EVOLUTION IN THE LIGHT OF ARISTOTLE. I97 



jpeculations down to their special details, down to 



^he very name bestowed upon the potentiaHty of 



lecoming, down to the assertion of the finiteness of 



the universe, and of the generation of its energy at 



|ts confines. And the correspondence between Mr. 



Tookes and Aristotle is the more valuable because 



[t seems undesigned, and because the name of 



>rothyle is (as its incorrect form shows) borrowed 



:hrough the mediation of Roger Bacon. 



1 7. But Aristotle had the advantage of being 

 "a metaphysician as well as a scientist, and so was 

 well aware of the metaphysical value of the symbol 

 he used in his physics and called prote hyle. He 

 recognized that it was nothing in itself, and so laid 

 down the axiom, v^^hich is so contrary to our ordin- 

 ary modes of thinking, viz., that though the potent- 

 iality is prior to the actuality in the order of time (eV 

 'yevmei) and in the order of our knowledge (71/600-6^), 

 yet the actuality is really prior to, and presupposed 

 by the potential (it is (^va-ei or aizKthq irporepov). That 

 is to say, to take the old puzzle which really involves 

 the whole question of philosophic method, though 

 historically the egg comes before the chicken, it is 

 yet an egg- only in virtue of its potentiality to be- 

 come a chicken ; the egg exists in order to the 

 development of the chicken out of it. Or, to put it 

 into modern phraseology, the lower is prior to the 

 higher historically, but the higher is prior meta- 

 physically, because the lower can be understood 

 inly by reference to the higher, which gives it a 

 Leaning and of which it is the potentiality. 

 It is clear that this derivation of all things from, 

 pure potentiality, and the subsequent analysis of 

 Its meaning, explains, justifies, and reconciles the 

 scientific and the metaphysical way of regarding 



