His achievements in natural
science, politics, aesthetics, and ethics are those of a man of the
highest constructive genius
Aristotle the Alchemist
by Robert Bruce Baird
He
is unlike the noble Plato. Plato is related to the wise Solon and
Critias who was a Pyramid priest in Egypt so we can be sure there
was some De Danaan in his blood. Plato created an enduring hierarchy
that seeks to set some men above others; I think Aristotle can be
excused for cow-towing to the political forces of his day until such
time as he had to get out of town after Alexander died suddenly. He
himself died the next year. As I read Aristotle I think he wrote
knowing more than he let on. I know he respected Socrates who told
all comers not to put true wisdom in front of Sophists or those who
might abuse the knowledge. The logic of syllogism or commonly
accepted principles and arguments is a powerful mind control device
to this day.
It is important for the real
researcher to look past the superficial anthologies of his work and
to read his Secretum Secretorum which is not even mentioned in those
anthologies at my local library. The Secretum was an explanation of
alchemy for Alexander who set the alchemist family named Ptolemy in
charge of Egypt. Ptolemy had Manetho do a Kings List to link himself
to the De Danaan hero named Herakles. Alexander may have found the
Emerald Tablet or Tabula Smaragdina in the grave of Hermes
Trismegistus at Hebron. Some people think this Tablet with the
Dictum of Hermes or the Magian Law known as ‘As Above, SO Below is
the Holy Grail and they imagine it was at Oak Island after the
Merovingians brought it there. The ‘green vitreole’ it was made of
was indeed an immortal and vital component in the esoteric searches
of those who are called De Brix.
Here is something that still
haunts the minds of people in science as the History of Psychology
gives us some idea of what Aristotle sought to understand.
The Third Period of Greek Speculation --
Objectivism
Aristotle and the Rise of
Objectivism. -- It would seem that Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.),
without doubt the greatest scientific man, if not also the greatest
speculative genius, that ever lived, arose to restore the empirical
tradition to philosophy after the plunge into absolutism. The time
was ripe for the foundation of empirical psychology, and following
his scientific instinct, he founded it. But the time was not ripe
for its entire philosophical justification, and he did not justify
it. He had the right to found formal logic, and he took advantage of
the right. His achievements in natural science, politics,
aesthetics, and ethics are also those of a man of the highest
constructive genius.
These remarks follow from
the one statement that Aristotle developed both the empiricism of
method of Socrates and the rationalistic logic that Plato inherited
in the Ionic and Pythagorean tradition. Confining ourselves to the
psychological bearings of his views, we will look at his doctrine
from both sides, taking the metaphysical first.
Aristotle distinguished four
sorts of "cause," as working together in things: "efficient,"
"formal," "final," and "material" cause. Of these, three fell
together on the side of form (eidoV), manifested in reason, soul,
and God. The fourth, the material cause, [p. 61] is matter ('ulh).
This is Aristotle's interpretation of dualism. Aristotle declares
that final cause was the relatively new conception which had been
clearly distinguished before him only by Anaxagoras.
But matter is not an
independent principle: it exists only in connection with form and
design. It is a limitation, a relative negation. The only
independent absolute principle is God, who is, as in the Platonic
teaching, both Reason and the Good.
With such metaphysics, there
is no positive justification of science, psychological or other.
Objective nature is teleological, an incorporation of reason, which
gives it its form, movement, and final outcome. Life is a
semi-rational teleological principle, working to an end -- a
vitalistic conception. All form in nature is the product of a
formative reason. Natural phenomena are not purely quantitative;
formal distinctions are qualitative.
The objective world is thus
given its right to be; but it is a world in which reason is
immanent. There are two great modes of reason, considered as cause,
in the world: a cause is either a potency (dunamiV), or an act,
called "entelechy" (enteleceia) or actuality (energeia). Reason or
form, when not actual, slumbers as a potentiality in nature. Pure
reason or God is pure actuality; matter is pure potentiality. As
such God merely exists in eternal self-contemplation, apart from the
world. The heavenly bodies are made of ether (not matter like that
of the four elements) and have spirits; they are moved by love,
directed toward God. In this we have a concrete rendering of the
ideas and divine love of Plato.
On this conception,
"physics," which deals with phenomenal appearances, including
psychology, is contrasted [p. 62] with the theory of causes, "first
things," or "metaphysics."
This philosophical
conception so dominates Aristotle's mind that he practically
abandons, in theory, the subjective point of view. In his view of
the soul, he goes over to a biological conception, which is,
however, not that of evolution. Natural species, like the types of
Plato, are immutable. The soul is the "first entelechy" or formal
cause of the body; in essence it is akin to ether. It embodies also
the efficient and final causal principles. Man, in the masculine
gender, alone realizes the end of nature. Psychology, thus fused
with biology, extends to plants and animals and so becomes a
comparative science. The plants have nutritive and reproductive
souls; they propagate their form. Animals have, besides, the
sentient and moving soul, which is endowed with impulse, feeling,
and the faculty of imaging. In man, finally, the thinking or
rational soul is present. This is implanted in the person before
birth from without; and at death it goes back to its source, the
divine reason, where it continues in eternal but impersonal form. It
is two-fold in its nature in man, partaking both of divine reason
and of the sensitive soul; it is both active and passive (nouV
poihtikos and nouV paqetikoV).
In the theory of the
relation of these souls to one another, Aristotle advances to a
genetic and strictly modern point of view. They are not separate
"parts," having different local seats in the body, as [p. 63] Plato
taught, but functions of the one developing principle. The higher is
developed from and includes the lower.
In all this, it is evident
that while the objective point of view is maintained, still the
doctrine is not the result of a searching of consciousness; nor does
it employ a strictly empirical method. It does not isolate the
sphere of mind as one of conscious fact, distinct from that of the
physical. The results are on the same level for mind, life, and
physics in the narrower sense; they are deduced from the immanental
conception of nature as a whole. So far Aristotle the metaphysician.
But Aristotle the scientific
observer is still to be heard from. It is clear that psychological
facts may be observed, just as other facts may be, even in the
absence of any clear distinction as to the presence or absence of
consciousness. Aristotle set himself to investigate the functions of
the soul, looking upon it as the biological principle of form in
nature. In this sense, as using an objective method of observation,
and as making important and lasting discoveries, he is properly to
be described as the pioneer psychologist.” (7)
His insights were boundless
and Pseudo-Aristotle or he, himself, also wrote about the
Carthaginian ban on travel to America. His insight on the
Carthaginian democratic system with a common consent king is
important to getting a glimpse of how much better things were in the
earlier times before Empire became all the rage. Whether he
supported the stupid ban on educating women or just went along
because it was politically incorrect and dangerous to do otherwise
is something we may never really know. Aquinas re-worked much of
Aristotle into the Catholic dogma and many Thomists in that behemoth
still hold sway.
Go to World-Mysteries.com
if you are interested in books that explain more than the paradigm
seeks to let you know. This is an excerpt from one volume of my
encyclopedia which can be purchased there. Robert Bruce Baird is the
author of Diverse Druids, World-Mysteries.com guest 'expert' and
columnist for The ES Press Magazine. His
Collective Works on CD (20 books including an encyclopedia) are
now available from Amazon.com.
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