Aristotle POSTERIOR ANALYTICS Complete

Translated by G. Mure.

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Aristotle in Print

84 pages - You are on Page 82

Thus, B is the cause of A's inherence in the species of D: consequently A must be of wider extent than B; otherwise why should B be the cause of A's inherence in D any more than A the cause of B's inherence in D? Now if A is an attribute of all the species of E, all the species of E will be united by possessing some common cause other than B: otherwise how shall we be able to say that A is predicable of all of which E is predicable, while E is not predicable of all of which A can be predicated? I mean how can there fail to be some special cause of A's inherence in E, as there was of A's inherence in all the species of D? Then are the species of E, too, united by possessing some common cause? This cause we must look for. Let us call it C.

We conclude, then, that the same effect may have more than one cause, but not in subjects specifically identical. For instance, the cause of longevity in quadrupeds is lack of bile, in birds a dry constitution-or certainly something different.

Part 18

If immediate premisses are not reached at once, and there is not merely one middle but several middles, i.e. several causes; is the cause of the property's inherence in the several species the middle which is proximate to the primary universal, or the middle which is proximate to the species? Clearly the cause is that nearest to each species severally in which it is manifested, for that is the cause of the subject's falling under the universal. To illustrate formally: C is the cause of B's inherence in D; hence C is the cause of A's inherence in D, B of A's inherence in C, while the cause of A's inherence in B is B itself.

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