228 CREATIVE EVOLUTION ichap. 



in the same rank, to attribute the same absolute existence 

 to all of them. Reality thus being a system of genera, 

 it is to the generality of the genera (that is, in effect, to 

 the generality expressive of the vital order) that the 

 generality of laws itself had to be brought. It is interest- 

 ing, in this respect, to compare the Aristotelian theory 

 of the fall of bodies with the explanation furnished by 

 Galileo. Aristotle is concerned solely with the concepts 

 "high" and "low," "own proper place" as distinguished 

 from "place occupied," "natural movement" and "forced 

 movement;" 1 the physical law in virtue of which the stone 

 falls expresses for him that the stone regains the "natural 

 place" of all stones, to wit, the earth. The stone, in his 

 view, is not quite stone so long as it is not in its normal 

 place; in falling back into this place it aims at complet- 

 ing itself, like a living being that grows, thus realizing 

 fully the essence of the genus stone. 2 If this concep- 

 tion of the physical law were exact, the law would no 

 longer be a mere relation established by the mind; the 

 subdivision of matter into bodies would no longer be 

 relative to our faculty of perceiving; all bodies would 

 have the same individuality as living bodies, and the 

 laws of the physical universe would express relations 

 of real kinship between real genera. We know what 

 kind of physics grew out of this, and how, for having 

 believed in a science unique and final, embracing the 

 totality of the real and at one with the absolute, the 

 ancients were confined, in fact, to a more or less clumpy 

 interpretation of the physical in terms of the vital. 



But there is the same confusion in the moderns, with 

 this difference, however, that the relation between the 



> See in particular, Phys., iv. 215 a 2; v. 230 b 12; viii. 255 a 2; and 

 De Caelo, iv. 1-5; ii. 296 b 27; iv. 308 a 34. 



2 De Caelo, iv. 310 a 34 to d'ecs xovaurou xonov <pkps.dac emorov to 

 efs to auvou efdos laze <pe'psodcu. 



