Authors/Aristotle/metaphysics/l7/c9

Chapter 9

Latin	English
Dubitabit autem aliquis quare alia fiunt arte et a casu, ↵ ut sanitas, alia non, ut domus.	Chapter 9. The question might be raised, why some things are produced spontaneously as well as by art, e.g. health, while others are not, e.g. a house.
Causa vero est quia horum quidem est materia incipiens generationis in facere et fieri aliquid eorum quae ab arte, in qua existit aliqua pars rei, haec quidem talis est qualis moveri ab ea illa vero non, et huius quidem sic potens haec autem impotens. Multa namque ↵ possunt quidem ab ipsis moveri sed non sic, puta saltare.Quorum igitur talis est materia, ut lapides, impossibile sic moveri nisi ab alio; sic tamen utique et ignis. Propter hoc haec quidem non erunt sine habente artem, haec autem erunt; ab hiis enim movebuntur non habentibus quasi artem, moveri ↵ vero potentibus eis aut ab aliis non habentibus artem aut ex parte	The reason is that in some cases the matter which governs the production in the making and producing of any work of art, and in which a part of the product is present, – some matter is such as to be set in motion by itself and some is not of this nature, and of the former kind some can move itself in the particular way required, while other matter is incapable of this; for many things can be set in motion by themselves but not in some particular way, e.g. that of dancing. The things, then, whose matter is of this sort, e.g. stones, cannot be moved in the particular way required, except by something else, but in another way they can move themselves – and so it is with fire. Therefore some things will not exist apart from some one who has the art of making them, while others will; for motion will be started by these things which have not the art but can themselves be moved by other things which have not the art or with a motion starting from a part of the product.
Palam vero ex dictis quia modo quodam omnia fiunt ex univoco, quemadmodum naturalia, aut ex parte univoco, ut domus ex domo aut ab intellectu (ars enim species), aut ex parte aut habente aliquam partem, nisi secundum accidens fiat. ↵	And it is clear also from what has been said that in a sense every product of art is produced from a thing which shares its name (as natural products are produced), or from a part of itself which shares its name (e.g. the house is produced from a house, qua produced by reason; for the art of building is the form of the house), or from something which contains a art of it, – if we exclude things produced by accident;
Causa namque faciendi prima secundum se pars. Calor enim ƿ in motu calorem in corpore fecit; is vero est aut sanitas aut pars, aut sequitur eum pars aliqua sanitatis aut sanitas ipsa. ↵ Propter quod et dicitur facere, quia illud facit sanitatem, cui consequitur et accidit calor. Quare, quemadmodum in syllogismis, omnium principium est substantia; nam ex quid est syllogismi sunt, et hic generationes.	for the cause of the thing’s producing the product directly per se is a part of the product. The heat in the movement caused heat in the body, and this is either health, or a part of health, or is followed by a part of health or by health itself. And so it is said to cause health, because it causes that to which health attaches as a consequence.Therefore, as in syllogisms, substance is the starting-point of everything. It is from ‘what a thing is’ that syllogisms start; and from it also we now find processes of production to start.
Similiter itaque hiis et quae sunt natura constituta se habent. Nam sperma facit sicut quae ↵ ab arte. Habet enim potestate speciem, et a quo sperma est aliqualiter univocum – non enim omnia sic oportet quaerare ut ex homine homo; et enim femina ex viro, unde mulus non ex mulo – sed si non orbatio fuerit. Quaecumque autem a ↵ casu, sicut ibi fit, quorumcumque materia potest a se ipsa moveri hoc motu quo sperma movet; quorumcumque vero non, ea impossibilia sunt fieri aliter quam ex ipsis.	Things which are formed by nature are in the same case as these products of art. For the seed is productive in the same way as the things that work by art; for it has the form potentially, and that from which the seed comes [34b] has in a sense the same name as the offspring only in a sense, for we must not expect parent and offspring always to have exactly the same name, as in the production of ‘human being’ from ‘human’ for a ‘woman’ also can be produced by a ‘man’ – unless the offspring be an imperfect form; which is the reason why the parent of a mule is not a mule. The natural things which (like the artificial objects previously considered) can be produced spontaneously are those whose matter can be moved even by itself in the way in which the seed usually moves it; those things which have not such matter cannot be produced except from the parent animals themselves.
Non solum autem de substantia ratio ostendit non fieri speciem, sed de omnibus similiter primis communis ratio, ut ↵ quantitate, qualitate et aliis cathegoriis. Fit enim velut aenea spera, sed non spera nec es, et in aere si fit (semper enim oportet praeexistere materiam et speciem): et in quid et in qualitate et quantitate et in aliis similiter cathegoriis. Non enim fit ↵ quale sed quale lignum, nec quantum sed quantum lignum aut animal.	But not only regarding substance does our argument prove that its form does not come to be, but the argument applies to all the primary classes alike, i.e. quantity, quality, and the other categories. For as the brazen sphere comes to be, but not the sphere nor the brass, and so too in the case of brass itself, if it comes to be, it is its concrete unity that comes to be (for the matter and the form must always exist before), so is it both in the case of substance and in that of quality and quantity and the other categories likewise; for the quality does not come to be, but the wood of that quality, and the quantity does not come to be, but the wood or the animal of that size.
Sed proprium substantiae ex hiis accipere est quia necesse praeexistere semper alteram substantiam actu existentem quae facit, ut animal, si fit animal; quale vero aut quantum non necessarium nisi potestate solum.	But we may learn from these instances a peculiarity of substance, that there must exist beforehand in complete reality another substance which produces it, e.g. an animal if an animal is produced; but it is not necessary that a quality or quantity should pre-exist otherwise than potentially.