Here we leave Plato, and we do so with regret. But seeing that we pass to his disciple, Aristotle, we fear that it behoves us to enter even more into detail, since he was one of the richest and deepest of all the scientific geniuses that have as yet appeared—a man whose like no later age has ever yet produced. Because we still possess so large a number of his works, the extent of the material at hand is proportionately greater; unfortunately, however, I cannot give to Aristotle the amount of attention that he deserves. For we shall have to confine ourselves to a general view of his philosophy, and simply remark on one particular phase of it, viz. in how far Aristotle in his philosophy carried out what in the Platonic principle had been begun, both in reference to the profundity of the ideas there contained, and to their expansion; no one is more comprehensive and speculative than he, although his methods are not systematic.
As regards the general character of Aristotle’s writings, he may be said to have extended his attention to the whole circle of human conceptions, to have penetrated all regions of the actual universal, and to have brought under the subjection of the Notion both their riches and their diversitude. For most of the philosophic sciences have to render thanks to him both for their characterization and first commencement. But although in this way Science throughout falls into a succession of intellectual determinations of determinate Notions, the Aristotelian philosophy still contains the profoundest speculative Notions. Aristotle proceeds in reference to the whole in the same way as in the individual case. But a general view of his philosophy does not give us the impression of its being in construction a self-systematized whole, of which the order and connection pertain likewise to the Notion; for the parts are empirically selected and placed together in such a way that each part is independently recognized as a determinate conception, without being taken into the connecting movement of the science. We need not try to demonstrate necessity from the standpoint of the philosophy of that time. But although Aristotle’s system does not appear to be developed in its parts from the Notion, and its parts are merely ranged side by side, they still form a totality of truly speculative philosophy.
One reason for treating of Aristotle in detail rests in the fact that no philosopher has had so much wrong done him by the thoughtless traditions which have been received respecting his philosophy, and which are still the order of the day, although for centuries he was the instructor of all philosophers. For to him views are ascribed diametrically opposite to his philosophy. And while Plato is much read, the treasures contained in Aristotle have for centuries, and until quite modern times, been as good as unknown, and the falsest prejudices reign respecting him. Almost no one knows his speculative and logical works; in modern times more justice has been done to his writings regarding nature, but not to his philosophic views. For instance, there is a quite generally held opinion that the Aristotelian and Platonic philosophies are directly opposed, the one being idealistic and the other realistic, and that, indeed, in the most trivial sense. For Plato is said to have made the ideal his principle, so that the inward idea creates from itself; according to Aristotle, on the contrary, we are told that the soul is made a tabula rasa, receiving all its determinations quite passively from the outer world; and his philosophy is thus mere empiricism—Locke’s philosophy at its worst. But we shall see how little this really is the case. In fact Aristotle excels Plato in speculative depth, for he was acquainted with the deepest kind of speculation—idealism—and in this upholds the most extreme empirical development. Quite false views respecting Aristotle even now exist in France. An example of how tradition blindly echoes opinions respecting him, without having observed from his works whether they are justified or not, is the fact that in the old Æsthetics the three unities of the drama—action, time and place—were held to be règles d’Aristote, la saine doctrine. But Aristotle speaks (Poet. c. 8 et 5)[78] only of the unity of treatment, or very occasionally of the unity of time; of the third unity, that of place, he says nothing.
As regards Aristotle’s life, he was born at Stagira, a Thracian town on the Strymonian Gulf, but a Greek colony. Thus, though a Thracian, he was by birth a Greek. This Greek colony fell, however, like The rest of the country, under the rule of Philip of Macedon. The year of Aristotle’s birth is the first of the 99th Olympiad (384 B.C.), and if Plato was born in the third year of the 87th Olympiad (430 B.C.), Aristotle must have been forty-six years younger than he. His father Nicomachus was physician to the Macedonian king, Amyntas, the father of Philip. After the death of his parents, whom he lost early, he was brought up by a certain Proxenus, to whom he was ever grateful; and during all his life he held the memory of this friend in such high esteem, that he honoured it by erecting statues to him. He also requited Proxenus for the education given him, by later on bringing up his son Nicanor, adopting him as his own son and making him his heir. In the seventeenth year of his age Aristotle came to Athens, and remained there twenty years in company with Plato.[79] He thus had the best possible opportunity of becoming thoroughly acquainted with Plato’s philosophy, and therefore, if we are told that he did not understand it (Vol. I p. 167), this is shown, by the evident facts of the case, to be an arbitrary and quite unfounded assumption. As regards the relation of Plato to Aristotle, and particularly as regards the fact that Plato did not select Aristotle as his successor in the Academy, but chose Speusippus, a near relative, instead, a number of idle and contradictory anecdotes have come to us from Diogenes (V. 2). If the continuation of the Platonic school was designed to express the hope that the philosophy of Plato, as comprehended by himself, was to be there satisfactorily maintained, Plato could certainly not designate Aristotle as his successor, and Speusippus was the right man to be selected. However, Plato had nevertheless Aristotle as his successor, for Aristotle understood Philosophy in Plato’s sense, though his philosophy was deeper and more worked out, and thus he carried it further. Displeasure at being thus passed over is said to have been the cause of Aristotle’s leaving Athens after Plato’s death, and living for three years with Hermias, the Tyrant of Atarneus in Mysia, who had been a disciple of Plato along with Aristotle, and who had then struck up a close friendship with the latter. Hermias, an independent prince, was, together with other absolute Greek princes and some Republics, brought under the subjection of a Persian satrap in Asia Minor. Hermias was even sent as prisoner to Artaxerxes in Persia, and he at once caused him to be crucified. In order to avoid a similar fate, Aristotle fled with his wife Pythias, the daughter of Hermias, to Mitylene, and lived there for some time. He, however, erected a statue to Hermias in Delphi, with an inscription which has been preserved. From it we know that it was by cunning and treachery that he came under the power of the Persians. Aristotle also honoured his name in a beautiful hymn on Virtue, which has likewise come down to us.[80]
From Mitylene he was (Ol. 109, 2; 343 B.C.) summoned by Philip of Macedon to undertake the education of Alexander, who was then fifteen years old. Philip had already invited him to do this in the well-known letter that he addressed to him just after Alexander’s birth: “Know that a son is born to me, but I thank the gods less that they have given him to me, than that they have caused him to be born in your time. For I hope that your care and your wisdom will make him worthy of me and of his future kingdom.”[81] It certainly would appear to be a brilliant historic destiny to be the instructor of an Alexander, and Aristotle at this court enjoyed the favour and esteem of Philip and of Olympias in the highest degree. What became of Aristotle’s pupil is known to all, and the greatness of Alexander’s mind and deeds, as also his enduring friendship, are the best witnesses of the success, as also of the spirit of this up-bringing, if Aristotle required such testimony. Alexander’s education utterly refuted the common talk about the practical uselessness of speculative philosophy. Aristotle had in Alexander another and worthier pupil than Plato found in Dionysius. Plato’s great interest was his Republic, the ideal of a state; he enters into relation with a person through whom it might be carried out; the individual was thus to him a medium only, and in so far indifferent to him. With Aristotle, on the other hand, this purpose was not present, he merely had the simple individual before him; and his end was to bring up and to develop the individuality as such. Aristotle is known to be a profound, thorough, and abstract metaphysician, and it is evident that he meant seriously with Alexander. That Aristotle did not follow with Alexander the ordinary superficial method of educating princes, might be confidently expected from the earnestness of one who well knew what was truth and true culture. It is also evident from the circumstance that Alexander, while in the midst of his conquests in the heart of Asia, when he heard that Aristotle had made known his acroamatic doctrines in speculative (metaphysical) writings, wrote him a reproachful letter, in which he said that he should not have made known to the common people what the two had worked out together. To this Aristotle replied that, though published, they were really just as much unpublished as before.[82]
This is not the place to estimate Alexander as an historic personage. What can be ascribed in Alexander’s education to Aristotle’s philosophic instruction is the fact that what was natural to him, the inherent greatness of his mental disposition, acquired inward freedom also, and became elevated into the perfect, self-conscious independence which we see in his aims and deeds. Alexander attained to that perfect certainty of himself which the infinite boldness of thought alone gives, and to an independence of particular and limited projects, as also to their elevation into the entirely universal end of bringing about in the world a social life and intercourse of a mutual kind, through the foundation of states which were free from contingent individuality. Alexander thus carried out the plan which his father had already conceived, which was, at the head of the Greeks, to avenge Europe upon Asia, and to subject Asia to Greece; so that as it was in the beginning of Greek history that the Greeks were united, and that only for the Trojan war, this union likewise brought the Greek world proper to an end. Alexander thereby also avenged the faithlessness and cruelty perpetrated by the Persians on Aristotle’s friend Hermias. But Alexander further disseminated Greek culture over Asia, in order to elevate into a Greek world this wild medley of utter barbarism, bent solely on destruction, and torn by internal dissensions, these lands entirely sunk in indolence, negation, and spiritual degeneracy. And if it be said that he was merely a conqueror who was unable to establish an enduring kingdom, because his kingdom at his death once more fell to pieces, we must acknowledge that, from a superficial view of the case, this is true, as his family did not retain their rule; Greek rule was, however, maintained. Thus Alexander did not found an extensive kingdom for his family, but he founded a kingdom of the Greek nation over Asia; for Greek culture and science have since his time taken root there. The Greek kingdoms of Asia Minor, and particularly of Egypt, were for centuries the home of science; and their influence may have extended as far as to India and to China. We certainly do not know definitely whether the Indians may not have obtained what is best in their sciences in this way, but it is probable that at least the more exact portion of Indian astronomy came to them from Greece. For it was from the Syrian kingdom, stretching into Asia Minor as far as to a Greek kingdom in Bactria, that there was doubtless conveyed to the interior of India and China, by means of Greek colonies migrating thither, the meagre scientific knowledge which has lingered there like a tradition, though it has never flourished. For the Chinese, for example, are not skilful enough to make a calendar of their own, or to think for themselves. Yet they exhibited ancient instruments unsuited to any work done by them, and the immediate conjecture was that these had come from Bactria. The high idea that men had of the sciences of the Indians and of the Chinese hence is false.
According to Ritter (Erdkunde, Vol. II. p. 839, of the first edition), Alexander did not set out merely with a view of conquering, but with the idea that he was the Lord. I do not think that Aristotle placed this notion, which was connected with another Oriental conception, in the mind of Alexander. The other idea is that in the East the name of Alexander still flourishes as Ispander, and as Dul-k-ar-nein, i.e. the man with two horns, just as Jupiter Ammon is an ancient Eastern hero. The question would now be whether the Macedonian kings did not, through their descent from the ancient race of Indian heroes, claim to rule this land; by this the progress of Dionysius from Thrace to India could likewise be explained; whether the “knowledge of this was not the real and fundamental religious idea inspiring the young hero’s soul when, before his journey to Asia, he found on the lower Ister (Danube) Indian priestly states where the immortality of the soul was taught, and when, certainly not without the counsel of Aristotle, who, through Plato and Pythagoras, was initiated into Indian wisdom, he began the march into the East, and first of all visited the Oracle of Ammonium (now Siwah), and then destroyed the Persian kingdom and burnt Persepolis, the old enemy of Indian religion, in order to take revenge upon it for all the violence exercised through Darius on the Buddhists and their co-religionists.” This is an ingenious theory, formed from a thorough investigation of the connection which exists between Oriental and European ideas from the higher point of view in history. But, in the first place, this conjecture is contrary to the historical basis on which I take my stand. Alexander’s expedition has quite another historic, military, and political character than this, and had not much to do with his going to India; it was, on the face of it, an ordinary conquest. In the second place, Aristotle’s metaphysic and philosophy is far from recognizing any such foolish and extravagant imaginations. The elevation of Alexander in the Oriental mind into an acknowledged hero and god, which followed later, is, in the third place, not matter for surprise; the Dalai-Lama is still thus honoured, and God and man are never so very far asunder. Greece likewise worked its way to the idea of a God becoming man, and that not as a remote and foreign image, but as a present God in a godless world: Demetrius Phalereus and others were thus soon after honoured and worshipped in Athens as God. Was the infinite not also now transplanted into self-consciousness? Fourthly, the Buddhists did not interest Alexander, and in his Indian expedition they do not appear; the destruction of Persepolis is, however, sufficiently justified as a measure of Greek vengeance for the destruction by Xerxes of the temples in Greece, especially in Athens.
While Alexander accomplished this great work—for he was the greatest individual at the head of Greece, he ever kept science and art in mind. Just as in modern times we have once more met with warriors who thought of science and of art in their campaigns, we also find that Alexander made an arrangement whereby whatever was discovered in the way of animals and plants in Asia should be sent to Aristotle, or else drawings and descriptions of the same. This consideration on Alexander’s part afforded to Aristotle a most favourable opportunity of collecting treasures for his study of nature. Pliny (Histor. natur. VIII., 17 ed. Bip.) relates that Alexander directed about a thousand men, who lived by hunting, fishing and fowling, the overseers of the zoological gardens, aviaries, and tanks of the Persian kingdom, to supply Aristotle with what was remarkable from every place. In this way Alexander’s campaign in Asia had the further effect of enabling Aristotle to found the science of natural history, and to be the author, according to Pliny, of a natural history in fifty parts.
After Alexander commenced his journey to Asia, Aristotle returned to Athens, and made his appearance as a public teacher in the Lyceum, a pleasure-ground which Pericles had made for the exercising of recruits; it consisted of a temple dedicated to Apollo (Λύκειος), and shady walks (περίπατοι), which were enlivened by trees, fountains and colonnades. It was from these walks that his school received the name of Peripatetics, and not from any walking about on the part of Aristotle—because, it is said, he delivered his discourses usually while walking. He lived and taught in Athens for thirteen years. But after the death of Alexander there broke out a tempest which had, as it appeared, been long held back through fear of Alexander; Aristotle was accused of impiety. The facts are differently stated: amongst other things it is said that his hymn to Hermias and the inscription on the statue dedicated to him were laid to his charge. When he saw the storm gathering, he escaped to Chalcis in Eub\na, the present Negropont, in order, as he himself said, that the Athenians should not have an opportunity of once more sinning against Philosophy. There he died, in the next year, in the sixty-third year of his age, Ol. 114, 3 (322 B.C.).[83]
We derive Aristotle’s philosophy from his writings; but when we consider their history and nature, so far as externals are concerned, the difficulty of deriving a knowledge of his philosophy from them seems much increased. I cannot certainly enter into details regarding these last. Diogenes Laërtius (V. 21-27) mentions a very large number of them, but by their titles we do not always quite know which of those now in our possession are indicated, since the titles are entirely different. Diogenes gives the number of lines as four hundred and forty-five thousand, two hundred and seventy, and, if we count about ten thousand lines in a printer’s alphabet, this gives us forty-four alphabets. What we now have might perhaps amount to about ten alphabets, so that we have only about the fourth part left to us. The history of the Aristotelian manuscripts has been stated to be such that it would really seem impossible, or almost hopeless, that any one of his writings should have been preserved to us in its original condition, and not corrupted. Doubts regarding their genuine character could not in such circumstances fail to exist; and we can only wonder at seeing them come down to us even in the condition in which they are. For, as we have said, Aristotle made them known but little during his lifetime, and he left his writings to Theophrastus, his successor, with the rest of his immense library. This, indeed, is the first considerable library, collected as it was by means of personal wealth along with Alexander’s assistance, and hence it also reveals to us Aristotle’s learning. Later on, it came partially, or in some cases in duplicate, to Alexandria, and formed the basis of the Ptolemaic library, which, on the taking of Alexandria by Julius Cæsar, became a prey to fire. But of the manuscripts of Aristotle himself it is said that Theophrastus left them by will to a certain Neleus, from whom they came into the hands of ignorant men, who either kept them without care or estimation of their value, or else the heirs of Neleus, in order to save them from the Kings of Pergamus, who were very anxious to collect a library, hid them in a cellar, where they lay forgotten for a hundred and thirty years, and thus got into bad condition. Finally, the descendants of Theophrastus found them again after long search, and sold them to Apellicon of Teos, who restored what had been destroyed by worms and mould, but who did not possess the learning or the capacity so to do. Hence others went over them, filled up the blanks as they thought best, replaced what was damaged, and thus they were sufficiently altered. But still it was not enough. Just after Apellicon’s death, the Roman Sulla conquered Athens, and amongst the spoil carried off to Rome were the works of Aristotle. The Romans, who had just begun to become acquainted with Greek science and art, but who did not yet appreciate Greek philosophy, did not know how to profit from this spoil. A Greek, named Tyrannion, later on obtained permission to make use of and publish the manuscripts of Aristotle, and he prepared an edition of them, which, however, also bears the reproach of being inaccurate, for here they had the fate of being given by the dealers into the hands of ignorant copyists, who introduced a number of additional corruptions.[84]
This is the way in which the Aristotelian philosophy has come to us. Aristotle certainly made known much to his contemporaries, that is to say, the writings in the Alexandrian library, but even those works do not seem to have been widely known. In fact, many of them are most corrupt, imperfect, and, as, for example, the Poetics, incomplete. Several of them, such as the Metaphysical treatises, seem to be patched up from different writings, so that the higher criticism can give rein to all its ingenuity, and, according to one clever critic, the matter may with much show of probability be decided in one particular way, while another ingenious person has a different explanation to oppose to this.[85] So much remains certain, that the writings of Aristotle are corrupt, and often both in their details and in the main, not consistent; and we often find whole paragraphs almost verbally repeated. Since the evil is so old, no real cure can certainly be looked for; however, the matter is not so bad as would appear from this description. There are many and important works which may be considered to be entire and uninjured, and though there are others corrupt here and there, or not well arranged, yet, as far as the essentials are concerned, no such great harm has been done as might appear. What we possess therefore places us in a sufficiently good position to form a definite idea of the Aristotelian philosophy, both as a whole, and in many of its details.
But there is still an historic distinction to be noted. For there is an old tradition that Aristotle’s teaching was of a twofold nature and that his writings were of two different kinds, viz. esoteric or acroamatic and exoteric—a distinction which was also made by the Pythagoreans (Vol. I. p 202). The esoteric teaching was given within the Lyceum in the morning, the exoteric in the evening; the latter related to practice in the art of rhetoric and in disputation, as also to civic business, but the other to the inward and more profound philosophy, to the contemplation of nature and to dialectic proper.[86] This circumstance is of no importance; we see by ourselves which of his works are really speculative and philosophic, and which are rather empirical in character; but they are not to be regarded as antagonistic in their content, and as if Aristotle intended some for the people and others for his more intimate disciples.
a. We have first to remark that the name Aristotelian philosophy is most ambiguous, because what is called Aristotelian philosophy has at different times taken very different forms. It first of all signifies Aristotelian philosophy proper. As regards the other forms of the Aristotelian philosophy, however, it had, in the second place, at the time of Cicero, and specially under the name of Peripatetic philosophy, more of the form of a popular philosophy, in which attention was principally directed to natural history and to morals (Vol. I. p. 479). This period does not appear to have taken any interest in working out and bringing to consciousness the deep and properly speaking speculative side of Aristotelian philosophy, and indeed with Cicero there is no notion of it present. A third form of this philosophy is the highly speculative form of the Alexandrine philosophy, which is also called the Neo-Pythagorean or Neo-Platonic philosophy, but which may just as well be called Neo-Aristotelian—the form as it is regarded and worked up by the Alexandrines, as being identical with the Platonic. An important signification of the expression, in the fourth place, is that which it had in the middle ages where, through insufficient knowledge, the scholastic philosophy was designated Aristotelian. The Scholastics occupied themselves much with it, but the form that the philosophy of Aristotle took with them cannot be held by us to be the true form. All their achievements, and the whole extent of the metaphysics of the understanding and formal logic which we discover in them, do not belong to Aristotle at all. Scholasticism is derived only from traditions of the Aristotelian doctrines. And it was not until the writings of Aristotle became better known in the West, that a fifth Aristotelian philosophy was formed, which was in part opposed to the Scholastic—it arose on the decline of scholasticism and with the revival of the sciences. For it was only after the Reformation that men went back to the fountainhead, to Aristotle himself. The sixth signification which Aristotelian philosophy bears, is found in false modern ideas and conceptions, such as those that we find in Tennemann, who is gifted with too little philosophic understanding to be able to grasp the Aristotelian philosophy (Vol. I. p. 113). Indeed, the general opinion of Aristotelian philosophy now held is that it made what is called experience the principle of knowledge.
b. However false this point of view on the one hand is, the occasion for it may be found in the Aristotelian manner. Some particular passages to which in this reference great importance has been given, and which have been almost the only passages understood, are made use of to prove this idea. Hence we have now to speak of the character of the Aristotelian manner. Since in Aristotle, as we already said (p. 118), we need not seek a system of philosophy the particular parts of which have been deduced, but since he seems to take an external point of departure and to advance empirically, his manner is often that of ordinary ratiocination. But because in so doing Aristotle has a quality, altogether his own, of being throughout intensely speculative in his manner, it is further signified that in the first place he has comprehended the phenomenal as a thinking observer. He has the world of appearance before himself complete and in entirety, and sets nothing aside, however common it may appear. All sides of knowledge have entered into his mind, all have interest for him, and he has thoroughly dealt with all. In the empirical details of a phenomenon abstraction may easily be lost sight of, and its application may be difficult: our progress may be one-sided, and we may not be able to reach the root of the matter at all. But Aristotle, because he looks at all sides of the universe, takes up all those units as a speculative philosopher, and so works upon them that the profoundest speculative Notion proceeds therefrom. We saw, moreover, thought first proceeding from the sensuous, and, in Sophistry, still exercising itself immediately in the phenomenal. In perception, in ordinary conception, the categories appear: the absolute essence, the speculative view of these elements, is always expressed in expressing perceptions. This pure essence in perception Aristotle takes up. When, in the second place, he begins conversely with the universal or the simple, and passes to its determination, this looks as if he were enumerating the number of significations in which it appears; and, after dealing with them all, he again passes all their forms in review, even the quite ordinary and sensuous. He thus speaks of the many significations that we find, for example, is the words οὐσία, ἀρχή, αἰτία, ὁμοῦ, &c. It is in some measure wearisome to follow him in this mere enumeration, which proceeds without any necessity being present, and in which the significations, of which a list is given, manifest themselves as comprehended only in their essence, or in that which is common to all, and not in their determinations; and thus the comprehension is only external. But, on the one hand, this mode presents a complete series of the moments, and on the other, it arouses personal investigation for the discovery of necessity. In the third place, Aristotle takes up the different thoughts which earlier philosophers have had, contradicts them—often empirically—justifies them, reasoning in all sorts of ways, and then attains to the truly speculative point of view. And finally, in the fourth place, Aristotle passes on thoughtfully to consider the object itself of which he treats, e.g. the soul, feeling, recollection, thought, motion, time, place, warmth, cold, &c. Because he takes all the moments that are contained within the conception to be, so to speak, united, he does not omit determinations; he does not hold now to one determination and then to another, but takes them as all in one; while reflection of the understanding, which has identity as the rule by which it goes, can only preserve harmony with this by always, while in one determination, forgetting and withholding the other. But Aristotle has the patience to go through all conceptions and questions, and from the investigation of the individual determinations, we have the fixed, and once more restored determination of every object. Aristotle thus forms the Notion, and is in the highest degree really philosophic, while he appears to be only empiric. For Aristotle’s empiricism is a totality because he always leads it back again immediately to speculation; he may thus be said to be a perfect empiricist, yet at the same time a thinking one. If, for example, we take away from space all its empirical determinations, the result will be in the highest degree speculative, for the empirical, comprehended in its synthesis, is the speculative Notion.
In this gathering up of determinations into one Notion, Aristotle is great and masterly, as he also is in regard to the simplicity of his method of progression, and in the giving of his decisions in few words. This is a method of treating of Philosophy which has great efficacy, and which in our time has likewise been applied, e.g. by the French. It deserves to come into larger use, for it is a good thing to lead the determinations of the ordinary conception from an object to thought, and then to unite them in a unity, in the Notion. But undoubtedly this method in one respect appears to be empirical, and that, indeed, in the acceptation of objects as we know them in our consciousness; for if no necessity is present, this still more appears merely to pertain to manner externally regarded. And yet it cannot be denied that with Aristotle the object was not to bring everything to a unity, or to reduce determinations to a unity of opposites, but, on the contrary, to retain each in its determination and thus to follow it up. That may, on the one hand, be a superficial method, e.g. when everything is brought to an empty determinateness, such as those of irritability and sensibility, sthenic and asthenic, but, on the other, it is likewise necessary to grasp reality in simple determinateness, though without making the latter in this superficial way the starting point. Aristotle, on the other hand, simply forsakes determination in another sphere where it no longer has this form; but he shows what it is like here, or what change has taken place within it, and thus it comes to pass that he often treats one determination after the other without showing their connection. However, in his genuine speculation Aristotle is as profound as Plato, and at the same time more developed and explicit, for with him the opposites receive a higher determination. Certainly we miss in him the beauty of Plato’s form, the melodious speech, or, as we might almost call it, chatting—the conversational tone adopted, which is as lively as it is cultured and human. But where in Plato we find, as we do in his Timæus, the speculative Idea definitely expressed in the thesis form, we see in it a lack both of comprehension and purity; the pure element escapes it, while Aristotle’s form of expression is marked both by purity and intelligibility. We learn to know the object in its determination and its determinate Notion; but Aristotle presses further into the speculative nature of the object, though in such a way that the latter remains in its concrete determination, and Aristotle seldom leads it back to abstract thought-determinations. The study of Aristotle is hence inexhaustible, but to give an account of him is difficult, because his teaching must be reduced to universal principles. Thus in order to set forth Aristotelian philosophy, the particular content of each thing would have to be specified. But if we would be serious with Philosophy, nothing would be more desirable than to lecture upon Aristotle, for he is of all the ancients the most deserving of study.
c. What ought to come next is the determination of the Aristotelian Idea, and here we have to say, in quite a general way, that Aristotle commences with Philosophy generally, and says, in the first place, regarding the value of Philosophy (in the second chapter of the first book of the Metaphysics), that the object of Philosophy is what is most knowable, viz. the first and original causes, that is, the rational. For through these and from these all else is known, but principles do not become known through the facts which form their groundwork (ὑποκείμενα). In this we already have the opposite to the ordinary point of view. Aristotle has further declared the chief subject of investigation, or the most essential knowledge (ἐπιστήμη ἀρχικωτάτη) to be the knowledge of end; but this is the good in each thing and, generally speaking, the best in the whole of nature. This also holds good with Plato and Socrates; yet the end is the true, the concrete, as against the abstract Platonic Idea. Aristotle then says of the value of Philosophy, “Men have begun to philosophize through wonder,” for in it the knowledge of something higher is at least anticipated. “Thus since man, to escape from ignorance, began to philosophize, it is clear that for the sake of knowledge he followed after knowledge, and not for any utility which it might possess for him. This is also made evident by the whole course of its external history. For it was after men had done with all their absolute requirements, and with what concerns their comfort, that they first began to seek this philosophic knowledge. We hence seek it not for the sake of any outside utility that it may have. And thus as we say that a free man is he who exists on his own account and not for another, Philosophy is the only science that is free, because it alone exists for itself—it is knowledge on account of knowledge. Therefore in justice it will not be held to be a human possession,” in the sense that, as we said above, (p. 11) it is not in the possession of a man. “For in many ways the nature of man is dependent, so that, according to Simonides, God alone possesses the prerogative (γέρας), and yet it is unworthy on man’s part not to seek after the science that is in conformity with his own condition (τὴν καθ̓ αὑτὸν ἐπιστήνην). But if the poets were right, and envy characterized divinity, all who would aim higher must be unfortunate;” Nemesis punishes whatever raises itself above the commonplace, and makes everything again equal. “But the divine cannot be jealous,” i.e. cannot refuse to impart that which it is, as if this knowledge should not come to man (supra, pp. 72, 73) “and—according to the proverb—the poets utter many falsehoods. Nor ought we to consider that any science is more entitled to honour than the one we now investigate, for that which is most divine, is also most worthy of honour.” That is to say, what has and imparts what is best is honoured: the gods are thus to be honoured because they have this knowledge. “God is held to be the cause and principle of everything, and therefore God has this science alone, or for the most part.” But for this reason it is not unworthy of man to endeavour to seek the highest good which is in conformity with him, this knowledge pertaining to God. “All other sciences are, however, more requisite than Philosophy, but none more excellent.”
It is difficult to give a more detailed account of the Aristotelian philosophy, the universal Idea with the more important elements, for Aristotle is much more difficult to comprehend than Plato. In the latter there are myths, and we can pass over the dialectic and yet say that we have read Plato; but with Aristotle we enter at once upon what is speculative. Aristotle always seems to have philosophized only respecting the individual and particular, and not to have risen from it to the thought of the absolute and universal, to the thought of God; he always goes from the individual to the individual. His task concerns what is, and is just as clearly divided off as a professor has his work divided into a half year’s course; and though in this course he examines the whole of the world of conception, he yet appears only to have recognized the truth in the particular, or only a succession of particular truths. This has nothing dazzling about it, for he does not appear to have risen to the Idea (as Plato speaks of the nobility of Idea), nor to have led back to it the individual. But if Aristotle on the one hand did not logically abstract the universal Idea, (for then his so-called logic, which is something very different, would have had as its principle the recognition of one Notion in all) on the other hand there appears in Aristotle the one Absolute, the idea of God, as itself a particular, in its place beside the others, although it is all Truth. It is as if we said, “there are plants, animals, men, and also God, the most excellent of all.”
From the whole list of conceptions which Aristotle enumerates, we shall now select some for further examination, and I will first speak of his metaphysics and its determinations. Then I will deal with the particular sciences which have been treated by Aristotle, beginning by giving the fundamental conception of nature as it is constituted with Aristotle; in the third place I will say something of mind, of the soul and its conditions, and finally the logical books of Aristotle will follow.
Aristotle’s speculative Idea is chiefly to be gathered from his Metaphysics, especially from the last chapters of the twelfth book (Λ) which deal with the divine Thought. But this treatise has the peculiar drawback noticed above (p. 128) of being a compilation, several treatises having been combined into one. Aristotle and the ancients did not know this work by the name of the Metaphysics; it was by them called πρώτη φιλοσοφία.[87] The main portion of this treatise has a certain appearance of unity given to it by the connection of the argument,[88] but it cannot be said that the style is orderly and lucid. This pure philosophy Aristotle very clearly distinguishes (Metaph. IV. 1) from the other sciences as “the science of that which is, in so far as it is, and of what belongs to it implicitly and explicitly.” The main object which Aristotle has in view (Metaph. VII. 1) is the definition of what this substance (οὐσία) really is. In this ontology or, as we call it, logic, he investigates and minutely distinguishes four principles (Metaph. I. 3): first, determination or quality as such, the wherefore of anything, essence or form; secondly, the matter; thirdly, the principle of motion; and fourthly, the principle of final cause, or of the good. In the later part of the Metaphysics Aristotle returns repeatedly to the determination of the Ideas, but here also a want of connection of thought appears, even though all is subsequently united into an entirely speculative Notion.
To proceed, there are two leading forms, which Aristotle characterizes as that of potentiality (δύναμις) and that of actuality (ἐνέργεια); the latter is still more closely characterized as entelechy (ἐντελεχεια) or free activity, which has the end (τὸ τέλος) in itself, and is the realization of this end. These are determinations which occur repeatedly in Aristotle, especially in the ninth book of the Metaphysics, and which we must be familiar with, if we would understand him. The expression δύναμις is with Aristotle the beginning, the implicit, the objective; also the abstract universal in general, the Idea, the matter, which can take on all forms, without being itself the form-giving principle. But with an empty abstraction such as the thing-in-itself Aristotle has nothing to do. It is first in energy or, more concretely, in subjectivity, that he finds the actualizing form, the self-relating negativity. When, on the other hand, we speak of Being, activity is not yet posited: Being is only implicit, only potentiality, without infinite form. To Aristotle the main fact about Substance is that it is not matter merely (Metaph. VII. 3); although in ordinary life this is what is generally taken to be the substantial. All that is contains matter, it is true, all change demands a substratum (ὑποκείμενον) to be affected by it; but because matter itself is only potentiality, and not actuality—which belongs to form—matter cannot truly exist without the activity of form (Metaph. VIII. 1, 2). With Aristotle δύναμις does not therefore mean force (for force is really an imperfect aspect of form), but rather capacity which is not even undetermined possibility; ἐνέργεια is, on the other hand, pure, spontaneous activity. These definitions were of importance throughout all the middle ages. Thus, according to Aristotle, the essentially absolute substance has potentiality and actuality, form and matter, not separated from one another; for the true objective has most certainly also activity in itself, just as the true subjective has also potentiality.
From this definition we now see clearly the sort of opposition in which the Idea of Aristotle stands to that of Plato, for although the Idea of Plato is in itself essentially concrete and determined, Aristotle goes further. In so far, namely, as the Idea is determined in itself, the relation of the moments in it can be more closely specified, and this relation of the moments to each other is to be conceived of as nothing other than activity. It is easy for us to have a consciousness of what is deficient in the universal, that is, of that which is implicit only. The universal, in that it is the universal, has as yet no reality, for because implicitude is inert, the activity of realization is not yet posited therein. Reason, laws, etc., are in this way abstract, but the rational, as realizing itself, we recognize to be necessary, and therefore we take such universal laws but little into account. Now the standpoint of Plato is in the universal; what he does is to express Being rather as the objective, the Good, the end, the universal. To this, however, the principle of living subjectivity, as the moment of reality, seems to be lacking, or it appears at least to be put in the background. This negative principle seems indeed not to be directly expressed in Plato, but it is essentially contained in his definition of the Absolute as the unity of opposites; for this unity is essentially a negative unity of those opposites, which abrogates their being-another, their opposition, and leads them back into itself. But with Aristotle this negativity, this active efficacy, is expressly characterized as energy; in that it breaks up itself—this independence—abrogating unity, and positing separation; for, as Aristotle says (Metaph. VII. 13), “actuality separates.” The Platonic Idea, on the other hand, is rather that abrogation of opposites, where one of the opposites is itself unity. While, therefore, with Plato the main consideration is the affirmative principle, the Idea as only abstractly identical with itself, in Aristotle there is added and made conspicuous the moment of negativity, not as change, nor yet as nullity, but as difference or determination. The principle of individualization, not in the sense of a casual and merely particular subjectivity, but in that of pure subjectivity, is peculiar to Aristotle. Aristotle thus also makes the Good, as the universal end, the substantial foundation, and maintains this position against Heraclitus and the Eleatics. The Becoming of Heraclitus is a true and real determination, but change yet lacks the determination of identity with itself, the constancy of the universal. The stream is ever changing, yet it is nevertheless ever the same, and is really a universal existence. From this it is at once evident that Aristotle (Metaph. IV. 3-6) is controverting the opinions of Heraclitus and others when he says that Being and non-being are not the same (Vol. I. p. 282), and in connection with this lays down the celebrated maxim of contradiction, that a man is not at the same time a ship. This shows at once that Aristotle does not understand by this pure Being and non-being, this abstraction which is really only the transition of the one into the other; but by that which is, he understands Substance, the Idea, Reason, viewed likewise as an impelling end. As he maintains the universal against the principle of mere change, he puts forward activity in opposition to the numbers of the Pythagoreans, and to the Platonic Ideas. However frequently and fully Aristotle controverts both of these, all his objections turn on the remark already quoted (Vol. I. p. 213) that activity is not to be found in these principles, and that to say that real things participate in Ideas is empty talk, and a poetic metaphor. He says also that Ideas, as abstract universal determinations, are only as far as numbers go equal to things, but are not on that account to be pointed out as their causes. Moreover, he maintains that there are contradictions involved in taking independent species, since in Socrates, for instance, there are several ideas included: man, biped, animal (Metaph. I. 7 and 9). Activity with Aristotle is undoubtedly also change, but change that is within the universal, and that remains self-identical; consequently a determination which is self-determination, and therefore the self-realizing universal end: in mere alteration, on the contrary, there is not yet involved the preservation of identity in change. This is the chief point which Aristotle deals with.
Aristotle distinguishes various moments in substance, in so far as the moments of activity and potentiality do not appear as one, but still in separation. The closer determination of this relation of energy to potentiality, of form to matter, and the movement of this opposition, gives the different modes of substance. Here Aristotle enumerates the substances; and to him they appear as a series of different kinds of substance, which he merely takes into consideration one by one, without bringing them together into a system. The three following are the chief among these:—
a. The sensuous perceptible substance is that in which the matter is still distinguished from the efficient form. Hence this substance is finite; for the separation and externality of form and matter are precisely what constitute the nature of the finite. Sensuous substance, says Aristotle (Metaph. XII. 2), involves change, but in such a way that it passes over into the opposite; the opposites disappear in one another, and the third beyond these opposites, that which endures, the permanent in this change, is matter. Now the leading categories of change which Aristotle names are the four differences, in regard to the What (κατὰ τὸ τί), or in regard to quality (ποιόν), or in regard to quantity (ποσόν), or in regard to place where (ποῦ). The first change is the origination and decay of simple determinate Being (κατὰ τόδε); the second change is that of the further qualities (κατὰ τὸ πάθος); the third, increase and diminution; the fourth, motion. Matter is the dead substance on which take place the changes which matter passes through. “The change itself is from potential into actual existence; possible whiteness transforms itself into actual whiteness. Thus things do not arise casually out of nothing, but all arises out of what exists, though it exists only in potentiality, not in actuality.” The possible is thus really a general implicit existence, which brings about these determinations, without producing one out of the other. Matter is thus simple potentiality, which, however, is placed in opposition to itself, so that a thing in its actuality only becomes that which its matter was also in potentiality. There are thus three moments posited: matter, as the general substratum of change, neutral in respect of what is different (ἐξ οὗ); the opposed determinations of form, which are negative to each other as that which is to be abrogated and that which is to be posited (τι and εἴς τι); the first mover (ὑφ̓ οὗ), pure activity (Metaph. VII. 7; IX. 8; XII. 3).[89] But activity is the unity of form and matter; how these two are in the other, Aristotle does not, however, further explain. Thus in sensuous substance there appears the diversity of the moments, though not as yet their return into themselves; but activity is the negative which ideally contains in itself the opposite, therefore that also which is about to be.
b. A higher kind of substance, according to Aristotle (Metaph. IX. 2; VII. 7; XII. 3), is that into which activity enters, which already contains that which is about to be. This is understanding, absolutely determined, whose content is the aim which it realizes through its activity, not merely changing as does the sensuous form. For the soul is essentially actuality, a general determination which posits itself; not only formal activity, whose content comes from somewhere else. But while the active posits its content in reality, this content yet remains the same; there is an activity present which is different from matter, although substance and activity are allied. Thus here we still have a matter which understanding demands as its hypothesis. The two extremes are matter as potentiality, and thought as efficiency: the former is the passive universal, and the latter the active universal; in sensuous substance the active is, on the contrary, still quite different from matter. In these two moments themselves change does not take place, for they are the implicit universal in opposed forms.
c. The highest point is, however, that in which potentiality, activity and actuality are united; the absolute substance which Aristotle (Metaph. XII. 6, 7; IX. 8), defines in general as being the absolute (ἀϊδιον), the unmoved, which yet at the same time moves, and whose essence is pure activity, without having matter. For matter as such is passive and affected by change, consequently it is not simply one with the pure activity of this substance. Here as elsewhere we certainly see an instance of merely denying a predicate, without saying what its truth is; but matter is nothing else than that moment of unmoved Being. If in later times it has seemed something new to define absolute Being as pure activity, we see that this arises from ignorance as to the Aristotelian conception. But the Schoolmen rightly looked upon this as the definition of God, since they define God as actus purus; and higher idealism than this there is none. We may also express this as follows: God is the Substance which in its potentiality has reality also unseparated from it; therein potentiality is not distinguished from form, since it produces from itself the determinations of its content. In this Aristotle breaks away from Plato, and for this reason controverts number, the Idea, and the universal, because if this, as inert, is not defined as identical with activity, there is no movement. Plato’s inert Ideas and numbers thus bring nothing into reality; but far different is the case with the Absolute of Aristotle, which in its quiescence is at the same time absolute activity.
Aristotle further says on this subject (Metaph. XII. 6): “It may be that what has potentiality is not real; it is of no avail therefore to make substances eternal, as the idealists do, if they do not contain a principle which can effect change. And even this is insufficient, if it is not active, because in that case there is no change. Yea, even if it were active, but its substance only a potentiality, there would be in it no eternal movement, for it is possible that what is according to potentiality may not exist. We must therefore have a principle whose substance must be apprehended as activity.” Thus in mind energy is substance itself. “But here a doubt seems to spring up. For all that is active seems to be possible, but all that is possible does not seem to energize, so that potentiality seems to be antecedent,” for it is the universal. “But if this were the case, no one of the entities would be in existence, for it is possible that a thing may possess a capacity of existence, though it has never yet existed. But energy is higher than potentiality. We must thus not assert, as theologians would have us do, that in the eternal ages there was first chaos or night” (matter), “nor must we say with natural philosophers that everything existed simultaneously. For how could the First be changed, if nothing in reality were cause? For matter does not move itself, it is the Master who moves it. Leucippus and Plato accordingly say that motion has always existed, but they give no reason for the assertion.” Pure activity is, according to Aristotle (Metaph. IX. 8), before potentiality, not in relation to time, but to essence. That is to say, time is a subordinate moment, far removed from the universal; for the absolute first Being is, as Aristotle says at the end of the sixth chapter of the twelfth book, “that which in like activity remains always identical with itself.” In the former assumption of a chaos and so on, an activity is posited which has to do with something else, not with itself, and has therefore a pre-supposition; but chaos is only bare possibility.
That which moves in itself, and therefore, as Aristotle continues (Metaph. XII. 7), “that which has circular motion;” is to be posited as the true Being, “and this is evident not merely from thinking reason, but also from the fact itself.” From the definition of absolute Being as imparting motion, as bringing about realization, there follows that it exists in objectivity in visible nature. As the self-identical which is visible, this absolute Being is “the eternal heavens.” The two modes of representing the Absolute are thus thinking reason and the eternal heavens. The heavens are moved, but they also cause movement. Since the spherical is thus both mover and moved, there is a centre-point which causes movement but remains unmoved, and which is itself at the same time eternal and a substance and energy.[90] This great definition given by Aristotle of absolute Being as the circle of reason which returns into itself, is of the same tenor as modern definitions; the unmoved which causes movement is the Idea which remains self-identical, which, while it moves, remains in relation to itself. He explains this as follows: “Its motion is determined in the following manner. That moves which is desired and thought, whereas itself it is unmoved, and the original of both is the same.” That is the end whose content is the desire and thought; such an end is the Beautiful or the Good. “For the thing that is desired is that which appears beautiful” (or pleases): “whose first” (or end), “on which the will is set, is what is beautiful. But it is rather the case that we desire it because it appears beautiful, than that it appears beautiful because we desire it.” For if that were so, it would be simply posited by activity, but it is posited independently, as objective Being, through which our desire is first awakened. “But thought is the true principle in this, for thought is moved only by the object of thought. But the intelligible” (we scarcely believe our eyes) “is essentially the other co-element (συστοιχία)”[91] namely, that which is posited as objective, as absolutely existent thought, “and the substance of this other element is the first; but the first substance is simple pure activity. Such are the Beautiful and the Good, and the first is ever the absolutely best or the best possible. But the Notion shows that the final cause belongs to the unmoved. What is moved may also subsist in a different manner. Motion (φορά) is the first change; the first motion, again, is circular motion, but this is due to the above cause.” Therefore, according to Aristotle, the Notion, principium cognoscendi, is also that which causes movement, principium essendi; he expresses it as God, and shows the relation of God to the individual consciousness. “The First Cause is necessary. But the term necessary has three meanings: first what is accomplished by violence, because it goes contrary to one’s inclination (παρὰ τὴν ὁρμήν); secondly, that without which the Good does not subsist; thirdly, that which can exist in no other way than it does, but involves absolute existence. On such a principle of the unmoved the heavens depend and the whole of nature”—the visible that is eternal, and the visible that changes. This system is ever-enduring. “But to us” as individuals, “there is granted, for a short time only, a sojourn therein of surpassing excellence. For the system continues ever the same, but for us that is impossible. Now this activity is in its very self enjoyment, and therefore vigilance, exercise of the senses, thinking in general, are most productive of enjoyment; and for the same reason hopes and memories bring pleasure. But thinking, in its pure essence, is a thinking of that which is absolutely the most excellent;” the thought is for itself absolute end. The difference and contradiction in activity and the abrogation of the same, Aristotle expresses thus: “But thought thinks itself by participation (μετάληψιν) in that which is thought, but thought becomes thought by contact and apprehension, so that thought and the object of thought are the same.” Thought, as being the unmoved which causes motion, has an object, which, however, becomes transformed into activity, because its content is itself something thought, i.e. a product of thought, and thus altogether identical with the activity of thinking. The object of thought is first produced in the activity of thinking, which in this way separates the thought as an object. Hence, in thinking, that which is moved and that which moves are the same; and as the substance of what is thought is thought, what is thought is the absolute cause which, itself unmoved, is identical with the thought which is moved by it; the separation and the relation are one and the same. The chief moment in Aristotle’s philosophy is accordingly this, that the energy of thinking and the object of thought are the same; “for thought is that which is receptive of objects of perception and the existent. When in possession of these it is in a condition of activity (ἐνεργεῖ δὲ ἔχων); and thus all this” operation by which it thinks itself, “is more divine than the divine possession which thinking reason supposes itself to have,”—the content of thought. It is not the object of thought that is the more excellent, but the very energy of thinking; the activity of apprehension brings that to pass which appears as something that is being apprehended. “Speculation (ἡ θεωρία) is thus the most pleasing and the best. If then God has eternally subsisted in such surpassing excellence as for a limited time pertains to us” (in whom this eternal Thought, which is God Himself, occurs only as a particular condition), “He is worthy of admiration; if He possesses it in a more eminent degree, His nature is still more admirable. But this is His mode of subsistence. Life is also inherent in Him, for the activity of thought is life. But He constitutes this efficient power; essential energy belongs to God as His most excellent and eternal life. We therefore say that with God there is life perfect and everlasting.” From this substance Aristotle moreover excludes magnitude.
We in our way of speaking designate the Absolute, the True, as the unity of subjectivity and objectivity, which is therefore neither the one nor the other, and yet just as much the one as the other; and Aristotle busied himself with these same speculations, the deepest forms of speculation even of the present day, and he has expressed them with the greatest definiteness. With Aristotle it is thus no dry identity of the abstract understanding that is indicated, for he distinguishes subjective and objective precisely and decisively. Not dead identity such as this, but energy, is for him what is most to be reverenced, God. Unity is thus a poor, unphilosophic expression, and true Philosophy is not the system of identity; its principle is a unity which is activity, movement, repulsion, and thus, in being different, is at the same time identical with itself. If Aristotle had made the jejune identity of understanding, or experience, his principle, he would never have risen to a speculative Idea like this, wherein individuality and activity are placed higher than universal potentiality. Thought, as the object of thought, is nothing else than the absolute Idea regarded as in itself, the Father; yet this First and unmoved, as distinguished from activity, is, as absolute, simply activity, and is first through this activity set forth as true. In what he teaches respecting the soul we shall find Aristotle recurring to this speculative thought; but to Aristotle it is again an object, like other objects, a kind of condition which he separates from the other conditions of the soul which he understands empirically, such as sleep, or weariness. He does not say that it alone is truth, that all is summed up in Thought, but he says it is the first, the strongest, the most honourable. We, on the other hand, say that Thought, as that which relates to itself, has existence, or is the truth; that Thought comprehends the whole of Truth, even, though we ordinarily represent to ourselves sensation and so on, besides thought, as having reality. Thus, although Aristotle does not express himself in modern philosophic language, he has yet throughout the same fundamental theory; he speaks not of a special kind of reason, but of the universal Reason. The speculative philosophy of Aristotle simply means the direction of thought on all kinds of objects, thus transforming these into thoughts; hence, in being thoughts, they exist in truth. The meaning of this is not, however, that natural objects have thus themselves the power of thinking, but as they are subjectively thought by me, my thought is thus also the Notion of the thing, which therefore constitutes its absolute substance. But in Nature the Notion does not exist explicitly as thought in this freedom, but has flesh and blood, and is oppressed by externalities; yet this flesh and blood has a soul, and this is its Notion. The ordinary definition of truth, according to which it is “the harmony of the conception with the object,” is certainly not borne out by the conception; for when I represent to myself a house, a beam, and so on, I am by no means this content, but something entirely different, and therefore very far from being in harmony with the object of my conception. It is only in thought that there is present a true harmony between objective and subjective; that constitutes me. Aristotle therefore finds himself at the highest standpoint; nothing deeper can we desire to know, although he has always the appearance of making ordinary conceptions his starting-point.
Aristotle (Metaph. XII. 9) now solves many other doubtful questions, for instance, whether thought is compound, and whether science is the object of science itself. “Some further doubts arise as to thought (νοῦς), which seems to be of all things the most divine; but it is only with difficulty that we can conceive under what conditions (πῶς δ̓ ἔχων) it is a thing of this sort. When it thinks of nothing, but is in a state like that of a sleeper, what constitutes its superiority? And when it thinks, but something else is dominant all the time (ἄλλο κύριον), that which is its substance is not thought (νόησις), but a potentiality;” it would not be in eternal activity. “In this way it would not be the highest substance; for it is” (active) “thought (τὸ νοεῖν) that gives it its high rank. If now, further, thought or thinking is its substance, what does it think? Itself or another? And if another, is it always the same, or something different? Does it also not make a difference, whether it thinks of what is beautiful or what is casual? In the first place, if thought is not thinking, but only the power to think, continuous thinking would be laborious for it,” for every power wears itself out. “In the next place, something else would be more excellent than thought, namely that which is thought (νοούμενον); and thinking and thought (τὸ νοεῖν καὶ ἡ νόησις) will be present to the mind in understanding what is most inferior. As this is to be avoided (in the same way that it is better not to see some things than to see them), thinking would not constitute the best. Thought is therefore this, to think itself, because it is the most excellent; and it is the thinking, which is the thinking of thinking. For understanding and sensation and opinion and deliberation seem always to have an object other than themselves, and to be their own objects only in a secondary sense. Further, if thinking and being thought of are different, in relation to which of the two is the Good inherent in thought? For the Notion[92] of thinking and that of the object of thought are not the same. Or, in the case of some things, does the science itself constitute that which is the object of science? In what is practical the thing is the immaterial substance and the determination of the end (ἡ οὐσία καὶ τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι), and in what is theoretical it is the reason and the thinking. As therefore thought and the object of thought are not different, these opposites, so far as they involve no connection with matter, are the same thing, and there is only a thought of the thing thought of.” Reason which thinks itself, is the absolute end or the Good, for it only exists for its own sake. “There still remains a doubt whether that which thinks is of composite nature or not; for it might undergo change in the parts of the whole. But the Good is not in this or that part, for it is the best in the universe, as distinguished from it. In this way the Thought which is its own object subsists to all eternity.”
As this speculative Idea, which is the best and most free, is also to be seen in nature, and not only in thinking reason, Aristotle (Metaph. XII. 8) in this connection passes on to the visible God, which is the heavens. God, as living God, is the universe; and thus in the universe God, as living God, shows Himself forth. He comes forth as manifesting Himself or as causing motion, and it is in manifestation alone that the difference between the cause of motion and that which is moved comes to pass. “The principle and the first cause of that which is, is itself unmoved, but brings to pass the original and eternal and single motion,” that is, the heaven of the fixed stars. “We see that besides the simple revolution of the universe, which is brought about by the first unmoved substance, there are other eternal motions, those of the planets.” We must not, however, enter into further details on this subject.
Regarding the organization of the universe in general, Aristotle says (Metaph. XII. 10), “We must investigate in what manner the nature of the whole has within it the Good and the Best; whether as something set apart and absolute, or as an order, or in both ways, as in the case of an army. For the good condition of an army depends upon the order enforced, as much as on the general, and the general is the cause of the army’s good condition in all the greater degree from the fact of the order being through him, and not from his being through the order. All things are co-ordinated in a certain way, but not all in the same way: take, for example, animals which swim, and those which fly, and plants; they are not so constituted that one of them is not related to another, but they stand in mutual relations. For all are co-ordinated into one system just as in a house it is by no means permitted to the free inmates to do freely whatever they like, but all that they do, or the most of it, is done according to orderly arrangement. By slaves and animals, on the contrary, little is done for the general good, but they do much that is casual. For the principle of each is his own nature. In the same way it is necessary that all should attain to a position where distinction is drawn” (the seat of judgment) “but there are some things so constituted that all participate in them for the formation of a whole.” Aristotle then goes on to refute some other notions; showing, for instance, the embarrassments into which they fall who make all things proceed from oppositions, and he corroborates, on the other hand, the unity of the principle by quoting Homer’s line (Iliad II. 204):
“It is not good that many govern; let one alone bear rule.”