II.

24This is the just remark of Trendelenburg, Kategorienlehre, p. 217.

With these details, however, the question between Realism and its counter-theory (whether Conceptualism or Nominalism) is not materially concerned. The standard against Realism was raised by Aristotle in the First Category, when he proclaimed the Hoc Aliquid to be the only complete Ens, and the Universal toexist only along with it as a predicate, being nothing in itself apart; and when he enumerated Quality as one among the predicates, and nothing beyond. In the Platonic Realism (PhÃ¦don, TimÃ¦us, Parmenides) what Aristotle called Quality was the highest and most incontestable among all Substances â€” the Good, the Beautiful, the Just, &c.; what Aristotle called Second Substance was also Substance in the Platonic Realism, though not so incontestably; but what Aristotle called First Substance was in the Platonic Realism no Substance at all, but only one among a multitude of confused and transient shadows. It is in the First and Third Categories that the capital antithesis of Aristotle against the Platonic Realism is contained. As far as that antithesis is concerned, it matters little whether the aggregate of predicates be subdivided under nine general heads (Categories) or under three.

In the century succeeding Aristotle, the Stoic philosophers altered his Categories, and drew up a new list of their own, containing only four distinct heads instead of ten. We have no record or explanation of the Stoic Categories from any of their authors; so that we are compelled to accept the list on secondary authority, from the comments of critics, mostly opponents. But, as far as we can make out, they retained in their First Category the capital feature of Aristotleâ€™s First Category â€” the primacy of the First Substance or Hoc Aliquid and its exclusive privilege of imparting reality to all the other Categories. Indeed, the Stoics seem not only to have retained this characteristic, but to have exaggerated it. They did not recognize so close an approach of the Universal to the Particular, as is implied by giving to it a second place in the same Category, and calling it Second Substance. The First Category of the Stoics (Something or Subject) included only particular substances; all Universals were by them ranked in the other Categories, being regarded as negations of substances, and designated by the term Non-Somethings â€” Non-Substances.25

25Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, I. vi. p. 420:οὔτινατἀκοινὰ παρâ€™ αὐτοῖς λέγεται. &c.

The Neo-Platonist Plotinus, in the third century after the Christian era, agreed with the Stoics (though looking from the opposite point of view) in disapproving Aristotleâ€™s arrangement of Second Substance in the same Category with First Substance.26He criticizes at some length both the Aristotelian list of Categories, and the Stoic list; but he falls back into the Platonic and even the Parmenidean point of view. His capital distinction is between Cogitables and Sensibles. The Cogitables are in his view the most real (i.e.the Aristotelian Second Substance is more real than the First); among them the highest, Unum or Bonum, is the grand fountain and sovereign of all the rest. Plotinus thus departed altogether from the Aristotelian Categories, and revived the Platonic or Parmenidean Realism; yet not without some Aristotelian modifications. But it is remarkable that in this departure his devoted friend and scholar Porphyry did not follow him. Porphyry not only composed an Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle, but also vindicated them at great length, in a separate commentary, against the censures of Plotinus; Dexippus, Jamblichus, and Simplikius, followed in the same track.27Still, though Porphyry stood forward both as admirer and champion of the Aristotelian Categories, he did not consider that the question raised by the First Category of Aristotle against the Platonic Realism was finally decided. This is sufficiently proved by the three problems cited above out of the Introduction of Porphyry; where he proclaims it to be a deep and difficult enquiry, whether Genera and Species had not a real substantive existence apart from the individuals composing them. Aristotle, both in the Categories and in many other places, had declared his opinion distinctly in the negative against Plato; but Porphyry had not made up his mind between the two, though he insists, in language very Aristotelian, on the distinction between First and Second Substance.28

26Plotinus, Ennead. vi. 1, 2.

27Simplikius, Schol. in Aristotel. Categ. p. 40, a, b, Brandis.

28Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, I. xi. p. 634, n. 69. Upon this account Prantl finds Porphyry guilty of â€œempiricism in its extreme crudenessâ€� â€” â€œjene Ã¤usserste Rohheit des Empirismus.â€�

Through the translations and manuals of BoÃ«thius and others, the Categories of Aristotle were transmitted to the Latin Churchmen, and continued to be read even through the darkest ages, when the Analytica and the Topica were unknown or neglected. The Aristotelian discrimination between First and Second Substance was thus always kept in sight, and BoÃ«thius treated it much in the same manner as Porphyry had done before him.29Alcuin, Rhabanus Maurus, and Eric of Auxerre,30in the eighth andninth centuries, repeated what they found in BoÃ«thius, and upheld the Aristotelian tradition unimpaired. But Scotus Erigena (d.880A.D.) took an entirely opposite view, and reverted to the Platonic traditions, though with a large admixture of Aristotelian ideas. He was a Christian Platonist, blending the transcendentalism of Plato and Plotinus with theological dogmatic influences (derived from the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita and others) and verging somewhat even towards Pantheism. Scotus Erigena revived the doctrine of CogitableUniversalia extra remandante rem. He declared express opposition to the arrangement of the First Aristotelian Category, whereby the individual was put first, in the character of subject; the Universal second, in the character only of predicate; complete reality belonging to the two in conjunction. Scotus maintained that the Cogitable or Incorporeal Universal was the first, the true and complete real; from whence the sensible individuals were secondary, incomplete, multiple, derivatives.31But, though he thus adopts and enforces the Platonic theory of Universalsante remandextra rem, he does not think himself obliged to deny that Universals may bein realso.

29Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, I. xii. p. 685; Trendelenburg, Kategorienlehre, p. 245.

30Ueberweg, Geschichte der Philosophie der scholastischen Zeit, p. 13.

31Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, II. xiii, pp. 29-35.

The contradiction of the Aristotelian traditions, so far as concerns the First Category, thus proclaimed by Scotus Erigena, appears to have provoked considerable opposition among his immediate successors. Nevertheless he also obtained partizans. Remigius of Auxerre and others not only defended the Platonic Realism, but carried it as far as Plato himself had done; affirming that not merely Universal Substances, but also Universal Accidents, had a real separate existence, apart from and anterior to individuals.32The controversy for and against the Platonic Realism was thus distinctly launched in the schools of the Middle Ages. It was upheld both as a philosophical revival, and as theologically orthodox, entitled to supersede the traditional counter-theory of Aristotle.

32Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, II. xiii, pp. 44, 45-47.

In reading attentively Hamiltonâ€™s â€œDissertation on the Philosophy of Common Senseâ€� (Note A, annexed to ed. of Reidâ€™s Works, p. 742, seq.), I find it difficult to seize accurately what he means by the term. It seems to me that he unsays in one passage what he says in another; and that what he tells us (p. 750, b.), viz. that â€œphilosophers have rarely scrupled, on the one hand, quietly to supersede the data of consciousness, so often as these did not fall in with their pre-adopted opinions; and on the other clamorously to appeal to them as irrecusable truths, so often as they could allege them in corroboration of their own, or in refutation of a hostile, doctrineâ€� â€” is illustrated by his own practice.

On page 752, a., he compares Common Sense to Common Law, and regards it as consisting in certain elementary feelings and beliefs, which, though in possession of all, can only be elicited and declared by philosophers, who declare it very differently. This comparison, however, sets aside unassisted Common Sense as an available authority. To make it so we must couple with it the same supplement that Common Law requires; that is, we must agree on some one philosopher as authoritative exponent of Common Sense. The Common Law of one country is different from that of another. Even in the same country, it is differently construed and set forth by different witnesses, advocates, and judges. In each country, a supreme tribunal is appointed to decide between these versions and to declare the law. The analogy goes farther than Hamilton wishes.

On the same page, he remarks:â€” â€œIn saying (to use the words of Aristotle) simply and without qualification, that this or thatis a known truth, we do not mean that it is in fact recognized by all, but only by such as are of a sound understanding; just as, in saying absolutely that a thing is wholesome, we must be held to mean, to such as are of a hale constitution.â€� The passage of Aristotleâ€™s Topica here noticed will be found to have a different bearing from that which Hamilton gives it.

Aristotle is laying down (Topica, VI. iv. p. 141, a. 23-p. 142, a. 16) the various lines of argument which may be followed out, when you are testing in dialectical debate a definition given or admitted by the opponent. There cannot be more than one definition of the same thing: the definition ought to declare the essence of the thing, which can only be done by means ofprioraandnotiora. Butnotioraadmits of two meanings: (1)notiora simpliciter; (2)notiora nobisorsingulis hominibus. Under the first head, that which ispriusis absolutely more knowable than that which isposterius; thus, a point more than a line, a line more than a plane, a plane more than a solid. But under the second head this order is often reversed: to most men the solid (as falling more under sense) is more knowable than the plane, the plane than the line, the line than the point. The first (notiora simpliciter) is the truly scientific order, suited to superior and accurate minds, employed in teaching, learning, and demonstration (p. 141, a. 29: καθάπερ ἐν ταῖς ἀποδείξεσιν, οὕτω γὰρ πᾶσα διδασκαλία καὶ μάθησις ἔχει, â€” b. 16: ἐπιστημονικώτερον γὰρ τὸ τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν). The second (notiora nobis) is adapted to ordinary minds, who cannot endure regular teaching, nor understand a definition founded on the first order. But definitions founded on the second alone (Aristotle says) are not satisfactory, nor do they reveal the true essence of the thing defined: there can be no satisfactory definition unless what isnotius simplicitercoincides with what isnotius nobis(p. 141, b. 24). He then proceeds to explain what is meant bynotius simpliciter; and this is the passage quoted by Hamilton. After having said that thenotiora nobisare not fixed and uniform, but vary with different individuals, and even in the same individual at different times, he goes on: â€œIt is plain therefore that we ought not to define by such characteristics as these (thenotiora nobis), but by thenotiora simpliciter: for it is only in this way that we can obtain a definition one and the same at all times. Perhaps, too, thenotius simpliciteris not that which is knowable to all, but that which is knowable to those who are well trainedin their intelligence; just as the absolutely wholesome is that which is wholesome to those who are well constituted in their bodiesâ€� (ἴσως δὲ καὶ τὸ ἁπλῶς γνώριμον οὐ τὸ πᾶσι γνώριμόν ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ τὸ τοῖς εὖ διακειμένοις τὴν διάνοιαν, καθάπερ καὶ τὸ ἁπλῶς ὑγιεινὸν τὸ τοῖς εὖ ἔχουσι τὸ σῶμα â€” p. 142, a. 9).

Hamiltonâ€™s translation misses the point of Aristotle, who here repeats what he frequently also declares in other parts of his writings (see Analyt. Post. I. i. p. 71, b. 33), namely, the contrast and antithesis betweennotius simpliciter(ornaturÃ¢) andnotius nobis. This is a technical distinction of his own, which he had explained very fully in the page preceding the words translated by Hamilton; and the words are intended as a supplementary caution, to guard against a possible misunderstanding of the phrase. Hamiltonâ€™s words â€” â€œsaying simply, and without qualification, that this or that is a known truth,â€� do not convey Aristotleâ€™s meaning at all; again, the words â€” â€œsuch as are of a sound understanding,â€� fail equally in rendering what Aristotle means by τοῖς εὖ διακειμένοις τὴν διάνοιαν. Aristotle tells us distinctly (in the preceding part of the paragraph) that he intends to contrast the few minds scientific or prepared for scientific discipline, with the many minds unscientific or unprepared for such discipline: he does not intend to contrast â€œmen of sound understandingâ€� with men â€œnot of sound understanding.â€�

It appears to me that Hamilton has here taken a passage away from its genuine sense in the Aristotelian context, and has pressed it into his service to illustrate a view of his own, foreign to that of Aristotle. He has done the like with some other passages, to which I will now advert.

What he says, pp. 764-766, about Aristotleâ€™s use of the term ἀξίωμα is quite opposed to the words of Aristotle himself, who plainly certifies it as being already in his time a technical term with mathematicians (Met.Γ.p. 1005, a. 20). On p. 766, a., Hamilton says that the word ἀξίωμα is not used in any work extant prior to Aristotle in a logical sense. This is true as to anyworkremaining to us, but Aristotle himself talks of previous philosophers or reasoners who had so used it; thus he speaks of κατὰ τὸ Ζήνωνος ἀξίωμα (Metaph.B.p. 1001, b. 7) â€” â€œaccording to the assumption laid down by Zeno as authoritative.â€� Of this passage Hamilton takes no notice: he only refers to the Topica, intimating a doubt (in my judgment groundless and certainly professed by few modern critics, if any) whether the Topica is a genuine work of Aristotle. In the time of Aristotle, various mathematical teachers laid down Axioms, such as, If equals be taken from equals, the remainders will be equal; In all propositions, either the affirmative or the negative must be true, &c. But the case of Zeno shows us that other philosophers also laid down Axioms of their own, which were not universally accepted by others. What Hamilton here says, about Axioms, has little pertinence as a contribution to the Philosophy of Common Sense.

Again, Hamilton says, p. 770, a.: â€œThe native contributions by the mind itself to our concrete cognitions have, prior to their elicitation into consciousness through experience, only apotential, and in actual experience only anapplied,engaged, orimplicate, existence.â€�

These words narrow the line of distinction between the two opposite schools so much, that I cannot see where it is drawn. Every germ has in it thepotentialitiesof that which it will afterwards become. No one disputes that a baby just born has mentalpotentialitiesnot possessed by a puppy, a calf, or an acorn. What is the difference between cognitionselicited through experience, and cognitionsderived from experience? To those who hold the doctrine of Relativity, both our impressions of sense and our mental activities (such as memory, discrimination, comparison, abstraction, &c.) are alike indispensable to experience. The difference, so far as I can see, between Hamilton and the Inductive School, is not so much about the process whereby cognitions are acquired, as about the mode of testing and measuring the authority of those cognitions when acquired. Hamilton will not deny that many of the cognitions which he describes as elicited by experience are untrue or exaggerated. How are we to discriminate these from the true? The Inductive School would reply: â€œBy the test of experience, and by that alone: if these cognitions, which have been elicited in your mind through experience, are refuted or not confirmed when tested by subsequent experience carefully watched and selected for the purpose, they are not true or trustworthy cognitions.â€� But Hamilton would not concur in this answer: he would say that the cognitions, though elicitedthroughexperience, did not derive their authority or trustworthinessfromexperience, but were binding and authoritative in themselves, whether confirmed by experience or not. In speaking about Axioms, p. 764, b., he says: â€œAristotle limitedâ€� (this is not correct: Aristotle did notlimitas here affirmed) â€œthe expression Axiom to thosejudgments which, on occasion of experience, arise naturally and necessarily in the conscious mind, and which are therefore virtually prior to experience.â€� That they are not prior to experience inorder of time, is admitted in the words just cited from Hamilton himself: he means, therefore, prior inlogical authorityâ€” carrying with them the quality ofnecessity, even though experience may afford no confirmation of them. This is what he says, on pp. 753-754, about causality: metaphysical causalitymustbe believed, as a necessary and subjective law of the observer â€” though there is no warrant for it in experience.

The question between Hamilton and the Inductive School, I repeat, is not so much about the psychological genesis of beliefs, as about the test for distinguishing true from false or uncertified beliefs, among those beliefs which arise, often and usually, in the minds of most men. Is there any valid test other than experience itself, as intentionally varied by experiments and interpreted by careful Induction? Are we ever warranted in affirming what transcends experience, except to the extent to which the inference from Induction (from some to all) always transcends actual observation? This seems to me the real question at issue between the contending schools of Metaphysics. Hamilton, while he rejects experience as the test, furnishes no other test whereby we can discriminate the erroneous beliefs â€œwhich are elicited into consciousness through experience,â€� from the true beliefs which are elicited in like manner.

In discussing the doctrine which Hamilton and other philosophers entitle Common Sense (in the metaphysical import which they assign to it), it is proper to say a few words on the legitimate meaning of this phrase, before it was pressed into service by a particular school of metaphysicians. Every one who lives through childhood and boyhood up to manâ€™s estate will unavoidably acquire a certain amount of knowledge and certain habits of believing, feeling, judging, &c.; differing materially in different ages and countries, and varying to a less degree in different individuals of the same age and country, yet still including more or less which is common to the large majority. That fire burns; that water quenches thirst and drowns; that the sun gives light and heat; that animals are all mortal and cannot live long without nourishment, â€” these and many other beliefs are not possessed by a very young child, but are acquired by every man as he grows up, though he cannot remember how or when he learnt them. The sum total of the beliefs thus acquired, by the impressions and influences under which every growing mind might pass, constitutes the Common Sense of a particular age and country. A person wanting in any of them would be considered, by the majority of the inhabitants, as deficient in Common Sense. If I meet an adult stranger, I presume as a matter of course that he has acquired them, and I talk to him accordingly. I also presume (being in England) that he has learnt the language of the country; and that he is familiar with the forms of English speech whereby such beliefs and their correlative disbeliefs are enunciated. If I affirm to him any one of these beliefs, he assents to it at once: it appears to him self-evident â€” that is, requiring no farther or extraneous evidence to support it. Though it appears to him self-evident, however, the proposition may possibly be false. To a Greek of the Aristotelian age, no proposition could appear more self-evident than that of the earth being at rest. No term can be more thoroughly relative than the termself-evident: that which appears so to one man, will often not appear so to another, and may sometimes appear altogether untrue.

But, if we suppose an individual to whom one of these beliefs does not appear self-evident, and who requires proof, he will not be satisfied to be told that every one else believes it, and that it is a dictate of Common Sense. He probably knows that already, and yet, nevertheless, he is not convinced. Aristarchus of Samos was told doubtless, often enough, that the doctrine of the earth being at rest was the plain verdict of Common Sense; but he did not the less controvert it. You must produce the independent proof which the recusant demands; and, if your doctrine is true and trustworthy, such proof can be produced. I will here remark that, in so far as Common Sense can properly be quoted as an authority or presumptive authority, it is such only in the sense proclaimed by Herakleitus and La Mennais, as cited by Hamilton, pp. 770-771: â€œas a magazine of ready-fabricated dogmas.â€� Hamilton finds fault with both of them; but it appears to me that they rightly interpret, and that he wrongly interprets, what Common Sense, as generally understood, is; and moreover, that most of the other authorities whom he himself quotes understand the phrase as these two understand it. Common Sense is â€œa magazine of ready-fabricated dogmas,â€� as La Mennais (see p. 771, a.) considers it â€” dogmas assumed as self-evident, and as requiring no proof. It only becomes â€œa source ofelementary truthsâ€� when analysed and remodelled by philosophers. Now philosophers differ much in their mode of analysing it (as Hamilton himself declares emphatically), and bring out of it different elementary truths; each of them professing to follow Common Sense and quoting Common Sense as warranty. It is plain that Common Sense is no authority for either one of two discrepant modes of analysis. Its authority counts for those dogmas out of which the analysis is made, in so far as Common Sense is authoritative at all.

Hamilton cites or indicates thirteen different Aristotelian passages, in order to support his view that Aristotle is to be numbered among the champions of authoritative Common Sense. It will be seen that most of the passages prove nothing, and that only one proves much, in favour of that view. I shall touch upon themseriatim.

(a) â€œFirst truths are such as are believed, not through aught elseâ€� (say ratherthrough other truths) â€œbut through themselves alone. For, in regard to the first principles of science, we ought not to require the reasonWhy; for each such principle behoves to be itself abeliefin and of itself.â€�1After the wordsreason Why, Hamilton inserts the following additional words of his own in brackets â€” â€œbut only the factThatthey are given.â€�

1Aristot. Topic. I. i. p. 100, a. 30; Hamiltonâ€™s Reid, p. 772, a.

I demur to the words in brackets, as implying an hypothesis not contained in Aristotle; who says only that the truth affirmed by the teacher must be such as the learner is prepared to believe without asking any questions. It may be an analytical truth (sensu Kantiano), in which the predicate asserts only what the learner knows to be already contained in the definition of the subject. It may be a synthetical truth; yet asserting only what he is familiar with by constant, early, uncontradicted, obvious, experience. In either case, he is prepared to believe it at once; and thus the conditions of a First Scientific Truth are satisfied, as here described by Aristotle; who says nothing about the truthbeing given.

The next passage cited (b) is from the Analytica Posteriora (the reference is printed by mistakePriora). According to Hamilton, Aristotle says:â€”â€œWe assert not only that science does exist, but also that there is given a certain beginning or principle of science,in so far as(or, on another interpretation of the term ᾗ â€”by which) we recognize the import of the terms.â€�2I think Hamilton has not exactly rendered the sense of the original when he translates it — â€œwe recognize the import of the terms;â€� and he proceeds to add expository words of his own which carry us still farther away from what I understand in Aristotle. If Hamiltonâ€™s rendering is correct, all theprincipiaof Science would be analytical propositions (sensu Kantiano), which I do not think that Aristotle intended to affirm or imply. In the last chapter of the Analytica Posteriora, Aristotle not only affirmed that there were First Principles of Science, but described at length the inductive process by which we reached them: referring them ultimately to the cognizance and approval of NoÃ»s or Intellect. What Aristotle means is, that, in ascending from propositions of lower to propositions of higher universality, we know when we have reached the extreme term of ascent; and this forms theprincipium.

2Aristot. Anal. Post. I. iii. p. 72, b. 23: ταῦτά τâ€™ οὖν οὕτω λέγομεν, καὶ οὐ μόνον ἐπιστήμην ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀρχὴν ἐπιστήμης εἶναί τινά φαμεν, ᾗ τοὺς ὅρους γνωρίζομεν.Neither Philoponus, nor Buhle, nor M. BarthÃ©lemy St.-Hilaire, translate the words τοὺς ὅρους γνωρίζομεν in the same way as Sir W. Hamilton. It rather seems to me that the words meanterms or limits of regress, which coincides with the paraphrase of Philoponus: τούτῳ γὰρ (τῷ νῷ) τὰς ἀρχοειδεστάτας καὶ οἱονεὶ ὅρους οὔσας γνωρίζομεν (Schol. p. 201, b. 13, Br.), as well as substantially with the note of M. St.-Hilaire.

2Aristot. Anal. Post. I. iii. p. 72, b. 23: ταῦτά τâ€™ οὖν οὕτω λέγομεν, καὶ οὐ μόνον ἐπιστήμην ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀρχὴν ἐπιστήμης εἶναί τινά φαμεν, ᾗ τοὺς ὅρους γνωρίζομεν.

Neither Philoponus, nor Buhle, nor M. BarthÃ©lemy St.-Hilaire, translate the words τοὺς ὅρους γνωρίζομεν in the same way as Sir W. Hamilton. It rather seems to me that the words meanterms or limits of regress, which coincides with the paraphrase of Philoponus: τούτῳ γὰρ (τῷ νῷ) τὰς ἀρχοειδεστάτας καὶ οἱονεὶ ὅρους οὔσας γνωρίζομεν (Schol. p. 201, b. 13, Br.), as well as substantially with the note of M. St.-Hilaire.

Sir W. Hamilton next gives us another passage (c) from the Analytica Posteriora, in which Aristotle affirms that the First Principles must be believed in a superlative degree, because we know and believe all secondary truths through them:3a doctrine which appears to me to require both comment and limitation; but about which I say nothing, because, even granting it to be true, I do not see how it assists the purpose â€” to prove that Aristotle is the champion of authoritative Common Sense. Nor do I find any greater proof in another passage previously (p. 764, b.) produced from Aristotle: â€œOf the immediate principles of syllogism, that which cannot be demonstrated, but which it is not necessary to possess as the pre-requisite of all learning, I callThesis: and thatAxiom, which he who would learn aught, must himself bring (and not receive from his instructor). For some such principles there are; and it is to these that we are accustomed to apply the name.â€�4Such principles there doubtless are, which thelearner must bring with him; but Aristotle does not assert, much less prove, that they are intuitions given by authoritative Common Sense. Nay, in the passage cited in my former page, he both asserted and proved that theprincipiaof Science were raised from Sense by Induction. The learner, when he comes to be taught, must bring some of theseprincipiawith him, if he is to learn Science from his teacher; just as he must also bring with him a knowledge of the language, of the structure of sentences, of the forms for affirmation and denial, &c., and various other requisites. A recruit, when first coming to be drilled, must bring with him a certain power of walking and of making other movements of the limbs. But these pre-requisites, on the part of the learner as well as on that of the recruit, are not intuitive products or inspirations of the mind: they are acquirements made by long and irksome experience, though often forgotten in its details. We are not to reason upon the learner or the recruit as if they were children just born.

3Analyt. Poster. I. ii. p. 72, a. 27.

4Analyt. Poster. I. iii. p. 72, a. 17: τοῦτο γὰρμάλιστâ€™ἐπὶ τοῖς τοιούτοις εἰώθαμεν ὄνομα λέγειν â€” â€œwe are for the most part accustomed:â€� Hamilton has not translated the word μάλιστα, which it would have been better for him to do, because he founds upon the passage an argument to prove that Aristotle limited in a certain way the sense of the word Axiom.

The passages out of the Rhetorica and the Metaphysica (cited on p. 772, b., and markeddande) are hardly worth notice. But that which immediately follows (markedf), out of the Nikomachean Ethica, is the most pertinent of all that are produced. Hamilton writes:â€” â€œArguing against a paradox of certain Platonists in regard to the Pleasurable, Aristotle says â€” â€˜But they who oppose themselves to Eudoxus, as if what all nature desiderates were not a good, talk idly. For whatappears to all, that we affirmto be; and he who would subvert this belief, will himself assuredly advance nothing more deserving of credit.â€™5Compare also L. vii. c. 13 (14). In his paraphrase of the above passage, the Pseudo-Andronicus in one place uses the expressioncommon opinion, and in another all but uses (what indeed he could hardly do in this meaning as an Aristotelian, if indeed in Greek at all) the expressioncommon sense, which D. Heinsius in his Latin version actually employs.â€� Thus far Hamilton; but the words of Aristotle which immediately follow are even stronger:â€” â€œFor, in so far as foolish creatures desire pleasure, the objection taken would be worth something; but, when intelligent creatures desire it also, how can the objectors make out their case? Even in mean and foolish creatures, moreover, there is perhaps a certain good natural appetite, superior to themselves, which aims at their own good.â€�6Or as Aristotle (according to some critics, the Aristotelian Eudemus) states it in the Seventh Book of the Nikomachean Ethica, referred to by Sir W. Hamilton without citing it:â€” â€œPerhaps all creatures (brutes as well as men) pursue, not that pleasure which they think they are pursuing, nor what they would declare themselves to be pursuing, but all of them the same pleasure; for all creatures have by nature something divine.â€�7

5Aristot. Ethic. Nik. X. ii. p. 1172, b. 36: ὃ γὰρ πᾶσι δοκεῖ, τοῦτâ€™ εἶναί φαμενÂ· ὁ δâ€™ ἀναιρῶν ταύτην τὴν πίστιν, οὐ πάνυ πιστότερα ἐρεῖ.

6Aristot. Ethic. Nik. X. ii. p. 1173, a. 2: ᾗ μὲν γὰρ τὰ ἀνόητα ὀρέγεται αὐτῶν, ἦν ἄν τι τὸ λεγόμενÂ· εἰ δὲ καὶ τὰ φρόνιμα, πῶς ἂν λέγοιέν τι; ἴσως δὲ καὶ ἐν τοῖς φαύλοις ἐστί τιφυσικὸνἀγαθὸνκρεῖττον ἢ καθâ€™ αὑτά,ὃ ἐφίεται τοῦ οἰκείου ἀγαθοῦ. (I adopt here the text as given by Michelet,ᾗμὲν in place of εἰ μὲν, but not in leaving out τὸ before λεγόμενον.) I think the sentence would stand better if ἀγαθὸν were omitted after φυσικόν.

7Eth. Nikom. VII. xiv. p. 1153, b. 31: ἴσως δὲ καὶ διώκουσιν οὐχ ἢν οἴονται (ἡδονήν) οὐδâ€™ ἢν ἂν φαῖεν, ἀλλὰ τὴν αὐτήνÂ·πάντα γὰρ φύσει ἔχει τι θεῖον. The sentiment is here declared even more strongly respecting the appetency of all animals â€” brutes as well as men.

In this passage, Aristotle does really appear as the champion of authoritative Common Sense. He enunciates the general principle: That which appears to all, that we affirm to be. And he proceeds to claim (with the qualification ofperhaps) for this universal belief a divine or quasi-divine authority; like Hesiod in the verses cited by Sir W. Hamilton, p. 770, b., and like Dr. Reid in the motto prefixed to his â€˜Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense.â€™ If Aristotle had often spoken in this way, he would have been pre-eminently suitable to figure in Sir W. Hamiltonâ€™s list of authorities. But the reverse is the fact. In the Analytica and Topica, Aristotle is so far from accepting the opinion and belief of all as a certificate of truth and reality, that he expressly ranks the matters so certified as belonging to the merely probable, and includes them in his definition thereof. Universal belief counts for more or less, as a certificate of the truth of what is believed, according to the matter to which it refers; and there are few matters on which it is of greater value than pleasure and pain. Yet even upon this point Aristotle rejects the authority of the many, and calls upon us to repose implicit confidence in the verdict of the just and intelligent individual, whom he enthrones as the measure. â€œThose alone are pleasuresâ€� (says Aristotle) â€œwhich appear pleasures to this man; those aloneare pleasant things in which he takes delight. If things which are revolting to him appear pleasurable to others, we ought not to wonder, since there are many corruptions and degenerations of mankind; yet these things are not really pleasurable, except to these men and to men of like disposition.â€�8This declaration, repeated more than once in the Nikomachean Ethica, and supported by Analytica and Topica, more than countervails the opposite opinion expressed by Aristotle, in the passage where he defends Eudoxus.

8Aristot. Ethic. Nik. X. v. p. 1176, a. 15: δοκεῖ δâ€™ ἐν ἅπασι τοιούτοις εἶναι τὸ φαινόμενον τῷ σπουδαίῳ. εἰ δὲ τοῦτο καλῶς λέγεται, καθάπερ δοκεῖ, καὶ ἔστιν ἑκάστου μέτρον ἡ ἀρετὴ καὶ ὁ ἀγαθὸς ᾗ τοιοῦτος, καὶ ἡδοναὶ εἶεν ἂν αἱ τούτῳ φαινόμεναι, καὶ ἡδέα οἷς οὗτος χαίρει &c. Ib. vi. p. 1176, b. 24:καθάπερ οὖν πολλάκις εἴρηται, καὶ τίμια καὶ ἡδέα ἐστὶ τὰ τῷ σπουδαίῳ τοιαῦτα ὄντα.

The next passage (g) produced by Sir W. Hamilton is out of the Eudemian Ethica. But this passage, when translated more fully and exactly than we read it in his words, will be found to prove nothing to the point which he aims at. He gives it as follows, p. 773, a.:â€” â€œBut of all these we must endeavour to seek out rational grounds of belief, by adducing manifest testimonies and authorities. For it is the strongest evidence of a doctrine, if all men can be adduced as the manifest confessors of its positions; because every individual has in him a kind of private organ of the truth. Hence we ought not always to look to the conclusions of reasoning, but frequently rather to what appears [and is believed] to be.â€� The original is given below.9

9Aristot. Eth. Eud. I. vi. p. 1218, b. 26: πειρατέον δὲ περὶ τούτων πάντων ζητεῖν τὴν πίστιν διὰ τῶν λόγων, μαρτυρίοις καὶ παραδείγμασι χρώμενον τοῖς φαινομένοις. κράτιστον μὲν γὰρ πάντας ἀνθρώπους φαίνεσθαι συνομολογοῦντας τοῖς πάντως, ὅπερ μεταβιβαζόμενοι ποιήσουσινÂ· ἔχει γὰρ ἕκαστος οἰκεῖόν τι πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ἐξ ὧν ἀναγκαῖον δεικνύναι πως περὶ αὐτῶν. ἐκ γὰρ τῶν ἀληθῶς μὲν λεγομένων, οὐ σαφῶς δέ, προϊοῦσιν ἔσται καὶ τὸ σαφῶς, μεταλαμβάνουσιν ἀεὶ τὰ γνωριμώτερα τῶν εἰωθότων λέγεσθαι συγκεχυμένως. Then after an interval of fifteen lines: καλῶς δâ€™ ἔχει καὶ τὸ χωρὶς κρίνειν τὸν τῆς αἰτίας λόγον καὶ τὸ δεικνύμενον, διά τε τὸ ῥηθὲν ἀρτίως, ὅτι προσέχειν οὐ δεῖ πάντα τοῖς διὰ τῶν λόγων, ἀλλὰ πολλάκις μᾶλλον τοῖς φαινομένοις (νῦν δâ€™ ὅποτâ€™ ἂν λύειν μὴ ἔχωσιν, ἀναγκάζονται πιστεύειν τοῖς εἰρημένοις), καὶ διότι πολλάκις τὸ μὲν ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου δεδεῖχθαι δοκοῦν ἀληθὲς μέν ἐστιν, οὐ μέντοι διὰ ταύτην τὴν αἰτίαν διâ€™ ἥν φησιν ὁ λόγος. ἔστι γὰρ διὰ ψεύδους ἀληθὲς δεῖξαιÂ· δῆλον δâ€™ ἐκ τῶν Ἀναλυτικῶν.

The following is a literal translation, restoring what Sir W. Hamilton omits:â€” â€œBut, respecting all these matters, we must endeavour to seek belief through general reasoning, employing the appearances before us (i.e.the currentdictaandfactaof society) as testimonies and examples. For it is best that all mankind should be manifestly in agreement with what we are about to say; but, if that cannot be, that at all events they should be in some sort of agreement with us; which they will come to be when brought round (by being addressed in the proper style). For every man has in him some tendencies favourable to the truth, and it is out of these that we must somehow or other prove our conclusions. By taking our departure from what is said around us truly but not clearly, we shall by gradual advance introduce clearness, taking along with us such portion of the confused common talk as is most congruous to Science.â€¦ It is well also to consider apart the causal reasoning (syllogistic, deductive premisses), and the conclusion shown: first, upon the ground just stated, that we must not pay exclusive attention to the results of deductive reasoning, but often rather to apparent facts, whereas it often happens now that, when men cannot refute the reasoning, they feel constrained to believe in the conclusion; next, because the conclusion, shown by the reasoning, may often be true in itself, but not from the cause assigned in the reasoning. For a true conclusion may be shown by false premisses; as we have seen in the Analytica.â€�

Whoever reads the original words of Aristotle (or Eudemus) will see how much Sir W. Hamiltonâ€™s translation strains their true meaning. Κράτιστον does not correspond to the phrase â€” â€œit is the strongest evidence of a doctrine.â€� Κράτιστον is the equivalent of ἄριστον, as we find in chap. iii. of this Book of the Eudemian Ethica (p. 1215, a. 3): ἐπεὶ δâ€™ εἰσὶν ἀπορίαι περὶ ἑκάστην πραγματείαν οἰκεῖαι, δῆλον ὅτι καὶ περὶβίου τοῦ κρατίστουκαὶ ζωῆς τῆς ἀρίστης εἰσίν. Nor ought the words οἰκεῖόν τι πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν to be translated â€” â€œa kind of private organ of the truth:â€� they mean simply â€” â€œsomething in him favourable or tending towards the truth,â€� as we read in chap. ii. of this same Book â€” οἰκεῖον πρὸς εὐεξίαν (p. 1214, b. 22). Moreover, Hamilton has omitted to translate both the words preceding and the words following; accordingly he has missed the real sense of the passage. Aristotle inculcates upon the philosopher never to neglect the common and prevalent opinions, but to acquaint himself with them carefully; because, though these opinions are generally full of confusion and error (εἰκῇ γὰρ λέγουσι σχεδὸν περὶ ἁπάντων (οἱ πολλοί) â€” Ethic. Eudem. I. iii. p. 1215, a. 1), he will find in them partial correspondences with the truth,of which he may avail himself to bring the common minds round to better views; but, unless he knows pretty well what the opinions of these common minds are, he will not be able to address them persuasively. This is the same reasonable view which Aristotle expresses at the beginning of the Topica (in a passage already cited, above), respecting the manner of dealing proper for a philosopher towards current opinion. But it does not at all coincide with the representation given by Hamilton.

The next piece of evidence (h) which we find tendered is another passage out of the Eudemian Ethica. It will be seen that this passage is strained with even greater violence than the preceding. Hamilton writes as follows, first translating the words of Aristotle, then commenting on them:â€” â€œThe problem is this â€” What is the beginning or principle of motion in the soul? Now it is evident, as God is in the universe, and the universe in God, that [I read κινεῖν καί â€” W. H.] the divinity in us is also, in a certain sort, the universal mover of the mind. For the principle of Reason is not Reason but something better. Now what can we say is better than even Science, except God?â€�10So far Hamiltonâ€™s translation; now follows his comment:â€” â€œThe import of this singular passage is very obscure. It has excited, I see, the attention, and exercised the ingenuity, of Pomponatius, J. C. Scaliger, De Raei, Leibnitz, Leidenfrost, Jacobi, &c. But without viewing it as of pantheistic tendency, as Leibnitz is inclined to do, it may be interpreted as a declaration, that Intellect, which Aristotle elsewhere allows to be pre-existent and immortal, is a spark of the Divinity; whilst its data (from which as principles more certain than their deductions, Reason, Demonstration, Science, must depart) are to be reverenced as the revelation of truths which would otherwise lie hid from man: That, in short,

â€œâ€˜The voice of Nature is the voice of God.â€™

By the bye, it is remarkable that this text was not employed by any of those Aristotelian philosophers who endeavoured to identify the Active Intellect with the Deity.â€�

Back to Index Next