Page - 48 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

way. As I have pointed out, change in magnitude, however, includes both growth and diminution.19 For this it remains to be shown that not only growth, but also diminution requires an alteration in order to occur. Other- wise, Aristotle could not claim that change in magnitude—about which he is obviously speaking here—presupposes alteration and hence locomo- tion.20 3.2.2 Diminution presupposes alteration Aristotle does not spell out explicitly how diminution occurs. According to GC I 5 something grows by means of some thing’s acceding to the growing thing, while something diminishes by some thing’s leaving the body.21 Even though Aristotle does not say this explicitly, he seems to think that growth and diminution work according to the same principles, since diminution may be considered as a reversed form of growth, so to speak. If this is cor- rect, that which is leaving the body, a portion of flesh or tissue for example, needs to become separated from the portion of flesh of which it is a part. This detachment, or, to put it in Aristotelian terms, the process of turning something that is like that of which it is a part into something that—at least to a certain degree—is unlike this stuff, presupposes an alteration. Further- more, this alteration needs to occur before the actual occurrence of the diminution, since the part cannot be dissolved out of the continuous whole, thereby making this whole become smaller, until it is altered in the neces- sary way. An example of this would be a part of flesh that is detached from the living tissue and that by this process ceases to be like the actual flesh of the body and turns into some other material that is transported out of the body after the change.22 The following example could serve as an analogy: suppose, for instance, I take a candle or a piece of wax and start heating a part of it by means of another other candle that is burning. A part of the wax will become warmer and warmer through my heating and at some point a certain portion of the wax will turn into liquid and finally will be 19 See Phys. V 2, 226a29–32, and GC I 5, 320a8–10. 20 Philoponus, Simplicius, Aquinas, Ross (1936), Wagner (1967), Zekl (1988), and Gra- ham (1999) do not say anything about this. Either they—without making it explicit—do not think that this a problem and presuppose that it is clear that diminution takes place according to the same principles as growth, or they are unaware of this problem. 21 See GC I 5, 321a3–5 and 321b12f. 22 The ‘flesh’ by being detached from the organism’s tissue stops being flesh in the strict sense, as this presupposes being part of a living body’s flesh; in the same sense Aristotle would say that a chopped off hand is no longer a hand, since being a hand presupposes being part of a living human body. 48 Change in quality and quantity of living beings ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen