Page - 64 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

sible from today’s point of view: a living being’s body is renewed part by part in its lifetime several times over, in order to prevent decay. But for this reason one might also think that growth really occurs in this way all the time without the subject actually increasing in size, since for material that is added, other material is taken away. Yet, even if Aristotle indeed seems to think that this process is going on in living beings, this does not imply that it is a process of growth and hence that growth is always occurring in living beings. For, as Aristotle points out in GC I 5, the process of material being added to the respective thing is not only a part of growth, but also of nutrition.68 Yet, in contrast to the process of nutrition, Aristotle clearly does not think that growth goes on constantly, for “a thing is nourished as long as it is maintained in existence even if it gets smaller, but is not always in process of growing.”69 The persistent pro- cess of material ‘flowing out’ and new matter coming in therefore may only be the necessary function of any self-sustaining living organism, a function called nutrition, which, as Aristotle points out, despite being closely related to growth, is not identical with this process.70 There is no reason to assume then that growth is always occurring. It certainly is one of the processes that may occur alongside other important processes that an animal undergoes constantly while in a state of rest. Therefore, the fact that growth as stated in the third eternity-objection is one of the processes that, taken together, are always occurring when an animal seems to be at rest is not a problem for the priority claim, for this does not imply that growth is going on con- stantly and therefore growth may not be a better candidate for the primary kind of change than locomotion. But as I will now show, the discussion of this last point has brought us closer to what Aristotle’s motivation really is for giving the first argument and for focusing on non-substantial changes as they occur in living beings in the first half of it. For there is still one more reason to think that growth in living beings might be prior or at least not posterior to locomotion, which, as I have already stated, would contradict the priority claim. Again, the solution of the third eternity-objection in Phys. VIII 2 and 6 states that when an animal seems to be in a state of rest, i.e. is not undergoing locomo- tion, it, in fact, is undergoing different changes, at least with respect to some of its parts. Accordingly, when an animal causes itself to change in place, this locomotion is preceded by changes that occur in the state of rest pre- 68 See GC I 5, 320a20–27. 69 διὸ τρέφεται μὲν ἕως ἂν σώζηται καὶ φθῖνον, αὐξάνεται δὲ οὐκ ἀεί, GC I 5, 322a 24–26. Transl. Williams (1982). 70 See GC I 5, 320a25–26, where Aristotle points out that nutrition (τροφή) and growth (αὔξησις) are the same, but different in being (τὸ δ᾽ εἶναι ἄλλο). 64 Change in quality and quantity of living beings ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen