chieftain to the frenzy of an Oriental despot.» *
For my part, while I agree with Benn about the character of Alexander, I nevertheless think that his work was enormously important and enormously beneficial, since, but for him, the whole tradition of Hellenic civilization might well have perished. As to Aristotle’s influence on him, we are left free to conjecture whatever seems to us most plausible. For my part, I should suppose it nil. Alexander was an ambitious and passionate boy, on bad terms with his father, and
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* The Greek Philosophers, Vol. I, p. 285.
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presumably impatient of schooling. Aristotle thought no State should have as many as one hundred thousand citizens, * and preached the doctrine of the golden mean. I cannot imagine his pupil regarding him as anything but a prosy old pedant, set over him by his father to keep him out of mischief. Alexander, it is true, had a certain snobbish respect for Athenian civilization, but this was common to his whole dynasty, who wished to prove that they were not barbarians. It was analogous to the feeling of nineteenth-century Russian aristocrats for Paris. This, therefore, was not attributable to Aristotle’s influence. And I do not see anything else in Alexander that could possibly have come from this source.
It is more surprising that Alexander had so little influence on Aristotle, whose speculations on politics were blandly oblivious of the fact that the era of City States had given way to the era of empires. I suspect that Aristotle, to the end, thought of him as «that idle and headstrong boy, who never could understand anything of philosophy.» On the whole, the contacts of these two great men seem to have been as unfruitful as if they had lived in different worlds.
From 335 B.C. to 323 B.C. (in which latter year Alexander died), Aristotle lived at Athens. It was during these twelve years that he founded his school and wrote most of his books. At the death of Alexander, the Athenians rebelled, and turned on his friends, including Aristotle, who was indicted for impiety, but, unlike Socrates, fled to avoid punishment. In the next year ( 322) he died.
Aristotle, as a philosopher, is in many ways very different from all his predecessors. He is the first to write like a professor: his treatises are systematic, his discussions are divided into heads, he is a professional teacher, not an inspired prophet. His work is critical, careful, pedestrian, without any trace of Bacchic enthusiasm. The Orphic elements in Plato are watered down in Aristotle, and mixed with a strong dose of common sense; where he is Platonic, one feels that his natural temperament has been overpowered by the teaching to which he has been subjected. He is not passionate, or in any profound sense religious. The errors of his predecessors were the glorious errors of youth attempting the impossible; his errors are those of age which cannot free itself of habitual prejudices. He is best in
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* Ethics, 1170b.
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detail and in criticism; he fails in large construction, for lack of fundamental clarity and Titanic fire.
It is difficult to decide at what point to begin an account of Aristotle’s metaphysics, but perhaps the best place is his criticism of the theory of ideas and his own alternative doctrine of universals. He advances against the ideas a number of very good arguments, most of which are already to be found in Plato Parmenides. The strongest argument is that of the «third man»: if a man is a man because he resembles the ideal man, there must be a still more ideal man to whom both ordinary men and the ideal man are similar. Again, Socrates is both a man and an animal, and the question arises whether the ideal man is an ideal animal; if he is, there must be as many ideal animals as there are species of animals. It is needless to pursue the matter; Aristotle makes it obvious that, when a number of individuals share a predicate, this cannot be because of relation to something of the same kind as themselves, but more ideal. This much may be taken as proved, but Aristotle’s own doctrine is far from clear. It was this lack of clarity that made possible the medieval controversy between nominalists and realists.
Aristotle’s metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily. When one tries to understand him, one thinks part of the time that he is expressing the ordinary views of a person innocent of philosophy, and the rest of the time that he is setting forth Platonism with a new vocabulary. It does not do to lay too much stress on any single passage, because there is liable to be a correction or modification of it in some later passage. On the whole, the easiest way to understand both his theory of universals and his theory of matter and form is to set forth first the common-sense doctrine which is half of his view, and then to consider the Platonic modifications to which he subjects it.
Up to a certain point, the theory of universals is quite simple. In language, there are proper names, and there are adjectives. The proper names apply to «things» or «persons,» each of which is the only thing or person to which the name in question applies. The sun, the moon, France, Napoleon, are unique; there are not a number of instances of things to which these names apply. On the other hand, words like «cat,» «dog,» «man» apply to many different things. The
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problem of universals is concerned with the meanings of such words, and also of adjectives, such as «white,» «hard,» «round,» and so on. He says:* «By the term ‘universal’ I mean that which is of such a nature as to be predicated of many subjects, by ‘individual’ that which is not thus predicated.»
What is signified by a proper name is a «substance,» while what is signified by an adjective or class-name, such as «human» or «man,» is called a «universal.» A substance is a «this,» but a universal is a «such»—it indicates the sort of thing, not the actual particular thing. A universal is not a substance, because it is not a «this.» ( Plato’s heavenly bed would be a «this» to those who could perceive it; this is a matter as to which Aristotle disagrees with Plato.) «It seems impossible,» Aristotle says, «that any universal term should be the name of a substance. For . . . the substance of each thing is that which is peculiar to it, which does not belong to anything else; but the universal is common, since that is called universal which is such as to belong to more than one thing.» The gist of the matter, so far, is that a universal cannot exist by itself, but only in particular things.
Superficially, Aristotle’s doctrine is plain enough. Suppose I say «there is such a thing as the game of football,» most people would regard the remark as a truism. But if I were to infer that football could exist without football-players, I should be rightly held to be talking nonsense. Similarly, it would be held, there is such a thing as parenthood, but only because there are parents; there is such a thing as sweetness, but only because there are sweet things; and there is redness, but only because there are red things. And this dependence is thought to be not reciprocal: the men who play football would still exist even if they never played football; things which are usually sweet may turn sour; and my face, which is usually red, may turn pale without ceasing to be my face. In this way we are led to conclude that what is meant by an adjective is dependent for its being on what is meant by a proper name, but not vice versa. This is, I think, what Aristotle means. His doctrine on this point, as on many others, is a common-sense prejudice pedantically expressed.
But it is not easy to give precision to the theory. Granted that football could not exist without football-players, it could perfectly well
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* On Interpretation, 17a.
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exist without this or that football-player. And granted that a person can exist without playing football, he nevertheless cannot exist without doing something. The quality redness cannot exist without some subject, but it can exist without this or that subject; similarly a subject cannot exist without some quality, but can exist without this or that quality. The supposed ground for the distinction between things and qualities thus seems to be illusory.
The true ground of the distinction is, in fact, linguistic; it is derived from syntax. There are proper names, adjectives, and relationwords; we may say «John is wise, James is foolish, John is taller than James.» Here «John» and «James» are proper names, «wise» and «foolish» are adjectives, and «taller» is a relation-word. Metaphysicians, ever since Aristotle, have interpreted these syntactical differences metaphysically: John and James are substances, wisdom and folly are universals. (Relation-words were ignored or misinterpreted.) It may be that, given sufficient care, metaphysical differences can be found that have some relation to these syntactical differences, but, if so, it will be only by means of a long process, involving, incidentally, the creation of an artificial philosophical language. And this language will
