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

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460 ARISTOTLE
PHYSICS 459
•
above material necessity, the design of the universe
above the physical explanations of nature, the teleological.
Our researches up to this point have already led to
the conclusion that everything in nature has its End.
If Nature is the inner cause of motion, every motion
has its goal by which its measure and direction are
determined.'
If the essence of things consists in their
form, the form is not to be distinguished from their
End. 2 If everything which moves must of necessity be
moved by something else, it follows that the ultimate
cause of movement resides in that which moves the
universe as its Final Cause, 3 and movement in general
can only be conceived as the action of form upon
matter, in which the former is the object of '
desire,' and
so the goal towards which the latter strives. 4 Aristotle
cannot conceive
of regulated and orderly events
except under the analogy of human action directed
towards an end.
Hence while combating the theory
of an anima mundi in the form in which it had been
held by Plato, he adopts himself a similar view. 5 He
1
See p. 341, n. 2, supra. consists of circular motion, or of
2
See p. 356 sqq., p. 418, and any motion at all. It would be
p. 462, n. 2. inconsistent with its perfect
3
See p. 404, and p. 396, n. 3. happiness that it should be inter-
4
See p. 383, and p. 379, n. 1. mixed with the body of the
5
Be An. i. 3, 406, b, 25 world and, burdened with the
sqq. ; Be Ccclo, ii. 1, 284, a, 27 latter, should have unintermitsqq.
; Metapk. xii. 6, 1071, b, 37. tently to produce, like an Ixion
Aristotle rejects this theory in with bis wheel, a, motion which
the first place because he cannot had no affinity with its nature
regard the soul as in any sense a and which therefore involved
iiigtum and therefore not even as exertion. Nor, indeed, is it shown
tavrb kuiovv (see the beginning of bow it produces it. Lastly, the
Ch. X. infra). He further objects soul cannot be apxh as asserted
that Plato conceives of the soul of in the Pluedrus, if, according to
the world as something extended the Timieus, it comes into existin
space. But it would be impos- ence only with the world.
sible to suppose that its thought
refers not only the movement of the outermost sphere,
which communicates itself to all others, but also that of
the stars, like Plato, to the action of spirits, which are
related to the spheres moved by them as the human
soul is to the body. 1 He even treats the forces of
nature in general, to a certain extent, from the same
point of view : in the eternity of motion he recognises
the immortal life of nature, 2 and he even ascribes a sort
of animation to the elements. 3
also, as we shall see, 4
for everything in living beings is
Every vital activity is
an activity guided by a purpose,
related to the soul as
the incorporeal unity of the corporeal existence.
Hence
it follows that by regarding nature as a living whole,
1
Cf. p. 373 sq. and see the section
in tlie next chapter concerning
the Spheres. Aristotle is so
far justified from his own point
of view in treating both the world
as a whole, and its individual
parts as animated with life, as he
does also Be Cmlo, ii. 12 followed
by Eudemus (Fr. 76 b, Simpl.
Phys. 283 m. : cf. Siebeck, D.
Lelne d Ar. v. d. Leben d. Unirermtm,
in Fiehte s Ztschr f. Phil. lx.
3 ). 1
God is a part of the universe
in the same sense in which reason
is a part of the man
;
and of the
same nature is the relation of the
spheral spirits to their spheres.
Each of these spirits, however,
animates only the sphere which
it moves and the primvm movens
only the irparos oipav6s. While
the movement of the latter, indeed,
extends to all the other
spheres, yet in their case it is
something1 communicated from
without like the motion of the
driver on a carriage ; their own
proper motion, on the other hand,
is due, not to-the pnmu?n inovens,
but to particular motors. Although
the whole world is thus
animated, yet Aristotle refuses to.
call it with Plato i'lpoy, because
its life springs from nn single
principle of motion.
/
z
Phys. viii. 1 init. : ridVepoi'
5e yeyoj/e irore kIvtj(Tis ouk nficru
Trp6repov, Kal