The Categories, Aristotle [best self help books to read .txt] 📗
- Author: Aristotle
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process necessarily implies one or other of the other five sorts
of motion. This is not true, for we may say that all affections,
or nearly all, produce in us an alteration which is distinct from
all other sorts of motion, for that which is affected need not
suffer either increase or diminution or any of the other sorts of
motion. Thus alteration is a distinct sort of motion; for, if it
were not, the thing altered would not only be altered, but would
forthwith necessarily suffer increase or diminution or some one
of the other sorts of motion in addition; which as a matter of
fact is not the case. Similarly that which was undergoing the
process of increase or was subject to some other sort of motion
would, if alteration were not a distinct form of motion,
necessarily be subject to alteration also. But there are some
things which undergo increase but yet not alteration. The square,
for instance, if a gnomon is applied to it, undergoes increase
but not alteration, and so it is with all other figures of this
sort. Alteration and increase, therefore, are distinct.
Speaking generally, rest is the contrary of motion. But the
different forms of motion have their own contraries in other
forms; thus destruction is the contrary of generation, diminution
of increase, rest in a place, of change of place. As for this
last, change in the reverse direction would seem to be most truly
its contrary; thus motion upwards is the contrary of motion
downwards and vice versa.
In the case of that sort of motion which yet remains, of those
that have been enumerated, it is not easy to state what is its
contrary. It appears to have no contrary, unless one should
define the contrary here also either as ‘rest in its quality’ or
as ‘change in the direction of the contrary quality’, just as we
defined the contrary of change of place either as rest in a place
or as change in the reverse direction. For a thing is altered
when change of quality takes place; therefore either rest in its
quality or change in the direction of the contrary may be called
the contrary of this qualitative form of motion. In this way
becoming white is the contrary of becoming black; there is
alteration in the contrary direction, since a change of a
qualitative nature takes place.
The term ‘to have’ is used in various senses. In the first place
it is used with reference to habit or disposition or any other
quality, for we are said to ‘have’ a piece of knowledge or a
virtue. Then, again, it has reference to quantity, as, for
instance, in the case of a man’s height; for he is said to ‘have’
a height of three or four cubits. It is used, moreover, with
regard to apparel, a man being said to ‘have’ a coat or tunic; or
in respect of something which we have on a part of ourselves, as
a ring on the hand: or in respect of something which is a part of
us, as hand or foot. The term refers also to content, as in the
case of a vessel and wheat, or of a jar and wine; a jar is said
to ‘have’ wine, and a corn-measure wheat. The expression in such
cases has reference to content. Or it refers to that which has
been acquired; we are said to ‘have’ a house or a field. A man is
also said to ‘have’ a wife, and a wife a husband, and this
appears to be the most remote meaning of the term, for by the use
of it we mean simply that the husband lives with the wife.
Other senses of the word might perhaps be found, but the most
ordinary ones have all been enumerated.
End of Project Gutenberg’s etext, The Categories, by Aristotle
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