Aristotle ON THE HEAVENS Complete

Translated by J. Stocks.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

88 pages - You are on Page 87

It is plain that one must suppose as many distinct species of matter as there are bodies. For if, first, there is a single matter of all things, as, for instance, the void or the plenum or extension or the triangles, either all things will move upward or all things will move downward, and the second motion will be abolished. And so, either there will be no absolutely light body, if superiority of weight is due to superior size or number of the constituent bodies or to the fullness of the body: but the contrary is a matter of observation, and it has been shown that the downward and upward movements are equally constant and universal: or, if the matter in question is the void or something similar, which moves uniformly upward, there will be nothing to move uniformly downward. Further, it will follow that the intermediate bodies move downward in some cases quicker than earth: for air in sufficiently large quantity will contain a larger number of triangles or solids or particles. It is, however, manifest that no portion of air whatever moves downward. And the same reasoning applies to lightness, if that is supposed to depend on superiority of quantity of matter. But if, secondly, the kinds of matter are two, it will be difficult to make the intermediate bodies behave as air and water behave. Suppose, for example, that the two asserted are void and plenum. Fire, then, as moving upward, will be void, earth, as moving downward, plenum; and in air, it will be said, fire preponderates, in water, earth. There will then be a quantity of water containing more fire than a little air, and a large amount of air will contain more earth than a little water: consequently we shall have to say that air in a certain quantity moves downward more quickly than a little water. But such a thing has never been observed anywhere. Necessarily, then, as fire goes up because it has something, e.g. void, which other things do not have, and earth goes downward because it has plenum, so air goes to its own place above water because it has something else, and water goes downward because of some special kind of body. But if the two bodies are one matter, or two matters both present in each, there will be a certain quantity of each at which water will excel a little air in the upward movement and air excel water in the downward movement, as we have already often said.

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