Page - 694 - in The Complete Aristotle

through such a vast number of contrarieties-and indeed even more than any determinate number. Consequently (i) into some ‘elements’ transformation will never be effected-viz. if the intermediates are infinite in number, as they must be if the ‘elements’ are infinitely many: further (ii) there will not even be a transformation of Air into Fire, if the contrarieties are infinitely many: moreover (iii) all the ‘elements’ become one. For all the contrarieties of the ‘elements’ above F must belong to those below F, and vice versa: hence they will all be one. < div class=“section” title=“6”> 6 As for those who agree with Empedocles that the ‘elements’ of body are more than one, so that they are not transformed into one another-one may well wonder in what sense it is open to them to maintain that the ‘elements’ are comparable. Yet Empedocles says ‘For these are all not only equal… ’ If it is meant that they are comparable in their amount, all the ‘comparables’ must possess an identical something whereby they are measured. If, e.g. one pint of Water yields ten of Air, both are measured by the same unit; and therefore both were from the first an identical something. On the other hand, suppose (ii) they are not ‘comparable in their amount’ in the sense that so-much of the one yields so much of the other, but comparable in ‘power of action (a pint of Water, e.g. having a power of cooling equal to that of ten pints of Air); even so, they are ‘comparable in their amount’, though not qua ‘amount’ but qua Iso-much power’. There is also (iii) a third possibility. Instead of comparing their powers by the measure of their amount, they might be compared as terms in a ‘correspondence’: e.g. ‘as x is hot, so correspondingly y is white’. But ‘correspondence’, though it means equality in the quantum, means similarity in a quale. Thus it is manifestly absurd that the ‘simple’ bodies, though they are not transformable, are comparable not merely as ‘corresponding’, but by a measure of their powers; i.e. that so-much Fire is comparable with many times-that-amount of Air, as being ‘equally’ or ‘similarly’ hot. For the same thing, if it be greater in amount, will, since it belongs to the same kind, have its ratio correspondingly increased. A further objection to the theory of Empedocles is that it makes even growth impossible, unless it be increase by addition. For his Fire increases by Fire: ‘And Earth increases its own frame and Ether increases Ether.” These, however, are cases of addition: but it is not by addition that growing things are believed to increase. And it is far more difficult for him to account for the 694