On Generation and Corruption
Aristotle
tr. H.H. Joachim

"Lack of experience [ἀπειρία] diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view [συνορᾶν] of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena are more able to lay down principles [ἀρχαί] such as to admit of a wide and coherent development; while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant [ἀθεώρηται] of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations. The rival treatments of the subject now before us will serve to illustrate how great is the difference between a scientific [φυσικῶς] and a dialectical [λογικῶς] method of inquiry...." (316a5-12) [PSA: this is also true in ethics.]

"Indeed no lunatic seems to be so far out of his senses as to suppose that fire and ice are one; it is only between what *is* right [τὰ καλὰ], and what *seems* right from habit [τὸ φαινόμενα διὰ συνήθειαν], that some people are mad enough to see no difference." (325a20-23)

"The cause, therefore, of the things which exist by nature is that they are in such and such a condition [τὸ οὕτος ἔχειν]; and it is *this* which constitutes the nature of each thing.... Moreover it is *this* which is both the excellence [τὸ εὖ] of each thing and its good [ἀγαθός]." (333b17-19)

"Out of the elements there come-to-be flesh and bones and the like - the hot becoming cold and the cold becoming hot when they have been brought to the mean. For at the mean [μέσον] is neither hot nor cold. The mean, however, is of considerable extent [πολὺ] and not indivisible [οὐκ ἀδιαίρετον]. Similarly, it is in virtue of a mean condition [μεσότητα] that the dry and the moist and the rest produce flesh and bone and the remaining compounds." (334b25-30) [PSA: similar insights apply to ψυχή and ἀρετή: the mean is not a point but a range.]

"It is characteristic of matter to suffer action, i.e. to be moved; but to move, i.e. to act [ποιεῖν], belongs to a different power. This is obvious both in the things that come-to-be by art and in those that come-to-be by nature. Water does not produce out of itself an animal; and it is the art, not the wood, that makes a bed. Nor is this their only error. They make a second mistake in ommitting the more controlling cause [κυριωτέραν αἰτίαν]; for they eliminate the essential nature [τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι], i.e. the form [μορφή]." (335b30-35)

END