Aristotle

But these vague hypotheses became subjected to a new scrutiny, when the dialectical age of Zeno and Sokrates supervened. Opponents of Parmenides impugned his theory of Ens Unum Continuum Immobile, as leading to absurdities; while his disciple Zeno replied, not by any attempt to disprove such allegations but, by showing that the counter-theory of Entia Plura Discontinua Moventia, or Mutabilia, involved consequences yet more absurd.50 In the acute dialectical warfare, to which the old theories thus stood exposed, the means of attack much surpassed those of defence; moreover, the partisans of Herakleitus despised all coherent argumentation, confining themselves to obscure oracular aphorisms and multiplied metaphors.51 In point of fact, no suitable language could be found, consistently with common speech or common experience, for expanding in detail either the Herakleitean52 or the Parmenidean theory; the former suppressing all duration and recognizing nothing but events — a perpetual stream of Fientia or interchange of Ens with Non-Ens; the latter discarding Non-Ens as unmeaning, and recognizing no real events or successions, but only Ens Unum perpetually lasting and unchangeable. The other physical hypotheses, broached by Pythagoras, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Demokritus, each altogether discordant with the others, were alike imposing in their general enunciation and promise, alike insufficient when applied to common experience and detail.

But the great development of Dialectic during the Sokratic age, together with the new applications made of it by Sokrates and the unrivalled acuteness with which he wielded it, altered materially the position of these physical theories. Sokrates was not ignorant of them;53 but he discouraged such studies, and turned attention to other topics. He passed his whole life in public and in indiscriminate conversation with every one. He deprecated astronomy and physics as unbecoming attempts to pry into the secrets of the gods; who administered the general affairs of the Kosmos according to their own pleasure, and granted only, through the medium of prophecy or oracles, such special revelations as they thought fit. In his own discussions Sokrates dwelt only on matters of familiar conversation and experience — social, ethical, political, &c., such as were in every one’s mouth, among the daily groups of the market-place. These he declared to be the truly human topics54 — the proper study of mankind — upon which it was disgraceful to be ignorant, or to form untrue and inconsistent judgments. He found, moreover, that upon these topics no one supposed himself to be ignorant, or to require teaching. Every one gave confident opinions, derived from intercourse with society, embodied in the familiar words of the language, and imbibed almost unconsciously along with the meaning of these words. Now Sokrates not only disclaimed all purpose of teaching, but made ostentatious profession of his own ignorance. His practice was to ask information from others who professed to know; and with this view, to question them about the import of vulgar words with the social convictions contained in them.55 To the answers given he applied an acute cross-examination, which seldom failed to detect so much inconsistency and contradiction as to cover the respondent with shame, and to make him sensible that he was profoundly ignorant of matters which he had believed himself to know well. Sokrates declared, in his last speech before condemnation by the Athenian Dikasts, that such false persuasion of knowledge, combined with real ignorance, was universal among mankind; and that the exposure thereof, as the great misguiding force of human life, had been enjoined upon him as his mission by the Delphian God.56

The peculiarities which Aristotle ascribes to Sokrates are — that he talked upon ethical topics instead of physical, that he fastened especially on the definitions of general terms, and that his discussions were inductive, bringing forward many analogous illustrative or probative particulars to justify a true general proposition, and one or a few to set aside a false one.57 This Sokratic practice is copiously illustrated both by Plato in many of his dialogues, and by Xenophon throughout all the Memorabilia.58 In Plato, however, Sokrates is often introduced as spokesman of doctrines not his own; while in Xenophon we have before us the real man as he talked in the market-place, and apparently little besides. Xenophon very emphatically exhibits to us a point which in Plato’s Dialogues of Search is less conspicuously marked, though still apparent: viz., the power possessed by Sokrates of accommodating himself to the ordinary mind in all its varieties — his habit of dwelling on the homely and familiar topics of the citizen’s daily life — his constant appeal to small and even vulgar details, as the way of testing large and imposing generalities.59 Sokrates possessed to a surprising degree the art of selecting arguments really persuasive to ordinary non-theorizing men; so as often to carry their assent along with him, and still oftener to shake their previous beliefs, if unwarranted, or even if adopted by mere passive receptivity without preliminary reflection and comparison.

Without departing from Aristotle’s description, therefore, we may conceive the change operated by Sokrates in philosophical discussion under a new point of view. In exchanging Physics for Ethics, it vulgarized both the topics and the talk of philosophy. Physical philosophy as it stood in the age of Sokrates (before Aristotle had broached his peculiar definition of Nature) was merely an obscure, semi-poetical, hypothetical Philosophia Prima,60 or rather Philosophia Prima and Philosophia Secunda blended in one. This is true of all its varieties, — of the Ionic philosophers as well as of Pythagoras, Parmenides, Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, and even Demokritus. Such philosophy, dimly enunciated and only half intelligible,61 not merely did not tend to explain or clear up phenomenal experiences, but often added new difficulties of its own. It presented itself sometimes even as discrediting, overriding, and contradicting experience; but never as opening any deductive road from the Universal down to its particulars.62 Such theories, though in circulation among a few disciples and opponents, were foreign and unsuitable to the talk of ordinary men. To pass from these cloudy mysteries to social topics and terms which were in every one’s mouth, was the important revolution in philosophy introduced in the age of Sokrates, and mainly by him.

The drift of the Sokratic procedure was to bring men into the habit of defining those universal terms which they had hitherto used undefined, the definitions being verified by induction of particulars as the ultimate authority. It was a procedure built upon common speech, but improving on common speech; the talk of every man being in propositions, each including a subject and predicate, but neither subject nor predicate being ever defined. It was the mission of Sokrates to make men painfully sensible of that deficiency, as well as to enforce upon them the inductive evidence by which alone it could be rectified. Now the Analytic and Dialectic of Aristotle grew directly out of this Sokratic procedure, and out of the Platonic dialogues in so far as they enforced and illustrated it. When Sokrates had supplied the negative stimulus and indication of what was amiss, together with the appeal to Induction as final authority, Aristotle furnished, or did much to furnish, the positive analysis and complementary precepts, necessary to clear up, justify, and assure the march of reasoned truth.63 What Aristotle calls the syllogistic principia, or the principles of syllogistic demonstration, are nothing else than the steps towards reasoned truth, and the precautions against those fallacious appearances that simulate it. The steps are stated in their most general terms, as involving both Deduction and Induction; though in Aristotle we find the deductive portion copiously unfolded and classified, while Induction, though recognized as the only verifying foundation of the whole, is left without expansion or illustration.

If we go through the Sokratic conversations as reported in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, we shall find illustration of what has been just stated: we shall see Sokrates recognizing and following the common speech of men, in propositions combining subject and predicate; but trying to fix the meaning of both these terms, and to test the consistency of the universal predications by appeal to particulars. The syllogizing and the inductive processes are exhibited both of them in actual work on particular points of discussion. Now on these processes Aristotle brings his analysis to bear, eliciting and enunciating in general terms their principia and their conditions. We have seen that he expressly declares the analysis of these principia to belong to First Philosophy.64 And thus it is that First Philosophy as conceived by Aristotle, acknowledges among its fundamenta the habits of common Hellenic speech; subject only to correction and control by the Sokratic cross-examining and testing discipline. He stands distinguished among the philosophers for the respectful attention with which he collects and builds upon the beliefs actually prevalent among mankind.65 Herein as well as in other respects his First Philosophy not only differed from that of all the pre-Sokratic philosophers (such as Herakleitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, &c.) by explaining the principia of Analytic and Dialectic as well as those of Physics and Physiology, but it also differed from that of the post-Sokratic and semi-Sokratic Plato, by keeping up a closer communion both with Sokrates and with common speech. Though Plato in his Dialogues of Search appears to apply the inductive discipline of Sokrates, and to handle the Universal as referable to and dependent upon its particulars; yet the Platonic Philosophia Prima proceeds upon a view totally different. It is a fusion of Parmenides with Herakleitus;66 divorcing the Universal altogether from its particulars; treating the Universal as an independent reality and as the only permanent reality; negating the particulars as so many unreal, evanescent, ever-changing copies or shadows thereof. Aristotle expressly intimates his dissent from the divorce or separation thus introduced by Plato. He proclaims his adherence to the practice of Sokrates, which kept the two elements together, and which cognized particulars as the ultimate reality and test for the Universal.67 Upon this doctrine his First Philosophy is built: being distinguished hereby from all the other varieties broached by either his predecessors or contemporaries.

The Maxim of Contradiction, which Aristotle proclaims as the first and firmest principium of syllogizing, may be found perpetually applied to particular cases throughout the Memorabilia of Xenophon and the Sokratic dialogues of Plato. Indeed the Elenchus for which Sokrates was so distinguished, is nothing more than an ever-renewed and ingenious application of it; illustrating the painful and humiliating effect produced even upon common minds by the shock of a plain contradiction, when a respondent, having at first confidently laid down some universal affirmative, finds himself unexpectedly compelled to admit, in some particular case, the contradictory negative. As against a Herakleitean, who saw no difficulty in believing both sides of the contradiction to be true at once, the Sokratic Elenchus would have been powerless. What Aristotle did was, to abstract and elicit the general rules of the process; to classify propositions according to their logical value, in such manner that he could formulate clearly the structure of the two propositions between which an exact contradictory antitheses subsisted. The important logical distinctions between propositions contradictory and propositions contrary, was first clearly enunciated by Aristotle; and, until this had been done, the Maxim of Contradiction could not have been laid down in a defensible manner. Indeed we may remark that, while this Maxim is first promulgated as a formula of First Philosophy in Book Γ. of the Metaphysica, it had already been tacitly assumed and applied by Aristotle throughout the De Interpretatione, Analytica, and Topica, as if it were obvious and uncontested. The First Philosophy of Aristotle was adapted to the conditions of ordinary colloquy as amended and tested by Sokrates, furnishing the theoretical basis of his practical Logic.

But, as Aristotle tells us, there were several philosophers and dialecticians who did not recognize the Maxim; maintaining that the same proposition might be at once true and false — that it was possible for the same thing both to be and not to be. How is he to deal with these opponents? He admits that he cannot demonstrate the Maxim against them, and that any attempt to do this would involve Petitio Principii. But he contends for the possibility of demonstrating it in a peculiar way — refutatively or indirectly; that is, provided that the opponents can be induced to grant (not indeed the truth of any proposition, to the exclusion of its contradictory antithesis, which concession he admits would involve Petitio Principii, but) the fixed and uniform signification of terms and propositions. Aristotle contends that the opponents ought to grant thus much, under penalty of being excluded from discussion as incapables or mere plants.68 I do not imagine that the opponents themselves would have felt obliged to grant as much as he here demands. The onus probandi lay upon him, as advancing a positive theory; and he would have found his indirect or refutative demonstration not more available in convincing them than a direct or ordinary demonstration. Against respondents who proclaim as their thesis the negative of the Maxim of Contradiction, refutation and demonstration are equally impossible. No dialectical discussion could ever lead to any result; for you can never prove more against them than what their own thesis unequivocally avows.69 As against Herakleitus and Anaxagoras, I do not think that Aristotle’s qualified vindication of the Maxim has any effective bearing.

But Aristotle is quite right in saying that neither dialectical debate nor demonstration can be carried on unless terms and propositions be defined, and unless to each term there be assigned one special signification, or a limited number of special significations — excluding a certain number of others. This demand for definitions, and also the multiplied use of inductive interrogations, keeping the Universal implicated with and dependent upon its particulars — are the innovations which Aristotle expressly places to the credit of Sokrates. The Sokratic Elenchus operated by first obtaining from the respondent a definition, and then testing it through a variety of particulars: when the test brought out a negative as against the pre-asserted affirmative, the contradiction between the two was felt as an intellectual shock by the respondent, rendering it impossible to believe both at once; and the unrivalled acuteness of Sokrates was exhibited in rendering such shock peculiarly pungent and humiliating. But the Sokratic Elenchus presupposes this psychological fact, common to most minds, ordinary as well as superior, — the intellectual shock felt when incompatible beliefs are presented to the mind at once. If the collocutors of Sokrates had not been so constituted by nature, the magic of his colloquy would have been unfelt and inoperative. Against a Herakleitean, who professed to feel no difficulty in believing both sides of a contradiction at once, he could have effected nothing: and if not he, still less any other dialectician. Proof and disproof, as distinguished one from the other, would have had no meaning; dialectical debate would have led to no result.

Thus, then, although Aristotle was the first to enunciate the Maxim of Contradiction in general terms, after having previously originated that logical distinction of contrary and contradictory Propositions and doctrine of legitimate Antiphasis which rendered such enunciation possible, — yet, when he tries to uphold it against dissentients, it cannot be said that he has correctly estimated the logical position of those whom he was opposing, or the real extent to which the defence of the Maxim can be carried without incurring the charge of Petitio Principii. As against Protagoras, no defence was needed, for the Protagorean “Homo Mensura” is not incompatible with the Maxim of Contradiction; while, as against Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, &c., no defence was practicable, and the attempt of Aristotle to construct one appears to me a failure. All that can be really done in the way of defence is, to prove the Maxim in its general enunciation by an appeal to particular cases: if your opponent is willing to grant these particular cases, you establish the general Maxim against him by way of Induction; if he will not grant them, you cannot prove the general Maxim at all. Suppose you are attempting to prove to an Herakleitean that an universal affirmative and its contradictory particular negative cannot be both true at once. You begin by asking him about particular cases, Whether it is possible that the two propositions — All men are mortal, and, Some men are not mortal — can both be true at once? If he admits that these two propositions cannot both be true at once, if he admits the like with regard to other similar pairs of contradictories, and if he can suggest no similar pair in which both propositions are true at once, then you may consider yourself as having furnished a sufficient inductive proof, and you may call upon him to admit the Maxim of Contradiction in its general enunciation. But, if he will not admit it in the particular cases which you tender, or if, while admitting it in these, he himself can tender other cases in which he considers it inadmissible, then you have effected nothing sufficient to establish the general Maxim against him. The case is not susceptible of any other or better proof. It is in vain that Aristotle tries to diversify the absurdity, and to follow it out into collateral absurd consequences. If the Herakleitean does not feel any repulsive shock of contradiction in a definite particular case, if he directly announces that he believes the two propositions to be both at once true, then the collateral inconsistencies and derivative absurdities, which Aristotle multiplies against him, will not shock him more than the direct contradiction in its naked form. Neither the general reasoning of Aristotle, nor the Elenchus of Sokrates brought to bear in particular cases, would make any impression upon him; since he will not comply with either of the two conditions required for the Sokratic Elenchus: he will neither declare definitions, nor give suitable point and sequence to inductive interrogatories.

Nor is anything gained, as Aristotle supposes, by reminding the Herakleitean of his own practice in the daily concerns of life and in conversation with common persons: that he feeds himself with bread to-day, in the confidence that it has the same properties as it had yesterday;70 that, if he wishes either to give or to obtain information, the speech which he utters or that which he acts upon must be either affirmative or negative. He will admit that he acts in this way, but he will tell you that he has no certainty of being right; that the negative may be true as well as the affirmative. He will grant that there is an inconsistency between such acts of detail and the principles of the Herakleitean doctrine, which recognize no real stability of any thing, but only perpetual flux or process; but inconsistency in detail will not induce him to set aside his principles. The truth is, that neither Herakleitus, nor Parmenides, nor Anaxagoras, nor Pythagoras, gave themselves much trouble to reconcile Philosophy with facts of detail. Each fastened upon some grand and impressive primary hypothesis, illustrated it by a few obvious facts in harmony therewith, and disregarded altogether the mass of contradictory facts. That a favourite hypothesis should contradict physical details, was noway shocking to them. Both the painful feeling accompanying that shock, and the disposition to test the value of the hypothesis by its consistency with inductive details, became first developed and attended to in the dialectical age, mainly through the working of Sokrates. The Analytic and the First Philosophy of Aristotle were constructed after the time of Sokrates, and with regard, in a very great degree, to the Sokratic tests and conditions — to the indispensable necessity for definite subjects and predicates, capable of standing the inductive scrutiny of particulars. In this respect the Philosophia Prima of Aristotle stands distinguished from that of any of the earlier philosophers, and even from that of Plato. He departed from Plato by recognizing the Hoc Aliquid or the definite Individual, with its essential Predicates, as the foundation of the Universal, and by applying his analytical factors of Form and Matter to the intellectual generation of the Individual (τὸ σύνολον — τὸ συναμφότερον); and thus he devised a First Philosophy conformable to the habits of common speech as rectified by the critical scrutiny of Sokrates. We shall see this in the next Chapter. * * * *

[The Author’s MS. breaks off here. What follows on the next page, as Chapter XII, is the exposition of Aristotle’s Psychology, originally contributed to the third edition of Professor Bain’s work ‘The Senses and the Intellect,’ in 1868.]

CHAPTER XII.

DE ANIMÂ, ETC.

To understand Aristotle’s Psychology, we must look at it in comparison with the views of other ancient Greek philosophers on the same subject, as far as our knowledge will permit. Of these ancient philosophers, none have been preserved to us except Plato, and to a certain extent Epikurus, reckoning the poem of Lucretius as a complement to the epistolary remnants of Epikurus himself. The predecessors of Aristotle (apart from Plato) are known only through small fragments from themselves, and imperfect notices by others; among which notices the best are from Aristotle himself.

In the Timæus of Plato we find Psychology, in a very large and comprehensive sense, identified with Kosmology. The Kosmos, a scheme of rotatory spheres, has both a soul and a body: of the two, the soul is the prior, grander, and predominant, though both of them are constructed or put together by the Divine Architect or Demiurgus. The kosmical soul, rooted at the centre, and stretched from thence through and around the whole, is endued with self-movement, and with the power of initiating movement in the kosmical body; moreover, being cognitive as well as motive, it includes in itself three ingredients mixed together:—(1) The Same — the indivisible and unchangeable essence of Ideas; (2) The Diverse — the Plural — the divisible bodies or elements; (3) A Compound, formed of both these ingredients melted into one. As the kosmical soul is intended to know all the three — Idem, Diversum, and Idem with Diversum in one, so it must comprise in its own nature all the three ingredients, according to the received Axiom — Like knows like — Like is known by Like. The ingredients are blended together according to a scale of harmonic proportion. The element Idem is placed in an even and undivided rotation of the outer or sidereal sphere of the Kosmos; the element Diversum is distributed among the rotations, all oblique, of the seven interior planetary spheres, that is, the five planets, with the Sun and Moon. Impressions of identity and diversity, derived either from the ideal and indivisible, or from the sensible and divisible, are thus circulated by the kosmical soul throughout its own entire range, yet without either voice or sound. Reason and Science are propagated by the circle of Idem: Sense and Opinion, by those of Diversum. When these last-mentioned circles are in right movement, the opinions circulated are true and trustworthy.1