Aristoteles # Guthrie (the Development of Aristotle_s Theology. I) BB

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The Development of Aristotle's Theology-I

W. K. C. Guthrie

The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 3/4. (Jul. - Oct., 1933), pp. 162-171.

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARISTOTLE'S THEOLOGY-1.'THEwork of Professor Jaeger on th e Aristotelian metaphysics, and its modifica-tion by the late Ha ns von Arnim, have raised many new points of the greatest interest,and may, I hope, be considered as having opened up a large and fascinating new fieldfor discussion rather than as having closed the matter.2 I t is a subject which mustbe considered as a whole. There would be little profit in writing short notes onisolated points in the arguments of the two scholars. Anyone who, possessed of some

previous acquaintance with the Aristotelian corpus, reads thei r work is inevitablystimulated to retu rn to Aristotle with his mind full of fresh ideas. If after a re-examination of the tex ts he feels he has a different story to tell, he must tell i t forhimself. Th at is my excuse for an account which must include much which wasalways known and much which (as I would gratefully acknowledge) has arisen out ofth e work of Jaeger and von Arnim. My conclusions are not the same as theirs, andthe argument must stand or fall as a consistent whole.In working out th e theory of motion on which, in his developed metaphysics, theexistence of the Unmoved Mover was based, A. seems to have taken as his startingpoint the position of Plato in the theology of Laws X. Spontaneous motion is priorto communicated, therefore the primary cause of motion must be that which movesitself. Do we know of anything answering to that description ? Yes, says Plato,soul, the vital principle, is an example, and the only example, of a self-mover: there-fore the F irs t Cause is soul.Starting from the conception that the primary cause of motion is that whichmoves itself, A. was compelled by further work on the theory of motion to modifythis into the conception of a mover which was itself unmoved. This was no quibble,but th e outcome of two principles fundamental to his philosophy. (a) There was hisexplanation of motion (in the wide sense of the philosophical term K ~ V ~ U L S )n terms ofhis twin conceptions of potency and act-~b 62 8vvdpc~ 1 ~ pa6l(c~. 8'$~ E ~ ~ X E L ~ V ZUTLK ~ V ~ U L S KLVI~TOGb~ ch 'j s- m~ ti ~n actualization of a potency.vr~ hlx c~a is the incom$ete(b) There was his principle that the agent of motion must itself be already existing inactuality. r b 62 KLVOCV$67 dvcPyclp.du~lv,O?OVeppalvc~ 6 Ocppbv ~ a ljhos ycvvg rb ZXOVT A ~ 2 0 s . These two principles taken together mean that if we speak of a thing movingitself we are saying that it is both in actuality and in potentiality a t the same time inrespect to the same act of change. h e ' ;pa r b a6rb K U T (~ ~b a h 6 Bcppbv Zurat KU; 068~pp6v. To put it in another way, since potential and actual are relative terms, athing cannot be at the same time in two different stages of actuality. If then we aregoing to avoid the infinite regress and have a first mover at all, it must be somethingwhich initiates motion while itself remaining ~ n m o v e d . ~Now according to Pla to in the Laws, not only the outermost sphere of the fixedstars, but also the sun, moon and planets had self-moving souls; but he is insistent onthis, that one soul must be in supreme control. This we may safely say was the soulwhich moved th e outermost sphere. Th at the outermost heaven should be the seatof divinity was a tenet of age-old belief. Moreover, Plato's reason for believing th atthe soul which had supreme control was a good soul was his observation that the

1 I am grateful to Mr. R. Hackforth, who has Berlin, 1923 : H. von Arnim, die Entstehung dcrread this paper and made several important Gotteslehre des A . , Vienna, 1931.corrections. 3 This is the argument of P l ~ y s .VIII. 257bW. Jaeger, relevant chapters in Aristoteles, 2.13.


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W. K. C . G U T H R I E motions of the heaven were regular, and this regularity was only to be seen to per-fection in the motion of the outermost sphere.

According then to the progf of the existence of God which Plato gives here, thehighest divinity is to be ascribed to the soul of the first heaven. I t moves itself, andby its motion controls the motions of everything else in the universe. In the phil-osophy of Metaphysics A, on the other hand, it has necessarily been degraded to theposition of first intermediary, first of those things which impart motion because them-selves moved from outside. The ultimate source of motion lies yet higher. Thequestion is, are there traces of a stage in A.'s thought when the outermost sphere byits own self-caused revolutions was still in supreme command ? I t has been suggestedthat the question may be answered by examining the properties of the substance ofwhich A. believed that outermost sphere to be composed. That substance wasaether.

There is no need to enumerate all the various, more or less confused, uses ofa18fjp in earlier thought. Where it was no one doubted. I t was that substance whichfilled the upper reaches of the air in the regions where divinity was supposed todwell. Hence it was purer than the air we breathe down here near the earth, butsometimes believed to be the same sort of thing. and aE8ljp can be found usedindifferently by the poets. Others, on the other hand, identified it with fire. This isa mistake which A. himself believes to have been made by Anaxagoras.

I t was also an old belief that the aether was either the seat of divinity or itselfGod. This may well have arisen in the first place from the age-old connexionbetween air and life. The breath is the life. That the human soul is air breathed infrom outside was the opinion of Anaximenes. Cicero says it was a belief of thePythagoreans and A. attributes it to an Orphic X6yos. W e see the further stage in,for example, Heraclitus, who is quoted as saying : ' W e draw in the divine reason bybreathing and so become wise.'' The same idea, which must have been a common-place, recurs in Diogenes of Apollonia.2 How far in a matter like this popularbelief has influenced the philosophers, and how far it has been the other way round,it is not to our present purpose to inquire, but the idea does of course reappear innon-philosophical writers with all the stress laid on the divinity of the element, whichthe theory implies. And aether shares these attributes with air. For Heraclitus aircontained the ~ E ~ O S In Euripides the aetherdyos, and for Diogenes it was God.appears now as the home of Zeus, now as Zeus hi m ~ e l f .~

All this was behind A., as well as Plato's more strictly metaphysical expositionthat there must be a soul behind the movements of the heavenly bodies. The firstthing he did was characteristic : he proceeded to clear up the existing confusion andshow what in his opinion the aether definitely was not. I t had been confused bothwith air and with fire, but in truth, said A. (Meteor. 1.3.33gb 18ff.), it cannot be any ofthe four elements which occur on or immediately around this earth. One reason forthis he drew from his interest in the modern developments of astronomy. I t hadrecently been demonstrated that the stars were an immense distance away, and werereally bodies of an enormous size. Our earth had become a quite insignificant partof the universe. This being so, the substance which fills the vast interstellar spacescannot be one of the four elements which make up the terrestrial world. That wouldhave conflicted with another of the fundamental physical beliefs of A., that any ofthe four elements could, and constantly did, change into any other, and that thereforethere existed roughly the same amount of them. If we look at the supposition thatthe aether might be fire, we can see this much more simply. If fire preponderated in

1 Anaximenes ap. Aet . Plac. I . 3. 4 (RP 24), 2 Simpl . Phys. 152. 11 ( R P 210). Theophr.Cic. N.D. I . 11. 27, Arist. dc A n. I . 5. q o b 27, Seas. 42, Cic. N.D. I . 12.Heraclitus ap. Sext. Math. 7. 129 (RP 41) . 3 Frr. 487, 87 7 Nauck. Cp. Hcl. 1016.


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164 W. K. C. GUTHRIEth e universe to tha t extent , then, said A., al l th e other elements would long ago havebeen consumed by i t and have disappeared.T h e aethe r then is neither air nor fire, bu t definitely a fifth elem ent for A., andits n atu re is fully described in th e first book of Dc caelo. I t will be best to statebriefly before going further von Arnim's argument for separating off an earlier and alate r stage of A s's thoug ht. T h e idea is th at , a s described in De caeZo, the revolvingsph ere of aeth er ha s the principle of i ts motion entirely within i tself, th at i t isimpossible tha t A. could hav e described i t as he does there if he had al ready workedout in his mind the doctr ine of an unm oved mover a s the ul t imate source of mot ion.T h e ae ther in Dc caelo is a t ru e sel f-mover, and moreover, i t i s argued, Phys. I -V I a rebaked on t he sam e foundation, nam ely tha t th e +6uss within things is an all-sufficientolpx+ K L V ~ ~ U C W S .Phys. V I I a nd V I I I show us a new development, which i s car ri ed oninto th e theology of Met. A and can never be reconciled wi th th e earlier scheme.T h e discussion takes us a s far back a s the dialogue De philosopkia, for in a frag-m ent of that Ja eger claim s to see the U nmo ved Mover al ready es tabl ished, and if hehas proved his point the above-mentioned theory of developme nt obviously falls tothe ground. O ne would scarcely t ry to defend i t by assert ing the dialogue to belater than De caelo.T h e f ragme nt in quest ion has two fea tures which make i t easy fo r ei ther partyin a contro versy to discover there som e evidence for his own point of view. Fir st ,th e introductory sentence as printed by Rose says that in th e third book ofDe Phil . A. did not disagree with Plato. T h e Inon, ' how ever, is an insertion byM anut iu s and does not app ear in th e manuscripts . Th is leaves one free either tofollow the editor of the fragm ents of A. or to delete th e 'non, ' according to choice.I n this m at ter von Arnim, i t m ust be admit ted, took a high-handed line. Jaeger cu tou t the ' non ' and referred in a footnote to the fact that i t was Manut ius ' insert ion,to i t s unsui tabi li ty to th e argume nt , and to i t s impossibi li ty on s tyl is tic gro und s; yetvon Arnim, wri ting later and express ly against Jaeger 's in terpretation, reprints Rose 'stex t witho ut a word of comm ent. Of course, if th e 'no n ' is Cicero's, it becomesdifficult to argue against von Arnim's view at all , al though if i t is to be excisedwith Jaeger i t does not follow tha t on th e contrary Jaeger ' s view is correct .T h e second po in t about th i s passage i s tha t i t i s pu t by Cicero in to th e mouthof an Epic urean cri t ic whose object i s to show that A.'s thoug hts were m uddled.Consequently he gives an inconsistent picture, probably by distorting his source.Ev en so his cr it icism does not alwa ys hi t the m ark. Final ly , the passage is inLat in .T h e passage is printed by Rose in t he Te ubn er fragments of A. a s follows(fr. 26) :

Cicero de eat. deor. I. 33 (ex persona Epicurei ) : Aristotelesque in tert io dephi losophia l ibro m ul ta turbat a 'm ag is t ro suo Platone non dissent iens . Modo enimm ent i t r ibui t om nem divinitatem, mod0 m undu m ipsum deu m dici t esse, mod0 al iumquen dam praeficit mun do eique eas partes t r ibui t u t repl icat ione quad am mun dimotum regat atq ue tueatur . T um cael i ardorem deum dicit esse, non intel ligenscaelum mundi esse partem, quem alio loco ipse designarit deum. Q uo mod0 au temcaeli divinu s il le sen sus in celeri tate tanta cons ervari potest ? Ubi deinde illi tot dii,s i num eramu s e t iam cae lum deum 7 Cu m au tem sine corpore idem vul t esse deum,omni i l lum sensu privat , e t iam prudent ia . Quo porro mod0 moveri carens corpore,au t qu o mod0 semper se m ovens esse qu ie tus e t bea tus po tes t ?

T hi s p assage ha s b een discussed in detail b y von A rnim (Gotteslehvc, pp. I-7),a n d I wa nt here to do l i t tle more tha n express m y agreement wi th his ge neral con-clusion that Jaeger has been unwarrantably hasty in seeing in i t the UnmovedMover . I t i s re fer red to , he says, in the wo rds : 'modo a l ium quendam praefici t


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T H E D E V E L O P M E N T O F A R I ST OT L E'S T HE OL OG Y-I. 165mundo eique eas partes tribuit ut replicatione quadam mundi motum regat atquetueatur.' These words and nothing else form his ground for saying, as he does withconviction, that the Unmoved Mover is already worked out in De Phil.

It would, I think, be legitimate to argue that it is difficult to be dogmatic in theface of the general confusion of the passage, where no less than four hypotheses areoffered. More definite is von Arnim's objection to the use, if Jaeger's claim is true,of the word ' replicatio.' ' Backward-rolling ' (' eine Art riicklaiifiger Drehung ' isJaeger's own translation) is scarcely an apt description of the action of theUnmoved Mover on the apGrov K L V O ~ ~ E V O V , sphere of fixed stars.he outermost theI t could, however, be applied to the motion of the inner spheres, those of the sun, moon,and planets, in relation to that of the outermost. Von Arnim therefore thought it atleast possible that the god who ' replicatione quadam mundi motum regat ' is themover of one or all of these inner spheres. That they should have movers distinctfrom that of the outermost sphere corresponds, as he points out, to the late meta-physic of Met. A. 8. (At this stage, of course, ' mover ' means indwelling soul,at the later stage external mover moving as the object of desire.) For reasonswhich will become plain later I should not wish to support the theory by referenceto this correspondence. I should prefer t o refer back again to Plato's theologyin Laws X, where, after the proof that the first mover must be soul, he says (898d):

"HXLOV a lacXljvrlv ~ a ih dhXa Barpa, ci'rcp +vx;7 rcp~ciyciacivra, JP' 06 ~ a i2v P ~ a c r ~ o v

Ti p.4~;H e leaves it at that, and in his conclusion to the whole argument adopts the note ofvagueness which is so much more easily pardoned to the imaginative genius of themaster than to his more prosaic pupil:

Von Arnirn considers it not unthinkable' that the motions of all the planets, thesun and the moon, might at one period have been ascribed to the office of one andthe same god. I agree, and would mention especially in this connexion that one ofA.'s most inviolable principles is economy. When the argument from motion inPhys. V III has led him to the postulate of the Unmoved Mover he says : clacp 02v &t8~0sI j ~ivr]ais, t8~0vat r b ~ ~ v o v ^ v 1 82 ~Xclo,~Xciw & &&?ha. "Ev 82xara~apGrov, 1 Zv .p2XXov 4 TOAX&, ~ a lsacpacrptva 4 drecpa Sci vopi[civ. dciGv a&Gv yap ov~/3a~v6vrwv,T& rercpaoptva p2XXov Xrl rrhov.In any case, interesting as it would be to have a positive theory about the authorof the ' replicatio,' it is not essential to the present argument. That demands onlythat we should cast legitimate doubt on Jaeger's assertion that it was the UnmovedMover which moves as object of desire: and that I think we have done, especially ashe only thinks it necessary to state his belief, and brings no further arguments insupport of it. W e can notice too that among other hypotheses with which A. iscredited by his Epicurean opponent is the belief that the aether (caeli ardorem) wasGod, a being, it would seem, possessed of sense and reason. W e can notice it, butwe cannot say whether the impression left with a reader of the dialogue was that thiswas A.'s real conviction. I t is left by the Epicurean to take its chance along withthe other three hypotheses which he claims to have found there. I t looks very muchas if this handle for criticism was provided because A. was still following Plato'sexample in one respect, and, like Plato in the Laws, had left more than onesuggestion because he did not yet feel capable of making a choice in the matter.

1 Cp. Lass 898e, 899a. Three possibilities Again the vagueness, so pardonable in Plato, soare mentioned, and the conclusion is sot70 pkv impossible in A. ! But why ?d v d y ~ v ,ocirw Ev y& rc 8pOaav +vxi)v rbvra Gtbyeiu.


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166 W. I(. C. GUTHRIEThere is one more passage which seems finally to dispose of Jaeger's hasty

assumption of the presence of the Unmoved Mover. It i s interesting too as suggest-ing the possibility that A.'s beliefs about the aether may have gone through threestages : (i) he accepted the earlier and popular belief that the aether was a true godwith a mind of its own, and that its circular motion therefore was due to the actionof its own will: (ii) when his own theory of nature was further advanced, and hethought of +&LS as the Lpxij ~ t v < u e w s v a h $ of everything, he applied this to theaether as well and said that not only motion up and down but also circular motionmust be natural : (iii) he subordinated it to the Unmoved Mover.

The passage (fr. 24, Rose) runs as follows :Cicero de eat. deor. 11. 44 : Nec vero Aristoteles non laudandus in eo quod omnia

quae moventur aut natura moveri censuit aut vi aut voluntate, moveri autem solemet lunam et sidera omnia : quae autem natura moverentur, haec aut pondere deorsumaut levitate in sublime ferri, quorum neutrum astris contingeret, propterea quodeorum motus in orbem circumque ferretur. Nec vero dici potest vi quadam maiorefieri ut contra naturam astra moveantur. quae enim potest maior esse ? restat igiturut motus astrorum sit voluntarius. quae qui videat, non indocte solum verum etiamimpie faciat, si deos esse neget.

This is a much clearer and more definite statement than that of the Epicurean,and two important points emerge: (i) The fact that circular motion is not yetthought of by A. along with upward and downward as one of the natural motions:(ii) the assumption that there can be no influence superior to the stars.

The motion of the stars is due to their being possessed of will, and the object ofthe argument is a refutation of atheism by bringing forward the heavenly bodies asexamples of divinity. If what we have in Cicero is a true representation of anAristotelian argument, it represents a curious phase of his thought which seems to bean attempt to get away from the Platonic position but does not square with his ownlater teaching. That the aether possessed mind and will may well have been a beliefthat he retained in his developed theology. It must certainly be capable of orexis ifit is to respond to the influence of the Unmoved Mover as object of desire, and itsposition in the cosmological hierarchy suggests that it had much higher facultiesthan t hat: but the idea of contrasting its voluntary motion with natural motionhas entirely disappeared. If it revolves, that is because circular motion as well asupward and downward is one of the simple, natural motions, and is the motionproper to it as being neither light nor heavy. For the possibility of this other,experimental, form of the belief we have no further evidence than is provided by thisone passage.

For the second stage, if we are going to accept a division between that and thefinal one, our evidence is the very full description of the nature of aether which A.gives in De cuelo, book I.

First its existence is made to follow from a description of the only two kinds ofsimple local motion : rrGrra 62K I ~ Y L S~ a r h K U X O G ~ E V i j K ~ K X ~ Jv T ~ T O V , +opdv, i j E ; B E ~ ~i j ;K r o 6 r w v P L K T ~- (i?~Xaihp aikas 6 60 p d v a ~ . The four terrestrial elements have theirown natural motions, earth and water downwards, air and fire upwards (i.e. to orfrom the centre of the kosmos), that is to say, two of them are heavy and two light.But since circular motion is also simple (constant) and natural, there must be anotherelement whose nature it is to move in a circle, and which therefore is neither heavynor light. Circular motion is primary because perfect, and the body whose naturalmotion it is is immortal and immutable. Then in a passage which partly repeats thatof the Metcorologica, A. declares that the ancient belief was right which called it God.

The argument that there is not yet any unmoved mover in the Aristotelianscheme of things, but that the first heaven is still the highest god, rests to a large


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T H E D E V E L O P M E N T O F A R I S T O T L E ' S T H E O L O G Y - I . 167extent on probabilities, though there is one passage which makes it very difficultindeed to escape. Apart from that I should say that it rested on probabilities,though the author of the argument (von Arnim) regarded them as more. Hisreasoning is that anything which has an i p x 4 K l ~ i ) f f f ~ sv a6 7 y has no need of a moverfrom outside. Consequently not only Dc caelo I , which describes the aether as con-taining such a principle of motion, was written before it had occurred to A. that theprime mover must be unmoved, but also Phys. I-VI. At the beginning of Phys. 11,Nature is described as a force, the principle which causes movement or rest in thatin which it inheres.' Given such a principle, it is argued, the need for an ex ~e rn almover ceases, and such a mover would be otiose. It is here that the argumentseems to go astray. I t may well be that A. had decided on the existence of aninherent principle of motion before his whole theory of motion was so far elaboratedas to have reached its culmination in the Unmoved Mover. But it does not there-fore follow that Plys. I-VI , as well as a great deal more of his remains, would in hisown opinion better have been thrown away because they represented an outworntheory which could not be squared with his later views. Having reached the stageof his argument where he had to posit an unmoved mover, he could look back andsee that this was just a fitting climax and what all his theories of motion had beenleading up to. It did not contradict them.W e cannot believe that A. at any stage of his life thought that imperfect thingswould grow, or develop, or exercise as well a s they could their own proper functions,if there did not exist somewhere some perfect object under the influence of whoseperfection, whether mediately or immediately, all this growth and movement wastaking place.2 This amounts to saying tha t he was a Platonist by temperament,which indeed I should admit. H e was brought up to believe in a world of pattern-Ideas (that a t least was how he saw them), and later came to the conclusion tha t theywere not a satisfactory explanation of becoming. But one thing he clung to all hislife as a result of his early acceptance of the doctrine, and it was this belief in thenecessity of one eternally existing perfection if the forces of Nature were not goingto remain sunk in useless inactivity. I t is not therefore necessary on a priori groundsto say that the heaven is a self-mover in the Platonic sense simply because it is saidto have the principle of its motion within itself. That principle is in essence aG6vap~s(since the ae ther is corporeal), and may still depend on an external agent i f itis to be called into activity. i c i y Q 2~ TOG S C V & ~ . ~ L E L ~ i )vcpycIp 8 v h bV T O S Y i y v ~ ~ a ~I v r p y ~ l piv~os. The one does not exclude the other. The two are complementary.

The argument then that the heaven is st21 a t rue self-mover for A. when hewrote De caelo, so far a s it depends on the statement th at it is made of a materialwhose nature it is to move in a circle, cannot be said to be certain. Nor can thestatement that it is divine be said to prove the point. W e see in Met. A that thepostulate of the Unmoved Mover does not preclude the possibility of there beingother substances which deserve that title. I t may yet be added, first that al l thelanguage of this first book of De caelo is calculated-to make one believe that the1 rgzb 20 . &s oFiuqs rijs $dueus dpxijs rrvos aat spaterer Zusatz lines. It is true that the K ~ K A ~alrias 700 ~rvei uea r ai tjpapeiv t i * $ irrrdpxer X ~ ~ T W S &pd of the heaven is not strictly a ~ i v v u t sNUB'ah76 ~ a l+ ~ a r d u p p e p q ~ b s . according to developed Aristotelianism, since2 Contrast Arn. Gotteslehre, p. 11. It is diffi- ~ ~ v q r o 0 and inlvqurr is 6vraAI~ a ta 700 dreA35,cult to understand how Arn. was led in to this circular motion the heaven realizes its form as

mistake, since the point is illustrated from completely as it can. Th at corresponds for it toPhys. I1 itself. Cp. 1g8a 37 ff. Arrrat 61 a1 ipxal the st ate of rest in their natura l places for thea1 ~rvo0uar+uur~r j s , v I j ir4pa 03 +UULK$. 06 ybp lower elements, not their motions towards them.Cxer ~t v$ ue ws rpx+v Cv ~ 6 7 5 .~oroGrov6' Purrv el rr (See below.) I point this out gladly, since IK ~ V B . . . rdAos ydp agree with Arn.'s conclusions here, though not? K L V O ~ L L F V O ~ . a al 06 hvaaa.6 u ~ e& r e;I j # d m s r a 6 - r ~ ~ with all his arguments.vexd T O U , a l ~ l6 Cv ar e i.Perhaps this too was to be explained away on


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W. K. C . GUTHRIE aether is the first of all substances and not only a god but G od ; secondly, that thereis one passag e where the possibility of an y higher being to w hich it owes its m ove-ment is expressly denied (D c caclo 1.9fin.) :'

' And so th e sum of th e existence of the whole heaven is cal led a ldv, taking tha tnam e fro m Bc1


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THE D E V E L O P M E N T O F A RIS T O T L E 'S T H E O L O G Y -I. 169was the principle of life, and not only of life but of thought. For the aether was thatsubstance, purer than our air, which occupied the outer reaches of space where theheavenly bodies were.

The second stage comes when he wants to examine this substance, aether, whichhe had only taken over from previous belief, and fit it with more care into his ownphysical scheme. This contained the four elements, each with its natural motion,and so the aether took its place beside them as a fifth element, also with its ownproper motion, revolution in a circle. To prove that this, as well as motion up ordown, was one of the primary, simple motions was not hard. As it becomes morephysical, the more spiritual of its attributes as divinity retreat rather unsatisfactorilyinto the background. The word divine is retained, but the divinity is only shown bymeans of attributes proper to the physical argument-eternity, immutability, andsupremacy to all other motions, of which it is the cause.

Finally comes the third stage, when the investigations of the Physics have led tothe principle ' No movement without an external mover, and the primary mover ofall must be unmoved.'

If this is true, the interesting fact that emerges is that A. must have gone througha stage of pure materialism, the second stage, represented by at least the first book ofDe caelo. When he had given up the Ideas, he started to work on the notion that theheaven had a soul because it moved itself; but as he worked at it, and a t his ownphysical theories as well, the element of soul in it became more and more difficult toretain. I t is quite definitely a fifth body in De caelo, and its motion is no more to beattributed to soul than are the motions of earth and water. That A. did for a timegive up the notion that the aether was in any way besouled seems to me clear fromthe general arguments of De caelo, but more especially from a particular passage inbook I1 (284a 18 ff.) :

'Therefore we must not suppose such a state of affairs as we find in the myth ofthe ancients, who say that it owes its safety to an Atlas. I t looks as if those whomade up that story had the same notion as later thinkers, who spoke of the higherbodies as if they were earthy and had weight, and for that reason assumed for it justlike the mythologists a constraint dependent on soul.' ( h r r i u r ~ u a v ~ U O L K G S&$ ~ v & ~ K ~ vE p $ u ~ o v ) . H e has to call it rb rrpGrov rGv uw p&rw v even when he is dwelling on thosequalities in it which were most definitely divine: A L ~ T L2v O ~ V ~ a l~ S C O V 0 3 ~ ' 3E7rlcrrvEXov O ~ T E+ O I U L V , i h h ' dyrjparov ~ a lvah holw rov ~ a > ~ b rrpGrov rG v u w p k w vrraOhs Z U T L. . . 4avcpbv Z K TGV c ~ P 7 p i ~ w ~U T ~ V .

And that was the highest of all existing substances. Perhaps he would havebeen willing to face the facts even if that had proved the furthest to which histhoughts would lead him ; but it must have been a great relief when more work onthe theories of motion brought the result (consummating, not contradicting) that theultimate reality was not corporeal. The Unmoved Mover, with all its shortcomingsfrom a religious point of view, escapes materialism at least, and to have reached it asthe final step in a series of arguments from material motion must have seemed atriumph indeed if we are right in our supposition of all that had gone before. Forwhatever Aristotle's temperament may have been, it was not that of a materialist.

This theory finds no contradiction in De caelo I. If we except the passage 27ga18 ff.,which has been discussed, there is nothing there to indicate that A. thought ofanything else but the ?rpGrov uGpa as the highest of all substances, which by itsnatural self-motion causes, directly or indirectly, all subsequent motion, change, birthand decay. The rest of the treatise seems to be built on the same metaphysicalfoundation, but those who would defend the position in the subsequent books too haveto admit that there are two unmistakable though surprisingly isolated references tothe Unmoved Mover and the impossibility of self-motion.


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170 W. K. C . GUTHRIET o est imate the s ignif icance of this we must tak e three things into ac co un t :( I ) H o w st rong is the general impression produced by th e books tha t they ar e teach-

in g a philosophy in which th e Unmo ved Mover h as no place ? (2 ) In what sor t o fway a re the ment ions of th e Unm oved Mover introduced ? Na turally, a s if in theirproper place in th e argum ent , or a s if the context could s tand equal ly well wi thoutt h em ? (3 ) I f we regard them as la te r add it ions to the book, what a re w e to sup -pose actually took place ? I s i t possible to ima gine a natura l process by which theycould h ave found their way there ?O n th e f irst point i t should be unnecessary to s ay an y more. T h e t w o m e n t io n sof t he Unm oved Mover occu r in books I 1 and IV1, the f i rs t being in book 11,chapter 6.T h e ob jec t of th is chap ter i s to p rove tha t th e mot ion of the ou termos t sphere i s a t aconstant speed. N o less tha n four proofs ar e given, of which the f irs t and third areperfect ly consis tent wi th th e view tha t th e aethe r a s self-mover is th e sup rem e being.T h e four th a rgume nt ment ions th e M over, say ing s imply tha t i t i s unreasonableto suppose tha t rb KLVOGV should first show incapacity for an infinite t ime, and after-wa rds capaci ty for another infinity . (Von Arnim is uncertain w hether to supposethis argument to belong to a later revis ion or to imagine that original ly K ~ V O ~ , U E V O Vs tood in th e place of K L V O G V . ) T h e second argumen t s tar t s wi th th e thesis es tabl ishedin Phys. 8 : ' Eve rything moved is moved from outside, ' an d goes on to say tha ttherefore an y i rregulari ty in the mov eme nt m ust proceed from ei ther the m overor the object moved. B u t i t has been proved tha t the object moved, th e aether ,is s imple and indest ruct ible and al together free from change of an y sort ; a fortiorithen i t is impossible th at irregularity should com e from th e side of t he mover, fortha t which moves another is even less subject to change th an tha t which i t moves,because i t is m ore actual, less tramm elled with potentiali ty. If th en the object movedwhich is corporeal does not change, n either will the Move r w hich is incorporeal change.I t i s permiss ible to not ice, af ter what we have al ready seen abo ut the generalpresuppositions of De caelo, tha t these additional arg um ent s ar e entirely unneces-sary. Tw o other argum ents are given which sufficiently prove th e regulari ty of themotion of the fi rst heaven from i ts own nature alone. T h e sam e may be said of th eother ment ion of an e xternal mover, which occurs in book I V , chapter 3. T h e s u b-ject of this chap ter i s the reason why some things move up and some down. W h a tis the m eaning of heavy an d l ight ? This is explained on familiar Aristotelian l inesa s being ent irely paral lel to other form s of change. All al ike ar e th e actualizationof a potency, an instanc e of som ething striving to reach i ts own form. Air in fact

has n ot com pleted i ts becom ing until i t ha s reached th at particu lar part of up per spac ewhich is proper to i t . On ly there does i t exist in an actuali ty which is a s comp letea s is poss ible for i t . T hi s discussion goes on at som e length, and then a t the end ofth e chap ter i s a s ingle sentence in wh ich reference is made, wi thout explanat ion anda s i t were in a footnote, to the doctrine established in Phys. 8:(311a 9.) But the movement is also due to the original creat ive force andto tha t which removes the hindrance . . . as was explained . . . when we t r iedto show t ha t no ne of these th ings m oves itself.' ( 3 u ? i c p c i ' p p r l ~ a i . . . ;V 0% ~ L O P ~ [ O , U E V

87' o;OZV ~ 0 6 a ; ~ b;aura K L V E ? . )~T hi s is not only superf luous, bu t not particularly ap posi te a s a n appendage to aseries of argu m en ts which explain th e nat ure of thing s by re ference to th e two pr in -ciples of potentiality and act.1 Book 3 does not mention it. According to not examined this passage with sufficient inde-

von Arnim it even states again expressly that pendence and owe to Mr. Hackforth the obser-the ultimate author of motion must be a self- vation that A. is in this paragraph arguingmover. He quotes 3oob 21 e i 7 9 v r p h v v K I V ~ U L V dialectically, and is reproducing, as he says ap+ gle K I Y C ~ Y ( I A A b ~ a 7 b d u iv . 7 6 7% K L V O G V few lines above, the position of the Timaws .6 v d y n q ~ t v s i v d 7 6 , ~ t v o l S p rv o v~ a + d o i v .d I had


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THE D E V E L O P M E N T O F ARISTOTLE 'S THEOLOGY-I . 171Wh at then are we to make of all this ? In the first place, I think things becomeconsiderably easier if my belief is true, that the Unmoved Mover, when it did appearon the scene, appeared only to put the coping-stone on the previous construction,not to shake its foundations. This is shown particularly well in the passage lastquoted. The bulk of the chapter has been only an application of the principlesof th e first books of the Physics. All change and motion is to be regarded as theactualization of a potency. ofhis actualization takes place because the 46~~sthings is something dynamic, an inward urge towards the realization of form. Butby the time the investigations of the Physics were completed by the theories ofbooks V II and V II I, A. had logical proof of what he had always believed to be true,but would not allow himself to sta te until the proof was ready to hand, namely thatthis inward urge would remain dormant unless there were actually existent someexternal perfection to awaken it , by instilling the desire of imitation, in so far a sthat was possible for each thing in its own particular mode of being.*It is reasonable then that in a treatise intended for use within the school anaddition of the nature of the last sentence of De caelo IV. 3 may well have been madeby A. himself. H e had worked out a treat ise on the first heaven with the assump-tions of the first few books of the Physics, that each element has a natural motionproper to it, the source of the motion lying within it. Th en , after satisfactorilyproving that this was not the whole truth, but that the ultimate source of motionwas really something else and incorporeal, a consummation which I ventured to sayhe had always desired, he regarded this rightly as not conflicting with the doctrine ofan inner source of motion but perfecting it. All he did therefore with the actualmanuscript was to add a note to that effect here and there. This is not enough togive the uninitiated reader an impression of true unity in the treatise, but a readerwho belonged to the school would be familiar with the process that had been goingon, and so with all that lay behind it; or if we suppose the manuscript to have beenfor the use of none but A. himself in the preparation of oral instruction, then hewould know how to expound the passages when the time came.This then gives us a possible answer to the third of the questions which wehad to take into account if we were going to regard the isolated mentions of tkeUnmoved Mover as extraneous additions from a more mature period, the question ofhow such a thing could have happened. I t is not beyond a doubt the way in whichit did happen. In th is case we may be content, like Plato in the Laws, if we canfind a possible way in which it may have taken place. And it is possible that

A. may have kept by him manuscripts written first at a fairly early stage in hiscareer, perhaps while he was lecturing to a circle of Platonists at Assos, and simplynoted in them from time to time the changes rendered necessary as his system grewto maturi ty. For it was a case of growth and development simply. From t he timewhen he gave up the Theory of Ideas, he never found it necessary to make a volteface and deny what he had believed in before. That is what I have been trying tobring out by showing that the introduction of an unmoved mover did not mean thedenial of the physical theory which posited a principle of growth inherent in thething. I t simply meant what was in Aristotle's view, as it would have been inPlato's, the theory's most desirable consummation -the provision of a final-efficientcause. W. K . C. GUTHRIE .PETERHOUSE.AMBRIDGE.

1 It might be instructive to compare the K IVOGV &~cL b& rd KLVODV i v d v 70%~ K O ~ O P L K ? ) -account of the causes in Met. A, xo.job 28 ff., +v sc ~o is vBp dx y dvOywxos, dv Gk rois drd Gravoiaswhere the introduction of the Unmoved Mover rd etaos .4 70' i v a v rl o v , r p b r o v T L V &p la a h a av e l r l,at the end is an essential part of the scheme, OGl 66 rh rr ap a. irylera yhp raws 5 ia rprr7j, ~ a iiriasalthough on a superficial view it might seem an ~ f G o s i) o i ~ 0 8 0 f i t ~ ? j , & v B p w ~ o s v Bp w xo v y ev v( L.a lextraneous addition : irylcta, vboos, &pa- r b d v r aT L ap & r a G ~ ad O s r p h o v r d v r w v ~ rr ~o u^ v~rvou^v ar pr ~7 j . e ibos, d ra t i a rorabi , x?dvBor. ~ i )

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