in the Timaeus.)
Further, how could a body be carried to its own place, if place was the matter or the form? It is impossible that what has no reference to motion or the distinction of up and down can be place. So place must be looked for among things which have these characteristics.
If the place is in the thing (it must be if it is either shape or matter) place will have a place: for both the form and the indeterminate undergo change and motion along with the thing, and are not always in the same place, but are where the thing is. Hence the place will have a place.
Further, when water is produced from air, the place has been destroyed, for the resulting body is not in the same place. What sort of destruction then is that?
This concludes my statement of the reasons why space must be something, and again of the difficulties that may be raised about its essential nature.
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3
The next step we must take is to see in how many senses one thing is said to be ‘in’ another.
(1) As the finger is ‘in’ the hand and generally the part ‘in’ the whole.
(2) As the whole is ‘in’ the parts: for there is no whole over and above the parts.
(3) As man is ‘in’ animal and generally species ‘in’ genus.
(4) As the genus is ‘in’ the species and generally the part of the specific form ‘in’ the definition of the specific form.
(5) As health is ‘in’ the hot and the cold and generally the form ‘in’ the matter.
(6) As the affairs of Greece centre ‘in’ the king, and generally events centre ‘in’ their primary motive agent.
(7) As the existence of a thing centres ‘in its good and generally ‘in’ its end, i.e. in ‘that for the sake of which’ it exists.
(8) In the strictest sense of all, as a thing is ‘in’ a vessel, and generally ‘in’ place.
One might raise the question whether a thing can be in itself, or whether nothing can be in itself-everything being either nowhere or in something else.
The question is ambiguous; we may mean the thing qua itself or qua something else.
When there are parts of a whole-the one that in which a thing is, the other the thing which is in it-the whole will be described as being in itself. For a thing is described in terms of its parts, as well as in terms of the thing as a whole, e.g. a man is said to be white because the visible surface of him is white, or to be scientific because his thinking faculty has been trained. The jar then will not be in itself and the wine will not be in itself. But the jar of wine will: for the contents and the container are both parts of the same whole.
In this sense then, but not primarily, a thing can be in itself, namely, as ‘white’ is in body (for the visible surface is in body), and science is in the mind.
It is from these, which are ‘parts’ (in the sense at least of being ‘in’ the man), that the man is called white, &c. But the jar and the wine in separation are not parts of a whole, though together they are. So when there are parts, a thing will be in itself, as ‘white’ is in man because it is in body, and in body because it resides in the visible surface. We cannot go further and say that it is in surface in virtue of something other than itself. (Yet it is not in itself: though these are in a way the same thing,) they differ in essence, each having a special nature and capacity, ‘surface’ and ‘white’.
Thus if we look at the matter inductively we do not find anything to be ‘in’ itself in any of the senses that have been distinguished; and it can be seen by argument that it is impossible. For each of two things will have to be both, e.g. the jar will have to be both vessel and wine, and the wine both wine and jar, if it is possible for a thing to be in itself; so that, however true it might be that they were in each other, the jar will receive the wine in virtue not of its being wine but of the wine’s being wine, and the wine will be in the jar in virtue not of its being a jar but of the jar’s being a jar. Now that they are different in respect of their essence is evident; for ‘that in which something is’ and ‘that which is in it’ would be differently defined.
Nor is it possible for a thing to be in itself even incidentally: for two things would at the same time in the same thing. The jar would be in itself-if a thing whose nature it is to receive can be in itself; and that which it receives, namely (if wine) wine, will be in it.
Obviously then a thing cannot be in itself primarily.
Zeno’s problem-that if Place is something it must be in something-is not difficult to solve. There is nothing to prevent the first place from being ‘in’ something else-not indeed in that as ‘in’ place, but as health is ‘in’ the hot as a positive determination of it or as the hot is ‘in’ body as an affection. So we escape the infinite regress.
Another thing is plain: since the vessel is no part of what is in it (what contains in the strict sense is different from what is contained), place could not be either the matter or the form of the thing contained, but must different-for the latter, both the matter and the shape, are parts of what is contained.
This then may serve as a critical statement of the difficulties involved.
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4
What then after all is place? The answer to this question may be elucidated as follows.
Let us take for granted about it the various characteristics which are supposed correctly to belong to it essentially. We assume then—
(1) Place is what contains that of which it is the place.
(2) Place is no part of the thing.
(3) The immediate place of a thing is neither less nor greater than the thing.
(4) Place can be left behind by the thing and is separable. In addition:
(5) All place admits of the distinction of up and down, and each of the bodies is naturally carried to its appropriate place and rests there, and this makes the place either up or down.
Having laid these foundations, we must complete the theory. We ought to try to make our investigation such as will render an account of place, and will not only solve the difficulties connected with it, but will also show that the attributes supposed to belong to it do really belong to it, and further will make clear the cause of the trouble and of the difficulties about it. Such is the most satisfactory kind of exposition.
First then we must understand that place would not have been thought of, if there had not been a special kind of motion, namely that with respect to place. It is chiefly for this reason that we suppose the heaven also to be in place, because it is in constant movement. Of this kind of change there are two species-locomotion on the one hand and, on the other, increase and diminution. For these too involve variation of place: what was then in this place has now in turn changed to what is larger or smaller.
Again, when we say a thing is ‘moved’, the predicate either (1) belongs to it actually, in virtue of its own nature, or (2) in virtue of something conjoined with it. In the latter case it may be either (a) something which by its own nature is capable of being moved, e.g. the parts of the body or the nail in the ship, or (b) something which is not in itself capable of being moved, but is always moved through its conjunction with something else, as ‘whiteness’ or ‘science’. These have changed their place only because the subjects to which they belong do so.
We say that a thing is in the world, in the sense of in place, because it is in the air, and the air is in the world; and when we say it is in the air, we do not mean it is in every part