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[1046b]
[1]
it is clear that some of the potencies
also will be irrational and some rational. Hence all arts, i.e. the
productive sciences, are potencies; because they are principles of
change in another thing, or in the artist himself qua other.Every rational potency admits
equally of contrary results, but irrational potencies admit of one
result only. E.g., heat can only produce heat, but medical science can
produce disease and health. The reason of this is that science is a
rational account, and the same account explains both the thing and its
privation, though not in the same way; and in one sense it applies to
both, and in another sense rather to the actual fact.Therefore such sciences must
treat of contraries—essentially of the one, and
non-essentially of the other; for the rational account also applies
essentially to the one, but to the other in a kind of accidental way,
since it is by negation and removal that it throws light on the
contrary. For the contrary is the primary privation,1 and this is the removal of that to
which it is contrary.2And since contrary attributes cannot be
induced in the same subject, and science is a potency which depends
upon the possession of a rational formula, and the soul contains a
principle of motion, it follows that whereas "the salutary" can only
produce health, and "the calefactory" only heat, and "the frigorific"
only cold,
[20]
the scientific
man can produce both contrary results.For the rational account includes both, though
not in the same way; and it is in the soul, which contains a principle
of motion, and will therefore, by means of the same principle, set
both processes in motion, by linking them with the same rational
account. Hence things which have a rational potency produce results
contrary to those of things whose potency is irrational3; for
the results of the former are included under one principle, the
rational account.It is
evident also that whereas the power of merely producing (or suffering)
a given effect is implied in the power of producing that effect
well , the contrary is not always true; for that
which produces an effect well must also produce it, but that which
merely produces a given effect does not necessarily produce it
well.There are some, e.g. the Megaric school,4 who say that a
thing only has potency when it functions, and that when it is not
functioning it has no potency. E.g., they say that a man who is not
building cannot build, but only the man who is building, and at the
moment when he is building; and similarly in the other
cases.It is not
difficult to see the absurd consequences of this theory. Obviously a
man will not be a builder unless he is building, because "to be a
builder" is "to be capable of building"; and the same will be true of
the other arts.If,
therefore, it is impossible to possess these arts without learning
them at some time and having grasped them,
1 Cf. Aristot. Met. 10.4.7.
2 Literally "of the other," i.e. the positive term.
3 The meaning of this awkward sentence is clearly shown in the latter part of 4.
4 Founded by Euclides of Megara, an enthusiastic admirer of Socrates. The Megarics adopted the Eleatic system and developed it along dialectical lines.
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