Authors/Aristotle/metaphysics/l5/c5

Chapter 5 Necessary

Latin	English
Necessarium dicitur sine quo non contingit vivere quasi ↵ concausali, ut respirare et cibus animali necessarium; nam sine hiis esse est impossibile.	Chapter 5. We call necessary (1) (a) that without which, as a condition, a thing cannot live; e.g. breathing and food are necessary for an animal; for it is incapable of existing without these;
Et sine quibus bonum non contingit aut esse aut fieri, aut aliquod malum expellere aut privari, ƿ ↵ veluti bibere farmacum necessarium ut non laboret, et ad eginam navigare ut pecuniam recipiat.	(b) the conditions without which good cannot be or come to be, or without which we cannot get rid or be freed of evil; e.g. drinking the medicine is necessary in order that we may be cured of disease, and a man _ s sailing to Aegina is necessary in order that he may get his money.
Amplius vim faciens et vis; hoc autem est quod praeter impetum et preuoluntatem impediens et prohibens. Violentum enim necessarium dicitur, quapropter et triste, sicut et euenus ait: “ omnis enim res necessa↵ria tristis est *”. Et vis necessitas quaedam, ut sophocles dicit: “sed vis me haec facere cogit”. Et videtur necessitas non increpabile aliquid esse, recte; contrarium enim * motui secundum prevoluntatem et secundum cogitationem.	(2) The compulsory and compulsion, i.e. that which impedes and tends to hinder, contrary to impulse and purpose. For the compulsory is called necessary (whence the necessary is painful, as Evenus says: 'For every necessary thing is ever irksome'), and compulsion is a form of necessity, as Sophocles says: "But force necessitates me to this act" . And necessity is held to be something that cannot be persuaded – and rightly, for it is contrary to the movement which accords with purpose and with reasoning.
Amplius ↵ quod non contingit aliter se habere necessarium dicimus sic se habere.	(3) We say that that which cannot be otherwise is necessarily as it is.
Et secundum hoc necessarium et alia dicuntur aliqualiter oinnia necessaria; violentum enim necessarium dici↵tur aut facere aut pati tunc, quando non contingit secundum impetum propter cogens, ut hanc necessitatem existentem propter quam non contingit aliter. Et in concausalibus vivendi ↵ et boni similiter; nam cum non contingit hic quidem bonum illic vero vivere et esse sine aliquibus, haec necessaria; causa necessitas quaedam est haec.	And from this sense of necessary all the others are somehow derived; for a thing is said to do or suffer what [15b] is necessary in the sense of compulsory, only when it cannot act according to its impulse because of the compelling forces – which implies that necessity is that because of which a thing cannot be otherwise; and similarly as regards the conditions of life and of good; for when in the one case good, in the other life and being, are not possible without certain conditions, these are necessary, and this kind of cause is a sort of necessity.
Amplius demonstratio necessariorum est, quia non contingit aliter se habere, si demonstratum est simpliciter; huius autem causa est quae prima sunt, si impossibile est aliter se habere ex quibus est sillogismus.	Again, demonstration is a necessary thing because the conclusion cannot be otherwise, if there has been demonstration in the unqualified sense; and the causes of this necessity are the first premisses, i.e. the fact that the propositions from which the syllogism proceeds cannot be otherwise.
↵ horum quidem itaque altera causa essendi necessaria *, horum autem nulla, sed propter haec alia sunt ex necessitate. quare primum et proprie necessarium quod simplex est; hoc enim non contingit pluribus modis habere, quare nec aliter et aliter; iam enim pluribus modis utique haberet. Ergo si ↵ qua sunt sempiterna et immobilia, nihil illis est violentum nec praeter naturam.	Now some things owe their necessity to something other than themselves; others do not, but are themselves the source of necessity in other things. Therefore the necessary in the primary and strict sense is the simple; for this does not admit of more states than one, so that it cannot even be in one state and also in another; for if it did it would already be in more than one. If, then, there are any things that are eternal and unmovable, nothing compulsory or against their nature attaches to them.