ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

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METAPHYSICS 881
the process by which that which existed previously only
in capacity is brought to reality, the determination of
Matter by Form, the transition from Potentiality to
Actuality. 1 The movement of building, for example,
consists in fashioning the materials of which a house
can be made, into an actual house. But motion is the
entelechy of potential existence only qua potential
not in any other relation.
and
The movement of the brass,
for instance, out of which a statue is cast,
does not concern
it in so far as it is brass—for qua brass it remains
unaltered and has always had a certain sort of actuality
but only in so far as it contains the potentiality of being
made into a statue. 2 This distinction, however, can, it
Ktiftjrov $ kivt\t6v ; viii. 1, 251, a, 9 :
tpafxtv Bij t\v Kiv-qaiv etvai iyre\e-
X^tav rov kiv7jtov rj klvt}t6v. So
Metaph. xi. 9, 1065, 'b, 16, 33 ; see
preceding note.
1
That only this transition and
not the condition attained by
means of it, only the process of
actualisation, notthe actuality, is
meant by the expression entelecheia
or energeia is obvious not
less from the nature of the case
itself than from the repeated
description of motion as an uncompleted
energy or entelechy
(see pp. 383, n. 1, 379, n. 2). The
same distinction elsewhere occurs.
Pleasure, e.g., is said not to be a
movement, because a movement
is at each moment incomplete,
whereas pleasure is complete. The
former is the pursuit, the latter
the attainment, of the end, »
result of the completed activity.
Eth. IV. x. 3, 4, vii. 13, 1153, a, 12.
2
In this way the previously
quoted definition is explained,
Pliys. iii. 1, 201, a, 9, sqq. (and
therefore Metaph. xi. 9, 1065, b,
sqq.). Bbentano's explanation
( Von der mannigf. Bedeutung des
Seienden nach Arist. p. 58), according
to which motion is the
actuality which transforms a
potential being into ' this potential
being,' or which constitutes
'
or forms a potential as potential,'
is without support either in Aristotle's
use of terms or in actual
fact. For, in the first place, the
entelechy of the Bvvd/iet iv is not
that by which the Svv. tv first
comes into being j and, in the
second place, when, e.g., the
bronze which is potentially a
statue is formed into the statue,
its Kiviitris does not consist in its
becoming Bvvi.nn avSptas, i.e.
brome. Aristotle, however, has
stated the meaning of his definition
unambiguously in the
passage immediately following,
and so has the author of
Metaph. xi. 9.
382 ARISTOTLE
is clear, be only applied to the case of special or
particular movement; for such movement is always
carried on in material that has already an actuality of
some sort of its own.
If, on the other hand, we take the
general notion of movement, it may be denned as the
process by which Potentiality is actualised, the development
of Matter by Form, since the material qua
material is mere Potentiality which has not yet in any
respect arrived at Actuality. This definition includes
all Alteration of every kind, all coming into being and
destruction. It does not, however, apply to absolute
origination and annihilation, for this would necessitate
the birth or destruction of matter, which is never assumed
by Aristotle. 1
It follows from what we have said,
that when he refuses to regard becoming and decaying as
forms of motion, maintaining that though every motion
is change, all change is not motion 2 —this distinction
must be accepted as a relative one which does not
hold
of the general idea of motion ; and so Aristotle himself
on other occasions 3 employs motion and change as synonymous
terms. The doctrine, however, of the different
kinds of motion belongs to Physics.
We have seen that motion is intermediate between
potential and actual being ;
it is Potentiality struggling
into Actuality, and Actuality not yet freed from Potentiality—in
other words, imperfect Actuality. It is
distinguished from mere Potentiality by being an
Entelechy, and from an Energy in its strictest sense by
the fact that in Energy the activity which is directed
1
See pp. 341 sqq. supra. a E.g. P/iys. iii. 1, 201, a, 9
2
Phys. v. 1, 225, a, 20, 34, sqq. c. 2 into. iv. 10,/n. viii. 7,
and passim; see infra. 261, a, 9, and passim.