Aristotle

“ Were Aristotle there, holding in his hand the strings and cables that tied together all the swinging and surging and lagging movements of the whole earth's life—an informed, pregnant Aristotle,—Ah! there would be the man to talk with! ”

“ In Physics, Aristotle scarcely deserves the name of a Philosopher.—As to his metaphysical opinions, in the common acceptation of the term,—it is impossible to ascertain, with certainty, what they really were. It was not until eighteen centuries after his death, that his philosophy—such as it was then promulgated, anew—began to be generally known and studied. ”

“ But the doctrine of course has its obscurities. Where, in the independently real world, which Aristotle all the while assumes, are the mere possibilities when they are not yet realized? If one fairly faces this question, one finds that the possibilities appear to be in some sense ideal. They suggest even to Aristotle his theory of Nature as desiring or willing the yet unfulfilled possibilities, — a theory to which he nowhere gives a perfectly rounded expression. ”

“ Aristotle, unconscious how much nearer to the truth this guess was than his own, laughs at it as the production of men "who try to square facts to their own fancies, and who wish to have a share in the arrangement of the Universe." ”

“ Aristotle, speaking generally, treated of every subject which came within the range of ancient thought, and if we regard matter, and not form or literary style, he treated of each of these subjects better than any one else. He also initiated many new branches of inquiry, dependent on observation and induction, and thus not only represented in himself the culmination of Greek speculative philosophy, but was also, as far as possible, the forerunner of modern science. ”

“ For a time Aristotle was tutor to Alexander, the king’s son, who was destined to achieve very great things of which we shall soon be telling. Aristotle’s work upon methods of thinking carried the science of Logic to a level at which it remained for fifteen hundred years or more, until the mediæval schoolmen took up the ancient questions again. He made no Utopias. Before man could really control his destiny as Plato taught, Aristotle perceived that he needed far more knowledge and far more accurate knowledge than he possessed. ”

“ Aristotle recognizes that the theory of the nature of the form or essence must be supported by observation of the actual individual. What is lacking is any body of observation which has value apart from some theory. He tests his theory by the observed individual which is already an embodied theory, rather than by what we are wont to call the facts. He refers to other observers to disagree with them. He does not present their observations apart from their theories as material which has existential value, independent for the time being of any hypothesis. ”

“ Aristotle has now done with Practical and Constructive Science. [1] He turns from Man with his disputations, reasonings, oratory, poetry, moral and social life, to the subjects of Speculative Science,—to Nature, the Universe, and God. ”

“ But when Aristotle defines God as pure Thought, the supreme Idea or Form, with no admixture of matter, it might seem that he had contradicted himself. It will be remembered, however, that in his system matter and form do not stand quite on an equality—matter is somewhat subordinate to form. He regarded matter as the point of departure for something higher—the clay being antecedent and lower than the pot, the bronze than the statue—for the higher product always results from the operation of the formal cause on the material. ”

“ Aristotle here inquires what the particular faculty or force may be which individualises, makes one, that is, of objects; and, thereby, gives to the sentient being the consciousness of identity. It cannot be a sense, as the senses are derived from the elements, and the elements are akin to matter, while that, whatever it be, which combines the faculties and powers of the body must, of all, be the most influential; and it may be inferred rather than gathered from what is said, that it cannot be either the Vital Principle or the mind. ”

“ Aristotle had such a wonderful grasp of mind, had so comprehensive knowledge, and was a man of so much constructive genius, that admiration of him paralyzed research in science for nearly two thousand years. ”

“ Thus Aristotle’s God, as viewed from the side of the world, looks at first like another real object, whose reality is wholly of the independent type. Yet if you examine closer the self-centred purity of Being that Aristotle’s lonely God possesses, you find that, although in regard to formal truth omniscient, and thus fully knowing what reality is, the God of Aristotle cannot regard his own reality as of any independent type. ”

“ In Aristotle’s view, the senses furnish both originem and exordium: the successive stages of mental procedure, whereby we rise from sense to universal propositions, are multiplied and gradual, without any break. He even goes so far as to say that we have sensible perception of the Universal. His language undoubtedly calls for much criticism here. We shall only say that it discountenances altogether the doctrine that represents the Mind or Intellect as an original source of First or Universal Truths peculiar to itself. ”

“ Aristotle was the first of the empiricists. He consistently maintained that sense is knowledge of particulars and the origin of scientific knowledge of universals. In his view, sense is a congenital form of judgment (δύναμις σύμφυτος κριτική, Post. An. ii. 19) ; a sensation of each of the five senses is always true of its proper object; without sense there is no science; sense is the origin of induction, which is the origin of deduction and science. ”

“ Aristotle especially, both by speculation and observation, arrived at some results which, had Greek freedom of thought continued, might have brought the world long since to its present plane of biological knowledge; for he reached something like the modern idea of a succession of higher organizations from lower, and made the fruitful suggestion of "a perfecting principle" in Nature.
With the coming in of Christian theology this tendency toward a yet truer theory of evolution was mainly stopped, but the old crude view remained, and as a typical example of it we may note the opinion of St. ”

“ The determination to keep God a reality and the world a reality and yet relate the two became the controlling motive of their thinking.
Aristotle in theory and application of theory has always a feeling for fact. The individual thing and the world of individual things are, for him, never negligible. Realised matter, life, the human spirit, human nature, are actualities and have their value as such. They are not all on the same level of being; they do not occupy the same rank; and it is the philosopher's business to determine their respective positions in the scale of being and value. ”

“ Then Aristotle, following out the method of his teachers, attempts to exhaust experience, and directs his inquiries into the outward world of sense and observation, but all with the view of discovering from phenomena the unconditional truth, in which he, too, believes. But every thing in this world is fleeting and transitory, and, therefore, it is not easy to arrive at truth. A cold doubt creeps into the experimental mind of Aristotle with all his learning and all his logic. ”

“ The 'Realisation' of Aristotle is the 'Reminiscence' of Plato.
This conception Aristotle extended to Thought, to the various forms of life, to education, to morals, to politics.
Thought is an entelechy, an organic whole, in which every process conditions and is conditioned by every other. If we begin with sensation, the sensation, blank as regards predication, has relations to that which is infinitely real,—the object, the real thing before us,—which relations science will never exhaust. ”

“ Aristotle at once maintains the primacy of metaphysics and vindicates the independence of the special sciences. He is at the same time the only Greek philosopher who clearly discriminated discovery and disputation, science and dialectic, the knowledge of a definite subject from its appropriate principles and the discussion of anything whatever from opinions and authority. On one side he places science and philosophy, on the other dialectic and sophistry. ”

“ Particular, we should note Aristotle’s final perplexities and contradictions, arising from his failure to harmonize or to transcend, by means of a new and self-consistent conception, the two currents, the Platonic and the specifically Aristotelian, which make up his thought. For, with him as with Plato, all Knowledge has to do with Reality: hence Reality alone, in the highest, primary sense of the word, can form the highest, primary object of Knowledge; Knowledge will be busy, primarily, with the Essence, the Substance of things. ”

“ In the old philosophy, a curious conjunction of ethical and physical prejudices had led to the notion that there was something ethically bad and physically obstructive about matter. Aristotle attributes all irregularities and apparent dysteleologies in nature to the disobedience, or sluggish yielding, of matter to the shaping and guiding influence of those reasons and causes which were hypostatised in his ideal 'Forms.' In modern science, the conception of the inertia, or resistance to change, of matter is complex. ”

“ Today the philosophy and logic of Aristotle are known throughout the world. Because they were interested in both natural and divine philosophy, furthering the development of the physical world of mankind as well as the intellectual, they rendered praiseworthy service to humanity. This was the reason of the triumph and survival of their teachings and principles. Man should continue both these lines of research and investigation so that all the human virtues, outer and inner, may become possible. ”

“ These two terms, which, as has been said, pervade and illustrate Aristotle's philosophical writings, are, themselves illustrated, as it were, here, under the forms of sleep and watching—the one, being the analogue of potentiality, and the latter, of reality—and thus knowledge, although possessed, yet, if not exercised, is only in potentiality; but when actually exercised, it is raised up and converted into reality. ”

“ Aristotle realized that proper progress in logic, physics, and ethics, the leading sciences of his time, could not be made unless the essential nature of science were kept in view. He saw that knowledge of the forms of correct thinking can be understood only by keeping in view the object of thought and this requires definite ideas of the general relations of knowledge and its objects. The study of general relationships led to the study of particular or special relations. ”

“ Aristotle's philosophy is a marvel—for his time: but his theory of the Universe is no more tenable than his Natural Science. The luxuriant growths of later Greek philosophy are interesting only to the curious investigators of the pathology of the human intellect. The vast [Pg 188] development of scholastic philosophy in the middle ages showed only how far unlimited ingenuity and subtlety may lead in the wrong direction, if it starts with mistaken principles. ”

“ We are told by Proclus [5] that Aristotle “proclaimed loudly in his dialogues that he was unable to sympathise with the doctrine of Ideas, even though his opposition to it should be attributed to a factious spirit.” The import of that doctrine was to disparage the world of sensible objects. It represented that when we, by means of our senses, apprehend, or think that we apprehend, particular objects, we are like men sitting in a dimly-lighted subterraneous cavern, and staring at shadows on the wall; that the world of sense is a world of shadows, but that a true world exists,—a world of Ideas ”

“ This is the capital defect in Aristotle’s eyes, who being eminently practical, could not like a theory which not only did not necessarily lead to action, but had a tendency to discourage it by enabling unreal men to talk finely. If true, the theory is merely a way of stating facts, and leads to no action. ”

“ For in all the world's history the rule has been that whenever men have thought deeply about a subject and know what Aristotle has written with regard to that subject, they have the liveliest admiration for the great Greek thinker. This is true for philosophy, logic, metaphysics, politics, ethics, dramatics, but it is also quite as true for physical science. ”

“ Subsidiary to his theory of knowledge, Aristotle discourses at some length, both in his treatise ‘On the Soul’ and in his ‘Physiological Tracts,’ on the Five Senses. He affirms that the sentient soul of man is able to discriminate between the properties of things, “because it is itself a mean or middle term between the two sensible extremes of which it takes cognisance,—hot and cold, hard and soft, wet and dry, white and black, acute and grave, bitter and sweet, light and darkness, &c. ”

“ He was the author of the first scientific cultivation of each science, and there was hardly any quality distinguishing a philosopher as such, which he did not possess in an eminent degree. Of all the philosophical systems of antiquity, that of Aristotle was the best adapted to the physical wants of mankind. His works consisted of treatises on natural, moral, and political philosophy, history, rhetoric, criticism,—indeed, there was scarcely a branch of knowledge which his vast and comprehensive genius did not embrace. His greatest claim to our admiration is as a logician. ”

“ Now Aristotle had present to his mind the conception of Inference as an entire process, enabling us from some particular truths to discover and prove other particular truths: he considers it as an unscientific process, of which to a limited extent other animals besides man are capable, and which, as operative under the title of Experience in mature practical men, is a safer guide than Science amidst the doubts and difficulties of action. ”