LECTURE 5 (186 a 5-22)

THE ARGUMENT OF MELISSUS IS ANSWERED

             29. Having disproved the position of Parmenides and Melissus, here the Philosopher begins to answer their arguments.

             Concerning this he makes three points. First he shows how their arguments are to be answered. Secondly, where he says, 'The fallacy of Melissus . . .' (186 a 10), he answers the argument of Melissus. Thirdly, where he says, 'The same kind of argument . . .' (186 a 23), he answers the argument of Parmenides.

             30. He says that it is not difficult to answer the arguments with which Parmenides and Melissus reasoned. For each syllogized sophistically both in that they assumed false propositions and in that they did not observe the proper form of the syllogism. But the argument of Melissus is the more gross, that is, more vain and foolish, and does not cause any difficulty. For he assumed what is contrary to natural principles and what is manifestly false, namely, that being is not generated. And it is not a serious matter, granting one absurdity, if another should follow.

             31. Next when he says, 'The fallacy of Melissus . . .' (186 a 10), he answers the argument of Melissus, which argument is as follows.

             What is made has a beginning. Therefore what is not made has no beginning. But being is not made. Therefore it has no beginning, and as a result has no end. But what has neither beginning nor end is infinite. Therefore being is infinite. But what is infinite is immobile, for it would not have outside itself that by which it would be moved. Furthermore what is infinite is one, because if there were many there must necessarily be something outside the infinite. Therefore being is one and infinite and immobile.

             Furthermore, in order to show that being is not generated, Melissus used a certain argument which some natural philosophers also used. Aristotle gives this argument below, near the end of Book I.

             32. Aristotle disproves this argument of Melissus on four counts.

             He argues first against the statement of Melissus that if what is made has a beginning, then what is not made has no beginning. This does not follow. Rather it is a fallacy of consequent. For he argues from the destruction of the antecedent to the destruction of the consequent, whereas the correct form of argumentation would be the converse. Whence it does not follow that if a thing which is made has a beginning, then that which is not made does not have a beginning. The correct conclusion would be that if a thing does not have a beginning, then it is not made.

             33. Secondly, where he says, 'Then this also is absurd . . .' (186 a 13), he disproves the argument under discussion with reference to the inference that if something has no beginning, then it is infinite.

             For 'beginning' may be taken in two ways. In one way we speak of a beginning of time and of generation. And this meaning of beginning is taken when it is said that what is made has a beginning or what is not made has no beginning. In another sense, beginning is the beginning of a thing or a magnitude. And in this sense it would follow that if a thing has no beginning, then it is infinite.

             Whence it is clear that Melissus uses the term 'beginning' as if it had one meaning only. Hence Aristotle says that it is absurd to say that every case of beginning is the beginning of a thing, that is, of a magnitude, so that the beginning of time and of generation is not another meaning of the term.

             However a simple and instantaneous generation (which is the induction of a form in matter) does not have a beginning. For of a simple generation there is no beginning. But there is a beginning for a whole alteration whose terminus is a generation, since this would not be an instantaneous change. And because of this terminus this is sometimes called a generation.

             34. Thirdly, where he says, 'Again does it follow . . .' (186 a 15), he disproves the above position with reference to its third inference, namely, that because being is infinite, it is immobile.

             He shows in two ways that this does not follow. First it does not follow in regard to local motion. For a part of water could be moved within water so that it is not moved to any extrinsic place. In this case it would be moved by a joining and separation of the parts. And likewise, if the whole infinite body were water, it would be possible for the parts of it to be moved within the whole and not proceed outside the place of the whole. Again he disproves this with reference to the motion of alteration. For nothing prevents the infinite from being altered either as a whole or in its parts, for it would not be necessary to posit something outside the infinite to account for this.

             35. Fourthly, where he says, 'But further . . .' (186 a 19), he disproves the given argument with reference to its fourth inference by which it is concluded that, if being is infinite, it is one. For it does not follow that it is one according to species, but rather that it is one according to matter, just as some of the philosophers of nature have held that all things are one according to matter, but not according to species. For it is obvious that man and horse differ in species, and in like manner contraries differ from each other in species.