Book x

.) as an end beyond activity, with a warning against confusing activity and pleasure. The probability is that the _Nicomachean Ethics_ is a collection of separate discourses worked up into a tolerably systematic treatise; and the interesting point is that these discourses correspond to separate titles in the list of Diogenes Laertius ([Greek: peri kalou, peri dikaion, peri philias, peri haedonaes, and peri haedonon]). The same list also refers to tentative notes ([Greek: upomnaemata epicheiraematika]), and the commentators speak of ethical notes ([Greek: aethika upomnaemata]). Indeed, they sometimes divide Aristotle's works into notes ([Greek: upomnaematika]) and compilations ([Greek: syntagmatika]). How can it be doubted that in the gradual composition of his works Aristotle began with notes ([Greek: upomnaematika]) and discourses ([Greek: logoi]), and proceeded to treatises ([Greek: pragmateiai])? He would even be drawn into this process by his writing materials, which were papyrus rolls of some magnitude; he would tend to write discourses on separate rolls, and then fasten them together in a bundle into a treatise.

If then Aristotle was for some thirty-five years gradually and simultaneously composing manuscript discourses into treatises and treatises into a system, he was pursuing a process which solves beforehand the very difficulties which have since been found in his writings. He could very easily write in different styles at different times, now avoiding hiatus and now not, sometimes writing diffusely and sometimes briefly, partly polishing and partly leaving in the rough, according to the subject, his own state of health or humour, his age, and the degree to which he had developed a given topic; and all this even in the same manuscript as well as in different manuscripts, so that a difference of style between different parts of a work or between different works, explicable by one being earlier than another, does not prove either to be not genuine. As he might write, so might he think differently in his long career. To put one extreme case, about the soul he could think at first in the _Eudemus_ like Plato that it is imprisoned in the body, and long afterwards in the _De Anima_ like himself that it is the immateriate essence of the material bodily organism. Again, he might be inconsistent; now, for example, calling a universal a substance in deference to Plato, and now denying that a universal can be a substance in consequence of his own doctrine that every substance is an individual; and so as to contradict himself in the same treatise, though not in the same breath or at the same moment of thinking. Again, in developing his discourses into larger treatises he might fall into dislocations; although it must be remembered that these are often inventions of critics who do not understand the argument, as when they make out that the treatment of reciprocal justice in the _Ethics_ (v. 5-6) needs rearrangement through their not noticing that, according to Aristotle, reciprocal justice, being the fairness of a commercial bargain, is not part of absolute or political justice, but is part of analogical or economical justice. Or he might make repetitions, as in the same book, where he twice applies the principle, that so far as the agent does the patient suffers, first to the corrective justice of the law court (_Eth_. v. 4) in order to prove that in a wrong the injurer gains as much as the injured loses, and immediately afterwards to the reciprocal justice of commerce (_ib_. 5) in order to prove that in a bargain a house must be exchanged for as many shoes as equal it in value. Or he might himself, without double versions, repeat the same argument with a different shade of meaning; as when in the _Nic. Ethics_ (vii. 4) he first argues that incontinence about such natural pleasures as that of gain is only modified incontinence, a sign (as _causa cognoscendi_) of which is that it is not so bad as incontinence about carnal pleasures, and then argues that, because (as _causa essendi_) it is only modified incontinence, therefore it is not so bad. Or he might return again and again to the same point with a difference: there is a good instance in his conclusion that the speculative life is the highest happiness; which he first infers because it is the life of man's highest and divine faculty, intelligence (1176 b-1178 a 8), then after an interval infers a second time because our speculative life is an imitation of that of God (1178 b 7-32), and finally after another interval infers a third time, because it will make man most dear to God (1179 a 22-32). Or, extending himself as it were still more, he might write two drafts, or double versions of his own, on the same subject; _e.g. Physics_, vii. and _De Anima_, ii. Or he might, going still further, in his long literary career write two or more treatises on the same subject, different and even more or less inconsistent with each other, as we shall find in the sequel. Finally, having a great number of discourses and treatises, containing all those small blemishes, around him in his library, and determined to collect, consolidate and connect them into a philosophical system, he would naturally be often taking them down from their places to consult and compare one with another, and as naturally enter in them references one to the other, and cross-references between one another. Thus he would enter in the _Metaphysics_ a reference to the _Physics_, and in the _Physics_ a reference to the _Metaphysics_, precisely because both were manuscripts in his library. For the same purpose of connexion he would be tempted to add a preface to a book like the _Meteorologica_. In order to refer back to the _Physics_, the _De Coelo_, and the _De Generatione_, this work begins by stating that the first causes of all nature and all natural motion, the stars ordered according to celestial motion and the bodily elements with their transmutations, and generation and corruption have all been discussed; and by adding that there remains to complete this investigation, what previous investigators called meteorology. To suppose this preface, presupposing many sciences, to have been written in 356, when the _Meteorologica_ had been already commenced, would be absurd; but equally absurd would it be to reject that date on account of the preface, which even a modern author often writes long after his book. Nor is it at all absurd to suppose that, long after he began the _Meteorologica_, Aristotle himself added the preface in the process of gathering his general treatises on natural science into a system. So he might afterwards add the preface to the _De Interpretatione_, in order to connect it with the _De Anima_, though written afterwards, in order to connect his treatises on mind and on its expression. So also he might add the appendix to the _Sophistical Elenchi_, long after he had written that book, and perhaps, to judge from its being a general claim to have discovered the syllogism, when the founder of logic had more or less realized that he had written a number of connected treatises on reasoning.

_The Question of Publication._--There is still another point which would facilitate Aristotle's gradual composition of discourses into treatises and treatises into a system; there was no occasion for him to publish his manuscripts beyond his school. Printing has accustomed us to publication, and misled us into applying to ancient times the modern method of bringing out one book after another at definite dates by the same author. But Greek authors contemplated works rather than books. Some of the greatest authors were not even writers: Homer, Aesop, Thales, Socrates. Some who were writers were driven to publish by the occasion; and after the orders of government, which were occasionally published to be obeyed, occasional poems, such as the poems of Solon, the odes of Pindar and the plays of the dramatists, which all had a political significance, were probably the first writings to be published or, rather, recited and acted, from written copies. With them came philosophical poems, such as those of Xenophanes and Empedocles; the epical history of Herodotus; the dramatic philosophy of Plato. On a larger scale speeches written by orators to be delivered by litigants were published and encouraged publication; and, as the Attic orators were his contemporaries, publication had become pretty common in the time of Aristotle, who speaks of many bundles ([Greek: desmas]) of judicial speeches by Isocrates being hawked about by the booksellers (_Fragm_. 140).

No doubt then Aristotle's library contained published copies of the works of other authors, as well as the autographs of his own. It does not follow that his own works went beyond his library and his school. Publication to the world is designed for readers, who at all times have demanded popular literature rather than serious philosophy such as that of Aristotle. Accordingly it becomes a difficult question, how far Aristotle's works were published in his lifetime. In answering it we must be careful to exclude any evidence which refers to Aristotle as a man, not as a writer, or refers to him as a writer but does not prove publication while he was alive.

Beginning then with his early writings, which are now lost, the dialogues _On Poetry_ and the _Eudemus_ were probably the published discourses to which Aristotle himself refers (_Poetics_, 15; _De Anima_, i. 4); and the dialogue _Protrepticus_ was known to the Cynic Crates, pupil of Diogenes and master of Zeno (_Fragm_. 50), but not necessarily in Aristotle's lifetime, as Crates was still alive in 307. Again, Aristotle's early rhetorical instructions and perhaps writings, as well as his opinion that a collection of proverbs is not worth while, must have been known outside Aristotle's rhetorical school to the orator Cephisodorus, pupil of Isocrates and master of Demosthenes, for him to be able to write in his _Replies to Aristotle_ ([Greek: en tais pros Aristotelaen antigraphais]) an admired defence of Isocrates (Dionys. H. _De Isoc_. 18). But this early dialectic and rhetoric, being popular, would tend to be published. History comes nearer to philosophy; and Aristotle's _Constitutions_ were known to his enemy Timaeus, who attacked him for disparaging the descent of the Locrians of Italy, according to Polybius (xii.), who defended Aristotle. But as Timaeus brought his history down to 264 B.C. (Polyb. i. 5), and therefore might have got his information after Aristotle's death, we cannot be sure that any of the _Constitutions_ were published in the author's lifetime. We are equally at a loss to prove that Aristotle published his philosophy. He had, like all the great, many enemies, personal and philosophical; but in his lifetime they attacked the man, not his philosophy. In the Megarian school, first Eubulides quarrelled with him and calumniated him (Diog. Laert. ii. 109) in his lifetime; but the attack was on his life, not on his writings: afterwards Stilpo wrote a dialogue ([Greek: Aristotelaes]), which may have been a criticism of the Aristotelian philosophy from the Megarian point of view; but he outlived Aristotle thirty years. In the absence of any confirmation, "the current philosophemata" ([Greek: ta egkuklia philosophaemata]), mentioned in the _De Coela_ (i. 9, 279 a 30), are sometimes supposed to be Aristotle's published philosophy, to which he is referring his readers. But the example there given, that the divine is unchangeable, is precisely such a religious commonplace as might easily be a current philosopheme of Aristotle's day, not of Aristotle; and this interpretation suits the parallel passage in the _Nic. Ethics_ (i. 5, 1096 a 3) where opinions about the happiness of political life are said to have been sufficiently treated "even in current discussions" ([Greek: kai en tois egkukliois]).

There is therefore no contemporary proof that Aristotle published any part of his mature philosophical system in his lifetime. It is true that a book of Andronicus, as reported by Aulus Gellius (xx. 5), contained a correspondence between Alexander and Aristotle in which the pupil complained that his master had published his "acroatic discourses" ([Greek: tous akroatikous ton logon]). But ancient letters are proverbially forgeries, and in the three hundred years which elapsed between the supposed correspondence and the time of Andronicus there was plenty of time for the forgery of these letters. But even if the correspondence is genuine, "acroatic discourses" must be taken to mean what Alexander would mean by them in the time of Aristotle, and not what they had come to mean by the time of Andronicus. Alexander meant those discourses which Aristotle, when he was his tutor, intended for the ears of himself and his fellow-pupils; such as the early political works on _Monarchy_ and on _Colonies_, and the early rhetorical works, the _Theodectea_, the _Collection of Arts_, and possibly the _Rhetoric to Alexander_, in the preface to which the writer actually says to Alexander: "You wrote to me that nobody else should receive this book." These few early works may have been published, and contrary to the wishes of Alexander, without affecting Aristotle's later system. But even so, Alexander's complaint would not justify writers three centuries later in taking Alexander to have referred to mature scientific writings, which were not addressed, and not much known, to him, the conqueror of Asia; although by the times of Andronicus and Aulus Gellius, Aristotle's scientific writings were all called acroatic, or acroamatic, or sometimes esoteric, in distinction from exoteric--a distinction altogether unknown to Aristotle, and therefore to Alexander. In the absence of any contemporary evidence, we cannot believe that Aristotle in his lifetime published any, much less all, of his scientific books. The conclusion then is that Aristotle on the one hand to some extent published his early dialectical and rhetorical writings, because they were popular, though now they are lost, but on the other hand did not publish any of the extant historical and philosophical works which belong to his mature system, because they were best adapted to his philosophical pupils in the Peripatetic school. The object of the philosopher was not the applause of the public but the truth of things. Now this conclusion has an important bearing on the composition of Aristotle's writings and on the difficulties which have been found in them. If he had like a modern author brought out each of his extant philosophical works on a definite day of publication, he would not have been able to change them without a second edition, which in the case of serious writings so little in demand would not be worth while. But as he did not publish them, but kept the unpublished manuscripts together in his library and used them in his school, he was able to do with them as he pleased down to the very end of his life, and so gradually to consolidate his many works into one system.

While Aristotle did not publish his philosophical works to the world, he freely communicated them to the Peripatetic school. They are not mere lectures; but he used them for lectures: he allowed his pupils to read them in his library, and probably to take copies from them. He also used diagrams, which are sometimes incorporated in his works, but sometimes are only mentioned, and were no doubt used for purposes of teaching. He also availed himself of his pupils' co-operation, as we may judge from his description in the _Ethics_ (x. 7) of the speculative philosopher who, though he is self-sufficing, is better having co-operators ([Greek: synergous hexon]). From an early time he had a tendency to address his writings to his friends. For example, he addressed the _Theodectea_ to his pupil Theodectes; and even in ancient times a doubt arose whether it was a work of the master or the pupil. It was certainly by Aristotle, because it contained the triple grammatical division of words into noun, verb and conjunction, which the history of grammar recognized as his discovery. But we may explain the share of Theodectes by supposing that he had a hand in the work (cf. Dionys. H. _De Comp. Verb._ 2; Quintilian i. 4. 18). Similarly in astronomy, Aristotle used the assistance of Eudoxus and Callippus. Indeed, throughout his writings he shows a constant wish to avail himself of what is true in the opinions of others, whether they are philosophers, or poets or ordinary people expressing their thoughts in sayings and proverbs. With one of his pupils in particular, Theophrastus, who was born about 370 and therefore was some fifteen years younger than himself, he had a long and intimate connexion; and the work of the pupil bears so close a resemblance to that of his master, that, even when he questions Aristotle's opinions (as he often does), he seems to be writing in an Aristotelian atmosphere; while he shows the same acuteness in raising difficulties, and has caught something of the same encyclopaedic genius. Another pupil, Eudemus of Rhodes, wrote and thought so like his master as to induce Simplicius to call him the most genuine of Aristotle's companions ([Greek: ho gnaesiotatos ton Aristotelous hetairon]). It is probable that this extraordinary resemblance is due to the pupils having actually assisted their master; and this supposition enables us to surmount a difficulty we feel in reading Aristotle's works. How otherwise, we wonder, could one man writing alone and with so few predecessors compose the first systematic treatises on the psychology of the mental powers and on the logic of reasoning, the first natural history of animals, and the first civil history of one hundred and fifty-eight constitutions, in addition to authoritative treatises on metaphysics, biology, ethics, politics, rhetoric and poetry; in all penetrating to the very essence of the subject, and, what is most wonderful, describing more facts than any other man has ever done on so many subjects?

_The Uncompleted Works._--Such then was the method of composition by which Aristotle began in early manhood to write his philosophical works, continued them gradually and simultaneously, combined shorter discourses into longer treatises, compared and connected them, kept them together in his library without publishing them, communicated them to his school, used the co-operation of his best pupils, and finally succeeded in combining many mature writings into one harmonious system. Nevertheless, being a man, he did not quite succeed. He left some unfinished; such as the _Categories_, in which the main part on categories is not finished, while the last part, afterwards called postpredicaments, is probably not his, the _Politics_ and the _Poetics_. He left others imperfectly arranged, and some of the most important, the _Metaphysics_, the _Politics_ and the logical writings. Of the imperfect arrangement of the _Metaphysics_ we have already spoken; and we shall speak of that of his logical writings when we come to the order of his whole system. At present the _Politics_ will supply us with a conspicuous example of the imperfect arrangement of some, as well as of the gradual composition of all, of Aristotle's extant writings.

The _Politics_ was begun as early as 357, yet not finished in 322. It betrays its origin from separate discourses. First comes a general theory of constitutions, right and wrong (Books [Alpha], [Beta], [Gamma]); and this part is afterwards referred to as "the first discourses" ([Greek: hen tois protois logois]). Then follows the treatment of oligarchy, democracy, commonwealth and tyranny, and of the various powers of government ([Delta]), and independent investigation of revolution, and of the means of preserving states ([Epsilon]), and a further treatment of democracy and oligarchy, and of the different offices of the state ([Zeta]), and finally a return to the discussion of the right form of constitution ([Eta], [Theta]). But [Delta] and [Zeta] are a group interrupted by [Epsilon], and [Eta] and [Theta] are another group unconnected with the previous group and with [Epsilon], and are also distinguished in style by avoiding hiatus. Further, the group ([Delta], [Zeta]) and the group ([Eta], [Theta]) are both unfinished. Finally the group ([Delta], [Zeta]), the book ([Epsilon]) and the group ([Eta], [Theta]) though unconnected with one another, are all connected though imperfectly with "the first discourses" ([Alpha], [Beta], [Gamma]). This complicated arrangement may be represented in the following diagram:--

[Alpha], [Beta], [Gamma] | +----------------------+----------------------+ | | | [Delta], [Epsilon] [Eta], [Zeta] [Theta]

The simplest explanation is that Aristotle began by writing separate discourses, four at least, on political subjects; that he continued to write them and perhaps tried to combine them: but that in the end he failed and left the _Politics_ unfinished and in disorder. But modern commentators, possessed by the fallacy that Aristotle like a modern author must from the first have comtemplated a whole treatise in a regular order for definite publication, lose themselves in vain disputes as to whether to go by the traditional order of books indicated by their letters and known to have existed as early as the abstract (given in Stobaeus, _Ecl._ ii. 7) ascribed to Didymus (1st century A.D.), or to put the group [Eta], [Theta], as more connected with [Alpha], [Beta], [Gamma], before the group [Delta], [Zeta], and this group before the book [Eta]. It is agreed, says Zeller, that the traditional order contradicts the original plan. But what right have we to say that Aristotle had an original plan?

The incomplete state in which Aristotle left the _Metaphysics_, the _Politics_ and his logical works, brings us to the hard question how much he did, and how much his Peripatetic followers did to his writings after his death. To answer it we should have to go far beyond Aristotle. But two corollaries follow from our present investigation of his extant writings; the first, that it was the long continuance of the Peripatetic school which gradually caused the publication, and in some cases the forgery, of the separate writings; and the second, that his Peripatetic successors arranged and edited some of Aristotle's writings, and gradually arrived by the time of Andronicus, the eleventh from Aristotle, at an order of the whole body of writings forming the system. Now, it is probable that the arrangement of the works which we are considering was done by the Peripatetic successors of Aristotle. There is nothing indeed in the _Metaphysics_ to show whether he left it in isolated treatises or in its present disorder; and nothing in the _Politics_. On the other hand, in the case of logic, it is certain that he did not combine his works on the subject into one whole, but that the Peripatetics afterwards put them together as organic, and made them the parts of logic as an organon, as they are treated by Andronicus. Perhaps something similar occurred to the _Metaphysics_, as Alexander imputed its redaction to Eudemus, and the majority of ancient commentators attributed its second opening (Book [alpha]) to Pasicles, nephew of Eudemus. Again, it is not unlikely that the _Politics_ was arranged in the traditional order of books by Theophrastus, and that this is the meaning of the curious title occurring in the list of Aristotle's works as given by Diogenes Laertius, [Greek: politikes akroaseos hos he theophrastou a' b' g' d' e' s' z' e'], which agrees with the _Politics_ in having eight books. Although, however, we may concede that such great works as the _Metaphysics_, the _Politics_ and the logical writings did not receive their present form from Aristotle himself, that concession does not deprive Aristotle of the authorship, but only of the arrangement of those works. On the contrary, Theophrastus and Eudemus, his immediate followers, both wrote works presupposing Aristotle's _Metaphysics_ and his logical works, and Dicaearchus, their contemporary, used his _Politics_ for his own _Tripoliticus_. It was Aristotle himself then who wrote these works, whether he arranged them or not; and if he wrote the incomplete works, then _a fortiori_ he wrote the completed works except those which are proved spurious, and practically consummated the Aristotelian system, which, as Leibnitz said, by its unity of thought and style evinces its own genuineness and individuality. We must not exaggerate the school and underrate the individual, especially such an individual. What he mainly wanted was the time, the leisure and the labour, which we have supposed to have been given to the gradual composition of the extant Aristotelian writings. Aristotle, asked where dwell the Muses, answered, "In the souls of those who love work."

IV. EARLIER AND LATER WRITINGS

Aristotle's quotations of his other books and of historical facts only inform us at best of the dates of isolated passages, and cannot decide the dates and sequences of whole philosophical books which occupied him for many years. Is there then any way of discriminating between early and late works? There is the evidence of the influences under which the books were written. This evidence applies to the whole Aristotelian literature including the fragments. As to the fragments, we are safe in saying that the early dialogues in the manner of Plato were written under the influence of Plato, and that the subsequent didactic writings connected with Alexander were written more under the influence of Philip and Alexander. Turning to the extant writings, we find that some are more under the influence of Plato, while others are more original and Aristotelian. Also some writings are more rudimentary than others on the same subject; and some have the appearance of being first drafts of others. By these differences we can do something to distinguish between earlier and later philosophical works; and also vindicate as genuine some works, which have been considered spurious because they do not agree in style or in matter with his most mature philosophy. In thirty-five years of literary composition, Aristotle had plenty of time to change, because any man can differ from himself at different times.

On these principles, we regard as early genuine philosophical works of Aristotle, (1) the _Categories_, (2) the _De Interpretatione_;(3) the _Eudemian Ethics_ and _Magna Moralia_; (4) the _Rhetoric to Alexander_.

1. The Categories ([Greek: kataegoriai]).--This short discourse turns on Aristotle's fundamental doctrine of individual substances, without which there is nothing. He arrives at it from a classification of categories, by which he here means "things stated in no combination" ([Greek: ta kata maedemian symplokaen legomena]) or what we should call "names," capable of becoming predicates ([Greek: kataegoroumena, kataegoriai]). "Every name," says he (chap. 4), "signifies either substance or something quantitative, or qualitative, or relative, or somewhere, or sometimes, or that it is in a position, or in a condition, or active or passive." He immediately adds that, by the combination of these names with one another, affirmation or negation arises. The categories then are names signifying things capable of becoming predicates in a proposition. Next he proceeds to substances ([Greek: ousiai]), which he divides into primary ([Greek: protai]) and secondary ([Greek: deuterai]). "Substance", says he (chap. 5), "which is properly, primarily and especially so called, is that which is neither a predicate of a subject nor inherent in a subject; for example, a particular man, or a particular horse. Secondary substances so called are the species in which are the primarily called substances, and the genera of these species: for example, a particular man is in a species, man, the genus of which is animal: these then are called secondary substances, man and animal." Having made these subdivisions of substance, he thereupon reduces secondary substances and all the rest of the categories to belongings of individual or primary substances. "All other things", says he, "are either predicates of primary substances as subjects" ([Greek: kath' hypokeimenon ton proton ousion]) "or inherent in them as subjects" ([Greek: en hypokeimenais autais]). He explains that species and genus are predicates of, and that other categories (e.g. the quality of colour) are inherent in, some individual substance such as a particular man. Then follows his conclusion: "without primary substances it is impossible for anything to be" ([Greek: mae ouson oun ton proton ousion adunaton ton hallon ti einai]. _Cat._ 5, 2 b 5-6).

Things are individual substances, without which there is nothing--this is the fundamental point of Aristotelianism, as against Platonism, of which the fundamental point is that things are universal forms without which there becomes nothing. The world, according to Aristotle, consists of substances, each of which is a separate individual, this man, this horse, this animal, this plant, this earth, this water, this air, this fire; in the heavens that moon, that sun, those stars; above all, God. On the other hand, a universal species or genus of substances is a predicate which, as well as everything else in all the other categories, always belongs to some individual substance or other as subject, and has no separate being. In full, then, a substance is a separate individual, having universals, and things in all other categories, inseparably belonging to it. The individual substance Socrates, for example, is a man and an animal ([Greek: ousia]), tall, ([Greek: poson]), white ([Greek: poion]), a husband ([Greek: pros ti]), in the market ([Greek: pou]), yesterday ([Greek: pote]), sitting ([Greek: keisthai]), armed ([Greek: hechein]), talking ([Greek: poiein]), listening ([Greek: paschein]). Aristotelianism is this philosophy of substantial things.

The doctrine that all things are substances which are separate individuals, stated in the _Categories_, is expanded in the _Metaphysics_. Both works arrive at it from the classification of categories, which is the same in both; except that in the former the categories are treated rather as a logical classification of names signifying things, in the latter rather as a metaphysical classification of things. In neither, however, are they a grammatical classification of words by their structure; and in neither are they a psychological classification of notions or general conceptions ([Greek: noaemata]), such as they afterwards became in Kant's _Critique_ and the post-Kantian idealism. Moreover, even in the _Categories_ as names signifying distinct things they imply distinct things; and hence the _Categories_, as well as the _Metaphysics_, draws the metaphysical conclusion that individual substances are the things without which there is nothing else, and thereby lays the positive foundation of the philosophy running through all the extant Aristotelian writings.

Again, according to both works, an individual substance is a subject, a universal its predicate; and they have in common the Aristotelian metaphysics, which differs greatly from the modern logic of subject and predicate. Subject ([Greek: upokeimenon]) originally meant a real thing which is the basis of something, and was used by Aristotle both for a thing to which something belongs and for a name of which another is asserted: accordingly "predicate" ([Greek: kataegoroymenon]) came with him to mean something really belonging ([Greek: uparchon]) to a substance as real subject, as well as a name capable of being asserted of a name as a nominal subject. In other words, to him subject meant real as well as nominal subject, and predicate meant real as well as nominal predicate; whereas modern logic has gradually reduced both to the nominal terms of a proposition. Accordingly, when he said that a substance is a subject, he meant a real subject; and when he said that a universal species or genus is a predicate, he meant that it is a real predicate belonging to a real subject, which is always some individual substance of the kind. It follows that Aristotelianism in the _Categories_ and in the _Metaphysics_ is a realism both of individuals and of universals; of individual substances as real subjects, and of universals as real predicates.

Lastly, the two works agree in reducing the _Categories_ to substance and its belongings ([Greek: uparchonta]). According to both, it is always some substance, such as Socrates, which is quantitative, qualitative, relative, somewhere, some time, placed, conditioned,

## active, passive; so that all things in all other categories are

attributes which are belongings of substances. There are therefore two kinds of belongings, universals and attributes; and in both cases belonging in the sense of having no being but the being of the substance.

In brief then the common ground of the _Categories_ and the _Metaphysics_ is the fundamental position that all things are substances having belonging to them universals and attributes, which have no separate being as Plato falsely supposed.

This essential agreement suffices to show that the _Categories_ and the _Metaphysics_ are the result of one mind. Nevertheless, there is a deep difference between them in detail, which may be expressed by saying that the _Categories_ is nearer to Platonism. We have seen how anxious Aristotle was to be considered one of the Platonists, how reluctant he was to depart from Plato's hypothesis of forms, and how, in denying the separability, he retained the Platonic belief in the reality and even in the unity of the universal. We have now to see that, in writing the _Categories_, on the one hand he carried his differences from his master further than he had done in his early criticisms by insisting that individual substances are not only real, but are the very things which sustain the universal; but on the other hand, he clung to further relics of the Platonic theory, and it is those which differentiate the _Categories_ and the _Metaphysics_.

In the first place, in the _Categories_ the belonging of things in other categories to individual substances in the first category is not so well developed. A distinction (chap. 2) is drawn between things which are predicates of a subject ([Greek: kath upokeimenon]) and things which inhere in a subject ([Greek: en ipokeimeno]); and, while universals are called predicates of a subject, things in a subordinate category, i.e. attributes such as colour ([Greek: chroma]) in the qualitative, are said to inhere in a subject. It is true that the work gives only a negative definition of the inherent, namely, that it does not inhere as a part and cannot exist apart from that in which it inheres (1 a 24-25), and it admits that what is inherent may sometimes also be a predicate (chap. 5, 2 a 27-34). The commentators explain this to mean that an attribute as individual is inherent, as universal is a predicate. But even so the _Categories_ concludes that everything is either a predicate of, or inherent in, a substance; and the view that this colour belongs to this substance only in the sense of being in it, not of it, leaves the impression that, like a Platonic form, it is an entity rather in than of an individual substance, though even in the _Categories_ Aristotle is careful to deny its separability. The hypothesis of inherence gives an inadequate account of the dependence of an attribute on a substance, and is a kind of half-way house between separation and predication.

On the other hand, in the _Metaphysics_, the distinction between inherence and predication disappears; and what is more, the relation of an attribute to a substance is regarded as so close that an attribute is merely the substance modified. "The thing itself and the thing affected," says Aristotle, "are in a way the same; e.g. Socrates and Socrates musical" (_Met._ [Delta] 29, 1024 b 30-31). Consequently, all attributes, as well as universals, belong as predicates of individual substances as subjects, according to the _Metaphysics_, and also according to the most authoritative works of Aristotle, such as the _Posterior Analytics_, where (cf. i. 4, 22) an attribute ([Greek: symbebaekos]) is said to be only by being the substance possessing it, and any separation of an attribute from a substance is held to be entirely a work of human abstraction ([Greek: aphairesis]). At this point, Plato and Aristotle have become very far apart: to the master beauty appears to be an independent thing, and really separate, to the pupil at his best only something beautiful, an attribute which is only mentally separable from an individual substance. The first difference then between the _Categories_ and the _Metaphysics_ is in the nature of an attribute; and the theory of inherence in the _Categories_ is nearer to Plato and more rudimentary than the theory of predication in the _Metaphysics_. The second difference is still nearer to Plato and more rudimentary, and is in the nature of substance. For though both works rest on the reality of individual substances, the _Categories_ (chap. 5) admits that universal species and genera can be called substances, whereas the _Metaphysics_ ([Zeta] 13) denies that a universal can be a substance at all.

It is evident that in the category of substance, as Aristotle perceived, substance is predicate of substance, e.g. Socrates ([Greek: ousia]) is a man ([Greek: ousia]), and an animal ([Greek: ousia]). The question then arises, what sort of substance can be predicate; and in the _Categories_ Aristotle gave an answer, which would have been impossible, if he had not, under Plato's influence, accepted both the unity and the substantiality of the universal. What he said in consequence was that the substance in the predicate is not an individual substance, e.g. this man or this animal, because such a primary substance is not a predicate; but that the species man or the genus animal is the substance which is the predicate of Socrates the subject (_Cat._ 5, 3 a 36 seq.). Finding then that substances are real predicates, and supposing that in that case they must be species or genera, he could not avoid the conclusion that some substances are species or genera, which were therefore called by him "secondary substances," and by his Latin followers _substantiae universales_. It is true that this conclusion gave him some misgivings, because he recognized that it is a characteristic of a substance to signify an individual ([Greek: tose ti]), which a species or a genus does not signify (_ib._ 5, 3 b 10-21). Nevertheless, in the _Categories_, he did not venture to deny that in the category of substance a universal species (e.g. man), or genus (e.g. animal), is itself a substance. On the other hand, in the _Metaphysics_ ([Zeta] 13), he distinctly denies that any universal can be a substance, on the ground that a substance is a subject, whereas a universal is a predicate and a belonging of a subject, from which it follows as he says that no universal is a substance, and no substance universal. Here again the _Categories_ forms a kind of transition from Platonism to the _Metaphysics_ which is the reverse: to call universals "secondary substances" is half way between Plato's calling them the only substances and Aristotle's denial in the _Metaphysics_ that they are substances at all.

What conclusion are we to draw from these differences between the _Categories_ and the _Metaphysics_? The only logical conclusion is that the _Categories_, being nearer to Plato on the nature of attributes, and still nearer on the relation of universals to substances, is earlier than the _Metaphysics_. There are difficulties no doubt in drawing this conclusion; because the _Metaphysics_, though it denies that universals can be substances, and does not allow species and genera to be called "secondary substances," nevertheless falls itself into calling a universal essence ([Greek: to ti aen einai]) a substance---and that too in the very book where it is proved that no universal can be a substance. But this lapse only shows how powerful a dominion Plato exercised over Aristotle's soul to the last; for it arises out of the pupil still accepting from his master the unity of the universal though now applying it, not to classes, but to essences. The argument about essences in the _Metaphysics_ is as follows:--Since a separate individual, e.g. Socrates, is a substance, and he is essentially a rational animal, then his essence, being what he is, is a substance; for we cannot affirm that Socrates is a substance and then deny that this rational animal is a substance (_Met._ [Zeta] 3). Now, according to the unity of a universal asserted by Plato and accepted by Aristotle, the universal essence of species, being one and the same for all individuals of the kind, is the same as the essence of each individual: e.g. the rational animal in the human species and in Socrates is one and the same; "for the essence is indivisible" ([Greek: atomon gar to eisos], _Met._ [Zeta] 8, 1034 a 8). It follows that we must call this selfsame essence, at once individual and universal, substance--a conclusion, however, which Aristotle never drew in so many words, though he continued always to call essence substance, and definition a knowledge of substance.

There is therefore a history of Aristotle's metaphysical views, corresponding to his gradual method of composition. It is as follows:--

(1) Negative rejection of Plato's hypothesis of forms and formal numbers, and reduction of forms to the common in the early dialogue [Greek: peri philosophias] and in the early work [Greek: peri iseon].

(2) Positive assertion of the doctrine that things are individual substances in the _Categories_, but with the admission that attributes sometimes inhere in substance without being predicates of it, and that universal species and genera are "secondary substances."

(3) Expansion of the doctrine that things are individual substances in the _Metaphysics_, coupled with the reduction of all attributes to predicates, and the direct denial of universal substances; but nevertheless calling the universal essence of a species of substances substance, because the individual essence of an individual substance really is that substance, and the universal essence of the whole species is supposed to be indivisible and therefore identical with the individual essence of any individual of the species.

2. The _De Interpretatione._--Another example of Aristotle's gradual desertion of Plato is exhibited by the _De Interpretatione_ as compared with the _Prior Analytics_, and it shows another gradual history in Aristotle's philosophy, namely, the development of subject, predicate and copula, in his logic.

The short discourse on the expression of thought by language ([Greek: peri Ermaeneias], _De Interpretatione_) is based on the Platonic division of the sentence ([Greek: logos]) into noun and verb ([Greek: onoma] and [Greek: rema].) Its point is to separate the enunciative sentence, or that in which there is truth or falsity, from other sentences; and then, dismissing the rest to rhetoric or poetry (where we should say grammar), to discuss the enunciative sentence ([Greek: apophantikos logos]), or enunciation ([apophansis]), or what we should call the proposition (_De Int._ chap. 4). Here Aristotle, starting from the previous grammar of sentences in general, proceeded, for the first time in philosophical literature, to disengage the logic of the proposition, or that sentence which can alone be true or false, whereby it alone enters into reasoning. But in spite of this great logical achievement, he continued throughout the discourse to accept Plato's grammatical analysis of all sentences into noun and verb, which indeed applies to the proposition as a sentence but does not give its

## particular elements. The first part of the work confines itself strictly

to noun and verb, or the form of proposition called _secundi adjacentis_. Afterwards (chap. 10) proceeding to the opposition of propositions, he adds the form called _tertii adjacentis_, in a passage which is the first appearance, or rather adumbration, of the verb of being as a copula. In the form _secundi adjacentis_ we only get oppositions, such as the following:--

man is--man is not not-man is--not-man is not

In the form _tertii adjacentis_ the oppositions, becoming more complex, are doubled, as follows:--

man is just--man is not just man is non-just--man is not non-just not-man is just--not-man is not just not-man is non-just--not-man is not non-just.

The words introducing this form ([Greek: dtan de to esti triton proskategoretai], chap. 10, 19 b 19), which are the origin of the phrase _tertii adjacentis_, disengage the verb of being ([Greek: esti])

## partially but not entirely, because they still treat it as an extra part

of the predicate, and not as a distinct copula. Nor does the work get further than the analysis of some propositions into noun and verb with "is" added to the predicated verb; an analysis, however, which was a great logical discovery and led Aristotle further to the remark that "is" does not mean "exists"; e.g. "Homer is a poet" does not mean "Homer exists" (_De Int._ chap. 11).

How then did Aristotle get further in the logical analysis of the proposition? Not in the _De Interpretatione_, but in the _Prior Analytics_. The first adumbration was forced upon him in the former work by his theory of opposition; the complete appearance in the latter work by his theory of syllogism. In analysing the syllogism, he first says that a premiss is an affirmative or negative sentence, and then that a term is that into which a premiss is dissolved, i.e. predicate and subject, combined or divided by being and not being (_Pr. An._ i. 1). Here, for the first time in logical literature, subject and predicate suddenly appear as terms, or extremes, with the verb of being ([Greek: to einai]) or not being ([Greek: to me einai]) completely disengaged from both, but connecting them as a copula. Why here? Because the crossing of terms in a syllogism requires it. In the syllogism "Every man is mortal and Socrates is a man," if in the minor premiss the copula "is" were not disengaged from the predicate "man," there would not be one middle term "man" in the two premisses. It is not necessary in every proposition, but it is necessary in the arrangement of a syllogism, to extricate the terms of its propositions from the copula; e.g. mortal--man--Socrates.

This important difference between the _De Interpretatione_ and the _Prior Analytics_ can only be explained by supposing that the former is the earlier treatise. It is nearer to Plato's analysis of the sentence, and no logician would have gone back to it, after the Prior Analytics. It is not spurious, as some have supposed, nor later than the _De Anima_, as Zeller thought, but Aristotle in an earlier frame of mind.

Moreover we can make a history of Aristotle's thought and gradual composition thus:

(1) Earlier acceptance in the _De Interpretatione_ of Plato's grammatical analysis of the sentence into noun and verb (_secundi adjacentis_) but gradually disengaging the proposition, and afterwards introducing the verb of being as a third thing added (_tertium adjacens_) to the predicated verb, for the purpose of opposition.

(2) Later logical analysis in the _Prior Analytics_ of the proposition as premiss into subject, predicate and copula, for the purpose of syllogism; but without insisting that the original form is illogical.

3. The _Eudemian Ethics_ and _Magna Moralia_ in relation to the _Nicomachean Ethics._--Under the name of Aristotle, three treatises on the good of man have come down to us, [Greek: Ethika Nikomacheia] ([Greek: pros Nikomachon], Porphyry), [Greek: Ethika Eudemia] ([Greek: pros Eudemon], Porphyry), and [Greek: Ethika Megala]; so like one another that there seems no tenable hypothesis except that they are the manuscript writings of one man. Nevertheless, the most usual hypothesis is that, while the _Nicomachean Ethics_ (E.N.) was written by Aristotle to Nicomachus, the _Eudemian_ (E.E.) was written, not to, but by, Eudemus, and the _Magna Moralia_ (M.M.) was written by some early disciple before the introduction of Stoic and Academic elements into the Peripatetic school. The question is further complicated by the fact that three Nicomachean books (E.N. v.-vii.) and three Eudemian (E.E. [Delta]-[Zeta]) are common to the two treatises, and by the consequent question whether, on the hypothesis of different authorship, the common books, as we may style them, were written for the _Nicomachean_ by Aristotle, or for the _Eudemian Ethics_ by Eudemus, or some by one and some by the other author. Against the "Chorizontes," who have advanced various hypotheses on all these points without convincing one another, it may be objected that they have not considered Aristotle's method of gradual and simultaneous composition of manuscripts within the Peripatetic school. We have to remember the traces of his separate discourses, and his own double versions; and that, as in ancient times Simplicius, who had two versions of the _Physics_, Book vii ., suggested that both were early versions of Book viii . on the same subject, so in modern times Torstrik, having discovered that there were two versions of the _De Anima_,