210 HUMANISM 



XII 



shows the strength of the natural prejudices against which 

 it has had to contend. 



The same remark applies with tenfold force to the 

 second point, viz. the difficulty of grasping the constructive 

 aspect of the conception of Energeia. It has not ceased 

 to appear paradoxical to us because of our inveterate, but 

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

 a sort of process (ye^ec?), 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 evepyeia under the conception of what he would 

 have called Kivrjcn^. And if we do this, his notion of an 

 activity without motion (evepyeia afcwrjo-ias) 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 

 of Becoming and established his own conception of Evepyeia. 

 In superseding by it the Platonic ovtria 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 (yeveais ), or, 

 materialistically, try to reduce all things to matter in 

 motion. He does the very opposite. Instead of classify 

 ing -evepyeia under fclvrja-is, he simply makes evep&amp;lt;yeia 

 the wider and supremer notion, and subsumes /civrjo-is 

 under it as a peculiar species, viz. an imperfect evepjeca. 1 



1 Cp. e.g. Physics, iii. 2, 201 b 31, rj icivrjffis frtpyeia ^v TIJ elvat doKei 

 dreXrjj 5^, viii. 5, 257 b 8, 1-ffTiv T\ Klvr)ais tvre\x fM KIVTJTOV dreXijs. De 

 Anima, ii. 5, 417 a 16, HffTiv i] Klvijcrts frtpyfid TIS, dreX^s JJLVTOI : iii. 2, 

 431 a 5, (/xitcercu rb fjv alcO^rbv K 5vva.fj.ei 6vTos TOV alffOijriKou frepyelq. 

 TTOIOVV oil yap 7rd&amp;lt;rx ovd dXXotoCrat (sc. rb ala-6-r}TiK6i&amp;gt;), dib &\\o fldos 

 TOVTO KiPTjtrfajj r) yap Ktvrjffis areXovs tvtpytia, fjv r; d aTrXws tvtpyfia ertpa 

 T) TOV Tre\ffffJ^vov. Metaph. 0, 6, 1048 b 29 jraaa yap Klvrjais dreX^y. 



Cp. also Eth. Nic. x. 3, 1174 a 19, where it is explained that iiSovri is not 

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

 Ivepyeia), while Kifrjffis does. 



