Authors/Aristotle/metaphysics/l7/c8

Chapter 8

Latin	English
Quoniam vero ab aliquo fit quod fit (hoc autem dico ↵ unde principium generationis est) et ex aliquo (sit autem non privatio hod sed materia; iam enim diffinitum est quomodo hoc dicimus) et quod fit (hoc autem est spera aut circulus aut quodcumque evenit aliorum), quemadmodum nec subiectum facit es, sic nec speram, nisi secundum accidens quia aenea ↵ spera est et illam facit. Nam hoc aliquid facere ex totaliter subiecto hoc facere est. Dico autem quia es rotundum facere est non quod rotundum aut speram facere sed alterum aliquid ut speciem hanc in alio. Nam si facit, ex aliquo facit alio, ↵ hoc enim subiciebatur; ut facere eneam speram, hoc autem ita quia ex hoc quod est es, hoc facit quod spera. Si igitur et hoc facit ipsum, palam quia similiter faciet, et ibunt generationes in infinitum. Palam ergo quod nec species, aut ↵ quodcumƿque oportet vocare in sensibili formam, non fit, nec est eius generatio, neque quod quid erat esse huic; hoc enim est quod in alio fit aut ab arte aut a natura aut a potestate.	Chapter 8. Since anything which is produced is produced by something (and this I call the starting-point of the production), and from something (and let this be taken to be not the privation but the matter; for the meaning we attach to this has already been explained), and since something is produced (and this is either a sphere or a circle or whatever else it may chance to be), just as we do not make the substratum (the brass), so we do not make the sphere, except incidentally, because the brazen sphere is a sphere and we make the forme. For to make a ‘this’ is to make a ‘this’ out of the substratum in the full sense of the word. (I mean that to make the brass round is not to make the round or the sphere, but something else, i.e. to produce this form in something different from itself. For if we make the form, we must make it out of something else; for this was assumed. [33b] E.g. we make a brazen sphere; and that in the sense that out of this, which is brass, we make this other, which is a sphere.) If, then, we also make the substratum itself, clearly we shall make it in the same way, and the processes of making will regress to infinity. Obviously then the form also, or whatever we ought to call the shape present in the sensible thing, is not produced, nor is there any production of it, nor is the essence produced; for this is that which is made to be in something else either by art or by nature or by some faculty.
↵ Aeream vero speram esse facit. Facit enim ex aere et spera; nam in hoc hanc speciem facit, et est hoc spera aenea; hoc autem sperae esse. Eius vero quod est sperae esse omnino si est generatio, ex aliquo aliquid erit. Oportebit enum divisibile esse semper quod fit, et esse hoc quidem hoc et hoc hoc; dico autem quod hoc quidem materiam illud vero speciem. Si igitur est ↵ spera ex medio figura aequalis, huius hoc quidem est in quo erit quod facit, hoc autem in illo, hoc autem omne quod factum est, ut aenea spera. Palam igitur ex dictis quia quod quidem ut species aut ut substantia dicitur non fit, synodus autem secundum hanc dicta fit, et quod in omni generato materia inest, et est hoc quidem hoc et hoc hoc.	But that there is a brazen sphere, this we make. For we make it out of brass and the sphere; we bring the form into this particular matter, and the result is a brazen sphere. But if the essence of sphere in general is to be produced, something must be produced out of something. For the product will always have to be divisible, and one part must be this and another that; I mean the one must be matter and the other form. If, then, a sphere is ‘the figure whose circumference is at all points equidistant from the centre’, part of this will be the medium in which the thing made will be, and part will be in that medium, and the whole will be the thing produced, which corresponds to the brazen sphere. It is obvious, then, from what has been said, that that which is spoken of as form or substance is not produced, but the concrete thing which gets its name from this is produced, and that in everything which is generated matter is present, and one part of the thing is matter and the other form.
Utrum igitur est quaedam spera praeter has aut domus praeter ↵ lateres? Aut numquam facta est, si sic erat, hoc aliquid, sed quia tale significat, hoc autem et determinatum non est, sed facit et generat ex hoc tale, et quando generatum est, est hoc tale. Hoc autem omne hoc Callias aut Socrates est, ↵ quemadmodum spera aenea haec, homo vero et animal quemadmodum spera aenea totaliter. Manifestum ergo quia specierum causa, sicut consueti sunt quidam dicere species, si sunt quaedam praeter singularia, ad generationes et substantias nihil utiles; ƿ neque utique erunt propter haec substantiae secundum se.	Is there, then, a sphere apart from the individual spheres or a house apart from the bricks? Rather we may say that no ‘this’ would ever have been coming to be, if this had been so, but that the ‘form’ means the ‘such’, and is not a ‘this’ – a definite thing; but the artist makes, or the father begets, a ‘such’ out of a ‘this’; and when it has been begotten, it is a ‘this such’. And the whole ‘this’, Callias or Socrates, is analogous to ‘this brazen sphere’, but man and animal to ‘brazen sphere’ in general. Obviously, then, the cause which consists of the Forms (taken in the sense in which some maintain the existence of the Forms, i.e. if they are something apart from the individuals) is useless, at least with regard to comings-to-be and to substances; and the Forms need not, for this reason at least, be self-subsistent substances.
In ↵ quibusdam vero palam quia generans tale quidem est quale generatum, nec tamen idem nec unum numero, sed unum specie, ut in phisicis (homo namque hominem generat) nisi quid praeter naturam fiat, ut equus mulum. Et haec quoque similiter; quod enim commune est super equum et asinum non ↵ est nominatum, proximum genus, sunt autem ambo forsan, velut mulus. Quare palam quia non oportet quasi exemplum speciem probare (maxime enim in hiis exquirerentur, nam substantiae maxime hee), sed sufficiens est generans facere et speciei causam esse in materia. Omnis vero iam talis species ↵ in hiis carnibus et ossibus, Callias et Socrates; et diversa quidem propter materiam (diversa namque), idem vero specie; nam individua species.	In some cases indeed it is even obvious that the begetter is of the same kind as the begotten (not, however, the same nor one in number, but in form), i.e. in the case of natural products (for man begets man), unless something happens contrary to nature, e.g. the production of a mule by a horse. (And even these cases are similar; for that which would be found to be common to horse and ass, the genus next above them, [34a] has not received a name, but it would doubtless be both in fact something like a mule.) Obviously, therefore, it is quite unnecessary to set up a Form as a pattern (for we should have looked for Forms in these cases if in any; for these are substances if anything is so); the begetter is adequate to the making of the product and to the causing of the form in the matter. And when we have the whole, such and such a form in this flesh and in these bones, this is Callias or Socrates; and they are different in virtue of their matter (for that is different), but the same in form; for their form is indivisible.