Miscellanies 8.8.23–8.9.33

There are three things involved in speech: names, which are symbols of thoughts primarily, and consequentially also of the underlying things; second, the thoughts, which are likenesses and impressions of the underlying things (hence the thoughts are the same for all, because the same impression from the underlying things arises in all; but not so the names, because of the different languages); and third, the underlying things, from which the thoughts are impressed on us. Names, then, are reduced by grammar to the twenty-four universal elements, the letters; for the elements must be definite, since there is no scientific knowledge of particulars, which are infinite, and it is proper to scientific knowledge to rest on universal and definite principles. Hence particulars are reduced to universals. The work of the philosophers is concerned with thoughts and underlying things; and since the particulars of these are infinite, certain elements of these too have been found, under which everything sought is brought. If it appears to fall under one of the elements, or several, we shall declare that it exists; if it escapes them all, that it does not exist at all. Of things said, some are said with combination, as “man runs,” others without combination, as “man” and “runs,” and whatever does not complete a statement nor has truth or falsehood. Of things said without combination, some signify substance, some quality, some quantity, some relation, some place, some time, some position, some having, some acting, some being acted upon; these we call the elements of the beings that are in matter and come after the first principles. For these can be observed by reason, but immaterial things are grasped by mind alone, by its first direct apprehension.

Of the things ranged under the ten categories, some are said by themselves, as the nine categories, others in relation to something. And again, of the things under these ten categories, some are synonyms, as ox and man, insofar as each is an animal; for synonyms are those whose name is common to both, “animal,” and whose account is the same, that is, the definition, “ensouled substance.” Heteronyms are those that concern the same underlying thing under different names, for example ascent and descent: for the road is the same, whether upward or downward. The other kind of heteronyms is like horse and black, which have both a name and an account different from each other and do not share an underlying thing; these should be called different, not heteronyms. Polyonyms are those that have the same account but a different name, as ἄορ, ξίφος, φάσγανον (all words for “sword”). Paronyms are those named from something else, as the brave man from bravery. Homonyms use the same name but do not have the same account, as “man” for both the living creature and a painted one. Of homonyms, some are homonymous by chance, as Ajax the Locrian and Ajax of Salamis; others by design, and of these some by likeness, as “man” for both the living creature and the painted one; others by analogy, as “the feet of Ida” and our feet, because they are lower down; others by function, as the “foot” of a ship, by which the ship sails, and our foot, by which we move. Things are also called homonyms from the same thing and toward the same thing, as the physician's book and scalpel are called “medical,” both from the physician who uses them and with reference to the same medical account.

Of causes, some are initiating, some sustaining, some cooperating, and some are those without which a thing does not happen. Initiating causes are those that first give the occasion for something to come about, as beauty is of love for the licentious; for when seen, it merely produces the amorous disposition in them, but not of necessity. Sustaining causes are those also called, synonymously, self-sufficient, since they are sufficiently productive of the effect by themselves. All the causes should be shown in order in the case of a learner. The father is the initiating cause of learning, the teacher the sustaining cause, the learner's nature the cooperating cause, and time holds the place of the cause without which it does not happen. Cause, in the proper sense, is said of what is productive of something actively; for we say that iron is capable of cutting not only while it cuts but also when it does not cut. So then “productive” signifies both: what is already active, and what is not yet active but possesses the power to act.

Some say that causes are of bodies, others of incorporeal things; some say that the body is a cause in the proper sense and the incorporeal by extension and in a quasi-causal way; others turn it around, saying that incorporeal things are causes in the proper sense and bodies by extension: for example, that the cut, being an activity, is incorporeal and is the cause of cutting, which is an activity and incorporeal, and likewise of being cut, for both the knife and what is cut, which are bodies. “Of what things it is a cause” is said in three ways: that which is the cause, as the sculptor; that of which it is the cause, as of the statue's coming to be; and that for which it is the cause, as for the matter, for the sculptor is cause for the bronze of the statue's coming to be. Coming to be and being cut, then, the things of which it is a cause, are incorporeal, since they are activities. On this account causes are causes of predicates, or, as some say, of sayables (for Cleanthes and Archedemus call predicates sayables); or rather, and this is better, some will be called causes of predicates, for example of “is cut,” whose case is “being cut,” and others of propositions, as of “a ship comes to be,” whose case again is “a ship's coming to be”; but Aristotle says causes are of appellatives, such as house, ship, burning, cutting. The case is agreed to be incorporeal. Hence that sophism too is solved in this way: “What you say passes through your mouth,” which is true; “but you say ‘house’; therefore a house passes through your mouth,” which is false. For we do not say the house, which is a body, but the case, which is incorporeal, of which the house is the bearer.

And we say that the builder builds, with reference to what will come to be. So we say that a cloak is being woven … ; for “making” indicates activity. The maker and the cause are not of different things, but of the same; for insofar as he is the cause of coming to be, in that respect he is also productive of coming to be. The cause and the productive, then, are the same. And if something is a cause and productive, it is certainly also that through which; but if something is that through which, it is not certainly also a cause. Many things, at any rate, concur toward one effect, and through them the end comes about, but not all are causes. For Medea would not have killed her children if she had not been angry, nor been angry if she had not been jealous, nor this if she had not loved, nor this if Jason had not sailed to Colchis, nor this if the Argo had not been built, nor this if the timbers had not been cut from Pelion. In all these, though each is a “that through which,” not all are causes of the killing of the children, but only Medea. What does not hinder is inactive; therefore what does not hinder is not a cause, but what hinders is. For the cause is understood in acting and doing something.

Further, what does not hinder is separate from what comes about (it is accomplished precisely because what could hinder is not present), whereas the cause is related to what comes about; so what does not hinder would not be a cause. Cause is spoken of in four ways: the maker, as the sculptor; the matter, as the bronze; the form, as the shape; and the end, as the honor of the gymnasiarch. The bronze holds the place of a cause without which the statue does not come to be, and is likewise a cause. For everything without which the effect cannot come about is a cause of necessity, but not a cause simply; for the cause without which a thing does not happen is not sustaining, but cooperating. Everything active produces the effect together with the suitability of what is acted upon; for the cause disposes, and each thing is affected in the way it is naturally fitted to be. The suitability is productive, and holds the place of the cause without which a thing does not happen. The cause, then, is ineffective without suitability; yet suitability is not a cause, but cooperating, since every cause is understood in acting. And the earth would not make itself, so that it would not be its own cause either. It is ridiculous to say that not the fire is the cause of burning but the wood, nor the knife of cutting but the flesh, nor the opponent's strength of the athlete's being thrown but his own weakness. The sustaining cause does not need time; for the cautery produces pain at the moment it is pressed on the flesh. Of initiating causes, some need time until the effect comes about, others do not, as a fall for a fracture. Perhaps, then, these are called timeless not by privation of time but by its reduction, as with “suddenly,” which too does not come about without time.

Every cause, as a cause, is to be grasped by a twofold thought, since it is understood as “of something” and “in relation to something”: of something, namely the effect, as the knife is of cutting; in relation to something, namely what is suitably disposed, as fire is in relation to wood, for it will not burn adamant. The cause is among relatives, for it is understood by its relation to something else, so that we direct our minds to two things in order to understand the cause as a cause. The same account holds of the maker, the creator, and the father. Nothing is its own cause, nor is anyone his own father, since the first would become second. The cause acts and disposes; what comes about by the cause is acted upon and disposed. The same thing, taken in relation to itself, cannot at once act and be disposed, nor be son and father. And besides, the cause precedes in time, in respect of its being, what comes about by it, as the knife precedes the cutting. The same thing cannot in the same respect both precede in time in respect of matter, insofar as it is a cause, and at the same time come after and be later in time, insofar as it is the work of the cause. Being also differs from becoming; so too the cause is cause of what comes to be, and the father is father of a son. For it is not possible for the same thing, in the same respect, both to be and to become at once. Nothing, then, is its own cause.

Causes are not causes of one another, but causes to one another. For a pre-existing condition of the spleen is not the cause of fever, but of the fever's coming about; and a pre-existing fever is not the cause of the spleen, but of the condition's increasing. So also the virtues are causes to one another of not being separated, because they imply one another; and the stones in an arch are causes to one another of the predicate “remaining in place,” but are not causes of one another; and the teacher and the learner are causes to one another of the predicate “making progress.” Things are said to be causes to one another sometimes of the same thing, as the merchant and the retailer are causes to one another of making a profit, and sometimes of different things, as the knife and the flesh: the one is cause to the flesh of being cut, the flesh to the knife of cutting. “Eye for eye” and “life for life.” For one who has struck another a mortal blow is the cause to him of death, or of death's coming about; and being struck back mortally by him, he has him as a cause in return, not in the respect in which he became a cause to him, but in another. For he became a cause of death to him; but it was not the death that in turn inflicted the mortal blow on him, but the wounded man himself; so that he became the cause of one thing and had another as his cause. And the one who has done wrong becomes the cause to another of being wronged; but the law that commands retaliation is not the cause of a wrong, but of vengeance for the one, and of correction for the other. So causes are not causes of one another as causes, but they are causes to one another.

It is further asked whether many things that are causes of one thing by their coming together become many causes. For the men who come together are causes of the ship's being hauled down to the sea; but each is not a cause individually, only with the others, unless the joint cause too is a cause. Others say that if there are many causes, each individually becomes the cause of one thing. Of being happy, at any rate, which is one, the virtues are causes, though they are many; and likewise there are many causes of being warmed and of feeling pain. Perhaps, then, the many virtues are one in power, and so too the things that warm and the things that pain. And the multitude of the virtues, being one in genus, becomes the cause of one thing, being happy. In reality, initiating causes of one thing become several both in genus and in species: in genus, of being ill in any way at all, such as chill, heat-stroke, fatigue, indigestion, drunkenness; in species, of fever. But sustaining causes are several in genus only, no longer in species. For of being fragrant, which is one in genus, there are many causes, such as frankincense, rose, saffron, storax, myrrh, perfume; for the rose would not be fragrant in the same way as myrrh.

The same thing becomes the cause of contrary effects, sometimes because of the magnitude and power of the cause, sometimes because of the suitability of what is acted upon. Because of a certain power: the same string, according to its tightening or loosening, gives a high or a low note. Because of the suitability of those acted upon: honey tastes sweet to the healthy but bitter to those with fever; one and the same wine leads some to anger, others to good cheer; and the same sun melts wax but dries clay. Of causes, then, some are evident, grasped by observation; others are non-evident, grasped by analogical reasoning. And of the non-evident, some are non-evident for a time, hidden at one time but seen plainly again at another; others are non-evident by nature, which can at no time become evident. And of those non-evident by nature, some are apprehensible, which some used to call not non-evident, being grasped analogically through signs, like the proportion of the pores that are observable by reason; others are inapprehensible, which can in no way fall under apprehension, and these are called non-evident absolutely. And some causes are initiating, some sustaining, some joint causes, some cooperating. And some are causes of what is according to nature, some of what is contrary to nature, some of disease; and at a lower level, some of affections, some of their magnitude, some of times and seasons.

When initiating causes are removed, the effect remains; but a sustaining cause is one whose presence keeps the effect in being and whose removal removes it. They call the sustaining cause, synonymously, self-sufficient, since it is sufficiently productive of the effect by itself. If the self-sufficient cause indicates a self-sufficient activity, the cooperating cause signifies service and ministry together with another. If, then, it provides nothing, it will not even be called cooperating; but if it provides something, it certainly becomes the cause of what it provides, that is, of what comes about through it. The cooperating cause, then, is that in whose presence the effect came about: an evident one with an evident effect, a non-evident one with a non-evident effect. The joint cause too belongs to the genus of causes, as a fellow soldier is a soldier and a fellow ephebe an ephebe. The cooperating cause helps the sustaining cause toward intensifying what comes about by it; but the joint cause does not fall under the same concept, for something can be a joint cause even if it is not a sustaining cause. For the joint cause is understood together with another that also cannot produce the effect by itself, being a cause together with a cause. The cooperating cause differs from the joint cause in this: the joint cause produces the effect together with another that does not produce it by itself, while the cooperating cause does not produce it by itself, but, joining another that does produce it by itself, cooperates with it so that the effect comes about more intensely. Most of all, the fact that what was cooperating came about from an initiating cause shows that the cooperating cause can extend the power of the cause.