while yet its essence was only (dúvaμus) power or potentiality. Even in that case, there will be no eternal motion; for that which exists, év dúvauet, in potentiality, admits of not-being. Therefore there must be some such principle, whose very essence is energy."

In stating the objections to the doctrine, he misrepresents Plato in his usual manner, by drawing the unsound inference, that the First Cause must have been ever engaged, from its very nature, in the work of creation, and that, therefore, the universe must have been eternal: σTε ovk äv ýv ἄπειρον χρόνον χάος ἢ νύξ, ἀλλὰ τὰ αὐτὰ ἀεί, ἢ περιόδῳ, ἢ ἄλλως, εἴπερ πρότερον ἐνέργεια δυνάμεως. εἰ δὲ τὸ αὐτὸ ἀεὶ περιόδῳ, δεῖ τι ἀεὶ μένειν ἐνεργοῦν—“ So that there could have been no chaos or night for an infinite (or indefinite) time; but the same things must have been ever taking place, either in a circuit or in some other manner, if activity (ἐνέργεια) is older than δύναμις. But if the same eternally took place in a circuit, then there must have ever been something continually energizing, or putting forth active power." Metaph., xi. (xii.), c. 6.

Aristotle was never careful to do Plato justice; although it would be easy to show-the modern declamation to the contrary notwithstanding-that their philosophy was substantially the same; the main difference arising from the Stagyrite's studious care to adopt, in many cases, a different phraseology, for the purpose of creating the appearance of a wider disagreement than really existed, and from his continual disposition to pervert and misstate Plato's real meaning. His misrepresentation here, whether wilful or not, arises from his utterly confounding the two aspects under which our philosopher defines his tenth species of κίνησις, as ἑαυτήν τε κινοῦσα—καὶ ἕτερα δυναμένη. In the first only did he hold it to be eternal and essential. In this respect, too, however much it may be above our comprehension, he regards it as purely spiritual, or, as the scholiast defines it,

psychical, in distinction from topical motion; as something ever energizing within itself, and only presenting the second aspect when exercised, karà тÓжоν, in the generation, creation, and changes of the topical universe. What Plato meant was this, that the First Cause was something more than dúvaus; an eternal activity constituting its very essence, yet by no means necessitating it to act out of itself, until, by an exercise of will, it should give rise to an outward universe, which, although actuated by, remains clearly distinct from, this everlasting energy.

We have likewise an example of the gross manner in which Aristotle misstates Plato, in another assertion of this same chapter, wherein he charges him with inconsistency in respect to his first Mover or Eternal Soul: 'Aλλà μǹv οὐδὲ Πλάτωνί γε οἷόν τε λέγειν ἣν οἴεται ἀρχὴν εἶναι ἐνίhv ¿víοτε τὸ αὐτὸ ἑαυτὸ κινοῦν. ὕστερον γὰρ καὶ ἅμα τῷ οὐρανῷ ǹ vxń, ws pro-" But, surely, neither is Plato able to tell us what he means by that which he sometimes thinks to be the first principle, namely, his self-moving power; for soul, he says (in a certain place), is cotemporary with the heavens, or the material universe." Aristotle undoubtedly would convey the inference, that this is inconsistent with the doctrine of the Eternal Spiritual Mover as laid down in the tenth book of The Laws. The position which he cites is from the Timæus, but the careful reader can hardly fail to see that there, by vvx, Plato means the anima mundi, which he expressly represents as the direct production of the Eternal Father, who formed it together with the body of which it was to be the plastic power; whereas throughout this book, and especially the present argument respecting motion, he employs the term soul for the immaterial principle which was prior to all creation and generation of matter-in fact, as another name for the Eternal Deity himself-and this wide difference could hardly have been unknown to one, who must have been familiar with the dia

logues of Plato, especially such important portions of them as the Timæus and this argument* against the atheists.

One cause of Aristotle's misconception may have been his own unsound definition of motion, which necessarily excluded this tenth species, which Plato makes the ground of all the rest: πᾶσα γὰρ κίνησις ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλο ἐστὶ μεтaboλn. Metaph., x. (xi.), c. 12. In other places, however, he seems to mean the same with our author, and even to go beyond him in the sublimity of some of his ideas respecting the first Mover. Compare, for this purpose, the last chapter of the last book of Physics, and the seventh chapter of the eleventh book of the Metaphysics. The First Cause he styles ȧkívηтov, not, as we think, in the sense of inactivity or quiescence, but as incapable of being ⚫ moved, or of deriving its motion from anything external or antecedent. This, instead of being dúvaus alone, he himself describes as essentially an Eternal Energy: ¿πεì dè ἔστι τὸ κινούμενον καὶ κινοῦν, μέσον ἐστί τι, ὃ οὐ κινούμε νον κινεῖ, ἀΐδιον, καὶ οὐσία καὶ ἐνέργεια οὖσα. Metaph., xi. (xii.), c. 7. He sometimes even transcends Plato, and seems to intend the energy of vous as something higher than a merely psychical† first mover, if he does not rather mean an άpx, or principle of a still higher nature even than this, namely, the moral and final cause of the heavenly motions. We allude especially to that most remark

* There cannot be a doubt, that, in the passages we have quoted, Aristotle has reference to this tenth book of The Laws; for nowhere else does Plato talk in the same style about motion and the first mover, unless it be in some of the subsequent books of this very treatise. In the Timæus, the argument is conducted in a manner altogether different. This, then, together with other references which Aristotle makes to the Laws, as a production of Plato well known in his day, ought to be conclusive evidence of their genuineness.

+ Plato, however, in this argument, evidently uses yvyn for all that is incorporeal, including intellect (vour) as well as life and motive power.

R

able passage, where he says "that this ȧpxń, or First Cause, moves the heavens, as being loved-kivɛî dè wc ¿púpevov," c. 7. By this, Cudworth supposes that he meant to represent a second moving power, or soul of the world, which," enamoured with this supreme, immoveable Mind, did, as it were, in imitation of it, continually turn round the heavens." Intellectual System, vol. ii., p. 313, Eng. ed. We cannot, however, discover any solid grounds for this opinion, and would rather regard this as a mode of expression, by which the Stagyrite would give the first place in the series of moving causes to moral reasons-what he himself so tersely styles, τὸ εὖ καὶ καλῶς, or the well and fit, and what Socrates was fond of denominating Tò ẞéλTIOTOV, the best. It was this principle which produced that motion of the Highest Heavens or sphere, on which all inferior motions depend: ἐκ τοιαύτης ἄρα ἀρχῆς ἤρτηται ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ φύσις. In this language we think there can be discovered some allusion to Homer's golden chain; and, indeed, the whole style and sentiment of the passage seems far more in accordance with the semi-poetical philosophy of Plato than with that of the dry and rigid Aristotle. Nothing could be more Platonic than this conception of the universe eternally moving on through love of The First Fair and The First Good, attracted rather than impelled, and ever tending to the object of its admiration, as though it were striving to develop, in the harmony of its varied physical influences, that all-perfect idea with which it was enraptured.

We may compare with all this a splendid passage from the Phædrus, of which Cicero has given a version in the first book of the Tusculan Disputations, sect. xxiii.: “All soul is immortal, for that which ever moves must be eternal; while that which moves another, and yet is moved by something else, since it hath cessation of motion, may have cessation of life. But that alone which moves itself, seeing

that it never leaves itself, not only never ceases energizing, but is also the fountain and beginning of motion to all other things. This can never either be born or perish, or all the heaven and earth collapsing must stand still, and never again find a renewed source and origin of motion. For, since it is evident that that which is self-moving is eternal, we need not fear to say that this is the very essence and reason (λóyos) of soul, or, in other words, its very nature," ὡς ταύτης οὔσης φύσεως ψυχῆς. Phadrus, 245, D. We need not remind the reader that in this passage, as well as in the tenth of The Laws, the term soul is taken collective. ly for the oldest soul, as the source of all animation, and including all other souls as in some way proceeding from it.

XXVII.

The Words λόγος, εἶδος, and ἰδέα.

PAGE 28, LINE 9. “Ev μèv, tǹv ovoíav· ềv dè, tñs ovoías τὸν λόγον· ἓν δὲ ὄνομα. “ One thing the essence, one the λóyos, reason, definition, or notion of the essence, and one the name." Aóyos, when rendered reason, is not to be taken for the faculty of the mind to which we give that appellation. It more properly signifies the reason of a thing; the reason as existing in a thing, perceived, or, rather, understood by the mind, or the rationale. It is not the reason why the thing exists, or the final cause, as we often use the term, but, rather, the constituting cause, what Aristotle calls Tò Tí v εival, that which makes anything what it is; a particular modification of the general idea of existence. The Móyos is that which is the object of the mind's intellection (notio); that which binds together (primary sense of λéyw) or gathers into a unity for the soul's contemplation-that to which alone the ovoμa, or name, belongs, and without which the thing itself is only an object of sensation.