The Greek Philosophers, Vol. 1 (of 2)Benn, Alfred William
Philosophy
The Greek Philosophers, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Benn, Alfred William
Philosophy, Ancient
We have seen how, for the antithesis between Form and Matter, was
substituted the wider antithesis between Actuality and Possibility.
Even in this latter the opposition is more apparent than real. A
permanent possibility is only intelligible through the idea of its
realisation, and sooner or later is certain to be realised. Aristotle
still further bridges over the interval between them by a new
conception—that of motion. Motion, he tells us, is the process of
realisation, the transformation of power into act. Nearly the whole
of his _Physics_ is occupied with an enquiry into its nature and
origin. As first conceived, it is equivalent to what we call change
rather than to mechanical movement. The table of categories supplies
an exhaustive enumeration of its varieties. These are, as we have
already mentioned, alteration of quality or transformation, increase
or decrease of quantity, equivalent to growth and decay, and transport
from place to place. Sometimes a fourth variety is added, derived from
the first category, substance. He calls it generation and destruction,
the coming into existence or passing out of it again. A careful
analysis shows that motion in space is the primordial change on which
all others depend for their accomplishment. To account for it is the
most vitally important problem in philosophy.
III.
Before entering on the chain of reasoning which led Aristotle to
postulate the existence of a personal First Cause, we must explain the
difference between his scientific standpoint, and that which is now
accepted by all educated minds. To him the eternity not only of Matter,
but also of what he called Form,—that is to say, the collection of
attributes giving definiteness to natural aggregates, more especially
those known as organic species—was an axiomatic certainty. Every type,
capable of self-propagation, that could exist at all, had existed, and
would continue to exist for ever. For this, no explanation beyond the
generative power of Nature was required. But when he had to account for
the machinery by which the perpetual alternation of birth and death
below, and the changeless revolutions of the celestial spheres above
the moon were preserved, difficulties arose. He had reduced every
other change to transport through space; and with regard to this his
conceptions were entirely mistaken. He believed that moving matter
tended to stop unless it was sustained by some external force; and
whatever their advantages over him in other respects, we cannot say
that the Atomists were in a position to correct him here: for their
theory, that every particle of matter gravitated downward through
infinite space, was quite incompatible with the latest astronomical
discoveries. Aristotle triumphantly showed that the tendency of heavy
bodies was not to move indefinitely downwards in parallel lines, but
to move in converging lines to the centre of the earth, which he, in
common with most Greek astronomers, supposed to be also the centre of
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