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of thought or the act of thinking, what does it think of? Either of
itself or of something else; and if of something else, either of the
same thing always or of something different. Does it matter, then,
or not, whether it thinks of the good or of any chance thing? Are
there not some things about which it is incredible that it should
think? Evidently, then, it thinks of that which is most divine and
precious, and it does not change; for change would be change for the
worse, and this would be already a movement. First, then, if 'thought'
is not the act of thinking but a potency, it would be reasonable to
suppose that the continuity of its thinking is wearisome to it.
Secondly, there would evidently be something else more precious than
thought, viz. that which is thought of. For both thinking and the
act of thought will belong even to one who thinks of the worst thing
in the world, so that if this ought to be avoided (and it ought, for
there are even some things which it is better not to see than to see),
the act of thinking cannot be the best of things. Therefore it must be
of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most
excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.
But evidently knowledge and perception and opinion and
understanding have always something else as their object, and
themselves only by the way. Further, if thinking and being thought
of are different, in respect of which does goodness belong to thought?
For to he an act of thinking and to he an object of thought are not
the same thing. We answer that in some cases the knowledge is the
object. In the productive sciences it is the substance or essence of
the object, matter omitted, and in the theoretical sciences the
definition or the act of thinking is the object. Since, then,
thought and the object of thought are not different in the case of
things that have not matter, the divine thought and its object will be
the same, i.e. the thinking will be one with the object of its
thought.
A further question is left-whether the object of the divine
thought is composite; for if it were, thought would change in
passing from part to part of the whole. We answer that everything
which has not matter is indivisible-as human thought, or rather the
thought of composite beings, is in a certain period of time (for it
does not possess the good at this moment or at that, but its best,
being something different from it, is attained only in a whole
period of time), so throughout eternity is the thought which has
itself for its object.
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We must consider also in which of two ways the nature of the
universe contains the good, and the highest good, whether as something
separate and by itself, or as the order of the parts. Probably in both
ways, as an army does; for its good is found both in its order and
in its leader, and more in the latter; for he does not depend on the
order but it depends on him. And all things are ordered together
somehow, but not all alike,-both fishes and fowls and plants; and
the world is not such that one thing has nothing to do with another,
but they are connected. For all are ordered together to one end, but
it is as in a house, where the freemen are least at liberty to act
at random, but all things or most things are already ordained for
them, while the slaves and the animals do little for the common
good, and for the most part live at random; for this is the sort of
principle that constitutes the nature of each. I mean, for instance,
that all must at least come to be dissolved into their elements, and
there are other functions similarly in which all share for the good of
the whole.
We must not fail to observe how many impossible or paradoxical
results confront those who hold different views from our own, and what
are the views of the subtler thinkers, and which views are attended by
fewest difficulties. All make all things out of contraries. But
neither 'all things' nor 'out of contraries' is right; nor do these
thinkers tell us how all the things in which the contraries are
present can be made out of the contraries; for contraries are not
affected by one another. Now for us this difficulty is solved
naturally by the fact that there is a third element. These thinkers
however make one of the two contraries matter; this is done for
instance by those who make the unequal matter for the equal, or the
many matter for the one. But this also is refuted in the same way; for
the one matter which underlies any pair of contraries is contrary to
nothing. Further, all things, except the one, will, on the view we are
criticizing, partake of evil; for the bad itself is one of the two
elements. But the other school does not treat the good and the bad
even as principles; yet in all things the good is in the highest
degree a principle. The school we first mentioned is right in saying
that it is a principle, but how the good is a principle they do not
say-whether as end or as mover or as form.
Empedocles also has a paradoxical view; for he identifies the good
with love, but this is a principle both as mover (for it brings things
together) and as matter (for it is part of the mixture). Now even if
it happens that the same thing is a principle both as matter and as
mover, still the being, at least, of the two is not the same. In which
respect then is love a principle? It is paradoxical also that strife
should be imperishable; the nature of his 'evil' is just strife.
Anaxagoras makes the good a motive principle; for his 'reason'
moves things. But it moves them for an end, which must be something
other than it, except according to our way of stating the case; for,
on our view, the medical art is in a sense health. It is paradoxical [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]