Aristotle ON THE HEAVENS Complete

Translated by J. Stocks.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

88 pages - You are on Page 81

Similar difficulties are involved in all other methods of distinction, whether they account for the relative lightness and heaviness of bodies by distinctions of size, or proceed on any other principle, so long as they attribute to each the same matter, or even if they recognize more than one matter, so long as that means only a pair of contraries. If there is a single matter, as with those who compose things of triangles, nothing can be absolutely heavy or light: and if there is one matter and its contrary-the void, for instance, and the plenum-no reason can be given for the relative lightness and heaviness of the bodies intermediate between the absolutely light and heavy when compared either with one another or with these themselves. The view which bases the distinction upon differences of size is more like a mere fiction than those previously mentioned, but, in that it is able to make distinctions between the four elements, it is in a stronger position for meeting the foregoing difficulties. Since, however, it imagines that these bodies which differ in size are all made of one substance, it implies, equally with the view that there is but one matter, that there is nothing absolutely light and nothing which moves upward (except as being passed by other things or forced up by them); and since a multitude of small atoms are heavier than a few large ones, it will follow that much air or fire is heavier than a little water or earth, which is impossible.

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