon between the Eplnomls and the dialogue On Phzlosophy, p 144 n 2 • De Caelo II 12,292" 18 'We have been tlunkmg of the stars as mere bodies and as UDlts With a senal order mdeed but entIrely InaDlmate but we should rather conceive them as enJoymg hfe and actIon' The expres~lOn recalls the dialogue On Philosophy and Plato's famous remarks In the Laws Accordmg to DB Caelo II 8 however, It IS the spheres, and not the stars on them, that move themselves, and thiS, taken stnctly, Imphes that It IS the spheres that have souls (or have movers as m Metaph A 8), and not the stars as 10 the dialogue On Philosophy It IS only after long exammatIon, hO\"ever. that Anstotle here deCides that only the spheres and not the stars mo~ e themselves, so that here too we have a development of hIS earher view

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reflected 10 the wntmgs of all Anstotle's fellow-students But the questIOn whether there can be an mfimte body, whether the world IS fimte or 1Ofimte, and whether there IS only one world or more-a very Important questIon for Anstotle's metaphySICS, smce the eXIstence of the first mover depends on Itmust also have been dIscussed by the astronomers 10 the Academy while Plato was stIll alIve, and answered by Anstotle 10 accordance wIth hI!> own View, which was that the world IS one, eternal, and fimte He tnes to prove not merely that there actually IS only one heaven but also that there could not be more than one It may seem otherwIse, because every fonn (eI:AoS) that IS realIzed 10 matter usually eXists 10 a number of speCl.ucally IdentIcal (0\10E\1.Tj) examples Actually, however, It makes no dIfference to the result whether we regard the form as transcendent, that IS, as an Idea, or as mseparable (obVlously some of the Platonlsts were trymg to fasten on thIS pomt) ,I for m thIS questIOn one must not start from the form at all, accordmg to Anstotle, but from the matter Smce the cosmos mcludes all matter there cannot be any other world beSides The argument seems somewhat naive, but for him It IS not really absurd, because by 'the heaven' he means, as he at once goes on to say, not merely the outermost sphere, or the regIOn of the hIghest elements, 10 whIch the heavenly bodies move, but the comprehensive All, whIch IS to be thought of as corporeally plastIc, but never as actu znfimtum ThIS plastIc ball eAhausts all the matter that there IS OutSide It there IS m fact not even place or tIme or VOid, much less bodies The transcendental (T~i) and supramundane IS therefore not m !>pace nor 10 a place, tIme does not age It, nor IS there any sort of change 10 that realm beyond the outermost sphere But let us allow Anstotle to speak for hImself HIS words breathe here a ceremomousness unusual 10 the treatIses 2. I The passage IS Interestmg because In It the theory of Ideas and Anstotle'~ View that the form IS Immanent ~tand Side by Side as equally ]usttfiable POSSIbUltIes .Any shape or form has, or may have more than one partIcular Instance On the suppOSitIOn of Ideas such as some assert, thiS must be so, and equally on the view that no such entity has a separate eX1&tence For 10 every case 10 which the essence IS 10 matter It IS a fact of observation that the particulars of hke form are several or 10fimte 10 number' (De Caela I 9, 278" 15 ) • De Caela I 9, 279" 17 I follow Bernays In glVlDg the Greek and thf; translation Side by Side \.J

30Z

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XpOvov Kal -nlV chmpiav lTEpltxov TtAos alC:>v lerrlll,
lx

oCrr. yap OAAo KpEiTT6v lOTIII {)TI I'IVliCTEI (beeivo yap av eiTl 6eIOTEpOII) OUT' IXEI cpaijAov ov6tv, Olrr' ~VM~S TWV aV-rou KaAWV ov1.evQs lOTIV Ka\ arravCTTOv2.1)KIVTjoIVKIIlETTaIEVlIoyws rr(wra yap "lTaVnal KIVOVIlEVa, 6Tav rAe" els TOV OIKfTov T6rroll, TOU :ll ICIiKAw aWllaTOS 6 CIVTOs T61TOS 66ev i'lP~aTO Kat Els &\1 nMvTq

It IS clear then that there IS neither place, nor vOId, nor bme, outside the heaven Hence whatever there IS, IS of such a nature as not to occupy any place, nor does time age It, nor IS there any change m any of the things that he beyond the outermost motIon. they contmue through their entire duration unalterable and unmodified hvmg the best and most self-suffiCient of hves As a matter of fact, thIS word 'duratJOn' possessed a dIVine slgmficance for the anCients, for the fulfilment that mcludes the penod of hfe of any creature, outSIde of which no natural development can fall, has been called Its duration On thf' same pnnclple the fulfilment of the whole heaven, the fulfilment that mcludes all time and mfimty, IS 'durabon'-a name based upon the fact that It tS always -duration Immortal and dlvme From It denve the bemg and hfe that other thmgs, some more orless artIculately but others feebly, enJoy So, too, m tts dtscusswns

conurmng the dwme, popular Phtlosophy often propounds the vIew that whatever IS dlvme, whatever IS pnmary and supreme, IS necessanly unchangeablf' ThIS fact confirms what we have satd For there 15 nothlOg else stronger than It to move It-smce that would mean more diVine-and It has no defect and lacks none of Its proper excellences Its unceasing movernent, then, IS also reasonable, smce everythmg 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 pelOt and goal

'The diSCUSSIOns of popular phuosophy' means the dialogue On Phtlosophy, the only onc that discussed the theological

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problem and exammed Its relabon to the questIOn of the eternal cIrcular motion of the firmament The final words are a more or less verbal quotation from the argument of thIS dialogue, as preserved by SlmphcIUS m hIS commentary on the passage. he expressly descnbes the dIalogue as the source to whIch Anstotle's reference apphes Strangely enough, Bernays. who discussed thIS passage of SImphclUs acutely,1 confined hIS attlnbon to the reference, and failed to observe that the whole of the passage ImmedIately precedmg It, quoted above. can be recognIzed by ItS style as a pIece of hterary prose taken from the same dIalogue Even the begmmng of the tenth chapter, whIch 1IDmedlately follows. does not read lIke an ordmary lecture. though here only Isolated traces of another style can be pomted out Anyhow we must expect Aristotle dunng hiS early period to mtroduce free reproductions of large porbons of hIS hterary works not merely mto hIS pohtIcal, metaphySIcal, and ethIcal, but also mto hIS SCIentific, lectures The dialogues, of course. did not often mentIOn SCIentific matters In the thIrd book On Phtlosophy, however, he had dIscussed (see p 140 above) the questIOn whether the heaven IS eternal. and argued agamst Plato's VIew that, whIle It will have no end, It had a begtnnmg We may therefore conjecture some dependence on that dIalogue preCIsely m the la~t part of the first book On the Heaven. whIch follows the part quoted above, and m the begmmng of the second, because the very same question IS here dlscussed-'whether the cosmos IS uncreated or created and Impenshable or penshable' In essentials thIS mqUIry IS. hke that of the dIalogue, a runmng polemiC agamst Plato's Ttmaeus, winch IS exphcltly mentIoned:l. Now the begtnmng of the second book IS so completely ahen m style and method to Anstotle's usual pedagogIcal procedure that the only pOSSible explanatIon IS that here. too. he IS reproducmg parts of the third book On Phtlosophy Our lack of matenals renders direct proof ImpossIble, but smce we have shown conclUSIvely by numerous examples that such borrowmg does occur, and smce we know that there IS a long extract from thIs book a few pages earher, there can presumably be no doubt about the ongtn of the present passage I Bernays, DIe verlorenen D.aloge des Ar"toleles, p no • De Caelo I 10, 280· 28 Cf 27g b 32

TRAVELS That the heaven as a whole neIther came Into beIng nor admIts of destructIon, as some assert, but IS one and eternal, WIth no end or begInnIng of Its total duratIon, contaInIng and embracIng In Itself the InfinIty of tIme, we may conVInce ourselves not only by the arguments already set forth but also by a conSIderatIon of the vIews of those who dIffer from us In proVIdIng for ItS generatIon If our vIew IS a pOSSIble one, and the manner of generatIon whIch they assert IS ImpossIble, thIS fact wLlI have great weight 10 convIncIng us of the ImmortalIty and eternIty of the world Hence It IS well to persuade oneself of the truth of the ancIent and truly tradItIonal theones, that there IS some Immortal and dIVIne thIng whIch possesses movement, but movement such as has no lImIt and IS rather Itself the lImIt of all other movement A lImIt I" a thIng that contaIn~. and thIS CIrcular mobon, bemg perfect, contaIns those Imperfect motions whIch have a lImIt and a goal, haVIng Itself no begInnIng or end, but unceasIng through the mfinIty of tIme, and of other movements to some the cause of then begmnIng, to others offenng the goal The ancIents gave to the Gods the heaven or upper place, as beIng alone Immortal, and our pre~ent argument testIfies that It I" IndestructIble and ungenerated Further, It IS unaffected by any mortal discomfort, and, In additIon, effortless, for It needs no constraInIng necessIty to l[eep It to ItS path, and prevent It from mOVIng WIth some other movement more natural to Itself Such a constraIned movement would necessarLly Involve effort-the more so, the more eternal It were-and ~ould be In-

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THE SPECULATIVE PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY a6cn 'Tliv C1c.TTT1plav {OIKl'tC11 YO:P Kal -roiiTov 01 avc-n'lC1cnrT£S -ro,", Myov 'Tliv cnrr~v rXe1v Vrr6ATlllllV -roi~ Iianpov ~s yap mpl ~apos fx6v-re.>v Kal yETlPwvanO:v-re.>v -rwv 6:IIe.> aWl!O:Te.>v VrrEa-rT}C1av a\r'rcji l!v6IKWS lrv6:yKT}v rl!IjI\I)(OV oCi-re 2.'; -roiiTov -rov -rp6nov VrrOATl'll""l"EOV, ow 2.10: 'Tliv :A(VT}C1IV 66:novos "TV)'X6:vov-ra lpopiis [2.lli] -rfis olKElas ~nfis hI C1~3ea6al -rOC1oiiTov Xp6vov, KaBanep 'El!m2.oKAfis cpllC11V aMa l!~V ov:A' \nrO IjI\I)(fis eVAoyov O:vayKaJOVC1TlS IlEVelV cit2l10V ou:AE yap -rTis 'iNXfis o16v -r' E1val 'Tliv -rOlaV-rT}V 3w~v O:AVlTOV Kol j..laKap(av O:vO:yKTl yap KQl 'Tliv K(VTlC11V

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305

consIStent Wlth perfection Hence we must not beheve the old tale which says that the world needs some Atlas to keep it safe-a tale composed, It would seem, by men who, I1ke later thmkers, conceived of all the upper bodIes as earthy and endowed With weight, and therefore supported it 10 their fabulous way upon ammate necessity We must no more believe that than follow Empedocles when he says that the world, when Its motIOn became faster because of the whirl, kept Itself [suspended] all thiS time only by means of Its own eqUllibnum Nor, agam, IS It conceivable that It should persist eternally by the necessitation of a soul (world-soul) For a soul could not hve m such conditions pamlessly or happily, smce the movement mvolves constramt, bemg Imposed on the first body (the heaven), whose natural mohon IS different, and Imposed contmuously It must therefore be uneasy and devoid of all rational satlsfaction, for It could not even, hke the soul of mortal ammals, take recreation 10 the bodily relaxation of sleep An IXlOn's lot must needs possess It, wlthou t end or respite If then, as we said, the view already stated of the first mohon IS a pOSSible one, It IS not only more appropnate so to conceive of Its eternity, but also on thiS hypotheSIS alone are we able to advance a theory consistent With popular dlvmauons of the dlvme nature Butof this enough for the present I

It scarcely needs to be proved III detaJ1 that the style of thIS chapter IS qUIte other than that of Anstotle's SCIentIfic prose I By these words, With "hleh he resumes hiS ordinary lectunng style, Anstotle himself clearly tells us that the preced.lOg passage belongs to 'another genus', and one which does not stnctly fit the sober sclenbfic mode of treatment prevailing elsewhere In thiS work

306

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The chOIce of high-soundIng words that do not occur elsewhere In these level plains, the notIceably solemn and elevated tone, the wealth of rhetoncal deVIces, the ornamental pansosls, chiasmus, and antIthesis, the bold Images, such as that of Plato's world-soul bound lIke IXlOn to the perpetually turning wheel of the heaven, the nngmg doublets, lIke 'a bmlt and a goal' (iOS ~ouaos lTEPOS KollTaVAav), 'a lot Without end or respite' (~oTpav &'t610V Kol a-rpVTOV), 'the ImmortalIty and eternity of the world' (els lTlO"ilv mpl ifjS &eavoalos alrTOU Kol Tiis &i2l16T11iOS), 'uneasy and devoId of all ratIOnal satisfactIon', 'painlessly and happily', 'the ancient and truly traditIonal theones', 'Involve effort and be InconsIstent With perfectIon', above all the artifiCial order of the words, lIke the prose of Plato's later dialogues, and the careful aVOIdance of hiatus, give to thiS passage a tone and dlgmty fittmg only to a dialogue At the end It becomes partIcularly clear that m their ongInal connexlOn the purpose of those phySIcal Ideas was mamly relIgIOUS and metaphySical \\i'e have seen, In fact, that the 'symphony' between the phySIcal study of the Impenshable heavens and what Anstotle beautifully and very PlatOnIcally calls the vOIce of God WithIn us IS a conjunction charactenstIc of the third book On Phtlosophy The merely dialectIcal nature of the argument, which starts from the respect due to the views of the anclent'5, from relIgIOUS traditions, and from the probable (eVAoyov), also reveals ItS source ThiS gIves us a termtnus post quem for the compOSItIOn of the eXlstmg versIOn of the books On the Heaven It was wntten after the dIalogue On Phtlosophy, and therefore at the earlIest one or two years after Plato's death It was probably not much later than thiS, however, for the whole pomt of view IS that of the later Academy I The cosmic theones of the Pythagoreans, which were so often blIndly accepted In thiS CIrcle, the belIef that the heaven and the earth are sphencal In form, the doctnne I Its Wlde dIvergence from the dIalogue On PhIlosophy as regards ether. which proves that thiS dialogue IS ItS termmus post quem, Since It can l)e taken only as a correctlon and not as a prevIOus stage of the view there given, might seem to make agamst SUppOSlDg that the De Caelo followed too closely on the dialogue We have, however, found Aristotle makmg generous use of hIS exotenc works only lD the treatises belonging to the middle penod, which were still fairly near to them lD time, and we must therefore ~upposethatthework On the Heaven maInly arose, or that the first draft of It was sketched out, dunng hiS rmddle penod, and that reVISions, some of them drastic, took place dunng his later years

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of the spheres, the doctnne of their hannony, which Anstotle IS as concerned to disprove as he is to get a clear and detaued physical picture of the way m which they may move the stars; the problems of the shape and rotatIon of the stars, which Plato had mooted, the fact that the astronomical catalogues of the Babylomans and EgyptIans are obvlOusly stIll a new discovery, the controversy, so momentous for subsequent history, about the posItIon and motIon of the earth m the umverse, m which Anstotle deCided that It IS sphencal, but, m VIew of the lack of convIncmg eVIdence that It moves, must remam m the centre of the umverse m accordance With the relgmng view of the nature of gravitatIonal phenomena, the mdIvlslble hnes of Xenocrates, Plato's theory of the elements as mathematIcal corpuscles, the problem of weight, With which the Academy struggled m vamthIs whole nchly developed world of physical speculatIons, a vanegated structure made up of many speCial problems strung together, often apparently Without much system, can be understood only hlstoncally, by reference to the soll that bred It, the Academy Anstotle's Ideas were not put on paper m this shape untu after 347, but they were formed while he was sull m the Academy, m the course of diSCUSSion with Plato and hiS compamons I I The date of the Mete01'ology IS difficult to deterrrune The treatise 0,. ComIng-to-be and PassIng-away, to which must be added the third and fourth books On the Heaven proceed~ very defimtely along the same speculative hnes as the PhyStcs and the treatI.e On the Heaven It. polemiC concerns Plato's reductIon of the four clement~ to mathematical figures (hrfTTElla), and the atomic theory or LeuClppus and Democntus The Meteorology, OD the other hand, plunges mto detal! Although the dlstmctIon between a general and a special portion IS essentIal to the plan of Anstotle's works on nature, and although these works accordmgly mclude both, yet, III View of the PolItiCS and other wntmgs, there can be no doubt that the empmcal matenalcame later, and was collected gradually, and often reacted upon hl~ conceptual philosophy We must not therefore date the Meteorology too early Ideler's reasons for putting It before Alexander's expeditIon to ASia (Artst Meteor vol I, p IX) are not cogent There IS httle to be mferred from the fact that Anstotle, followlllg Herodotus, correctly believes the Caspian Sea to be an mland one, whereas Alexander's expeditIon came to the false conclUSIOn that It connects V.lth the North Sea, a view whIch thereafter preVailed until modern tImes, for even the HIstory of AnImals, which IS certamly later, takes ItS accounts of Egyptian ammals not from the reports of eyewitnesses but from Hecataeus of Ml!etus (Dlels, Hermes, vol XXI1, the correspondences between the HIstory of AnImals and Herodotus were remarked by the great Cuvler 10 hiS Hlstolre des sCiences naturelles, vol I (1841), 136, cp A von Humboldt, Kosmos, vol 11 (1847). P 427, n 95) The fact that the Meteorology mentions the bummg of the temple

P

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TRAVELS

We cannot here undertake to gIVe a general estImate of Anstotle's phJ.1osophy of nature (we shall attempt to do so m the last part of thIS book), It must suffice to bnng out the mam facts about the course of hIS development as such Our pIcture of the early appearance of the fundamental, 1 e cosmologIcal and speculatIve, parts of hIS theory of nature, the Physzcs and the work On the Heaven WIth theIr appendIX On Comzng-to-be and Passzng-away, IS confirmed by the apparently late ongm of the works On the Parts and On the Generatzon oj A mmals These are based on the exact observatIon of detaIl They are the most perfect and most charactenstIc thmgs that he produced In the sphere of natural SCIence In contrast to them hIS phySICS and cosmology, WIth theIr conceptual and abstract dISCUSSIons of the general pnncipies of nature and of the world at large, are much nearer to Plato not only m the problems that they dIscuss but also m method, for they are examples of the careful and cntIcal development of Plato's doctnnes that charactenzes Anstotle's mIddle penod, the tIme when he wrote hIS account of the Ideal state and hIS theologIcal ethICS and metaphySICS HIS contmuous polemIC agamst detaJ.1s of Plato's natural phJ.1osophy must not blInd us to the fact that these cntIcisms anse preCIsely out of hIS greater nearness to Plato here, not out of dIstance from hIm It IS true that the thmgs he IS most concerned to bnng out are the collapse of the mVlSlble world of Ideas erected by Plato a!> the paradIgm or pattern of the VISIble cosmos, hIS own dIslIke of mere speculatIon WIthout the support of expenence, and hIS sceptical attItude towards several of the bursts of unvenfiable cosmologIcal fancy mto whIch many AcademIes had been led by theIr taste for Pythagorean phJ.1osophy, but we have only to put together hIS Physzcs and Plato's Tzmaeus, and contrast them both WIth the mechamcal VIew of the world put forward by Democntus, or the purely mathematIcal theory of the heavens suggested by Eudoxus, to see that he stands wholly on ground prepared by Plato, and that hIS works on phYSICS and cosmology are essentIally dISCUSSIOns withm the Academy. at Ephesus (356) With the words vOv avvlj3alVE (III I, 371. 30) gives us only a term,nus post quem, for thiS vOv IS known to be very ambiguous and to allow a Wide marglO Whereas the expressIOn 'we have only met With two 10stances of a moon-rambow 10 more than fifty years' (III 2,372" 29) does not seem to fit a young man even If we do not take the first person literally

PART THREE

MATURITY

CHAPTER XII

ARISTOTLE IN ATHENS the year 335/4 Anstotle returned to Athens after an absence

I of thirteen years, not havmg seen It smce the death of his N

master Alexander's accessIOn to the throne had put an end to the opportumtIes for direct mfluence at the court of Macedon The young kmg must mdeed have offered him an honourable leisure. together with the means for prosecutmg research, and no one will beheve that at a moment when he needed expenenced adVice more than ever he purposely removed from his neighbourhood the man who up to then had been his tutor m statesm
MATURITY

312

followed by his fnends throughout Greece Alexander's prompt suppression of the 'rebellion' seemed to have restored peace and obedience, until the report that he had been killed while cam~ palgmng on the Danube caused the nationalIst party to nse once more (335) and proclaIm freedom and autonomy I Once agam they were very qUIckly sobered Alexander stormed Thebes and razed It to the ground, a warnmg to the other Greeks Only WIth the utmost dIfficulty dId Athens escape the degradIng order to dehver up Demosthenes and all the natlOnahst leaders These persons now dIsappeared from the pubhc scene The feehng agamst Macedon grew considerably less tense Alexander WIthdrew In October, 335 In May, 334, he crossed Into ASia Mmor and defeated the Persian satraps on the Gramcus About thiS time Anstotle came to Athens as the flower of Greek Intellect, the outstandIng philosopher, wnter, and teacher, the fnend of the most powerful ruler of the bme, whose rapidly nsmg fame raIsed hun With It even In the eyes of persons who stood too far from him to understand hIS own unportance HIS Intention to return to the place of hIS growth may have been developed dunng hiS last years m Macedoma, when he was hV10g In the retIrement of research It was hiS recollectIon of Plato that made him see In thiS return somethmg more than a mere outward condition of any really Wide mfluence He thereby announced himself pubhcly to all the world as the successor of Plato It IS true that the Academy was estranged from hun After the death of Speuslppus (339/8) the members had chosen Xenocrates as thelr head Z For Anstotle It was out of the questIOn to re-enter a SOCIety now led by a former compamon of such different mtellectual mterests, anxIOUs though he was to preserve a good external understandmg With that venerable man We do not In fact hear of any quarrel (probably many persons attended lectures In both places), but from thiS moment the Academy surrendered the lead to the new school, which AnstoUe opened first 10 the corndors of the palaestra In the Lyceum, and afterwards presumably outside It In a nearby space, With SUItable rooms, In front of the gate of DlOchares In the east of the town, a spot that had been a meetIng-place of sophists I Arnan I 7. nameD'

2

'proDllSlng freedom
ARISTOTLE IN ATHENS

313

for decades So long as Anstotle remamed withm the walls of Athens that dethroned queen of cItIes was once more, and for the last bme, the mtellectual centre of the Hellemc world, the metropohs of Greek learnmg When he and Theophrastus wed It was all over Thereafter the centre of gravIty lay 10 Alexandna Anstotle the non-Atheman 10 Athens, at once the mtellectual leader of the natIon and the stronghold of Macedoman mfluence 10 what had formerly been the leadIng CIty of the AWc empIre-that IS the symbol of the new age Anstotle founded hIS new home of learnmg under the protectIon of hIS powerful Macedoman fnend AntIpater, whom Alexander had left behmd as regent and commander-m-chief 10 Macedon and Greece It IS much to be regretted that we have lost hIS correspondence wIth thIS lffiportant man, who seems to have been more intImate wIth hlffi than anyone else after the death of Herrmas Smce AntIpater came from a totally dIfferent envIronment, and was no scholar, theIr fnendship must have been based on some profound kmship of character ThIS explams how a relatIonshIp that began In the court of Philip, at a tIme when Anstotle was m hIgh favour WIth the kmg and WIth Alexander, could outlast Alexander's fickle kIndness and forge a lIfelong bond that did not let Antlpater go even when lus phIlosophIcal fnend was dead ArIstotle appomted hIm the executor of hIS last WIshes m hIS will The few remammg fragments of theIr letters speak the language of unhesitatmg mutual trust We may lOfer that Anstotle and hIS cucle were at one WIth the pohtlcal mtentIOns of Macedon, Since dunng the years 334/23 AntIpater was governmg the domestIc affaIrs of Greece With authonty Virtually absolute The Macedoman party at Athens, which was partIcularly strong among the nch, could now come forth mto the open Without danger Mutual dIstrust had assumed fnghtful proportions among the CItIzenry, and It was still easy for the nationalists to stage and wm oratoncal contests hke that between Demosthenes and Aeschmes about the crown, and thereby to get the masses temporarily on theIr SIde They were powerless, however, agamst the Macedoman lances, and they no longer had the support of the educated, to whose mdifference, m fact, the shIpwreck of Demosthenes' efforts was mamly due To the mtellectual

314

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CIrcles It was a dlstmct gam to have the moral support of a school dIrectly connected with the Macedoman admlOlstrahon Popular orators hke Lycurgus and Demosthenes could not preval1 agamst the ethical and mtellectual ascendancy of the new amvals, and could not Impute treachery or corruptIon to men who were not Athemans It was nowhere possible to conVict them of dIrectly politIcal purposes, their mfluence m educatmg a new group functIOned more through theIr tacit reJechon of Demosthemc natIonalIsm than through any pohtIcal programme With hiS fine sensIbIlity for such thmgs Anstotle always carefully aVOIded touchmg the sore spot of Atheman pnde or lettmg fall any sharp remark about Demosthenes and hiS party, objectIOnable as they doubtless were to him Not untIl years later does the Lyceum dare to reveal ItS pnvate opmIOn m the bItIng expresslOns of Theophrastus and of Demetnus of Phalerum on the style and delIvery of Demosthenes as a popular orator Anstotle was not, of course, shortSighted enough to hold Demosthenes responsIble for the war of Chaeronea, as Aeschmes and hiS followers dId The only remark of hIS that IS preserved about Demosthenes rejects thIS vIew-but nothmg could be falser than to make thIs a reason for supposmg that he had some understandmg of Demosthenes' pOSItion The group of mtellectuals m the Lyceum, though not m the least cosmopolItan, were resIgned, all the more so because they had no confidence m Alexander's almost fantastIc reconstructlOns of the world, and refused to consIder fratermzatlOn of races or fuslOn WIth ASIatIcs Anstotle stood over the Greek natIon lIke a troubled phySICIan at the bedSIde of hIS patlent Demosthenes and the natIonalIsts could not understand an attItude thus rooted m the recogmtIon of the bItter truth They saw 10 Anstotle's school a Macedoman secret-servIce bureau I There IS no school of leammg of WhICh we have so complete a pIcture as the Lyceum The very lectures that were gIven there are mostly preserved to us 10 the wntmgs of Anstotle I Tlus was certaUlly Demosthenes' View Only he did not dare to say It aloud, as hiS nephew Demochares dId when defending the decree of Sophocles (3 0 7/ 6) ThIS decree abolIshed the pro-Macedoman schools of philosophy after the IIberatlon of Athens by Demetnus the Besieger For the ~landers about Anstotle and hIS followers In the fragments of Demochares se~ Balter-Suppe, Or All. vol u, pp 3.111

ARISTOTLE IN ATHENS

315

Atheman law forbade foreIgners to acqUIre land In AttIca, and yet later on we find Theophrastus In posseSSIOn of a property consIstIng of a large garden contaInmg a sanctuary of the Muses (m accordance WIth the precedent of the Academy), an altar, and several lecture-rooms I It was m one of these rooms that the maps (yfis mplollo1) were set out on boards (TTlvCIKES) The other mstruments of learnmg, such as the lIbrary, must have been there too In the Museum were a statue of Anstotle and other oblatIons Demetnus of Phalerum, the pupil of Theophrastus, gave hIm thIS land to be hIS own property (i1l10V), although he was a metIc ThiS must have been an act of speCIal legal SIgnificance, for It was contrary to the constItution SInce even under Anstotle the school possessed a great deal of matenal, and In partIcular a collectIon of books that can have been housed only m a large buIldIng, we cannot aVOId the conjecture that the property later given to Theophrastus was preCIsely that on whIch Anstotle himself had taught Demetnus preserved It for the school because the memory of the founder clung to that plot of ground The actual gtft, however, must have been made out m Theophrastus' name, smce In hIS WIll he bequeathes the Penpatas to the school WIth these words 'The garden and the walk and the houses adJoInmg the garden, all and sundry, I gIve and bequeath to such of our enrolled fnends as may WIsh to study lIterature and phIlosophy there In common, SInce It IS not pOSSIble for all men to be always In reSidence, on conmtIOn that no one alIenates the property or devotes It to hIS pnvate use, but so that they hold It lIke a temple In Jomt posseSSIOn and lIve, as IS nght and proper, on tenns offamIlIanty and fnendship 'z These beautIful words show that the spmt that Anstotle had planted In the school was stIll lIVIng there TheIr common lIfe was regulated accordmg to defimte rules As a symbol of theIr commumty they had regular monthly SOCial gathenngs, eIther to eat or to dnnk Later, In the will of Strata, we find lIsted along WIth the lIbrary the tableware for the banquets, lmen, and dnnkIng-cups J These must have become more complete WIth each succeedmg generatIOn, for dunng the leadershIp of Lyco I Dlog LV 39 The society therefore formed a fraterwty (elaa~) dedicated to the cult of the Muses J Dlog L V 62 • Dlog L v 52

316

MATURITY

there were complaxnts that the poorer students could no longer take part III the feasts, because there was too much luxury Anstotle hnnself wrote codes for the dnnkmg and for the feastmg (V6lJ01 OVlJ1TOTIKOI and v6lJoi OVO"O"ITIKOI). as Xenocrates and Speuslppus dId for the Academy These regulatIOns played a not inconsIderable part In the phl1osophlc schools I The lectures were also regulated TradItion Informs us that Anstotle gave hiS more dlfficult and phuosophlcal lectures 1n the mornmg, and that In the afternoon he spoke to a larger pubhc on rhetonc and dIalectic In addItion to hIS there were lectures by the older dIscIples, such as Theophrastus and Eudemus We do not hear of many dIscIples of Anstotle by name, but what Greek 15 there who wrote dunng the next hundred years on natural SCIence, on rhetonc, on literature, or on the hIstory of clvulzatIOn, and was not called a PenpatetIc;l LaVIsh as the grammanans are WIth thIS tItle, It IS easy to see that the Intellectual Influence of the school soon extended over the whole Greek-speaking world We find scarcely any names of Athemans among the famous PenpatetIcs, a large part of the students must have come from other CIties In the Lyceum Plato's communal hfe or ov~;;v became a umverslty In the modern sense, an orgamzatlon of sCIences and of courses of study The students, though still callIng themselves 'fnends', followmg Plato's pleasant custom, were constantly coming and gOIng, because, as Theophrastus says WIth a trace of reSIgnatIOn, 'It IS not pOSSIble for all men to be always In reSIdence' One thIng, however, remaIned common to the new school and to the Academy ItS mner order was, Just hke the Idea of the PlatOnIC commumty, an expreSSIOn of the qUIntessential nature and mInd of ItS creator The orgamzatlOn of the PenpatetIc schoollS a reflectlOn of Anstotle's nature, the act of a SIngle guIdIng mInd whose wIll hves In ItS members We usually do not make suffiCIently clear to ourselves that Anstotle was not one of those great phIlosophIcal authors who bequeath theIr work to postenty In hterary form, and really begm to hve only when they are dead, smce the wntten word works for them The senes of hterary works In Plato's style that I For the extemal orgalllzabon of the Penpatebc society and the election of officers see V.'llamowltz. Anl.gonos lion Karyslos, p 26 4

ARISTOTLE IN ATHENS

317

he published dunng hIS earlIer years was apparently mostly completed by the tIme he began to teach at Athens. at any rate the more Important dIalogues belong to a much earlier penod. and It IS hardly to be supposed that dunng these years he once more occupIed hImself by the way, m a more or less playful manner, wIth composmg lIttle conversatIons He was now more than ever absorbed In teachmg The treatIses that we possess are the groundwork of hIS IIvmg Illfluence on hIS pupils In the Phaedrus Plato tells us that the wntten word IS useless III the transmISSIon of real SCIentIfic knowledge We have belIeved only too long that we could dIsregard thIS VIew, fundamental though It be to the comprehenSIOn of the dIalogues, and only now do we begm to see that It has Its basIs m the actual relatIon obtammg between hterary productIOn and oral teachmg III Plato's Academy, and that every general VIew of the dIalogues that does not see them on the background of thIs comprehenSIve pedagogIcal actIvIty represents a dIsplacement of the centre of gravIty' WIth Anstotle the sItuatIon IS dIfferent once agam Here we have a gradually mcreasIng paralYSIS of the deSIre for hterary creatIOn, until finally he IS wholly wrapped up In teachmg The vast sum of hIS hfe IS to be found neIther In the treatIses nor m the dIalogues It lIes III hIS lIVIng mfluence on hIS pupIls, rooted not m Plato's Eros but m the deSIre to know and to teach When separated from theIr creator and hIS vOIce the treatIses could not and dId not produce any Illdependent effect Even the PenpatetIc school was unable to understand them once the Immedlate pupIls of Anstotle were no longer there to mterpret, and on the early HellemstIc age thIS gIant mass of knowledge and reflectIOn had an amazmgly IllsIgmficant mfluence Not untIl the first century before Chnst were the treatIses dIsmterred, but even then the Greek professors of phIlosophy III Athens dId not understand them z When the labonous work of the commentators, contmued for centunes, had once more rendered vlSlble these mIghty thought-structures, WhICh had come wIthm a haIrbreadth of bemg lost to postenty for ever. Anstotle at last began to be for the second tIme the master of the schools At last people began to understand that they must not confine themselves to such of hIS wntmgs as shone WIth the I

See my Ent Metaph Anst, p

140

X

a

e,c

Top I 3

318

MATURITY

crown of lIterary fame, but must learn to see the real man at work m the unpubhshed treatises. m order to catch the last shimmer of the mdiVIduality of a mmd so mggardly towards postenty and so profuse towards its own surroundmgs Thus Anstotle has become, qUlte contrary to his own mtentIon, the teacher of all nations ThiS mission to all bmes and places stands m ViVId contrast to hIS personal mfluence and desIre, which displayed the genume Greek concentratIOn on the here and now, and focused all hi!> powers on his Immediate cucle Teachmg hke Anstotle's has never been seen agam To the Greeks it was somethmg absolutely new, and, With the age of the great phllosophie schools Just begmmng, It started a new epoch StOICS, Epicureans. AcademIcs, all laId more weIght on oral teachmg than on hterary self-expressIOn Anstotle's relatIOns WIth Alexander cannot be traced to the end The memOIr On Colomzatwn, WIth its dlalogue-hke subtitle Alexander, proves that they contmued unbroken down to the time when the kmg was estabhshmg CitIes m Egypt and ASia They cannot, however, have remamed unaffected by the fate of Calhsthenes, which overtook him m the year 32 7 I ThiS nephew of Anstotle's had been his pupll dunng hIS stay m Assos and also at Pella Afterwards, Immediately before Alexander's departure for ASIa, he had helped hIm to draw up the hst of DelphIc Victors He then Jomed the kmg's headquarters, With the approval of hIS uncle From the begmnmg it was undoubtedly his mtenbon to record the kmg's deeds HIS glonficatIOn of Alexander m the work that he dedIcated to him, hke his panegync on HennIas, betrays the fact that his mterest m his subject was not that of the true histonan, but was rather of a personal nature He thought hImself mto Alexander's mmd WIth philosophical persIstence, but he did not always reach the undlstorted truth He was no student of human nature He was a scholar of fine ht8rary taste, a philosopher With a keen mtelhgence, and not Without talent as an orator. espeCially m extempore speakmg, but as Anstotle himself declared he was devoId of natural common sense Although he was a personal adherent of the kmg, and constantly defended hun m hIS history agamst the oppOSItIon of the old Macedoman nobility, who dISI See Jacoby on 'Calhsthenes'

In

Pauly-WIssowa, vol x,

C

1674

ARISTOTLE IN ATHENS

319

trusted hIS pollcy towards ASlatlcs, he nevertheless managed. by an untimely dIsplay of phLlosophic mgmty on the questIon of obeIsance, to bnng upon hImself the unfortunate SuspICIOn of conspIracy wIth that very oppOSItion, and thus to mcur the dIspleasure of the kmg HIS posItion at the court had presumably always been Isolated, SInce he belonged neIther to the party of the Macedoman mLlItary nobIlIty nor to the Greek lIterary scandalmongers who swarmed at headquarters, but depended exclUSIvely on the personal favour of the kmg When that was WIthdrawn he was helpless agamst the mtngues of the rest It IS now certam that the men ImmedIately surroundmg the kmg afterwards thought It expedIent to conceal some of the CIrcumstances attendmg Calhsthenes' fall HIS guLlt was by no means estabhshed by normal process of law, and hIS executIon was one of the autocratIc acts that Alexander commItted at that tIme. when the extreme tenSIOn of hIS mental and phySIcal powers sometImes led to volcamc outbursts of ternble paSSIOn eVen agamst hIS nearest fnends Though we may draw the veLl of pIty OVer these mhumamtIes they could not but cloud Anstotle's memory of the kmg and eJl.tmgUlsh the feelIng for hun m hIS heart He tned to preserve hIS spmtual balance by bemg Just, mexorably Just even Wlth regard to the shortcommgs of hIS nephew The filthmess of human nature mSIsted on belIevmg m antiqUIty that Alexander's early death was due to pOlson admmlstered at the mstIgatIon of Anstotle That was not the phllosopher's character, but the cup of kmgly fnendship had certamly been embIttered by a pOIsonous drop Anstotle's stay at Athens stIll depended solely on Alexander When m the year 323 the news came of the latter's death, thIS tIme no one would belIeve It, but when It was finally confinned there was no holmng the natIonahst party The sole protectIOn of the fnends of Macedon had been AntIpater, but he, too, hke Anstotle, had lost the confidence of the kmg dunng the last years, and was at that moment on the march through ASIa Mmor towards Babylon He had been bIdden to the court, to remam for the future under the kmg's eye Anstotle aVOIded the sudden overflow of natIonalIst hate and the attacks of the Demosthemc party by fleemg to ChaIns m Euboea The parental property of hIS dead mother was there, and there he remamed

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dunng the folloWIng months until hIS own death An affectIon of the stomach from whIch he suffered put an end to hIS hfe shortly afterwards, In hIS sIxty-thud year It seems that he was aware of the approach of death, for the wIll that we possess was drawn up In (halclS 1 He was not spared the news that the Delphians, who had accorded hIm honours for hIS hst of Pythlan VIctors, were revokmg them now that hIS royal patron was dead, but even the confUSIOns of thIS tune could not pennanently dIsturb the peace of hIs soul, speCIally sensItive though he was to man's mIsfortunes 2. A word about hIS pnvate hfe dunng these last years HIS guardIan Proxenus and hIS fostennother had long been dead He had adopted theIr son Nicanor and made hunself a father to hIm Nicanor was an officer on Alexander's staff In the year 324 the kmg sent hIm to Greece as the bearer of an Important message He It was who had to announce to the Hellenes assembled at OlympIa for the natIonal festival that Alexander claImed dIVIne honours By hIS WIll Anstotle bequeathed to Nicanor the hand of hIS daughter PythIas, who was still a mmor, a chIld of the long dead PythIas After the death of hIS WIfe he had taken a certaIn Herpylhs mto hIS house, by whom he had a son called Nlcomachus In hIS will he IS careful to prOVIde faIthfully for them all, and also for hIS students There IS somethmg affectIng In the spectacle of the exIle puttIng hIS affaIrs 10 order He IS constantly calhng to mmd hIS home In Stagua and the lonely house of hIS parents far away, the figures of hIS foster parents, hIS only brother Anmnestus, whom he lost early, and hIS mother, whom he could pIcture only as he had seen her when a chud HIS deSIre IS that hIS mortal remams be not dIVIded from the bones of hIS WIfe Pythlas, as was also her last WISh Between the hnes of the sober practIcal dISpOSItIOns In thIS last document we read a strange language, such as IS not to be found In the wills of the other heads of the PenpatetIc school, I It speaks of Chalels and StaglJ"a as bemg the only pOSSible places for Herpyllis to live, and does not mention Athens (DlOg L V 14) It also regards as uncertam where Anstotle IS to be buned (V 16), whIch would undoubtedly have been dIfferent If the arrangements had been made at Athens dunng qUIet times 2 Frg 666 10 Rose (letter to AntJpater) 'About the votmg at Delphi and their depnvmg me of my honours my feeling IS that I am sorry but not extremely sorry' The tone of thIS fragment IS very genume

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WhICh are also preserved It IS the warm tone of troe humamty, and at the same tIme the sign of an almost temfYIng gulf between hIm and the persons by whom he was surrounded These words were wntten by a lonely man. A trace of thIs remaInS m an extremely movIng confessIon that he makes In a letter of thIS last penod, words that have an InImItably personal fragrance 'The more sohtary and Isolated I am, the more I have come to love myths' WIthIn the nOIsy house there SItS an old man hVIng entIrely to hImself, a hermIt, to use hIs own expresslOn, a self WIthdrawn Into Itself, a person who In hIS happy moments loses hImself m the profound wonderland of myth I HIS austere and reserved personahty, carefully hIdden from the outSIde world behmd the Immovable ramparts of learmng, here reveals Itself and raIses the veIl of ItS secret As WIth most anCIent personahtIes, we know Just enough of Anstotle's to reahze that we cannot really know anythmg about It So much, however, we do see, that thIS full hfe was not exhausted, as a superficIal eye mIght suppose, by all ItS SCIence and research HIS 'theoretic hfe' was rooted In a second hfe, hIdden and profoundly personal, from whIch that Ideal denved ItS force The pIcture of Anstotle as nothIng but a SCIentIst IS the reverse of the troth ThIS was precIsely the age m whIch the self began to be emancIpated from the chaInS of the objectIve SIde of hfe, when It felt more conSCIOuSjy than ever before that It could not be satIsfied WIth eJl.ternal creattOn alone At thIS tune the pnvate SIde of hfe WIthdrew from the turmOIl of actIon mto ItS qmet corner and made Itself at home there The pnvate SIde of mdlvlduals also awoke and locked the door agamst umnVIted guests The absolutely objectIve form m WhICh Anstotle always presented hImself to the outSIde world was already based on a conscIOUS separation of personal from externalIzed actIVItIes Only a lIttle later the rapIdly swelhng torrent of subjectIVIty burst ItS dam I Frg 668 In Rose According to Anstotle myth and philosophy are closely connected ThIS was a problem that he took over from Plato Metaph A 2, g82 b 17 'A man who IS puzzled and wonders tlunks hImself Ignorant Hence even the lover of myth IS In a sense a lover of WIsdom, for the myth IS composed of wonders' It IS of course one thing to see elements of phIlosophy m the love of myth, and another when the phIlosopher, as Anstotle does In thIS fragment, mdulges hImself by returmng at the end of hIS long struggle With the problems to the half-hIdden, IllogICal, obscure. but suggestive, language of myth

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MATURITY

and swept all fixed objects away mto the rhythm of Its own mward movement The bust that recent research recognizes as bemg really Anstotle's shows a very mdlVIdual head I The artist has done his work m a somewhat conventlOnaIly refined manner, but m spite of that It has a speakmgly VIVId personalIty As m the famous head of Eunpldes, the thmker IS revealed by the haIr hanging over the powerful forehead m thin and sparse locks The arbst has not stopped, however, at such more or less typical features m his effort to grasp hIs subject's mdIVlduahty From the Side we are struck by the contrast between the chm Juttmg out beneath a tIghtly closed mouth, giVing an expression of mdomltable energy, and the cntIcal, contemplative, perfectly level gaze of the eyes, directed towards some fixed pOlnt outSide the man and strangely unconscIous of the paSSlOn and movement portrayed m the lower half of the face The mtenslty of that penetratmg V1SlOn IS almost dlsqUletmg The whole countenance gives an ImpresslOn of highly cultivated mtelhgence, but from the very first Instant thiS IS subordmate to the expression of stramed and earnest attentlOn that embraces all the features The control of the mtellect IS eVIdent throughout Only round the mockmg mouth there plays a shadow of suffermg-the sole element of the mvoluntary that thls VIsage reveals In concluslOn we may place here a translatlOn of hIS will It transports us duectly mto the human atmosphere In whIch he hved z , All will be well, but, In case anythmg should happen, Anstotle has made these dlsposlbons Anbpater IS to be executor m all matters and In general, but, until Nlcanor shall arnve, Anstomenes, Tlmarchus, Hlpparchus, DlOteles and (If he consent and If ClI"cumstances permit him) Theophrastus shall take charge as well of Herpylhs and the chl1dren as of the property And whE'n the gul [hIS daughter Pythlas] shall be grown up she shall be given In marriage to Nlcanor. but If anythIng happen to the gul (which heaven forbid and no such thing Will happen) before her marriage, or when she IS mamed but before there are children, Nlcanor shall have full powers, both With regard to the child and With regard to everythIng else, to admInister In a manner worthy both of himself and of us Nlcanor shall take charge of the girl and of the boy Nlcomachus as 1 StudDlczka, Em Bzld12ls des Ansloleles, LeipZig, 1908 gramm.)

Z

DlOg L V

II

(Dekanatspro-

R D Hicks's translatIOn (Loeb ClaSSical Library)

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he shall thmk fit In all that concerns them as If he were father and brother And d anythIng should happen to NIcanor (which heaven forbid I) either before he mames the girl, or when he has mamed her but before there are children, any arrangements that he may make shall be vahd And d Theophrastus IS wl.1lmg to hve With her, he shall have the same nghts as Nlcanor Otherwise the executors m consultation With Antlpater shall admmlster as regards the daughter and the boy as seems to them to be best The executors and Nlcanor, m memory of me and of the steady affection wIDch Herpylhs has borne towards me, shall take care of her In every other respect and, d she desires to be mamed, shall see that she be given to one not unworthy, and besides what she has already received they shall give her a talent of silver out of the estate and three handmaids whomsoever she shall choose beSides the maid she has at present and tI.e man-servant Pyrrhaeus, and If she chooses to remain at Chalcls, the lodge by the garden, If m Stagua, my father's house WhIchever of these two houses she chooses, the executors shall furmsh With such furniture as they thmk proper and as Herpylhs herself may approve NIcanor shall take charge of the boy Myrmex, that he be taken to hiS own fnends m a manner worthy of me With the property of hIs which we received AmbraCls shall be given her freedom, and on my daughter's mamage shall receive JOO drachmas and the maid whom she now has ~nd to Thale shall be given, m addition to the maid whom she has and who was bought, a thousand drachmas and a maid And Simon, in addition to the money before paid to him towards another servant, shall either have a servant purchased for him or receive a further sum of money And Tycho, Philo, OlymplUs, and IDS child shall 'lave their freedom when my daughter IS marned None of the servants who WaIted upon me shall be sold but they shall contmue to be employed, and when they arnve at the proper age they shall have their freedom If they deserve It My executors shall see to It when the Images which Gryllion has been commissioned to execute are fimshed, that they be set up, namely that of Nlcanor, that of Proxenus, which It was my mtentlon to have executed, and that of Nlcanor's mother, also they shall set up the bust which has been executed of Anmnestus, to be a memonal of him seemg that he dIed childless, and shall dedicate my mother's statue to Demeter at Nemea or wherever they thmk best And wherever they bury me, there the bones of Pythlas shall be laid, m accordance With her own mstrucbons And to commemorate Nlcanor's safe return, as I vowed on hIs behalf, they shall set up m Staglra stone statues of Ide size to Zeus and Athena the SaVlOurs •

CHAPTER XIII

THE ORGANIZAnON OF RESEARCH ARISTOTLE'S second stay m Athens was the culmmatlOn of his ndevelopment It was hIS matunty, he completed his doctrine and functioned as the head of a great school Since scholars have long recognIzed a connexlOn between the extant wntmgs and his actIvity as a lecturer, while on the other hand they have supposed that only dunng thiS last penod was he actually lectunng, they have naturally concluded that all the treatises were composed dunng thiS time, and have swallowed Without mIsgiVing the awkward consequence of theIr mference, namely that the whole composItIon must have been crowded mto the short space of thirteen years We cannot put the relgmng view more bnefly than It has been expressed by Zeller, who IS stIll reckoned an authonty on these questions 'If, then, the view already mdlcated as to the destmatlOn of these texts for his scholars, their connexlOn With hIS teaching, and the character of theIr cross-references be nght, It follows that all of them must have been composed dunng hIS final sOjourn In Athens' 1 Our mqUlry mto the sOjourn at Assos has made It unnecessary to say more about the untenabl1Ity of thIS VIew, and It also makes It possIble to get a clearer notion of the special SIgnificance of Anstotle's last penod wIthm hIS whole development Now that we have succeeded m determmmg the spmt and dIrection of hIS work durmg the middle years, we see that the last phase, that In Athens, was very clearly distIngUIshed from the precedmg Bold speculatIOn and extensive empmcal Investigation, which accordmg to the prevIOus view were both compressed Into a narrow space m the. last penod, now become separated m time The foundatIons of his phIlosophy were complete by the middle I ZelIer, Anstotle and the Earlter Penpatetzes, vol I, p 155 Cf Bernays, DIe Dlaloge des A rlstoteles, p 128 'All the survlvmg works belong to the last penod of Anstotle's hfe. and even lf the httle that has been ascertamed about their chronologlcal relatIons to each other were ever to be mcreased by fortunate dlscovenes, the nature of thelr content excludes all hope that even the earhest of them could ever be early enough to show us Anstotle still wOrklng at his system. at all pomts It presents Itself to us as complete. nowhere do we see the buIlder buI1dlng ,

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penod-takmg 'phl1osophy' m the narrow sense m whIch It IS always used by the exposltor~, and therefore excludmg hIS gIgantic researches m the SCIences of nature and of man He began his philosophIcal development by followmg Plato, he then went on to cntIcIze hIm, but m hIS thud penod there appeared somethmg totally new and ongInal He turned to the empmcal mvestIgatIon of detal1s, and by consIstently carrymg out hIS conception of form he became m thIS sphere the creator of a new type of study For the present we WIll not ask what IS the relatIOn between thIS lme of work and the phIlosophy of the precedmg stage, nor how far the one completes the other and how far It goes beyond It We must begm by establIshmg the fact as such, namely that whl1e the central philosophIcal dIScIplInes only receIved dunng thIS penod certam alteratIOns charactenstIc of the "pmt of the new dIrectIOn that hIS work was takmg, It was the WIde field of nature and hIstory m whIch he was really productive The mam proof of thIS lIes m the recently dIscovered papyn and mscnptlOns, but theIr necessary consequences for the hIstory of hIS development have not yet been drawn An hononfic mscnptIOn dug up In the year 1895 records the deCISIOn of the Delphians 'to praIse and crown' Anstotle and hIS nephew CallIsthenes III gratitude for theIr havmg establIshed a complete lIst of the wmners at the Pythlan games from the earlIest tlmes to the present I Such a lIst had of course necessItated very extenSIve researches among the archIves, researches whIch must have been sIgmficant for the hIstory of culture and lIterature as well In thIS work Anstotle was, so far as we can see, breakmg new ground It cannot have taken place very early 10 VIew of the co-operatIOn of hIS nephew, who had been hIS dISCIple at Assos and at Pella (above, p 318), nor yet after 334, when CallIsthenes went to ASIa WIth Alexander It was probably 10 conneXIOn WIth hIS hIstory of the Sacred War that Callisthenes obtamed access to the archIves of the DelphIC pnests, m order to study the sources for the struggles and negotiations WIth the Phoclans, whIch could not be done elsewhere That the actual date of the LtSt of Pythtan Wtnners was about 335/4, shortly before Callisthenes' departure for ASIa, IS shown by the mason's I

Dlttenberger, Sylloge J , P 485

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MATURITY

bill for cuttmg a stone record of thIS lIst, WhICh is preserved and bears the name of the DelphIc archon Caphis (331/0) It was a labonous pIece of work, amountmg, by recent calculations, to a tablet of about 60,000 words It can be none other than the hst of Anstotle and Calhsthenes, the chisellmg of WhICh apparently contInued through several years 1 It follows that thIS hst was drawn up towards the end of the Macedoman penod or at the begInmng of the Atheman To the same penod belong Anstotle's great antIquanan researches mto the competitions at the great DlOnysia and the Lenaea, and hiS D~dascaltae, records of the dramatIc perfonnances at Athens, whIch later formed the framework of the chronology used by the Alexandnne hlstonans of hterature for theIr hIstory of the claSSIcal theatre, and are still the foundation of all we know about the date!> when the pIeces were played These researches, fundamental for the hIstory of Greek hterature, were undoubtedly suggested by Anstotle's philosophical study of the problems of poetics The immense collection of matenal comes after the philosophical study, for the lost dIalogue On Poets certamly goes back to early days Here agam the new element IS the amphficatlOn of conceptual treatment by means of the study of historIcal and chronolOgical detail These researches can only have been made on the spot, m the archives of the archon, and therefore either pnor to the death of Plato or after 335 The analogy of Aristotle's other works of thiS sort, however, clearly mdicates that they belong to the late penod, and It is very ObVIOUS of it!>elf that the prelImmary mvestigatlOns, WhICh would have been ImpOSSIble WIthout the pemUSSlOn of the government, were made m conneXlOn With the CiVIC reform of the theatre that Lycurgus, the maker of the new stone theatre at Athens, undertook towards the end of the thIrtIes 2 Just as he arranged for state copIes of all the old 1 Cf Homolle m Bulleltn de correspondance hellemque, vol XXll, p 631 • Anstotle's Interest In the development of the mam hterary forms, espeCially tragedy and comedy, whICh the pObt-Anstotehan Penpatetics extended to further classes (as appears from Horace AI'S Poet 73, 275). IS revealed m the fragments of hiS Vlctones preserved on an mscnpbon (C I A II 971), which mention the first performance of KC;;~OI or revels Unhke the Dldascahae thiS work arose not out of Anstotle's mterest m the history of the theatre but merely out of the Atheman state's offiCial mterest m the persons and tnbes of the winnIng backers and producers Hence It clearly proves the conneXlOn betv.een

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tragedIes and monuments to the claSSIcal masters, as well as provldmg for regular revivals of their plays, so must he have been the man who set up In stone at the back of the Porch, behind the theatre of DIonysus, the record of all dramatic competItions Since the end of the SIxth century The catalogues of Anstotle's wntIngs also mention a work comparable to the hst of Pythian winners on the winners at the OlympIan games, follOWing In the path first trodden by the SOphIst Hlpplas of Ehs Of thIS nothmg IS known Presumably It was dIrectly suggested by the Pythlan hst, If so It must also belong to the second stay In Athens It can be shown, as we have prevIOusly remarked, that the same conclusIOn IS probably true also of that tremendous undertaking, the collectIOn of IS8 constItutIOns The sole tIme when the philosopher could command the external aIds necessary for such an extensive work, whIch must have employed a very large number of researchers, was whl1e he was head of a great school wIthin whIch he could train feHow-workers SUIted to hIS purpose The sOJourn at the court of Pella IS not a conceIvable alternatIve, for, whl1e he had finanCIal support there, he could not have found the necessary aSSIstants The Constttutwn of Athens, whIch was recovered at the beginning of the mnetIes and fonns the first book of the collectIOn, coming from Anstotle's own pen, gives In the speCIally COpIOUS matenal of AttIc hIStOry an example of the method to be adopted throughout the whole work The temporal references show that It was not pubhshed before 3 2 9/ 8 1 The work on the other constItutIOns, of which, thanks to these re~earches and Lycurgus' CIVIC reform of the theatre On the DJdascahae see Jachmann De AnstotelJs DJdascal"s (DissertatIOn) Gottmg-en, 1909 I .For some time after the dIscovery of the ConstdutlOn of Athens much unnecessary dust was raised about Its date as well as about Its genuineness Torr detected the truth at once In hiS 'Date of the Constitution of Athens' (A thenaeum No 3302, cf Clasncal Rel1Jew, vol v, 3, P 119) The date of compOSitIOn IS hmlted In the backward direction by the mention of the archon Cephlsophon (329/8), and forwards by the mentIOn In chapter 46 of the buildIng of triremes and quadnremes but not of qumqueremes, which, however, are spoken of m C I A II 809 d 90 as eXlstmg- and are there taken over from the prevIous offiCial year It follows from thiS InscnptlOn that the deCISion to budd qUlnquereme~, of which Anstotle IS unaware, must have been taken at the latest In 326 Hence the ConstdutJon of Athens was wntten between 329/8 and 327/6 See Wl1amowltz, Anstoteles und Athen, vol I, p 2lI, n 43 I pass over the completely mistaken attempts to put the work back mto the fifties

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unusually numerous fragments, we stIll possess a vanegated pIcture, cannot therefore have been done before Anstotle's last years, If, mdeed, It was completed at all dunng hIS hfe WIth thIS colossal compIlatIOn, the result of careful and detaIled work based on local source-matenal, Anstotle reached hIS pomt of greatest dIstance from the phIlosophy of Plato The mdividual IS now almost an end In Itself The same character appears still more clearly In the purely lIterary and philological Homer~c Problems, the number of the books of whIch, as collected by the edItors, was probably SIX, they lead up to Alexandnan mterpretatIon and cntlclsm, and together With the foundatIOn of poetIcs, of the chronology of lIterature, and of the study of the personahty of poets, they have made Anstotle the creator of philology, whIch hIS pUpIl'S pupil, Demetnus of Phalerum, afterwards carned over to Alexandna We can prove that the l:.IKaJwjJCXTa Tr6AEWV or Pleas of the C~ttes also belongs to thIS late penod (and thus make It faIrly probable that the Barbanan (ustoms does so too) by means of a fragment mentIomng the expedItIon of Alexander of Molossus to southern Italy, where he met hIS death Aeschmes In hIS speech on the crown refers to thIS death as beIng a very recent event, and hence It falls at the end of the thIrtIes, 330 beIng the year usually assIgned I The above-mentIOned works represent a sCIentIfic type of exact research Into the real world that was somethIng absolutely new and pIOneer m the Greek world of the tIme Even Democntus cannot be compared WIth It Freed from the Platomc way of thInkIng, Anstotle hereWith became the hero of the hne of umversal InqUIrers that began WIth the Alexandnne phIlology of Callimachus and Anstarchus and has perpetuated Itself every few centunes SInce the Renascence In Isolated outstandmg figures such as Scahger He far surpasses all hIS successors, however, m the ongInahty of method that enabled hIm to foreshadow the SCIence of future mIllenma-the method of applyIng the pnnciple of fonn to the detaIls of reahty, the IdeCl of the umformlty of nature-and In the compleXIty of gemus by whIch I Anst frg 614 m Rose Aesch Ctes 242 The expeditIOn of Alexander the Molosslan IS mentioned In the Pleas as a hlstoncal example, and IS obViously already past The Customs, With Its ethnological, antIquanan, and mythological mterest, should belong to the same penod of study It IS the counterpart of the ConsMutzrms

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he spanned not merely the history and theory of culture but also the opposite hemisphere of natural sCience In natural SCience, agam, the work of his last penod reveals him as the master not so much of phl1osophy as of 'lustory' m the Greek sense of the word, which mcludes the detaIled study of nature and natural lIfe as well as the knowledge of human events We have been accustomed of old to take his sCientific works as all of a piece, and to put the Hlstory of Ammals, and the books on the Parts and on the Generatlon of Ammals, mto the same senes as the Physlcs, the work On the Heavens, and that On Commg-to-be and Passmg-away We should certamly hesitate, however, to assert that the Problems were early, smce the collectIOn as we have 1t IS not Identical With Anstotle's at all, but m part the property of his disciples, who were the 1mmedlate contmuators of the detailed research maugurated 10 the Penpatos ThiS makes 1t very probable that even the genumely AnstotelIan problems belong to the late penod, as IS mdicated also by the richness of their matenal and the vanety of their special mterests It IS really perfectly obvIOUS m Itself that the celestial mechamcs of the work On the Heavens, together With the specula.tIve treatment of the fundamental conceptions of 'phYSICS', were AcademiC m ongm, as we have shown them to be, whereas thiS absorption m detaIls, most of them utterly unrelated to phIlosophy, does not fit the penod of speculatIon But we must ~o farther still The Hlstory of Ammals Itself belongs m mtellectual structure not to the conceptual type exemplIfied by the PhYSlCS but to the same level as the collectIon of constItutIOns As a collectIOn of material ItS relation to the books on the Parts and on the Generatlon of Ammals, which work upon It and mqUlre mto the reasons of the phenomena that It contams, IS exactly the same as that of the collectIOn of constitutIOns to the late, empmcal books of the PohtlCS It prOVIdes them With a substratum Hence It IS With the Hlstory of A mmals Just as With the Problems, thiS work shows the clearest traces of d1fferent authors, the last books are by younger members of the school, who appear as contInumg, completmg, and even correcting and cnhc1zmg, the work of the master Probably the task was organIZed Just lIke that of collectmg the constItutiOns, the work bemg dlstnbuted among vanous persons

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nght from the start What part Anstotle hImself took m It can hardly be detennmed wIth certamty now The descnptIon of the vegetable world, whIch IS very closely connected wIth that of the ammal, was assIgned to Theophrastus, who carned It through on hIS own It can scarcely be true, as has sometimes been asserted, that the H~story of An~mals would be conceIvable apart from the dlscovenes made by Alexander's expedItIon The mfonnatIOn It contams about the habIts of ammals a.t tha.t time p,nknown m Greece, such as elephants, presupposes the expenences of the march to IndIa, and there are certamly numerous other passages where the mfluence of thIS enonnous extensIOn of Greek knowledge IS stIll concealed from us How great was the profit of the ASIatic expedItIons to Theophrastus' botany IS made clear m Bretzl's admIrable though not final work J Thus all mdlcatIons pomt to a late date for the ongm of the phJ.1osopher's zoolOgIcal works We must not project thIS whole orgamzatIon of SpeCIalIzed research backwards mto the Academy, that would gIve a completely Illusory pIcture It has been shown above that the Resemblances of SpeUSIPl--US, though mamly concerned WIth plants, dId not contam botamcal studIes m the manner of Theophrastus but matenal for the method of dIVISIOn by genus and specIes as recommended by Plato m hIS later days m the Soph~st and the Statesman and as actually practised m the Academy merely for the sake of the lOgIC of classIficatIon and not out of any mterest m particular thmgs and the condItIons of theIr lIves 2 We can clearly detect, In Anstotle's I M Bretzl, BotanlSche Forschungen des Ale%anderzugs, LeipZIg, 1903 • In the first book On the Parts of Animals, which contams a general methodologlcalmtroductIon, the slgIUficance of which for the aim of ArIstotle's latest researches must be evaluated hereafter, he contrasts hiS pomt of view In detail (cc 2-4) With the AcademIC method of diVISIon The prInCIple of dIchotomy as put forward by Plato 10 the Sophist and the Statesman and afterwards applIed to particular natural kInds by hiS dlsclple~, especIally SpeuslppuS, IS there sharply critiCized both from the standpomt of logiC and also as bemg useless ID the ConstructIOn of a real zoology, If one is to aVOId teanng related species asunder It IS true that even ID the early TOPiCS (VI 6 144 b 32) he CritiCizes certam superfiCialIties of AcadeDllc diVISion from the logical pOInt of VIew, but thiS sort of contrad,ctIon had alrea.dy ansen w1thm the AcadeIDlc Circle 1tsell, as he tells us there The cntic1sm m the Parts of Ammals and at other places ID the zoological works IS totally mdependent of th,S It arose out of h,S own longcontmued posItive concern With the actual ammal kIngdom, and 1S the upshot of hiS elIorts to wrest a new claSSification from the facts themselves The IOcornpleteness of thiS 'system', which has often led to the demal of itS

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H'£story of Ammals and Theophrastus' H'£story of Plants, the mfluence of the schemahsm of thIs method, but to suppose that Its real achIevement lay m the classIficatIon of ammals and plants would be wrong It was far less Important m the development of natural SCIence than the fact that here for the first tune the observatIon and descnptlOn of the mdlvldual and ItS hfehIstory was bemg taken absolutely senously It IS Just here that the achIevement of Anstotle and hIS school was so vast, m spIte of several blunders whIch, In VIew of the multIplICIty and vanous worth of the sources he had to use, were mevltable while the method was m ItS mfancy The Meteorology will also belong to thIS penod as a whole I The book on the cause of the Nile's floods, the genumeness of which can no longer be doubted, IS a particularly mterestmg case of a speCIal problem m thIS sphere We can almost see Anstotle at work dunng thiS penod when he commumcates to hIS fellow-workers the results of the latest ObserYatlOns from the upper valley, and ends hiS account wIth the exclamatIOn 'The Nile floods are no longer a problem, for It has actually been observed that rams are the cause of the swellmg '2 Very closely connected with the studIes of orgamc nature and hvmg thmgs IS the set of mqumes that Anstotle undertakes m hIS work On the Soul and m the group of anthropologIcal and phySIOlogICal monographs attached thereto The mere fact that he attaches to psychology the doctnnes of perceptIon and colour, of memory and recall, of sleep and wakmg, of dreams, of breathmg, of the mohon of hvmg thmgs, of longevIty, of youth and age, of hfe and death, reveals a conSIstently phySIOlogIcal attItude, the startmg-pomt of thIS senes of studIes IS necessanly psychology, because the soul IS here conceIved as the pnnclple of lIfe, eXistence, IS due to ItS late appearance In Anstotle's development as a tlunker See Jurgen Bona Meyer, Ansloleles' T.erkunde, E.n Be.trag ZUr Geschlchle der Zoo!ogu, Phys.olog,e und aUen Ph,losophu (Berlln, 1855). pp 53 and 70 ff I See above, pp 307-8 Z I am conVinced by Partsch's excellent article 'Des Anstoteles Buch uber das Stelgen des Nil', Abhandlungen der sachs,schen Ge>;ellschaft der W,ssenschaften (phllo50plllSCh-hlstonsche Klasse). vol XXVll, p 553, LeipZIg, 1910 The ongmal form of the conclUSIOU trauslated In the text IS preserved by Phobus (OIlKtTl 1Tp6~"'llJa t,,,'IV ~'l yl!tp 'i'avEpC>S ~"I t~ urr,;,v ~~u, see Partsch, p 574). and IS characten~tlc of Anstotle, cf Metaph H 6, 1045' 24 'the question Will no longer be thought a dIfficulty'

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WhICh IS thereafter pursued through all ItS charactenshc mamfestahons All sorts of traces Indicate that the senes only gradually attaIned to Its present completeness I The con)unchon of these more general phySlOloglcal prehmmanes with the zoological works to fonn a comprehensive pIcture of the orgamc world, as we now have It, gIves us an artIshc pedagOgIcal structure which did not appear m thIS form until the last penod The question IS how far the psychology Itself shares m the general development that we have already sketched, and whether we can discover any data for the constructlOn of a chronology of thiS work and of the so-called Parva Naturaha In thiS conneXlOD the third book On the Soul, which contams the doctnne of Nus, stands out as peculIarly Platomc and not very sClenhfic ThIS doctnne IS an old and permanent element of Anstotle's phIlosophy, one of the maIn roots of hiS metaphySICS The treatment of It In thiS work goes deeply mto metaphySICS On and around It the psycho-phySical theory of the soul was subsequently constructed, as It appears, without, however, bndgmg the gulf between the two parts whose Intellectual hentages were so dIfferent It mIght be objected that thIS twofold character pervades Anstotle's whole phIlosophy and must have been Inherent m It from the begmmng Agamst thiS VIew It must be saId that the doctnne of Nus \\-as a tradIhonal element Inhented from Plato, who, however, had no psycho-phySICS or only shght begmmngs of one, and that, while we find a developed theory of Nus even In the earlIest works of Anstotle of whIch we can have exact kno\\-ledge, as IS conSIstent WIth the general speculatIve tendency of hIS first Platomzmg phIlosophy, we do not find any trace of empmcal psychology In those works The latter pursUlt IS entuely hIS own mventlOn Hence It IS certamly not an aCCIdent that hIS ethICS, for example, IS bUllt on a very pnmltIve theory of the soul, namely the dlvlslOn of It mto a ratIonal and an IrratIonal part ThIS venerable doctnne, appeanng m Anstotle as early as the Protrepttcus, IS SImply Plato's For practIcal reasons he left It undIsturbed m later days, although hIS psychology had advanced a long way III the meantime and he no longer recogmzed parts of the soul I See BrandiS Gnechlsch-riimlsche Phllosop}ne. vol 11 b 2, pp my article 'Das Pneuma 1m LykelOu', Hermes, vol XIVlll, P 42

II92

if • and

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at all In ethIcs It remamed convement to work wIth the old Ideas, and no errors followed senous enough to vItiate the ethIcal result, Plato's old system was mgramed m the foundations of hIs ethIcs for good and all Nevertheless he thmks It necessary to apologIze for thus sImphfymg hIS problem I The structure of hIs ethIcs would probably have been dIfferent 1£, when ItS foundatiOns were bemg laId, hIs psychology had already reached the level at whIch we know It ThIS contrast of levels can still be pomted out in defimte detaIls The way m whIch the Eudemus develops Plato's theory of RecollectiOn, and the behef in personal Immortahty as we find It there and even m the dIalogue On Phtlosophy (that IS, even at the begmmng of the mIddle penod), are incompatIble wIth the psycho-physIcs of the work On the Soul as It has come down to us They presuppose t~e persIstence after death of precIsely that part of human conSCIOusness whIch accordmg to the phIlosopher's later VIew IS bound up wIth the body 2 Moreover, we have to recogmze that the ethIcs of the mIddle penod, wIth ItS theolOgIcal notiOn of claIrvoyance and of prophecy, IS still on the same level as the dIalogue On Phtlosophy, whereas the work On the Interpretatwn oj Dreams, whIch belongs to the senes of phySIOlOgIcal mqmnes attached to the books On the Soul, represents a complete break With thIS PlatoTIlzing VIew The state of mmd here IS completely non-ethIcal and purely sCIentIfic, and more Important than the fact that Anstotle rejects hIS previOUS VIew IS the method on the basIs of whIch he rejects It He even introduces consIderatiOns drawn from the psychology of ammals, a clear SIgn of the changed spmt of thIS new and completely unmystIcal attItude 3 Now the 1 In the Eudemtan Ethtcs An5totle IS stlll confidently baSing hiS doctnne of virtue on the old schematIC diVISIOn of the soul Into two parts that share In reason' (II 1, 1219b 28) Just as he does In the Protrepttcus, whIch he IS here follOWing word for word (see above, p 249) On the othu hand, the corresponding passage of the later version (Eth Ntc I 13, ] 102· 23 II) apologetically mSlsts that the statesman and the practical man, 10 order to Judge questlons of vIrtue correctly, need a mInimum (only that I) of psychologIcal knowledge 'To refine further IS perhaps more labonous than the matters In hand demand Moreover, some pomts concerning vIrtue are suffiCIently explained In the exotenc works, and they should be consulted' Then comes the doctnne, tradltlonal at thIS POint, of the rational and the IITabonal parts of the soul, but WIth a short reference to the problemabc nature of the conceptlon of 'parts of the soul' Accordmgly tills phrase IS purposely aVOIded 10 what follows Z See above, PP 50 II 3 In thiS e,
..

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new spmt IS sovereIgn throughout the first two classIcal books of the psychology, wIth theIr theory of sense-perceptIOn and the accompanyIng VIew of the soul as the entelechy of the orgamc body The doctnne of Nus could never have gIven nse to thIS Equally epoch-makIng are the researches In the short phySIOlOgical works It IS not a bold Inference, but SImply an eVIdent fact, that they belong to the same late stage of development as the work On the I nterpretatwn of Dreams, whIch IS Inserted among them as a monograph on a problem mhented from Plato I In content, In method, In date, and m general outlook, thiS whole complex of researches belongs WIth the great works on the parts and generatIOn of hVIng thIngs Even If, therefore, the present verSIOn of the thIrd book On the Soul IS umform and contemporary WIth the other two and the Parva Naturalla (on which I hazard no OpInIOn, because the matenals for a deCISIon are lackmg), that cannot alter the fact that the Ideas about Nus are earlIer, whIle the method and the executIOn of the rest IS later and belongs to another stage of development-In fact, to another dImenSIOn of thought z Another and no less Important creatIon of Anstotle's later days was the foundatIon of the hIStory of philosophy and the SCIences, a great collective work, encyclopaediC In dImenSIOns yet umform In outlook, whose monumental structure first made of the phenomenon of dream-dlvmatIon by means of psycho-physIOlogy He does not deny that we sometImes have prevIsIon of the future m the dreamstate, but he does now deny that thIS prevIsIon proceeds from metaphYSIcal regIOns Agamst the behef m dreams sent by a god there IS the fact that neIther wIse nor good men are accustomed to have such dreams, but often precIsely morally mfenor persons who happen to be phySIcally dIsposed to them, and also the fact that ammals too have dreams (a reference to the HIstory oj AnImals, IV 10, 536b 28) He shows the connexlOn between what we dream and the subconscIOus or conscIOus ImpressIons of the wakmg hfe and examme~ In detail the causes of the dIstortIOn of Images 1D dreams For dlvmatlOn m the dIalogue On PhIlosophy see above, pp 162 ff, and m the ongmal ethiC'> above, pp 240-241 I It IS not Illummatmg to suppo~e that Anstotle could have adopted the standpOInt of SCIentIfic psychology In other matters at a tIme when he was stIll chenshmg the mystIcal vIew of dIVInatIon, and that Just on thIS one pomt conservatIve Platomsm was stIll causmg hIm to compromIse On the contrary, hiS change of VIew about dIVInatIon was SImply the logical expression of a change m hIS whole manner of regardmg psychIC hfe 1 Although the PaJ'va NatuJ'al1a deal only WIth the general phySIOlOgIcal condItions of hfe, and do not enter Into detaIl., theIr frequent mentIon of prmclples of classmcatlOn usual m the zoologIcal works shows clearly that they are based on these emplncally ascertaIned 'dIVISIons'

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vlSlble to sense that hvmg umty of knowledge whIch the Penpatos embodIed On a VIew of the world-process such as Anstotle's the hIstOry of the gradual advance of human knowledge IS the grand final theme of learnIng WIth It SCIence attaInS the stage of an hlstoncal understandIng of the Inner teleologIcal law of Its own beIng, Just as It mIght that of a plant or an ammal It IS astoundIng how he executed thIS task It far exceeded the powers of a smgle person, and had to be dIvIded among several workers, hke the descnptIon of polItIcal forms or that of orgamc nature Theophrastus was allotted the hIstOry of the phySIcal and-m the modem sense-metaphySIcal systems, WhICh he portrayed m eIghteen books In dISCUSSIng the development of those two modes of thought, Inseparably connected In anCIent tImes, he gave d. systematIc arrangement to all the problems from Thales and the' phySIOlOgists' down to hIS own age Enough fragments of the work still eXIst, most of them recovered from the late doxographers, to enable us to estImate the comprehenSIVe nature of the comparatIve hIStOry that he produced It could not have been carrIed out WIthout the aId of Anstotle's lIbrary, the first conSIderable collectIon of books that we know of on European soIl, and the documentary trustworthmess of the personal researches on whIch It rested made It antIqUIty's last word on the subject In later tImes It was frequently contmued and carrIed down to the then present, selectIons were chosen from It, ItS contents were compressed mto the most vahous forms, until In late antIqUIty, dIluted to the utmost and rendered as far as pOSSIble mechamcal, It was made mto an Introductory textbook for begmners BeSIdes the Op~mons of the Phys~c~sts there was Eudemus' hIStOry of anthmetIc, geometry, and astronomy, and presumably also hIS hIStOry lilf theology The former m partIcular was an authontatIve work throughout antIqUIty, and most of the later statements about the hIStOry of anCIent mathematIcs go back to It There was also a hIStOry of medlcme, WhICh Menon was commIssIOned to wnte, an extract from It has recently been restored to us on a newly dIscovered papyrus ThIS whole work on the hIStOry of knowledge can have ansen only m that late penod when the first attempts at a hIstory of phIlosophy, as we find them m the early M etaphys~cs A, were contInued on the grand scale of the Const~tut~ons, and when

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specialtzed mqUInes 10 the field of orgamc nature had estabhshed commumcatIOn wIth the sphere of medICine Under the leadershIp of Theophrastus the Penpatetic school further cultivated Its relatIOns With the more famous of the contemporary schools of medicme, such as tha.t at CnIdus, and later on that at Alexandna Dynastic confirmation was gIVen to these relations by the mamage of Anstotle's daughter Pythias to Metrodorus, a representative of the Cmdlan school, who taught at Athens-no doubt In the Lyceum-where the great phySICIan Erasistratus was hIS student It can be shown that m hIS wntmg Anstotle makes constant use of medIcal lIterature, not merely of the HIppocratIc kmd that flounshed In Cos, but even more of the Pneumatic phySICIans of the SICIlIan school (PhlhstlOn, DIOdes), and thIS proves that these studIes were pursued In the Lyceum In conneXIOn WIth phYSIOlogy and anthropology Then, too, was collected the pedagogIcal matenal treated tn the medical work Dtssectwns, to whIch ArIstotle often refers In the zoolOgIcal wntIngs ThIS book was an Illustrated, atlas-lIke work, for figures and drawmgs are expressly mentIOned The fact that such eqUIpment was needed for object-lessons shows that there were regular courses of lectures In anatomy and phYSIOlogy, WhICh- was not so In Plato's Academy Plato's medIcal studIes In the Tzmaeus and hIS relatIOns WIth PhIhstion were Isolated events Here agaIn the real orgamzer, the man who made empIrIcal InvestigatIOn an end m Itself, was ArIstotle To us moderns the SCIentific study of mInutiae IS no longer unfamiliar We thmk of It as the frUItful depth of expenence from whIch alone genume knowledge of reahty flows It needs a hvely histoncal sense, such as IS not often found, to realIze VIVIdly at thIS bme of day how strange and repellent thIS mode of procedure was to the average Greek of the fourth century, and what a revolutIOnary InnOvatIOn Anstotle was makIng SCIentIfic thought had to forge step by step the methods that to-day are Its securest posseSSIOn and most commonplace tool The techmque of the order!y observatIon of particulars, methodIcally pursued, was learnt from the exact modem medJcme of the end of the fifth century, and m the fourth century from the astronomy of the onentals WIth theIr century-long catalogues and records Earher students of the phIlosophy of nature had

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not gone beyond the dIvmatory explanation of Isolated strikmg phenomena What the Academy had added was, as has been saId, not the collectIon and descnptIon of partIculars, but the logIcal classIficatIon of unlversal genera and speCIes Plato m hIS later years had, of course, mSIstently demanded that we should not stop half-way m our classIficatIOns, but carryon the dlvlSlons untIl we came to the mdlvlSlble, for the sake of the exhaustIve completeness that alone could lend certainty to the method, but he was refemng only to the specIes, not to the sensIble appearances HIS mdivisible stIll remaIned a umversal The first person to Inveshgate the sensIble as the vehIcle of the unlversal rimmattered form') was Anstotle ThIs aIm was a new one even III companson WIth the empmclsm of the older medICIne and astronomy. He needed unspeakable labour and patience to lead hIS hearers mto the new paths It cost hIm many efforts of persuaSIOn and many bItmg repnmands to teach the young men, who were accustomed to the abstract play of IdeCis m Attic verbal duelhng, and understood by a hberal educatIOn the fonnal capacIty to handle pohtIcal que"tIOns WIth the aid of rhetonc and logIC, or at best perhaps the knowledge of 'hIgher thmgs' (~E"TEWpa)­ to teach them to devote themselves to the mspectIon of msects and earth-worms, or to examIne the entraIls of dIssected ammals WIthout aesthehc repugnance In the mtroductIOn to hIS work On the Parts of Ammals he mltIates hIS hearers mto thIs kmd of study WIth an acute exposItIon of the method, and depIcts m an ImpreSSIve manner hIS new JOY m the art of nature and m the newly dIscovered world of secret orderhness I We reproduce hIS words here m order that they may receIve the attentIOn due to them m the hIstory of the mmd as Anstotle's profeSSIOn of hIS new Ideal of studymg the mdlvldual He speaks of the very dIfferent attractIOns of hIgh speculatIon m the Platonlc sense and of the empmcism recommended by hImself He tnes to be faIr to both, but we can feel on wmch SIde lay, If not hIS heart. at any rate hIS SCIentIfic mterest, when he was trymg to Impress these Ideas on hIS dISCIples They were wntten at a tIme when the metaphySIcal and conceptual attItude of hIS early decades, though shll formmg the construchve framework I

Part An I 5, 644 b 22

33 8

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of hIs general VIeW, no longer held any place activIty

In

hIS creatIve

•Of thmgs constituted by nature some are ungenerated, Impenshable, and eternal, whl1e others are subject to generation and decay. The former are excellent beyond compare and divine, but less accessible to knowledge The eVIdence that mIght throw hght on them, and on the problems whIch we long to solve respectmg them, IS furmshed butscanttly by sensation, whereas respectmg penshable plants and ammals we have abundant mformatlon, hvmg as we do 10 thelI' midst, and ample data may be collected concernmg all their vanous kmds, 1£ only we are wlllmg to take suffiCIent palOs Both departments, however, have theIr speCial charm The scanty conceptions to whIch we can attam of celestial thmgs glVe us, from theIr excellence, more pleasure than all our knowledge of the world 10 whIch we bve, Just as a half ghmpse of persons that we love IS more dehghtful than a leIsurely view of other thmgs, whatever their number and dImenSIOns On the other hand, 10 certitude and m completeness our knowledge of terrestnal thmgs has the advantage Moreover, theIr greater nearness and affimty to us balances somewhat the loftIer mtt'rest of the heavenly thmgs that are the objects of the hIgher phIlosophy Havmg already treated of the celestial world, as far as our conjectures could reach, we proceed to treat Qf ammals, Without omlttmg, to the best of our ability, any member of the kmgdom, however Ignoble For If some ha.ve no graces to charm the sense, yet even these, by dlsclosmg to mtellectual perception the artistic Spirit that deSigned them, gIve Immense pleasure to all who can trace lmks of causation, and are mchned to phIlosophy Indeed, It would be strange If mImiC representatIOns of them were attractIve, because they dISClose the mlmebc slull of the pamter or sculptor, and the ongmal realIties themselves were not more mterestmg, to all at any rate who have eyes to discern the reasons that determmed therr formation We therefore must not reCOIl WIth chtldlsh aversIOn from the exammatlon of the humbler ammals Every realm of nature IS marvellous and as Herachtus, when the strangers who came to VISIt him found hIm warmmg hImself at the furnace m the kItchen and heSitated to go 10, IS reported to have bidden them not to be afraId to enter, as even m that kItchen dlvmltles were present, so we should venture on the study of every kmd of ammal WlthOut distaste, for each and all WIll reveal to us somethmg natural and somethmg beauttful Absence of haphazard and condUCIveness of everythmg to an end are to be found 10 Nature's works 10 the hIghest degree, and the resultant end of her generations and combmatlons IS a form of the beautiful •If any person thmks the exammatIon of the rest of the ammal kmgdom an unworthy task, he must hold 10 hke disesteem the study of man For no one can look at the pnmordla of the human frame-blood, flesh, bones, vessels, and the hke-wlthout much repugnance Moreover, when anyone of the parts or structures, be It whIch It may, IS under dISCUSSIon, It must not be supposed that It IS Its matenal composItion to WhICh attention IS bemg directed or whIch IS the object of the diSCUSSIon, but

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the relation of such part to the total form (IJOPCP~) 5urularIy, the true obJect of arclutecture IS not bncks, mortar, or timber. but the house. and so the pnnclple obJect of natural philosophy IS not the matenal elements. but theIr compOSItion, and the totahty of the form, mdependently of whIch they have no eXIstence'

The words read hke a programme for research and InstructIon In the PenpatetIc school They explaIn to us the spmt that reIgns In the works of Anstotle's followers, though these men placed metaphySICS even more In the background than he does here, untIl It was expressly bamshed by Strato In the second generatIOn The later development of the school can In fact be understood only through the almost exclUSIvely empmcal Interest here expressed by Anstotle m hIS old age, Just as Plato's dISCIples attached themselves wholly to hIS later VIews Anstotle IS not, of course, propOSIng the complete eXCISIOn of metaphYSICS and celestIal phySICS On the contrary, thIS very passage shows that the lectures on the ammal world were preceded by some In that sphere It IS ImpossIble, however, to mIstake the complete change In hIS mood and the dIsplacement of hIS Inner centre of graVIty as compared WIth the tIme when he thought of hImself pnmanly as the reVIver of Plato's supersenslble phIlosophy and the pIOneer of a new speculatIve knowledge of God In hIS work on metaphySICS thIS study appears, In the true Platomc fashIOn, as the only exact SCIence because the only one based on pure Nus. and though he called It, when he was wntIng the ongInal metaphYSICS, a SCIence vouchsafed only to dlvme knowledge, he was at the same tIme expressIng rus proud confidence that reason cannot be too hIghly thought of by man, and that nothmg m reahty IS hIdden from ItS power How dIfferent sounds the language of hIS old age' He no longer speaks of the world of appearances as more knowable to us but to be contrasted WIth the essence of reahty, whIch IS more knowable naturally He JustIfies metaphYSICS now by means of the everlastmg longmg of the human heart to penetrate the mystenes of the Impenshable and mVlSlble world, and IS ready to content hImself WIth the merest corner of that hIdden truth, whtle the precedence as real SCIence (1') T;;S rnIO'T~1J1lS VrrepoXf]) IS now clearly aSSIgned to empIrIcal research ThIS IS the praIse of devotIOn to the small. the confeSSIOn of alleglance to the study that

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fulfils Its hIghest achIevements m the H~story of An~mals, the collectIon of Const~tutwns, the hIstory of the theatre, and the chromcle of the Pythlan competItIons The spIrItual bond between the work and purpose of these years and the reformed Platomsm of the fortIes IS hIS pecuhar conceptIon of 'Immattered form', which m the passage quoted he sets up as the real aIm of the study of nature ThIS Idea, from bemg the obJect of an ontologIcal theory of knowledge, came year by year to be rather a hvmg mstrument of the most vaned researches It now appears, therefore, not wIth the slgmficance of a metaphysIcal pnncIple-takmg 'metaphysical' not In our sense but m Anstotle's-but as the dIrect obJect of conceptually mterpreted expenence In the same way the notion of purpose, whIch IS connected wIth It, IS not m Itself a metaphysIcal conceptIon for Anstotle, but IS SImply read off from expenence The sphere of applIcabIlIty of the notIon of form, therefore, extends far beyond the Immanent essences of hiS metaphysIcs, the latter bemg restncted, properly speakmg, to the entelechles of natural thmgs He explams It In the passage quoted by means of the analogy of artIstIc form Through thIS analogy hIS conceptIOn of form can be applIed to the structures of human culture, WhICh are partly of a purely artIstIc kmd, and partly on the borderlIne between conscIOUS spmtual creahon and the spontaneous work of nature, of the latter kmd are the state and all the forms of human socIety and manners of lIfe By hIS nahan of form he bndges the contrast between pure thought and the empmcal study of mdIvIduals, between nature and art HIS empIrICISm IS not a mechamcal amaSSIng of dead matenal, but the morphologIcal artIculatIOn of realIty He orgamzes and overcomes the mamfold (6:'rrElpoV) of appearances, whIch Plato SImply passes over, by ascendmg from the smallest and most mSIgmficant traces of orgamc form and order to more comprehenSIve umtIes Thus he builds up out of expenence the total pIcture of a world whose ultImate effiCIent and final cause IS once more a hIghest form, the form of all forms, creahve thought Accordmg to Plato the spmtuahzatIOn of man's whole life could be attamed only by turmng away the mmd from appearances to the archetype, accordmg to Anstotle It IS III the end IdentIcal WIth the specIalIzatIon of knowledge as here understood ThIS IS because

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every new discovery of a form, be It that of the lowest msect or amphibian or of the tlmest part of human art or speech, 15 a step onward m the task of makmg mmd supreme over matter and thus 'glYmg meamng to reahty' There IS nothmg m nature, even the most worthless and contemptible, that does not contam somethmg wonderful wlthm Itself, and he whose eye with glad astomshment discovers It IS akm to the spmt of Anstotle

CHAPTER XIV

THE REVISION OF THE THEORY OF THE PRIME MOVER Anstotle's last perIOd there was another pregnant alteraIn hIS theology, ObvlOusly made m conneXIOn WIth the final reVISIOn of the M etaphys~cs On thIs occaSIon the oldest part of thIS study, and that In whIch hIS Platomc hentage most persIstently asserted Itself, I namely the theory of the unmoved mover and of ItS relatIOn to the celestial revolutIOns, undenvent a change As has been shown,z the actual elaboratIOn of the theologIcal portIOn was never completed m the final verSIOn, but there remains a conSIderable passage that was mtended to form part of It, and was subsequently mserted by the edItors mto Book A, to whIch m subject It belongs From ItS apparent lack of all external relatIon to the rest Bomtz mferred that Book A IS not the mtended conclUSIOn of the Metaphystcs but an mdependent treatIse, and must be aSSIgned to an earlIer date J We have confirmed thIS mference m another way by revealmg the conneXIOn of Book A WIth the earlIest verSIOn of the M etaphys~cs and the form there gIven to the doctnne 4 Agamst thIS early dating, however, there stands the mentIon of Eudoxus' pupil Callippus m chapter 8 5 LIttle as we know about thIS famous a5tronomer and hiS dates, It IS extremely unprobable that he met Anstotle before the latter's second stay In Athens The only fixed pomt In hIS chronology IS the great reform of the AttIC calendar, whIch he was inVIted to undertake by the Atheman government 6 The new era, WhICh N

I tIon

I Above, pp I.p ff Above, p 223 J BoD.ltz, Comm In A,. Metaph ,p 25 Cf above, p 219 • Above, pp 219 ff • As was pomted out by Apelt 1D Ills reVIew of my 'Ent Metaph Anst', Berltner ph.lolog.sche lVochenschnft, 191'Z, c 1590 6 HIS date IS bnefly discussed by Boeckh m hiS VIerJllhnge SonnenkreI5e d All, pISS. WhiCh, however, does not make use of the passages In the MetaPhYSICS For hiS era see the article In Pauly-Wlssowa under the headmg 'Kalhppische Penode' , It IS a fault that there IS no article on Callippus lllmself In thiS encyclopaedIa He deserve~ a separate study As yet there IS not even a collectIOn of the remams of hiS teachmg Z

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IS usually called after hIm, began 10 330/29 He must therefore have been work1Og 10 Athens for a considerable penod about this tIme, and naturally he would renew the relatIOns established by Eudoxus with the learned Circles 10 the city This IS proved, WIth as much certamty as anyone could WISh for, merely by the way 10 WhICh Anstotle speaks of hIm 10 /\ 8 He could not have reported as he does on the changes proposed by Callippus In the sphere-system of Eudoxus unless he had dIscussed these questIons With the astronomer himself 10 the school Circle It was 10 fact, as will become clear hereafter, preCisely these dIscuSSIOns, that IS to say the direct stImulatIon that he received from the astronomical Side, whIch first mClted Anstotle to work out the doctnne of the movers of the spheres The lIDperfect tense that he uses when speakmg of Calhppus' alteratIon of the Eudoxlan system admits of two explanatIons only eIther It merely means that Anstotle owes hiS knowledge of these hypotheses to preVIOUS oral diSCUSSIOns WIth CallIppus, or It also Imphes that at the tIme of wntIng Calhppus was no longer ahve Smce Anstotle also uses the Impedect 10 speak10g of Eudoxus, who IS known to have been long dead and With whom agam Anstotle was personally acquamted, the most probable conclUSIOn IS that both were true of Calhppus as well I All the later must be the date of chapter 8 It must come dunng Anstotle's last tlIDe at Athens, and presumably after 330 ~ ThIS conclUSIOn IS extremely ImporI M~lapll 1\ 8 I073b 17 'Eudoxus us~d 10 suppose that the motion of the sun or of the moon Involves, III either case, three spheres Calhppus us~d 10 make the posItion of the spheres the same as Eudoxus dId. but wJu.le he used to assJgn the same number as Eudoxus did to JupIter and to Saturn. he used 10 Ihlnk two more spheres should be added to the sun and two to the moon If one IS to explam the observed farts' Anstotle uses SlmLiar language when spealung of vIews put forward by Plato In oral dISCUSSIOn. for ex, A 9. 992· 20 'Plato even us~d to obJ~cI to tills class of tillng as bemg a geometrical fiction, and used 10 gIve the name of pnnclple of the line-and thiS h~ oft~n used 1'1 pont-to the indiVISible hnes' The express addition of 'often' here IS deCISIve for the understandmg of thIs Imperfect and we must supply It 1D the passage about Eudoxus and Calhppus For the Imperfect as the expresslOn of the oral tradition of a school see for ex On Ihe SublIme III 5 (and WLiamowltz's comment thereon In He~m~s, vol xxxv. p 49, n 2) Similar are the reminiscences of the Academy mMelaph ZII,1036b25(theyoungerSocrates).andElh NIC X 2,II72 b 9-20 (Eudoxus) AntiqUity S knowledge of the reasons for Calhppus alteratlons In the Eudoxlan system was based on the oral tradition of the Lyceum as preserved by Eudemus (see lus frg 97. p 142 In Spengel) • J\ccordlIlg to Slmphclus In A~lSl de Caelo (p 493, I 5. In Helberg) 'Calhppus of Cyzlcus. after studymg With Polemarchu~ the fnend of Eudoxus. came

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tant for Anstotle's development Either this chapter was wntten at the same time as the rest of Book 1\, and then all our conclusIOns about the antiqUIty of the form gIVen to the doctrme m that book (above, p 221) would totter, or our proof that the earhest MetaphysfCs had a dlstmct fonn of the doctnne holds good of Book A also, and then chapter B must be not an ongmal element but a later InSertIOn While the doctnne of Book 1\ Incontrovertibly belongs to the earher conceptIOn of metaphysIcs, sharp eyes have been equally certaIn ever SInce the days of antiqUIty that chapter 8 IS not an orgamc member of ItS surroundmgs but a foreign body It remaInS, however, to gIve the real proof that what Isolated cntIcs have always suspected IS actually so Whereas others have usually taken theIr 6tart from the astronomIcal content of the passage, we will begm wIth the style Book A IS an outhne of a lecture, not mtended for the use of other persons at all (above, p 219) It contaIns only the maIn POInts, sketchIly put together, sometimes merely Jotted down one after the other wIth a recurnng 'Note, next, that " and bare of all styhstIc pohsh In detail I The greatest dIfficulties of InterpretatIOn come m the first or phySIcal part, WhICh proVIdes the foundatIOn for the doctrIne of the first mover, but even the second part, In WhICh thIS doctnne IS expounded, IS not much more readable, which m view of the fundamentallmportance of the subject has always been found extremely dIstresSIng EverythIng IS left to the actual delIvery There IS not the shghtest rea~on to fear that In hIS lectures Anstotle spoke the sort of Greek that some readers, knOWIng none but these parts to Athen~ after the la>ter and spent hiS bme with Anstotle correctmg and supplementIng the dlscovenes of Eudoxus' That thiS was not the Academic penod but the time when An~totle was head of a school. follows not merely from the expre~s separatIOn of thiS stay of Calhppus from the celebrated Atheman sOjourn of Eudoxus (m 367). but also from the descnptIOn of hIm as a pupIl not of Eudoxus but of Eudoxus' pupIl Polemarchus Otherwise. moreover. we should not have merely Anstotle mentioned as hl~ collaborator but rather Plato All thl~ pomts to the penod of Calhppus' reform SlmphclUs mu~t have obtaIned hiS mformatIon from a learned traditIon (Eudemus history of astronomy. apparently consulted m Soslgenes, see Slmphclus. op CIt p 488, I 19). for It cannot be deduced merely from the passage m the Metaphys.cs b 1 See Metaph II 3. 106g 35 and 1070' 5, and the hnkmg of arguments WIth fT,. kaf, 6:~a :AI. 6~ol",S :AI. or 1\ kaf. mamly m the early chapters but also. for ex. m cha.p 9. 1074b 21.25.36,38.107585 and 7. and chap 10.1075834. b 14. 16, 28. 34.

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of hun, reverence with respectful awe as genmne Anstotehan brevity How he really spoke is shown by chapter 8, which m contrast to the rest of the book is fully wntten out In consequence itS style is so stnkmgly distmct from that of itS context that we must seek a reason for thiS phenomenon In chapter 8 Anstotle discusses the questiOn whether there is only one essence such as the unmoved mover, or a considerable number of them, so that they form a class He begms wIth some remarks on the hIstory of the problem of detemllmng the number of the first pnnCIples with mathematical exactitude He then puts forward the theory that, Just as the heaven of the fixed stars reqmres an eternal unmoved mover m order that It may move, those other complex motions executed m the heavens by the planets each reqmre therr own unmoved mover ThiS is because the stars are by nature eternal, and therefore their motion pre<;upposes some other eternal WhICh must possess mdependent bemg exactly as they do m accordance With the pnnClple that only substance (ouaia) can be pnor to substance For each star we must assume as many movers as It executes motions, and smce the system of Eudoxus, which Anstotle has adopted, assumes a speCial sphere to each mobon, thiS means that there must be preCisely as many unmoved movers as there are spheres It is for astronomy, not for metaphysIcs, to calculate the number of these spheres, but of course thiS does not mean that astronomy has anythmg to do With the assumption of unmoved movers The latter IS purely metaphysical m ongm Anstotle does, however, transgress the bounds of metaphysics when he enters mto the calculatIOns of the astronomers and tnes to show-as it 1<; the mam purpose of hiS diSCUSSIOn to do--that neither the system of Eudoxus nor the revIsed form of It put forward by Callippus suffices to explam all the planetary motiOns Eudoxus had arnved at 26 spheres CallIppus raised the number to 33 Anstotle With hiS hypothesis of 'counteractmg spheres' mcrea~ed It to 47 or 55 ThiS survey of the mam content of the astronomIcal chapter WIll suffice to show that it IS mcompabble WIth ItS context not merely m itS style of wntmg but also m ItS 'style' of method The theology of the two precedmg chapters breathes an entIrely different spmt The unmoved mover there discussed moves the

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heavens by Itself, and through the medIUm of them, WhICh move themselves, It moves thIS world of thIngs whose motIOn IS purely external to It I The seventh chapter exanunes the character and essence of the hIghest pnnclple It IS unmatenal mInd, pure act, serene and blessed hfe free from all Interruption Anstotle a~cnbes to It an eternal unmoved essence (ovcrla) that transcends all that IS perceptible to sense It can have no size or extensiOn, It IS an IndiVISIble umty, unpassIble and unchangeable In VIew of these essentIal propertIes the hIghest pnnclple IS declared to be God, for by the conception of God we understand an essence that IS eternal, hVIng, and most perfect Now all thiS applIes, accordIng to Anstotle, to Nus Nus IS not only the eternal and most perfect thIng, 'the actualIty of thought IS hfe' ThiS denvatIon of the Absolute IS of course so conCIse and so far from exhaustIve that It at once raIses a senes of questIons to whIch Anstotle glVes no answer, but the tram of thought radiates a force, generated by relIgIOUS expenence, that carnes one away We are rrreslstIbly driven on to the questIon of the nmth chapter what IS the content of thiS actiVIty of Nus and what relatIon obtaInS between the content of ItS thought and ItS perfectiOn? If It thmks nothmg It IS at rest, and hence at the most a potency, not a pure actIvIty, If It thmks somethmg other than Itself It thmks somethIng less perfect than Itself, and thereby dImmIshes ItS own perfectIon Thus Anstotle leads hIS hearers m one fhght to the conclUSIOn that necessarily follows from the conceptIon of dIvme (that IS, of the most perfect) bemg thought thmks Itself, and m thIS creatIve act It eternally enJoys ItS own absolute perfectIOn Chapter 8 mterrupts thIS contmuous traIn of thought and breaks It mto two parts Remove It, and chapters 7 and 9 fit smoothly together After readmg chapter 8, on the other hand, It IS unpossIble to take up agam the speculatIve medItation broken off WIth chapter 7 From soanng flIghts, from Platomc rehgIOus speculatIOn, we plunge headlong down to the monotonous plam of mtncate computatIon and speCIalIzed Intelligence SunphclUs was nght when he said that such a dISCUSSIon belonged rather to phYSICS and astronomy than to theology ,3 I 2

M etaph II 7, 1072' 24 Cf Phys VIII S, 2S6 b 14 fJ Slmpl In Al'ut de Cae/a, p SID, I 31

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for It loses Itself entirely m subSidiary matters, and shows far more mterest m ascertammg the exact number of the spheres than It does understandmg of the fact that thl5 grotesque mulhphcatlOn of the prune mover, thIs army of 47 or 55 movents, meVltably damages the dlVme posItion of the prune mover and makes the whole theology a matter of mere celestial mechamcs Hence SunphClUs transferred hIS explanation of thIs astronomIcal passage to hl~ commentary on the De Caela, and It has been a favounte subject for astronomers from 50S1genes to Ideler I Valentm Rose, however, when he WIshed to transfer the whole of Book 1\ from the M etaphyslcS to the PhYS1CS made the mIstake of appeahng not merely to chapter 8 but also to the equally physIcal character of the fifth chapter of the first part 1. He failed to see that Anstotle needed a foundatIOn for hIS doctnne of the prune mover, and that ongmally the theology was buut up dIrectly and qUIte externally on the theory of phySIcal 'substance' The only real stumblmg-block, therefore, 15 the astronomical mterpolatlOn, and before bamshmg the whole book on that account It IS surely more reasonable to examme where the chapter Itself properly belongs Lasson's procedure m takmg the whole astronomIcal passage out of the text mto a note was far better, as he thus restored the conneXlOn between the seventh and nmth chapters J It IS m fact an msertlOn that can have been made only by the edItors of Anstotle's remams In subject It IS certamly closely connected WIth the questlOn of the prune mover. but the mmuteness With whIch It treats a Soslgenes In SlmphclUS, op Cit, P 498, II 2 ff ValentIn Rose, De Artstatells IIlworum ardtne et auctors/ate, p 160 He conSiders that the baSing of theology directly upon a precedlDg physlcalmqurrywhich he truly sees to be charactenstIc-ls the product of some post-Theophrastean PenpatetIc who had 'already conceIVed the 'false' nobon of metaphySICS as the sCience of the thmgs that come after phySical thlDgs' He holds, naturally, that the metaphysIcs of 'substance' IS the only genuIDe Anstotehan doctnne Thus he puts thmgs exactly the wrong way round ID reahty the stage of development that we have In Book II comes before the metaphysIcs of 'su bstance' ] Ar,stoteles' Metaphys,k, translated mto German by Adolf Lasson (Jena, 1907), pp 175-6 Lasson contented himself, however,wlth removlDgthe rmddle part of the chapter, I073b 8-1074. 17, which contalDs the aetual calculatIon of the number of the spheres, while retaJnmg the begmDlng and end In so dOIng he faded to perceive the mdlvlslble styhstlc and matenal uDlty of the whole The middle porbon carnes the begmnmg and end along With It Moreover, hiS reason for hiS actIon was mere IV to help the student, he did not perceive the hlstoncdl ongm of the break ID the tram of thought I

1

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subsIdIary problem IS SO utterly exceSSIve m an Isolated lecture confimng Jtself entuely to the mam outlmes that It must have been wntten for another, more detaued conneXiOn In VIew of thIs agreement between the cntenon of style, the mterruptlOn of the tram of thought, and the mternal contradlctlon between the late ongll1 of the a~tronomlcalpart and the anCIent character of the book as a whole, It IS an eAtremely probable conJecture that the mterpolatLOn IS not due to Anstotle hImself I The edltorf> proceeded here Just as they dId m other parts of the MetaphY~l(s Now smce the pomt that Anstotle reached m workmg out the later verSiOn of the M etaphys1cs was precIsely the threshold of theology, It seems ObVIOUS that we have 10 the eIghth chapter of Book /\ a pIece of the new verSIOn of thIs final part We observe that here agam Anstotle was not m the least content WIth hIS ongmal vIew, even m the last reVlSlon he reconstructed the whole theory of the movers of the spheres As we have prevIously dIscovered m the dialogue On Ph1losophy, the theology of Anstotle's earher stage knew nothmg of thIs theory Smce the ether had not yet become the element that 'by nature' moves m a CIrcle, and the stars moved sImply through the will of the star-souls, we must suppose that at that hme Anstotle's Idea was Just that the heavenly bodIes themselves have souls, and that he dId not thmk It necessary to POSIt a number of movers for each one of them, correspondmg to the number of ItS spheres (above, pp 141-142) At that tune, therefore, hIS only deVIatIOn from Plato's VIew lay m supposmg an unmoved mover above the first heaven, whIch, bemg eternal, produced the eternal mohon of the world By thIs theory he overcame the notIOn of a self-movmg world-soul, whose mohon, hke that of all the other self-movmg thmgs known to us m expenence, had a begmmng. SI~lce, however, he had apparently always assumed, With Eudoxus, the eXIstence of spheres for the wandenng stars,2 I ThIS, however, 10 no way demonstrates the spunousness of the chapter, whIch for a long tIme some cnbc~ have thought they must assume, becau~e they recogmzed Its IOcoherence WIth the rest, for ex , J L Ideler (the son) In hIS Anstolehs Meteomloglca, vol I, pp 31B ff The father dId not make thIS mIstake, see 'Gber Eudoxos', Abhandlungen der Berhner Akademte (hlstonschphtlosophlsche Klasse) 1B30, pp 49 ff • Sel" De Caelo II 9, 12, esp 293" 5-B Anstotle there expressly says that the heavenly bodIes have souls-they possess 'actron' and 'lIfe', 292" I8-2I-but these suuls bdong not to the spheres hut to the stars themselves, WhICh 'we

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It followed by analogy from his doctnne of the first mover that each of these circular motions (cpo pal) beneath the outer heaven must also have Its own mover, for If there were only the first mover we should expect all the other spheres to move In thE' same path as that of the fixed stars This objectIOn IS made by Theophrastus, who places the questIOns of celestialmechamcs In the centre of his fragment on metaphySICS I Even at that tune there were still Anstotelians who clung to one mover And Theophrastus shows us why, for he contmues 'If that which Imparts movement IS different for each movmg body and the sources of movement are more than one, then their 'harmony as they move In the directIOn of the best desire' (OpE~IS aplC'"TTl) IS by no means obvIOus And the matter of the number of the spheres demands a fuller discussiOn of the reason fbr It, for the astronomers' account IS not adequate' He then reveals the difficulty concealed m Anstotle's conceptIOn of desue and Impulse (c5pE~ls and ecpEcns), namely that It presupposes a real soul, and cnticlZes the exclUSiOn of the earth from the system of cosmic motIOns If CIrcular motiOn IS the most perfect It IS surely astomshmg that the earth should have no part mIt. Such an assumption presupposes either that the force of the first mover does not reach as far as the earth or that the earth IS not susceptible to It In any case-and here Theophrastus comes very close to the modern VIew-the questIOn IS transcendental (olov lnrEp/3crrOV TI Kai Cx3TtTTlTOV) Metaphyszcs fI. 8 IS an attempt to draw the real consequences of applymg the unmoved mover to all the spheres Theophrastus' book IS an echo of the new doctnne, whIch was bemg discussed dunng Anstotle's old falsely take to be mere bodies and soulless monads In space' He IS speak.mg therefore not of the movers of the spheres, but of Plato's theory of star-scula, which we have ~hown from the dialogue On PhIlosophy that he beheved In early days We have proved above (~ee pp 299 11) that the fundamental doctnnes of the books On the Heaven are early In ongm The recogDlbon of 'actIon' and 'hIe' m the stars IS also connected With the PlatOniC view I Theophrastus, MetaphYSICS, p 310 BrandIsll TO 2.. 1lfT~ TaVT 1\2.'1 Myov 2.£ITa. 'lTAllovos mpl njs topto.ws, 'lTola Kal Tlv",v, tml2.'; 'lTAlI", T~ KlllV.IKc!I, "al allpOpal TpO'ITOV T'V~ V1TE\IavTla., Kal TO c!Iv>iWTOV "at 00 Xc!IpIV c!Iq>avtS .1 TE y~p Cv TO "'VOW, 6"'Io=v TO .. ~ 'lTMa -r.;v a\rn'iv (sc K.""Toeal KtVT]O'V) "TE "all' fKaa-rov hepav (sc TO ta-rIV) al T' 6:pxal 'lTAlIOVS, .;)a-r. TO OV",,"'vov avr",v e1s 6pe~lv lov-r",v -r.;v 6:pICTTTlV ou6a../;)s qlav.pov TII2.t Ka-ra TO 'lTAiieos T"'V OqICIlp"'V Tiis alTlcs ...IJova J'1TET Myov ov yc!Ip 6 ye T"'V QOTpoA6y<wv (SC Myos locavOs tOTIV) Then follows the cntlcism of the nobon of (q>EO'S or 6p'~IS c!IpICTTTl, an element of Anstotle's PlatOnIC penod WhICh he always retamed (cf

"'voW

PP 15211 above), even when he had abandoned the star-souls Z

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age He agrees WIth 1\ 8 m takmg the theory of the first mover mamlyas a physIcal doctnne, but he reflects still more clearly the ddficultIes mto which the multIphcatIon of the first pnnciple plunged Anstotle's metaphysIcs Anstotle hunself asks to be excused, m I\. 8, for entenng a sphere that IS beyond the bounds not merely of phl1osophy proper but even of demonstratIve necessIty He will not speak of 'necessity' at all, but merely of the 'probable' I ThIS merely probable character contradIcts, however, the ongmal conception of metaphySICS as a study far surpassmg phYSICS m exactltude, and Aristotle only makes the contrast more sensIble when he excuses hunself by remarkmg that anyhow astropomy IS the closest related to phIlosophy of the mathematIcal discIplmes Z How far the empmcal method of thIS pronouncement of the 55 movers IS from that of the old M etaphys~cs appears espeCially m the remark that the venficatIon of these assertIOns must be left to speCIalIzed sCience The purpose of the whole account IS therefore sunply to gIve an Idea of the matter (~vvo{as XO:PIV) ThIS expreSSIOn sounds alarmmgly hke fictIon The phrase 'to gIve some nohon of the subject' really means Just what Anstotle says the Platomsts did when they assumed a certam ongm of numbers merely-to quote their own expressIOn-'for the sake of theonzmg', not, therefore, as a Judgement about any reahty Assummg then the correctness of the theory of the spheres and of the number of them as calculated, what he WIshes to show IS that the number of the first pnnclples must be defimte and preCisely determmable ObVIOusly It was a speCIal SCIence, namely astronomy, that set h1IIl to extendmg hiS theory of the first mover It taught h1IIl that the hypotheSIS of a smgle umform ultImate motion was too pnmltIve to account for the • Metaph II 8, 1074. 14 'Let thiS, then, be taken as the number of the spheres, so that the unmovable substances and pnnclples also may probably be taken as Just so many the assertIon of necess,ty must be left to more powerful thmkers' Cf also 1074. 24, 'It IS reasonable to Infer thiS from a conslderatlon of the bodies that are moved' For the exactItude of the sCience of the Immatenal see a 3, 995" 15 ff " Metaph /I B, 1073 b 3 'In the number of the movements we reach a problem which must be treated from the standpolllt of that one of the mathematical sciences whIch IS most aklll to phIlosophy-VIZ of astronomy' HIS reason IS that astronomy, lD contrast to the other mathematIcal dlsclpllDes, deals With an actual and moreover With an eternal rea.hty-whtch certalllly sounds extremely" eak

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complIcatlOns of the actual heavenly motions, and that the calculations of the number of the spheres undertaken by the school of Calhppus offered the possibility of precisely determmmg the number of the first pnnciples Aristotle's adoption of thlS new road, while It does honour to his unbendmg sense of fact, mvolved hlm m mextncable contradictlOns They are so clear and ObVlOUS on the surface that It would be absurd to try to soften them Durmg the later days of antiqmty, when much labour and great acuteness was bestowed on the mterpretatIOn of ArIstotle's phl1osophy, Plotmus gave a deCISive cntIclsm of thls theory, m which he developed the doubts raised by Theophrastus I He first deprecates the method of mere probabilIty, whlch Anstotle was oblIged to admit because he could not attam to certamty He then argues that even the probabilIty is m poor shape, for, if all the spheres are to make up one umfied world-system, the many unmoved movers which thmk themselves should rather have one smgle aim, the first mover The relatlOn, however, of the many movers to the first is wholly obscure Either all these mtellIgible essences must arise from the first, and must, Just as the spheres which they move fit mto the outermost sphere and are governed by it, be contamed m the hIghest Nus as Its objects, WhICh would gIve an mtelllgible world l1ke Plato's, or each of them must be an mdependent pnnclple, and If so there IS no order or structure among them, and they cannot explam the symphony of the cosmos A further counter-argument of Plotmus' IS that If the movers are all wIthout body, how can they be many, smce no matter attaches to them as principle of mdlvlduatlOn~ Thls objection IS taken from Anstotle's own assumptions, and had m fact occurred to hlm In the mlddle of the eIghth chapter of Book 1\ there IS a remarkable passage that will not merge WIth itS context as far as the thought is concerned Even a superficial readmg of It shows that it necessanly destroys all that IS said m 1\ 8 about the multIphclty of unmoved movers 'EvIdently there IS but one heaven For If there are many heavens as there are many men, the movmg pnnclples, of which each heaven will have one, will be one In form but In number many But all I

Plobnus. ElI7leads V

I,

9

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thmgs that are many m number have matter, for one and the same defimtIon, e g that of man, apphes to many thmgs, while Socrates IS one But the pnmary essence has not matter, for It IS complete realIty So the unmovable first mover IS one both m defimtIOn and m number, so too, therefore, IS that WhICh IS moved always and contmuously, therefore there IS one heaven alone'r The smgleness of the heaven IS here proved by an mdIrect method If there were more than one, the first prmClple of each of them would be only genencally Identical wIth those of the others, while mdlvldually (cipI61Jc';») dIstinct, as, for example, m the genus man, where the mdlvldual men comclde In form, but are many m nwnber Whereas the conceptIOn of man IS common to all mdlviduais of this genus, Socrates and the others are each d. partIcular real umty, smce every time that the conceptIOn of ffian Jom~ Itself as form to matter another mdIVIdual arIses The first essence (TO Tl ~V elVa! TO 1Tp(;>TOV), the hIghest mover that guIdes the heaven, IS an exception It IS pure entelechy and has no matter That IS to say, thIS hIghest form IS not a genus appearmg m several exemplars It has no conneXIOn wIth matter, WhICh IS the pnnciple of mdIvlduatIOn In the highest of all forms umty of form and real smgleness comclde Hence that which It moves, the heaven, also occurs once only In the first place, It IS clear that Plotmus' argument agaInst there bemg many movers IS nothmg more than an apphcatIOn of the prInClple here laId down by Anstotle to the question of the mtelligences of the sphere'S If matter IS the prmClple of mdIvlduatIOn, as Anstotle teaches here and elsewhere, eIther the movers of the spheres cannot be Immatenal, SInce they form a pluralIty of exemplars of a genus, or Anstotle refutes hImself by retammg hiS doctnne of lffimatenahty, smce thiS excludes IndiVIdual multIphClty In either event he falls mto contradiCtion with the presupposItions of hiS own philosophy The fact IS that the form of forms, the unmoved mover, IS m ongIn an absolutely umque beIng, and ItS peculiar qualIties are such that any duplIcation destroys the presupposItions of ItS own conceptIOn The same conclusIOn follows froIn the proof m the Phys~cs, where Anstotle mfers the umqueness of the unmoved mover from the contInUIty and umtyof the world's I

Metaph "8, 1°74. 31 ff

REVISION OF THEORY OF PRIME MOVER

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mahan The conunentators awmt that they cannot explam this difficulty I If. however, we consider the passage from a ImgUlstlc pomt of view. the first glance shows that It IS foreign to ItS context With ItS first words, 'evidently there IS hut one heaven', another style begms, and with the last word of the msertIon, 'therefore there IS one heaven alone', It ceases agam It IS the same shorthand style as obtams m the rest of Book A, and contrasts sharply With the Impeccable language of chapter 8 That the passage IS an msertlOn IS also clear from the fact that It dIsturbs the grammatical conneXlOn In the next sentence, 'our forefathers m the most remote ages have handed down to theIr postenty a tradItIon, m the form of a myth, that they are gods and that the dlvme encloses the whole of nature', the plural 'that they are gods' refers to nothmg 2 To learn who 'they' are we have to go ten hnes back, where we are told that the end of every movement IS one of the dlvme bodies that move through the heaven The words 'dlvme bodIes' lead directly to the reflectIOn (ro74br) that the men of old were nght to thmk them gods and to beheve that the dlvme IS somethmg that encloses the whole of nature The mtervemng argumentatIon, deducmg the ~mgleness of the heaven from the Immatenahty and umqueness of the first mover, IS a later and m fact a cntIcal addItion, for It ImphCItly contams the refutatIon of the assumptIOn that there are more movers than one Anstotle must have noted It agam::.t thIS passage as a pIece of self-cntIclsm, hiS faIthful edItors mtroduced It mto the text. and the keenest thmkers of postenty have racked their brams to understand how an Anstotle could have mvolved hImself 10 such contradictIons r Bomtz,op Cit, p. 512, Schwegler, DIe MetaphysIk des Anstoteles, vol IV, p 280 Rose (op Cit, P 161) regards the passage as the dddltIon of a disciple, because In De Caelo I 9 Anstotle proves the uOlqueness of the first heaven on phySical grounds, but In the same work (8, 277 b g-IO) Anstotle says that the pOInt can also be proved by means of the lilt etaphyszcs, and thiS proof would not be discoverable In the latter work were It not preserved for us m the passage In questIOn, /I 8, 1074' 31-39 It only fits, however the earher MetaphYSICS, which knew nothmg of movers of the spheres-the same SItuation as when De (aelo was wntten-and not the doctnne of /I 8 There are no demonstrable addItions by dIscIples to the text of the Metaphyszcs • As Rose observed op CIt, P 101 [The Oxford translator wntes 'these bodIes' preCIsely 10 order to make the reference clear The Greek IS merely oVToI-Tr)

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The ongInalidea of the unmoved mover was a unIfied and self-consIstent conceptIon The later applIcatIon of the same pnnciple to the other spheres was also all of a pIece, but It dId not agree wIth the earlIer system Anstotle began to feel doubts about It ansIng out of the assumptIons that had fonned the basIs of the ongInal notIon of the one unmoved mover When, therefore, we see that thIS very part, the theory of the unmatenal first pnnciples, is lackIng In the final versIOn of the Metaphys~cs, and that Instead of It we have only a makeshIft, namely an early lecture (!\) together WIth a SIngle pIece of the new theory (chapter 8) whIch still shows clearly that precisely In the last penod of hIS lIfe Anstotle was wrestlIng WIth these problems anew and faIlmg to solve them-when we see thIS we shall presumably no longer thmk that the state In whIch the matenal has come down to us IS due merely to the malIgmty of histoncal chance ObVIOusly hIS growmg tendency to treat phIlosophIcal problems In the manner of the speCIal SCIences, workIng together WIth the fennent of the new Ideas In cosmology, as we found them m Theophrastus, had shattered the self-confidence of the more or less Platomc speculatIOns of hIS theology and drIven hIm to attach hImself Increasmgly to empmcal SCIence In thus surrendenng metaphysIcs to the speCial SCIences he began a new era ConSIstency on the empmcal SIde made hun InCOnsIstent WIth hIS speculatIve foundatIons ThIS contradIctIon In hIS thmkmg, whIch he no longer had the force to overcome, IS SImply the result of the deep-seated mexorable lOgIC of hIS whole development, and that must reconcile us to hIm InCidentally, he made a mIstake, accordIng to the astronomers, In calculatmg the number of the spheres and got two less than he should have He was movmg here In a less familIar regIOn ThIS error adds to the probabilIty that chapter 8 IS only a prehrnmary verSIOn, brought to lIght from among hIS papers There can be no doubt, however, that It comes from Ar1Stotle hunself It does not come from Theophrastus, for, whereas hIS tenn for the counteractmg spheres was not avu..{TTouaal but ci\rravaqlEpouaal.

only the former expreSSIOn occurs III our chapter Eudemus In H\story of Astronomy assumes the Ilroblem as well known In PenpatetIc CIrcles 1

U\S

I

Tlus diSposes at Rose's CODJecture, op. Cit., P 161 For

the

ex~reSSLon

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We possess two other works that throw lIght on the advance of the school m tacklIng the problem of the prune mover The first IS the essay On the Motwn oj Ammals, whose genumeness I have shown m detaIl on an earher occasIon, after the doubts raIsed agamst It had long held the field I ThIS exammes In partIcular the mechamcs of an1l1lal motIon In order to change ItS place every IIvmg thmg reqmres a fixed fulcrum, agamst whIch the 11l1lb that IS making the movement supports Itself If only one 11l1lb of the body IS to move, as the lower arm or leg, thIS fulcrum may be wlthm the body Itself, so long as It IS outSIde the hmb that IS bemg moved, as m these examples the elbow or the kneeJomt If, however, the whole body IS to move It must have a fixed pomt lymg outsIde Itself m order to push off For land-ammals the earth serves as reSIstance, eIther dIrectly or mdlrectly, for those that SWlID the water, for those that fly the arr In the second, thIrd, and fourth chapters of the work Anstotle exammes the analogous problem m the motIon of the umverse He there dIscusses a recent hypotheSIS, agreemg WIth ItS mventor that there must be an unmoved first prmCIple and that thIS cannot pOSSIbly be eIther mSlde or a part of the movmg vault of heaven,' for then the heaven would eIther stand qmte still or break up He dIsagrees WIth hIm, however, when from thIS reflectIOn he deduces that the poles of the world's aXIS have a certaIn force, because they are the only conceIvable pomts of rest In the heavenly sphere, and thus seem to present themselves as the only fixed pomts smtable for a mechamcal explanatIon of the world's motIon AgaInst thIS Anstotle holds that a mathematIcal pomt as such cannot possess phySIcal reahty or extenSIOn, far less exert force Moreover, even If these two POInts dId have some force, they could never produce a SIngle umfied ilV'rav~pouaal G'l'alpal

see SlmphLlUS, Comm In AnsI de Caelo, P 504, 1 6 (Helberg) Pseudo-Alexander, {ollowmg the astronomer ~~Igenes, notices Anstotle's miscalculatIon In hiS Comm In A. Metaph pp 705 I 39 -706, I 15 (Hayduck) Eudemus gives Calhppu~' reason~ for IncreasIng the numbers of the spheres 10 frg 97 (p 143 Sp) I 'Das Pneuma 1m LykcLOn', H eYmes vol XlVlll, pp 31 ff

• De A,umaltum Motu, c ], 699"17

Notice the dlstlncbon that Anstotle

draws between the representatIves of thiS SuppOSItIon and the Inventors of the myth of Atlas He IS not attaLkmg the same VIew tWice over Rather he mentIons the mythical ver~LOn merely to show that thiS modern view has had

forerunners

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mahan hke the heaven's, and he expressly tells us that the author of the hypothesIs assumed two poles The questIon IS connected wIth the problem whether the heaven could be destroyed I If, for example, we were to assume that the earth IS the reqUITed fulcrum, as beIng the centre of the world, then, apart from the fact that the fulcrum must not he wIthIn the movIng body and therefore not WIthIn the Universe In thiS case, we should have the further dIfficulty of explaInIng how the InertIa of the earth, which must be thought of as a hmlted quantIty, could suffice to counterbalance the force of the world's aXIs actIng agamst It The latter must IneVItably exceed the Inerha of the earth, and hence force It out of ItS place In the centre of the umverse All these dlfficulhes are removed If we suppose that outSIde the clrchng heaven there IS an unmoved cause of mahan such as Horner conceIVed Zeus to be when he makes hrrn say to the Gods (VIII 21-22 20) You could not push from heaven to earth Zeus the hIghest of all. even If you laboured exceedmgly And all gods and all goddesses took a hand

The way In whIch Anstotle here agam makes use of a myth In a philosophIcal questIOn IS charactenshc of hIm Not only does he denve hIS own pnnclple from Homer both here and In Book" of the M etaphystcs , he also attempts to bee a reVival of the myth of Atlas In the VIew, which he here attacks, of the earth as the fulcrum of the world's aXIs 2The hypotheSIS that the motIon of the umverse requITes an unmoved fulcrum, that the two poles serve as such, and that they are therefore the unmoved first prInCIple of the mahan of the heaven, IS clearly astronomical In ongIn It takes account of An,>totle's demand for a prune mover, and yet purposely aVOIds every metaphy,>Ical theory and seeks rather for a purely mathematIcal explanatIOn WithIn the world as gIven We may suppose that some astronomer of the Eudoxlan kmd, such as Callippus, had taken up thIS bOlt of athtude towards the bold metaphYSical Inferences that Anstotle had thought It necessary to make from Eudoxus' theory of the spheres The unknown astronomer tned b I De Ammahum Motu, c 4. esp 699 28 ff See also 3, 699" 31 ff • See Metaph 1\ 8 I074 b 1-14. la, 1076"4 For the myth of Atlas see De An~mahum Motu, 3. 699" 27 fl. and also the prevIous note but one

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to obta1O, for the first tune, a clear Idea of the mechamcal Imphcations of the motion of the heaven, and 10 so domg he took hIS departure from the known k10ds of mohon and their laws This way of lookmg at the th10g was undoubtedly new to Anstotle HIs own unmoved mover had been teleologically conceived, and moved the world by pure thought The fact that he here at once adopts the attitude of the new natural SCience, Just as he dId 10 the question of the number of the movers, shows very clearly how much he vacillated 10 hIS last penod about the nature of the fundamental problem of metaphysIcs In hIS work On the M otlOn of Ammals he tnes to show that even from the pomt of view of modern celestial mechamcs the unmoved mover standmg outsIde the umverse offers the only conceIvable solutIOn Even now, of course, his mover does not become a 'force' of a physical k1Od, but he speaks of ItS be10g touched by the movIng cosmos· as If there really were a spatIal and physIcal relatlOn between the two, and then destroys the pomt of his own acutely formulated problem by a transItion to the 1Otelhglble world, namely the notIon of the first pnnCIple mov1Og the umverse purely as an object of thought Theophrastus takes account of this attempt also 10 his metaphysIcal fragment, and actually quotes the same Homenc hnes 10 the same conneXlOn, or rather assumes that they are familIar In thIS conneXlOn 2 Whereas the work On the MotlOn of Ammals does not mentIOn the theory of the movers of the spheres, we have 10 Book VIII of the Phys~cs a document belongmg to the penod of doubt, when Anstotle, though senously consldenng the pOSSIbilIty of extendmg the pnnCIple of the prune mover to the planetary spheres, still hesItates to draw thIS consequence As we have shown above,3 the book IS one of the latest parts of the D. Antmalzum Motu, c 3 699"15 'It must touch something Immovable order to create movement' Correspondingly In L 4. 700" 2, 'and all gods and all goddesse~ set hands to It , where the companson extends to settm!( hands to It as well a~ to the Immoblhty of Zeus Neverthele~s tf 15 pOInt always remamed uncertain In De Cen et Corr . I 6, 323" 31, where he I~ speaking of phySIcal contact (0'P1'll. Anstotle says, 'so that If anything that IS Itself unmoved moves something else It "ould touch the thing moved but nothing would touch It' He seems to have dropped thIS self-contradlcV)T)' Idea later (see Zeller Anstotle and the Earlzer Penpatehcs vol I p 408) • In De Antmalzum Motu, c 4, 699 b 36 11 ,Anstotle quotes Imes VIII 21-22 and 20 On P 3Il, I. II (Brandis), of hiS Metaphyncs Theophrastus quotes VIII 24 ID the ~ame conneXlOn 3 p 299 I

In

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Phys~cs

In content It OCCUpIes a mIddle place between phYSICS and metaphysIcs, for It develops the theory of the unmoved first pnnciple as far as that IS possIble mSIde and wIth the methods of phYSICS In the sIxth chapter Anstotle shows the necessIty of the hypothesIs of a pnme mover Behmd the exposItion we glImpse the possIbIlIty of assummg a larger number of such movers, but he purposely avoIds connectmg thIS question wIth the proof of the pnme mover, smce the latter IS naturally not sImplIfied by the SS planetary movers WhICh It entails Hence we find only a bnef hmt at the begmmng of chapter 6 (258b 10) 'Smce there must always be motion wIthout mtermISSIOn, there must necessanly be somethmg, whether one th~ng or a plural~ty, that first Imparts motion, and thIS first mover must be unmoved' The expreSSIOn 'whether or' (ehe fiTE) IS ArIstotle's ordmary way of mdicatmg that behmd hIS formulatIOn lIes another problem, of WhICh he assumes that hIS hearers are aware, but whIch he wIshes to exclude at the present tIme I Such a problem IS usually one of the controverSIes of the school ThIS passage therefore makes It certam, as we had already dIscovered from Theophrastus, that even after the dISCUSSIon of the planetary movers had begun there still remamed m the Penpatos adherents of the theory that there IS only one first pnnciple of motion ThIS IS agam confirmed m what follows, where It becomes clear that Anstotle was not hImself the leader m extendmg the earher theory, but rather yIelded unwillmgly to the arguments of others Let us first examme the conneXIOn (2S8 b 12 ff ) Although there are some unmoved pnnciples of motion and some self-movmg bemgs that are not of eternal duration, thIS IS not for Anstotle any dIsproof of the neceSSIty of the first. absolutely unmoved, and eternal mover. for there must be a cause of motion that produces the contmuous commg-to-be and I For example In the Protrep/zeus (Iambl Protr, p 39 I 4, In futelli) . whether fire or aIr or number or some other natures that are the first causes of the others' By the last he means the Ideas These words were wntten whIle the Academy was shll debatmg about the theory of Ideas See further Me/aph, A 9. 991 b 18 . And man himself, whether It IS a number In a sense or not. WIll stIli be a numencal ratIo of certam thIngs' The parenthetIcal InsertIon refers to a questIon that was burmng at the tIme when Book A was wrItten, whether the Ideas are numbers or not In each passage Anstotle IS refeTTlng to oral d IQCUSSlOns m the school

REVISION OF THEORY OF PRIME MOVER

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passmg-away of those non-eternal unmoved bemgs, together wIth all change whatever. and thIs pnnclple cannot be IdentIcal WIth anyone of the other movers mentiOned, It IS transcendent and embraces them all We may translate the Important words (259" 3 ff) 'Nevertheless there IS somethmg that comprehends them all, and that as something apart from each one of them, and thIS IS the cause of the fact that some things are and others are not and of the contmuous process of change, and this cause'l the motion of the other movers, whJ.le they are the causes of the motion of other things Motion, then, bemg eternal, the fir'lt mover, tf there tS but one, wIll be eternal also, tf there are more than one, there Will be a pluraltty of such eternal movers We ought, however, to suppose that there tS one rather than many, and a fimte rather than an tnfimte number When the consequences of either assumption are the same, we should always assume that thmgs are fimte rather than mfimte m number, smce m things constituted by nature that which IS fimte and whlLh IS better ought, If pOSSible, to be present rather than the reverse, and here tt tS suffictent to assume only one mover, the first of unmoved thmgs, which bemg eternal Will be the pnnclple of motion to everythmg else The followmg argument also makes It eVident that the first mover must be somethmg that IS one and eternal '

In the words that I have ItalICIzed Anstotle returns to the alternatIve left open m the first sentence of the chapter, 'whether [the first mover IS] one thmg or a plurahty' He does not defimtely say. however, as he does m M etaphys~cs 1\ 8, that we must apply the pnnclple to all the spheres, but doubtfully adds 'If there IS but one, If there are more than one, there will be a pluralIty of such eternal movers' HIS sole hmt as to how we can deCIde lIes m the observatiOn that we should assume a smgle mover rather than many, and, If we assume many, a fimte rather than an mfimte number Accordmg to hIS teleolOgIcal conceptIOn of nature, and accordmg to the Platomc vIew m whIch he shared, mathematIcal defimteness dnd lImItatIon IS the chIef attnbute that we must demand from the hIghest realIty and the first pnnclples He does not dare, however, to conclude WIth certamty that there can be only one pnnclple of thIS sort. he merely says that the assumptiOn of oneness IS preferable to that of pluralIty Whether there may not nevertheless be a pluralIty of movers he will not deCIde It sounds lIke an attempt to comfort hImself, and he reveals whIch of the two VIews he favoured m wntmg these words when he concludes the dIgresSiOn With the sentence 'It IS suffiCIent, however, to assume only

3 60

MATURITY

one mover, the first of unmoved thmgs, which bemg eternal will be the pnnclple of motion to everythmg else' (that IS, to the souls of terrestnal creatures) Its eternity IS here made the dlStlOgUlshlOg mark of the pnme mover, the foundatIOn of Its character both as pnme and as the anglO of the others On the assumptIOn of a pluralIty of movers It IS not easy to say how Anstotle thought of their relation to the revolution of the outer heaven Everyth10g that IS suggested about It 10 thiS chapter 'iounds rather provlSlonal Lmes 25g b 1-20 explam why It IS ImpOSSIble to follow Plato, who, however, IS not named, 10 placmg at the head of the world's motion, on the analogy of the bemgs that have souls, somethmg that moves Itself, a worldsoul The motion of all the self-movlOg creatures that expenence acquamts us WIth has a beglOmng at some time, the motion of the world, however, cannot be Imagmed to have begun at a defimte mstant, for then It would have passed mto real1ty out of pure potency, whereas all merely potential bemg may Just as well not be If, therefore, ",e assume that the heaven moves Itself as Plato would have It, It still requITes somethmg absolutely unmoved outSide Itself as the ongmal cause of Its motion Moreover, a self-movlOg thlOg IS always at the same hme acndentally moved, even If by nature 1t IS unmoved, as souls are m bod1es, wherea~ the highest pnnClple must not be moved even aCCldentally After wntmg thIS Anstotle appears to have thought of the obJection (259 b 28) that then neIther would the movers of the planetary spheres present an exact analogy to the pnme mover, although they per'i1st unmoved so far as movmg theIT o",n sphere'i 1S concerned, because, lOasmuch as these spheres are diverted from the1r own motion by that of the outer heaven and carned along 10 the path of the fixed stars, the1r mlJver~ must be aCCldentally moved along w1th them, that 1S to say, the place of their movers must be changed He establIshes, 10 a hastily wntten final sentence, thiS d1fference between earthly creatures, wh1ch though unmoved move themselves acc1dentally through changmg the place of the1r bodIes, and the mteillgences of the heavenly spheres, that the latter are acc1dentally moved not by themselves but by somethmg else, namely the outer heaven How th1S helps to prove theIr unmob1hty IS not clear,

REVISION OF THEORY OF PRIME MOVER

361

presumably It IS merely an attempt to estabhsh any sort of speufic dIfference between terrestnal and celestial movers It certamly does not lessen the gap between the highest and the planetary movers, for, If the latter are aCCidentally moved by somethmg else through the attractIOn of theIr spheres mto the revolutIOn of the outer heaven, thiS spatial conceptIOn mevitably presupposes that they do not transcend theIr spheres hke the pnme mover, whIch IS outsIde the world, but are Immanent m them hke souls SImphclU!> objects to thIS mference WIthout gIvmg reasons, but Alexander of AphrodlSlas was Justified In makmg It I At any rate no other mterpretation IS possIble on the baSIS of thIS passage alone The sphere-souls would then be a transitIOnal stage between the ongmal purely Platomc doctnne of star-souls m the dIalogue On Ph~losophy and the transcendent sphere-movers of M etaphys~cs 1\ 8, for although even m the latter chapter (whose comparative lateness follows from the mere degree of defimteness WIth WhICh It sets out the new doctnne) these movers are not expressly descnbed as 'separated', WhICh IS all the more stnkmg smce every other charactenstic of the first mover is assigned to them, we mu~t nevertheless suppose that Anstotle here regarded them as eXIstmg apart He says that they precede the substance of the "'pheres, and must therefore be of the nature of substance themselves,2 such a mode of eJ..pressIOn does not fit the relation between soul and body, for accordmg to Anstotle the soul IS not a substance pnor to the substance of the body It is clear, therefore, that m the long run he was unable to be satisfied With the doctnne that the sphere-movers are aCCidentally moved by the first heaven, and therdore deCIded to hold that the planetary movers are also transcendent ThIS got nd of the external contradlctlOns on one SIde At the same tlrne, however, It plunged hIm mto the flood of difficulties mvolved m hIS new account of the relatlOn between the other movers and the Slmpl In Ar'sl Phys, vol II, pp 1261, I 30--1262, I 5, In Dlels Melaph 1\ 8 1073. 3l 'Each of these movements also must be caused by " substance both unmovable In Itself and eternal For the nature of the stars IS eh'rnal just because It IS a certam kmd of substance, and the mover IS eternal and pnor to the moved, and that WhICh IS pnor 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 1D theIr nature eternal, and 1D themselves unmovable, amI WIthout magmtude for thl" reason before mentioned I

I

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highest Nus, whIch ultunately threatened the foundatIOns of his theology These mdlcahons 10 thIS chapter of the PhysJCS of a pluralIty of unmoved guiders of the stars are obviOusly mere subsequent addlhons Anstotle lOserted them at the hme when the school was beg10mng to dtscuss the extenSIOn of hIS theory of the unmoved mover, when there was still not much more than the bare pOSSIbility of decId10g for a larger number of planetary movers The passages 10 questIOn are three The first IS 258b 10 Here grammatical reasons suggest that the parentheSIS 'whether one th10g or a pluralIty' IS to be regarded as an addihon If we hold It to be ongmal, the follow109 words, 'It IS not necessary that each of the thmgs that are unmoved but unpart mohon should be eternal, so long as there IS Just one such th1Og', I must be about the movers of the spheres, to which 'whether one thmg or a pluralIty' refers ThiS, however, gives no sense, as was observed by SlffiplIclUS, who taCItly subshtutes the souls of terrestnal creatures as subJect That they must be the non-eternal unmoved movers whose eXIstence Anstotle allows IS not merely clear from what follows z but necessary m Itself, for the movers of the stars, If they are to be assumed at all, must be as lffipenshable as the stars themselves Thus tnt parenthesIS actually upsets that contrast between the one eternal and the many penshable movers whIch IS Just Anstotle's pomt Moreover, the words do not fit well 10 the sentence 1Oto whIch they have been mtroduced, for It IS hard to Imagme how we can argue from the contmmty of the heavenly mohon (whIch IS all he IS talk10g about both here and m what precedes and 10 what follows) to the eXIstence of an unmoved eternal mover 'whether one thmg or a pluralIty' As a marg10al note they are comprehensIble, m the text they dIsturb the stnct tram of thought The second passage, 259· 7-13, IS an equally ImprOVIsed I The Oxford translatIOn dIffers here, but not In anythIng e9!lcnbal to the present POint -Tr • In what follows Anstotle often deSCribe'! them as . thIngs that move themselves' (as In 25Sb 24. 259" I, 259 b 2 ff , and b 17) and uses thIS expressIOn as synonymous With the techmcal term' unmoved but Imparting motion' In b 259 2 he expressly mentions' the animal kingdom and the whole class of hvmg thmgs

REVISION OF THEORY OF PRIME MOVER

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reference to the pOSSlbihty of several movers 'Motion, then, bemg eternal, the first mover will be eternal also (If there IS but one, If there are more than one, there will be a plurahty of such eternal movers)' As the words stand they are remarkably tautological, for all that can be meant IS If there are several movers, there IS more than one eternal pnnclple If Anstotle had merely Wished to state the pnnclple that every continuous eternal revolution, whether that of the outer heaven or that of some other sphere, presupposes an unmoved eternal mover, Without gomg mto the question how many such revolutions and movers there are, he would have expressed hlffiself more or less 10 this way 'If there IS a pluralIty of contmuous revolutions, there IS also such a mover for each one of them' ThiS, however, IS just the consequence that he still shnnks from drawmg, as the conclUSIOn of the msertlOn shows 'It IS sufficient to assume only one mover' In M etaphys~cs A 8 he IS concerned only to ascertam the number of the spheres and thereby of the movers, while the pnnclple, that there IS a mover for every sphere, IS established Here, on the other hand, It IS preCisely thiS question of pnnClple that has to be decided, whether we can get on With one mover Instead of many That IS why he mtentlOnally speaks 10 such an obscure and mdeclslve fashIOn If motion IS eternally contmuous there must be an eternal mover-If there IS only one mover, If, however, there are several there are also several eternal tlungs, that IS to say, they must of course be eternal also however, one I!:> enough In style too the passage from 'If there IS but one' onwards gIVes the ImpreSSion of a subsequent addition Fmally, Anstotle could hardly have contmued as he does If the suspected words had always stood 10 theIr present posItion (259" IS) 'We have shown that there must always be motion That bemg so, motion must also be contmuous, because what IS always IS contmuous, whereas what IS merely 10 successIOn IS not continuous But further, If motion IS contmuous It IS one, and It IS one only If the mover and the moved that constitute It are each of them one' ThiS must have been wntten when Anstotle, In Infernng from the contmulty of the motion to the mover, was still thmkmg of the motion of the world In ItS totality, for If he meant only that there are as many movers as there are contmuous motions the parenthetical question whether

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there IS one mover or more would have no pomt, and there would be nothmg to say except 'There IS a number of unmoved movers correspondmg to the number of the spheres' The thrrd passage that owes ItS eXIstence to an addItIon IS 25g b 28--31, at the end of the sene" of proofs Anstotle's ongmal mtentIOn was to make the contrast between the worldspmt and the mdlvldual ~ouls of the terrestnal realm as great as possIble The Idea of the world-spmt had undemably been obtamed from the analogy of the souls of lIvmg thmgs, but that was only the more reason for gIvmg espeCIal prommence to ItS outstandmg and exceptIOnal posItIOn Apart from Its mtellectual charactenstIcs, thIS appears m ItS absolute ImmobIlIty The souls of lIvmg creatures, whIle unmoved m themselves, move themselves mdlrectly when they move the body so that It changes Its place ThIS IS not true of the pnme mover, whIch we must POSIt as the cause of the eternal contmuous motIon of the umverse , m ItS ab~olute transcendence It remams unmoved both m Itself and aCCIdentally Now when Anstotle came to mtroduce the sphere-souls he could not exempt them from all motIon as he had the pnme mover, for, though unmoved m themselves, they are carned along by the outer heaven wIth therr spheres In order, however, that they mIght not smk to the level of terrestnal 'souls', he mserted thI" passage (259 b 2831), whIch nevertheless, as we showed above (p 361), cannot conceal the fact that he IS here mtroducmg a new pnnclple that does not harmomze wIth the contrast between the self-movmg earthly souls and the absolutely unmoved spmt of the world For the rest, the addItIon was mtended to be hypothetical Just hke the two others, It was merely to recogmze the posstbthty that the spheres have movers, nothmg more The later PenpatetIcs, who knew the final form of the doctnne of the sphere-movers from Metaphystcs A 8, neces~anly mterpreted these addItIons to the Phystcs m accordance wIth It They were bound to assume that here also Anstotle had the same pomt of VIew, and to read It mto thIS chapter In general they were able to carry thIS out wIth the help of the further assumptIon that Anstotle wIshed to explam here only the pnnclple of the relatIon obtammg between contmuous revolutIon and unmoved mover, and not to raIse the questIOn of the speCIal

REVISION OF THEORY OF PRIME MOVER

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nature and number of the movers of the spheres, but there IS one passage on which thIS view mevltably came to wreck At the end of the cham of argument we read as follows (259 b 20) 'Hence we may confidently conclude that If a thmg belongs to the class of unmoved movers that are also themselves moved accidentally, It IS ImpOSSible that It should cause contmuous motion So the neceSSIty that there should be motion contmuously reqUIres that there should be a first mover that ~s unmoved even acc~dentally, If, as we have said, there I~ to be m the world of thIngs an unceasIng and undyIng motIon' That the correct readIng was elva! Tl L.Ei TO lTpWTOV K1VOVv &t
Ad

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paraphrased the PhysJcs, and partly reproduced It word for word, 10 a large work of several books apparently lOtended for lectures In domg so he often gave more precIse expreSSIOn to doubtful passage~, and sometimes added new arguments or made other addlhons, none of WhICh can count as hIS own property For the most part he simply brought the Phys~cs up to the state 10 WhICh the problems were at the tIme of Anstotle's death This IS perfectly clear 10 our passage Dunng the time Just before the master's death the theory of the prune mover had been expanded mto the theory of the movers of the spheres Eudemus looked 10 vam 10 thIS chapter of the PhysJCS for a defimte explanation that there IS a plurabty of unmoved movers The last of the arguments for the eXIstence of an unmoved mover seemed rather, as we have seen, to exclude altogether the posslbulty of a multIpbcatIon of thIS pnnclple In hIS paraphrase Eudemus therefore IDserted mto Anstotle's argument, 'smce there must necessamy be contmuous mohon, there must also be the unmoved first mover', the words 'for each revolutIOn', that IS, for each of the spheres 1 He thus read mto Anstotle's statement the doctnne that Its author had finally recogmzed as the true one He was Justified m consldenng It the authentic one, and he saw 10 the words of the PhysJCS a formulation that no longer accorded WIth Anstotle's most advanced VIew He could not help seemg, naturally, that the elevated style of the 'undymg and unhnng motion' 10 thIS passage makes It fundamentally ImpOSSIble to suppose that It refers to anythmg but the mohon of the first heaven and the God who causes It, the whole pyramId of arguments 10 the last book of the Physus culmmates In thIS Idea It 18 10 fact, bke many other formulatIons m thIS work, one of the eVIdences that ItS first I Simpl, op Cit, vol II, P 1262 I 16, In Dlels (Eudemus, frg 80, P lOS, I 5, ID Spengel) •HavlDg ~hown first that there IS always mobon, and that It has neither a begmnln~ before which It was not nor an end after which It Will not be, and next that the pnme mover' In each mot,on" a~ Eudemus add" must be unmoved both In Itself and accidentally ThiS recapitulation of the content of the sixth chapter of Physte, VIII refers, as far as Eudemus' b addition IS concerned, to the words (259 22-24) • So the necessity that there should be motion continuously requires that the first mover (I) should eXist and be unmoved both m Itself and aCCidentally' How Eudemus reconCiled hImself to the fact that hiS addition openly contradiCts Anstotle's own explanabon, according to which 'ImmobIlity both In Itself and ace,dentally' belongs only to the hlghest mover, remaIDS obscure

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draft dates from an early penod Eudemus and hIS fellowstudents, therefore, knew this when they asserted therr authentic mterpretahon, but the conSCIOusness that Anstotle's survlvmg papers are the deposit of a process of evolutIOn was obViOUsly lost soon afterwards

CHAPTER XV

ARISTOTLE'S PLACE IN HISTORY HE name of ArIstotle suggests ImpersonalIty, tImeles'iness, Intellectual sovereIgnty over the whole world of abstract thought throughout long stretches of hIStOry, and scholastIc Idolatry In order to assImIlate hIm entIrely to theIr own world the MIddle Ages erased hIS IndiVIdual characterIstIcs and made hIm the representatIve of philosophy The greatness of such an attItude towards the matter that he represent~ IS undemable, and he hImself auned at the matter and not at the person, at eternal truth and not at hIstOrIcal learnIng , but the days when he was IdentIfied WIth truth Itself have passed HIS hIstorIcal Importance as the Intellectual leader of the West IS certaInly not lessened by the fact that the evolutIOn of Independent phIlosophIcal achIevement In European culture has taken the form of a five-hundred-years' struggle agaInst hIm Seen from the modern POInt of VIew, however, he IS now merely the representatIve of the tradItIon, and not a symbol of our own problems or of the free and creatIve advance of knowledg-e We attaIn a frUItful relatIon to hIm only by d. detour, by hIstorIcal knowledge of what he meant to Greek culture and phIlosophy, and of the speCIal task that he fulfilled In hiS century ThIS fate befalls every great spmt who obtaInS historIcal survIval He must be detached from hIS hIstOrIcal roots and neutralIzed before he can become accessIble to postenty Only hIstory can then answer the further questIon when the POInt has been reached where thIS 'lIVIng' Influence changes to the Oppo!>Ite, so that nothIng but a return from the tradItIon to the sources and to the real hIstOrIcal meamng of hIS hfe can save hun from Intellectual death Even to-day we cannot easIly agree whether ArIstotle has reached thIS POInt, SInce the scholastIc philosophy lIves on among us as a world In Itself The present book, at any rate, anses out of an hlstoncal attItude towards hIm-whICh, however, does not necessarily make It useless to those who thInk fundamentally otherwISe, for WIthout deepemng our understandIng of ArIStotle as an hlstoncal person we cannot even get

T

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a full grasp of the special nature and depth of hI:- mfiuence on postenty I propose therefore to conclude my discussIOns by applymg the histoncal results of this book to the place of Anstotle m the mtellectual movement of his century Up to the pre'ient the mner connexlOn between his philosophical form and the great problem that Plato propounded to the scholarship of Greece has been made eVIdent mamly m hIS cntIclsm of the Ideas and m the evolutIon of particular conceptIOns This e:xammation of particular conceptions IS the special task of the philosophIcal mterpretatIon of Plato and Anstotle The philological hIstory of development, on the other hand, while requmng and furthermg this philosophIcal mterpretatlOn, does not find Its ultImate aIm m the history of problems a'i such, but :,ees therem only the special fonn taken by the whole mtellectual progress of the natIOn m the philosophical sphere To ask how far philosophy led or was led m this progress IS Idle The question can hardly be decided even If one takes the whole culture of a penod mto account, because one erroneously :,uppose'i that only the content of conscIOusness really matters, and falls to see the slgmficance of the fonnulatIon gIven to thIS content by philosophy What follows attempts to understand the orgamc slgmflcance of Anstotle's philosophy wlthm Greek culture purely through Itself and Its hlstoncal CIrcumstance:" ab:,tractIng from the matenal content of the partIcular dl:,nplmes and concentratmg attentIon ,>oleIy on the hlstoncal nature of his problem and Its Intellectual forms I ANALYTICAL THINKING

Anstotle's huge achievement m logical mqUlry shall be touched on here only so far as It charactenzes the whole spmt of his phIlo'iophy In It the analytIcal power of hl~ thought obtamed cla"slcal expressIOn The way was prepared for It by certam dlscovenes In elementary logic contamed In the theory of Ideas, and by the epIstemolOgIcal and methodical traIt In Plato, but the Analyt~cs and Categones sprang from another root than Plato's Invanably concrete and objectIve thoughL Modern research has successfully attempted to show that a large number of logical proposItIons occumng In undoubtedly early works such as the Top~cs and the Categones (above, p 4 6)

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arose m the Academy and were sunply taken over by Anstotle. and a comparative analysIs of the elementary logIC of Plato's dIalogues, carned mto the smallest details, would confinn and enlarge thIs result, as our exammatiOn of the E udemus has shown , but Anstotle IS the first person m whom we find real abstraction It took possessiOn of all hIS thmkIng Here IS not the place to examme the first appearance of the abstract and ItS gradual emergence m Greek thought, nor to show how It unfolded Itself more and more clearly out of Plato's Idea It was reserved for Anstotle's powers of observation to grasp It wholly m Itself, WIth Its own pecuhar laws In hIS untmng research mto the logical properties and relations of the categorIes and of the forms and presuppOSItions of SCIentific mference we can detect the mvestlgator of later years, seekIng to span m ItS entirety the whole realm of logIcal fact He constructs hIS new disCIphne as a purely fonnal act, and expressly tells us that for hIm logIC, hke rhetOrIC, IS not a theory of objects and so not a SCIence (qllAocrocpla), but a faculty (:2.livaIJ1s) and a techmque He separates It ngorously from the questiOn of the ongm of conceptions and thoughts m the soul, and thus from psychology, and regards It purely as an mstrument of knowledge, but for thIS very reason he Joms hIS doctnne of the syllOgIsm to hIS theory of objects to make a self-supportmg theory of knowledge, the basl~ of WhICh IS the mqmry mto the so-called aXiOms ThIS does not Justify us m speakmg of a metaphysical lOgIC He had broken up the old ontologlc-the only fonn of logIC known to PreAnstoteltan phl1osophy-once and for all mto the elements Word (Myos) and Thmg (ov) The bond between them had to be restored somehow, and thIS was done by mean~ of the conception of formal cause, whIch was at once conception and thmg, ground of knowmg and ground of beIng ThIS may not seem a satisfactory solution-It was histoncally condItioned by Anstotle's reahsm-but It IS very far from the projection of logIcal conception, Judgement, and mference, mto the real a~ Hegel teaches It It IS necessary to reahze the tremendous mfluence of the analytical attItude on the mtellectual form of Anstotle's phIlosophy, for It detemunes every step that he takes In hIS works everythmg IS the most perfect, polIshed, lOgical art, not the

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rough-and-ready style of modem th10kers or scholars, who frequently confound observation wIth mference and are very poor 10 consclOUS nuances of lOgical preclSlOn Because we no longer have feelmg or bme for thIS art, and because we are more or less mnocent of the finer cultlvatlOn of thmklng as anCIent dIalectic understood It, our modem mterpreters of Anstotle do not dISplay an exceSSIve amount of It m theIr commentanes In thIS respect we could learn a good deal from the anCIent exposItors, who-at any rate those who do not belong to the dechnefollow every step of the method wIth the consclOUS mterest of the artist m thmkmg The fact IS that the thmkmg of the fourth century IS m the same case as ItS speech, both are closed worlds to the ordmary person of to-day, only the pale ghmmer of a notion of them ever penetrates hIS conSClOusness \Vhatever attitude we take towards thIS consclOUS techmcal culbvation, we have In It a part of the essence of the fourth century. to whIch we always feel ourselves Intellectually very close because the names of Plato and Anstotle have a dIrect sIgmficance for us From that to real understanding, however, IS another long Journey The "Igmficance of thIS analytical habIt of mind In the actual treatment of problems can be followed step by step, for example m the Etlncs, where the frUitful but problematic equabons Into whIch conceptlOns were forced by the older speculatlOn (such as 'VIrtue = knowledge') gIve way for the first tune to a real analySIS of the growth of ethIcal motives and of the fonns of ethIcal actlOn and will ThI<; IS by no means sImply 'psychologlZlng' ethIcs, the startmg-pomt IS always an exact logIcal mqUIry Into the meamng of parbcular words and conceptions, together WIth a sharp dehneatlOn of theIr apphcabIhty A<; an example we may take the analy"es In N~comachean Eth~cs VI of phIlosophIC WIsdom, phTones~s, Nus, SCIentific knowledge, art, understanding. good dehberation, and cleverness The psychologIcal debcacy Wlth WhICh he here takes apart the knotted mass of conceptions contaIned In Plato's phTones~s IS a very great advance along the path from the blank Idea of the Good to an ethICS of will and mtention. and It would never have been pOSSIble but for hI!> conceptual analySIS, whIch prOVIded hIm WIth a theory of meamng, based on language, from WhICh

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hIS sympathetic psycholOgical comprehenSIOn could take ItS start The example also shows clearly that when so exammed Plato's 'conceptIons' at once dIssolve mto theIr component parts and are then Irrevocably lost How much phrones~s mcluded accordmg to hIm-the Idea as object and the contemplatIon of the Idea as the process of knowledge, theoretIc recourse to the knowledge of the Good and the practIcal fulfilment of sentIment and actIon by means of thIS vISIOn, m short, the whole 'philosophIC hfe' Anstotle reduces It to the meanmg correspondmg to ordmary speech, It becomes 'ethIcal mSIght' and IS then only one element among many 10 the analysIs of the moral ethos In the same way Anstotle's thmkmg dIfferentIates between Plato's theory of bemg and hIS theory of knowledge The Idea, the palpable mtelhgible umty of the mamfold, whIch was at once ethIcal Ideal, aesthetIc form, logIcal conceptIon, and essentIal bemg, 10 an as yet undIVIded umty, breaks up mto 'umversal', 'substance', 'shape', 'what-It-was-to-be-so-and-so', 'defimtIon', and 'end', none of whIch conceptIOns comes anywhere near It m comprehensIveness Anstotle's 'fonn' (eTAos) IS the Idea (lAta) mtellectuahzed, and IS related thereto Just as hIS phroneSH IS to Plato's Everythmg that Plato's spmt touched has a certam plastIc roundness, than whIch nothmg more strenuously reSIsts the analytIcal urge of Anstotle's thought, whIch IS to Plato's as the dnatomlcal dIagram IS to the plastIc human form Perhaps thIs shocks the aesthetIc and the rehglOus man Anyhow It IS charactenstIc of Anstotle The executIon of thIS pnnciple wa<; the bIrth of SCIence 10 the modern sense We must not forget, of cour<;e, that the phenomenon not merely possesses thl!> esotenc sIgmficance but IS al<;o a symptom of the whole 10tellectual development Wlthm the hIstory of Greek thought Anstotle stands deCIdedly at a pomt of tranSItIon After the tremendou,", achIevement of Plato's phIlosophy, 10 whIch the antIque power of myth-makIng was Imbued WIth the fructIfymg logIcal mtellIgence to an unprecedented degree, the world-pICtunng creatIveness of the old days began apparently to fall, and to !>uccumh to the preponderance of the SCIentIfic and conceptual attItude The man who clInched thIS mevitable histoncal development was Anstotle, the founder

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of sCIentIfic phIlosophy It IS charactenstIc of phJ.1osophy, or at any rate of Greek phJ.1osophy, that thIS act dId not become the start of a new and fruItful philosophIcal development, but was sunply a hIgh pornt through WhICh It passed, and whichremamed attached to the name of Anstotle The mechamcal outward form of hIS art of A nalytzcs was mdeed taken over by HellemstIc phJ.1osophy, and pursued nght down to scholastIcIsm, but hIS analytIcal spmt, far from descendmg upon It, found ItS food m posItIve SCIence The foundation of sCIentIfic phJ.1osophy became the dIrect cause of the final separation of SCIence from phJ.1osophy, because m the long run the Greeks could not endure the mtruslOn of the sCIentIfic spmt upon therr effort~ to pIcture the umverse The pecuhar form through whIch the analytIcal thought of sCIentIfic phIlosophy mastered both the real world and ItS mtellectual hentage was the method of dlvislOn, mference, and dIalectic HypothesIS played only a subordmate part, and was conSIstently used only m conneXlOn WIth dlvislOn HellemstIc SCIence dId not possess the practical prereqUisItes for makmg frUitful use of thIS method, especially experunent All dIVISIOn orders as well as dlstmgUIshes , It delimIts the range and content of conceptIons and the apphcabulty of methods, and thereby leads mdrrectly to the general conceptual arrangement of thmgs that we call system Anstotle has always been reckoned the systematIzer par excellence, because under the mfluence of hIS thought philosophy was dIVIded mto a senes of mdependent dISCIplines combmed mto a umty by therr common mtellectual purpose The first attempts, however, at makmg phIlosophy systematic m thIS way occur m the Academy m Plato's later VIew, when In the Phzlebus he dIstingUishes phYSICS as 'second phIlosophy' from the study of the Ideas, WhICh Anstotle afterwards called 'first philosophy' That ethICS, too, had already asserted ItS mdependence wlthm the Academy IS shown by Xenocrates' celebrated tnchotomy, lOgIC, phySICS, ethICS, WhICh estabhshed an epoch In HellemstIc philosophy Those very StOIC and EpIcurean systems, however, clearly show that Anstotle's and Plato's 'systems' lacked the mam feature of the type-they were not closed It IS no aCCIdent that they were unfamilIar WIth the techmcal term aVO'Tfl1.10, WhICh

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aptly descnbes the constructive character of the Hellemstic pIctures of the world, self-sufficIent, emphasIzIng totahty, and far removed from hVIng research The soul of Anstotle's thought IS not puttmg together (OVVlaTCIval) but dlvldmg C.6latpeiv), and that not as a pnnclple of constructlOn but as an mstrument of lIvIng research Hence his 'system' remams provlSlonal and open In every direction No passage can be cIted In which he even lays down the hmlts of the maIn dlsclphnes unambiguously and defimtIvely, and those who marvel at the systematIc articulation of hIS phtlosophy cannot even say mto what parts It divides The celebrated dlvlSlon mto theoretIcal and practIcal and productIve, wIth the dlvlslOn of the first Into theology and mathematics and phySICS, IS nowhere realIzed and does not embody hIS actual system, It IS a merely conceptual classlficatlOn At the level of development at whIch he wrote those words It slgmfied merely a geometncallocus for the leadmg part played by metaphysIcs In philosophy Moreover, the particular diSciplInes as such alwaY5> opposed the greatest dIfficulties to the attempt at a completed systematIzatlOn, as IS only too IntellIgIble no\\' that we kno\\' how Anstotle's wntIngs attaIned their form AnsIng out of Indefatigable work on speclahzed problems, they always present a disparate picture If we examIne their systematic structure m detail In thIS respect the Hlstory of Ammals IS the same as the M etaphys1,cs or the PohtlCS OutlIne., of a systematic arrangement, often Introduced only dunng the subsequent labour of weldIng the parts together, are carned only half through or remaIn entirely unfulfilled To produce an external archltectomc was not the ongInal Idea of thIS bUIlder and therefore none can be 'reconstructed', any more than the treatIses With their overlappIng layers can be made Into a smooth lIterary whole If we dismISS thl5> sen5>e of system, namely an edIfice of dogma, there remaIn., only that analytical power of separatIng and orderIng which IS systematIc In a very different sense System wIll now mean not the outwardly vlSlble fa<;ade, the constructlOn of a totahty of knowledge, lIfeless and dogmatic, out of the multIplICIty of particular dlscovenes and dISCIplInes, I but the Inner I Thl~ Hellenistic notion of thl.' ~ystematlc IS stnkmgly developed by Sextus EmpiriC'" (Adverm, LoglCo, r Ig8, 3 ff ) on the baSIS of hls-mamly StOlc-

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stratrlicatIon of fundamental conceptIons, whIch ArlStotle was the first to bnng to hght When he fhngs the net of the categones over reahty, then selects from them the mdependent 'thls-somethmg-or-other' (T6:?e TI), declares It the 'substance' of philosophIc thought, and so descends the pltshaft of thIS conceptIon, m order to lay bare m It one after the other the levels of matter, form, essence, umversal, potency, and act, that IS certamly systematIc thmkmg By thlS analySIS the mere 'thIS'iomethmg-or-other' IS dIfferentIated mto the form WhICh determmes matter, and m whIch umversal conceptual thmkmg grasps the essence of the real, the latter bemg related to matter as act to potency The same fundamental conceptlOns persIst hke subterranean strata through several disciphnes Thus the conceptIon of form penetrates psychology and lOgIC and all the '>peClal SCIences, while It also belongs to phYSICS and metaphySICS, that IS, to theoretIc phIlosophy The doctnne of Nus runs through metaphySICS, ethIcs, psychology, and analytIcs These common mtellectual themes hold the dlsclphnes Inwardly together The umty does not anse, however, from any mtentIonal aSSImIlatIon of the parts to each other, It is the ongInal kernel out of WhICh the multIphClty has grown Plato's Idea WJ.S ethIcs, ontology, and theory of knowledge, m one The method of divislOn dISsolved It mto several dIsciphnes, but m accordance wIth Plato's stnvmg for umty Anstotle bmlt up beneath them a conceptIon correspondmg to the Idea, a conceptIon common both to reahty and to knowledge, which umted the multIphClty at ItS root Nevertheless each speCial sphere retams ItS tentative and mqmnng character, never achlevmg satIsfactIOn m the external form of completeness and ummpeachable construction, always Improvmg itself, overthrowmg what it had prevIOusly set up, and lookmg for new paths If there IS any totahty for WhICh Anstotle stnves it IS a totahty not of fimshed knowledge but of problems ThiS may be Illustrated by our conclUSions about hiS ethICS Accordmg to Plato's statement of the problem happmess conSisted eIther In VIrtue or m pleasure or m phrvnesH The Ph~lebus shows how the problem of pleasure, Truth IS here conceIved as a 'fixed' scientific system (0)'; QV hncrn'u.l" Ka&'O'T'lKVla C7VO'T'llJaT'''''') and the latter IS charactenzed as a con genes of many

sources

thmgs (66polalJa IK

",-"ov,",.)

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for example, made itself mdependent m hiS philosophical mqmfles and formed a realm of its own, touchmg the questions of phrones~s and virtue and happmess only tangentially The same thmg happened to the realms of phrones~s, vIrtue, fnendship, and happmess They all appeared frequently m the Academy, and always as relatively mdependent subjects of mqmry, as is shown by the titles of the works of the members Plato'!> dialogues give a faithful picture of the sets of problems thus rendered mdependent Anstotle collects together all the problems beanng on ethiCS (Tel ti6lKa), and, Without curtailmg the free play of the particular sets, gradually subjects them all to a tighter methodical yoke withm the framework of thiS ongmally loose umty The umficatIon never prospered suffiCiently, however, to allow a 'systematIc' JustificatiOn of the appearance of the problems On Frtendsh~p m the eIghth and mnth books of the N~comacheanEth~cs, for example, or to make the double discussiOn of the problem of Pleasure In Books VII and X explIcable through considerations other than editonal Where we can !>ee somewhat deeper Into the ongm of the wntmgs, as m the Metaphys~cs and the Phys~cs, we observe towards the end of the proces'> an mcreasIng effort to reach such a umfied structure, although it i'> never completely successful Only the history of hIS development can clearly reveal the roots and the meamng of what we may call Anstotle's .system' The HellenIStIC systems are connected With hIS late work, but they take their departure from the external ImpresslOn and make pnmary that which was secondary to hIm They dogmatIcally construct a fixed picture of the world out of . valId proposItions', and m thiS safe shell they seek refuge from the storms of lIfe II SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICS

All the lmes of Anstotle's philosophy run together m hiS metaphySiCS, while It on the other hand stretches out mto all other disciplmes It expresses hiS ultunate philosophical purposes, and every study of the details of hiS doctnne that does not start from thiS central organ must miSS the mam pomt To form a correct Judgement on itS nature and accomphshment is not easy. If only because of the hmdrance ansmg from the prejudice attached to the name The penod dunng which

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Anstotle's philosophy held dogmatic sway ended wIth the breakup of metaphysIcs as a branch of knowledge and thus demohshed hIS creatIOn Smce then we mvoluntarily regard hlffi as the leader of the dogmatists, the antipode whom Kant overcame, and thmk we do hIm a seZVlce by prefernng the non -metaphysIcal parts of hIS philosophy and putting hIm 10 a more pOSItiVISt hght Yet he was never a POSItiVISt even 10 the days when research preponderated The hvmg sIgnIficance of hIS metaphysIcs cannot be appreciated from the pomt of VIew of modern cntlcal philosophy, but only 10 relation to the problems of hIS own time When we look at It 10 the latter way we find that It IS really founded on a cntlcal purpose HIS aIm was to purge the philosophIcal conSCIOusness of ItS mythIcal and metaphoncal elements and to work out the stnctly sCIentific foundations of a metaphysIcal VIew of the world that he took over 10 ItS malO outhnes from Plato In other words, It was hIS mterest 10 a partIcular method that led to thIS mfluentIal construction HIS metaphysIcs anses out of that lOner tensIOn between 10tellectual conSCIence and longing for a rehgIOus VIew of the world whIch constitutes what IS new and problematic 10 hIS philosophIcal personahty In the earher cosmologIes of the Greek phYSICIStS the mythIcal and the ratIOnal elements mterpenetrate 10 an as yet undIvIded umty From the hlstoncal pomt of VIew It IS an abuse of language, not 10 the least excused by ItS frequency, to call these philosophIes metaphysIcal systems because they contam elements that are metaphysIcal 10 our sense In thIS sen<;e, naturally, Anstotle's Phys~cs would also have to be called metaphysIcal, and yet precIsely thIS example makes the hlstoncal absurdIty of thIS anachromstIc descnptlOn as clear as daylIght Its apphcatIon to the Presocratlcs would be sensIble only If It were meant to express that 10 foundmg metaphysIcs as an lOdependent SCIence Anstotle's alffi had been Just precIsely to make these dogmatic and mythIcal elements 10 the cosmologIes of hIS predecessors the conSCIOUS centre of philosophIcal thought, whereas preVIously they had msmuated themselves unperceIved There IS somewhat more JustificatIOn for usmg the expressIOn of Plato's world of Ideas Here It mdlcates the entry IOta philosophIcal conSCIOusness of the mVISIble and mtellIgible, and espeCIally the objective SIde of the

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Ideas as bemg a hIgher sort of reahty, not to be apprehended by expenence WIth thIS IS connected In the later phase of Plato's development the rehglOus problem of teleologIcal theology, whIch became the startIng-poInt of Anstotle's metaphysIcs Even thIS use of the modern conception IS, however, stnctly speakIng unhlstoncal-although we contInually fall back Into It agaInst our will-and hmders the true understandIng of Anstotle's real achIevement MetaphySICS arose In hIS mmd, and It arose out of the conflIct of the rehglOus and cosmologIcal convIctIons that he owed to Plato WIth hIS own sCIentIfic and analytIcal mode of thInkIng ThIS Inner dlsumon was unknown to Plato It was a consequence of the collapse of the procedure on whIch Plato had based the knowledge of hIS new supersensIble reahty, and In whIch for one Instant exact sCience and the most ecstatIc enJoyment of the Inexpenenceable had seemed to COInCIde WIthout remamder When thI,> concrete umty of myth and lOgIC fell to pIeces Anstotle carned away as a depos~tum fide~ the unshakable confidence that In the Platomc creed of hIS youth the mmost kernel must somehow or other be true The M etaphys~cs IS hIS grand attempt to make thIS Somethmg that transcends the hmits of human expenence accessIble to the cntIcal understandmg Because of thIS profound and prevIOusly unrecogmzed commumty of problems With the philosophers of rehglOn m medIeval Chnstendom, Jewry, and Islam, and not through d. mere acudent of traditIon, he became the Intellectual leader of the centunes followmg Augustme, whose Intenor world was enlarged far beyond the hmIts of the Greek soul by their tensIOn between faIth and knowledge The hIstory of hiS development shows that behmd hIS metaphYSICS, too, there hes the credo ut mtell~gam The study of hIS development also allows us to see more clearly the new conceptIOn of method on WhICh thIS philosophy reposed Up to now the reIgmng view has been that the word 'metd.phYSICS' owes ItS ongin merely to the order aCCIdentally given to hIS wntmgs In some complete edItIon of the HellemstIc ageAndromcus IS usually suggested-and that It does not express the Anstotehan VIew of the real SItuatIOn In truth, however, thIS word, whIch was surely COIned by some PenpatetIc earher than Andromcus, gIves a perfectly Just pIcture of the fundamental aIm of 'first philosophy' In Its ongmdl sense Whereas

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Plato had fixed hIS gaze from the very first moment on the hIghest peak of the world of Ideas, and believed that allcertamty was rooted dIrectly m knowledge of the mVIsible and mtelligible, Anstotle's metaphysIcs IS construed on the basIs of phySICS, thus takmg the OppOSIte dlfectlOn The hIghest monad, after havmg been to Plato the most exact norm and the most certam object of the mmd, came to be for Anstotle the last and most dIfficult of all problems We U'iually overlook the fact that hIS commonest descnptIon of the new dIscIpline IS . the SCIence that we are seekmg' In contrast to all other SCIences It starts not from a gIven subject-matter but from the questIOn whether Its sub]ectmatter eXIsts Thus It has to begm by demon!>tratmg ItS own pOSSIbIlity as a SCIence, and thIS' mtroductory' questIon really exhausts ItS whole nature From the very begmnmg Anstotle IS certam that the SCIence that we are seekmg 15 pOSSIble only If there are eIther Ideas or some' separated' mtdhgible reality correspondmg to them In spIte of hIS cntIcal attItude, therefore, he escapes no more than Plato dId from the notIon that all real knowmg presuppoe;es an object lymg outSide con!>ClOusness (e~w ov Kol xwplO"T6v) WhICh It somehow touches, represents, or mIrrors As we have saId, thiS reahsm Ie; nothmg speCIfically AnstotelIan, but umversal among the Greeks AnCIent thmkmg never got beyond the confused notIOn of the relatIon between knowledge and Its object mdicated by these plctonal expreSSIOns Withm these histoncal lImIts, however, An... totle·~ M etaphystcs represents a state of the problems whose relatlOn to Plato's ontoiogic corresponds pretty c>..actly to that of Kant to the dogmatIc ratIonalIsm of the eighteenth century The questIon, Is the SCIence that we are seekmg possIble;l has for hIm the objectIve meanmg, Is there thIS supposed supersensIblc reality;l whIle for Kant It has the methodologIcal meamng, Are there a prwn synthetIc Judgements;l Without winch the tradItIonal metaphySICS was mconcelvable The fact that ancient cnticism-Stt vema verba-bears the reahshc, whIle modern bears the IdealIstIc, signature, must not prevent us from detectmg the mner simIlanty of the histoncal 'iltuatlOns Both thmkers represent extreme pomts m the chams of development to whIch they belong, and have therefore had no postenty, except for a reVival followmg on longmisunderstandmg

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and endmg m fonnahsm The really hvmg evolutIOn passes over or goes behmd the metaphysIcal aspect of Kant or ArIStotle, dISregardmg, WIth a onesldedness that IS sometImes sensatIonalIst and at other tImes ratIonahst or mystIcal, the sCIentIfic preCISIOn and fineness that both thmkers gave to the problems Hence Anstotle IS the only Greek thmker WIth whom Kant could talk on an equal footmg, and whom he could try to overcome For the rest, whIle Kant's pOSItIon IS based exclusIvely on hIS transcendental CrItIcIsm of the apprehendmg conSCIOusness, the foundatIOn of ArIstotle's cntIcal realIsm IS hIS physIcal system, together \Hth a crItIcal analysIs, startmg from the objects of experIence, of the conceptIOn of bemg MetaphysIcs IS based on phYSICS accordmg to Anstotle m the first place because It IS nothmg but the conceptually necessary completIOn of the expenmentally revealed system of movmg nature The pnme task of phYSICS IS to explam mohon, and one of Anstotle's mam objectIons to the theory of Ideas IS that It does not do so In makmg thIS objectIOn he IS settmg up a defimte type of natural SCIence as a classIcal model, namely the method of constructmg hypotheses mvented by Eudoxus, WhICh explams a complIcated 'iet of facts by refernng It to the most slIDple pnnCIples-m thIS mstance to the mathematIcal constructIon of all planetary motIOns from SImple CIrcles 'To save the phenomena' IS the methodologIcal Ideal of metaphyslc~ It has to elICIt the ultImate grounds of experIence from the facts themselves and from theIr mner law To thIS end It must, mdeed, overstep the bounds of Immediate expenence at one pomt, but It must not hope for more than to brmg to hght the presupposItIons that he m the facts themselves when nghtly mterpreted The reference of ammal motIon to the eternal cosmIc motIon and of the latter to the motIon of the outermost CIrcle was for Anstotle a fact that the natural SCIence of Eudoxus had placed beyond all doubt It represented a degree of mathematIcally accurate experIentIal knowledge never before attamed In thIS sphere On the presuppOSItIons of Anstotehan phYSICS thIS system of motIons had to find ItS copmg-stone m some ultImate cause The mference to a prIme mover was thus suggested by nature Itself Anstotle anchors thIS branch of knowledge still more finnly

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m physIcs by means of hIs analysIs of the conception of substance He thereby gives to the Idea of an ultimate cause of all motIon a more defimte shape as the hIghest and final form m the realm of natural forms The startmg-pomt of hIs theory of bemg IS the world of perceptIble appearances, the mdividual thmg of the naively reahstlc conscIOusness Was there any way of apprehendmg thIs mdividual bemg ~ The earher phYSICS had m fact possessed no such means Its theory of the elements and of motIon dId mdeed offer much mformatIon about the components of ' all thmgs' and the forces active WIthm them, but It obtamed thIS mformatton by pure speculatIon The techmcal analysIs of an mdividual thing Into ItS matenal elements, as modem natural SCIence understands It, was Just as ImpOSSIble for Democntus with hIS hIghly developed atomIC theory as It had been for earher and stIll more pnmitIve phySICists In the last and hIghest stage of ItS development Plato's philosophy embraced as the object of SCIentIfic knowledge (trrICTTi]I.I1l) the whole hIerarchy of Ideas as developed through the dialectical art of dIVIsIOn, from the most comprehenSive genus down to the lowest and not further dIVIsIble speCIes (cnOI.lOV el1.os), but all that lay on the hIther SIde of the Ideal world, where It bordered on that of experIence, was Indetermmate (c5:1mpov), the object of mere opmIon, and not truly real Plato's mdlvlslble IS not yet Anstotle's mdIvldual, an Immanent form hnked wIth matter (evvAoveT1.oS) Earnestly though Plato wrestled wIth the questIOn of opimon m hIS last penod, he could not pass from the Idea to a grasp of the mdividual bemg of expenence PhySICS to hIm was merely a heap of 'ltkely myths' ThIS IS where Anstotle's cntIque begms HIS aun IS all along to make the Idea capable of producing knowledge of appearances ThIS was, to hIm, synonymous wIth the demand that the things of sense shall be accessIble to concepts, for as a PlatOnIst he held that only through the UnIversal are knowledge and SCIence pOSSIble He stands In the mIddle of the change undergone by the theory of Ideas In Plato's later years, whIch brought WIth It the first thorough elucidatlOn of the logIcal Side of the Idea, as the unIversal and the conceptIon, and of ItS Importance for knowledge The same process rendered the ontological Side of the Idea problematIc Anstotle conSIdered It aXIOmatic that nothmg unIversal possesses Independent eXIStence From lus pomt of Rh

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VIew Plcito's later theory of Ideas appeared as a hypostatIzatIon of the umversal, to whIch he opposed hIS doctrme of the determ1OatIon of matter by form ThIS doctrme really abolIShes the •thmgs ' of naIve realIsm by mak10g them conceptual The object of sense-expenence can come to the knowledge of the thmkmg subJect only so far as It becomes a conceptual form, on the other hand It ~s only so far as It IS form The complete determ1OatIon of realIty by the forms of the understandmg and by the categonal multIplIcIty of theIr conceptual stratIficatIon IS rooted not m transcendental laws of the know1Og conSCIOusness but 10 the structure of realIty Itself Herem IS concealed a senous problem, WhICh We must not overlook, but Anstotle's whole purpo.,e IS to grasp the mdividual through the Idea, a procedure, however, WhICh was conceIvable to hIm only by suppos1Og that through the Idea one grasped that m the th10g whIch It really was (TO Tl ~v Elval) Matter IS the remnant, the non-exlstent, 10 Itself unknowable and allen to reason, that remams after thIS process of clanfymg the thmg mto a form and a conceptIOn ThIS noneXIstent neIther lS nor IS not, It IS . not yet', that IS to say lt attams to realIty only 10 so far as It becomes the vehIcle of some conceptual determinatIOn Hence no matter IS Just matter, as the phYSICIStS supposed. It IS matter for thIS defimte form, but apart from thls form and conSIdered In ltself It IS already somehow mformed Nothmg absolutely formless and mdetermInate 'IS' at all The conceptlOn of ultImate matter, absolutely unformed and undetermmed, whIle a lImlt10g conceptIOn of our thinking, does not charactenze any substantIal realIty Everything lS form, but form Itself becomes the matter of a hIgher form Thus Anstotle's VIew of be109 dnves us on towards an ultImate Form that determines everyth10g else and IS not Itself determined by anyth10g HIS phYSICS of Immanent forms attams Its goal only 10 the transcendent Form of hIS metaphySICS In thIS way form comes to explam mohon as well, of WhICh neIther Democntus nor Plato had been able to gIve a suentIfic account from theIr pomts of VIew The alm of ArIStotle's theory of mohon IS to Invent a 10glC of It He tnes to make lt acceSSIble to conceptual thought, Just as he does partIcular matenal thmgs, by discovenng 10 lt some form or determmateness through WhICh lt can be explamed He therefore confines lt withm a fixed frame-

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work, for where alliS mahan and flux, and nothmg IS fixed and endunng, sCience loses Its nghts Accordmg to his physIcs thlS endurmg element IS to be found m quality and m form as the end of motion, not m quantity Itself In the first place, he lacked the techmcal means for makmg exact quanhtatIve measurements or determmmg the quanhtatlve conditions of quallbes, so that research could not advance 10 thiS direction Above all, however, he saw that 10 the cosmos mobon took place 10 fixed forms and wlthm fixed hmlts The apparent capnce and lawlessness of the motions of lIfe on the earth, which IS very small m companson With the world as a whole, could not m any way prejudice the magmficent picture of the upper and lffiperlShable part of the umverse Here, agam, Eudoxus' theory of the spheres assumed fundamental Importance for Anstotle's view of the world In the concert and contmmty of the eternal revolution of the stars, as assumed In that hypotheSIS to account for the appearances VISIble 10 the sky, there was someth1Og purposeful and 1Ost1Oct With form that could not pOSSibly be denved from the mechamcal presupposItIons of the contemporary theory of gravity For the most part the phySICists had had recourse to the Idea of a cosmogomc vortex which set the world 10 mobon, but as men 10creased their knowledge of the orderlmess and mvanablhty of the phenomena the notion of a mechamcal cosmogony retreated more and more mto the background, 10 fact It seemed to be nonsense Anstotle went even farther than Plato 10 thiS matter The latter had at any rate attempted to conceive what the creation of the world must have been on the assumptlOn of Eudoxus' astronomy, when he made the beg10mng not chaos but the reason that orders th10gs Anstotle, however, breaks completely With thiS Anaxagorean ordenng or AlaK6crll1lcrlS by M10d when he declares the heavenly bodies and the heaven Itself to be everlastmg and uncreated and denves their motIon from mternal formal or final causes WIth reference to motIOn the form IS the entelechy (tV-TEAExEla), masmuch as 10 ItS form each th10g possesses the end of mohon realIZed withm Itself For the heavenly bodIes thiS IS theIr eternal CIrcular revolutIOn, but Anstotle carnes over the pnnclple to earthly th10gs as well, thus work1Og out Plato's teleology In every part of hiS world of forms The mahan of

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earthly thmgs appears to be, m Platomc language, chsorderly or 6:'TCXKTOS, but on closer mspectIon we dIscover that the fundamental pnnclple of change m the orgamc world IS the same as It IS 10 the heavens, namely locomotIOn, to WhICh all kmds of mohon are to be referred LocomotIon here serves the specIal laws of orgamc commg-to-be and passmg-away. WhICh 10 theIr turn depend on the form The entelechy of bemgs that come to be and pass away IS the heIght of thIs organIc development In them form appears as an orderhness and determmateness bUIldIng from wIthIn and unfold1Og Itself from the matter as from a seed We have always supposed that thIS latter meanIng of 'entelechy' IS the angInal, and that the conceptIOn was first developed In the case of organIC lIfe and from thence transferred to other spheres by a generahzatIon-that It means, therefore, someth1Og vltahstIc or biOlogIcal hke the modern' hfe-force . ThIS assumes that Anstotle possessed from the beg10nIng the complete mastery of zoology and bIOlogy that he dIsplays 10 the Hfstory of A mmals, and that he more or less saw thIS prmClple m the obJect dunng hIS researches Recently we have come to beheve that the conception of bIOlogIcal development was hIS real achIevement, whIch IS a thoroughly VICIOUS modermzatIon The meamng of . entelechy' IS not biOlogIcal, It IS logIcal and ontologIcal In every kmd of motion Anstotle's gaze IS fastened on the end What mterests hIm IS the fact, not that somethmg fS comfng to be, but that somethmg IS commg to be, that somethmg fixed and normatIve IS makmg Its way mto eXIstence-the form CreatIve Power, that work~ eternal schemes, Clasp you m bonds of love, relaxmg never, And what In wavenng appantlon gleams FIX ID Its place With thoughts that stand forever'

The notions of potency and act, whIch also are usually denved from the process of orgamc lIfe, are mdeed occasIOnally Illustrated by Anstotle wIth the example of the seed and the developed orgamsm, but they cannot really come from thIS sphere They must be taken from human power or 2.wal.llS, WhICh now remaIns latent and now becomes actIve (EPYOV), attamIng ItS end (entelechy) only m thIS activIty (~v~Pyela) It IS still more unhlstoncal to look on the star-souls as a consequence of extendmg to the whole of realIty the supposedly

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vltahstic or even anuTIlshc forma substant~ahs, as IS done by those mterpreter'> who then consistently go on to suppose that Aristotle ascribed a ,>oul to the morgamc also and thus make hIm a panpsychlst The higher we ascend m the cosmos, the more purely the mohon expresses the form that IS ItS end As a whole the mahan of the world IS the effect and expressIOn of a form that IS absolute and free of all matter ThiS form completes the reaction from Pre-PlatOnIC phYSICS, m WhICh the world arose out of chaotIc matter and was explamed by mechamcal causes Reahty IS m ItS determInateness and m ItS essence necessarily what It IS It cannot be explamed from mere pOSSibilIty and chance, for then It mIght as well not be or be otherWIse There must be form at the head of mohon, and the highest form must be pure act, through and through determInatIon and thought ThIS thought cannot thmk anythmg more perfect than Itself, for as the end of the motion of the whole world It IS necessarily the most perfect thIng eXIstIng, SInce everythIng alms towards It Nevertheless, the thought that thmks Itself IS not a merely formal selfconSCIOusness deVOId of content, an absolute ego m Flchte's ~ense In Aristotle's teleology substance and end are one, and the hIghest end IS the most determmate realIty there IS ThIS substantIal thought possesses at one and the same tIme the highest IdealIty as conceived by Plato and the nch determmateness of the mdlvldual, and hence Ide and everlastmg blessedness God IS one With the world not by penetratIng It, nor by mamtamIng the totahty of ItS forms a~ an mtellIgible world wlthm himself, but because the world' hangs' (fjpTflTat) on him, he ~s ItS UnIty, although not m It As each thmg stnves to realIze ItS own form, It realIzes for Its part that mfinIte perfectIon which as a whole IS God Anstotle',> attempt to mdke the exact thmkmg that Plato had dIscovered, the conceptIOn and the form, bear fruIt m knowledge of the senSible world, could consl~t only of a conceptual apprehenSIOn of nature and ItS essence, It could not at first assist our mSlght mto the material causes It thus created a phIlosophy of nature, restmg on a baSIS that was' metaphysIcal' m our modern "ense Aristotle's own Intention was the OppOSIte He belIeved that hiS teleological explanatIon of nature had done away WIth

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the earher physIcs, which denved all that occurs from matenal and mechamcal causes While recogmzmg these lower causes he subordmated them to the formal and final causes Matter and force are not' nature' They are nature's handymen, she herself IS the builder proceedmg accordmg to an Inner plan and Idea Natural necessity as the Atomists understood It IS of course the mdlspensable condition of nature's activity as of man's techmques, but to the Interpreter of nature It remainS, as Plato had already laid down, a merely secondary cause (avvalTlov) The farther Anstotle went In posItive research m the course of hIS hie, the deeper he had to penetrate In the mvestIgatlOn of the special matenal constitution of mdl'\rldual thmgs So long, on the other hand, as hiS phySICS remamed m the sphere of conceptual diSCUSSIOn, the relatIon between the secondary and the final cause gave hIm httle dIfficulty The spunous fourth book of the Meteorology, whIch contains the first ancient attempt at chemistry, illustrates how thiS relatIOn becomes problematic to a follower of Anstotle as soon as he turns to the questIOn of the constItution of matter Democntus' atomic theory and hiS conceptIOn of the VOId Instantly reappear as workmg hypotheses, Without at first endangenng the fundamentally teleological character of phySICS The author of the fourth book of the Meteorology belongs to thiS transItional stage I Strato goes farther and drops teleology and metaphySICS along With It, rebuildmg Anstotle's phySICS on a Democntean base He transfers the' craftsmanshIp' of nature to matter and Its quahties It has been suggested that he IS the author of thiS book, which would then be an early work 10 which the doctnne of hIS master struggled With atomIst conceptIOns, but we do not need the famous name In order to understand the directIon of the development revealed 10 thIS mterestmg work Teleological phySICS penetrated from Plato's later days mto Anstotle's first penod and became the groundwork of the latter's philosophy It found frUItful soil for ItS pnnclple 10 the mvestIgatIOn of the ammal and vegetable kmgdoms When It came to the examination of morgamc matter, on the other hand, the pnnclple of form failed In the long run, and the atomIst pomt of view reappeared of ItS own accord I

For what follows see J Hoimmer-Jensen, Hrl'me<. vol I, pp 1f3 If

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AriStotle's Interest In method rules In his further development also, as when he afterwards Inserts between the Phystcs and the Metaphystcs a speCIal connecting inqUIry Into the contmmty and etermty of the world's motion and mto Circular motion, which takes us nght to the threshold of metaphysIcs and shows that physIcs without metaphY~lcs IS a trunk without a head The fundamental Idea of the later metaphySICS IS also an Idea about method, namely to prefix to theology a doctnne of substance m general and thus expand metaphySICS mto a study of the vanous meamngs of bemg The theory of supersens1ble being, whose subject-matter was distinct from that of phYSICS, now becomes a study of the nature, as bemg, of the very subject-matter that phySICS looks at from the pomt of view of motion Thus the two ongmal fundamental subjects of metaphyslc<;-the phySIcal subject of the first mover and the metaphySIcal <;ubJect of the supersenslble-retreat Into the background, and mstead of them there appears the new subject of the morphology of bemg One can detect m thIS the charactenstIcs of Anstotle's later umversal sCience of reahty, begmmng to have ItS effect on metaphySICS and recelvmg here an ontologIcal and aXIOmatic foundation The suppresslOn of speculation m favour of factual re<;earch also left ItS traces, as we have seen, on the later treatment of the question of the pnme mover The conceptually necessary complement of the body of phySIcal doctnne, the prmclple on "hleh everything depends, now becomes very hke a mere cosmological hypotheSIS m character, and the ImpossIblhty of confirmmg It hke other hypotheses through expenence IS ImmedIately felt to be an mcurable defect This mterest In the method tended to repress Anstotle's mterest m pIctunng hIS phuosophy It was not gIven to hIm to create stnkmg symbols of the content of hIS VIew of the world lIke Plato's myths and SImIle" He must have felt thIS hImself, once, m hi" first account of hIS own pllliosophy, the mamfesto On Phtlosophy, he tned to gIve plctonal form to hiS new attitude towards thmgs In a vanant of the slimle of the Cave m Plato's Republtc (above, p 163). The slmue of the ascent of the subterranean men to the VISIOn of the eternal ordel s and forms of the cosmos stnkes us as a fine and indIVIdual verSIOn of the Platomc ongmal, but dependent upon It to the last, and the

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relation between hIS attItude toward" the world and Plato's leaves the same ImpreSSIOn It IS as though he were absolutely presupposmg It and turmng at once to hIS own methodIcal argumentation and analysIs Only In Isolated passages do we suddenly become aware, almost wIth astomshment, of the hvmg pre!>ence of a felt whole behmd the subtle network of conceptIOn!>. It remams latent like the drIvmg rehglOus force that hes behmd the M etaphYSfCS wIthout ever commg forward and dIrectly confessmg Itself ThIS IS why both reveal themselves only m the mdlrect forms of conceptual thmkmg and of the method he uses to wrestle wIth them, and why the force of hIS phIlosophy as a religIOn and as a world-vIew ha<; come alive m hIstory only where men have not been merely seekmg aesthetic mtUItIOns but have themselves known somethmg of thIS heavy struggle Let us nevertheless attempt to make hIS world pIctOrIally vlSlble to ourselves ArIstotle mtroduced the logIcally dIscrete character of Plato's Ideal world mto the VISIble world as well Accordmg to Plato the happIest Image of the world of appearances IS the Herachtean flux of all thmgs, m whIch certam endUrIng Islands appear ArIstotle dId not look at nature so. for hIm It was a cosmos m WhICh all motIon revolved around the fixed centres of abIdmg forms Nevertheless, he does not, as one might expect, fOISt upon the hvmg realIty the ngId hIerarchy of a world of ab<;tract conceptIOns, Ius forms work as the constructIve law... of all becommg What we feel In them most of all, ho'Wever, I!> the separateness of accurately determmed logIcal umhe!> The Image m which he pIcture" hIS world IS TCx~IS or order, not av\..upwvla or harmony What he wants IS not a soundmg polyphomc concord, however natural thiS feeling may have been to a HeliemstIc Greek, but the orgamzed common labour of all forms for the reahzatIon of a superordmate Thought To express thIS VIew of the world he mvented, for once, a happy SImIle-the tactical motion of the warrIor!> m an army, through whIch IS executed the plan of the unseen general Compared WIth the 'breath penetratmg all thmgs' of the StOIC momsm It IS a claSSIC world of plastIc forms and contours The members of thIS realm lack contact and dynamIC reaction upon each other.. ThIS feature, foreIgn to the' harmomously umfied' world of Impenal

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philosophy, 11> what Plotmus had m mmd when he desIderated some contact between the prune mover and the forms of the movers of the spheres The same IS true of the whole realm of forms 10 Anstotle's cosmos, though theIr law IS embodIed most purely and beautifully 10 that of the spheres 'The thmgs that change ImItate those that are Impenshable ' The commg-to-be and passmg-away of earthly thmgs IS Just as much a stationary revolution as the motion of the stars In spIte of ItS umnterrupted change nature ha~ no hIstory accordmg to Anstotle, for orgamc becommg IS held fast by the constancy of Its forms 10 a rhythm that remams eternally the same SimIlarly the human world of state and SOCiety and mmd appears to hIm not as caught 10 the mcalculable mobIlIty of Irrecapturable hlstoncal destmy, whether we conSider per~onal lIfe or that of nations and cultures, but as founded fast 10 the unalterable permanence of forms that, whIle they change withm certam lImits, remam Identical 10 essence dnd purpo1>e Thlb feelmg about lIfe IS symbohzed by the Great Year, at the clo~e of which all the stars have returned to their ongmal posItion and begm their course anew In the same way the cultures of the earth wax and wane, accordmg to Anstotle, as determmed by great natural catastrophes, which m turn are causally connected With the regular changes of the heavens That which Anstotle at thiS lOstant newly discovers has been discerned a thousand times before, Will be lost agam, and one day discerned afresh Myths are the lost echoes telhng of the philosophy of lost ages, equal In value to our own, and borne day all our knowledge too will be only a hoary myth The philosopher, standmg upon the earth 10 the centre of the umverse, embraces Within the lImits of thought a cosmos Itself bounded by fixed hmlts and enclosed In the ethereal ball of the outer heaven The phIlosophiC Nus, when gazmg from the peak of human knowledge upon the eternal rhythm of the whole, diVines something of the pure un~ullIed happiness of the world-spmt perdunng unmoved In contemplative thought The old geometncal cosmos of the Greeks wa::. differentiated but not broken by Anstotle's picture of the world The new Ideas of the fourth century were mtroduced mto Its typIcal outlmes RealIty IS now seen from within, It IS no longer solId, but to a

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certam extent transparent Anstotle complete~ the reception of Platomsm mto the ordinary Greek pIcture of the world The perspective IS mdefimtely extended both m space and m tIme by the astronomIcal and hlstoncal mqmnes of the century In Its fimteness Anstotle's world IS IdentIcal WIth Plato's, but the contrast between the two realms, WhICh gave the last-named ItS speCial mood and spmtuallmpetus, IS gone, and now the VISIble cosmos Itself shmes WIth Platomc colours. The Greek pIcture of the world has attamed Its maXImum of umfied harmony and completeness Yet all thIS moves the spmt of the phIlosopher not from the aesthetIc and emotlOnal SIde, but merely so far as It can be conceptually estabhshed by stnct SCIence Although thIS smgularly beautiful pIcture collapsed long ago, SCIence IS stIll wrestlIng WIth the problems and methods that were developed by means of It In them, and not m the pIcture as such, lIes the real tvtpYEla or actIVIty of ItS gemus III THE ANALYSIS OF MAN

The foundatIon of ethICS as a SCIence was profoundly affected by the fact that Socrates had brought the questIOn of moral knowledge to the forefront and that Plato went farther m thIS dIrectIOn We are accustomed to conSider that personal conSCIence and mtentIOn IS the essentIal problem, and hence we tend to look on Socrates' alIen way of putting the questIon as an hlstoncal conditIon of hIS thought, concealIng what was m realIty a questIon not of conSCIOusness but of conSCIence However JustIfiable It may be to make the great phenomena m the hIstory of the Greek mind clearer to ourselves by translatmg them mto the correspondmg categones of our day. It mvolves the danger of mlssmg the real achIevement of Greece ThIS achievement lIes not In relIgIOUS prophecy nor merely m the thorough radIcalIsm WIth WhICh they applIed morahty to lIfe, but m theIr apprehenSIOn of the objectiVIty of ethIcal values and of the objectIve pOSItIon of the ethIcal element m the umverse as a whole Socrates was not mdeed an ethIcal theonst, he was merely seekmg the road towards VIrtue and away from hIS apona of Ignorance, but thiS very startmg-pomt contams the seed of the conclUSIOn towards whIch the development that he maugurated was to stnve, the foundation of 'ethIcs' The

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questiOn' What ~s the good or the Just? ' IS not that of a prophet but that of an inquirer PassiOnately though It affinns the good, what It puts first IS the dIscovery of the nature of what we call good, and Ignorance of thiS IS the real dIstress that It expresses That the greatest moral leader of Greece should be so much concerned with objectification and the apprehensIOn of the nght shows that the Greeks could attain their highest moral achIevement only In the creatIon of a philosophy of morals ThIS IS why the questIOn of subjectIve intentIon and' performance', of the educatIOn of the will, takes second place WIth Socrates and IS treated by hlffi In a way that-however much we may talk around It--cannot satIsfy us For him. as for Plato. thIS questIOn was not so much the sole gUIding purpose as Simply the presupposItIon of the question that they really did feel mtensely, namely what IS the essence of the good The road to knowledge was long for them, on the other hand. that knowledge would ensure action seemed almost self-evident The development from Socrates to Anstotle has been represented as a process of increasing ahenabon from the former In the course of which hiS practIcal moral teaching was gradually reduced to theoretIcal form, and thiS IS how It really appears If one looks on Socrates as mvestIgatmg the nature of conscience and spreading a gospel of moral freedom, m other words, If one ascnbes to him the modern Protestant and Kantlan attItude I From our POint of VIew, however, the actual course of events was the mevitable process of progreSSIvely obJecbfymg the morally nght. and was due to the essentIal nature of the Greek spInt, not to the aCCident of particular personahtIes Only thIS process could overcome the old tradItIonal moralIty, whIch was steadily dlSlntegratIng, together WIth the complete subjectivIsm that accompamed the dlSlntegratIon The stnvmg for objectIvIty was certamly born from the practical apona of a powerful and mIlItant moral personahty. but ItS own nature compelled It to develop by allymg Itself to philosophIcal thought. In WhICh It found the Instrument of obtaining ItS end-or more correctly. by calling Into eXIstence a new philosophIcal movement, WhICh created new Instruments for Itself The movement took a I Cf He1nnch Maler. Sokrales. sem Werk und seine geschlchtllclte Slellung, PP 516 ff and 577 ff

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dIfferent course wIth each SocratIc, accordmg to whether he approached Socrates externally wIth sophIstical problems already m posseSSIOn of hIS mInd, and used hun merely to ennch hIS matenal wIthout graspmg the core of hIS problem In ItS suprapersonal SIgnIficance, or, recognIZIng the new and pIOneermg element m hIm. as Plato dId, seIzed on thIS pomt and developed It wIth ongmatIve force Scholars commonly regard It as another merely hlstoncal aCCIdent that Plato made hIS great dIscovery of the moral Ought, to use modern terms, m the form of an Idea, that IS, a supersensIble essence haVIng a hIgher realIty, and we excuse thIS roundabout method by POIntIng to the artIstIc reqUIrements of the Greek spmt Yet here agam merely to claIm supenor knowledge and preCIpItately Impose our own . more advanced' pomt of VIew IS not enough The very feature that to us ~eems roundabout or wrong was the necessary hlstoncal presupposItion of the recogmtIon of the real nature of the thIng Itself The dIScovery of the obJective spmtual values, whether moral or aesthetIc or logIcal, and theIr abstractIon In punfied form from the Jumbled chaos of moral and aesthetIc and logIcal assumptions always occurnng m human souls, wa<; po<;sIble only because of the obJectIfymg, shapmg. formative vmon WIth whICh the Greeks approached all thmgs, even the mtellectual, and to whIch they owe theIr speCIes of phIlosophy and art Other peoples have expenenced great moral elevations, but for a phIlosophIC account of moralIty as a value m Its pure form the Greeks and Plato had to come mto the world The Idea, when It dawned on the Greek mmd, appeared to be by natural neceSSIty an objectIve reahty. mdependent of the conSCIOusness m whIch It IS reflected And SInce It had come as the answer to the SocratIc question' What IS so and so ~, It also possessed the attnbutes of the object of logIC, the conceptIon ThIS IS the only way m whIch It was pOSSIble, at that non-abstract level of thought, to recogmze two of the essentIal propertIes of the moral Ought, ItS mconte<;tablhty and ItS uncondItionalIty Plato must have thought, as he dIScovered the Idea, that he ",as for the first tIme attammg a real understandmg of the essence of Socrates' lIfework, It had been the erectIon of a hIgher mtellectual world of unshakable ends and alms (TtAOC;, opOC;) In the transcendental VISIOn of the

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Good m Itself, not to be denved from any sense-expenence, the Socratic search now attams fulfilment Plato IS fond of puttmg hIS philosophical recogmtiOn that the pure Good IS the only morally valId motive of human achon In the form of the popular Greek search for the highest good or best hfe To the numerous suggestiOns that had already been made, mcludmg more or less all the goods of the world, he opposed hIS own, •that a man becomes happy when he becomes good' Only the good man can use the world's goods nghtly, and hence It IS only for hIm that they are goods m the real sense of means to the Good He, however, IS mdependent of them, and carnes happIness wlthm hImself Thus Plato bamshes eudaemomsm and the ethIcs of goods, the foundations of every popular Greek view of hfe LIke a true Greek, however, he recalls them m the same lOstant, though 10 changed and elevated 'ihape The VlC;lOn of the Good In Itself IS the ft U1t of a hfehme of fervId totI It presupposes the soul's gradual famIllanzahon wIth the' Good Itself' , It IS revealed only to him who IS really seekmg wisdom, and then only at the end of a pamful mtellectual road passmg through all the methods of argument (lJe6021ol A6ywv) Unhke mechamcal knowledge It cannot be transferred from one person to another The best hfe IS therefore the' philosophIC' hfe, and the hIghest Good IS the mner happmess of hIm who truly apprehends the Good Thus Plato became not merely the theoretIcal dIscoverer of moralIty, but also the creator of a new Ideal of lIfe, although he left the common moralIty standmg as a lower level beSIde philoSOphIC VIrtue In the course of hIS later development the phtIosophlc lIfe became more and more relIgiOUS m character, as the thought of God took the place of the Idea of the Good as the measure of all measures Through all phases of hIS development, however, hIS ChIef concern remamed the problem of obJectIve values and norms LIfe' WIth reference to the end' mcluded 10 Itself the Impul"e to ~tnve for the end Plato was, 10 fact, overwhelmmgly Impressed by the newly dIscovered obJectIve world of pure values and by the new ~ureness that It Imparted to lIfe Anstotle's early dIalogues dre full of a tremendous ardour for Plato's phJ.1osophlc lIfe, but at the same hme even as early a book as the Protrephcus clearly ~hows the lnmts of the mfluence

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that could be exerted on CIVIC realIty by thIs exclusIve Ideal of intellectual anstocracy The attempt to Impose It on the whole hfe of the natIon could only lead to a complete renunciation of realtty, smce realIty showed Itself unable to adopt It The tendency to renounce the world, together WIth a pltchblack pesSlInISm about Its goods and a pItIless cntIcISm of Its unmtellectual SOCIety, IS stnkmgly obvlOus In Anstotle's early work Agamst thiS foil hIS metaphyslco-rehglous optImIsm stands out all the more clearly, shmmg over all the worthlessness and all the mIsery of thiS world, stnvmg WIth the pure mtellect beyond thiS realm of appearances towards the beckomng goal of Immortal hfe The lastmg ImpreSSIOn that Anstotle receIved from thIS Platomc VIew of thmgs cannot be doubted by anyone who has followed ItS mfluence through hIS later development, but we must also bear m mmd the background that IS hIdden from us by thIS typICal AcademiC vIew In thIS school began the movement that culmmated In ArIStotle's ethICS, and even hIS dIalogues betray somethmg of the penetratmg conceptual analysIs that brought It mto bemg Men sought to understand the hIgh Ideal of the philosophIC Ide by means of the nature of the human spmt Itself, and In so domg, although they mlght at first, OWIng to the lack of analytIcal psychology, seem to find confirmatIon of theIr behef In the pnmacy of the knowmg mmd over the other parts of the soul, they at any rate stumbled on the problem of the dIfferent' parts' of the soul, and on the task of domg JustIce to the uratIonal parts also, that IS to say, of mcludmg them m the process of asslDulatmg the spmt to God In the Ph~lebus as m the Protrept~cus other .hves' appear beSIdes the phllosophlcal, and an attempt IS made to relate them A questIOn hke that of the part played by pleasure In the pure philosophIC Ide leads to the InvestIgatIon of the motives of moral actIon, and the pedagoglcal Idea of Plato's old age, whIch was to tram up the young to the good by accustommg them early to feel pleasure m the good and dlsplea<;ure at the bad, IS already close to Anstotle's ethICS, accordmg to which an act IS good only when accompamed by JOy In the good The problem of character must also have been worked out m the Academy, smce Xenocrates dIVIded philosophy mto lOgIC, phySICS, and ethiCS or the study of character Plato's later dIalogues show SIgnS of a theory of the w1l1 and of moral

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responsIbilIty, whIch proves that Anstotle was not the first person to attam a philosophIcal mastery of thlS question so much dIscussed m Greek cnmmallaw When AnstotIe exammes and rejects defimhons of such words as chOIce, happmess, and pleasure, he probably takes them all from dIscussIOns In the Academy The mtellectuahzahon of Plato's early metaphors and the mauguratIOn of ethIcs as a separate study were already m full swing m that school Aristotle IS merely the Platomst who earned out these tendencIes wIth the greatest defimteness Anstotle was not a moral lawgIver m Plato's manner ThIs was neIther wlthm the compass of hIS nature nor allowed by the advance of the problems Though hIS ethIcs was at first saturated wIth the Idea of the dlvme norm, and regarded all hfe as the serVIce and knowledge of God, even m hIS earhest work the new element reveab another dIrectIon, namely the analYSIS of the form., of the moral hfe as they actually are He abandons Plato's theory of VIrtue for a theory of hvmg types, adequate to the nch vanety of the moral hfe m all conceIvable md.mfestatIons, mcludmg economICS, socIety, class-relatIOnshIpS, law, and busmess Between thIS reahstIc study of CIVIC hfe, and the lofty Ideas handed down from Plato's relIgIOUS phIlosophy, WhICh form the framework of the whole, there IS great tenSIOn Although Anstotle explaIns the types of the Just man, the brave, the proud, the hberal, and the magnIficent, by means of a smgle formal conceptIOn of VIrtue, the prmclple of the proper mean, and although he develop!> hIS types not by pure descnptIOn but by a dIalectIcal constructIon m whIch every feature IS logIcally connected WIth the others, the content IS taken from expenence and the types thembelves anse from factual relatlOnshlps as they are actually gIVen The Introductory dISCUSSIOn of the fundamental nature of VIrtue IS onentated WIth regard to the queshan of moral mtentIon and ItS cultIvatIon ThIS was a deCIded step forward, the essence of moral value IS now developed out of the !>ubJechve self, and the sphere of the WIllIS marked off as It!> pecuhar realm ThIS really gIves the VIrtue of character pre-emmence over that of the mtellect, and hence the larger part of the dISCUSSIon IS devoted to It, although Anstotle IS shll far from makmg a fundamental dIVISIon between the two The theory of ethIcal VIrtue now becomes to a certam extent an

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ethIcS ~Ithm ethIcS, and determmes the name of the whole From Anstotle alone we should no longer see why the theory of mtellectual VIrtue comes mto ethICS at all, If we dId not know that to Plato (and to Anstotle m hIS youth) It had been the very centre, the SCIence of the hIghest objective value Even m hIS later days Anstotle connected the hIghest end of human hfe WIth the dlvme end of the world, and hence made ethICS culmmate m theoretical metaphysIcs, but hiS mam emphaSIS then lay not on the apprehenSiOn of thiS eternal norm, but on the question how human mdlVlduals can reaI1ze thiS norm 10 wul and action As 10 ontology he made Plato's Idea bear frUIt 10 the apprehenSiOn of the world of appearances, so m ethICS he made the will of the moral mdlvIdual adopt the transcendental nann and thus objectify Itself The nann when thus lOternahzed of course loses Its character of umversal vahdlty, for there IS no Imperative that IS bmdmg on all men equally, except a purely fonnal generalIzation deVOId of content Anstotle's aim IS to umte the Idea of complete obedIence to the norm With the greatest mdlvldual vanety The moral personalIty IS 'a law to Itself' In thIS gUIse the Idea of personal moral autonomy, WhICh was foreign to Plato, enters Greek conscIOusness for the first time The two malO parts of Anstotle's ethICS, the ethIcal doctrIne of moralIty based on the good wlll and the metaphySIcal doctnne of the contemplation of God as our norm, eV10ce a tendency to nd themselves of each other more and more 10 the course of hiS development The actual' ethIC' or theory of character, whICh 10 the ongmal EthtcS was closely bound up WIth the theologIcal culmmatIon, afterwards becomes 10dcpendent and finds a pnnciple of ItS own 10 practIcal mardI 1Os1ght Anstotle finally abandoned altogether the attempt to carry Plato's pnmacy of theoretical reason IOta the sphere of everyday ethiCS He had, of course, watered down Plato's 'WIsdom' and 'Nus' IOta pure 'theoretical reason', and the necessity for a sharp dlst10etwn between CIVIC and metaphYSIcal ethIC'; IS a direct result of the lOtellectuahzatJOn of the~e conceptIons, whIch to Plato mednt both the knowledge of the good and the actual goodness of the soul Thus Anstotle preserved the fundamentally cntIcal character of hiS philosophy 10 ethICS too The result was a

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tremendous enlargement and refinement 10 psychological comprehenslOn of the moral self, and the compreSSlOn of' 1OtellectualIsm' and the metaphysIcal element mto a very small space As 10 metaphysIcs, however, so 10 ethIcs he remam" ultImately a Platomst, there 10 that he explams the world of expenence teleologIcally by reference to a hIghest mexpenenceable end, here m that he recogmzes, beyond ordmary CIVIC morahty and the realm of practIcal actlOn and WIll, a hfe passed m contemplat1Og the eternal, which m his estImate unconditIonally deserves the palm, and stands on a higher level even from the ethIcal pomt of VIew In the N~comaehean Etlnes, however, he makes the morahty of CIVIC hfe 1Odepf'ndent of Hus theology They are two separate worlds dlffermg m rank The appearance of the' theoretIc hfe' at thf' end of thf' work means now, not that all earthly change JIlust be 'made Immortal' a~ far a~ possible, but that above the world of practIcal morahty there IS a higher Thus Anstotle bUIlds the Platomc world of hiS youth mto the actual world, and gives It the highest posItIon therem, the place from which the hght of the eternal shmes upon tll1S world ThiS JuxtaposItIon of the two' hves' has always been felt to be 10 some way personal dnd dependent on the phIlosopher's own expenence It does not possess thf' radical consistency either of Plato, who finds only the philosophic hfe worth hvmg, or of Kant, who breaks once and for all With th~ primacy of theoretIcal reason and declares the moral Will to be the highest thmg 10 the world Both m ethiCS and 10 metaphysIcs Anstotle goes a hUll' way With Kant, but someth1Og m him makes him shnnk from the final conclUSIOn NeIther the self-suffiCIency of pure natural sCIence nor the selfconfidence of the mere wIll to fulfil one's mOlal obhgatlOns satisfied hiS sense of reahty and of Me Plato's transcendent world would not let him go, and he was conscIOus that m mtroducmg It he had dclded a new portIOn of reahty to the old Greek structure of the world Only so can we explam why hiS Nus takes on an almo~t mystical gleam m the theologICal parts of hiS metaphySICS and ethiCS ThiS summit of human contemplation comes directly out of Plato's mtellectual realm mto Anstotle's world of facts, and gives to Ins VIew of hfe Its pecuhar modern tensIOn and two-sldedness In pohtIc~, which we wIll here touch on only bnefly, the mner Cc

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stratIficatIon IS the same as In ethics and metaphysIcS. In fact, the hlstoncal development IS particularly clear In thIS field From the standpoInt of the history of the mInd the deciSive problem In Plato's politics lies In that stnct uncondItional subordInatIOn of the IndiVIdual to the state by whIch he •restored' the genume old Greek lIfe In the fourth century thIS life had long been dIsrupted by the preponderance of commerCIal forces and mterests m the state and In the political parties, and by the mtellectual IndIVIdualism that becdme general dunng the penod Presumably every mtelllgent person saw clearly that the state could not be healed unless thIS IndIVIdualism could be overcome, at least In Its crudest form as the unbounded selfishness of each person, but It was hard to get nd of when the state Itself was Inspired by the same spmt-had, m fact, made It the pnnClple of ItS actIOns The predatory polItics of the end of the fifth century had gradually brought the cItizens round to these new ways of thmkIng, and now the state fell a vIctim to the egOIstic Idea, ImpressIvely pIctured by Thucydldes, that It had Itself made mto a pnnclple The old state WIth ItS laws had represented to Its CItIZens the totality of all •customary' standards To lIve accordIng to the laws was the hIghest unwntten law In ancIent Greece, as Plato for one last time sadly represents It m hIS enio That dIalogue shows the tragIC conflIct of the fourth century sharpened mto conscIous absurdIty, the state IS now such that accordIng to Its laws the Justest and purest man In the Greek nation must dnnk the hemlock The death of Socrates IS a reductw ad absurdum of the whole state, not merely of the contemporary office-holders In the Gorg~as Plato measures the Penclean state and ItS weaker successors by the standard of the radIcal moral law, and arnves at an unconditional condemnation of the hlstoncal state When he goes on m the Republic to sacnfice the life of the mdlvldual completely to the state, WIth a one-SIded stnctness Intolerable to the natural feelIngs of hIS century, hIS Justification lIes m the changed spmt of hIS new state The sun that shmes In It IS the Idea of the Good, whIch illummates ItS darkest corners Thus the subordInation of all mdlvlduals to It, the reconverSIOn of emancIpated persons mto true' cItizens', IS after all only another way of expressmg the hlstoncal fact that morahty had finally separated Itself from

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polIhcs and from the laws or customs of the hlstoncal state, and that henceforth the mdependent conscience of the mdlvldualls the supreme court even for publIc questions There had been conthcts of this sort before, what IS new IS the proclamahon of a permanent confhct Plato's demand that phl1osophers shall be kmgs, which he mamtamed unabated nght to the end, means that the state IS to be rendered ethical through and through It shows that the persons who stood highest m the mtellectual scale had already abandoned the actual ship of state, for a state lIke Plato's could not have come alIve m hiS own hme, and perhaps not at any tune Anstotle retams Plato's external subordmatlOnof ethiCS to pohtIcs, but With hun, too, the real strength bes In the former, and from It he denves the norm of the best state and the content of the 'best lIfe' To hiS sense of reahty, however, thiS startmgpomt presents msoluble dIfficulties, which lead, at the very begmnmg of the earlIer sketch of the Ideal state, to the first clear formulation of the profound conflict concealed m Plato's state In polItics, too, Anstotle lIves not m the Ideal world but m the tensIOn between Idea and expenence The actual pohtlcaI hfe of hiS tune, however, does not allow hun to find any way of relaxmg thiS tensIOn In metaphySICS and ethiCS he keeps the door to Plato's world open, m spite of hiS Immanent pomt of View, and he can do so because that world IS actual wlthm hunself In pohhcs, on the other hand, the 'best state' remams a mere Utopia, and shows all too clearly that along thiS road the most one can attam to IS a mere educatIonal mstltutIon InCidentally, Anstotle did mdeed fonnulate the problem of power clearly-he appends It to Plato's notIOn of the state as a sort of questlonmark-and also explam that not all 'mastery' IS fundamentally bad, but he did not reach a satlsfymg solutIOn, and m that advanced stage of general Greek culture a practIcal solutIOn was no doubt altogether ImpOSSible The problem of the state was wholly unmanageable The Greeks' theoretical awareness of therr own pohtlcal hfe attamed ItS lughest pomt, lIke the conscIous nervous nahonahsm of the Demosthemc party, at a hme when the Greek city-state had begun to declme It was a form that had hved ItS hfe out, and it now succumbed to soclehes of a cruder sort that still retamed

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their vIgour In hIS sketch of the Ideal state Anstotle turns ImmedIately to the SIgnIficant questIon whether to escape from the state be not the only pOSSible aIm, and begms hI'i analysIs of actual polItIcal hfe by declanng that, wIth regard toreahty, there IS nothmg for the phIlosopher to do but contnbute hIS supenor knowledge of the condItIon!> of each partIcular constItutlOn to the correct treatment of polItIcal dIsorders as they anse ThIS attItude of reSIgnatIon IS typIcal of the mtellectual personahtIes of the tIme, even of the practIcal statesmen, who one and all approached the state WIth a certam detachment and whose pohtIcs always remamed a sort of expenment ThIS detachment and the conSClOusness of It went furthest WIth Anstotle, because, hImself WIthout a state, he lIved as an objectIve observer m a great state m the throes of dIssolutIon, and had mastered the tremendous wealth of forms and pOSSIbIlItIes The only effectIve commumty that stIlI had a strong hold on the Greeks of hIS tIme was CIvIl SOCIety WIth It!> firm notlOns of educatIon, demeanour, and urbamty SIgmficantly, he counts thIS not as a polItIcal force but as part of the permanent ethIcal make-up of personalIty, and therefore hIS dISCUSSIOn of It appears m the Ethus m the form of specIal' vIrtues' The outer and mner support of the old moralIty had been the laws of'the state, that of the modern was the ObjectIve forms of SOCIety There IS no abstract ethIcal mdIvldualIsm m Anstotle--even the StOICS and EpIcureans kept far from that extreme, m spIte of the cosmopolItamsm of the former and the Ideal fnendshlp of the latter-but hIS Pol1tzcs shows WIth crass realIsm that 'iOClety Itself IS only a small group of favoured persons, dragged hIther and thIther and mamtammg a precanous eXI'itence m the umversal struggle for money and power Hf'llemstIc ethiCS finally came to rest m the notlOn of mward freedom, whIch only occasIOnally appears m Anstotle, thIS confirmed for good dnd all the mdlvldual's mdependence of state and SOCIety Wlthm Anstotle's ethICS thIS !>elf-'iufficlency eXIsts only for the man who shares m the' theoretIc hfe', dnd even for hIm only on certam condItIons, but thIS mcreased senSItIveness to man's dependence on •fortune' and external Circumstances 15 Itself preCisely an expreSSIOn of that longmg for mward freedom, and that seme of the moral dlgmty of personalIty, which are charactenstIc of thf' whole age

ARISTOTLE'S PLACE IN HISTORY IV PHILOSOPHY AS THE UNIVERSAL SCIENCE

Anstotle's philosophy represents the ddIicultIes that hiS age felt about the umverse, expressed with the highest art of methodical thought HIS sCIentific research, on the other hand, IS more, and extends far beyond the VISIOn of hIS contemporanes To see thIS SIde of hIS achIevement m a false light, by applymg to It the standards of modem sCIence and factual knowledge, IS only too easy, and has been done agam and agam, every time that he has engaged the attentlOn of the representatives of the specialized branches of sCience or the hlstonans of the posItIve sCiences Perhaps, however, we may venture to hope that to-day the nawete of all such compansons IS clear even to those who have not been schooled by hlstoncal thought, and that we are reheved of the obhgatlOn to examme them Here we may not only exclude the questIOn of the correctness of Anstotle's detailed observatIOns, but also omit to give any precise account of hiS epoch-makmg achIevement as an mventor of methods, smce our concern IS only to evaluate the sIgmficance of lus researches as a SIgn of the evolutIon of philosophy The enlargement of Platomc 'phIlosophy' mto umversal sCience was a step forced on Anstotle by hIS hIgh estImate of expenence and by hIS pnnClple that speculation must be based on perceptIblereahty Nevertheless,Ittookplace only gradually, for, though he was by nature a scholar from the begmmng and stood out as the great reader among the abstract Platomststhe story that Plato called hIm so IS true m essence at any ratethe mtellectual attItude of hiS first or transcendental penod IS mcompatIble WIth hIS subsequent unreserved devotion to the endless world of facts From theoretical mSlght mto the necessIty of bnngmg expenence withm the sphere of philosophic thought, for the logIcal estabhshment of a conceptIon of bemg approxlmatmg to the world of appearances, It is still a long way to the collection and elaboratlOn of a gigantic mass of facts purely for theIr own sake, and where we possess detailed mSlght mto Anstotle's development we can still see clearly how once he set foot on thIS road he was dnven step by step farther along It One example must suffice The celebrated sketch of the development from Thales to Plato m the first book of the M etaphys1.cs IS

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stnctly plulosophlcal m mtentIOn, Its purpose IS to denve the four pnnclples on WhICh Anstotle bases metaphysIcs, that IS to say, It IS not hlstoncal, as has often been supposed, but systematIc It compresses and dIstorts the facts for the sake of what he wIshes to extract from them In hIS later penod thIS account was enlarged mto a genera] hIStOry of the SCIences It went far beyond Its ongInal systematIc purpose and became an mdependent SCIence, governed solely by Its concern for the matenal The collectIOn of constItutIons IS rather dIfferent, at any rate m theory thIS factual research remamed a part of polItIcs, Its relatIOn to whIch IS certamly closer than that of the hIStOry of the SCIences to metaphysIcs Even m polItIcs, however, the advance from mere bookIsh scholarshIp and from the prmclple of respectmg expenence to the workmg-up of all that constItutIonal matenalls an unmense step and takes us beyond the bounds of phIlosophy proper E very other example would serve to conVInce us m a SImIlar way that In spIte of the lOner consIstency of thIS evolutIon It Involved a momentous dIsplacement of the centre of gravIty m the dIrectIon of pOSItIve research The conceptual phIlosopher became a SCIentIst who explamed the whole world m umversal fashIOn PhIlosophy to hun was now the name of the sphere of the SCIences as a whole When the word was comed It meant m the first place every kmd of study or mtellectual mterest, and 10 a narrower sense the search for truth and knowledge The first person to gIve It a permanent termmologlcal sIgmficance was Plato, who needed, to descnbe h1S kmd of know1Og, a word that expressed at once the unattamabIllty of the transcendental goal of knowledge and the eternIty of the struggle towards It, the suspenSIOn between Ignorance and' wIsdom' Never, however, had It meant the establIshed umty and present totalIty of all knowledge Such an Idea had never entered anyone's bram at all In Anstotle It dId not take the form of attemptIng to JustIfy the collectIon and orgamzatIon of all eXIStmg sCIences 10 one school by means of some attempt at external systematIZatIOn He was not an encyclopaedlst ThIS IS shown by the fact that, though It may have been hIS theory to do so, he dId not actually adopt 10 hIS' phIlosophy' the older mdependent SCIences such as mathematIcs, optIcs, astronomy, and geography Only medIcme

ARISTOTLE'S PLACE IN HISTORY

403

got m and was mdustnously pursued. because and so far as It offered a fruItful field for the actuahzatlOn of Anstotle's morpho· lOgical Ideas Those other stuwes dId not do so. and thus the exceptions show that the astoundmg totahty of Anstotle's <;Clence is an orgamc growth from the central pomt of h1s phIlosophy, the notion of form This notiOn determmed the hmits of what his phIlosophy could master As he developed hiS .form' changed from a theoretical conceptiOn of bemg to an Instrument of applIed SCience, a morphological and phenomenologIcal study of all thmgs He thus put phIlosophy m a posItion to attam a SCIentific grasp of the whole of reality It ruled over all the provmces of knowledge to an extent that has never smce been equalled We must. however, keep on inSIsting that the cause of this fact IS that hiS phIlosophy possessed the power of creatmg SCiences, so that new ones were always spnngmg forth from ItS lap, such as the bIOlOgical, morphological, and physIOlogical study of nature, or the bIOgraphical and morphological sCiences of culture Mere logiC or formal systematic could never enable phIlosophy to mamtam such a place m SCience, stllliess could an arbitrarIly dictated view of the umverse The relation between sCience and world-View IS the problematical pomt m Anstotle's phIlosophy There are two Sides to it, smce sCience rests on prmclples that have to be establIshed not by Itself but by phIlosophy, whIle on the other hand phIlosophy IS bullt up on the baSIS of SCientific expenence He beheved that With this conception of thought and expenence he could make Plato's phIlosophy mto cntlcal sCIence, for, although he does not dIstmgmsh phIlosophy and SCIence by dIfferent names. the startmg-pomt of hiS cntlciSm of all earher phIlosophy IS a firm conception of what constitutes SCience Even wlthm hIS own philosophy he recognizes that the factual knowledge of the SpeCial sCiences IS SCientific m a supenor degree. not because of Its greater exactitude (for thiS belongs rather to conceptual thmkmg) but because of Its unpregnable realIty-the problem whether the supersensible is real gave rIse to all kInds of uncertamty m the other sphere Anstotle's mtellectual world presents a umfied appearance from Without, but It carnes wlthm Itself a COnsCIOUS dIscord In the fundamental Idea that philosophy and SCIence tend to diverge, m spite of hIS efforts to brmg them together by

404

MATURITY

concelvmg phLlosophy m the narrower and lugher sense of the word as the necessary conclusIOn of the study of reahty Greek sCience had always received strong stunulatlOn from that metaphysical attitude towards the world which IS the dnvmg force of phLlosophy, and each had furthered the other dunng their development Once on the summit, however, they found themselves m conflict Anstotle restores them to unstable eqmhbnum This mstant represents the high pOInt of the common part of their development In Post-Anstotellan tunes neIther philosophy nor SCIence was able to mamtam Itself on thIS height SCience needed freer play than phIlosophy gave It Its results often rendered doubtful the methods and pnnclples of explanatIOn that phuosophy had proVided It WIth On the other SIde, the cultured classes, who had lost theIr rehglOn, needed a metaphysical view of the world, and thus tempted phLlosophy to renew Its bold speculative flight, and we have to admit that m trymg to satisfy thiS longmg It was only obeymg the unpulse of self-preservatIOn Compared With Anstotle's cntIcal attitude StOICism and Eplcureamsm look hke dogmatism and the collapse of SCIentIfic philosophy They took over hIS logical techmque and developed the content of some of hiS metaphysical Views, mlxmg them With older pnmltIve Ideas, or they renewed Pre-Socratic phySICS as Epicurus renewed Democntus, and buut up an ethical Ideal of hfe on that foundation The centre of gravity lay m metaphysIcs and ethics , real research was not prosecuted at all After the thIrd generabon the Penpatos assumed the same practical tendency, although It could not compete With the StOICS and the Epicureans m thiS field, the result was the regrettable collapse of the school after Strato That great mvestigator clearly shows, however, the only path that the movement Imtiated by Anstotle could take under the circumstances Dunng hIS penod Penpatetic research was already m touch With Alexandna, \\-here the soLl was more favourable than m Attica to the development of the POSitive SCiences, and where the keen wmd of reality was blowmg Alexandnan sCience IS the spmtual contmuatIOn of Anstotle's last penod There the lmk between sCience and phIlosophy wa!> defimtely broken, the mfimtely refined techmque of PtolemaiC research dispensed With the stable mtellectual

ARISTOTLE'S PLACE IN HISTORY

405

centre that Anstotle's detailed work had possessed m hIS great spmtuahst VIew of the umverse On the other hand, the most Important dlScovenes of anCIent sCience are due to thiS separation, which was a necessary hberatIon of research It was now that medlcme and natural SCIence, together wIth exact philology, attamed their greatest flowenng They were represented by figures lIke Anstarchus, Anstophanes, Hipparchus, Eratosthenes, and ArchImedes From the standpomt of Anstotehan philosophy and SCIence, of course, all thIS IS but half of the mtellectual realm, but the deSIre for a metaphysIcal VIew of the world, and the deSIre for SCIentific stnctness, never came together agam m the anCIent world Aristotle IS claSSical m spIte of hIS lateness Just because he umted them, although even m hIm research and explanatIon preponderate over the formation of world-pIctures High as Anstotle's Ideal was 10 Itself, what IS still more wonderful IS ItS reahzatIon 10 the mmd of a smgle man ThIS IS and will remam a psycholOgIcal marvel, mto whIch we cannot penetrate deeper The word 'umversalIty' descnbes only hIS astoundmg power of spreadmg hImself over all fields of realIty, and hIS tremendous capaCIty for aSSImilation, both of WhICh were attamable only 10 a perIod conscIous of techmque, but what IS far greater IS the 10tellectual range that 10cluded both the contemplation of supersensible essences by pure Nus and a kmfehke keenness of the conceptual understandmg and a mIcroscopIC accuracy of senSIble observatIOn ThIS phenomenon becomes more comprehenSIble If we observe 10 the course of Anstotle's development that orIgmalIty and power of assimilatIOn balance each other, but even so hIS leamng towards metaphySICS and hIS hIghly developed capaCIty for 10ward expenence remam somethmg umque m the spmtual make-up of a pronounced observer and dIscoverer In spIte of the many layers of hIS mental world there IS a great umty about It because all hIS powers are developed only so far as they serve as 10struments for the obJective contemplatIOn of realIty HIS Nus lacks Plato's worldtransformmg power, hIS conceptual thmkIng the solId practical bulk of dogmatism, hIS observatIon the tum for mventIons and techmcalIIDprovements, the three are umted mane smgle task, the apprehenSIOn of what IS HIS whole creatIVIty IS exhausted

.06

MATURITY

10 the contlDual production of new InStruments for the seI'Vlce of thIS work The presupposItion of thIS complete devotion to the contemplation of the world IS the ObJectiVIty, to the ultunate spmtual depths of which we cannot penetrate, ID wmch everythIng that Anstotle put out IS steeped, and which he bequeathed to Hellemstlc sCience We have already remarked that It is not to be confused With unpersonallty, but 15 a suprapersonal form of the mmd It IS as far removed from the artistic objectiVity With which Plato m hIS wntmgs clothes hiS spmtual passlOn to transform human life, as from that Thucydldean kmd which escapes the pams of a fnghtful hlstoncal fate by regardmg It as the necessary course of events and tummg It mto pohtIcal knowledge In those two AttIC wnters the struggle for objectiVity 15 the reachon of a self that concentrates on sovereIgn values and IS passlOnately mterested 10 hfe In therr cases we ought to speak of objectification rather than sunple objectiVity The objectiVity of Anstotle IS someth1Og pnmary It expresses a great seremty towards hfe and the world. whIch we look for vamly m Attica from Solon to Epicurus It IS to be found rather 10 Hecataeus, Herodotus, Anaxagoras. Eudoxus, and Democntus, much as these men differ from each other There IS someth1Og peculIarly contemplative and non-tragic about them ArIStotle, too, possessed that world-Wide loman honzon, of whose soulhberat10g breadth the brood1Og Athemans had no 10klmg At the same time the essence of the Attic spmt had a profound 10fluence upon hIm as It had upon Herodotus, It gave to hiS comprehenSive Icnopla or 10qurry ItS umty and stnctness of pnnclple Through these gifts he became, what It was not vouchsafed to any of the loman contemplators of the umverse to be, the compell1Og orgamzer of reahty and of sCience

APPENDIX I

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS A NEW PUPIL OF ARISTOTLE

THE great man whom I wish to Introduce IS probably not only unknown to most of my readers as a pupil of Anstotle but IS also hkely to be a complete stranger to them That he did not hve m the begmmng of the fourth century Be, as has been generally assumed up to the present hme, but was one of the outstandmg members of the Penpatetlc school a hundred years later IS the thesIs of a recent book of mme entitled Dtokles von Karystos (Berhn, 1938) which IS a contlnuahon of my book on Anstotle I I shall give my reasons for this thesIS as far as It IS possible Within the hmlts of the present chapter ~ I

Although Diodes may still be unknown to the hlstonans of phl1osophy, he IS by no means unknown to our histonans of medICine He used to be raIled' the second HIppocrates' by the Athemans 3 of hIS age and enjoyed a high reputatIOn among the Greek physIcians of later centunes who preserved through frequent quotations more than one hundred pnnted pages of hIS lost wntmgs This somewhat meagre eVidence fonns the baSIS of our mveshgatIOns But smce we cannot attnbute With certamty even to HIppocrates any of the numerous book~ which are preserved under hiS name, we are m the case of DIOdes In a comparatively favourable Situation The longest of hiS fragments contams about mne pages 4 ThiS IS almost what the I D'okles von K arystos D,e gnech,sche M eduzn und d,e Schule des Arlstoteles (Berhn, W de Gruyter & Co, 19]8) V1ll+244 pp Cf also my 'Vergessene Fragmente des Penpatetlker~ DlOkJes von Karystos Nebst zwel Anhangen zur Chronologie der dogmatl~chen Arzte~chule', m A bhandlungen del' preussIschen Akadsmze del' W1Ssenschaften, ]ahrgang 1938, Phil -hlst Klasse, No 3, pp J-.t 6 In the second of these pubhcatlons I have made several additions which confirm and enlarge. and on some mmor I~sues, modIfy the conclUSIOns of my book on DlOcles Hereafter I shall refer to the book as Dlokles and to the artrcle above mentIOned as Vergessene F ..agmente • This chapter IS repnnted, With permissIOn, from The PhIlosophIcal RWlew, vol xhx (1940), pp 393-407 J Cf D,okles, p 4. n 4 4 Max Wellmann, Die Fragmente del' slkelzschen A rzte Akron, Phllzst,on und des Dlokles lion Karystos (Berhn, 1901), frg '41 (1 &hall quote the fragments of DIOdes only by their numbers In Wellmann's collectIOn)

408

DlOCLES OF CARYSTUS

anCIents would call a book (~II3Aiov), and It should be sufficient to fonn an Impression of his style, method, culture, and personahty, which can be venfied by the rest of the fragments I The fragments have been collected by Max Wellmann, one of the pIOneers and acknowledged authontles 10 Greek medlcme, a field which was only penetrated by claSSical scholars With modem hlstoncal and phIlological methods towards the end of the mneteenth century Wellmann's collectIOn of the fragments was publIshed In Ig01 It IS part and parcel of a collection of the fragments of the SICIlIan school of medlcme (late fifth and early fourth century) to which, accordmg to Wellmann, DIOdes belongs 2 Wellmann's book was a first attempt to reconstruct the history of Greek medlc10e dunng the century after Hippocrates' death, m whICh It reached the culmmat10g pomt of Its SCientific development We call thiS penod, accordmg to anCIent traditIOn, the dogmatic school Its first and greatest repre~entatIvewas Hippocrates (second half of the fifth century) Galen and Celsus mention as hiS successors DIOcles of Carystus, Praxagoras of Cos, Herophllus of Chalcedon, and Eraslstratus of Ceus DIOcle'>, they say, flounshed after Hippocrates but before Praxagoras and the others 3 Plmy. too says that DlOde~ was the second great figure of the dogmatH ')chool second, 10 time and 10 fame, to Hippocrates anI} 4 Unfortunately we do not know exactly when Praxagoras lIved He was the teacher of HerophIlus, who flounshed under Ptolemles I and II at Alexd.ndna 10 the 80'~ of the thud century and later Eraslstratus was the Id.st of the senes. hiS jtoruft be10g put by Eusebms 10 hIS Chromca m 2585 If Herophllus flounshed m the 80'S and 70 s of the third century, hIS teacher Praxagoras must have been the leader of the HIppocratIC school at Cos about 300, or not much later If DlOcles' jtoruft as given by Galen. Plmy. and Celsus IS correct, the problem an~es as to where m the long mterval between Hippocrates and Praxagoras (between 400 and 300) DIOdes IS to be put Wellmann and other scholars thought that I The extensIve portIOn pre.erved from DIOdes book on dIet cf p 407 n 4 was Incorporated by U von \\'Ilamowltz In hl~ GrMchtSches Lesebuch (Berlm 1902), vol 11 pp 277 If as a masterpIece of Greek SCIentific prose and as one of the most colourful pictures of the dally hfe of a Greek CItizen m Athens claSSIcal penod At the same bme It offers a graphIC example of Dwell" medIcal art and method and the pnnc.Iples on WhICh It rest. 1 Cf P 407. n 4 The book was pubh~hed as the first volume of a collectIOn of the fragments of the Greek phySICians But a second volu me has never appeared J Cf Ps Gal, Introd C 4 (frg 3, \\ ellmann, op CIt) Gal IV 731 Kuhn (frg 16) Celsus praef 2 (frg 4) • Phn Nat htsl XXVI 10 (frg 5) qUI [Dweles] secundus aetate famaque extItit , Cf the chronology of the phySICians of the dogmabc school. Vergessene F~agmenle pp 3b If . Anhang I

DlOCLES OF CARYSTUS

the 'second Hippocrates' must unquestlOnably have lIved lmmedlately after the first HIppocrates DIOdes often refers to wntmgs of our Hippocratic corpus without quotmg them As a rule he does not quote authors at all. thus makmg It very difficult to determIne hIS tIme I BesIdes the HIppocratic mfluence, DIOdes IS strlkmgly dependent upon the SICIlIan school m many charactenstIc details and for hIS fundamental theory of the pneuma as the source of orgamc lIfe The mam figure of that school was PhIlIstIOn Wellmann therefore lInked DIOdes with PhlhstlOn as well as wIth HIppocrates Smce Plato proves to be largely dependent upon PhIhstIOn's theory In hIS T~maeus and the second PlatOnIC letter mentIons a planned tnp of PhllIstIon from Syracuse to Plato's Academy In Athens, Wellmann belIeved that PhllIstlOn and DIOdes were contemporanes of Plato's earher years and put them ill the first thIrd of the fourth century Z ThIS has generally been assumed to be the case, although doubts have bern occaSIOnally expressed dunng the last fifteen years J When I had to deal WIth DIOdes for the first tIme, shortly after I had completed mv doctor's dIssertatIOn, I dId not dare to questIOn the accuracv of such authOrItIes a<> Wdlmann and FredrIch I tned to pursue the doctrIne of the pneuma and Its mfluence on ArIstotle's physIOlogIcal and zoologIcal theones and, In accordance WIth the prevaIlmg VIew, prrsupposed that DIOdes dnu PhllIstIOn were ArI~­ totle's sources m the same way as they were supposed to be tHe sources of Plato's physIOlogy 4 When I returned to DIOdes some decades later WIth a somewhat greater c>..penencc, I saw at once that the IdIOm of thIS bnllIant author does not belong to the time when Plato s earlIest works were wrItten, but that It I!:> characterIzed by all the trdlts of the Greek language spoken at the begmmng of the I For an important exceptIOn to thl~ rule cf mfra p 411 n 4 I do not begin however With these quotatlOn~, because they are not given In a hterallypre,erved direct fragment of DIOdes, but occur In an excerpt made by a later ancient phYSiCian • \\ eHmann. op Cit pp 66 ff He had a predeces~or III C Frednch, H,ppokrahsche Untersuchungen (Berlin 1899), pp 171 and 196 Wilamowltz lac CIt. thlnk~ of the same elate J Cf DlOkles. pp 13 ff I have shown there al,o that long before these modern doubts were expres~eel V Rose In a ~hort remark of hIS almost forgotten book Anstoteles Pseudep,gmphus (LeIpZIg 18b3). p 380 had placed DIOdes after An_totIe In Vergessene Fragmente, p i l l have added two more scholars who wanted to place DIOdes later In the third century B c I A FabncIus, BlbtlOtheca Graeca (Hamburg, 1724). \01 xu p 584, and I L Ideler, Arzstotel,s Me/earot Ltbn IV (LeIpZig, 1834) vol I, P 157 However, both had but very ~canty mformatIon about DIOdes, and that attenuate~ the authonty of their statements For thIS rea~on l-rednch and Wellmann dId not even mentIOn these predece~~ors, and consequently their vIew was entIrely oblIterated, lJke that of Rose, for several decades 4 Hermes vol XIVlll (1913), P 51

410

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

Hellemstlc penod (about 300) I have dedlcated many pages of my book to an mtense analysIs of hIs style and language, but I do not thmk It feasible to repeat them here DIOdes' style, moreover, 15 full of the phliosophlcaJ tenmnology of Anstotle I HIs fragments gIve abundant eVidence of his perfect tralmng m, and command of, Anstotehan methods of thought and argument Z Smce the fragments of hIS varIOus works show no dlfference In thls regard, the mfluence cannot be due to a late and occasIOnal acquamtance With Anstotle It penetrates everythmg DIOdes thus must have flounshed when the Penpatetlc school was at Its heIght, I e about the end of the fourth century He cannot have been much earher than Praxagoras There are many other mdlcatlOns favounng thiS late date DIOdes IS mentioned for the first time m Greek hterature by Theophrastus, who quotes him as an authonty for a mmeraloglCal problem m hiS book On Mmerals, which was wntten between 315 and 288 The Imperfect which he uses m thiS quotatIOn seems to mdICate that he has known him personally and that Diodes was known to the Penpatetlc Circle 3 DIOdes' work on dIet was dedICated to a certam Phstarchus Wellmanll never asked who thIS man was Beloch, 10 a short footnote of hiS Greek H~story, asks whether he wa<; a Macedoman prInce, brother of Cassander and one of the younger sons of AntIpater 4 ThIS IS, mdeed, highly probable Anhpater was Alexander's man of confidence, whom he entrusted WIth the adnumstratlOn of Macedoma and Greece dunng the long years of hiS absence 10 ASia Anstotle had I For these stylIstIc and philologIcal arguments I must refer to D,okles, pp 16--59 The AristotelIan element, as soon as It IS recogm1ed as such, at once establIshes a termInUS post quem for our chronolo~lcal consIderatIOns It goes WIthout saylOg-and even the ancient CritIcs of style have pronounced thIS as
DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

-41 I

met Anbpater when he was the educator of Alexander at K10g Phlbp's court, and from that time until his death AntIpater remamed his most mtImate fnend Anstotle appomted him m his w111 as general executor He and hiS son Cassander were the protectors of the Penpatebc school after Alexander's and Anstotle's deaths PlIstarchus became kmg of Lycla and Cana after the battle of Ipsus m 301 Almost all the HellemstIc kmgs were protectors of sCience and phl1osophy The dedication of sCientific works to prmces and other powerful men IS a custom which begms shortly before Alexander's bme l and throws much light upon the relatIOns of phl1osophlcal schools and politics Moreover, 10 one of Diodes' books the cucumbers of AntIoch were recommended Z A ntwch was founded 1n the year 300 B C Thus DlOcles wrote h1s book m the th1rd, not m the beg1nmng of the fourth century If he was still alive m the third century, how long did he live ~ Here I have to make some additions to my own book 3 There I stIll acqUIesced lD the view of my predecessors who had occupied themselves With the quotation of DIOdes 10 Theophrastus' book On Mmerals They believed that the Imperfect, •DIOdes used to say', must mean that he was dead at that time Anstotle speaks 10 the same way of Plato when he quotes hiS oral statements after hiS death When he quotes Plato's dialogues, he always wntes . Plato says' But although the Imperfect may mean that the person quoted IS now dead, It does not necessanly mean thiS It may mean only that the person who formerly used to belong to the Circle of TI,eophrastus did not hve any longer 10 that commumty I am mchned to thmk that DIodes was not dead when Theophrastus quoted him m thiS way but had been absent for some tune FIrst there IS a polemIC of DIOdes agamst HerophIluo; m an excerpt of hIS theory on the nature of the sperma 4 As I have saId, HerophIlus flounshed dunng the 80'S and the 70'S of the third century, under the first and second Ptolemy m Alexandna ThIS can very well be reconcIled WIth the chronolOgical tradItion that DIOdes' own flounshmg preceded that of Praxagoras I hocrates dedicated one of hiS works to Nlcocles, klDg of Cyprus, another to KlDg Philip of Macedon Anstotle dedicated hiS Protreptw"s to Themlson, pnnce of Cyprus Whether hiS book On Monarchy was dedicated to Alexander the Great, we do not know, but at any rate It was offered to him • Frg 125 (Ath II 59 a) • Cf for the follOWing arguments Vergessene Fragmente, pp 14 ff • Cf Wellmann, op Cit, P 208 Dlocles quotes In that passage from Herophdus, DlOgenes of Apollowa. and Anstotle Wellmann assumed that these names were Inserted later, at least that of Herophl1u5 and Anstotle, because he thought that Diodes lived earlier than they, but he was inconsistent enough to thInk that the name of DlOgenes was genume, because he had hved 1D the fifth century, I e before Wellmann's date of Diodes

412

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

and Herophllus The tlounshmg or akmi of a man means, accordmg to the usage of Greek chronologists, the fortIeth year of age If Diodes flounshed shortly before or about 300, he may have hved untIl 260 or so, provided he reached hiS eightIeth year That he hved to an old age IS manliest from the wIll of Strato, Anstotle's second successor m the leadership of the school He mentions a DIOdes as one of the leadmg authonbes of the Penpatebc school to whom he entrusts, as executors, the permanent care of hiS will and of the school J Strato appomted as hiS successor a young man named Lyco, who kept thiS post for forty-four years, thus ensunng the contmUlty of the school But Strato explIcitly adds 10 hiS w1l1 that he had consulted the others before decld10g on Lyco, who was not a promment scholar but only a bnlhant teacher and speaker The others, however, had dechned to become hiS successor, 'because they were either too old or too busy' Strata died 10 270 or 269 If DIOdes had attended Anstotle's lectures dunng the master's last years and If he were born about 345, he could have reached hiS pnme about 300 and would have been over seventy when Strato died He was thus one of those Penpatehc authontles who were' too old' for the leadership of the school Now there IS a fragment of one of DIOdes' books m which GalatIa 10 ASia Mmor IS menboned as the homeland of certam vegetables Z Galatia was named after the Gauls who mvaded ASia Mmor m the 70'S of the third century and settled In that part of the pemnsula to which they subsequently gave their name ThiS may have happened soon after, dunng the 70'S or 60'S of the third century J We cannot trace Diodes' hfetIme farther than that (I) because of the annent traditIon that hlSfiOTu~t preceded that of Praxagoras, HerophIlus, and Eraslstratus· and (2) because Theophrastus and Strata already knew him I DlOg Laert V 6~, cf i' ergessene Fragmente, J 3 ~trato seem~ to have quoted extensIvely DIodes gynaecologIcal work and adopted hIS elaborate medIcal theory of the hebdomadlc pen ods of the development of the embryo and the human body Cf the lar!:e excerpts, frg 177, and the new Information from a Neo-PlatonIc source, whIch I added In Vergessene Fragmente, pp J9-34 • Frg J25 (Ath II 59 a) Th,s IS the ~ame passage In whIch D,odes mentIons the good cucumbers of AntIOch (f ~upra, p 41 J 1 Professor Fehx Staehelm of Basle, ~WJtzerland, author of Geseh,ekte der kleJnasJatJsenen Galater (LeIpZIg), In a letter to me expressed the view that the name 'Galatia' came up soon after the Galatians settled In that part of ASIa MInor He thmks It happened In the 70'S of the thIrd century BeAt any rate, tlus hlstoncal allUSIOn IS In harmony With the fact that DIOdes IS named In the Will of Strato the PenpatetIc (dIed In 270) • Professor D'Arcy Thompson m rus comments on my Dzokles, Ph,lo
DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

413

as an outstandmg authonty If he was considered as a possIble candIdate for the leadershIp of the Penpatos by Strato, his name must be engraved along wIth that of Theophrastus. Eudemus, and Strato as one of the great characters of that astoundmg group of scholars and sCIentists who represent the school of Anstotle There eXIsts under the name of DIOdes a dIdactIc letter to Kmg AntIgonus on prophylaxIs of mner dIseases I It has been rejected as unauthentic because DIodes was supposed to have hved a century earher It stnctly resembles the style of the larger fragments and eVidently belongs to the begmmng of the HellemstIc era It mentIOns the great age of the kmg, who, accordmg to all we have saId, can be only Antlgonus I % He was about eighty years of age when he became kmg m 3°5, and dIed In the battle of Ipsus In 301 In thIS letter the author appears not only as a medical authonty, but also as a meteorolOgiSt DIOdes was a umversal mmd, as were all those Penpatetlc scholars He was at once a physIcian, botamst, and meteorolOgist HIS connexlOn WIth Theophrastus becomes better understood when we read that he wrote not less than three works on botany, With ~peCial regard to the dietetlCal and pharmacologIcal use of plants From the fragments of these books modem histonans of botany have reconstructed a pre-Theophrastean system of plants ThIS system (cf above, p 408). DIOdes' termznus anle quem as given by the unarumous of three anCient experts on the hl~tory of Greek medlcme (Celsus, Phny, and Galen). doe_ not permIt us to go farther do"n With Dlode~' £Iounshmg than ~hortlv before that of Praxagora~ (about 300) ThiS fact, and the Anstotehan termmology of his medical language, place Diodes' flounshmg towards the end of the last thud of the fourth century Be-I e between the openmg of the Anstotehan school, 335 and the flounshmg of Praxagoras, 300 I It IS pre~erved m the ancient medical author Paulus Aegmeta at the end of Book I and repnnted In D,okles, pp 75 ff where I have discussed It at len!(th • D'Arcry I homp~on loc CIt, thmk~ that perhaps the old Fabnclus, loc Cit, was nght m referrmg DIOdes Letter to Anllgonu, to KIDg <\ntIgonus Gonatas (second half of the third century Be) But when FabnclU, ventured hiS conJecture In the year 1724, he did not know then the many other testImorua on DIOdes which we now read m Wellmann ~ collectIOn nor those which I added to them We mu~t take FabnclUs surmise for what It Is-a mere ImproVisatIOn I do not see how to reconcile It With the rest of our trarutlOn For example, how shall we explam the ongm of the ancient tradition (Galen) that Diodes wrote the first ~ystematlc work on anatomy, If he had hved after Herophllus and traslstratus, both of whom wrote great anatomical work~ and appear to be more advanced than DIOdes m thiS respect I And how could the charactenstIc formula of Plmy ongmate, who terms DIOdes 'the second In tIme and m fame' (after Hippocrates), secundus aetate famaque If m realIty he wa~ the fifth and last m the sene, of famous dogmatic phySICians I ThiS objection ha~ been made already by Eduard Zeller, Philosoph" der Gnechen, "01 III 2' P 916, to the earher chronology of FabnclU~ and Ideler, who placed DIOdes under Anbgonus Gonatas te~tlmony

od

'P4

DlOCLES OF CARYSTUS

IS now broken down In the same way zoologists have reconstructed a pre-Anstotehan system of ammals from Dlocles' classification of the ammals 10 hiS work on diet In realIty Anstotle does not depend upon Dlocles' zoological system, but DIOdes naturally takes advantage of Anstotle's systematic zoology for hiS dietetic purpose I Galen reports that Diodes was also the first to wnte a speCial work on anatomy Z ThiS IS apparently 10 connexlOn with Anstotle's anatomic dissections, the averrolJal Some decades ago a papyrus contammg medical data was excavated 10 Egypt The editor, Professor Gerhard of Heidelberg, was 10chned to attnbute the work, several columns of which are preserved, to Diodes for styhstIc reasons The authontles Silenced him because they said there were many Anstotehan terms 10 the treatise and It resembled Anstotle's Problemata In thIS they were absolutely correct But they did not see that all the fragments of Diodes are full of Anstotehan concepts, as we have noted From our pomt of view their objection IS an argument/or DlOcles' authorship of the papyrus and not agaInst It

II I have enumerated a number of hlstoncal and philologIcal arguments. but I wlll not detam the reader any longer With details Instead, I shall diSCUSS some more philosophical problems offered by the text of DIOdes' fragments 3 The author dIffers from the wnters of the Hippocratic treatises by hIS awareness of the logical and philosophical problems 1Ovolved m hiS medical conclUSions He often hmlts the factual statements which he uses as premises for practical adVice by I D'Arcy Thompson, loe CIt tnes to minImIze ~ome",hat the wngruencles between Dloeles and Anstotle's systematic cla~~i1icatlOn of the ammals whIch had aroused the attention of zoologIcal and phIlological scholar~ before me, but whIch were mterpreted by them a~ provmg An~totle s dependence upon DIOdes because of the then prevaJimg chronology whIch made DlOcle~ earher than Anstotle Cf Dlokles, pp 167-!lo D'Arcy Thompson suggests for Instance, that DIOdes could have studIed the vanous sorts of fish, mentlOned In h,S work on dIet, at the AthenIan fish-market WIthout readmg Anstotle ThiS sounds very convlncmg, espeCially If we neglect the order In WhICh DIodes enumerates them But DlOcles, who has studIed An~totle m so many other field~ thoroughly, as wdl be shown, would Dot be lIkely to nel[lect the zoologICal works whIch were closest to hIS Interests and the man who, m botany, had a systematic mmd, and wrote three books on plants from hIS medIcal pomt of VIew, must have dIssected also all sorts of anImals for hIS anatomIcal purposes InCIdentally, the very fact that he Judges the ~tructure of the human womb from the dIssectIOns of mules (frg 29) proves that he belongs to the preAlexandnan penod of anatomy • Frg Z3 3 For thIS reason, I shall not deal here WIth Diodes' medJcal and botanical VIews, for whIch I must refer to my book

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

415

saymg avlJ~(veIV Ei(,,)6E, . It usually happens', mstead of 'It IS so' Though this IS not entirely ahen from Hippocrates, 10 Diodes tills phrase IS comparatIvely frequent Its frequency slgnahzes a new methodical consclOusness The word ei(,,)6e, which I have translated by the adverb' usually', IS frequent 10 Anstotle It IS connected With hIS doctnne of expenence He dlstmgulshes three grades of certamty m knowledge that which IS necessary (6:vayxalov), that which usually occurs (We; hTl TO noM), and that which IS only accidental (avlJ~­ j31)~) Mathematical proposItions are necessary, phySIcal premises belong mostly to the second class, that which' usually happens' The expresslOn IS most frequent m Anstotle's ethical, pohtIcal, phYSICal, and zoologICal wntmgs, I e m those parts of hiS phtlosophy which are largely based on expenence Keen observation of the frequency and regulanty of phySIcal or sOClal phenomena was the way 10 which Anstotle and hIS puptls tned more and more to determme that which they called TO KCXTO: cpualV, I e that which IS accordmg to nature Anstotle used to speak of the KCXTO: cpualv ongmally 10 a Platomc sense In Plato It had a stnctly teleologlCal and normative meamng It was that which ought to be accordrng to nature, and' nature' meant the PlatOnIC Idea, whIch IS the pattern of thmgs But later m Anstotle and 10 Theophrastus (e g In hIS book on the causes of the plants) the KCrTO: cpvalV IS apphed likeWIse to pathological phenomena whJCh occur WIth a certam regulanty Thus empmcal observation of that which usually happens becomes the only methodical way to determme what IS . accordmg to nature' In thIS sense even a disturbance of the normal process of growth 10 a plan t or an ammal maybe called' accordmg to nature', If It frequently or usually occurs under certam conditions of chmate or weather or even disease and, 10 thiS way, proves to be .normal' ThiS IS a development of meamng which seems rather natural m SClences largely concerned With patholOgIcal phenomena MedlCal pathology must have gIVen the first Impulse towards a development of the Platomc concept of nature In thiS dlfectIon Even Anstotle m the works of hiS earliest penod does not conSider the symptoms of the degenerated forms of government as normal, but calls the present conditions of real states on earth napa cpvalv, I e contrary to nature, because they do not correspond to the Ideal More and more, however, the pathological phenomena come to the foreground as realishc observation In Anstotle's mmd gets the upper hand According to the medIcal patterns, a pathology of political and SOCial hfe and a pathology of ammals and plants are developed In spIte of thiS mcrease of the reahstIc element 10 Anstotle's school, we must pomt out two thmgs (I) Even In Plato there was from the begmnmg a keen mterest 10 the pathologIcal changes of nature

416

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

Plato's Republzc for the first hme develops a system of degenerahve forms of the best state We also know that Plato's phrlosophy was largely mfluenced by the medIcal pattern to whIch he refers so often (2) In spite of the general trend towards an extensIOn of observatIon to pathologIcal phenomena, Anstotle never gIves up the teleologtcal foundation of hIs system, although he and Theophrastus are qUIte aware of ItS dIfficulties m questions of detatl Thus we are not astomshed to see m DIodes a phySICIan who shcks determmedly to a teleologIcal vIew of nature I do not mean to say that thIS was absolutely new, and that Hlppocrahc medICine was as deCidedly antlteleologIcal as modern hlstonans of medICine seem to think A phySIcIan who, hke the author of Eptdemlcs V, conSIders hImself only a humble assIstant of the powers of nature when he tnes to cure a patient of Jllness,l cannot be termed an anh-teleologlst, even If he does not pronounce the word telas It IS true, however, that teleology IS not an aXIOm which the Hlppocrahc writers apply systematically to all phenomena We may say only that there IS an unmistakable tendency m some of the Hippocratic books towards a teleologIcal approach to nature, even though It remains undeveloped For thIS theSIS, which on thIS occasIOn I can mamtaln only In a dogmatIc form, I hope to gIve full eVIdence In the future DlOgenes of Apolloma m the fifth e-entury was also a teleologlst, but m a different way Z He IS the typIcal ratlonahst who tnes to prove that nature acts throughout hke an Intelhgent arhst and must be mterpreted according to the rules of human mechanKs and art ThIS type also left ItS mark on some of our HIppocratic writings and on Anstotle But DIodes IS a follower of the speCIfically Anstotehan teleology J He knows the Anstotehan concepts of potentldhty and act and apphes them, e g to the hygIene and ethiCS of sexudllJfe HIS teleologICal approach to nature makes hIm accentuate the dlsclphne of dIetetIcs more than any other part of medICme MedICine becomes from hiS pOInt of view largely the education of the healthy man, It IS no longer only the cure of the III In thIS It resembles Plato's and Anstotle's phIlosophies, whIch are the dIetetIcs of the human soul Plato, In the Gorgtas, ranh the legIslator hIgher than the Judge and the teacher of gymnastics hIgher than the phySICIan ThIS shows that Plato was still far from an Idea of mediCine whIch IS above all dIetetics, the care of the healthy In hiS hme the care of the healthy was still merely up to the gymnast The gymnast never lost that posItIon I Cf a HippocratIc sentence lIke the famou~ .ova",. ",vales I'lTpol I e It IS the patIent's own nature which really cures the Illness • Cf Willy TheIler, Geschzehlo dOT loleolog.schen NatuTbolTachtung b.s auf Anslotolos (Zunch, 19Z5), PP Z5 ff [On Hippocrates see Paldna III Z7 if] , Cf D.oklos, pp 5 I fI

DlOCLES OF CARYSTUS

41 7

entIrely lD Greek cIVlhzatlOn, but somewhat later he had to share It WIth the physIcIan when medlcme developed a carefully worked out system of diet DIOdes dIsplays a detaded programme of dally hie whIch gIves a umque picture of Greek culture about the year 300 B C As does Anstotle's ethIcs, the dIet of DIOdes presupposes a type of man who belongs to the upper dass of human socIety He who Wlshe!> to hve accordmg to hIs rules must be eqUIpped WIth matenal means The whole of hyglemc hfe IS put m the framework of the regular gymnastIc actIVIties which formed the mam part of the dady work of a Greek gentleman m the forenoon as well as In the afternoon DIOdes does not give only a few rules for summer and wmter lIke the HIppocratic author On the Healthy L~Je, nor does he only enumerate long hsts of food or dnnks or exerCIses like the author of the four books On Reg~men He gIves a rounded pIcture of daily hfe from early nsmg to bedtIme, a true Penpatetlc b10S It IS a bws, to be sure, m the medIcal sense of the word But the attItude which thiS phySICian takes WIth regard to diet IS almost an ethical one HIS dIetetICs IS, so to speak, the ethiCS of the body I ThiS Idea cannot have been very far from the Greek mmd, after Plato and AnstotIe had parallehzed over and agam the virtues of the soul and the virtues of the body The concept of virtue or areti means m Greek the hIghest excellence or perfectIOn of everythmg, not Just our moral virtue Moral virtue was a particular case of a general law of perfectIOn which pervaded nature as a whole Anstotle mcessantly refers m hIS Eth1CS to the bIOlogical and medical example DIOdes, on the other hand, regiments the hfe of the human body by a standard Similar to that of the Anstotehan mean We must not forget that Anstotle's Idea ofthe nght mean and the two VICIOUS extremes of excess and defiCIency was ongmally taken from medlcme AnstotIe compares the mdlvldual moral actIOn of the vIrtuous man WIth the mdlvldual treatment gIVen to a patIen t by hIS ph J SlClan It cannot be reg ulat.'d by general rules The HippocratIc author On A ncunt M ed1cme descnbe!> the art of the phySICian as a CTToX0:3eO'fuI, a wnJectural almmg at a target 1 So Anstotle calls the moral act a CTTOX0:3eaBOI, an almmg at the nght mean between the VICIOUS extremes of the too much and the too hUle, of excess and defiCIency DIOdes apphes thiS cntenon systematically to the diet of the healthy HIS mam concept IS the ap~6TTOv, . the appropnate' It IS synonymous WIth the concept of TIprnov, / the SUItable' These LOncepts presuppose the Idea that the nature of everythmg bears In Itself the rules accordmg to whIch it should be treated Both concepts appear now and then before Anstotle, to be sure, but [ Cf Dlokles PP 45 ff Cf Ibid P 46

1

(DlOcIe~' theory

of dIet and Anstotehan ethiCS)

418

D10CLES OF CARYSTUS

they were generalIZed by him In Anstotle's phtlosophy they became dommant. especially 10 his ethiCS and aesthetics DIOdes transferred them to dletetlts They, too, reveal his teleological view of nature The malO rule of diet IS to do noth1Og agamst nature, but everyth10g 10 accordance with nature This 15 what Diodes means by adapting oneself to nature He very often gives hiS rules 10 the stereotyped form of ~T1611 m-rl, 'It IS better' Anstotle's philosophy distingUishes four causes, among which the final cause IS the highest and most Important Anstotle often cntlclzes the former natural phl1osophers for the reason that they neglected this cause They did not see that most thmgs 10 nature are as they are because It IS better for them to be so Diodes calls the whole dlsclphne of dietetics Hygulna From this word, which became general 10 later anCient medIcal systems, the modem term' hygiene' IS dIrectly denved It IS shaped on the pattern of Anstotle's philosophical dlsclphnes, for he called them by adjectives 10 the plural of the neuter, e g Ethlca, Pohtlca, Analytlca In the first book of hiS treatise On Dut, Diodes discussed, obvIOusly at the outset, the problem of medical method, With speCial regard to aetiology Fortunately Galen has preserved the ongmal words I Those people, Diodes says, who beheve that they must 10 every case determme the reason why a th10g IS nounshmg or why It IS laxative or uretK or producmg another effect of this sort, apparently do not know, first, that this IS often unnecessary for medical practice and, second, that many thmgs which eXist (10 Greek we have here the philosophical word 5vra) are, so to speak, hke pnnClples (apxal) accordmg to nature, m that they do not admit a further regress to the cause Moreover, phySICians are wrong sometimes when they take as a premise that which IS unknown and not agreed upon and Improbable and believe thIS to be a suffiCIent determmatIon of the cause We need not pay attentIOn to those phYSICIans who gIVe aetlologlcal explanations of thiS sort and who feel obhged to define the cause of everythmg, but we should rather put our confidence m those thmgs whIch have been observed by expenence (hJ'TTElpla) over a long penod of time We ought to seek a cause only when the nature of the subject allows It, provIded that our statement about It WIll m thiS way attam a htgher degree of knowledge and certamty I ought perhaps to dISCUSS first the passage precedmg these words There Dlocles pomts out that we cannot always reduce slml1ar effects to the same cause as hiS predecessors often had done 10 then aetlOI Ga.l De altmentorum lac, vol VI P i55 Kuhn The more recent editIon of Helmrelch gives several sllght Improvements of the teJt:t For the follOWing ana.lySls of thiS InterestIng methodolOgIcal fragment, I refer to my book, pp 25-iS

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

419

logIcal zeal to denve all phenomena Wlth whIch the phYSICian IS concerned from a few pnmary causes Nor can we say. he contInues, that thmgs whIch have the same taste or odour or temperature or anythmg of the sort must have the same effects Thmgs whIch are Similar m thIS sense of the term very often have dissimIlar effects, as can easIly be shown It IS not true that everythmg IS laxative or uretlc or has any other such power because It IS warm or mOIst or salty or the like The sweet and the sharp and the bItter and all the rest of these qualIties do not have the same effects, but accordmg to DIOcles we had better say that' the whole nature IS the cause of the fact that, when we apply each of them, certam effects usually happen I The author of the HIppocratIc book On Annent Medtczne had already expounded WIth remarkable zeal the belIef that those medIcal schools are wrong whIch belIeve that they must make medICIne mto an exact art or SCIence by adoptmg one of the systems of Iomc natural phIlosophy and denvmg everythmg from one pnnCIple or a few prmcipies Z They are too much Impressed bv phIlosophy We ought never to forget that these phIlosophIcal pnnclples are mere hypotheses and speculations and cannot glVe any certamty whatever to a phySICIan who has to give a patIent the treatment he needs when hiS hfe IS In danger The only firm ground on whIch he can stand IS expenence DlOcles agrees With thIS HippocratIc author, and so one may ask What IS the use of callIng hIm an Anstotellan and a phIlosophIcal mmd? But here we see how the An!>totellan phIlosophy comes In The protest of the HIppocratic author agdInst phIlosophy IS a protest agamst natural phIloo;ophy of the Pre-~ocrahc type He hImself calls It the type whIch Empedocles and that sort of people have Introduced J But philosophy when drIven out by the front door soon comes m agam by the back door m other clothes ThIS tIme It IS dressed In the coat of the logICIan and methodologIst 4 When Dlocles reJects the conclUSIOn from SImIlar bIOlogICal effects of the same cause, because SImIlar thmgs of thts sort need not necessanly produce the Sd.me effects, he applIes Anstotle's new method of dlstmguiShIng the vanous meamngs of every concept (the method of the TTOAAOXW5 A£yOIJEVa, whIch we know best from Book /). of the M etaphystc~) There and m Book I Anstotle enumerates vanous I From the pomt of VIeW of the most recent development of modern SCience, It IS characterIstIc of the SItuatIOn ID whIch DIOdes finds hImself that medIcme and natural SCIence as a whole are mclrned to surrender the method of mechanrcal explanatIon of the SIngle phenomena and take an attItude whIch we now call ganzhelll.ch or holistic 2 HIppocrates, De vet med, C I if , and espeCIally C 20 J IbId, c 20 • It IS merely Ignorance of hIStOry to thmk as many hlstonans seem to do that HIppocrates elrmmated phIlosophy from medIcme once and for all

410

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

mean10gs of the concept of the slml1ar (6Ilolov) Only 10 the less exact usage of rhetoncal 1Ostruchon does Anstotle adopt the general statement that simIlar effects are produced by slnlllar causes [ In metaphysIcs, however, Ie 10 stnctly philosophical enVironment, he first dlstmgulshes the vanous meanmgs of the slmdar ThiS method became necessary at the moment when vanous branches of sCientific thought met one another lD one and the same phIlosophICal school Then It was reahzed that the concept of the Similar which IS used by the mathematICIan when he speaks of Similar tnangles or parallelograms, and which IS defined by Fuchd 10 the first aXIOm of the Sixth book of the Elements, IS totally different from the' similar' which the phySICIan IS th1Ok1Og of when speak10g of Similar causes and effects In Anstotle's dlst1Oction of the four meamngs of 'similar' we can still recognize that thiS was the reason for hiS attempt at differentiatIOn The first of the four meamngs 10 Book I of the MetaphYSICS IS apparently meant to be a defimtIon of the mathematIcal concept of slmdanty 2 It IS the slmllanty of two rectangular figures which are not Identical 10 their concrete essence, compns1Og form and matter, but 10 then form Also the second mean10g IS referred to an Identity of form It occurs 10 th10gs which admit a 'more or less' (e g phYSical quahtIes hke 'warm'), but whiCh actually have the same degree of the quaht} 10 questIOn Third, ",e call slmllar those thmgs whlCh have the same quahty (e g white colour), but have It 10 two different shades (e g tlO and slIver) FOUl th, we call slmllar such thmgs as have more Identical than different quahtIes It IS ObVIOUS that DIOcles' statement that Similar bIOlogical effects need not be produced by the same causes IS based on a Similar dlst1OctIOn There IS an essentIal difference between th10gs which are IdentIcal 10 their form (I e substantIally) and th10gs which have only one quahty In common ThIng~ which have In common the qualIty' warm' need not produce all the same effect, e g on digestIon or unnatlOn DIOcles' statement IS, of course, very short It does not refer exphCltly to AnstotIe's logical theory But thiS was neither needed nor usual No PenpatetIc philosopher ever mentions Anstotle when he diSCUSses, applies, or cntlClzes the doctnne of the master But after haVIng proved that DIOdes was an Anstotehan from hiS terminology and hiS membershIp m the Penpatehc school, there can be no doubt that he knows and presupposes 10 thiS claSSical methodological chapter the Anstotehan doctnne of the vanous meamngs of SCientIfic concepts. DIOcles throughout pays much attentIon to the question of synonyms for diseases, medical plants, &c , and when he says, for example, that we speak of motion as movmg and mohon as moved, he certamly IS J

Ar Rllel I 4. 136015

• Ar Mel I 3, I054 b 3

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

421

Anstotehz1Og, and there IS no HippocratIc wnter who ever speaks 1D this way I would rather say that he rejects In the Hippocratic way unnecessary and unproved hypotheses In medicine, but he proves this maxim by the new Anstotehan lOgIc We observe the same keen conscIOusness of the 10glCalunpbcatIons of every medical statement In the following words, 10 which he rejects the seemmgly sCIentific demand of some medical schools to determme the cause of everyth10g The whole paragraph IS tinged by Anstotehan tenmnology When DIOdes speaks of certain facts beyond which we cannot advance In the senes of causes and which we therefore have to accept as prmClples, he does not mean pnnclples In the Pre-Socratic sense of the term, I e real causes, but the pnnczples of knowledge from which, accordmg to Anstotle, all other knowledge 10 every field IS denved I We must admit that such a diSCUSSion IS umque m medlcme even m claSSical antiqUIty It was poSSible, I dare say, only 10 the Penpatetlc school There, not only a general philosophical conscIOusness of all methods of human knowledge was developed, but It penetrated every branch of sCience and scholarship Anstotle teaches that these first pnnclples are undemonstrable and Immediate (avcrno21eIlCTa and Q:IJEC1a) They are arnved at m a different way In every field In mathematics, which doubtless gave the first Impulse to thiS development by formulatmg a number of such aXIOms, they are reached by direct perception (aicre"C1IS) In phySICS the pnnClples are attamed by mductlOn from expenence In ethICS they rest on habituatIOn, I e on expenence of another sort than that used m phySICS 1 We may term It an mner expenence, which results 10 shapmg a permanent attitude or habit It IS In the Nzcomackean Ethzcs that Anstotle mdlcates most clearly the way m which we attam knowledge of these prmClples and how we should behave WIth regard to the questIOn of SCIentific method There he states, With regard to the methodical Ideal of the Platomc school of treatmg ethical problems m a mathematical way, that we ought not to ask for mathematical exactness when the nature of the object does not allow It He thmks It the Sign of true SCIentIfic culture (lTal21ela) to know just how much we should demand m every field of knowledge J In ethiCS and pohtlcs we must be content With a I Ar Met B I, 995 b 7, and elsewhere, dlstIn/i(ulshes the pnnclples of beIng and the pnncIple~ of knowled/i(e (apodlctlc pnnclples) The pnnclples of being or real pnncIples (water, fire, and the hke) were the object of all the InvestIgatIOns of the Pre-SocratIc phIlosophers In Anstotle, therefore, the pnnclples of knowledge are the new dIscovery We must keep that In mInd when we find them dIscussed by Dlocles Cf my analySIS of thIS problem, DIOklu, PP 42 ff • Ar Elh Nlc I 7, I09Sb 3, and J Burnet, T:.e EthICS of Aristotle, Introduction, pp XXXIV ff J Ar op CIt I I, I094b 19 ff

422

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

typiCal way of descnptIon, and we must not ask for necessary conclusions when we can hope to atta.m only a knowledge of what usually happens or what IS usually nght This resembles, of course, the situation 10 medlcme DlOcles, 10 his methodological fragment, follows the thoughts of Anstotle, and even his words, so closely that we cannot escape the conclUSIOn that he had the pattern of the NJCOmachean EthJCS before his eyes when he formulated his opmlOn We have already pOInted out that he conceives the dIsclplme of dietetics as a medical counterpart of ethics It IS, therefore, not so far-fetched when he extends thiS analogy even to the methodological situation of both sCiences On the contrary, after Plato and Anstotle had referred so often 10 their ethical treatises to the parallel situatIon 10 medlcme, It was very natural for a man of Dlocles' many-sided philosophical culture to take advantage for medlcme of the refinement of ethical methods which was reached by Anstotle Anstotle and Dlocles hkeWIse demand that we start not WIth unknown and doubtful premises but With that which IS known to us and agreed upon Both say that we must not ask for a cause where the facts as such are the last eVidence WhICh We can attam Dlocles' remarkable formulation, that the facts 10 such cases are, so to speak, lIke pnnclples accordmg to nature, means the same as the formulation by Anstotle expressed by the famous words m the EthJCS on the •that' and the' why' (em and 2.U~TI) When we have attamed, he says, certam fundamental facts by moral experience, It IS not necessary to ask for the causes of these facts, for he who has the facts also has the principles, or can grasp them eaSily I Also DIOdes' other argument, that a knowledge of the cause IS often not needed for medical practice, IS to be found 10 the methodical mtroductlOn of the NJcomachean Eth,cs ~ Anstotle there warns us not to exaggerate our methodical demands because there IS a difference between the mathematiCIan and the architect Both of them want to determme 10 their field the right angle, but the geometnclan mveshgates the nature and the qualities of thiS mathematIcal conceptIon as such, whereas the architect determmes It only as far as It IS wanted for hiS work Anstotle here thmks It to be the hIgher degree of philosophIcal knowledge to be aware of the hmlts which are drawn by the nature of our object, rather than to waste our time m almmg at unattamable methodIcal Ideals We ought not to take the parergon more senously than the ergon I t IS more phIlosophIcal for a dlsclplme lIke ethiCS to be aware of ItS practical character than to aim at becommg an exact theoretical SCIence ThIS Idea IS transferred to medIcme by DlOcles And m thIS sense he conSiders medlcme as a part of the whole of I Ar op CIt I 7. 100B" 33 and I • Ibid I 7, 1098" 26 fI

2,

100S b 6

DlOCLES OF CARYSTUS

423

human knowledge or SCience, which the PenpatetIc school called phIlosophy In his letter to Kmg AntIgonus Diodes dauns that title for his medical art I The way In which he penetrates It With a phIlosophical conscIOusness of method and combmes It With a unIversal study of nature Justifies thiS name The letter to Kmg AntIgonus, which I have given back to DIOdes. Illustrates from still another side hiS mterest 10 the methodical problem It lIkeWise Illustrates the contnbutIon which a phIlosophically conscIous phySICian was able to make to the PenpatetIc diSCUSSIOn of the problem of sCientIfic method DIOdes IS go 109 to wnte for hiS royal patient a medical vade-mecum or catechism In the form of a letter of only a few pages The old man, 10 whose hands lay at that time the destmy of the world, was about eighty, as I have said DlOcles wants to tell him about the best way to prevent senous illness ThIS IS a pomt of view different from dietetics, although It also 10volves prescnptIons on diet ProphylaxIs IS about to develop mto a speCial disciplIne DIOdes calls It a theory of how dlse~es ongmate and how we can find help agaInst them ThiS depends largely upon our awareness of the fact that there are certam s~gns mwcatmg In advance the commg Illness and upon our abilIty to take advantage of these sIgns Dwell'S' refined sense of comparatIve methodology makes him observe at once the essentIal IdentIty of the nature of such signs In pathology with those signs by which, for example. meteorological observatIon -predicts atmosphenc changes and the commg storm ThiS practical meteorology had up to that tIme been developed mostly by experts of navigatIon, as DIOdes mentIons In additIon, he mentIOns some' people of manY-Sided expenence' We thInk of PenpatetIc sCIentists of encyclopaedic knowledge lIke Theophrastus who has wntten a whole treatise on meteorologIcal SignS which has been preserved Dwell'S himself h> a meteorolOgIst, as I can prove by a meteorological fragment which I recently dlscO\ered and which may belong to hiS lost book On Ftre and Atr 1 So he must have been familIar with the meteorological use of those SignS which had been taken over from the old nautIc tradition by the modern PenpatetIc sCientIsts They adapted thiS method to their SCientIfic purposes and tned to learn somethIng from It for their phIlosophical analySIS of expenence The Penpatetics made use of the Sign, for example, m the new dlsclplme of physlOgnomlcs about which a treatise has been preserved under the name of Anstotle It certaInly I Cf Ep ad Antlg I (DlOkles. P 75) • Cf Vergessene Fragmente pp 5-10 The title of D,odes book On Fire and A,r IS hsted by Wellmann. op CIt. P 117 The new fragment deals Wlth the process of combustlon (il<1TVpc.>alS) In the lughest regIOn of the aIr In the universe

424

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

belongs to the Penpatetic school The author Investigates the relatIon between physlOgnomlc Sign and character The method IS stnctly empmcal and based on the observatIOn of slmllanties In our expenence and on certam constant conJunctions from which we Infer hke similanties and conjunctions 10 the unknown StoIcS and Epicureans developed the concept of Sign or semewn more generally, m ItS lOgical significance, and bUilt on thiS baSIS an epistemological theory which they called semeIOtic, the StOICS m a ratIOnalIstIc way, the Epicureans 10 a more empmcal sense But the roots of thiS development he In the Anstotehan school and In Greek mediCine Anstotle treats the syllOgism from SignS at the end of the pnor Analytics He Illustrates It by examples taken from medical prognOSIS and adds a whole chapter on the speCial questIon as to whether SCientific physlOgnomlcs IS poSSible If we had DlOcIes' lost book on prognOSIS, we would perhaps know more about hiS methodological theones At any rate, we look here mto Anstotle's school and see somethmg of the background of hiS logiC ThiS logiC did not stand m a vacuum Anstotle's logiC IS the logiC of the sCiences which were m eXistence m hiS time, and It 10 tum gave a new Impulse to the SCIences, as we learn from DlOcles If our conduslOns are sound, as I thmk they are, we have succeeded In reconstructmg an Important but hitherto unknown part of Anstotle's school and philosophy which had disappeared, together With the Ideal of sClentIfic lIfe from which thiS school had sprung Medicme was one of the most authontatlve and respected members of the large famlly of sCiences umted 10 the Penpatos The medical department of the Penpatetic school had In DIOdes itS greatest representative Metrodorus belonged to It Erasistratus, lIke DIOdes one of the greatest medical fIgures of all times, studIed m it The mfluence of DIOdes on Praxagoras of Cos, In hIS mam theones as well as m many detalls, was noted long ago, but It remamed unexplamed smce almost a century lay between them Now we suddenly see that Praxagoras was a contemporary, only a httle younger than DIOdes Since Praxagoras was the head of the HippocratIc school, hiS dependence upon DIOdes means that about twenty years after Anstotle's death the Hippocratic school at Cos was under the dommatmg influence of the medICal department of Anstotle's school Herophilus, the head of the new medical school at Alexandna dunng the reign of Ptolemles I and II, was a pupil of Praxagoras He developed anatomy, on WhiCh Diodes had wntten the first systematic work, and ennched It by many new dlscovenes He also developed the dialectical and logical element m mediCine, which DIOdes had mtroduced, and therefore was called the dlalectiClan It wa~ a pupil of hiS who founded the emplllcal school of medicme 10 the late third century The Penpatetic bIOlogists all adhered to the theory of the pneuma,

DIOCLES OF CARYSTUS

425

WhICh was DIodes' fundamental Idea In phYSIOlogy and pathology The fact that Theophrastus and Strato are lInked very closely With DIOcles' medIcal theory has seemed rather strange heretofore, but now becomes easIly understandable, as does the Important part whIch the theory of the pneuma plays In StOIC psychology and physlOlogy and even In StOIC metaphYSICS It goes back to the SIcIlIan school of mediCine and was adopted by Plato and Anstotle I In Anstotle's school It expenenced a renaissance In Dlocles' medical system and was blended by him With elements of Hippocratic and Cmdean medICine, for, like Anstotle's philosophy at large, DIOcles' mediCIne IS charactenzed by d strongly synthetIc tendency It umtes Within Itself the hlstoncal schools of Greek medlClne and tnes to link them mto greater umty It IS thiS new histOrIcal and synthetic conSCIOusness which gives DIOdes hIS key posItion m the history of Greek medlcme Furthermore, It makes It clear why It was thiS generatIon which produced the first history of mediCine In the work of Meno He obVIOusly belonged to the same medical department of the AnstotelIan school The work was not wntten by Anstotle himself, as traditIonally believed In claSSical antIqUity, but under hiS gUIdance, as were Theophrastus' history of the earlier phySical systems, and Eudemus' famous works on the hl!>tory of geometry, astronomy, and theology When large excerpts from Meno's history of medlClne were discovered some decades ago, the most difficult problem which scholars had to face was the picture which he gIves of Hippocrates ~ He represents him as a pneumatIC and thiS misrepresentatIOn seemed hardly understandable For us It no longer offers a senous problem Meno, DIOdes, and the PenpatetIc school ObVIOusly saw the hIStOry of medICIne III the light and perspective of their own theory They tned to fmd the first IlldlCations of It III Hlppoclates and thl~ IS only an eVidence of their high regard for thiS great physICian Cf my artJcle 'Das Pneuma 1m LykelOD' 1D Hermes, ~ol xlVIII, P 51 Edited by H Dlels m Supplemenlum Anstotellmm, vol Ill, p 1 (Berlm 1893) On Meno's picture of Hippocrates, cf H Dlels, Hermes, vol XXVlll, p ,,°7 I

2

APPENDIX II

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE THE memory of the earliest Greek thmkers lived on m the hterature of the succeedmg centunes through the permanent assoClatIon of theIr names WIth particular opmlOns and questlOns, whIle theIr wntmgs, m so far as they left any, went early to destruction But besIdes thIs doxographIcal tradItion, as It IS called, whIch was committed to wntmg and sifted m the works whICh Anstotle's school devoted to the hIstory of philosophy, and above all In Theophrastus' great Optnwns of the PhysfCfStS, there survived also another sort of remembrance of them, sprung from an entIrely dIfferent source From thIS pomt of VIew the earlIest figures III the hIstory of phIlosophy were not persons who held more or less pnmltIve and long superseded VIews on all sorts of strange questions, but the venerable archetypes and representatIves of the form of mtellectual lIfe that IS charactenstIc of the phIlosophIC man m all ages, and that seemed to be Illcorporated WIth specIal punty and ImpreSSIveness III Its earliest pIOneers ThIS tradItIon had only general and typIcal traIts to tell of those old thmkers, and therefore found expreSSIOn charac tenstIc all} m the form of an~cdotes and apophthegms But, as these typical traIts became connected WIth the names of mdlVlduals who were thus known and Identified, there arose alongSIde the Impersonal tradItIon of theIr opmlOns a pICture of the earlIest phIlosophers that compensated the later centunes for theIr lack of all mformatIon about theIr human personalitIes, and was often taken for genume hlstoncal tradItion These stones are related to us by later phIlosophers, from Plato on, WIth reverence and wonder Ongmally, however, they certamly arose m part from a wholly dIfferent motIve, namely the people's amazement at a new t}pe of man, the unworldly and WIthdrawn student and scholar who expresses hunself In these anecdotes WIth parddoxes and freakIsh peculIarItIes Such IS Plato's story of Thales failing mto a well whIle observmg the sky, and bemg mocked by a WItty ThraClan servant-gIrl-that IS to say, by the most uneducated sort of person a Greek could Imagmebecause' he wants to dIscover what there IS m the sky, but he doesn't even see what IS lymg at hIS own feet' I Herds of cattle devoured the crops of Democntus, says Horace m hIS Letlers,z whIle hIS qUICk mmd roved far away from hIS body In the dIVISIon of hIS nch paternal I Plato, Theaet 174 A (Dlels, VOl'S I II, A 9) • Horat Ep I 12, 12 (and the parallel passages

In

Dlels, Vors· 68,

A IS)

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE 4Z7 mhentance hIS brothers led hIm by the nose, because he wIshed to be paId m cash In order to make long Journeys He was not gIven the full worth of hIS share, and what he dId receIve he spent on hIS travels to Egypt and to the Chaldees While hIS father was alIve he used to shut hImself up m a lIttle garden-house that was sometImes also used as a stable He entIrely faIled to notIce one day that hIS father had tied up an ox for sacnfice there, and remamed peacefully under the same roof with It until the beast was fetched to the slaughter and Democntus' attention was drawn to hIS remarkable society I That stones of thIs sort were by no means merely the expressIOn of a deep and sympathetIc admIratIOn of unusual mtellectucll concentratIon, but also gIve the folk's mockmg vIew of absentnunded scholars, IS sharply brought out m the case of Thales by the complement that Anstotle gIves us to the anecdote of the astronomer who pitched mto the well ThIS IS the tale of a smart busmess manreuvre that Thales earned through wIth bnllIant success m order to show those who despIsed SCIence that one can make a lot of money wIth meteorology If one sets one's mmd to It Expectmg an unusually good olIve harvest, he hIred all the presses In the country round, when the great harvest arnved and no one had a press, he leased them to theIr owners at a hIgh pnce ~ Anstotle, WIth hIS usual keen cnhcal sense, remarks that thIS IS obVIOusly a typical story, attnbuted to Thales merely because he was known to be WIse He also correctly descnbes the purpose of the attnbutlOn to make It palpably eVIdent that the truth IS not that sCIence IS useless but that sCIentists are not Interested In usmg It to ennch themselves The typIcal character of many of these stones comes out above all m the fact that they are told of several persons Thus Anaxagoras IS also supposed to have neglected hIS mhentance, lIke Democntus, when hiS relatives called hIm to account, he replIed . Look after It yourselves', and WIth these words he freely handed over to them all hIS goods and chattels, m order to be able to lIve for study alone J Here the anecdote has taken on a more affectmg character, mstead of the good-humoured mockery that colours the Democntean versIOn The dIstracted phIlosopher, absentmindedly lettmg hIS cattIe devour hiS gram, has become a great and mdependent spmt who conscIOusly despIses external goods and herOIcally rejects them The same spmt mforms an apophthegm In whIch Anaxagoras, asked what he lIves for, gIves the proud answer •To observe and study the sun and the moon and the sky '4 Equally I Demetnus.1D Men oj the Same Name, accordmg to DlOg IX 3.5-6 (VaP's I 68,

A I)

• Anst Pol I II, 1259" 6 (VaP's I II, A 10) J Dlog II 7 (Vors I 59, A I) 4 DlOg II 10 (Vors I 59. A I) The utterance occurs m another {onn

In

428

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

herOic are the utterances that tradItion ascnbes to him when he was condemned by the Atheman court and when his son dIed They are meant to show that the heart of the true student IS not 10 penshable thmgs, not even 10 the hIghest human goods, m cIvIlIzed lIfe and WIfe and chIld I The anecdote that Anaxagoras, when accused of not car10g for hIS country, pomted to heaven and cned 'I care greatly for my country', IS mtended to bear WItness to the complete withdrawal of the phIlosopher from that pohticallde m whIch the Greek of the claSSIcal penod was wholly absorbed 1 The time and place at which these stones arose are obscure For those whIch, lIke the anecdote of the absentmmded astronomer, express the feehng of the masses 1 ather than the opmIOn of an mdlVIdual, we have absolutely noth1Og to go on WIth the last mentioned tales, however, the SItuation IS somewhat dIfferent These owe theIr comage entirely to men of a defimte class, men who were themselves full of the ethos of what was later called the' theoretic Ide', and made themselves a sort of symbol for It 10 the stnk10g utterances of the WIse men of old And thIS Imphes that, at the time when these anecdotes arose, the' theoretic lIfe' was not merely bemg lIved by Isolated exceptional men followmg their natural mstmct, but had already become a conscIOUS phIlosophical Ideal But thiS can certaInly not be saId of the earlIer Pre-Socratic phIlosophers of nature The Ideal of the 'lIfe' dedIcated to knowledge was created by Plato, whose ethICS descnbes several opposed types of 'hfe' and culmmates m the' chOIce of the best hfe' J In Itself, mdeed, It IS perfectly posSible that a student lIke Anaxagoras, hvmg m such an exclUSively polItical society as the Athens of Pencles, should come to realIze the Anst Elh Eud I .5, 1216" II We are to understand m the same way the purposely obscure answer of Anaxagora~ to the questIOn Who IS the happIest ma.n / 'None of those whom you suppose, but someone who would seem absurd to you' Cf Anst Elk Eud I 4 1215b 6 (V Of'S & 59, A 30) I DJOg II 13 (l'ors & 59, A I) • DJOg II 7 (Vors 1 59, A I) J In an Academy address that IS chanmng and full of feelIng (VIla ConlemplalllJa, Ber Heldelb Akad 1920, 8) Franz Boll has set down a senes of representatIves of tlus Me', begmnIng "Ith Thales, Herachtu., and Anaxagoras Plato and Anstotle are merely touched on Their Influence on later men receIves more of ItS due Boll was far removed from the questIon that forms the startmg pOInt of our examinatIOn How far are our reports of the earlIer thmkers and theIr' hfe' a real hlstoncal tradItIon 1 When they ascnbe the conscIous Ideal of the 'theoretIc hfe' to Pre-SocratIc phIlosophers, IS that bJstoncally credIble or IS It a mere reflectIOn of a later hfe ethICS 1 The whole tradItIon needs to be re-examIned from thIs pomt of VIew, now that the development of phIlosophIcal ethICS and' hfe' doctnne from Plato to Anstotle and hIS pupIls has been put In the nght hght ThIS gIves us a fixed pomt that 15 also a focus for the hIstory of the ongm of the tradItIon concernIng the hIstory of plulosophy ThIs, then, must be our startlng-pomt

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

42 9

separateness of hiS detached eXistence Eunpldes already commended the qUiet hfe of the student of nature, removed from the pohtIcal machmery,' and depicted m hIS Antlope the tragIc conflIct between the' musical' and the practIcal man Z But Plato was the first to mtroduce the theoretical man as an ethical problem mto philosophy and to Justify and glonfy hi'> hfe Seen from Plato's position, the eXistence of thiS type m earher times either had to appear as a mere paradox, a cunoslty of human nature lackmg all moral baSIS, or else the early representatives of thiS type. hke Thales and Anaxagoras, had to be posthumously provided with Plato's legitimatIon and Plato's morell and emotIonal views of the' theoretIc hfe' The latter can be shown to have been what occurred All stones that make the older philosophers conscIOUS followers of the Ideal of the' theoretic hfe' either come directly from Plato's school or arose soon afterwards under the mfluence of the Platomc Ideal The effect of the Platomc philosophy m formmg tradition, and of ItS direct heir the PenpatetIc school, would repay a connected exammatIon But the result IS a foregone conclUSIOn the whole picture that has come down to us of the history of early philosophy was fashIOned dunng the two or three generatIOns from Plato to the ImmedIate pupils of Anstotle Along With the phIlosophy of these two schools It has remamed a foundatIOn-stone m the hl,>toncal structure of our culture And one of the most mstructlve examples of thiS rule IS the reflectIon of the Ideal of hfe as conceived dunng thiS flowenng of Greek philosophy m the picture of the old Pre-SocratIC thmkers and their' hfe' We are even stIll m a posItIon to see that the great and apparently IrreconCilable contradictIOns m the traditional account of the early thmkers are a necessary consequence of the f1uctudtIons to which men's views of the' best hfe' were subjected m the tIme from Plato to Anstotle and hiS pupils To understand the development of the ethical problem, and of the' lIfe' problem m partIcular, dunng thI~ penod, IS to clear up the creatIOn of our traditIon concemmg the hves of the earlIest phIlosophers The present mquuy must therefore begm WIth the sIgmficance of the 'hfe' problem for the PlatOnIC philosophy, and follow ItS development m some detail Fust I must recall certam fundamental pomts from my Aristotle and carry them farther lEur frg 910 Nauck Plato In Gorg.as, 484 F and 485 E ff make" CallIcles quote hnes from Anhope as part of hIS campaIgn a~alIlst a onesldedly phIlosophIcal lIfe It IS true that Eunpldes depIcts Amphlon a" a musIcal rather than as a SCIentIfic md.n But the slmIlanty lIe" 1Il their bemg both unpolItIcal, and so Plato could make CallIcles uoe agalIl"t Socrates the lInes of Zethus agamst AmphlOn (Plato, although he belIeved 1Il the polItIcal mISSIOn of Socrates, never demed that lus teacher was an unpolItical man 111 the sense of ordmary party pohncs ) 1

EC

430

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

The pure 6E<..>pl" or ' theory' of the early physlclSts arose 10 Ioma It was one of the most remarkable flowers of that late IOnIan culture which was rendered mcreasmgly unpobtIcal by the predomInance of the mercantile atmosphere and later by foreIgn rule, and whIch by Its great mdIVldual freedom faCIlItated the appearance of the type WIthm the CIVIC commumty of the POllS The down-to-earth AttiC mentalIty with Its tight polItical organIZation of lIfe left no room for such speCIal actIvlties of mdlvlduals Down to Plato's day and beyond It remamed as unfnendl} and reserved towards pure sCience as did later the Roman senatonal class ThiS hard earth was bound to gIVe nse to the SOCIal tragedy of the' unpolItical person', WhICh Eunpldes first brought to lIght The tensIOn between the duties of a CItizen and the leisure of a student, between actIOn and knowledge, was here logIcally bound to mcrease mto an enmity towards sCience on the part of the pure political man and a flight from politics on the part of the philosopher Here alone, too, on AttiC SOlI could Plato venture hIS profound attempt to reconcile the theoretic lIfe and the polItical life WIthout compromIse, by gIvmg sCience and philosophy a new subject, namely the state, and by makmg the highest norms and laws of SOCial action their chief problem, on whose solutIOn hung the welfare of the' state Itself' In hIS earhest wntmgs, where he presented Socrates to hiS contemporanes as the one true statesman whom they needed, because he had turned their eyes to the deCISive questIon of the knowledge of the highest norm,l we find admIttedly as yet no trace of the Ideal of the theoretic life as Plato later proclaimed It In those days hiS Ideal both of logos and of . hfe' was still embodIed exclUSively m Socrates. and there IS the most obVIOUS contrast between Socrates and the type of the unworldly pure SCientist, the' mmd astronomlzmg and geometnzmg', as set up for model Ul the famous digreSSIOn In Plato's Theaetetus Z But Socrates' moral problem was for Plato a problem of knowledge from the begmmng Wlthm the questIOn of the nght moral InSIght, of phronesH as Socrates had saId m accordance With the prevaIlmg Greek usage, was hidden the stIll deeper question of the essence of knowledge 10 general and of the true nature of bemg, and the detour through these fundamental questIOns, which Plato belIeved he must take 10 order I See my Platos Stellullg lm Aufbau del' grlechlschen Blldung (Berlm, 1918), p 40 of the separate edition • Socrates IS by no means laclang In • theoretIcal' traits, although he lIkes most to be where people are throngmg, 10 the wrestlIng-school or the marketplace But though Boll, op Cit, P 9 refers to Ius neglect of hls domestIc affairs and hiS WIthdrawal from common politics or to his' I shall not cease from pbJIosophlz1Og' 10 the Apology (29 D), there IS a great gulf between Socrates' sort of reflective concentration and the type of scholar depicted ID Theaetetus (173 IL) See above, p 15

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

431

to answer the Socratic question, led hIm more and more mto a general doctnne of knowledge and belOg, and compelled hIm to add to hl~ structure of theoretical sCIence even the branches of mathematIcs and astronomy that he found eXlstlOg So phroneszs was filled wIth the contents of thIS sophza, and out of the SocratIc apona and elenchu~ there grew a 'theoretIc hfe' devoted to the purest research In Theaetetus, where the alhance between philosophy and mathematics IS specIally promment, Socrates SlOgS a ventable hymn to the hfe of the student, and palOts an Ideal pIcture of thIS hfe 10 colours borrowed from the type of the astronomer and mathematiCIan That IS the context 10 whIch Thales IS CIted as the perfect example of a phIlosopher unconcerned about practical and pohtIcal lIfe, and the story IS told how he fell 10 the well whIle observ1Og the stars It IS strange that thIS praIse of geometry and astronomy IS here sung by Socrate'i, whom Plato had once 10 the Apology madr to say that of ~uch hIgh matters he understood neIther much nor httle but Just preCIsely noth1Og I It IS clear that Plato himself was aware that WIth thIS latest pICture of Socrates 10 Theaetetu~ he had rea:hed the hmlt of what artistIC freedom could Justify 10 the way of transfonn1Og the hIstOrIcal Socrates The new Ideal of the theoretIc hfe, and the type of pure speculatIve suence on whlch It was based, demanded some other symbol, some other archegete than Socrates, who had hItherto been the lead10g figure 10 Plato's dIalogues And so 10 the Sophzst and the Statesman, the two works wntten after Theaeletus and hnked thereWIth, the leaders of the dlSCUS'ilon are the two venerable representatives of Eleatlc dIalectIc, Parmemdes and Zeno, and Socrates has to be content WIth a subordInate role SImIlarly 10 Tzmaeus the figure of the Pythagorean of that name IS made the spokesman of Plato's cosmology The Ideal of the theoretIC hfe, as reahzed 10 Plato's Academy at that time, wa., proclaImed m a work by the young Anstotle, the Protreptlcu~, which I have asse'ised m detaIl 10 d prevIOus chapter z It shows the changed attitude (,f the Academy to Socrates and hIS problems, that 'metaphysICs', whIch was then for Plato's school the central questIOn, and which had not yet obtamed a preCise name of ItS own, IS 10dlcated 10 the Protreptzcus by the followmg cIrcumlocutIOn 'the SCIence of truth, as 1Otroduced by Anaxagoras and Parmemdes' EVIdently the names of the old th10kers are here used SImply as a substItute for pure theoretical phIlosophy, as whose representatIves they were reckoned m thIS Circle J As I showed, too, the Academy also gave nse to that pIcture of Pythagoras, so determmatIve for later antIquIty, whIch first takes J 2

J

Plato Apol 19 D See the chapter on the Prolreplleus, above pp 80 ff Anst frg 52 (p 59, 3 Rose)

432

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

fonn for us In the well known story told by Plato's pupil Herachdes of Pontus. He said that Pythagoras was the first to use the words •philosophy' and . phJlosopher' and to explain the nature of the phIlosopher by means of the famous companson with the 'pure' spectators of the games at Olympia The companson depends on the ambIguIty of the word 6Ec.)peTv, which means both watching a spectacle and contemplation and research In the' theoretical' sense Smce Anstotle In the Protreptfcus also compares the activity of the student absorbed In pure sCience to the gaze of the 6eU)pol or onlookers at Olympia, It IS clear that thiS analogy for the theoretical hfe had become claSSical In the Academy The retroactive attnbutIOn of thiS Ideal of philosophIC hfe to Pythagoras as Its founder IS connected with the hIgh esteem In whIch the AcademicIans held thiS man and the Pythagoreans, for they came more and more to see m them the real hlstoncal pattern of their own mathematlClzmg phIlosophy It IS a useless labour of love to want to save thiS pleasant story for the hlstoncal Pythagoras, to whom at Just thiS time an abundance of apocryphal traits and anecdotes was attnbuted, and about whose hfe and utterances a whole literature of a purely legendary character arose m a short penod I We do better to follow the example of AnsI See my Arts/o/le, above p 98 Burnet, Larlv Greek PhzlosoPhy' p 98, seems mchned to conSIder Herachdes' story hlstoncal, and to carry back to Pythagoras the doctnne of the three' hve5 (the apolau9tlc, the' pohhcal', and the theoretIc ') which It presuppo5e" and WlllCh we find 10 Anstotle's two EthiCS But neither the name of Herachde9, who was a byword for romancmg nor the story Itself speaks m favour of thl9 The doctnne of the hves' 19 found m An5totle as well as Herachde5 and they both owe It to the Academy (see Plato's Republtc IX 581 C ff) Nor doe5 the tale contam any other' Pythagorean' element that pOInts at all beyond the PlatOnIC doctnne When Cicero (Tusc V 9, other accounts 10 DlOg VIII 8, Iambl VI/ Pythag, P 58) tells us that Herachdes' account mcluded the feature that, a5 celebrants come from vanous CitIes to take part III the great Greek panegyn<" so men have wandered mto thiS hfe from another one, that IS nothmg but Plato s well known doctnne of the soul We cannot lOfer from It that the doctnne of the three' hves' was Pythagorean, on the ground that the transmIgratIOn of souls IS a demonstrably Pythagorean View Certamly there was a Pythagorean way of hfe', 10 the same sense as there was an 'OrphIc way of hfe' , but that IS 50methmg qUIte different from a dIVISIOn and claSSificatIOn of hves' such as we find 10 Plato and Anstotle The' hves' are three because there are three TtA'l or purposes In hfe In whIch accordmg to Plato and Anstotle Vanou9 men placf' theIr happIness, namely eIther pleasure or virtue or phrones1S It IS therefore not an accIdent that they are three, and not an aCCident that they are preCIsely these three They correspond to the three systemahc foundatIOn-pIllars of PlatoDlcAnstotelIan ethIcs ThIs IS very clearly expressed In Anstotle'~ E ..dem~an Eth~cs I I, J2148 30 . HapplDess and blessed hVlng would reSIde m three thmgs most, the three that seem to be most de~lrable For some say that phrones1S IS the greatest good some VIrtue, and some pleasure' (The same In Anstotle's P"ot"epllcus In Iambl Protr ,c vu ff ,see my A rIstotle, above, pp 65 ff) On thIS tnmty of the oblects of chOIce Anstotle then expressly proceeds to construct

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totle, who aVOIds usmg the name of Pythagoras and prefers merely to speak of the contemporary' so called Pythagoreans', because he belIeves that It IS no longer possIble to obtaIn trustworthy mfonnatlOn about the real Pythagoras On the other hand, he hImself, In hIS dIalogue On Phtlosophy, made use of the seven sages for the prehistory of philosophy-for we can hardlv mterpret otherwise the report that he there regarded them as 'SOphiStS', naturally 10 the good sense of the word I Indeed, the Academy even extended the conceptIon of the' theoretic hfe' to the EgyptIan pnests Anstotlc says 10 the early first book of hIS Mdaphystcs that they were the first to devote themselves to pure SCience, because their professIOn gave them leIsure And the EptnomtS of the Platomst PhIhp of Opus, which undertakes to fit the' theoretIc lIfe' a" an appendIX mto the pohtIcal structure of the Laws, sees the dIrect predecessors of thIS Ideal 10 the astrologers of the Chaldees Thus (lId the Aradrmy dunng Plato's last decades create the hlstoncal framework that fitted ItS' hfe' Z There runs through the EptnOmH a deep resignatIon that thiS . hfe' IS reserved for a very few exceptIOnal persons The same mood mforms the but httle earher 5eventh letter of Plato, that great mamfesto of hiS old age 10 which he for the la"t tIme took a stand on the questIon that had concerned hIm all hIS hfe, the questIon of the relatIOn between pohtlcs and phll050phlcal knowledge The fundamental mner readmess to wnvert tht, thoughts of philosophy mto creative actIOn, and to take part 10 the hfe of the .,tate, remamed even 10 these last years of Plato's the same as It had been at the begmmng of hIS mtellectual cour"e, notwlthstandmg the shipwreck that hiS favounte pupil DlOn had suffered m Syracuse 10 the first senous attempt to realIze the Platomc Ided~ But It was now Impos"lble not to notice a strong tensIOn between thIS ongmally all-controlhng aIm thethree'lIves'(Elh Lud 121215"35)

fhetnmtynfpleasure,vlrtue ,nd

phl'OneSH IS In him connected With Plato's doctnne that the soul has three

parts, from which he denves the three hves and the t!'ree sorts of pleasure (Repubhc IX, 580 D ff) Apocryphal Pythagorean hteraturp later naturally attnbuted the tnchotomy of the "oul al"o to Pythagoras or the Pythagoreans (along With nearl} everythmg el~e) and even people like PosidoDIUS Dot to mentIOn uncnbc~l behevers hke Iambhchu" or Porphyry, took ,uch forgenes for genu me Had I po~se"sed a complete view of thiS sort of hterature when I wrote my Nemu/us (pp 63 ff) I should have treated these 'testlmomes' to the Pythagorean ongm of the tnchotom} of the ~oul With les~ ceremony I am I':lad, however, that even then I did not blindly trust them Recently A E Taylor, m h", commentary on Plato's T,ma,us p 497 has come out al':am for a Pythagorean ancestry of thiS doctnne I Accordmg to Anst frg 3 Ro~e, the "even sages occurred m the dialogue On Phtlosophy Ro"e IS therefore probably nght In refernng to the same dialogue the statement, In Etymol M s v cr"'PICfT1\~, that Anstotle called the Ileven sage" 'Iloph"'ts' 2 Anst Metaph A I, 981b 23, Eptn 986 E

434

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

of hIS phtlosophlzmg l and the actual dedIcatIon of hIs old age entirely to pure theoretical study Thus gradually arose a set of problems whIch were 10hented by Anstotle m theIr full gravIty, and whIch threatened the essentIal umty of SCIentIfic knowledge and practIcal actIOn that had been smce Plato's Socratic penod the presupposItIon of hIS research and therefore a foundatIon-pillar of hIS Idea of the •theoretIc hfe' Plato's personal development and the mner tendency of Platomc SCIence worked 10 the same dIrectIon The passIOnate SocratIc dnve for knowledge was aImed, to speak Platomcally, purely at the 'vISIOn of the Idea of the Good' , and actIon was to Socrates Identical WIth the knowledge of the Good Plato's early phtlosophy had then pressed still more detenn10edly towards partICIpatIon m actual hfe and 10 the state Rut m the course of Plato's development the dnve towards knowledge had Immeasurably extended Its range Late Platomc sCIence dId mdeed appear to have developed qUIte organIcally out of the Socratic seed, by a process of constantly mcorporatmg ncher theoretIcal content, but Its field was no longer exclusIvely pohtIcal ethIcs as It had been m the wntmgs down to the Repubhc EthIcs had become a mere' part' of phIlosophy, co-ordmate WIth logIC and phYSICS " and when Plato m hIS old age lectured' on the Good', he understood by that mathematics and metaphYSICS and heaven knows what else, but defimtely not a doctnne of the goods of human hfe, as Anstotle used afterwards to tell hIS students, accordmg to the well known report of Anstoxenus, who heard hIm That Plato's phllosophy, ongmally very close to hfe, had changed mto pure theory IS symbohzed by the story that the announcement of the old subJect' On the Good' attracted great crowds of hearers, but that general dlsappomtment reIgned as soon as Plato began to lecture on numbers and hnes and the hIghest One whIch IS the Good J The Ideal of the theoretIc hfe dId not at first appear to be threatened by thIS development On the contrary, It seemed that pure SCIence, as the late Plato understood It, was tnumphmg over the onesldedly I See my address' Die gnechlsche ~taatsethlk 1m Zeltalter des Plato', in Humanut..che Reden und Vortrage, p 105 and' Platos Stellung 1m Aufbau der gnechlschen BIldung', op Cit, P 158 • It was so In Xenocrates' well known diVISIOn of phIlosophy (frg I Heinze). which held for the later Plato too Anstotle was not the first to differentiate philosophy m thiS way ] Anstoxenus H a"mon JO Melbom (p 44. 5 Marq) 'as Anstotle always used to tell happened to most of those who heard Plato give hiS lecture on the Good everyone came expectmg to learn something about those recogmzed human goods such as wealth, health, strength and m general some wonderful happiness, but when It became plam that hiS dlscusslOn was about mathematics and numbers and geometry and astronomy and finally that Good IS One, I tlunk It seemed an absolute paradox to them Thereupon some of them despised the matter and others condemned It '

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practical tendency of Socrates Anstotle was the first to bnng thIs tendency to complete victory. he enlarged Plato's' doctnne of Ideas IOta a umversal SCIence of bemg founded on expenence In a certam sense he IS an even purer representative of the theoretic lIfe than Plato The dIfficulty for thIs new SCIence was to take care that It dId not, 10 the course of ItS ummpeded development on the theoretical sIde, lose ItS root conneXIOn WIth SocratIc-Platomc ethics, for It was precIsely ItS serVIces to actual hvmg that had gIVen the theoretIc hfe accordmg to Plato ItS moral digmty and ItS sacred nghts Anstotle's phIlosophIc bemg was rooted, even after he had gIven up the doctnne of Ideas, far too firmly In the ethos In whIch he had grown up In the Academy for him to sacnfice one Jot or tIttle of Plato's belIef In the educatIOnal and moral mission of SCience, and he had hImself proclaImed It In the Protrepttcus Though he separates ethIcs from metaphysIcs and makes It a speCIal dISCIpline, at the deCISIve pomt he connects the two together as Plato dId he holds fast to the sIgmficance of mtellectual cultIvatIOn and knowledge for the moral culture of the personality He aSSIgns the theoretic life the hIghest rank both m the state l and m the orders of the moral world, and the mdivIdual human bemg's happmess, the aIm of human stnvmg, IS achIeved on hIS VIew not m moral perfectIOn or at any rate not 10 that alone, but only m the full development of the mtellectual powers of human nature 2 In the end, mdeed, exactly like Plato, he makes speCifically moral mSIght dependent on the knowledge of the ultImate source of reality The pnmacy of the theoretIcal over the practIcal reason I!> hiS endunng Platomc conVIctIon And thIS IS not only because mtellectual actIVIty (voii MpYEIO) IS mdependent of the sensuous SIde of human nature and of our l'xternal needs, and constItutes a portIOn of the eternal blessedness of God carned withm ourselVl's, of the ommSCIence that timelessly knows Itself, It is also because m0ral knowledge IS also poSItively Imbued and coloured WIth the metaphySical world-VIew of the SCIentIfically thmkmg dIan J I Anstotle, Pol VII 2-3 dlscus'ieS the aIm of the be~t state and the education of Its cItizens and adopts a posItion on the question whether the best hfe IS the political and practical or another (meanmg the theoretic hfe) He reJeLts each of the extreme~ both the view that only the pohtlcal hfe IS manly and free, and also the Withdrawal from pohtlcs on pnnclple and the complet.. rejectIOn of every sort of rule as mere tyranny To him the theoretic hfe' IS by no means synonymous WIth the' xemc hfe' or hfe of the ahen but IS at the same time practlca1 ' In the hIghest sense PhIlosophers and men of knowledge are creatIve, for hIm, 10 that they are' architects With their thoughh' ('lee e~p I32Sb 14-2 3) 2 Happmess In the highest seDse IS secured only by the theoretIc hfe accordmg to Eth Nlc X 7,' and 10 secondary degree the hfe accordmg to the other sort of VIrtue' In the next chapter thIs subordmatlon of ethIcal to 10tellectual vutue IS estabhshed In more detaIl J The mdependence of the mind from man's sensuous nature, 10 contrast to

~6

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

But at this pomt there anses for Anstotle a problem that did not eXist for Plato 10 such sharpness It throws an abrupt lIght on the mner dIfficulties that Anstotehan Platomsm has to contend Wlth here Although the moral and sCientific spheres touch each other, and the latter leads mto the moral, thiS happens only at one pomt, whereas m Plato the moral was still completely cantamed 10 the sCientific SCIence has now separated Itself mto numerous dlsclplmes, and each one of them IS stnvmg for mdependence from the whole MetaphySICS or ontology has also separated Itself, once 10 Plato the totality of the phJlosophlC consideratIOn of the world, but now only the queen of the SCIences, also called' theology' And It IS thiS SCIence that IS pre-emmently mtended, SCIence as world-View, wherever Anstotle lets the ethical sphere come mto contact With the theoretical Nowhere else IS thiS so clearly expressed as m the earhest form that we possess of Aristotle's Eth~cs, the versIOn edited by Eudemus, at the end of which we read that the natural goods of hfe are moral goods for man only so far as they help him to serve and know God The knowledge of God IS thus the way to the true !>erVlCe of God and the cntenon of earthly values, which hold their, alue m fee from Its value I But now does thiS mean that the whole gIgantic structure of particular theoretical knowledge, bUIlt up by Anstotle In hiS system and culm10atmg 10 theology, IS presupposed here and IS therefore an mdlspensable condItion of the correct moral conduct of hfe' To put the questIOn IS to perceive that, while thIS 15 In a certam sense so for the philosopher, who In hIS metaphySIcal survey of the whole can fit the totalIty of knowledge mto a umty, It can hardly be so for the mere speCiahst With hiS gaze fixed only on a hmlted area, and the man morally actIve m the affairs of life can absolutely not be thought of as depend10g on such a condItion 10 hiS deCISIOns Every attempt to determme the power of theoretical reason over moral mSlght, of soph~a over phrones~s, more exactly m detail than IS done m that declSlve passage of the Eudem~an Eth~cs, must mevltably lead to a weakenmg of thiS power and a strengthemng of the relative mdependence of the moral sphere from •theory' ethJcal vIrtue whose whole sphere IS nothmg but the relation of the Impulses to reason IS emphaSIZed In AnstotIe ~ Eth NIC X 8, 1178" 16-22 from thIS It follows that the theoretIc hfe IS also less dependent on •external provISIon' than the practical, see from 1178" 24 to the end of the chapter WIth regard to practical and moral thought and actIon beIng shot through WIth sophJa and 'theory' compare the dIfferences between the two EthICS In what follows I An~t Eth Eud VIII 3, 1249b 16 'Therefore whIchever chOIce and po~­ se~slOn of natural goods wIll produce the most contemplatIOn of God, ~hether goods of the body or wealth or fnends or any other, that IS the best and thIS IS the finest standard, and whIchever eIther by defect or by excess prevents one from servIng and contemplatIng God that IS bad' See my ArIStotle, above, p 243 a.nd the whole precedmg section

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Plato had attached morallJlslght, the phronesls of Socrates, to the contemplatIOn of the Idea of the Good They were conflated to such a degree that the concept of phronesls, whIch In ordinary usage was purely ethIcal and practICal, came In Plato always to Include the theoretical knowledge of the Idea, became, m fact, finally synonymous wIth expressIons that had long meant nothing but pure knOWIng and contamed no relation to the practical, such as sophla, nus, epHteme, theory, and the hke ThIS Platomc sense of the word phronesls IS stilI to be found m the early Anstotle I t appears m hIS Protreptzeus, where It means the theorehcal sCIence of bemg, or metaphySICS, and where Anaxagoras and Parmemdes are named as typIcal representatives of' thIS phronesls' I In the EudemlanEthles, phronens IS stIll often the name for the mtellectual organ of the theoretic hfe , and Anaxagoras IS CIted as the prototype of a hfe of pure phronesH because he devoted hImself entirely to the a~tronomlCal study of the sky Z On the other hand, m the sIxth book of the Nzcomachean Ethtcs, the later verSIOn of Anstotle's ethICs, we find thIS PlatOnIC conception of phroneHs cntlcally broken up mto Its onglnal elements, the expressIOn IS narrowed to mean only practical moral mSlght, and all theoretical content IS removed from It Anstotle now recommends sophIa as the proper word to mdlcate theoretical knowledge of reason, he explams that phronesls concerns only human affaIrs, but sophla abo d1Vme affaIrs and the whole cosmos, that IS why we call Anaxagoras, Thales, and such people, SOphOl, but Pencles and people of hIS sort phrommOi J SophIa, he says, studIes only the general, lIke all true !>Clence Phronests, on the other hand, concerns Itsf'lf abo wIth the applIcatIOn of general moral knowledge to the partICular practical case 4 Thus pohtlcs, "hlch once m Plato had not merely been the • On the development of the conception of phronesI5 see my Aristotle, above,

pp 83 ff Z See Eth Eud I 4 121Sb 1 and 6, I S 1216" II ff On the conception of phroneszs and Its SignIficance m the Eudemlan E.th", "ee my Arlstolle, above, PP 236 ff , 239 ff J Eth NlC VI 7 114Ib 2 From what has been sald.t.s clear that sophta IS both SCIence and mtUltlOn of the thmg~ that are mo~t valuable by nature Hence men ~ay that Anaxagoras and Thales and such persons are SOPhOl but not phrommol, when they see them Ignorant of theIr own advantage, and they say that the thmgs whIch the~ men know are exceedmglv mdIVellous and difficult and dlvme, but useless, and that they do not seek human good~ But plltonesls concerns human affaIrS and matters that can be dehberated For good deliberatIOn IS, we say, the most e~senbal functIOn of the phrommos ' 1I40b 7 Hence we thmk that Pencles and ~uch men are phrommOl, because they can see what IS good for themselves and for men, and we thmk that household-managers and ~tatesmen are persons of thIS ~ort Clearly An_totIe IS here argumg agam~t hIS own earher and ~tllI purely PlatOnIC statements In the Prolrept1cus and the Eudemlan Eth"s • Eth NlC VI 7, 1141" 9 ff , and 5, 1140" 24 ff

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ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

rulmg sCience but also mcluded all human knowledge Wlthm Itself, IS relegated to a lower level, together with ItS subordmate ethics, for ItS organ IS phronesJS, as much m legIslation as 10 polItics 10 the narrower sense Smce man IS by no means the highest bemg 10 the world, ethiCS and pohtlcs are by no means equivalent to the highest SCIf'nce I The separatIOn of metaphysIcs from ethiCS that Anstotle carned through IS here dearly observable That IS not lOdeed any devaluation of the theoretic lIfe, rather a helghtemng of ItS lOtellectual rank, but the higher the sky the less It touches the earth, and that IS why 10 the N~comachean Ethus It IS not easy to discover what preCisely, apart from the mtellectual precedence of the theoretic over the practical hfe, the lOner dependence of moral virtue on sCientific knowledge consists l o ' Modern scholars have made acute mqmnes IOto thiS matter But the result IS negative, and the mere fact that Anstotle falls to make any posItive utterance on the question IS slgmficant of the weakness of the connexlOn between the doctnne of virtue and character proper and the pICture of the happlOess of the theoretic hfe that crowns the whole at the end 3 The whole of the N~comachean Eth~cs contams no sentence hke that which, at the end of the Eudem~an Ethtcs, makes knowledge of God the measure of all moral evaluatIOn 4 The po5>ltlon IS perfectly clear The preferred status of the speculative hfe IS mdeed preserved unchanged 10 the N~comachean Ethzcs , ever smce Anstotle's young days, when he had sent hiS Protrepttcus lOto the world whIle stilI a pupil of Plato, that had remamed the unmovlOg pole of hiS philosophICal hfe But the dependence, also taken over from Plato, of the doctnne of character and virtue upon theoretical phIlosophy and theology, has progresSively disappeared The tendency of Anstotle's own development IS, on the contrary, always to mcrease the diVISIOn between the practical and the theoretICal spheres, and the weight of hiS own SCientific conI Eth NtC VI 7. 1141" 21 'It IS absurd to thmk that polItIcs or phroneSis IS the best, smce man IS not the best thmg m the cosmos' • See my Anstotle above, pp '239 fI 3 L H G Greenwood Arzstotle, NIComachean EthICS, Book Sax (Cambndge, 190(1) pp 82 if after a very subtle exammatlOn of all utterances beanng on thIS pomt m the Nzcomache'ln EthICS, came to the correct conclUSIOn that we remain condemned to mere conjectures about It • Greenwood's statement ActIons are .'(ood. accordmg to Anstotle. In proportIOn as they lead to the 81"'P'1T1"05 ~10'l as the end' (op CIt, P 82). only fits the relatIon of moral virtue to the contemplation of God as formulated In the final sentences of the Eudem,an EthICS To the Nuomachean EthICS, on the other hand, applIes what he says on page 83 He probably followed to ~ome extent the feelm!,:s of the ordmary man In attnbutrng to moral actrons an mdependent goodness of theIr own and would allow the 1To>.ITIKO; ~10'l to possess a certam ratIonalIty and value even though It should Ignore or contemn the 9t"'P'lTI"Os ~Ios altogether'

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tnbutlOn to ethics hes m his gemal development of that part of It whose preponderance has given the whole ItS name, to WIt, the dOLtnne of character and the system of the moral VIrtues I It IS true that he also still recogmzes the •mtellectual virtues', that 15, the spmtual and mtellectual educatIOn of man, as the second pillar of the value of the personahty, he even gives m the Sixth book of the Nzcomachean Ethzcs a detaIled analySiS of these purely mtellectual powers and capaCities of man Z But thIs analysis IS connected with the very mql1lry that led him to separate the mtellectual Side from the speCifically ethICal Rather than aimmg at pOSItively preparmg for, and connectmg to the doctnne of vutue, the doctnne of the I See my Arts/olle, above, p 396 and frequentl} • The dlstlnLbon between moral and mtellectual virtues In Anstotle's ethiCS had already been made by Plato, so that what we have here IS an AcademiC doctnn';) and could therefore be dealt With In pa,smg here The conception<> ~uch as phronesls, noeSIS, sophia, synesls, and so on, are very Llosely connecled With Justice, 'temperance', and' courage' Both sets faU under the common conception of 'vutue Whereas the latter are the 'moral vutue,' III Anstotle s ,en,e, the former correspond preCisely to the mtellectual virtues' of the Sixth book of the Nlcomachean Eth.cs It follows that Plato had already analysed the conceptIOn of vIrtue mto a phronetle and an ethICal element and determmed the vaTJous kinds of the virtues of phrones.s and 01 ethos by hiS method of dlvl~lOn ThiS IS an Important pomt for our view of the development of An~­ totle's ethiCS, which m otherrf'spects too, operates at every step With estabh~hf'd AClgmficantly however Plato, unhke Vlcomachean EthICS VI, Uld not yet regard phrones" as a mere species of mtellectual virtue but as the genus of thiS whole class [hat IS proved by Phllehus 19 .... where .... e re
440

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

theoretical hfe which we read at the end of the Nzcomachean Ethzcs, It enlarges the gulf between thiS ongmally central part of Anstotle's ethics and the doctrme of virtue proper Thus It provides a stnkmg

confinnahon of our proof of the progressive loosenmg of the he connectIng the theoretIc lIfe with the kernel of ArIStotle's ethiCS The picture here drawn of the development of ArIstotle's ethiCS IS confirmed by the further transformatIons of the problem In the PenpatetIc sLhool Unfortunately the ethIcal WrItIngs of ArIStotle's chief pupIls are lost to us Our most Important source, the sole ethIcal work of the perIod that survIves nearly complete, IS the so called Great Eth~cs, handed down under ArIstotle's name, the work of some PerIpatetIc who lIved not before the scholarchate of Theophrastus I The way In which the author reproduces the Ideas of I Tlus I~ the establIshed VIew Since Spengel's famous dl~cu~sIOn of the three EthiCS In the Mumch Academy After Kapp and I had shown the genuineness of the Eudem.an Eth,cs, Han, von Armm In a whole sene~ of writIngs has recently defended the genuineness of the so called Great ElhlCS (willch, of cour,e, IS the smalle,t) and Interpreted It as the earlIest and most ongmal of the Anstotehan EthiCS, Without, however, producmg the smallest convictIon I must entIrely associate my.elf WIth the cntIcal rejectIOn of hiS view by two such proven experts In the study of Anstotle s ethiCS as Professor E Kapp In hi, two artuJes (Gnomon 1927) and Profe.,or J L Stocks In Manchester (Deutsche Llteratlfr-Zellung, 1927) It IS. after all, not the fir.t time that learned experts III old masters have confused the copy and the ongmal Armm's only partIsan that he Will "dlue IS Schlelermacher In h,s BerlIn Academy lecture Schlelermacher was certalDly a high and ,ensltJve mmd, but hiS serVIces concermng Plato were due to phIlosophical and arthtlc congemahty not to hIStoncal VISIOn, on the contrary, a~ a pupil of the Halle ratlOnah,ts he had no eye for Plato's development, and hIS authonty po~tponed our hlstoncal knowledge of It for decades He succeeded no better With the G>eat Eth,cs He strangely thought It the only genu me one, rejectIng the two genume one. because only the Great Tlh,cs came up to hiS KdntIan Ideal of a true ethiC' He thought that It did not lIke the other two LlhlCS, mdke moralIty depend on theoretical reason but left the theoretic hfe aSide But that IS preCIsely the mdlll argument for Its spunousness Now that we can clearly survey the development from Plato through Anstotle to the latter's puptls m ItS particular stage. and grasp the strict Inner nece,slty of thiS Intellectual process, It ought not to be hard to see that the Greal J:l/l1CS fit. m only here (after the Nlcomachean). and neces,anly here The fact I~ that Armm ha. Simply not enterel1 Illto the new way of companng different stages 1D the hl.tory of a problem a~ Stocks nghtly emphalllzed Let It be here extended to the Greal EthICS for the present problem a. a substitute for any further refutatIOn of Armm • arguments For Ius method seems to me to strdlll out gnats and swallow camel~ ThiS way of approach wIll be carned out for the whole of the Great l:.th
THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

44 1

Anstotle's ethIcS abbreviated and clanfied, mostly In close dependence on the Eudemlan but also USing the Nlcomachean verSion, with It m Hel'mes for 1927, and drew the correct conclu~lon that the Great EthiCS IS not to be placed before the tIme of Theophrastu~ Armm's objechon (m Hel'mes for 1928) that Neleus heard AnstotJe (the late An~totJe I) and therefore did not enter the School under Theophrastus, misses the mam difficulty as I have shown m Entstehungsgesch>ehte. &c, p 34, and m Arzstollp (above, p 256), Anstotle's habit of cltmg C'onscus as an example obvIOusly goes back to the hme when Conscus wa~ himself present at the lecture, which wa~ soon after Plato's death and m Assos and Scepsls whIther Conscus had returned accordmg to Plato s ~Ixth letter a conSiderable time prevlOu~ly Particularly do the witty allu~lOm of the Eudnman Ethtcs to Conscus give the mo~t vIvid Impres~lon of actuahty and presuppose that the lrsteners have personal acquamtance With the man That m a still earher lecture on etmcs, which the Great Ethtcs would be. accordmg to Armm Anstotle would have menhoned the ungrown son of (onscus (who presumably was attendmg the lecture ,) and only later come to make the father, the old fnend of hiS youth hiS standmg example. I~ ab~urd ami chronologIcally Impo~~lble On the contrary the Isolated mentIOn of Neleu~ can be explaIned only by the assumptIOn that the u,>e of hl~ father Conscus as example had at some earher tIme been common form 111 I\n,>totl,,'~ ~hool And thdt fits mto the post-Anstotehan penod only The post Anstotehan ongm of the Great Ethtcs IS also II1dlCdted by numerou~ techmcal terms foreign to Anstotle and mtroduced by Theophra~tu~ "hlch Walzer wIll collect As an eXdmpk of the ~ort of thmg one can pOInt to the un An~totehan ~purlOu~ books of the HtStorv of Ammals, whose ongm m particular ca,e~ can ~tlll be Illummated more precl~ely by ~uch study of worth Hut, .ipart from all the~e prooh the non-Anstotehan ongm of the &reat Etlncs I~ Indicated above all by Ib langu.ige at every ~tep It IS of cour~e, hke all PenpatetIc prose dependent on the dIctIon of Anstotle, bu t It betray~ Itself as later by a multItude of Hellem,>hc symptoms ~ome of the~e shall be hsted here [hey pO~lhvely offer themselves to every connOls~eurof Anstotle'~ language 1 he Great Lth,c> u,es forms wluch dunng Athc hmes and 111 Anstotle are not yet u~ed or at any rate appear only a~ qUIte I,olated exceptions Thus we have the future '12.~aolJoEv once In Top I I tl, loB" 28, otherwl,e only m the spunous Rllet ad Al 3b, I441b 29, but In the Great Ethtcs Ilil2 a 4 El1."oo~,v, 1208" 26 ,11."aw, I IH3" I band 17 ,11.",,.., the aonst E11.ijaa, onlv In Gr Eth I I, II 82" 5, 8, I I tlo a lO II 10, 1208" 35, ,11."aa<; 1208" 3 I but nowhere m Anstotle except for one place In the spunous Probl (XIX 42 92Ib 20) which are them;elve~ of later OTlKIn olAalJoEv occur~ only once III the whole Anstotehan corpu~ (Anal IV 8 <)3" 25). but III the Gr Fth at II99" 32 and 35. Ie tWIce In a smaller spdce ol2.aal, I 190b 24 otherWise only once In the spunuus On Alarvellolts Reports Ill}, 842" 2 ,12.0lJoEv used as a present = 6pWIJoEv (WIth subordmate clause 6TQII ~wlJEV) 1213" 21, vy,ij I20I b 28 (An.t "nte~ "yla) and more of the like It IS known that the u~e of \/TTtp for 1TEpl, whIch IS common In Hellemstlc (.reek occur~ In Anstotle only III vamshll1gly few places. but m the &reat Eth,cs It IS the rule For the author to come fOTWdrd WIth I I~ un-Anstotehan, but common 111 other learned hterat11.re, e g In the HIppocratIc corpus. In the GI' E.th I I81 b 28 Tf)V t1T",vwIQII 1.'Kal~ 2.01<£1 &v j,l01 lXElv, 116gb 9 6J\A tp'l j,lOI, TQ nola 2.,aaa'P'laov, &C Charactenstlc IS also the lively. dIrect addres~ more lIke the dlatnbe ~tyle, where the opponent Imagmed by the speaker says' you' Wlth thIS compare the constantly occurnng 'be says' as a means of Introducmg the adversary's ob]ectrons. I I9Bb I I. 1200" 19, 21,

442

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

agrees entirely wIth the usual method of handIng down doctnnes In the close-kmt Greek schools of phIlosophy, even to the pecuhar mlXture of dependence and freedom towards the doctnne of the founder We cannot doubt that the method of the later Penpatetlc commentators IS ultimately derived from those ways of handmg on the I20S" 25, 27, I2I2b 3S, 1213" 1,6 &c A particularly VIVid Imagmary dialogue of this sort In the' you' and' I' style IS for example, 120S" 20 'But perhaps someone would say "W'hcn the passIOns are In what state (lrrav 1T~ !XWO',I) do they not prevent It, and when are they In that state ~ For I don't know" That sort of thIng IS not easy to say, the phySICian cannot say It either, when he tells you to give barley-gruel to the fevensh person ' How shall I recognIze fever ~" (Read alallav",~al) When, he says, you ~ee him looking pale "And how shall I know pallor I " There the phySICIan must use hIs ludgement For If, he says, you don't have In your~elf the powf'r to perceIve such things, yl.. 1 can't know There IS nothing like thIs regular ~chool-Jargon In the whole of Anstotle The stnvlng for palpable sensual clanty does not fit Anstotle'~ reserved and objectIve manner It occurs throughout the Great Ethus CharactenstIc of the work IS also the author's favounte tnck of interrupting himself WIth an IDslstf'ntly didactic' V,hy /', 118z b 32, I 183b II, and often Similar are the'Whatthen~ someone "Ill say', 1185"23, Ye~ II90"37 1208"20 Very commonly the author uses a subject In the neuter plural With a verb In the plural, 1194b 32 1197" 37 b 33, I200 b 26-7, 120r" 3, I206 b 12, and often The termmology of the school IS already characten~hcallysprawled out In him, he says not only' the be~t' or 'the good, but also the best good', as well a~ 'the final end' and the hke He I~ un-Anstotehan also In hl~ slovenly habIt of redundantly repeatmg words especIal!} after a parenthetIc subordmate clause as In 1183" 29 Yet they thInk they must, when they speak about the good, must speak about the Idea', or Immelllately thereafter, "33 'Not that the pohbcal sCience or facult}, about "hlch we are now speakIng, It doe~ not InqUIre about thiS good' , 1196" I 'And If the pen,on towards whom It bld~ hIm act,rf he does not act towards thIs person, he wrongs hIm' , 1198" 8 'Nor IS the reason and nor IS the chOIce qUIte completed', 1204b 21 Nor are these pleasures are not processes' , 1206b 26 'But the paSSions do not, If they receive a start from teason towards noble things, they do not neces~anly follow', SImilarly 111\ 0Vl< 1195" I Instead of OUK OUK The use of 'you' = 'one', whIch IS not u~ual In An~totle though common In the re~t of SCientific IIterd.ture, occurs 1197b 16 'for you would not separate, With whIch only the you WIll find' In the ~punous Calegortes IS comparable I 18'j· 30 'Whatever you throw In If you do not thro" In for If you throw In If you do not throw In The regular use of 1')v = 'wa~' for Icrrlv = 'IS' IS charactenstIc, 1I!l2 b 29, 1I8S" 13, 1194" 20, and often, even In the form 1196" G 'But perhaps thl~ was not true and It IS Impo~slble for a man to wrong hlm~elf' (where 1')v should not be emended to 1')) also the regular 0",,"' = 'no longer' Instead of QUI( = 'not' Redundance occur~ also In 1203" 1I 'to whom nothing of any good sort belongs', and In I204b 21 the addItion of the demonstrative pronoun aV'ral, whIch comes several times, and 1204" 1 IItv oiN 6pa Thl~ lIst could be substantially increased I see no trace of an attempt by von Armm to explam the lingUistic pecuhaTltIes of the Great Elhtes, or even to face the fact that the author wntes such an abnormal Greek Even If the train of thought In the Great ElJncs did not betray the same etiolated and ~cholastlc deadness, ItS lingUIstIc conditIon would be enough to exclude all serIOUS dlscu~slOn of Its genumeness among phIlolOgIsts

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

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doctnnes of the school that estabhshed themselves m the very first generations after ArIstotle This can stIll be made plam by tht. example of Theophrastus' fragment on metaphysIcs, or of Eudemus' physIcs, and we have recently become able to do so even for so obscure a penod of the Penpatos as the late second century Be, for the excerpts of the Pseudo-Ocellus have preserved pieces of a Penpatehc lecture of this tUlle, actually a paraphrasmg reproductIOn of Anstotle's work On Comtng to be and Passmg away I In glvmg hl~ personal nuance to the fixed doctrmes of the school which he mhents, the author of the (Jreat EthicS often uses the form of the apona, as Anstotle before him had done With regard to the traditional doctnne of the Academy, whICh hiS own exposItion often ~lmpJy followed % HIS omiSSIOns and hiS emphases, however, also frequently reveal hiS own attItude to the questIOns he deals WIth, questIOns whIch he often completely fads to understand m the sense they ongmal1y had for Anstotle ThiS appears partIcularly m the pecuhar dIfficultJes that Anstotle Incurred because hIS mtellectual progress compelled him to be perpetually settlmg accounts WIth Plato The ancrormg of eth/{ s m the theoretIc hfe was precisely such a Platomr legacy that caused no slIght dIfficulty to the author of the Great EthiCS The end of the Great EthiCS IS unfortunately lost It breaks off m the middle of the treatment of fnendshlp, to whICh, as we know, the Nlcomachean EthiCS adds as tenth book a (second) diSCUSSIOn of pleasure and the doctnne of the theoretIC hie We cannot -;aj whether the (,reat EthiCS once ended m the same WdY , It IS not at all nece-;sary, for particularly III ~tructnre It leans more on the Eudemlan EthiCS, I The rem,iIll' of the ph} 'In of Eudemus are brought tO~Lth,'r 1]1 the colJechon of hiS fragment., U} Leonhard ~pengel [he nwtaphyslcal fragment of Theophrastus wa~ last edited by tl~ener [now by Ross and Fobes, Oxford, 1929 - Tr] On P"eudo-Ocellus' use of pre-Andromcan Penpottebc. mterpretahon of Anstotle's On Coming to be and Passing away, ~eE' R Haruer, Orellus Luwnus, Text und hommonlar, Berhn, 1926, pp 07-111 (\ Jlume I of my Neue l'h'lolog>sche Untersuchungen) 2 Ju~t one example of thIS In Elk N,c VI I, I 138b 20-34 Aristotle says that the' nght mean', of which he had spoken In determlmng the essence Gf ethical Virtue, IS as the nght logos say~', but thl~ determInottIon IS not cIL.!r enough and needs to be made more precise In II 2 II03b 31, we leam that the defimtlon of the morally good habit as 'm accord "Ith the nght logos IS umver,ally admitted (KOIV6v) and can be Immediately a;.,umed, but will later reqUire more precI,e determmatlOn Fmally, we hear m VI ll, I144b 21, that 'now everybody, when he define' virtue adds the phrase In accord With the nght logos', whIch naturally refers to the Academy, whose pupII~ often ulverged on such questIOns The Ideal task of research, no longer pO',Slble In detail, IS to separate thE' AcademIC baSIS of every Aristotelian conceptIOn and doctnne sharply from the mdlVldual modIficatIOn that Aristotle made In It The same holds tor the relatwtl of the Great rlll/.s to AnstotJe except that here both onglDals are pre~erved to us

444

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

and It reproduces the end of that This end, the sectIOns on the relatIon between happmess and good fortune, and on true caJocagatky, IS a sort of parallel to the doctnne of happmess at the end of the Nzcomachean Ethzcs, but It IS also charactenstIcally different therefrom For thiS reason It IS not probable that the Great Ethtcs, which adopts thiS end of the Eudemzan Ethus (though It transfers It to before the treatment of fnendshIp), ongmally also adopted the end of the Ntcoma,hean Ethzcs, the descnptIon of the theoretic hfe I That would not correspond to ItS attitude to contemplatIOn and the mtellectual vutues, which IS III other reo;;peds also lalrly negative In reproducmg the end of the Eudemtan Ethtcs, the doctnne of good fortune, the author of the Great Ethus slgmficantly omItted the metaphySICal element, the . dwzne good fortune', whIch was so thoroughly essential to the late-Platomc attItude of the Eudemtan Ethtcs Z Similarly from the treatment of calocagathy, abo borrowed from the end of the Eudemlan Ethtcs, he omitted the relation to the contemplatIOn of God and to the theoretIc hfe The startmg-pomt of the Eudemwn EthIn has also dropped out, the questIOn of happIness and the chOIce of a •hfe', where the theoretIc hfe IS descnbed as one of those open to chOIce, and the solutIOn of thr problem of happIness by thIS means IS thus prepared from the brgmmng In VIew of what we have ascertamed about the weakemng of the connexlOn between the theoretIC hfe and the central part of ethICS m the NICOmachean Ethtcs, It cannot astOnIsh us that thiS process, which \\e can follow from Plato and Anstotle's early Protreptzeus on through the Eudelman to the Ntcomachean EthtCs, should reveal Itself m the Great EthtCs m ItS most advanced stage It IS the process of the IncreasIng dIspossessIOn of the metaphySIcal and Intellectual element (hI~toncally speakmg, the PlatOnIC element) from An~totle's ethICS Anstotle hImself never went so far as to abandon thIS PlatOnIC legacy that had been so dcclSlve for hiS attItude of research and hiS Ideal of sCIence But hIS pupI1~ were somehmrs more Anstotehan than Ansr Gr Eth II 8 on good fortune and II 9 on calocagathy are attached to the doctnne of plea.'oure dnd Its slgmficance for happmes~ (II 7) The two chapters are exactly parallel to chapter~ "III l and VIII 3 of the Eudem.an Lth,cs [he parallehsm of these two ~ectlOn~ to the l.l~t book of the N,comachean Eth,cs I~ strengthened when we make them folIo" the sectIOn on plea~ure, as they do In the Great Ethus, for the tenth book of the Nrcomachean Eth,cs also hegms WIth a dISCUSSion of pleasure A ~peclal dlscus.lOn of the theoretic hfe need not havE' followed even lD the Eudemlan /.th,CS, for whIch that hfe IS the centre of mobon It IS practically out of the questIOn In the Great Ethus owmg to the removal of thIS whole part II 7-9 from the end of the whole to before the dlscu~slOn of the mtellectual vlrtue~ • The late-PlatoDlc doctrine of dlvme fortune urRently needs a separate exaDllnabon, before It can be a~~lgned Its nght place In the hIstory of the problem of tyche or fortune among the Greeks

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

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totle, and the dIstance of the phtlosophlcal sItuatIon of the Great Ethtcs from Plato Impresses Itself very sharply m that work from the first page on WIth thIs IS connected the fact that the emanCIpation of ethIcs from the theory of Ideas, to whIch the two genume Ethtcs of Anstotle devote so much space and on whIch they found It necessary to spend such great pams, IS assumed as an establIshed fact by the Great Ethtcs nght from the begmnIng, m the short hIstorIcal retrospect wIth whICh It opens There Pythagoras and Plato are blamed because neIther of them understood how to keep ethICs mdependent of metaphyslLal speculatIOns one confounded the question of vIrtue wIth number-metaphysIcs, the other wIth the theory of Ideas and ontology Socrates IS praIsed because he kept hImself free from thIs mtermmglIng I The absolute selfevldence of the emancIpation of ethIcs from metaphysIC5> for the al.1thor of the Great EthtCS from Its openmg sentences on must naturally reveal Itself especIally m hIS treatment of the so called mtellectual vIrtues, and of the questIon of the relation between sophta and phronesis In the early Anstotle (Protrepttcus, Etldemtan EthiCS) sophza and phronests were, m full dc.::ord wIth Plato's VIew, not yet ~trIctly dIstingUIshed, becau5>e moral mSIght wa., rooted m the knowledge of the hIghest good and the latteI was Immedlatel1 deCISIve for moral actIOn In the SIxth book of the Nicomachean EthiCS a sharp Ime was drawn between the two, as we have shown above The Great Ethtc~ goes one step farther Although It adopts no radIcally dIvergent pomt of VIew, but here, too, gIves the problem In a form externally true to ArIstotle's ethICS, yet that It goes be)ond the Nteomachean EthiCS IS clear In that work there I'> assumed from the begmnmg a perfect equalItv between the mtellectual and the moral vIrtues, whIch IS what makes It necessary to gIVe an mtensIve argument for theIr explICIt separatIOn The thoroughne5>s WIth whICh phronesls, as speCIfically moral and prachral reason, IS there separated from pure theoretical sophta, the knowledge of the hIghest and most general pnnCIples, IS due to the fart that thIS dlvmon of the realms was to Anstotle as a PlatOnIst even U1 the last phase of hIS development by no means yet selfevldent It was he who had to achIeve It, and the partIcular mqUIry that was needed m order to separate the mtellectual virtues and sophta from the doctnne of charaettlr Itself mdlrectly gave them a new claim to be treated In ethiCS ThIS hybnd posItion of theirs had a certam mner Justification to Anstotle because of the course of hIS development The author of the &reat Ethtcs finds It, m spite of hIS loyalty to the tradition, fundamentallymcomprehenslble and uncomfortable When In the dISCUSSIon of phTonesls (I 34), which corresponds to the Sixth I

Gr, EthlC< I

T,

Ff

II82"

10-30

446

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

book of the N1comachean Eth1CS, he from the very first divides the ratIOnal part of the soul (AoylI«'v) mto a practically deliberative and a sCIentifically apprehendmg part (j30VAEVTIK6v and hTlCl'TT)~OVIK6v), he IS assummg as fixed and solIdified that essen hal dlstmctIon between phronests and sophta which was first achieved m the correspondmg section of the N1comachean Eth1CS In this he was followmg some earlIer PenpatetIc who taught the same divIsIOn, as IS shown by the excerpts from the ethical lIterature of the PenpatetIc school m Stobaeus (II IIJ, 14 W) He drawc; much farther-reachmg consequences from this sharp distinction between phrones1s and soph1a than AnstotIe had It means to him the complete emanCipatIon of phrones1s from sophta Yet he IS m a sense only followmg logically m the directIOn IDltIated by AnstotIe when he expresses his wonder that sophza, whICh he dlstmgUlshes from phronesH as bemg purely theoretical knowledge, IS not completely excluded from ethiCS 'One might puzzle and wonder why, when we dre speakmg of morals and of some pohhcal mqUIry, we mentIOn soph1a ' I SO speaks a man when confronted With an establIshed tradition to which he externdlly submits although he no longer really understands It ThiS IS no great phIlosophical wonder such as that which accordmg to Plato I!> the begmnmg of all Wisdom It IS the schoolman's 'I wonder', at pecuhantIes of the traditIon that are no longer grasped For thiS author the questIon of ~oph1a has lo!>t the actualIty that It possec;sed for AnstotIe ac; a Platomst To explam Its mtroductIon he hac; to thmk up all sorts of scholastIc subtletIes He comforts Illmself With the refiectlOn that It I!> really a sign of Wide philosophical VlSlOn to take notice of such secondary questIOns which do not stnctly belong to the subJect, furthermore, ethiCS concerns the soul, and to the !>oul belongs theoretIcal sCience also-and the rest of the foolIsh (hatter IZ At the tIme when the Great Eth1CS was wntten, the Penpatas was actually welghmg the doctnne that practIcal reason has the pnmacy over the theoretIcal, and some were defendmg It The Great Ethus Itself raises at the end of Book I the questIon whether phronesH be not the real ruling force m the soul, 'a!> It seems and as IS debated' That thiS refers to a real opponent of the Anstotelian view and IS not a mere mvented apona IS also shown by the' he says' which IS used to mtroduce an argument of the representative of thiS theSIS However, the Great Eth1CS does not tum so far away from AnstotIe as to subordmate soph1a to phrones1s and throw It completely out of ethiCS It IS charactenstIc of the mtermedlate mtellectual posItion of ItS author that he does not draw thlc; consequence to which his own thought really presses, but holds fast to the tradition of the school although he can no longer mamtam It Without reserve He tnes to I

Gr Eth I 3i, 1197b 28-30

a IbId 1197b 30-5

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

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defend the orthodox Penpatetic VIew agamst the danng heresy of the pre-emmence of practical reason by means of a pIcture, and compares phroneSfS to the steward, whose poSItIOn IS that of a servant, whereas sophfa corresponds m the Intellectual eLOnomy of the soul to the master I How much even m the Great EthlCs the mterest m logos or reason has m fact yIelded to the Importance of character and the emotions IS shown by a sentence lIke the follOWing, In whIch the author IS summmg up hIS VIew m conclUSIOn . In general, not logos, as others thmk, IS the begmnmg and gUIde to VIrtue, but rather the emotions '. The . others' to whom he here objects are of cour~e pnmanly the creators of Greek ethICS, Socrates and Plato, but Amtotle must here be reckoned as a Platomst too, he, too, IS hable to th!:' reproach of the Great Ethfcs that he assIgned to the mtellect a hIgh slgmficance m moral trammg To gIve the passIOns theIr nghts agamst logos means nothmg elc;e than that ethICS, both theoretIcally and practIcally, must concern Itself above all WIth ethos or character The determmatlon WIth which the author emphaSizes thIS agamst Anstotle from the fir~t hnes onwards IS connected WIth hIS systematic suppressIOn of logo~ and the' ratIOnal part of the SOUl' The chIef argument of the Nfcomachean Ethfcs for the pre-emmence I IbId II9Sb 9 ff , 'he says' IbId 1I9Sb I I At first ~Ight one mIght thmk that thlb aporia meant Ju~t the same as Eth NI" VI 7, II4I" 2 I . For It IS dlJ~urd to thmk that pohtlc~ or phronesls I~ the be~t ,mce man IS not the be~t thm/( m the cosmo~ But that IS merely a rejectIOn of the SocratlcPlatOnIC notIOn of phronesIs m It~ ambIgUity ~mce the word phronelts ongmally referred only to human affalr~, <\nstotle could not adopt It a~ a deSignatIOn for the highest mtellectual faculty even m the extended sense \Deludmg sophIa that the later Plato had gIven It He wa, compelled to lLstore sophIa to ItS nghts, ab bemg the highest form of ratlOn...1 knowledge because ItS ~ublect IS the dlvme But that mstallatlOn of phroneSIs as of the hIghest Importance whIch G.. Fth I 34, 1 198b 9 attacks IS m Its turn a polemIC dIrected agam~t thIS Anstotehan ~upremacy of sophia That It l' not Plato's conception 8f phroneSls that Ib here meant follows from the fact that one can never say of Plato thdt he questioned the pnmacy of sophIa and declared that ph,oneSIs ln~tead' IS the ruhng element m the boul On the other hand, what Eth NIc says \D the place mentIOned fit~ him exactly he beheved pohtlcs or phronesls to be the be~t, not mdeed because he thought man the best thmg m the cosmo,' ab Anstotle there expresbes It but becau~ the subject of politiCS and pMoneslS the Idea of the Good wa~ to him defimtely the highest thmg both In the human world and In the cosmo~ 1 he ~truggle between phroflfSIs and sophia for first place could not begm untIl Anstotle had separated them agam, and pohtlcs was no longer one WIth metaphySICS ab m Plato Wlule An.,totle decides for sophIa because Its object I~ the higher, hiS adversary agamst whom the Great Ethus IS drgumg champlOn~ phroneslS because It cares for all' that IS, has the ,upreme authonty In practice whereas sophIa merely wI,heb to remaIn In Its study as undl,turbed as pOSSible But precisely thl' seem~ to the author of the Great Eth,cs the more dl~tIngulshed To him, therefore, phrOnfSlS I' merely the housekeeper and not the mIstress of the soul Z Gr Eth II 7. I206 b 17

448

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

of sophia and the theoretIc hfe over the hfe of practIcal activity, namely the mference from the mtellectual actIvIty of the dIVIne mmd to the highest and most valuable fonn of human eXIstence, IS also dropped by the Great EthICS That agrees With the effort to keep aloof from everythmg metaphysical But ObvlOusly It also represents a concessIOn to some opponent who mamtamed that the actIVity of Anstotle's God, coptemplatmg only himself, IS emphatically not the highest conceivable, any more than such a contemplatIon of self would be the highest and most valuable state for a man That the author of the Great Eth~cs took the objectIon senously IS shown by his, himself applymg the argument to the question of the selfciUffiClency of the happy man, and warnmg liS to beware of a hasty analogIcal mference from the selfsufficiency of God to what IS worthy of mortal man's endeavour I If, then, our author found the seat of human virtue so deCIdedly and exclUSively m character, we must ask ourselves whether he could still speak of mtellectual VIrtue at all m addition to ethIcal virtue ~ Would not the concept of arete have to take on for him the meamng, ongmally strange to a Greek, of our word' moralIty' ~ One would expect It In fact, however, we find, here as 10 hiS relatIOn to the questIOn of soph~a, rather doubt and heSItation than sharp finalIty 10 thought We even meet With direct contradictIOns m hiS statements on the pomt Anstotle had handed down to him the doctnne that It IS a mark of the conception of areti that an action or habit IS 'pral!>ed' So, when he mtroduces the dlvlslOn of the soul mto the rational and the IrratIOnal part, and attaches to thiS the dlstmctIon between the ethical VIrtues (as courage and temperance) and the mtellectual vutues (as mtmhon, WIsdom, memory, &c), he firmly sets aSide the mtellectual virtues as only mCldental to ethiCS, m I Eth N" X 8, I 178b 7-23 man believes that God enJoys perfect happmess Yet It IS not credIble that God IS active m affaIrs or exercI~es any kmd of moral actIVlty, be It courage or generoSIty or Justice or prudence All that IS completely unworthy of God If we remove achon of thI~ sort from a Ide, there clearly remams as content nothmg but pure thought God's actIVIty and blessedness IS therefore to be conceIved as theoretical actIVIty (e''''P'l"TlKI) MpY'la) Hence for man too, the happiest way of hfe IS that which most resembles thIS dlvme IIxistence (cf Metaph 1\ 7, 107Z b Z5) The Great Eth.cs IS concerned WIth an opponent of thI~ argument m II 15, I21Z b 37 It appears to take no stand towards hiS obJection, so far as concerns the actiVIty of God (see 12 13" 7 'let us put aSIde the questIOn what God WIll contemplate 'j but that the author admIts It so far as concerns the mference from God to man follows from 1ZI2b 33 'The analogy customanly drawn from God m the dISCUSSIOns IS neIther nght there nor would It be useful here' Thus he rejects the doctnne of the selfsufficiency of the happy man, and WIth It the Identification of human happmess WIth the temporal enjoyment of the thought-actiVIty that God enjoys eternally

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accordance WIth his high estimate of ethical virtue Our action receives praise, he says, only when It concerns ethIcal quahtles, no one IS praised on account of the supenonty of his mmd, as bemg WIse or penetrahng or anythmg of that sort I That IS the opposite of what Anstotle teaches In the parallel passage of the Ntcomachean and the Eudemtan Ethtcs We are told there that man IS praIsed on account of the quahtles of hIS mmd as well as those of hIS character Z To Anstotle the conception of arete was not yet narrowed to the meamng 'Virtue', as It was for common speech and for the way of thmkmg natural to the author of the Great Ethtcs, who IS here directly controvertmg Anstotle] The only strange thmg IS that he IS not so consistent as entirely to deny the character of virtue to mtellectual qualities such as phronests and sophta, but, the farther he advances and the deeper he thmks himself IOta his model, the more confused he becomes about the demal he had so energetically announced Not only does he calmly retam the traditIOnal classification of phronests, sophta, understandmg, &c , as virtues He plamly contradicts himself 10 his detailed diSCUSSion of them (I 34) 10 reference to the Sixth book of the NtcomacheanEthtcs For he there aS5erts repeatedly, and even seeks to prove m form, that one IS also praIsed for valuable mtellectual quahtles, and why 4 Even stranger tv him I Gr Eth I 5, I 185b 5 In the ratIOnal [part of the soul] anse phronests, shrewdness, sophIa qUickne~s In learnIng, memory and the hke In the Irrabanal part anse the Virtues, as they are called, temperance, Justice, courage and whatever other aspects of character seem praiseworthy For we are called praiseworthy on account of these But no one IS pra"ed on account of those belongmg to the rabonal part No one IS pralbed hecau~e he IS wise or because he IS prudent or because of any ~uch quality' • Eth NtC I 13, 1103' 4 Virtue I~ also diVided by thlb dlstmctlOn [of the rabonal and IrratIOnal parts of the boul] For we call some of them Intellectual and some moral-sophIa and understandmg and phroneSts mtellectual hberaiJtv and temperance moral When we are talkmg of character we do not call a man Wlse or understandmg but gentle or temperate, but .... e pralbe the Wlse man also for hiS habit Praiseworthy habits we call vIrtues Similarly Fth Eud II 1 1220' 5 There are two kmds of virtue the moral and the mtellectual For we praise not only the Just but also the understandmg and the wise' 3 In Gr Eth I 5 1I85b 5 he makes the distInctIOn m the ratIOnal part of the soul anse phronesIs, sophta, and the hke (obvloubly bpeaklng vaguely on purpose) , m the IrratIOnal part anse 'the vlrtueb, as they are called' Though he Immediately afterwards relapses mto the Anstotehan usage and speaks of Virtues of the ratIonal part', It IS qUite clear that thIS pOInt of View IS really strange to tum That IS why he tnes to dIstingUIsh them from the real Virtues, the ethical ones, at least by thiS mark, that they do not receive praise • It IS probably ImpOSSIble to explam thIS contradIctIOn as long as we assume that both SIdes of It arose from the mdependent thmkmg of the author Just as In I 34 he IS takmg the SIxth book of the N.comachean EthICS ab hIS model, so III the contradIctory passage I 5, 1185b 5 II , he has obVIOusly copIed some other PenpatetIc who rejected the hypothesIs of mtellectual vIrtues or at any

450

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF than the conceptIon of mtellectual 'vIrtues' IS naturally Anstotle's VIew that there are' vIrtues' not only of the ratIOnal and IrratIonal parts of the soul but even of the' nutntJve' part The tradItIon of the school and the wordmg of Anstotle's Eth~cs compel him to mentIon this pecuhar vIew, but he obvIously expects no sympathy for It from hiS hearers or reader." and declares that the question whether such a kmd of vutue IS to be assumed had best be dropped from ethiCS 1 As httle as he grasps the culmmatlOn of AnstotIe's ethiCS m metaphySICS when he asks what soph~a IS domg In morals, does he understand ItS anchonng m the teleological S} stem of nature when he can no longer grasp human virtue a~ the next level above the virtue of plants and ammals One gets defimtel}' the ImpreSSIOn that the Great Eth~cs IS tackmg apprehenSIvely between the steep contradIctIOns that rent the PenpatetIc ~chool asunder dunng the generatIon of Anstotle's earliest pupIls They concerned preCIsely the pomt on whIch we have found the author vaClllatmg between mdependent CtltJusm and pupillary fidelity to the traditIon, namely the detrrmmdtlOn of the value of the theoretIc hfe and the' mtellectual vIrtues' In elevatIng human lIfe, and theIr place m ethiC" We stili know the name of the enemy WIthIn the gates who attacked Anstotle ~trongly and relected hIS hIgh estimatIon of the theoretical hfe , It was Dlc aearchus of Messene TrddltJon makes lum In thl~ matter the polar opposIte of Theophrastus, who, as AnstotIe's successor In the directIOn of the school and hIS true~t adherent, but also undoubtedly Ollt of hIS mnermo.,t convIctIon., as d researcher, held fast to the doctrme of the pnmacy of the theoretIc hfe The controversy between lum and Dlcaearchus mllst have been celebrated, for m CIcero's tIme the contentIOn rate demed that they were pralc,cworthy It I~ believed that the Influence ot thIS man IS abo to be traced In the aVOIdance 01 the Anstotehall techmcal term Intelledual vlrtue~' In the Great EthiCS (cf the Penpatebc v. nters on ethlc~ In Stob II 137,19. but to the contrary lIB, I, and 145, 17) Later Penpatetle ethlcc" of course regard~ the Intellectual vIrtues' as not properly and the ethIcal' vIrtues' a., properly ~o called ThiS departure from An~totle begInS In the G"eat FlhlCS , or at lea~t that I~ where we can fiTSt demonstrate It I G" Etk I 4, II Ms" 23 . What, tben, someone may say, doe~ thl~ part of the soul also have a vIrtue" And" 26 . Whether or not there IS a vIrtue of thl~ part IS another que~tlOn' On the contrary, Elh NIC I 13. 1l02 b 2 ff • The vIrtue of thIS part [I e of the nutntlve faculty of the soul] seems to be not human but common' Etk Eud II J 121gb 38 . Hence the vlrtucs of the nutntlve and groWIng part are not vlrtue~ of man' In both places Anstotle IS "orkmg on the as~umptlOn that the VIew that the nutntIve part has ItS own pecuhar vIrtue IS perfectly current The astom"hed questIOn of the Cs"eat l:.thlCS remInd, one In ItS Epigomc nature of the author s astol1lshment at the 1OtroductIon of soph,a mto ethICS (f 34, 1197 b 28) HIS way of puttIng the questIon aSIde IS ,Imllar to hIS way of puttmg aSIde the problem whether God thmks (,1 hImself, II J5, 1213" 7

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE .5 1 between the theoretical and the practical hves for the first rank was shll attached to these two names I Dlcaearchus was the PenpatetIc who declared that not soph~a but phrones~s IS the ruling power 10 the human soul, that follows necessanly from the fact that he found the essence of man m actIOn, not m contemplatIOn l He must have severed the connexlOns that Anstotle, following Plato, had held to eXIst between moral actIon and the knowledge of the highest questIons, and reached the logIcal conclusion of which we hear the echo In the author of the Great Eth~cs 'One must wonder what soph~a has to do With ethics'. SInce the latter concerns character and actIOn J He must have put logos after character m slgmficance, and we can also be confident that he completely demed the qualIty of virtue to the Intellectual powers and confined thIS conceptIOn to ethical and political actIOn And who but he can have been capable of that argument, most heretIcal for a PenpatetIc, which the author of the Great Eth~cs cites as very remarkable the famous conclUSIOn (of Anstotle) must be false, to the effect that God can have no other obJert of thought than himself, because he can thmk only the most perfect and there IS nothmg more perfect than he Smce even d man who was entirely occupIed In the contemplation of himself would be blamed as a heartless bemg, the Idea of a God who contemplates himself IS absurd 4 The dissolutIon here proclaimed of Anstotle's conceptIon of the world and of God IS based on an argument at the bottom of whIch I CIC Ep ad All II 16 Now I have defimtely deCided that sIDce there IS such a controversy between your associate Dlcaearchus and my fnend Theo phrastus, yours far prefernng the practical hfe to everytlung and mme the theoretical, I wIll appear as havlOg paid my dues to both of them I thmk I have adequately sah.lied Dlcaearchus and I am !lOW turnmg to the school that not only allows me to rest but rebukes me for not always resting So let me address my.elf, dear Titus, to those famous studies, and return at l<.'st to what I ,hould never have left ' • J\ bove, pp 446-8 J Above, p 446 • Theophrastns, of whom one might thmk m thiS conneXIOn, appears, however, to be out of the questIOn In ius metaphySIcal fragment he obVIously regards C.od s activity and hI> mfluence on nature and on the motIOn, u[ the spheres m particular, exactly as ATI,totie does In Melaph II 7 The highest pnnclple IS 'Immovable m It.elf' , It causes the motIOn of other belOgs through another sort of Influence, namely their' appetite' for the best For thIS they need soul and thought, from which appetite take, Its start All the more, therefore, IS the pnmary bemg to be conceIved as mmd, and as the thought and WIll for the most perfect, WhiCh, however, It Itself IS 10 Its perfettIon The expreSSIOn, 'the pnmary and most dlvme bemg, desITlng all the best thmgs', does not m my 0plOlOn contam anythmg that goe. beyond Anstotle's doctnoe God thmks himself as the best there IS and he must also W1U thIS goodness of hiS On the other hand If We do away With God s thought of hImself we alter the object of the dJvme will also a.nd gIve It another dIrectIOn

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ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

lIes the ultimately mdemonstrable value-equatlOn LIfe IS action The selfcontemplatlon of the AnstotelIan Nus had to cease bemg the most sublIme Ideal of human and dIvme lIfe as soon as Its earthly model, the theoretic lIfe of the philosopher, was no longer capable, In the actual feelIng of contemporary persons, of lustlfyIng this high claim agamst other ways of hfe Anstotle himself had already taught that the theoretical hfe has pre-emInence over the practIcal only because the philosopher at the same time occupIes the hIghest level of creative actIvIty he IS the' architect' of the Intellectual and SOCIal world I The more theoretical, m our sense of the word, sCience became In the course of thiS development, the more It turned away from lIfe, the less could It wholly appropnate Anstotle's Ideal of the theoretic Me Through ItS onesldedness It gave prommence to the antitheSIS, the Ideal of the practical lIfe Dlcaearchus showed the followers of Anstotle that they were defimtely not the highest flowenng of humamty, and that history nowhere offers us such a supremacy of mere IntellIgence above creative actlOn At thIS POInt our mqUlry turns back to ItS begInnmg, the anCIent tradition about the' hfe' of the earbest phdosophers Owmg to the radIcal change In the philosophIC Ideal of lIfe they suddenly appeared In a wholly hew lIght DlCaearchus hImself wrote Lwes of the Phllosophers Isolated fragments of them are preserved, concernmg preCisely the earber thInkers, and they show clearly how the author's ethIcal vIew IS everywhere reflected In hiS vIew of the past The earlIest representatives of phIlosophy are obvlOusly for hIm, too, the representatives of an Ideal by whIch to mea.,ure the phIlosophers of hIS own time Whoever, hke Dlcaearchus, saw the end In active bVIng for human SOCIety would mevltably come eIther to despIse all study altogether, or to oppose to the oneslded hfe of contemporary phIlosophy the picture of a greater past In which thought had really still possessed the power of constructive action When one looked at the scanty accounts of the earher thmkers from thIS pomt of VIew, there appeared, In addItion to that devotlOn to pure contemplatIon whIch Plato and Anstotle had emphaSIZed exclUSIvely, a close conneXlOn With pubbc lIfe, which was strange to contemporary thInkers and hdd not been called attention to These men had really fulfilled III their' hves' the Ideal of Anstotle that the bearers of the highest thought should be at the same time the' architects' of active lIfe It was clearly mcorrect of Anstotle III the dialogue On Phllosophy to mterpret the seven sages In modem gUIse as . sophIsts' PreCIsely these revered personages, who had contInued to hve In the mInd of the Greek folk down to the present time, Incorporated the most I

Pol VII 3, I32jb 23

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

453

complete umty of thought and actIon They were lawgivers and men of pohtIcs, so Dlcaearchus declared, [ and he must have found hiS view confirmed not merely by Solon and Plttacus, but also by Thales, for example, whom Plato had made a pure representatIve of the theoretical hfe EVidence for hiS VIew was easy to collect from the best hlstoncal sources, and also from the realm of anecdotes Tradition connected Thales with the greatest techmcal achievements of navIgation and astronomy Accordmg to a report preserved In Herodotus, he was an engmeer In the serVICe of Kmg Croesus when the latter led hiS army agamst the Medes , and by a special deVice was able to show how to divert the nver Halys and lower ItS level, In order to put the Lydldn army across It without bndge or boat 1 Though Herodotus as a ratlOnahstIc cntIc doubted the trustworthmess of the report, Thales obvIOusly was to the Greek people In general a practical man rather than an otherworldly scholar As statesman, too, he had taken part In the hfe of the loman cIties, for Herodotus has heard of hiS adVICe to the Iomans to make a common parhament and place It on the Island of Teas, which la) In the middle of the loman Cities, and to subordInate the preVIOusly Independent CItIes to thiS central control as members of a umfied state ThiS tradition gives him a pohtIcal reputation reachIng far beyond hIS own uty , and It IS certaIn, though not expressly handed down to us, that Dlcaearchus did not let thiS and Similar traits escape him J In the tradition of late antiqUIty concernIng the earher thInkers we find reports of thiS kmd, and completely opposite traits mtended to prove that the great sages were absorbed In <;Clence and umnterested In practice, occurnng Side by Side, for the most part qUIte peacefully, as befits the compIlatory character of DlOgenes and the sources akIn to him 4 I Fragm H,st Graee vol II, p 243 Mueller (frg 28) DlOg I 40 D[caearcl!us says they were neIther WIse men nor phIlosophers, but lawgIvers and men of understandmg , Z The crossmg of the Halys, Herod I 75 (VOl'S' IT. A 6) That the Penpato. adopted the tradItIon of Thales' astronomy [S sho"n by Eudemus frg 94 Spengel It occurs already m Herod I 74 J Herod I I70(VOl'S'IT,A4) DlOg I 25(l'ors'rr AI)ascnbestofhale' abo the polItIcal adVIce to the MIlesIans to reject the allIance offered to them by Croesus, WhICh saved them later when Cyrus was at war WIth Croesus 4 fhus ImmedIately after the story of 1 hales' polItIcal adVIce (see the preVIOUS note) we read that Heraciides of Pontus (frg 47 Voss) made Thale', ObVIOU,ly 10 the same sort of way as he made Pythagoras hlm,elf tell of hIS prevIOUS mcamabons (DIOg VIII 4), ,ay of hImself that Ite was an mdlvIduahst and lIved for himself (~o""'P'lS Kal 1111aerr~s) That, of course, fits only the theoretIc lIfe One IS remmded of Anstotle's desLnptIon of hImself as 'bolItary and Isolated' (avTh'lS Kal 1l0VCoJT'lS frg 668 Rose), on whIch Demetnus remarks In mterpretabon •the IsolatIOn mdlcates a more mdlvIdualIstic habit' &c (TO ~1v yap Ilovw-n,s 11.."mKc.lTtpou !6ous f)21'l !errl KTA) That explams the

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ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

We may WIth great probablhty suppose, what we can still directly prove m the case of the seven sages, that the reports whICh make the early philosophers lawgivers, pohtlCIans, and practical men, were first mtroduced mto the stream of the tradition by Dlcaearchus Such are the accounts emphaslzmg the active part taken m pohtlcal hfe by Anaxlmander, Parmemdes, Zeno, Mehssus, and especially Empedocles I Thmker'> of the type of Anaxagoras and Democntus naturally fell mto the background for Dlcaearchus as defimtely as they had occupied the middle posItion for the adherents of the contemplative hfe Their practical cosmopohtamsm made them necessanly unattractive to him For Herachtus It was not difficult to reveal the pohtIcal Side association of l.lovT\P'l~ With 11.IQG'T~s ID Herachdes Perhaps AnstoUe actually had the latter m mmd To Herachdes Thales was Just a~ selfevldently a typical representative of the theoretic llfe as was Pythagoras, of whom he relates the conversatIOn With the tyrant Leon of PhlIus (see above, p 432) I AnaXlmander led a colony from Ml1etu~ to Apolloma on the Pontu~ (Von 6 12, A 3) Parmemdes gave law~ to hiS fellOW-CItizens (Ibid 28, A 1 = Dlog IX 23) Zeno was a fanatical partisan of freedom and a member of the conspiracy agamst the tyrant Nearchus (others give the name as 'DlOmedon' or 'DemyIus '), he mamtamed hl~ pohtJcal attItude on the rack (VOTS 6 29 A 1 =DlOg IX 26, 29 A ~7) Mehssus was a state~man and led the ~amlans m the war agam~t Pencles as naval commander (VOTS 6 30, A 1-2) The tradition IS particularly detailed about Empedocles' polItical activity (Ibid 31, A 1 DlOg VIII 63 ff ) ThiS goes back to the hI~toncal aCtiVIty of Tlmaeu~, whom we shall meet below a~ the transmitter of the Dlcaearchan traditIOn about the pohtlCal activity of Pythagoras The accounts themselves are certainly In part older than Dlcaearchus Thu~ the one about Parmemdes' lawglvmg I~ quoted from the On Ph.losopheTs of Speuslppu~, who was probably lookmg for a precedent for Plato s Similar efforts But there must once have been some mdlvldual hlstonan of phIlosophy who presented the thinkers ~ystematIcally m the hght of theIr pohtical and practical lIfe and collected the report~ of thiS kind and such an Interest In the prdctical lIfe of the phJ1osophers m particular IS not lIkely to have eXisted In anyone but the man who found the greatness of the earher thmkers In their pracbcallntluence above all, and dealt With them only for thiS reason-DIcaearchus It IS not for nothmg that we find thiS member of the earlIest Penpatos not, I1ke Theophrastus, Eudemus, and Meno, among the doxographers but mterested only In the lIves of the phllosopher~ But what IS called 'bIOgraphy' did not anse out of mere Intere~t In indiVidualIty as such It sought ID the lIfe of the indiVidual representatives the expressIOn of the type, of that which phIlosophical ethiCS understood by ~105 or 'lIfe', and the vanebes of which It developed Whether, and how far, the collectIOn of polItically active phIlosophers and thelf deeds m Plutarch, A dv Colot C 32, goes back dlfectly or mdlrectly to D,caearchus cannot be determmed The hst embraces the phIlosophers down to Anstotle and Theophrastus, but It lacks preCisely the seven sages and Pythagora~ who are known to have been Important for Dlcaearchus And that he would have mentioned Theophrastus as a representative of the pohbcal lIfe IS Improbable, espeCially as the reason that Plutarch gives for hun as for Anstotle prove~ lIttle, and both of them seem to be added more for the sake of completeness

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE 455 his thought, and to show that he was not a pure physlC'1st, although he felt hImself detached from the polItH.al hfe of his own Cit} Tile philosophy of Socrates and Plato had a directly political mtention Dlcaearchus seems, however, to have regarded the Ideal type of philosophical reformer and lawgiver as bemg reahzed m Pythagoras rather than m Plato Through the work of the PenpatetIc.s and of the Academy Pythagoras had long been In the centre of phllo~ophlcal mterest, and concemmg him there flared up now an all the more VIVId stnfe of opmIOns, the more vaguely and amblguo\1~ly hiS Image flICkered In the oral tradItion In the middle and the second half of the fourth century Be the name' Pythagorean' referred to two entirely different groups of men When Anstotle speaks repeatedly of the' so called Pythagorean~' he means the sClentilic CIrcle of Arch) tas of Tarentum, With whom Plato had had personal mtercourse He seems, however, to have possessed no defimte mdlcatIOns as to how far back thiS traditIOn went In southern Italy, still less to have considered It permlsslblr to refer ItS begmmngs to Pythagoras hImself, after whom the Circle named Itself But another sort of men also called themselve~ , Pythagoreans', men whose peculiar way of hVIng IS often mocked m the MIddle Comedy, and must therefore have been known to the people at that time ThIS was a stnctly ascetic and pIOUS order that denved Its relIgIOUS symbols and Ideas from Pythagora~ and honoured him a~ the founder of a relIgIOn and a worker of mlracle~ I QUite early, III the fourth century at late!>t, we find these two conceptIOns of Pythagoras at war WIth each other, and naturally the two groups, which then, at any rate, had nothmg In LOmmon and therefore mIght have eXisted peaceably Side by ~Ide, were dnven by theIr descnptIon .I.e, 'Pythagoreans' or 'Pythagonsts' lI.to controversy a~ to whic h were the dl:'scendants of the genume Pythal!oras and whoe,e attitude wa~ the truly Pythagorean one Arch} LiS' mathematical and astronomlLal school appears r,ot to have folluwed that C'ommandment to ab!>tam from meat and some Clther foods that was sacred to the other party, and presumably It was they who mtroduced the verSIOn accordmg to which Pythagoras did not preach abstmenC'e To them also must be due the assignment of certam of then fundamental SClentIfic notIons and of particular mathematical and phySIcal propoSItIons to the person of Pythagora~ z In

I See the fundamental dISCUSSIOns of ErwIn Rohde In hIS c1a~sIcal artIcle' DIe Quellen des Iambhchus m semer DlOgtaphle des Pythagora~' (Kletne Schnjlen, vol II, pp 102 ff) Rohde explaInS the eXIstence of the two movements as due to a split In the school, and thus makes them to have been both UnIted In the personality of Pythagoras Similarly J Burnet, Early Greek PhIlosophy', p 86 The eVIdence of the ComIc poets I~ collected In Dlels s Vor~ , 58, E, P '47 8 • The representative of thiS worldly conceptIOn of Pythagora~IS Anstoxenus,

456

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

These sCientIfic students could not but find It distasteful to thmk of their founder as a wandenng medlcme-man and miracle-worker Their conception was best SUIted by the picture of Pythagoras as the founder of the theoretic life, a picture which we first came across m Heraclides of Pontus But how was one to explam the fact that men of such different types denved their Ideals of life from one and the same founder ~ TIus problem was by no means solved by the two confhctmg conceptions of Pythagoras' personality Not until Dlcaearchus put forward hiS pomt of view did It seem to clear up To Dlcaearchus It was easy to see m the archaic thmker not a mere theonst m the modem style, but a lawgiver and founder of states, who made both rehglOn and knowledge serve creatively m the establishment of hfe We do actually find m our late and entuely legendary tradition about the life of Pythagoras, whose chief representatives, the NeoPlatomsts Iamblichus and Porphyry, reproduce at second or third hand old sources hke Anstoxenus, Heraclides, and Dlcaearchus, a third picture m addition to those of the student and the mlraclemonger, namely that of the lawgiver and founder of states Although It IS qUIte uncntlcally mtermmgled With the other two, some thoroughly charactenstlc traits are expressly referred to DlCaearchus, and they confinn Erwm Rohde's conjecture that Dlcaearchus made Pythagoras mto an Ideal picture of the practical hfe as he himself taught It and tned to realize It m hiS own person I In domg thiS he must have been especially encouraged by the example of the Pythagorean Archytas, who was also statesman and student both 2 From DlCaearchus comes our traditIon that when Pythagoras arrived at Croton m South Italy he was commissIOned by the counCIl to give educatIOnal politIcal addresses to the men, the women, and the children, of the city And although Anstoxenus preceded DlCaearchus m declanng that Pythagorean Ideas had had a great mfluence on political relatIOns m southern Italy and SICily, we can show that Dlcaearchus adopted thiS view and tned to establish It more exactly m detail The politIcal conception of the mfluence of Pythagoras found espeCially welcome fuel m the traditIon that the order suffered a VIOlent catastrophe because of It<; growmg politIcal unpopulanty and the master fled to Metapontum] But now the politIcal mterand In thiS he was followmg accordmg to Gell IV J J 7 (Fragm Hist Graec, vol II p 273 Mueller=Anstox frg 7), the view of hiS Pythagorean SCientific fnends (et Rohde, op Cit P lOB) I !>ee Rohde op Cit, P J 10 In modern times Dlcaearchus view has been reVived by Knsche, De SOC1etatls a Pvthagora condltae scopo pOlttlCO, 1830 , See George Grote HIstory of Greece vol IV, p 405 3 For Dlcaearchus on the vanous bpeeches of Pythagoras at Croton, see Porphyry's Vlt Pyth, §§ 18, 19 The wording of the speeches IS gIven by Iambhchus, Vlt Pyth, §§ 37-57, from another source In which these speeches

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

457

ventIOn of Pythagoras ill Croton on hIS arnval In southern Italy would have come wIthout any transItion after the mIracle-hungry were freely Invented from the indIcatIons gIven by Dlcaearchus (see Rohde, op cit. P 132, who mfers that Tlmaeus ongInated the speeches) Dlcaearchus frg 31, Mueller also presupposes that Pythagoras mtended polItIcal reforms, for It says that, when Pythagoras 10 hIS fhght from Croton came to Locn, the Locnans sent messenger~ to the frontIer to tell illm that they valued hIS wIsdom, but they hd.d no objectIOn to theIr law~ and no mtentlOn of altenng the eXlsong condItIon of the state, so would he please dIrect hIS steps plsewhere The account of the leglslaove mfluence of the Pythagoreans on the cloes of ~Iclly and southern Ital} dIffers In Porphyry, § 21, and Iambhchu~ § 130 (the latter repeated § 172 wIth only mmor vanatIons) A~ an mtermedlary source for what Dlcaearchus had saul about the addresses to the Crotornates, Porphyry used Nlcomachus (~ 20), and obVIOusly borrowed from hIm also the sectIon on the leglslatwn of the Pythagoreans m the CIties of SIcIly and Magna Graecla, whIch follows ImmedIately and IS very clo~ely connected wIth the precedIng both logically and verbally Nlcomachus got thl' sectIOn (§ 21) not from Dlcaearchus but from Anstoxenu~, I e from a source of equd.l age and value Porphyry hImself says thiS 10 § 22, so far as concerns the poIJtlcal mfluence exerted on the Lucamans, Messaplans PeuLeoans, and Romans, that I~, the surroundIng barbanans, from whIch It follows that It IS also true of the prevIOusly listed Greek cItIes of Magna (,raecla and SIcIly Now Porphyry, followmg Anstoxenus tells us that the Pythagorean~ gave laws to Croton, Sybans, Catana, Rheglum, Hlmera Acraga,,1auromemum and other Lltles, and he ascnbes all of the>e laws to two suppo~edJy Pythagorean persons Charondas and Zaleucus Iambhchus, on the other hand, reports (~ 130) that Charondas gave laws to latana, for Locn he names a certam Tlmare~ (or Tlmaratu, § 172) In addItIon to ZaJeucus, for Rheglum, obVIOusly baSing hlm~elf on l.OplOUS local tradltJons. he begm, WIth the DIKIITT1j~ or founder ThucJes (~ee Thuc VI 3. 3), and name, a whole lIst of persons who were connected WIth changes In the constitutIOn, § 130 PhytlUs, Hehcaon, Anstocrate~, and 10 § 172 (where Thucles I' mlssmg) Theaetetus also It cannot be that Anstoxenus' ongInal versIOn contained these same detads and Porphyry (or hIS 10termedlary Nlcomachus) merely made careless excerpts IamblIchus mu,t be here foUowmg ,orne ~llUrce other than Anstoxenus and Porphyry That An~toxenus version was olJ and Intact I~ eVIdenced by Anstotle's catalogue of lawgIvers, willch, a~ I have prevlUl<sly shown (Entsteh d Metaph, P 45 and Anstotle, above, p 285) I~ a subsequent appendiX to the becond book of the Pol,tus We read there (1274" 22) that Zaleucus was lawglver to Ioen, and Charondas was IdwgIver to Catana 'and the other Chalcldlan Lltles In Italy and SiCily' (Porphyry's language IS less precIse, but he obVIOusly means the bame when he designates Zaleucu~ and lharondas together as the ongmators of all lawgIVing 10 SICily and ~outhern Italy) For IamblIchus local traditIon about the lawgivers of RheglUm we must therefore ,eek some other source than An,toJtenus, and 10 the Circumstances that can only be an author as wellmformed about the nelghbounng City as the Messeman Dlcaearchus, who IS one of Iambhchus' sources and also as was shown above, often one of Porphyry's 10 addItion to Anstoxenus The erudItion of An,totle , catalo,::ue of lawgIvers about Z~leucus and Ch,orondas, whIch gIves them so much WIder an mfluence than do Dlcaearchus and IamblIchus, IS certainly drawn from Anstoxenus, for he wrote early willie thiS appendiX was added to the book qUIte late He tells us In Iambl § 233 that he heard the btory of the devotIOn of the two Pythagoreans, Damon and Phlntlas (known to us from Schdler's balldd Die Burgschaft). from the mouth of the

458

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

account of hIS study-travel m Egypt and the East, and would have lacked all motIve m the hIstory of his youth and educatIon, had not Iambhchus and Pompems Tragus mserted between hIs return from these long lourneys and his arrIval In southern Italy a furthefJourney to Crete and Sparta, wIth the oblect of StudylOg the laws of Mmos and Lycurgus I ThIS verSIOn, whIch IS obVIOusly a subsequent attempt to make a place for the politIcal element ill the course of Pythagoras' educatIon, denves hiS socIal pedagogical Ideals from the model of the two claSSIcal Donan constItutIons Smce It IS a necessary presuppOSItIOn of the mterventIon of Pythagord.s 10 Croton as depIcted 10 DlCaearchus' account of hiS addresses there, we are compelled to a!.sume that the Journey to Crete and Sparta also comes from DlCaearchu!. And thiS IS rendered the more probable by the analogy of hIS conceptIOn of Plato In a passage of Plutarch which, I tlunk. IS usually mcorrectly understood, we read that Plato obVIously amalgamated Lycurgus no less than Pythagoras WIth the teachmg of Socrates, d.S Dlcaearchus belIeved 2 ThiS mterpretatlOn of Plutarch's word!. assumes only a tyrant DlOnyslUs himself, 'when he had lo~t hiS throne and wa~ teachmg letters m Connth' (He was dnven out of Syracuse by DlOn m 354) The tale IS perfectly credible and thoroughly In the manner of An;toxenus, elsewhere too he takes pleasure In such personal remml;cence~ (;ee above, p 434, n 3, and also hiS story of hiS lather Spmtharus charmmg remml~cence of Archytas, Iambl ,op Cit, § 197) For the rest, the present case teaches u, that Dlcaearchus, a~ a learned PenpatetIc, did not ;Imply pick h., pohtIcal conceptIOn of the earher thmker; out of the air, but eveT}where dre.... from good sourceb Thus, m regard to Pythagora" he was obVIOusly preceded by An;toxenu" WIth whom he had tIes of fnendshlp and to whom he was probably Indebted for sugge;tlOn; In pohtIcal theory too (Similarly by 5peuslppus m regard to the pohtJcal actIvity of Parmemdes ,ee above p 454) I lambhchu" op Cit § z5 mentIOns the Journey to Crete and Sparta only bnefly after hIS long account of tho,e m hgypt and the East, but that It wa; e<jually firmly rooted In the earlier traditIOn IS shown by 1-'ompem, 1rogus (JustIn, f.fJItome, X),. 4) Returnmg thence he ~ought out Crete and 1 acedaemon, m order to ascertam the laws of Mmos and Lycurgus, whIch were famous at that tIme Havmg learned all the'e thmg" he came to Croton ' There follow the addre~,e, to the CrotoDlates a; accordIng to Dlcaearchu, (cf Porph, § 18) But ]u,tm obVIOusly knows theIT content already and reproduces It m catchword style The decoratIve development of Dlcaearchu;' account and the free composItIon of the addresses must therefore have already eXIsted In the source of Pompem,-]ustm Rohde showed that ItS ongInator wa; Tlmaeus, who therefore made u~e of Dlcaearchu~ (Kleme Schnften vol u, p 13~) ThIS IS al,o eVIdent because [Imaeu~, as an hlstonan, was positively obliged by the ;tyle of hl~ genre to Invent speeches freely 11maeus wa~ much u~ed by PompeJUs Trogus That the ~tory at the end of the chapter on p} thagoras (the conversIOn of Pythagoras' house mto a temple ]ustm, XX 4 18) goes back to T,maeus lS shown by Porphyry, op CIt 4, and IS the most Important eVidence for Rohde s hypothe,.. Z Plut QuaeSI ConVJV Vlll 2, z (frg 27 Mueller) aAA Opa~" Tl 0"01 "'poO"ii~ov

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE 459 small change In the text, without which It would mean Plato mixed Socrates With Lycurgus, and not merely, as Dlcaearchus belIeved, with Pythagoras The speaker In Plutarch's dialogue would then be expressIng thiS as hiS own view and as an additIon to that of Dlcaearchus Mere fiddlIng With the constructIon of the sentence Will hardly get us near the truth, but what the sense demands seems to me clear Dlcaearchus was precisely the hlstonan of philosophy who had everywhere brought the polItical Side mto prommence There was no need to quote him for the opInIOn common throughout antiqUity that Plato's philosophy was a mixture of Socratic and Pythagoreanlsm That was m ArIstotle, and had been the unIversal convictIon of the PlatoDlC and PenpatetIc school from the begmnmg I The special nuance that Dlcaearchus added to thiS conventional view can only he m the asserted relatIOn of the theoretIcal philosopher to the practical statesman and lawgiver, 10 which naturally he was thmkmg espeCially of Plato's Laws That the great pohtIcal thmker '>hould find hiS model m Lycurgu'>' expert creatIOn IS charactenstIc of Dlcaearchus' mmd In two ways He regarded Sparta as realIZing that mixed constitutIOn In whICh he saw the Ideal sta~e (That Plutarch IS referrmg to the mixed constItution seems to Die to be clearly revealed by hiS next sentence, and to confirm the present mterpretatlOn of the passage)1 But especially Dlcaearchlc I'> the 6 [lAch"w Kal oh<£lo. al.lnOIJ£.OO; AtA'l8£V, ciTE 111) "Ta. :rWKpO:TE1 "TO. t\UI<;) OJE"tO lllKalapxoo; 'But don't you thmk that

Plato IS hinting at somethmg that concem~ you nearly and you have overlooked It, when be ll1JXes v.lth Socrates not merely Pythagoras but also Lycurgu~, as Dlcaearchus thought' The 1OsertlOn of ~ IS due to O~ann, the only one who has looked at thl~ textual questIOn correctly 10 ItS Intellectual conneXlOn With Dlcaearchus' view as a whole In the reconstructIOn of which he has acquIred the highest ment Bernardakls adapted ~ mto the text Mueller declares that he cannot see why WS IS necessary, which natUlally abohshes the reference of Dlcaear<.hus to Lycurgus So 1\1 Fuhr before him, DtcaearchJ Mess quae supersunt, Darmstadt, 11138, p 58 I In.,tead of further wltnesse~ I Will quote for thiS merely Anstotle, Metaph A 6, 987" 29 'After the above phIlosophies came the work of Plato, wluch In most respect~ agreed WIth these men but also had some pecuhantIes dlstmct from the philo~ophy of the Itahan~ Particularly close v.a5 the relatlOn of the other Platomsts to the Pythagorean~, especially SpeuSlppuS, Xenocrates, Herachdes, and Philip of Opus In sa}'lng that Plato made U5e of Pythagoras, D,caearchus, of course, mu,t have meant that he made use of the Pythagorean school, since there were no wntlngs by Pythagoras HIS assertIOn IS therefore none other than the prevallmg opmlOn In the Academy and the Penpatos Plutarch could never have fallen mto quoting thiS particular man for that purpose, especially With the cautions expression Dlcaearchus thought, as If It were a conJecture and not the most well known hlstoncal fact Plato's r('labon to the Pythagoreans has recently been exammed by E Frank and 5hown to be very posItive (Plato 'lmd dIe sogenannten Pythagorur, Halle 19 2 3) 2 Dlcaearchu5, frgs 21-3 Mueller Cf Fuhr, op Cit P 29 PoJyblUS adopted

460

ON THE ORIGIN AND CYCLE OF

VIew that the nonns and arrangements of human hfe are never and nowhere ongmally created by theoretical phuosophy, but have always been the work of the states and theIr lawgIvers, and that all phIlosophers have drawn theu Ideas from thIS hlstoncal reahty We read these VIews 10 the mtroductIon to CIcero's malO work of pohtIcal phuosophy, 10 whIch Dlcaearchus' opmlOns contmue to exerClse an mfluence 10 numerous other ways too I ThIS IS the background that teaches us how to understand Dlcaearchus' effort to brmg Plato close to Lycurgus, and It makes It as good as certam that the relatIOn whIch the tradItion m Iambhchus and PompelUs Trogus sets up between Pythagoras and the laws of Mmos and Lycurgus IS also denved from Dlcaearchus' VIew Here we conclude The pecuhar phenomenon from whIch our dISCUSSIOn began, the contradIctory hghts m whIch the tradItion puts the hfe of the earher phIlosophers, now as theoretIcal and now as practIcal, has revealed Itself as a reflectIOn of the development of the Ideal of the phIlosophIc hfe from Plato to Dlcaearchus ThIS development WIth ItS vanous stages was mIrrored m men's VIew of the past It IS no new dIscovery that all genume hIstory, If It IS not mere raw matenal but a fonned mtellectual pIcture of the past, receIves the deCISIve stImuh for ItS shapmg and ItS selectIOn of facts from the effectIve mner centre of the hfe of the beholder The pIcture of hIstory IS therefore shaped anew by every new age That IS doubly true of the Greeks, to whom hIstory was never the mere ascertamment of what had once happened, but always took shape m the mmd of the histonan through some Ideal that mformed hIm or some great both Dlcaearchus' doctnne of the rmxed constitutIOn and the Lycurgan state its claSSIC example VI 3. 8, and VI 10 Plut Quaesl Convzv VIn 2, 2 (p 719 B) charactenzes the Lycurgan state qUIte clearly rn accordance WIth Dicaearchus conceptIOn of Sparta a~ a constitutIOn cpmpounded of democracy, anstocracy and krngshIp, so that It IS perfectly clear that thiS was the ground on whrch Dicaearchus had asserted that Lycurgus mfluenced Plato They wanted to make a constltutron that took as Its baSIS not the external mechanrcal equalIty but the proportIOnal equalrty (suum curque) of men, whIch alone fits a 'temperate olIgarchy' and a 'constitutIOnal krng~hlp' Srnce equalIty rn whatever form constItutes the democratic element we have here the three elements of Dicaearchus' Ideal state I CIC De Rep I 2, 2 'Everythmg that phIlosophers have saId, If It IS well and truly said. was begotten and confirmed by tho~e who have given laws to states' That thiS and the followmg sentences denve from Dicaearchus can only be asserted here WIthout further proof I hope soon to be able to give the proof In another conneXIon, but the thing IS really eVIdent enough In Itself For the supenonty of polrtrcal to phIlosophIcal actrvlty Cicero op Cit I 7, 12, quotes the example of the greatest phrlosophers. who-lIke Plato-devoted themselves at any rate to the problem of the state, and espeCially of the seven sages, who, he says, were almost all Immersed In polrtlcallrfe Here, too, he IS draWing on Dlcaearchus (et frg 28 Mueller) a~

THE PHILOSOPHIC IDEAL OF LIFE

461

and general mSlght that it revealed to him The trawtIon concernmg the personalIties and ways of livIng of the earlier thmkers, largely anecdotal and legendary, often purely oral, prOVided a plastic matenal almost waxy soft for the expresslOn of the changmg Wlshpictures of philosophical ethiCS If the whole value of this traditIon lay only m Its store of so called hlstoncal facts, we should have to resign ourselves to Its bemg slight, as our own exammatIon of Its ViCIssItudes has shown, but it remams Important for all times because of the store of Ideas that itS varIOus creators have Immortahzed m It The philosophical movement, whose reflectlOns In the traditIons about the earliest thmkers we have followed, presents a tram of thought possessmg remarkable necessity Each step of the way follows mevltably from the precedmg, and their order could not be changed Without dlstortmg the direction of motlOn mto a zigzag The sequence constitutes an mdependent sectIon of the development of Greek culture We do ItS Importance less than Justice If we regard It only as a piece of more or less Inslgmficant history of the philosophIcal schools It IS necessary not merely m that the mdIVldual vlewpomts follow logically one from the other, but also m that the poSSibilities mherent m the human mmd are exhaustively revealed m them At first we find Socrates and Plato lmkmg the moral world to the philosophical knowledge of bemg Then m Dlcaearchus' practical Ideal, Ide and ethiCS are entirely Withdrawn agam from the rule of hIgh philosophical speculation and restored to mdependence, and the danng wmg of speculative thought IS pmlOned With It fades the power of the Ideal of theoretic hfe When we meet It thereafter It IS always the world of . pure sCience' and contrasted as such With the hfe of practice Or else we find lame compromises such as the so called' synthetic hfe' or I3los aVv6Fros, whIch IS actually a mere external JuxtapoSItIon of the theoretical and practical livf''< Not until the destructIOn of SCIentific philosophy and metaphySICS by sceptiCIsm could the theoretic hfe achieve ren,'wal. now m the religIOUS form of the contemplative hfe, whIch has been the monastic Ideal smce Philo's work of that name It is worth notlcmg that the Romans, when they mcorporated claSSical Greek phl1osophy mto their culture,left the Ideal of the phl1osophlc hfe behmd There were mdeed always mdlvidual personal behevers who Jomed m the poet's praise Fehx qUI potmt rerum cognoscere causas But, when CIcero m hiS books On the State und,ertook to gIve Greek phl1osophy a fixed place m the whole of Roman culture, he could combme the polItical SpInt of hiS people With Greek sCience only by wsregardmg hiS deep reverence for Plato and AnstotIe and adoptmg Dicaearchus' ideal of the pohtIcal hfe

Gg

INDEXES SUBJECTS Academy, II, 13 If , 95 f, 113, 172, 178 190 216 226, 242 n 1, 296, 306 ff 315,316 f , 330, 336 f, 373 376, 394 f , mterest m the CyzIceman school, 17, 'orgamzatlOn of sciences' m, 18, classl1icabons 10, 19, an ethical society, 23, wntmg of dialogues In 27, and the school of Isocrates, 37, pohtlcal actiVIbes of, 54, tnpartlte diVISIOn of phtlosophy, 84, 216, and the theory of Forms, 93, and Socrates, 96 f , cult of Pythagoras 97 455, Speuslppus' succesSIOn In, 110 f , mterest 10 the anent, 131 f , and the begmwngs of the phIlosophy of reiIglOn, 157, rehglOus attitude of 161, programme for rehglOus reform, 165, diSCUSSIOns 01 Spartan and Cretan msbtubons, 286, diSCUSSIOns of cosmology, 300 f , estranged from Anstotle, 312, and the Ideal of the theoretIc lIfe 431 ff ActIOn, moral, 83 f A mor De, see Eros Analogy, mlerence from, 147 f AnalytIcal thought 369 ff Ananke, 48, 122, 153 n 2 Angels see Spmts of the air Antioch, 4 I I Apolhnlsm, 131 A rei! &pn1\, I I 8, 448 1 (See IJlso Virtue) Anstotehamsm Onental and OCCIdental charactenzed 5 Art, 371 , dlstln~lOn between nature and 74 75 n I, 76, ambigUity 01 the word, 262 n 3 AscetICism 40 99, J94 ASSOS,III,1I4f 172f 189190,256, 258,286 287 288 290 318,3241, 440 n I Astrahsm, Onental, 165 Astronomy 17 20 IJ2, 140, 155, 33 6 f , 345, 350, 43 1 Atarneus, 288 If Athens, 3 II ff Becommg, 48 f, 141, 151 190, 200 Bemg, 19, 22, 48 1, 82 1, 84 n I, 177, 185, 202 If , 215 f, 372, 430 f (See tJlso cM:rIat ) Birds, 146 n I

Catastrophes, Plato's theory of, 71 f' 137 Categones, Anstotle's doctnne of, 41, 420 4 6 375 Causes, Anstotle's doctnne 01, 173, 295 1 Cebes' TlJblet, 55 Chalels, 319 f 323 Character, "80'1. 84 Classl1icaLon, In the Academy, 19 f ConsclOusnes~ contlnUlty 01, 51 Contemplation, 731, 75, 78, 81, 239 Contemplative life, see Theoretic hie Contranes, 42 Cosmo~, IJ9, 1401, 153 n 2, 154 Creation Plato's story 01, m the T,mlJeus 18 140, MosaiC account 01 134 n I Cycles of truth IJO, 133, 137 Cyzlceman school 17 DehberatlOn 1')2 Delphi J20, 325 Dialectic, 47, 8J, 84 n 2, 216 Dialogue as a form 27 ff Disharmony, 40 ff DtSsectlOns 336 Dithyramb, 13 DIVInatIOn, 159 n I, 161 f, 2401, JJ3 1 Dlvme, the, 1')8, 164, 235 346 Doxographlcal tradition, 426 ff , 452 If , 460 f Duahsm, 133, 136, 174, 226 EducatIOn Isocratean method ai, 56, 581 , m detatled research, 337 ff Elements 20 f , 44 n I, 94, 143 ff , 191 Ens perfectlSSJmum, 190, 222 Entelechy, 45, 383 ff Epicureans Epicurean school, EpIcureamsm, 128 137 f, 318, 373, 400, 404, 424 Eros, IJ, 108 n 2 Erythrae, treaty With Hermlas, 112 Essence, 94, 202, 345 1 (See tJlso oualat )

Ether theory of 137, 140, 14] ff , 153, 3°01, 348, defined as God, IJ8 f theologlcal use 01. 14311 In the EpmomlS 144, the filth or the first body I 144, A 's reasons lor. 153, A's development of, 154, ID the Academy, 300 1

INDEXES

464 EUucs

Anstotehan, 83 ff, ch

IX

pfUn"., 332 f, 390 II , of the early

A , 85, Plato's Ideal of geometncal, 85 ff • A 's early ethIcs In relation to the Plnlebus 87 II . amalgamation of WIth ontology, 94, ApolhnIsm and Socratlclsm the two foclof. 131, InteJIDedlate posItIOn of the Eude".lan El1llcs 2J2 II, the change of method, 233, structure of A 's early ethICS developed from the Prolrep'lCus. 236 f . theonomlc. 240 , self-love. 245 ,A S dlilerenbatlon 01, from polItiCS, 276, Its mdependence In the Academy, 373, 395, A 's unIfication of the problems of, 375 f . the Greek obJectificatIOn of 390 fl. ethIcal and mteUectuahstlc ethICS, 396, Plato renders the state ethIcal 398 f becomes a mere 'part' of philosophY.434 A 's separatIOn of, from metaphysIcs, 435. 438 and the theoretic Me, 438 ff Etruscan pirates Slml1e of the, 100 Exactitude, 47, 88 n 4, 89, 261. demand for 10 the ProlrepllcuS, 71 , as an Ideal 10 A s early Hhlcs and pohtlcs 76, 85 ff afterwards reJected, 232 ff , In the MetaphYSICS 339, 35 0 ExhortatIOn, 55 if 72 n 1 Fire 143 154 Fue-ammals, 144 ff 'Fust thmgs', see 1TpC>Ta Form, Forms. theory of see Idea. Ideas, theory of Fonn hterary Anstotle's,6 78, 170, Plato s, 6, 78 Hellemsbc rhetonclans' concept of, 6 Free wIll, 152 153 Fnendshlp, 243 fi, 376 (Seo also Phlha. 1Tp<JTTl ,.>.la) Galaua. 412 Gnosls. 164 God, 221, 346 A 's conception of. 84 n J, IJ8 fl 239 ff , the measure of all thmgs, 88, 242 f , A 's concentration on the problem of, IS6 n I, arguments for the eXlstence of, 157 ff , knowledge and contemplatlon of, 2"2 ff, f]6, the umty of the world, 385, the object of hIS own thought, 448. 451 Good, the. 87 f , 13", 190 260 f , 393, 434 Good the hIghest, ,.8, 8,. n I 190 23 6 • 24 2, 255. 393

Goods dIVISIOn of. 2,.7 f, 277. docmne of. 57. 73. 8,., 99 234. 217 Gradation, pnnClple of, 67, IS8 Great Year. I5S, 389 HapplDess, ,.8, 78. 232. 234 f. • 2H f • 277 II , 28,. n 2. 375 f Harmony. 40 11 HIppocratic school, HIppocratIc wntlOgs. 44 n I. 408, "16 "17. 419. "24 HIstory A's concepbon of hIs own hlstoncal pOSItIon, 3, the hiStory of WIsdom, 128, the Great Year, 130 136, the hIstory ofthe SCIences, 335, ItS anglO 10 systematic conslderabons, 402, the umverse has no hIstory, 389 Humamsts, Humamsm. 5. 6, 267 Idea Ideas theory of fonn and matter, 13, 301 f. 382 fI ,dIscussed 10 the Academy, 14 16 95. 128. 358 n I, obJecbons to, ID the ParmenIdes, 16, Eudoxus' suggested alteratIOn m, 17, Plato's notIon of the mdlvldual as the lowest form, 19, A 's cnbclsm of, 33, 35, 86 125 ff, 138 ff 171 ff 2IJ ff, 234 255, 377 ff , oppo~ed by Cephlsodorus, 37, the !>oul an Idea 45 f • mamtamed by A 52, go ff , the apprehensIon of the Forms, 80, Plato's theory of 8~, 115. beIng and value 10 the theory of the Forms, 8J. mathemabcal stage of the theory 87, 132 261, the world of Forms as detemlloate, 87, terminology 91 172, the Idea as nature Itself, 93, final form of the theory 9,.. the dlvme Form of human VIrtue, 109, SpeUSlppUS' attitude towards the theory. lIT. the theory at Assos, 1I5, 172. as Ideals, 118, A s unmoved mover as pUre Form, I'll f . the longlng of senSIble thlOgs for the Idea, 142 nature as a realm of graded Forms. 158, a dead problem, 177, do the Ideas truly eXISt? 195, 392. and A 's philosophy of fnendshIp. ~43 ff. and A's VIew that the Form IS Immanent, 301 n I. totahty of the Form the obJect of natural phIlosophy, 339, A 's concepbon of 'unmattered form '. 340 fA's' form' as the Idea IntellectualIZed 372, the nouon of form the cenmJ pomt of A s phIlosophy.

4°3

Ideal numbers. doctnne of, 126. 191 f •

INDEXES 220 n 3, 234, 297 n 2 (See also Numbers) Ideal state, ch x pass,m Imitation, 91 ff Immanent forms, doctnne of, 222 ImmortalIty iO II • 49 ff • 162, 333 Indian philosophy, 134 IndiVIdual, the, 19 IntellectuahzatlOn, 370 if IntUition, 21,67 (See also 6t!c.>pla) Isles of the blest, 73, 74, 96, 280, 282 n 3 JeSUits, 5 Knowledge Plato's distinctIOns of 23, the life of, 68 ff , 80 f , and the contemplation of the Borms, 83 f , theory of. m the Protrept,clls 9~ Plato's theory of 372, 430 f Levels, doctnne of, see GradatIOn Limit, pnnc.ple of 87 (See also ~ ) LogiC Plato's later logiC, 14 if , early anglO of A ''i 40 II, categones early, 46 f , d.alectIc In the dialogues 47 Socrates logiC, 97 analogy, 143, 147, analytical thlllkmg, 369 II abstractness, 370 Logos, 233 Lyceum, the, ,,\6, 117 n I, 190, 299, 312 314 II ,336,343 n 1 (See also PenpatetIcs) Macedon, 117 Mag., 128 f, 131 II Mathematics, 20 89, 177 II, 192, 215, 216 f, 431, Pythagorean, "\3 Egyptian, 72 128 Mean, the Anstotehan 44 n I, 417 Measurable the, 87 Measure (see also Norm) m Plato, i3 , and the mean 44, problem of measurement m ethiCS 87 II , III Plato's theory of Ideas, 261 MedICine, 43 2i 2, 336 f , i02 f 4°5, App I passIm Memory 51,52 Metaphy'ilcs Weltanschauung .... 53 377, In the Eudemus 48, dISlike of the earlier Greeks for, 72, 164, III the Protreptleus 83 f, 431. an earlier name for It, 97, the onglnal nucleus of A s, 139 ongln of the pnme mover', I'll, A s early, 167 II , theological character of A 's earhest, 192, 195 ff , enlarged mto a doctnne of substance, 203 f and sen'i.ble substance 206, 22011 ,contradlcbonsm,214ff ,and the doctnne of Nus. 332 1JI the Penpatetlc school, 339, cntical

character of A's, 376 if. also called' theology', 436 Method, 14, 26, 71, 85 II, 93, 180 198, 232 f, 261, 265, 290 II, 308, 337 if , 3 8 7 Mmd 138 (See also Nus) Mixed constitution. 459 Monad,88 Monothe.sm, 139 'More or less', 42, 420 Motion, 296 II, 355 ff, 380 382 f theories of heavenly motIon, 142 f, 15 1 f 345 Mystenes verbal echoes of, 100, 160 f religIOn as expenence, 161 MyslLclsm, 1°5 (See also Orphlcs ) Myth, Myths III A 5 d.alogues. 48, of Midas and SIienus 48 mythical thmkmg ID Plato, 50, 52, 150, 155, m Anstotle, 52, of recollectIon, 52, of the soul's progress, 53, rationalIstIcally mterpreted, 137. 356 of Phaethon 137 of the flood, 137, of the cave m Plato's Republtc, 163 f, 387 A s love of myth 321. of AHas 355 n 2 356 MytIlene, 11 5 II , 286 Nature and art 74, 75 n I 76, loman concept of, 157 f NeceSSity, see Ananke Neo-Platomsts Neo-Platomsm, 31, 32, 34, 40, 49 60 ff 100 n I, 106, 107 (See also Iamblichus Plotlous. Porphyry Preelus) Neo-Pythagoreamsm, 33 Norm, Norms, 76 83, 85 fI 90 93, 2"\1 11,261 286 (See also Measure) Numbers, theory of, 94, 1.6 176 ff 297 n 2 (See also Ideal numLers ) Nummous, the 157 Nus 171,339,351,362,371,375 3 89 397, 40 5, mdependent of the body and Immortal, 49 ff , 240, = phroneslS 82 236, 239 n I, doctnne of circular molLon of, 153 n 2. = God, 160 346, self-contemplation of, 165 n I, 452 knowledge of <"00 enters through, 166 Plato's theory of 245 f , 251 , doctnne of In 0" the Soul, 332 II , watered down Into 'theoretical reason , 396 Occult phenomena, 161 Olympus, 139, IiI 071 the Sub}'me 34 ~ n I Ontology, 94 Oparu01ls of the PhYSICiSts, 335 Optimism, metaphySical. 48, 99 II , 394 0"'%1$, 142

INDEXES OrganIzatIOn of SCiences, IB, 324 ff , 401 ff Onent, Interest of the Academy In, 1]1 If Orphlcs, Orphic poems, 100, 129, 131, 229 n 2 Pam. 17 ParticipatIOn 17 n I Penpatetlcs Penpatetlc school Penpatos, 5, 169 n I, 178, 229, 260, 407, 4 10 41I, 4 12 , 4 1 3 417, 4 20 , 4' [ 429, commentanes on A 's treatiseS,]2 the ~chool founded by An,toUe 124, biased on the questIOn of A '5 development, 176, foundatIOn, 3 I , , pohtlcal posItion 313 f , instructIOn and splnt of, 315 ff ,re~earch 324. 329, 337 ff , and the schools of mediCIne 336, 424, diSCUSSIOn of the problem of the spheres ]43, 349 354, 35 8 , 364 ff development after A , 404, and the problem of sCientific method 423, and the problem of ethiCS, 440 ff ,446 and Pythagoras, 455 (See also Lyceum) Personality Plato's, 2 I, 107 ff , Anstotle s, 320 ff personal expenence, 12 40, Q6 100, 118 (See also Rellf::lOn) Pesslml,m, 48, 99 ff , 394 Phlha loB (See also Fnendshlp,

307, distingUished from the study of the Ideas, 373, pnme task of. 380 metaph}slcs based on )80 if , mechanIsm and teleology, 386 PlSlstratlds, 129 PlatOnIsm, 12, 128, 172,238, religIOUS element In, 161 Pleasure 17, 77 f 234 ff, 247. 278 375 f, 432 n I P'tellma, theory of the, 409, 424 f Pohtlcs needs a philosophical foundation 76 f seeks for absolute norms. 85 ff , A'~ early pohtlcs, 259 ff stages In the development of hiS pohbcs, 269 If , ethical nature of hiS Ideal for the state, 275 397 ff , Influence of actual pohtics upon A s politiCS, 288, Its method, 290, not eqUIvalent to the highest SCience, 437 f Prayer, 160 Pre-eXistence, 5 I I Presocratics 206, 377 421, 428 f Pnme mover theory of, ch XIV pasHm, 380, 387 (See also Unmoved mover) Protreptlc form, 55 57 ff Proverb~, Proverbial Wisdom 129 f Psychology, 331 (S" also Soul) Psycho-phYSical umty 49 Pythagoreans, Pythagoreamsm, 17 61, 97 n I, 162 n 2, 179, 223 300, 306 f , 308 432 f , 455 ff

"P='l 'I'.Ma)

Philosopher, ongIn of the word, 98 Philosophic Ideal of hfe, App II pasH'" Philosophy 79 ff, 128 ff 216 f, 372 f, as the umvenal SCience, 401 ff Ph,otle5ls, 'l'PClV'l"'S, 'I'poVElv, 65 f! , 98, 166, 234 ff 247, 251, 262 n 2 277 ff , 375 f, 430 f , 432 n I, one of the element~ out of which Plato'~ work arose 2I, pure reason' 67, and plea,ure 77 f , defimtlon and development of, 81 ff, 239 ff , 371 f, contrasted With soph,a, 436 If 445 If Ph}slclsts, 140, 377 381 , 4]0 Physlc~ conceptIOn of nature, 74, 92 Importance for theology, 141, 3°6, traces of Its development, 142 ff , 152 fI , early In ItS cosmology 154 299 ff a theoretical SCience, 216 I and the kinds of being, 220 f , to be completed by a transcendent 'end', 222 early 10 anglO, 296, conceptual In character, 299, the u'e of On Ph,losophy In De Caelo 302 fI Platomc In Its problems,

Rabonahsm 21, I~6, 1~7 Realpoltl1k, 1I3, 120 122 Reason 221 242 (See also Nus. PhYotles,s) RecollectIOn theory of, 51 f, 333 RehglOn OrphiC, 50, IranIan, 133 f , cosmiC, 138 astral 138 ff , philosophy of 156 ff , the effect of A 's philosophy on the history of, 156 and SCience, 157, proofs of the eXistence of God, 158 as expenence, I5Q ff , ongm of the belLeI III God, 16/, 'knowledge of God " 164, DelphiC, 165 and metaphySICS, 377 f (Sn also God) Scholastlcl~m, 4 f , 155,3 68,373 37 8 SCience relatIon between emplncal and pure, 68 ff 89, 434 tf , progress of, 96, hIstory of, 334, and metaphySICS (Weltanschauung), 339, 376 ff , 4°3, foundatIOn of SCientific philosophy, 37' f , 403 ff Self-love, 245 f Seven Wise Men, 129, 130, 430, 452, 454, 460 n I Similar, the, 419 f

INDEXES Socrabclsm, 131 Solsbce, 150 n 3 Soplna, 82, 278, 436 f , contrasted wIth phrrmeslS, 437, 445 fI SophIsts 21, 55, 56, 129, 156, 433, Presocrabc, 74 n 2 Soul OrphIc myth of, 22, A 's conceptIOn of, 40 f1, 70 n I, as substance 41 f, 44 f, 361 Plato's descnptIon of, 41, 432 n I, a form, 45 development of A 's conceptIOn of, 45 , not an entelechy (Plotmus), 45, PlatonIc belIef m permanence of, 49 f , Its normal state, 51, as a pnnclple of spontaneous movement, 142, the chIef pnnclple of becommg, 151, alterabon of A s Ideas of 251 f, psycho-physIcal theory of, 332 ff Sphere-gods, 139 Spheres doctnne of the movers of, 137, 141 f, 299. 300n 2, A's stImulus to work out the doctrIne, 343, number of the spheres, 345, late 348 ff ,cntIclzed by Theophrastus and Plotmus, 349 fI ,contradlcbons m, 352 Spmts of the aIr, 145 f StaglTa, 311, 320, 323 Star-gods, 139, 15<1, 156 n I Stars hypotheses about thelT mobon, 142 doctnne of ~tar-souls 142 fI , 155, 168, 300, 361, 384 f , theIr free wdls 152, mfluence of the astronomers 155, theory of the movers of the spheres, 345 ff , metaphySICS and astronomy 354 StOICS, StOIC school StoICIsm, 128, 143, 147, 150, 156 n I, 162 f , 318, 373 fI , 388, 400, 4°4, 424 f Substance, 19, 22 41, 42, 94, 167, 185 ff , 195 f , 203 f, 221, 345, 347 381, A 's doctnne of, 46 n 3 (See also ovcrla ) Supersenslble, the, 195 ff System, 373 ff Teleology, 66 f, 74 f 383 ff Theogony, 141 Theolol'{lans, 129 Theology OrIgIn of HellenIstic, 13B if , 156 162 f , atheIsm, 139, fUSIOn of

WIth astronomy, 140, 164 f , prot>lem of the knowledge of God 164, OrIental 165 229 n 2, UnIversalIsm, 166, m the dialogue On Philosophy, 168, 219, 220 n 3, earlIest form of A's, 222 alteration of A's, ch XIV pass,m (See also MetaphySICS, RelIgion, Stars, for' theonomy , see EthIcs) TheoretIc life, the, 62 ff , 78, 80 ff <)6, 97, 243, 25 1, 3 21 , 39 2 if , 397, 4 00 , 428 ff Tragedy, 13 Tran~cendence, 195 Truth, 130, 133, 137, 204 f UnIversal, UnIversals, 91 f UnIversalIsm, 166 UnIverse A 's conception of 3BB ff Unmoved mover 139,141 f, 167 217, 220, 240, 300, ch XIV pass,m (See also Pnme mover) Uranu~, 139 "Value B3, 84 n I 15B, 222, 244, 247, 27 6 V.rtue, VIrtues a ~ymmetry of the soul 43 the four PlatOnIC, 43 44 n I B5, 132, 278, ongm of the doctnne of the mean, 44, B8 n I, one of the three lIves, 65 f, 78, 98 234 f ,431 n I and functIOn 66, subordmate to contemplatIOn, 'JB, 100 239 If 'the Hrtue of Hermlas 108 f, lIymn to, 118, a Greek pnnclple 118 f ,dIstinctIon between moral and mtellectual, 237, 43911 2, 445 ff deJimtlOn of, 241 417, In the Ludemwn Elh,cs, 24~, 333 n I, A 's conceptIOn of, 395 f Vila beala 79 2Bo Vila Marc,ana, 107 n 2 Way of hfe', 432 n I Weltanschauung, 53, 98 f1, 12 5, 155, 190, 377, 403 (See also MetaphysIcs) WIsdom, 65, 77 f , 371, 396 WOrld,138f as eternal, 140, A's general attitude towards 3BB H World-soul, 133, 348, 360 World VIew, see Weltanschauung

INDEXES 2

PERSONS

AcIulles. lIB, 1I9. 122 ACUSllauS, 229 n 2 Aeschlne8. 31] f , 328 Agamemnon. 219 Agonaces. 1]6 Ahoman, 133 ff Ajax, II8 Albert the Great 175 Alclblades, 99 Alexander of Aphrodlslas. 32 45. 93, 172 175 f, 213 n 1,297 n 2,361 Alexander of Macedon, :014, 86. 108. II.5n I. 1l9ff, 13 1, 133, 259. 2B6 n 3. 307 n I. 311 fi, 318 fI . 325. 330, 410 f Alexander of Pherae, 39 Alexander the Molosslan, 328 Ammomus, 169 n I, LIfe of Anstotle accordIng /0 Ammon.us. 106 D 2, 107 n 2 Amyntas 120 Anaxagoras, 50, 75 f , Bo, 83. 96 97, 235. 239 253 38 3.4 06 127 ff. 131. 437, 454 An8XlTnander, 451 Anaxlmenes, I I 4 n I Andreas. Fr . 136 n I Andromcus, 5 31, 3:01 n I. 128, 297 n I, 378 Antlgonus I, 413 Anttgonus Gonatas, 413 n 2 Antlpater. 123.313,319,322 f ,po f Antlsthenes, S5 Apelt, 229 342 n 5 Aplon, 135 ApulelUs, I4S ff Arch..lmedes 405 Archytas, 17, 455. 15 6 Anmnestus, 320, 323 Anstarchus, 32B, 105 Anstocles of Mes~ana, 106 107 n 2 Anstophanes 105 Anstotle philosophical conception of himself, 3, Inventor of the Dotlon of IOtellectual development In time, 3 standard for Judgmg hiS achievement 3, fundamental conceptlon of hiS phtlosophy, .. ' our Ignorance of the stages of hiS development, .. ' scholastic nobon of hiS philosophy, ... hiS commen tators, 5. 32. 3 I 7 pnnce of medieval scholastICism. .5 • has never had a Renascence .5 and the philologiSts 6, 'style' of hiS treatises. 6. prOVISional form of hiS ph..llosophy, 6. traces of Ius evolution 1D the extant WTItJngs. 7. aDd the Academy, II fl. 16 n I . Ius relabonsIup to Plato. I I fi ,21 fI •

27 f, 31 fI' • 94 f, 105 fI', 136. hJ.a Intellectual development, II, 36. cnbclsm of Plato 12, 33. 35 fi • 94 f. 128. 138 ff , 171 ff • descnber of poetlc and prophebc elements In Plato, 12, and Eudoxus. 17, Dotlon of reahty. 20, and mathematics. 21, early works (dialogues). ch II pasnm, and the dialogue fonn. 27 ff , hiS Ideal of style. 30, phtlosophlcal relabon to Plato In the dialogues. 31-53, . exotenc' and 'esotenc' wnttngs. 32. .5.5. 246ft , relatIon between the dialogues aDd the treatises, 32. the treatises regarded as a urnty In aDtJqUlty, 34 PlatoDlc' works, 36. IDtroduces the study of rhetonc Into the Academy. 37, early Vlew of the soul 40 ff , dependent on Plato In hiS early metaphySICS. 44 Independent of Plato 10 logiC and methodology, 46, the father of logiC, 47, defimtlon of dlalec ttc 17, diScoverer of psycho-physical relations 19, enlarges Plato's theory of recollection, 51. extent of hiS PlatoDlc penod, 52 f , and the protreptJc fonn, 55 fI • and the conceptIOn of phromsJS. 82 f hiS early ethiCS, 87, conception of nature. 92 early attJtude towards hfe and rehglOn, 98 ff leaves Athens for Asses, 105, motives for hiS departure, lOS f, IIO f • real attitude towards Plato, 106 f ,deDles Plato's doctnne of man's happIness, 110. hiS relation to Hermlas lIS. foundation of A 's school latd at Assos 1I5, settles 10 Mytllene, lIS ff , hiS marnage II6 f goes to Macedon as Alexander's tutor, I I 7. the court of Phlhp. 120, aDd Macedoman affalTll, ]20 f, and Alexander, 121, departure from Athens not a break With the Academy 124 pubhc and pohtlcal hfe, 125, 311. hiS transltloDal pened, 125 ft, development of cntlcal attitude towards Plato. 126 f, 171. the first pubhc cntJclsm of Plato. 128. doctnne of the reappearance of tI'l.1ths 130, 136. Interest In the Magi. 133 ff • theologrcal tendency of A 's early penod, I3B fI, representahon of Plato 10 0" PllIlosoplay, 138. additions to Plato's cosmology. 140. theory of ether. 143 f. 1.53. doctnne of

INDEXES 'fire-born lLDJmals', 145 f , hIS cosmll;phy81CS, 1S4.andrel1glon,I,6if , pnnclple of gradabon, 67, ISS, sublectlve convtctlon of God's eXIstence, 161 if , and the doctnnes of SpeUSlppUS and Xenocrates. 177 if , earllest form of hIS theology, 222, development of his ethics, 231 ff , change In attitude towards phro"~SlS, 236, cntlclsm of Plato's R~publlC and Laws, 287 f, hIs speculative phySICS and cosmology, ch XI passIm penocl of matunty at Athens, 3II II , as Plato's successor, 312, a teacher, not a wnter, 317, later relatIOns Wlth Alexander, 318 f , hiS human personality and surroundings 320, hiS Will, 320, 322 f , hiS loneliness, 32 I the bust of him, 322, orgamzatIon of Ius research, ch XIII passIm, the creator of philology, 328 founder of the hIStOry of phIlosophy and SCIence, 334 f , and medIcal hterature 336, and the conception of 'Immattered form, 337 ff relations With Calhppus 342 f, hiS place In history ch xv pasSIm hiS analytical thinking 369 11 , the founder of SCIentific philosophy 372 f ,hIS sCience and metaphySICS 376 ff and the analySIS of man 390 II, and pohtlcs, 399 f, hIS Intellectual Tange, 405, hiS obJectiVity, 4°6, and the doctnne of Virtue, 439 f AsdeplUs 169 n I AspaslUS, 229 n 4 Athenaeus, 17 Augustme 5t, 31, 62, 65, 378 Autophradates, 289 Beloch,4 IO Bendlxen,23In I,283n I Hemays, J 33 f ,35 44 n 2,46 n I, 52n I,60,75n I,79n 2,I06n 3, I25n I, I52n 4, I53n 2, I77n I 246 n 2, 248 f, 254 n I, 276 277 n I, 303, 324 n I Boeckh, II2, 342 n 6 Boetruus, 3 I, 62, 65 Boll, Fr , 428 n 3, 430 n 2 Bomtz 186 f , 194, 199,218 n 1.219. 223, 342 353 n I BrandIS 332 n I Bretzl. M , 330 Bnnckmann III, II3 n 2 Bruno, G, 25 Burnet, J ' 229 421 n 2, 432 n I, 455 n I Bywater, I, 00 ff , 137

~Dlachus,

135, 229, 328

~ppus, 299, 342 f. 345, 351, 354

n I, 356 Call1Sthenes, II4, 115, JI8. 123, .116 n 3, 318 f , 325 f CaDlpbell, LeWlS. IS n I Cassauder, 410 f Celsus, 408 Cephlsodorus, 37 Charondas. 456 n 3 Chllon, 129 Chnst, 187 f ChrySlppUS, 31, 36 143 Cicero, 28, 29 n 2, 30, 31, 3z n 1,39, 62 f, 65, 73 f, 127, 230, 254, 259 n 3, z80, 432 n I, D~ R~publ1ca, 30, 261, 460 f , Hortensues, 3 1• 55. 6z f, 65, 101 n I, ISS n I. Tusculan DIsputations 98, D~ Natuf'a DeOf'um, 138 If. 143 If, 149 if • 163 n I, De Doumatlont, 162 n 2 Cleanthes, 31, 143, IS0, 163 Clearchus, 116 Conscus, 46 n 3 III, liZ f. lIS 1, 173 256n 3,44on I Crates the Cymc, 3 I Cntl&S, loB n I Cntolaus, 147 Cumont, F , 134 n I Cuvler, 307 n I Demetnu. of Phalerum, 314 f, 328,

,P7 n

I,

451 n 4

Demetnu. the Besieger, 314 n I Demochares, 314 n I Democntus, 19,36 75n 1,80 97n I, 163, 307 n I, 108, 328 381 f, 386, 404 406, 4 26 f , 454 Demosthene. II2, II7, 119 f, 288, 3II f, 313 f Dlcaearchus of Messene, 450 11 Dldymus, 1I2 II4, lIS, 117 n I, II9 120 n I, 124 Dlels, H 77 79 n 2,99 n 3, 146 n I, 248 n 4, 27b f , 365 n I, 425 n 2 DIOdes of Carystus 18, J36. App I passIm, hIS fragments, 407 f , Ius florult, 408 If , hIS style and language, 409 f , Letter to A "tlgonuS, 413, 423, a follower of Anstotel1an teleology, ,p6, hIS picture of dally hfe, 4 17, hiS dIetetiCs, 4 I 7 f , as an Anstotehan, 4 I 9 ff IDS posItion ID the hIStOry of Greek medICIne.

42 5

DlOgenes ot Apolloma, 41 I n 4, 416 DlOgenes the Cynic. 107 D I DlOgenes Laertlus, 33, 55 n 2, 135 n I, 136, 2JO n 1,453 DlOn, 39, II4. 433 DlOnysJUs, II] 120

47°

INDEXES

Dloscun, the, 1I8 Dyroff, 33 n 2, 125 D I Elias, 32 n I Empedocles, 21, 56, 305,419, 454 Ephorus 286 Eplcharmus, 164 n I, 180 Eplcrates, 18 n I, 19 Eplcurus, 75 n I, 108,404 EplmeDlde~, 229 0 2 Eraslstratus, 336, 408, 412, 413 0 2.

42 4

Erastus of Scepsls, I II II 2 f, II 5 173 Eratosthenes 259 0 2, 405 Eubulus, 289 f Euclld,4 2o Eudemus of Cyprus, 39, 54, 106, 107. 1620 2 Eudemus of Rhodes, 107, log n 2, 169, 228 fI , 238, 243, 246, 248 283 29'1 n I, 316 335, 343 0 I, 354. 365 ff , 4 I 3, 4 2 5, 443, 4.H D I Eudoxus of CyZICUS, 16 f , 19,22, 113 13 1 ,13 2 ff 142,154 3 08 '43,345, 34 8 356, 3 80 , 383, 4 06 Euphraeus, II3 EUnpldes, 1640 I, 322, 429, 430 EuseblUs 3.7, 1060 2, 408 Evagoras 54 Evenus, 108 n I FabnclUs 1, 409 n 3,413 n 2 FIChte, 385 Fraenkel Ed, 136 n 2 Frank, E , 459 n I Frednch, C , 409 Fnedlander, 1650 I Fntzsche, 229 Fuhr, M 458 n 2, 459 D 2 Galen, 4°8, 413 n 2 414, 418 Gercke, 117 0 I, 229 n 3 296 n 3 Gerhard, G A, 414 Gerhliusser 76 n I, 137 n I Glsmger, 134 n I, 136 n 2 Goethe, 4 Gomperz, Th 107 n I Grant, A , 229 Greenwood L 2370 I, 438 nn 3, 4 Grote, G 456 n 2 Gyges, 73

Helicon, 17 Hehos, 153 II 2 Heracles, II 8 122 Herachdes of Pontus, 98, 127 n 3, 162 n 2, 432, 453 n 4, 456, 459 D I Herachtus, 75 n I, 185,221,338,388, 428 n 3 454 f Hermlas, 108 f, II Iff, 116 ff, 173, 288 fl , 313, 318 Hermlppus, 114 n I, 135 f, 229, 230 n I Hermodorus 132, 133, 135 n I Herodotus, 307 0 I, 406, 453 Herophllus of ChalcedoD, 408, 411, 412, 413 n 2, 424 Herp}lhs, 320, 322 f HeslOd 56, 129, 229 n 2 HesychlUs, 55 0 2, 230 0 I Hlpparchus, 405 Hlpplas of Ehs, 327 Hippocrates, 4°7, 408, 409, 413 n 2, 4 15, 419 n 4, 425 Hirzel R, 27 n I, 61 f, 77, 79 0 2, 900 2 Hoffmann, E 44 n I, 297 0 I Homer 119, 122, 2290 2, 356 Homolle 326 n I Horace, 426 HortenMu~, 73 Humboldt, A von, 307 n I lambhchus, 49, 4320 I, 4'i6 ff , PTOITepllcus, 60-79 paSSim, 100 0 I, 246, 2')1 ldeler J L, 307 0 I, 347, 348 n I, 4090 3,4130 2 lmml~eh, 106 00 2 3, 107 no I 2, 1080 I, 1100 I !socrates, 37, 54. 55 fl, 77, 117 n I, 119, 1440 2, Ad Nlcoclem, 54, 56, 259 0 3, 41 I 0 I, Ps -!soc Ad DemonIcum, 57, 58 f 720 I Jaehmann 3260 2 Jackson, 134 n I Jacoby, F 160 I Jaeger W 'Anstotle s Verses 1D PraIse of Plato', 1090 I, 134 n 2, DlOkles von KaTyS/OS, App 1 pasSlm, Enls/ehungsgeschlchte deT M elaphysIk, 79 n 2, 1110 2, 117 D I. 128 0 I 168 f , 180, 184 0 2, 195 n

Hades, 133, 135 Hambruch, E , 46 n 3 Hammer-Jensen, J , 386 n I Harder, R , 443 n I Hartlleh, P tlI f , 79 D I Hecataeus of Mlletus, 307 D I, 406 Hegel, 20, 370 Heitz, 125 n I 259 n 2,265 n 2

I,

201

n

I,

204

f,

210

n

I.

212 n ],213 n 2,2]7 n 3,277 n I, 285D 1,]170 1,34205,4400 I, 4560 3, Humamsllsche Reden und VOT/Tage, 434 0 I , Nemeslos von Emesa, 137 0 I, 4]2 D I, Plalos Siellung 1m Aufbau deT gTlechlSchen BIldung 430 n I, 'Das Pneuma 1m Lykelon', 18 n I, 295 n 1.

INDEXES 332 n I, 355 n I, 425 n I, 'Vergessene Fragmente des Penpatetlkers DlOkles von Ka,rystos', App I paJnm Josephus, II6 Kalbel. G , 277 n I Kall, A , 33 n 2 Kant, 6, II, 160, 161 f, 377, 379 f , 397 Kapp, E 230 f , 233 n I, 237 n I. 440 n I Knsche, 456 n I Lachesis 48 Lambmlls, 140 n 2 Lang, P , 19 n I Lasson, A , 347 Lelbwz,20 LeUClppUS, 307 n I Lucretius, 75 n I Luther 5 Lyco, 315, 412 Lycurgus, 314, )26,458 fI Lynceus,99 Lysander 108 Machiavelli, 5 Maler, H , 97 n I, 391 n I Manutms, 140 n 2 Melanchthon, 5 Mehssus 454 Menon, 335, 425. 454 n I Mentor, II7 Metrodorus, 336 424 Meyer, J B, 330 n 2 Midas 48 Mueller 458 n 2 Natorp, 209 f, 2II D I, 212 n 3, 213 n 2, 214 Neleus, I IS f 440 n I Newman, W L, 266 n I, 273 n I, 286 n I Nlcanor, 320, 322 f NIcocles, 54, 4II n I Nlcomachu9, father of Anstotle, 120 Nlcomachus, son of Anstotle, 230, 268, 320, 322 f Nlcomachu9 of Gerasa, 456 n 3 Norsa, Medea, 39 n I Numewus,37 OlymplOdorus, 44 Oncken, 286 n I Onomacntus, 129 Ormuzd, 133 ff Osann, 458 n 2 ParmeDldes, 83,96,97,431,437.454 Partsch 331 n 2

47 1 Paslcles, I6g Patntius, F , 105 n I Perdlccas, I 13 Phaethon, 137 Phalaecus, 286 Phaleas, 289 Phamas, 172 n 3 Pherecydes, 133, 229 n 2 Phlhp of Macedon, II, 105, 117, II9 ff , 266, 296 n 3, 313, 4II n I Philip of Opus, loB n 2 132, 459 n I. Epmomu, 82, 138, 139, I.p, 144, 146 n 1, 150 ff, 153 n 2, ISS. 164 ff. 300 n I, 433 Phlhscus the cobbler, 31 Phllishon, 17 f , 336, 409 Philo, 31, 145 f, 461, Ps -PhJ.!o, On the E.ternity of the World, 139, 141. 143, 147 f Phllodemu~, 138 Phlloponus. 45, 137 n I PJd.t C 229 n 3 Pmdar,16 Plstelh 62 Plttacus, 453 Plasberg 139 n I Plato A '5 explanation of hiS place m hIstory, 3 history of hIS development, 4, admlIatlOn for hiS dialogues, 6, Importance of form for understandmg of hiS thought, 6, A s relatIOnship to him II ff • 22f,27f,3Iff,I05f1 I36 ,A's cntlcIsm of hIm, 12, 33, 35 if, 94 f, 128 138 if 171 fI, poetic and prophetic elements m, 12, hIS spmtual umty 13, development of hiS later dialectIc, 14 f , relatIOns to mathematiCians, 16. "od Pluhstron 18, 4°9, concerned WIth , Bemg , 19, and the method of diVISIOn, 19, 26, understandmg of mathematIcs, 20, mterest III astronomy, 20, mterest ID ethiCS and politics, 21, and contemporary medlcme 21, 43, plulosophtcal personahty, 21 if , elements out of whIch hIS work arose, 21 f , Lalled a mystIc, 22, hl~ aim 10 foundmg the Academy, 23, relatIon between hiS philosophy and the history of hiS hterary form 24 ff • purpOIle In wntmg 24 f , ShIft of phIlosophIcal Interests, 25, the later dialogues, 25 fI, 3"l4 f doctnne of Immortahty, 40 hIS anthropology, 43, and the pnmacy of creative mtellect, 81, and phronesu. 82. and knowledge, 87 93, and A '5 altarelegy, 10611 , hIs fnend8htp the bond of the Academy, log, hiS

INDEXES

47 2

successor. 110 1 • doctnne of man's bAppmess. 110. compared with Zarathustra, 133 ff. theones of heavenly monons, 142 I • aDd rehglOn, 157, denvatlon 01 the behef In God. 161. theory of happiness In the Phllebus 234. puts reason above . enthuSllLSm '. 241, theonomlc ethiCS. 243. and polItics. 260 I . 398 I • and the Good. 393. and the theoretic IIle. 429 11 , and the relatIon between pohbcs and phtlosophy, 434 I . and Lycurgus, 458 11 Phny, 131, 133 135 1,408,413 n 2 PlISotarchus, 410 I PlotInus. 44 f. 351 f. 389 Plutarch. 33. 35 36,52 n 1.126.1]0 133. 259 n 2. 454 n I, 458 I Polemarchus, ]43 n 2 PoIyblUS. 459 n 2 Polyxenus 172 POdl.pelUS Trogus. 458. 460 Porphyry, 61, 62, 432 n I, 456, 458 n

I

POSldonlUs 31,76, 146 n I, 148, 162. 432 n I Prant!. 297 n 3 Praxagoras of Cos. 4°8, 410, 41 1.412. 42 4 Proclus, 33. 35. 52, 62, 63. 64. 126. 127 n 3 Prodlcus. 163 Protagoras 88 Proxenus. 320. 323 Pseudo-Alexander. 1861, 354 n I Pseudo-Ocellus. 443 Ptolemy, 55 n 2 Pythagoras, 75. 10. 96. 97 f 431 fi 445, 453 n 4, 454 n I. 455 fI Pythla9. daughter 01 Anstotle. 320. 322 f. 336 Pythlas. Wile 01 Anstotle. 116. 320, 32 3 Rathke. A • 146 n 1 Remhardt, K , 146 n I Reltzenstem 136 n 1 Rohde E, 455 n I, 456. 458 n I Rose, V. 34 6]. 71. 135. 140 n 2, 147. 155 n I. 165 n I, 254 n I, 347 353 nn I. 2. 354 n I, 40C} n 3, 433 n I Ross. W D. 177 n I, 173 n I Sachs, E , 15 n I, 16 n I, 300 n I Sa.rdanapallus. 253 fI Seahger, 328 5ehlelermacher. 160. 440 n I Schopenhauer 25. 134 Schwegler. 180,205.217 n 1,353 n Selene. 153 n 2

I

Seneca. 76 Sextus Emplncus. 143. 145, 162 n 2, 374 n I Stlenus, 48 SlmplIcluli. 46 n I, 297 nn I, 2. ]0], 343 n 2. 346 I , 361 f , 365 Smmdyndes the SybarIte, 254 Socrates. 14 15. 16, 21. 2], 26 I, 55, 56. 80. 81. 96 f • 106, 107 n I. 1]0, 165. 174. 185, 390 ff . 398. 429 n 2. 430 f , 445, 447. 458 I Solmsen Fr. 15 n 2 Solon. 453 Soslgenes, 343 n 2, 347 354 n I Sobon, 133 135 n I Spengel,228.28]n 1. 294n I,440n I SpeUSlppUS. IIO I 126. 177 ff , 190 ff , 196, 223 ff. 312. 316, 456 n 3. 459 n I. On PleQSure, 17, ResembllJnces. 19. 330 On FTlendshJp. 108 n 2. On Phllosophers, 454 n 1 Staehelm. F, 412 n 3 Stahr. 105 n I, 106 n 2 Stenzel J 15 n I, 25 n I ~tewart. 229 Stobaeus. 446 Stocks, J L 440 n I Strabo. 113 n 2, I I 7 Strato. 5, 315 339 386. 404. 412 I,

42 5

Stroux. J . 30 n 2 Studlllczka 322 n I Susemlhl 229 256 n 4, 273 n Synan. 87. 126. 175

I

TaCitus 155 n I Tannery 16 n 2 Taylor. A E, 432 n 1 Thales. 80. 128, 401. 426 f , 428 n 3. 4 29. 43 1 , 453 Theaetetus. 15. 17, 18. 22 Theiler, W. 416 n 2 Themlson 01 Cyprus. 54 I. 86, 113. 411 n I Themlsuus. 49 f Theodorus, 18 Theogllls, 56 Theophrastus, 5, 30 n 2, IOC} n 2. 115 f 127 n ]. 147. 175 268, ]11 n 2, 312, 314 ff. 322 f, 330 f , 335 I .349 fI, 354, 357 f 4 10.4 I I , 412 I . 415. 416, 423. 425. 426 440. 443, 45 0 I . 45 1 n 4, 454 n I Theopompus 112, 114. 134 Thecsltes, 43 Thlbron. 286 n 3 Thompson. D .412 n 4.413 n 2.414 n I Thucydldes, 398, 406 Tlmaeus. 454 n I. 456 n 3. 458 n I Tlmares. Tlmaratus, 456 n 3 TOrI 327 n I

INDEXES Vener. H . 18 n 2. 65 n I Vahlen. 140 n 2. 277 n I Von der MUhll. p. 230 n 233 n I. 283 n I

2. 231.

n

Walzer R. 440 n I WellmaDD M, 18 n I. 407 n 4. 40811 • 411 D 4. 423 n 2 Wendland. P 56 n I. 59 nD I. 2 WI1amowltz. V von, 106 n 3. 108 Dn 1.3,266 nn 1,3,267,285 n I. 286n 3,316D I,327n 1.3430 I. 408 D I, 409 n 2, 440 n I Wilson. 256 n 4 Xanthus. 133

473

Xenocrates, III. 114 n 2. 173. 177 11. 190 f 307. 312. 3 16. 373, 394, 434 n 2. 459 n I. Oft Pleasure. 17. On Frlendsh.p. 108 2

157, MemoralnJ.a.

XenophoD. 143 74 n 2 Xerxes. 133

Zaleucus. 456 n 3 Zarathustra, 132 fi Zeller, E , 15 n I. 153 n 2.229 nn I. 2. 248. 266 n 2. 294. 324. 357 n I. 413 n 2 Zeno, 31. 43 1• 454 Zeus. 133. 135,356 Zoroaster, see Zarathustra

3 THE WRITINGS OF ARISTOTLE AND PLATO 1

ARISTOTLE

Altar-elegy 106 fI 134 n 2 Ana/yt.cs. 91, 294, 296 n 3, 369, 373 42 4

Barbar.an Customs, 328 Categor.es, 46 n 3 369 ConsMut.ons, 24. 260, 265 f, 286, 327 fI,

335, 340

4°2,

used In

Poltl.cs IV-VI 265, date 327 De An.mal.um Genera/lone. 308. 32 9 De Ammallum Motu, 295 n 1. 355 357

De Amma"um Partobus. 74 n 2, 277 n 2, 308. 329 330 n 2. 337 De Cado 153 159 n I 293, 294, 298 300 11 329, 347, 348 n 2 3530 I. early, 154. 299 f , uses On PJ..lo-

sophy. 303 De DIV.na/.one per Som"14m,

162.

333 f Dialogues. 5, 24, 125 n I. 127, 130 176 276 f. 316 f. 393 development of theIr fonn, 26 fI theIr effect on antiquIty. 3 I. therr PlatoDlc pomt of vIew. 31. theIr relation to the treatIses. 32. 'exotenc diSCOUrseS', ~ 2. 246 ff therr poleDllc agarnst Plato. 35. Aleza..der or On Co/onva/.on. 24. 259, 318. Eudemus or On the Soul, 29 30. 33 n 2. ch III pass.... 62, 70. 98 f. 100 0 I. 127 0 3, 162 171 n 3, 333. 370, Gryllus or On Rhelonc. 29. 30. M mezenus. 3°.31 • Nw"l/hus 23, 254 D I. 276. 0 .. Jushu. 29 D 2. ]0, 259 ff • 0 ..

Ph.losophy. 29, 33 n 2. 35. 36 n I, 74 n I, 95, ch VI pass..... 167. 173 f 178, 190 n 2. 193, 201. 219. 220 n 3 222. 229 n 2 240 258. 269, 293, 300. 302 f • 3°6 , 333 348. 361, 387, 433 452 date aod form. 125 fI, used ID the Eude....an Eth.cs. 256 aod In the De Cado, 30) , 0 .. Poets 326. SophISt 30. 31 Statesman, 29, 30. 31 87. 127 259 ff 266, Sympos.um, 30 31 Dldascallae, 326 340 D.onySlQC V.ctor.es, 326 n 2

ElJncs.6 33.35.85, 110 ch IxpasSl .... 260 f • 275. 276, 280 282 ff, 294 f • 298, 371, 400, .P7, 432 0 I. 440 n I. Eude....an EthICS. 67 f , 75 f, 78 ch IX pass."., 277. 279. 283 fI 333 n I 436 fI, the tItle, 230. Eudemus not the author 238, A 's first Independent ethICS. 238, use of the Protreptocus 10, 246 11 date of 256 used lD A 's first Independent pohtrcs. 283 Nlco...achean EtJllcs. 73, 78. 85 f, 88, 180. 201, ch IX pass..... 262 0 2, 264 ff. 280. 283 fI, 3330 1,371 376,397. ,412 f. 437 fI, late. 82 f. 23~ 11. 238. composltron of. 236 11 'Exotenc dIscourses' see Dialogues

HlStorla Am...allum 144 11 • 294. 307 n

I.

329 ff , 340, 374. 384. 440 n

Homer.c Proble'71s. 328 Hymn to Herml8.!l. 108. 117 f Letters. 5. II

D

I.

259

D

2.]II

I

INDEXES

474

Melaphyncs. 5. 7. 33, '19. 68 if. 77.

82. 91. 94, 95. 97. Its. 127 f. 129 n 2. 133 137, 164. ch VII passIm. ch VIII pasSim. 238 f. 2'10. 246. 256. 260. 265 n 2, 269, 275. 282. 294 if • 335. 374, 376 , 378 f . 387 f. 4°1, 419 f, 433. state of the text. 167. the result of a development of A's thought. 171. A 's first LDdependent metaphysIcs. 171 if . Its date. 172. I8S f • IDserhon of the central books. 197. Books K and II old. 208. 221,118 a later addition, 3'12 if MeteOf'ologlCa, 137.294, 295 n I, 307 n I, 331. 386

On Comsng to be and PasSing away, 35 n I, 294, 298, 299. 307 n I. 308, 3 2 9, 357 n t. 443 On Ideas. 93 172 Onollfona~ehy, 259. 3II n I. 'III n I On P~aye~. 160, 240 On the SOLll, 269. 29'1. 331 if 0 .. the Source of the Nole. 33 I

Poehcs.6 PoIIIICS, 4. 6. 21. 77. 85. 120.23 1• 245. 247 f , ch X pass,m, 294. 3 29. 374. 400, composItion of and rearrangement of the books of. 263 if , programme at the end of the EthICS. 265, later reVISion, 265 ff. the levels. 26g, Book I, 271. IDtemal references. 273, date of A 's first mdependent pohtlcs, 275 if . uses the Protrep/,eLls and the Eudemla" Eth,es, 276. 283 Problemata, 329, 414 Protrep/ICLls, 30. 31,44 n I 49. ch IV pa's,m, 125 n I, 151 155 n I, 165 n I. 171 n 3. 173. 178. 231 if • 246 249 11 259 n 3. 260 if • 266. 275 ff 286.332,333 n 1,358 n I, 393 f 'III n I, 431 f. 435. 437 f. 444 445 form and model. 54 ff , excerpted by Iambhchus. 61 if Pythlan ~ ICto~.eS. 325. 327. 340 Rheto~le.

296 n 3

On the Various Senses of Words, 203

Soph,sheal Refutahons,

Paroa Natu~alta, 332. 334 PhysICS, 33, 35, 44 n I. 74 170, 173, 206 f, 294 fl 308. 329 347. 352 357 if, 376. 377. 3 8 7 early, 296 , Book VII. 297. reVI5.lon of VIII 6 358 if , a correction Introduced by Eudemus 366 Pleas of Ihe Cthes. 328

Toplea. 44 n 36 9

2

2

erdo 398 Eu/hydemus. 30. 55. 62 f Gorgtas, 14. 23. 25, 29, 30, 57. 398. 416. 429 n 2

Laws. 21, 26, 27. 74 n I 82, 88. 132. 137. 140 142, 144 n 2, IS0 f 153 2, 161. 165, 187 264, 286 f , 290 f , 300 n 2. 433, 459 Let/ers n, 409, VI I II, II2 f. lIS. 173 440 n I VII 23,433 Lys,s 96. 244 MeneKenus, 3 0 n

Meno, 5 2 Pa~men,des.

14. 16, 172

Phaedo 14. 16. 29 30. '10 if. 49 if , 57, 62, 99

Phaed,us 28. 317 Pholebus, 14. 17.26.27.44.48.78.82,

'16 n 3. 84. 330 n 2.

De Mundo 75 n I Magleus 135 165 n I MagnaMoralta,228.4401l RhetoTlca ad AleKandrum.

23°

PLATO

Apology. 15, 131. 430 n 2, 431 Cha~mtdes, 96 C~atylus, 439 n

Ps -Anst P~ Anst P, An~t Ps -An,t

I

180

87 ff, 95. 234, 236, 238. 276. 278, 373 375 f, 39'1 '139 n 2 RepublIC, 14, 16 30 48.73.78.87.92. 163, 260 f , 264, 272. 287 290. 398. 416 Soph,st 14 15,16.19,26.27.3°.187, 330, '13 1 Statesman, I,! 15, 16. 26. 30. 92 n I. 262, 290. 330, 431 SympoSIum 13. 14 30 Theaete/us I,! if ,25.26 n 1,29 n I. 430 f T,maeus 18, 26, 82. 137. 1'1°, I'll. 144, 153 n 2, 245. 300. 303. 308. 33 6 .409

Ps -Plato A1Clb,ades I. 131 n 165 n

I.

13:10.

I

Ps -Plato Ep,nom,s. see unl1M Philip of Opus Pa -Plato Minos. 286

INDEXES

475

4 GREEK WORDS AND PHRASES ayallov, 222, "TO av6p1TIVOV, 48,
244 aya-trT1al~ 69 f 6Kplll.,a, see Exactitude (nTElpov, 19, 42, 87, 381 ap.O""Tov, TO, 1<]0 222 (See also Good, the hIghest) DlTTpoeUT'lI, 13 2 6:To~ov, IndIvIdual I3cv,.aeal "Iye.v, u~e of the IdIOm 186 ff E12.cl, see Idea, Ideas "",e" u~e of, m Anstotle, 415 Ivtpy"a, 67 fw"cv E12.c~, 205, 211, 381 f~l~ TfpCD
,ee

iJhpov, see l\leasun:: ~1~f)~
'ee hmtabon

OiJC10iJ'p;j, 43 OIJOlOV, 420

6v, 20, 370, i'J 6v, 108, 214 216, 6VT~, 93 o~, OpCI, see Norm, Norms OVK laT' "aI3"v, use of m Anstotle, 109 n 2 cvala, 1<), 22 41,4 z 45, <)4 177,185 ff , 1<)5 f 202 f , 222, 345 f ,6:Evo~ 161, a1ae'l"Tf), H)5, 20'j (')ee also Sub-

stance Beml'(, E",ence ) 1TOpci/;"y~aTO 1Tapalv,al~ see

9J

ExhortatIon 42, 87, 279 TfpWTO, TO, 70 91 auTO TO, 91, 92 1Tp"'T'l
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