Section 8

All those who regard the universe as a unity, and assume as its matter some one nature, and that corporeal and extended, are clearly mistaken in many respects. They only assume elements of corporeal things, and not of incorporeal ones, which also exist. They attempt to state the causes of generation and destruction, and investigate the nature of everything; and at the same time do away with the cause of motion.

Then there is their failure to regard the essence or formula as a cause of anything; and further their readiness to call any one of the simple bodies—except earth—a first principle, without inquiring how their reciprocal generation is effected. I refer to fire, water, earth and air. Of these some are generated from each other by combination and others by differentiation;

and this difference is of the greatest importance in deciding their relative priority. In one way it might seem that the most elementary body is that from which first other bodies are produced by combination; and this will be that body which is rarest and composed of the finest particles.

Hence all who posit Fire as first principle will be in the closest agreement with this theory. However, even among the other thinkers everyone agrees that the primary corporeal element is of this kind. At any rate none of the Monists thought earth likely to be an element—obviously on account of the size of its particles—

but each of the other three has had an advocate; for some name fire as the primary element, others water, and others air. 1 And yet why do they not suggest earth too, as common opinion does? for people say Everything is earth.

And Hesiod too says 2 that earth was generated first of corporeal things—so ancient and popular is the conception found to be. Thus according to this theory anyone who suggests any of these bodies other than fire, or who assumes something denser than air but rarer than water, 3 will be wrong.

On the other hand if what is posterior in generation is prior in nature, and that which is developed and combined is posterior in generation, then the reverse will be the case; water will be prior to air, and earth to water. So much for those who posit one cause such as we have described.

The same will apply too if anyone posits more than one, as e.g. Empedocles says that matter consists of four bodies;

objections must occur in his case also, some the same as before, and some peculiar to him. First, we can see things being generated from each other in a way which shows that fire and earth do not persist as the same corporeal entity. (This subject has been treated in my works on Natural Science. 4 ) Again with regard to the cause of motion in things, whether one or two should be assumed, it must not be thought that his account is entirely correct or even reasonable. 5

And in general those who hold such views as these must of necessity do away with qualitative alteration; for on such a theory cold will not come from hot nor hot from cold, because to effect this there must be something which actually takes on these contrary qualities: some single element which becomes both fire and water—which Empedocles denies.

If one were to infer that Anaxagoras recognized two 6 elements, the inference would accord closely with a view which, although he did not articulate it himself, he must have accepted as developed by others.

To say that originally everything was a mixture is absurd for various reasons, but especially since (a) it follows that things must have existed previously in an unmixed state; (b) it is contrary to nature for anything to mix with anything ; (c) moreover affections and attributes would then be separable from their substances (because what is mixed can also be separated). At the same time, if one were to follow his doctrine carefully and interpret its meaning, perhaps it would be seen to be more up-to-date;

because when nothing was yet differentiated, obviously nothing could be truly predicated of that substance—e.g. that it was white or black or buff or any other color. It must necessarily have been colorless, since otherwise it would have had one of these colors.

Similarly by the same argument it had no taste or any other such attribute; for it cannot have had any quality or magnitude or individuality. Otherwise some particular form would have belonged to it; but this is impossible on the assumption that everything was mixed together, for then the form would have been already differentiated, whereas he says that everything was mixed together except Mind, which alone was pure and unmixed. 7

It follows from this that he recognizes as principles the One (which is simple and unmixed) and the Other, which is such as we suppose the Indeterminate to be before it is determined and partakes of some form. Thus his account is neither correct nor clear, but his meaning approximates to more recent theories and what is now more obviously true.

However, these thinkers are really concerned only with the theories of generation and destruction and motion (for in general it is only with reference to this aspect of reality that they look for their principles and causes).

Those, however, who make their study cover the whole of reality, and who distinguish between sensible and non-sensible objects, clearly give their attention to both kinds; hence in their case we may consider at greater length what contributions, valuable or otherwise, they make to the inquiry which is now before us.

The so-called Pythagoreans employ abstruser principles and elements than the physicists. The reason is that they did not draw them from the sensible world; for mathematical objects, apart from those which are connected with astronomy, are devoid of motion.

Nevertheless all their discussions and investigations are concerned with the physical world. They account for the generation of the sensible universe, and observe what happens in respect of its parts and affections and activities, and they use up their principles and causes in this connection, as though they agreed with the others—the physicists—that reality is just so much as is sensible and is contained in the so-called heavens.

All the same, as we have said, 8 the causes and principles which they describe are capable of application to the remoter class of realities as well, and indeed are better fitted to these than to their physical theories.

But as to how there is to be motion, if all that is premissed is Limit and the Unlimited, and Odd and Even, they do not even hint; nor how, without motion and change, there can be generation and destruction, or the activities of the bodies which traverse the heavens.

And further, assuming that it be granted to them or proved by them that magnitude 9 is composed of these factors, yet how is it to be explained that some bodies are light, and others have weight? For in their premisses and statements they are speaking just as much about sensible as about mathematical objects; and this is why they have made no mention of fire or earth or other similar bodies, because, I presume, they have no separate explanation of sensible things.

Again, how are we to understand that number and the modifications of number are the causes of all being and generation, both in the beginning and now, and at the same time that there is no other number than the number of which the universe is composed? 10

Because when they make out that Opinion and Opportunity are in such and such a region, and a little above or below them Injustice and Separation or Mixture, and when they state as proof of this that each of these abstractions is a number; and that also in this region there is already a plurality of the magnitudes composed of number, inasmuch as these modifications of number correspond to these several regions,—is the number which we must understand each of these abstractions to be the same number which is present in the sensible universe, or another kind of number? 11

Plato at least says that it is another. It is true that he too supposes that numbers are both these magnitudes and their causes; but in his view the causative numbers are intelligible and the others sensible.