210 HUMANISM 



XII 



quite illogical, habit of regarding a function (evepyeta) as 

 a sort of process (yevea-is*), or even when we try to be 

 particularly scientific as ultimately reducible to a sort 

 of motion. In other words, we ordinarily subsume 

 Aristotle s evepyeta under the conception of what he would 

 have called tciwiya-ts. And if we do this, his notion of an 

 activity without motion (evepyeia a/a^crta?) must seem 

 the very height of paradox, a paradox whereof the edge 

 has not been blunted by the progress of two thousand years. 

 But the fault is ours ; we have unwittingly employed 

 conceptions which are the precise opposite of the device 

 whereby Aristotle turned the flank of the Platonic 

 criticism and established his own conception of Evepyeia. 

 In superseding by it the Platonic ovo-ia he could not, of 

 course, merely revert to the earlier conceptions of be 

 coming and motion whose logical annihilation Plato 

 had effected. He was bound to provide something new 

 in his conception of Energeia, and to distinguish it from 

 both its precursors. And he does it. He does not fall 

 into the trap to which we succumb when we regard a 

 function (evepyeia) as a sort of process (yevea-is), or, 

 materialistically, try to reduce all things to matter in 

 motion. He does the very opposite. Instead of 

 classifying evepyeia under icivrjcris, he simply makes 

 evepyeia the wider and supremer notion, and subsumes 

 under it as a peculiar species, viz. an imperfect 



evepyeia. 



that is, arises from the longing of the 

 imperfect for the perfect, of the matter (i/Xi?) for the 

 form (et&o?) ; it is simply the process whereby it reaches 

 whatever degree of perfection the inherent limitations of 

 its nature concede to it. 



1 Cp. e.g. Physics, iii. 2, 201 b 31, r; /aV^tm tvtpyfia fj^v ns etccu doKfi 

 a.T\7)S 5t, viii. 5, 257 b 8, i&amp;lt;mv ^ Kivrjcns ^reX^xeia KLV-TJTOV dreXijs. De 

 Anirna, ii. 5, 417 a. 16, Zcrriv r\ Klvrjcris ivipyeid rts, dre\7js ^Ivroi : iii. 2, 

 431 a 5, (ftaiverai rb (Jtv alffGrfr&v K dvvd/uLfi SPTOS roO alcrdijTiKov Ivepyeiq. 

 iroiovv ov yap 7rd(rx ovd dXXoioOrat (sc. r6 aiffdijTiKov ), Sib &\\o fldos 

 TOVTO Kivrjcreus TJ yap Kt^Tjcrts dreXoOs tvtpytia ty i] d aTrXtSs tvtpyfia ertpa 

 i] TOV TfTf\effjj.i&amp;gt;ov. Metaph. 0, 6, 1048 b 29 iracra yap Kivrjcrt.? dreXTjs. 



Cp. also Eth. Nich. x. 3, 1174 a 19, where it is explained that i]doj&amp;gt;rj is not 

 Kivtjais, because it does not need perfecting (being indeed what itself perfects 

 fvtpyeia), while Kivrjffis does. 



