state. The higher presupposes the lower and rests upon it
as foundation. The higher is the form of which the lower
is the matter. It actually is what the lower is struggling to
become. Hence the entire universe is one continuous chain.
It is a process; not a time-process, but an eternal process.
The one ultimate reality, God, reason, absolute form, eter-
nally exhibits itself in every stage of its development. All
the stages, therefore, must exist for ever side by side.
Now the form of a thing is its organization. Hence to be
higher in the scale means to be more organized. The first
distinction, therefore, with which nature presents us is be-
tween the organic and the inorganic. Aristotle was the dis-
coverer of the idea of organism, as he was also the inventor
of the word. At the bottom of the scale of being, therefore,
is inorganic matter. Inorganic matter is the nearest exis-
tent thing to absolutely formless matter, which, of course,
does not exist. In the inorganic world matter preponder-
ates to such an extent as almost to overwhelm form, and we
can only expect to see the universal exhibiting itself in it
in a vague and dim way. What, then, is its form? And this
is the same as asking what its function, end, or essential
activity is. The end of inorganic matter is merely external
to it. Form has not truly entered into it at all, and remains
outside it. Hence the activity of inorganic matter can only
be to move in space towards its external end. This is the
explanation of what we, in modern times, call gravitation.
But, according to Aristotle, every element has its peculiar
and natural motion; its end is conceived merely spatially,
and its activity is to move towards its “proper place,” and,
having thus reached its end, it rests. The natural {295}
movement of fire is up. We may call this a principle of
levitation, as opposed to gravitation. Aristotle has been
the subject of cheap criticism on account of his frequent
use of the words “natural” and “unnatural.” [Footnote 15]
It is said that he was satisfied to explain the operations
of nature by simply labelling them “natural.” If you ask
a quite uneducated person why heavy bodies fall, he may
quite possibly reply, “Oh!naturallythey fall.” This simply
means that the man has never thought about the matter
at all, and thinks whatever is absolutely familiar to him is
“natural” and needs no explanation. It is like the feminine
argument that a thing is so, “because it is.” It is assumed
that Aristotle was guilty of a like futility. This is not the
case. His use of the word “natural” does not indicate lack
of thought. There is a thought, an idea, here. No doubt he
was quite wrong in many of his facts. Thus there is no such
principle as levitation in the universe. But there is a princi-
ple of gravitation, and when he explains this by saying it is
“natural” for earth to move downwards, he means, not that
the fact is familiar, but that the principle of form, or the
world-reason, can only exhibit itself here so dimly as to give
rise to a comparatively aimless and purposeless movement
in a straight line. Not absolutely purposeless, however, be-
cause nothing in the world is such, and the purpose here
is simply the movement of matter towards its end. This
may or may not be a true explanation of gravity. But has
anybody since ever explained it better?[Footnote 15: See,e.g. Sir Alexander Grant’sAristotle
in the Ancient Classics for English Readers Series (Black-
wood), pages 119-121.]