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النشر الإلكتروني

GIFFORD LECTURE THE EIGHTH.

Aristotle and design-Matter and form-Abstraction-Trinity-The ascent-The four causes-A first mover-Lambda of the Metaphysic- The hymn of Aristotle Speculation Mankind Erdmann-Theory and practice - Nature - Kant, Byron, Mme. Genlis-Aristotle's ethic and politic-God-Cicero-TimeDesign-Hume, Buffon-Plato and Aristotle-Immanent Divinity and transcendent Deity-Schwegler-Bonitz-The soulUnity-Homer-The Greek movement up to Aristotle, BieseThe Germans and Aristotle-Cuvier, Owen, Franzius, Johann von Müller-Darwin-Aristotle in conclusion.

In the conclusion of the last lecture we saw that Aristotle, in a chapter in which he was supposed to have shadowed out the modern doctrine of natural selection, had nothing in view but the impossibility of mechanical principles ever explaining the phenomena which seem to bear on their front the relation that is named of final causes. And, in fact, to say it again, the whole philosophy of Aristotle is founded on, and rises out of, the single principle of an object, a purpose, an end that is good, an end that is beneficial, an end that is advantageous. Design animates the whole, but the very breath of this design, the heart that beats in it, the soul that guides it, is the Good-service that is wise. Nature is but a single organic congeries-as it were, a crystallization into externality of internality. There is matter; but there is no separate individual entity so named, cognizable as so named, existent as so named. Conceived as such separate existence, matter is only an abstraction. Objects have matter, but they have also form; and the

two elements, the two sides are indissolubly together, though we may logically see them apart, and name them apart. That is, we may fix our mind on the material side of some formed object, and, speaking of that side abstractedly, we may name it apart; but it does not exist apart. Conceived apart it is but an abstraction. There is no such thing as matter qua matter, any more than there is such a thing as book qua book, or paper qua paper: there is always only such and such a book, such and such particular paper. But the other side, already present and immanent in the material side, as it were fused into, integrated and identified with it, is form. An impression in wax, so far, illustrates the idea. There is the wax, and there is the impress: they can be conceived apart, and spoken of apart; but they are practically one. You cannot take the impress into your hand, and leave the wax; and neither can you take the wax into your hand without the impress. Only, in the case of any Aristotelian σύνολον, of any Aristotelian co-integer of forın and matter, the one side, without the other, absolutely disappears. Destroy the impress and the wax remains; but destroy form, and with its extinction, there is to Aristotle the extinction of matter as well. The form can exist only in matter; the matter can exist only in form. Either of the two sides, as separated and by itself, is abstract, an abstraction; but in the concrete of their coalescence, there is, as it were, a life between them. Even as together, there is always to be conceived a nisus, an effort of matter towards form, a hunger of matter for form; and there is no less on the part of form, such nisus, or such hunger for realization, substantiation in matter. This is much the same thing as to say: What is, is potentiality that realizes itself into actuality. We may remember now that reference in Plato to a somewhat trinitarian suggestion, where the receiving element was

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compared to the mother, the formative element to the father, and the formed element between them to the ἔκγονος, the offspring, the son. And we may similarly present here the σύνολον, the co-integer, of Aristotle, and the life at work, as it were, within, even in its elements. There is the matter ὕλη, the form εἶδος or μόρφη, and the σύνολον itself, all three respectively in a sort of relation of mother, father, and son. It is but the same idea, the same life, too, that we see in the further forms of potentiality, energy, and actuality. There is an ἐνέργεια, energy, comparable to the father, that leads δυνάμις, potentiality, comparable to the mother, into ἐντελέχεια, actuality, comparable to the son. This son, too, evidently combines the virtue of both father and mother. The ἐντελέχεια has its own ἐνέργεια in its own δύναμις. It has its own end, τέλος, within itself; it is an end unto itself, -a life that lives into itself, that realizes itself. And there is realization above realization. There is a rise from object to object. The plant is above the stone, and the animal above the plant. But man is the most perfect result. His supremacy is assured. He alone of all living creatures is erect; and he is erect by reason of the divinity within him, whose office it is to know, to think, and to consider. All other animals are but incomplete, imperfect, dwarf, beside man.

Potentiality is realized into form, then, but to effect this, movement is necessary. The realization is movement; and the principle of movement is the efficient cause, while of this cause itself the further principle-what gives it meaning and guides it is the purpose of good, the intention of profit, design to a right and fit end. There are thus, as we saw once before, four causes, and generally co-operant in one and the same subject. There is the material cause, the formal cause, the efficient cause; and there is also the final cause. All four causes may be found apart, as in the building of the house. Here is the matter, say stone, wood, lime, what not; there is the form in the idea of the architect; and there are the efficient causes in the various artizans. But it is the design that sets all the rest in motion; and it is the last to be realized, though also the first of the four that comes into existence; the final cause-namely, the comfort, convenience, pleasure, the shelter and protection which the house is there alone to afford. In such a case, as we see, material, formal, efficient, and final causes are all four apart; but in man, the formal, efficient, and final causes are at once and unitedly the soul-the soul which in its body is the master of matter. But man is still a creature; of all the creatures he is but one. And of all the movements in the universe, and in the things of the universe, he is not the mover. But a mover there must be. In every movement that takes place there are always at once moved and mover; and for the universal series and system of movements there must be an ultimate mover. Further, indeed, there must be an ultimate actuality. Potentiality, were it alone, as has been already said, would remain potentiality. Potentiality presupposes actuality. Were there no actuality already present, neither would there be any movement on the part of potentiality into actuality. There must therefore be a first actuality, and that first actuality must be the first mover, which, unmoved itself, moves all. But that first mover and that first actuality that is required for every other actuality, and requires no other for itself, is God God eternal, increate, and immaterial. Not throughout never-ending time was there in night and chaos, in darkness and the void, potentiality alone, but what was, was actuality: always, and ever, and everywhere the infinite I AM.

No one, I may venture to say, will read the latter half of

THE HYMN OF ARISTOTLE.

139

the twelfth book, called by some the eleventh, by all, the Lambda of the Metaphysic, and yet feel inclined to reproach me with hebraizing Aristotle here. If we have not in the Greek the direct words of the Hebrew I AM, we have them, every such reader will, I feel sure, readily confess, fully in meaning. When we turn from Plato to Aristotle, it is usually said that we turn from the warmth of feeling to the coldness of the understanding, from the luxuriance of figurative phrase to the dryness of the technical term, from poetry to prose; but to my mind these five chapters of Aristotle are, at least in their ideas, more poetical than anything even in Plato. That πρῶτον κινοῦν of Aristotle, let certain critics find what fault they may with it, is as near as possible, as near as possible for a Greek then, the Christian God. And Aristotle sings Him, if less musically than Milton, still in his own deep way, musically, and in a vastly deeper depth philosophically than Milton. Especially in the seventh chapter of the twelfth book it is that we find that wonderful concentration and intensity of thought which, deep, dense, metalline-close, glows-unexpectedly and with surprise-glows into song-the psalm, the chant de profundis, of an Aristotle. It proceeds somewhat in this way :

As there comes not possibly anything, or all, out of night and nothingness, there must be the unmoved mover, who, in his eternity, is actual, and substantial, one. Unmoved himself, and without a strain, he is the end-aim of the universe towards which all strain. Even beauty is not moved, but moves; and we move to beauty because it is beauty, not that it is beauty only because we move to it. And the goal, the aim, the end, moves even as beauty moves, or as something that is loved moves. It is thought that has made the beginning. As mere actuality, actuality pure and simple, as that which

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