50 Arguments in Behalf ofAristotle's View
50: Arguments in Behalf of Aristotle's View A number of arguments can be presented in defense of this view. For the present I am not concerned whether they are conclusive.
One can argue as follows: if relation were a thing outside the soul really distinct from absolute things, it would follow that the potentiality of prime matter in virtue of which prime matter can receive form would be something different from matter. The consequent is false; for since matter can
Successively receive an infinity of forms, there would be an infinity of things in matter.
Again, if there were such a thing, then whenever a donkey would undergo local motion every heavenly body would be changed and would acquire some new thing in itself; for the distance between the donkey and any heavenly body would now be different from what it was before. Consequently, if distance were such a thing, each heavenly body would really lose one thing and gain another.
Again, in any given body there would be an infinity of things. Proof: any body actually lies at a distance from every part of some other body, but the parts of the other body are infinite in number; therefore, there would be an infinity of distances in the first body, each one Corresponding to one of the infinite parts in the second body.
Furthermore, a given piece of wood is double its half. If, therefore, dow. bleness is a thing different from that which is double, then, in the same way there will be a relation by which the wood exceeds half of its half; and that thing will be a distinct entity existing in the wood. For the same reason the wood will have an entity corresponding to each half of each fraction of itself. But since the piece of wood incorporates an infinity of parts fitting this characterization and since the wood is related differently to each of these parts, there will be in that piece of wood an infinity of specifically different relations.
One might claim that since the relevant parts of the wood do not exist in act, but only in potency, the relations are not infinite in actuality. The response is that those parts exist in nature because otherwise an object would be composed of non-beings; therefore, the relations corresponding to the relevant parts exist in nature. Consequently, an infinite number of things distinct in species exist in the wood.
Furthermore, the wood is really double its half; therefore, the relation of being double its own halfis really and actually in the piece of wood; but one part is not more in act than another, for all the parts are alike. ThereArguments in Behalf of Aristotle's View fore, every other part is in act in that there can be a real relation with respect to it. Therefore, to every such part there will be a real and actual relation. Those parts are infinite in number; therefore, there will be an infinite number of relations in the wood.
Besides, if any relation is such a thing, doubleness will be. But A's being double B is either a divisible or an indivisible accident. It cannot be an indivisible accident, for no indivisible accident which gives its name to the whole wood is present in that wood. The first subject of that accident would be either divisible or indivisible. Clearly it is not indivisible. Therefore the subject must be divisible. A divisible subject, however, cannot be the first subject of an indivisible accident; therefore, the accident is not indivisible.
But neither can one say that the accident is divisible and extended. If it were the parts of that accident would be either similar or dissimilar. If they were similar they would all share the name and the definition of the whole, so that every part of doubleness would itself be doubleness. Every part would be double that to which the whole is double and that is absurd. But if the parts were dissimilar they would be different in species. Consequently, if they were to constitute one thing, one of the things would have to be actuality and the other potentiality. Doubleness would be composed of act and potency. Likewise, if one part were act and the other potency, then since act and potency in making one thing are not spatially separate, the parts could not be spatially separate. But unless new parts are postulated, we would not have one extended object.
Again, one can present the following theological argument for the view in question. Any object that God can make with the mediation of a second efficient cause can be made by Him without any second efficient cause.
Since the relation of efficient causality is posited in an efficient cause by the mediation of a second cause, God could by Himself produce that relation without any second cause operating with Him. Suppose it to be the case;
I shall prove that it could not possibly happen. If God causes that relation in the relevant object, that object will be an efficient cause. Just as that in which whiteness exists is white, so that in which the relation of efficient causality exists is an efficient cause. But if it is an efficient cause, the only object it can be the efficient cause of is the relation in question. But then it is not by operating alone that God is the cause of that relation. Thus. from the hypothesis we can derive its opposite, so that it is not possible.
Furthermore, anything which God conserves without another thing, He could create, even though the other thing neither is nor ever has been. Therefore, if the paternity by which a father is related to his son is a thing distinct from father and son, God will conserve it without the act of generation; for that is already past. Therefore, God is able or was able to create that paternity even though there had been no act of generation. But then it would be possible for a man to be the father of someone he did not beget.