Aristotle PHYSICS Complete

Translated by R. Hardie and R. Gaye.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

128 pages - You are on Page 68

(1) Now it has three dimensions, length, breadth, depth, the dimensions by which all body also is bounded. But the place cannot be body; for if it were there would be two bodies in the same place.

(2) Further, if body has a place and space, clearly so too have surface and the other limits of body; for the same statement will apply to them: where the bounding planes of the water were, there in turn will be those of the air. But when we come to a point we cannot make a distinction between it and its place. Hence if the place of a point is not different from the point, no more will that of any of the others be different, and place will not be something different from each of them.

(3) What in the world then are we to suppose place to be? If it has the sort of nature described, it cannot be an element or composed of elements, whether these be corporeal or incorporeal: for while it has size, it has not body. But the elements of sensible bodies are bodies, while nothing that has size results from a combination of intelligible elements.

(4) Also we may ask: of what in things is space the cause? None of the four modes of causation can be ascribed to it. It is neither in the sense of the matter of existents (for nothing is composed of it), nor as the form and definition of things, nor as end, nor does it move existents.

(5) Further, too, if it is itself an existent, where will it be? Zeno's difficulty demands an explanation: for if everything that exists has a place, place too will have a place, and so on ad infinitum.

(6) Again, just as every body is in place, so, too, every place has a body in it. What then shall we say about growing things? It follows from these premisses that their place must grow with them, if their place is neither less nor greater than they are.

By asking these questions, then, we must raise the whole problem about place-not only as to what it is, but even whether there is such a thing.

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