necessario gignitur: sine causa enim oriri quidquam, impossibile est). At the end of his book "De fato," Plutarch cites the following among the chief propositions of the Stoics: μάλιστα μὲν καὶ πρῶτον εἶναι δόξειε, τὸ μηδὲν ἀναιτίως γίγνεσθαι, ἀλλὰ κατὰ προηγουμένας αἰτίας (mazime id primum esse videbitur, nihil fieri sine causa, sed omnia causis antegressis). In the "Analyt. post." i. 2, Aristotle states the principle of sufficient reason to a certain degree when he says: ἐπίστασθαι δὲ οιόμεθα ἕκαστον ἁπλῶς, ὅταν τὴν τ' αἰτίαν οἰόμεθα γινώσκειν, δι ἣν τὸ πρᾶγμα ἔστιν, ὅτι ἐκείνου αἰτία ἐστίν, καὶ μὴ ἐνδέχεσθαι τοῦτο ἄλλως εἶναι. (Scire autem putamus unamquamque rem simpliciter, quum putamus causam cognoscere, propter quum res est, ejusque rei causam esse, nec posse eam aliter se habere.) In his "Metaphysics," moreover, he already divides causes, or rather principles, doxaí, into different kinds, of which he admits eight; but this division is neither profound nor precise enough. He is, nevertheless, quite right in saying, πασῶν μὲν οὖν κοινὸν τῶν ἀρχῶν, τὸ πρῶτον εἶναι, ὅθεν ἢ ἔστιν, ἢ γίνεται, ἢ γιγνώσκεται. (Omnibus igitur principiis commune est, esse primum, unde aut est, aut fit, aut cognoscitur.) In the following chapter he distinguishes several kinds of causes, although somewhat superficially and confusedly. In the "Analyt. post." ii. 11, he states four kinds of causes in a more satisfactory manner: "This especially would seem to be the first principle: that nothing arises without cause, but [everything] according to preceding causes.' [Tr.'s add.] 2 "We think we understand a thing perfectly, whenever we think we know the cause by which the thing is, that it is really the cause of that thing, and that the thing cannot possibly be otherwise." [Tr.'s add.] 3 Lib. iv. c. 1. "Now it is common to all principles, that they are the first thing through which [anything] is, or arises, or is understood." [Tr.'s add.] αἰτίαι δὲ τέσσαρες· μία μὲν τό τι ἦν εἶναι· μία δὲ τὸ τινῶν ὅντων, ἀνάγκη τοῦτο εἶναι ἑτέρα δέ, ἥ τι πρῶτον ἐκίνησε· τετάρτη δὲ, TO TIVOS VEKA. (Causæ autem quatuor sunt: una quæ explicat quid res sit; altera, quam, si quædam sint, necesse est esse; tertia, quæ quid primum movit; quarta id, cujus gratia.) Now this is the origin of the division of the causa universally adopted by the Scholastic Philosophers, into causæ materiales, formales, efficientes et finales, as may be seen in "Suarii disputationes metaphysica"-a real compendium of Scholasticism. Even Hobbes still quotes and explains this division." It is also to be found in another passage of Aristotle, this time somewhat more clearly and fully developed ("Metaph." i. 3.) and it is again briefly noticed in the book "De somno et vigilia," c. 2. As for the vitally important distinction between reason and cause, however, Aristotle no doubt betrays something like a conception of it in the "Analyt. post." i. 13, where he shows at considerable length that knowing and proving that a thing exists is a very different thing from knowing and proving why it exists: what he represents as the latter, being knowledge of the cause; as the former, knowledge of the reason. If, however, he had quite clearly recognized the difference between them, he would never have lost sight of it, but would have adhered to it throughout his writings. Now this is not the case; for even when he endeavours to distinguish the various kinds of causes from one another, as in the passages I have mentioned above, the essential difference mooted in the chapter just alluded to, never seems to occur to him again. Besides he uses the term airior indiscriminately for every kind of cause, often indeed calling reasons of know "There are four causes: first, the essence of a thing itself; second, the sine qua non of a thing; third, what first put a thing in motion; fourth, to what purpose or end a thing is tending." [Tr.'s add.] 266 'Suarii disputationes metaph." Disp. 12, sect. 2 et 3. 3 Hobbes, "De corpore," P. ii. c. 10, § 7. |