Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
I shall further mention the moments of the real process in relation
to motion, in which Aristotle finally passes on (De gen. et corr.
II. 2-4) to the “principles of perceptible body”; we here see the
elements in process, as formerly in their restful determinateness.
Aristotle excludes the relations which concern sight, smell, &c.,
and brings forward the others as being those which are of sensible
weight or lightness. He gives as these fundamental principles—warmth
and cold, dryness and moisture; they are the sensible differences for
others, while weight and lightness are different for themselves. Now
in order to prepare for the transition of the elements into sensible
relations, Aristotle says: “Because there are those four principles,
and four things have properly six relations to one another, but the
opposite cannot here be connected (the moist cannot be connected
with the dry, or the warm with the cold), there are four connections
of these principles, warm and dry, warm and moist, cold and moist,
cold and dry. And these connections follow those first elements, so
that thus fire is warm and dry, air warm and moist (vapour), water
cold and moist, earth cold and dry.” From this Aristotle now makes
the reciprocal transformation of the elements into one another
comprehensible thus: Origination and decay proceed from the opposite
and into the opposite. All elements have a mutual opposite; each is
as non-being to the Being of the other, and one is thus distinguished
from the other as actuality and capacity. Now amongst these some have
an equal part in common; fire and water, for example, have warmth;
thus if in fire dryness were overcome by moisture, out of fire air
would arise. On the contrary, as regards those which have nothing in
common with one another, like earth, which is cold and dry, and air,
which is warm and moist, the transition goes more slowly forward. The
transition of all elements into one another, the whole process of
nature, is thus to Aristotle the constant rotation of their changes.
This is unsatisfactory, because neither are the individual elements
comprehended nor is the remainder rounded into a whole.