Page - 105 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

for instance the quality viscous (γλίσχρον) needs to be understood as a modified kind of wetness.91 The way in which the qualities hot-cold and dry-wet are combined is responsible for the form of each of the four elemental bodies of earth, water, air and fire. Air is hot and wet, but turns into water as its dryness is gradu- ally overcome (κρατηθῇ) by wetness, since water is characterised by the qualities of cold and wet.92 Similar processes explain the coming to be and the perishing of all elemental bodies, that is, their transition into each other.93 The simple bodies, however, are those out of which all compound substances in the sublunary sphere consist, as they are the basic material components of compound bodies.94 It is with respect to these bodies, again, that substances are qualified by the other perceptible qualities like for instance colour or taste, because it is a body that has colour, taste, and so forth. The same is true for the quality of having a certain shape, as for example the shape possessed by an object made of bronze. Since these bodies are essentially determined by their prin- ciples and elements, the perceptible qualities belonging to and predicated of them also are partially determined by those principles and elements, as their existence depends on that of the body in which they reside. In the same way that a change with respect to these basic components affects the body, the qualities belonging to it are likewise affected. Of course, it is absurd to say that for instance the colour of a body is affected as colour when the body is heated or becomes dry, since the colour itself does not become warmer or dryer. Yet, when the surface of the body is affected through these changes, or perhaps is even destroyed by them, then this of course affects the body’s colour. But if such a connection exists, then, of course, a change with respect to a substance’s body and of the qualities belonging to it necessarily implies a change on the level of the basic elements and principles. If an apple, for instance, ripens and its colour changes from green to red in the process, it is clear that a change has taken place in the material of the apple or some of its material components, a change that corresponds to its becoming red. Accordingly, the apple’s change in colour involves and is accompanied by a change with respect to the elements and principles. The same is true of a change in taste that the apple may undergo. Suppose I take a green, unripe apple from the tree and taste it. It will be sour, while the same apple left on the tree for two more weeks in order to fully ripen will taste sweet, or at least sweeter than the unripe one. Of course, for this change from sour to sweet there is also a corresponding change with respect 91 See GC II 2, 330a5–6. For other examples see 329b32–330a12. 92 See GC II 4, 331a29–32. 93 See GC II 4, 331a23–b11. 94 See for instance GC II 8, 334b31–32, and GA I 1, 715a8–11. What changes in quality changes with respect to place 105 ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen