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

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METAPHYSICS 407
more important the above doctrine is for Aristotle, the
more obviously does it reveal the weak side of his
theory.
The notion of the tnotum naturally desiring the
mobile, the Corporeal seeking the Divine, is so obscure
as to be almost unintelligible to us. 2 Further, if, as
1
As Theophrastus easily
discerned, Fr. 12 {Metaj>h.), 8
et 5J? etyeais, aWws re teat rod
aplffrov, jUetce tyvxys, . . . %P$VX
av elrj rck Ktvoiftcva. Similarly it
lJ BOCLTJS, in Tim. 82, A (of.
Scheader, Arist. de Volunt.
Doctr. Brandenh. 1847, p. IS, A,
42) asks : ei yhp Ipif 6 niaixos,
&S tpTJfft Kal 'ApitTTOTeKTJS, TOV VOV
kjX Ktvelrat irpbs avrhv, ir68ep e\ei
T&{yrn\v t%v etpeffiv ;
3 We are not, of course, therefore
justified in denying that
Aristotle held this notion in the
face of his own plain and repeated
statements and the interpretations
of them in this sense
by the most faithful of his disciples
; all the less as it is hard
indeed (as the discussion in
Theophrastus, -fV. 12, 5, clearly
proves) to say in what other way
motion can, on Aristotle's principles,
be conceived of as proceeding
from the absolutely Unmoved.
Beentano (as above, 239 sq.)
thinks, indeed, that there is nothing
so totally in contradiction to
the Aristotelian doctrine as the
view that matter '
is the efficient
principle because it moves of
itself to meet God, who is its
end.' As little, he says, can ' the
end produce anything of itself
without an efficient principle.'
But nobody has asserted either
the one or the other. When
it is said that God causes
motion by causing the desire
for his own perfection, it is
not meant that the matter in
which this desire is produced
causes the motion ; as little can
mean that the end produces
it by itself alone, apart from any
efficient principle. The fact is that
the efficient cause is not here regarded
as different from the
Though mis should perhaps
final.
in such a case conceive of two
independent causes at work,
the attractive force and the
thing that permits itself to be
attracted, Aristotle represents
the relationship otherwise. He
ascribes to the mover a $bvap.is
Troirjri/cj), to the motion merely a
Simpis iraflrjTiK^ (MetapJi. v. 15,
1021, a, 15, ix. 1, 1046, a, 16
sqq.). It is impossible, therefore,
for him to attribute to that which
owesits motion to something else,
any independent efficiency of its
own. On the contrary, the
efficient and the final cause, as
has been shown at p. 356 sq., he
conceives of as in essence one.
Their apparent severance under
certain circumstances is only a
phenomenon of the sensible
world, where form realises itself
in matter, and therefore (cf .
pp,
368 sq.) in a plurality of individuals.
In the intelligible world,
however, efficient and final cause
are always one and the same,
and accordingly it is impossible
to speak of an end producing
anything apart from a principle
408 ARISTOTLE
Aristotle supposes, the motum must be in contact 1
with
the mobile, it follows that the Universe must be in
contact with the prim-urn mobile, as, indeed, Aristotle
explicitly states. 2 It is true that he endeavours to
exclude the notion of contiguity in space from this
idea ; for he often employs the expression contact
'
when the context clearly proves that he does not allude
to juxtaposition in space, but only to an immediate
connection between two things. 3 Moreover, he asserts 4
that the motum is in contact with the pimum mobile,
but not vice versa.
But even though we overlook the
contradiction that is here involved, we find the notion
of efficiency.— Similar to the
action of God Himself is that of
the spheral spirits, which produce
motion in their respective spheres
as being themselves the end of
the motion ; cf . p. 405, n. 3.—It is
still more strange that BeentaNo
goes beyond the view which he
combats, in saying, p. 210, that
according to Metaph. xii. 7, 1072,
a, 26: 'God moves as known;'
for since matter, as he himself
adds, cannot know God, it would
follow from this that God does
not move matter at all. Theassertion,
however, rests upon
a misunderstanding. Aristotle
says (cf . p. 404) : rb opem-bv icai rb
voTjrbv Kivei ov Ktvovtxtvov . . .
vovs Se virb rod j/otjtov KiveiTat
Kivei 8e &s 4pdifievov. As
votfrbv God moves only Nous (to
which, however, motion can he ascribed
only in an improper sense
cf. Ch. XI. at the commencement
and at the end,i»/ra); the world, on
the other hand, He moves as epeSjUevov
by means of the Spejtr which
He causes. We, indeed, should
not think of ascribing any such
quality to matter, and we should
hesitate scarcely less to attribute
to plants and animals a ' longing
after the divine ' as Aristotle does
in De An. ii. 4, 416, a, 26 sqq. (see
Ch. X. pt. 2, infra). Even the
doctrine of a plant and animal
soul would scarcely justify such a
view in our eyes, as from such a
soul the thought of God is necessarily
excluded. But just as
Aristotle here attributes to nonrational
existence an unconscious
yearning after rd Beiov, so the
conception of a world animate
throughout, so natural to the
Greek and yet resting ultimately
on an untenable anthropological
analogy, enables him to view the
astral spheres, which he holds
to be of a far higher nature than
any earthly existence (see Ch. IX.
on the Universe), in the same light.
1
Cf. supra, p. 386.
2
Gen. et Corr. i. 6, 323, a, 20.
3 Cf. supra, p. 203, n. 3.
4
Gen. et Corr. ibid. ; see p.
387, n. 3, bvpra.