[1065b]
[1]
and "good" or "bad fortune" when
the result is on a large scale.Since
nothing accidental is prior to that which is per se, neither are
accidental causes prior. Therefore if chance or spontaneity is the
cause of the universe, mind and nature are prior causes.1 A thing may exist
only actually or potentially, or actually and potentially; it may be a
substance or a quantity or one of the other categories. There is no
motion2
apart from things, for change is always in accordance with the
categories of Being3; and there is nothing which is common to these and in
no one category. Each category belongs to all its members in two
ways—e.g. substance, for this is sometimes the form of the
thing and sometimes its privation;and as regards quality there is white and
black; and as regards quantity, complete and incomplete; and as
regards spatial motion there is up and down or light and
heavy—so that there are as many forms of motion and change
as there are of Being.4Now since every kind of thing is divided into the
potential and the real, I call the actualization of the potential as
such,5
motion.That this is
a true statement will be clear from what follows. When the "buildable"
in the sense in which we call it such exists actually, it is being
built; and this is the process of building. The same is true of the
processes of learning, healing, walking,
[20]
jumping, ageing, maturing. Motion results when the
complete reality itself exists, and neither sooner nor
later.The complete
reality, then, of that which exists potentially, when it is completely
real and actual, not qua itself but qua movable, is motion. By qua I mean this. The bronze is potentially a statue; but
nevertheless the complete reality of the bronze qua bronze is not motion. To be bronze is not the same as to be
a particular potentiality; since if it were absolutely the same by
definition the complete reality of the bronze would be a kind of
motion; but it is not the same.(This is obvious in the case of contraries;
for the potentiality for health and the potentiality for illness are
not the same—for if they were, health and illness would be
the same too—but the substrate which becomes healthy or ill,
whether it is moisture or blood, is one and the same.) And since it is
not the same, just as "color" and "visible" are not the same, it is
the complete reality of the potential qua
potential that is motion.It is evident that it is this, and that motion results when the
complete reality itself exists, and neither sooner nor later.
1 The argument is stated more fully and clearly in Aristot. Physics 2.6ff.. Chance produces indirectly the effects produced directly by mind; and spontaneity is similarly related to nature. But the indirect cause presupposes the direct. The argument is directed against the Atomists. Cf. Aristot. Phys. 196a 24, Simplicius 327.24, Cicero De Nat. Deor. 1.66 ("nulla cogente natura, sed concursu quodam fortuito").
2 The discussion of motion in this chapter consists of extracts from Aristot. Physics 3.1-3.
3 i.e., change is substantial (generation and destruction); quantitative (increase and decrease); qualitative (alteration); spatial (locomotion). Cf. Aristot. Met. 11.12.1, 2.
4 This is inaccurate; see previous note.
5 What Aristotle means by this is explained more clearly in the following sections, which may be summarized thus. The material substrate, e.g. bricks, etc., which is potentially a house, may be regarded (a) as potential material; in this sense it is actualized as bricks before building begins; (b) as potentially a house; in this sense when it is actualized it is no longer buildable but built, i.e., it is no longer potential; (c) as potentially buildable into a house. In this sense its actualization is conterminous with the process of building, and is incomplete (sect.11), and should not be described as ἐντελέχεια or "complete reality." But Aristotle often uses this term as synonymous with the vaguer ἐνέργεια.
Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols.17, 18, translated by Hugh Tredennick. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1933, 1989.
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