Aristotle’s Problems

‘The more time I spend on my own, the more I like stories’

 – Aristotle, Fragment 668

The following is a selection from the Problems, a work in thirty-eight books which was attributed at various stages in antiquity to the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

When Aristotle died in 322 BC, he left his library and the headship of his philosophical school to his friend Theophrastus of Eresus. Aristotle’s Lyceum (as his school was known after the grove in Athens where its peripatetic scholars met), had a great deal of work to do. First there was the business of continuing Aristotle’s own open-ended investigations into almost every imaginable area of life and society, from constitutional history to the stomachs of ruminants, from the nature of language to the motions of the heavenly bodies. There was also a historical project. Aristotle had set Theophrastus the task of writing a grand history of philosophy. Another pupil, Meno, had been given the job of composing a history of medicine. Others pursued tasks in areas as diverse as logic, physics, ethics and political theory. Much of Theophrastus’ work survives; fragments of Meno’s too, in a papyrus discovered in the British Museum at the end of the last century. But there, with a few tantalizing exceptions, the story ends. One hundred years later the Lyceum had all but died out. We have the names of its head philosophers and fragments of their work, but little more than that. Some ancient critics thought there was a good reason for the quiescence of the Lyceum in the centuries after its Master’s death. In the first century BC, the Roman orator and politician Cicero spoke for many when he said rather contemptuously of the Aristotelians of his own day, that ‘they seem to have been born out of themselves’, with no understanding of the history of their own philosophical school or its teachings.

Aristotle’s own writings, according to the Hellenistic Romantics, shared the fate of his School. There is a story that all his papers were given by Theophrastus to a certain Neleus of Scepsis who hid them in his cellar from the rapacious librarians at the Alexandrian Museum. There they remained until they were bought by a rich collector and carried to Athens some time in the first century BC. When Sulla captured Athens in 86BC, he also captured the Aristotelian Corpus and brought it in triumph to Rome where it was edited and given its modern form by Andronicus of Rhodes, in around 30BC. Sober scholars find this story hard to believe, given the high level of awareness of Aristotelian doctrines among non-Aristotelian philosophers during this dark period. Whatever the case, at some time between the death of Aristotle and the Roman rediscovery and publication of his writings in the century before Christ, the thirty-eight books of Problems were added. Philosophically, there is little in them that is at odds with anything in Aristotle’s authentic works, and much of what is preserved in the work was regarded as Aristotelian in antiquity. They show Aristotle’s typically wide-ranging interest in everything conceivable, a willingness to take odd pieces of evidence as they come and to try to fit them in with larger-scale theory. But there is little doubt that Aristotle did not write them. We have no idea who did – perhaps it was Theophrastus, but it is impossible to know for sure.

Some of the problems are mathematical, others medical, but the vast majority concern mundane phenomena. The collection privileges answers to questions which it rarely occurs to us to ask, but which nonetheless seem dramatically reasonable and compelling once they are asked. And the answers are characterized by a remarkable acuity and psychological sensitivity. The result, as it appears to us two and half millennia later, is an extraordinary work of fantastic literature, an early attempt at explaining some of the intractable mundanities of human life with a certain relentless logic.

The problems all follow a basic pattern. A question is posed – ‘Why is it that…?’, and then one or more answers are proposed – ‘Is it because…?’ The apparent lack of dogmatism in the answers proposed often seems striking. But in the context of the philosophical system which licensed such questions to be asked in the first place, definite answers were not, on the whole, expected, or even on offer. For Aristotle, like Plato and many other Greek philosophers, the best kind of knowledge was certain knowledge – knowledge derived from the contemplation and comprehension of things which are always the same. For Plato, this kind of knowledge was ultimately related to knowledge of the perfect eternal Forms upon which the physical world is modelled; mathematics offered Plato a convenient approach to this perfect knowledge. But Aristotle differed from Plato in an important respect, and this difference remained characteristic of his followers. It is all very well to spend our lives, in the study of another, perfect world, he argued, but what of our own world? Why do we shy away from the study of what lies before us simply because the evanescent nature of our world means that perfect knowledge is not to be found here. Aristotle liked to tell the story of the philosopher Heraclitus, who was once interrupted on the toilet by the arrival of some friends. ‘Come in’, he had said, ‘and do not be embarrassed, for there are gods even here.’ The more disordered and problematic levels of creation were no less an important challenge for the Aristotelians than the perfection of the motions of the heavenly bodies.

The Problems sit to one side of a long tradition of paradoxography, of a passion for noting and explaining the odd and the impossible. Its first great exponent was the Carian historian Herodotus, who travelled through the known world in the early fifth century BC bringing back to Greek audiences tales of strange barbarian practices and even stranger creatures. Herodotus had many followers, and the raw material for a whole new set of Problems – some of it taken from Herodotus himself – survives in another pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, On Miraculous Things Heard. (It is said, relates the author of this work, that on the island of Gyarus, mice eat iron. That there is a place in Syria where the local snakes only bite foreigners. That Arabian camels are physically incapable of copulating with their mothers. That the seal vomits a kind of rennet which is invaluable in the treatment of epilepsy.)

These two traditions – of problem collecting and problem solving – are no less prominent in Latin literature; in fact much Aristotelian material surfaces again in the Natural History of Pliny, composed in the first century AD. By the time of Pliny new questions had been added. What kind of noise does the earth make as it rushes through space? What are the causes of sudden and unexpected death? Why were the most famous men of the past famous? Can animals read and write? Pliny answered the last question in the affirmative. Once, he tells us, some boys came down to the beach and found written in Greek letters on the sand, ‘I, the Elephant wrote this, and dedicated the spoils to the Celts

The Pseudo-Aristotelian Problems had already been arranged by Cicero’s time into books focused on particular subjects. The complete Greek text is readily available in the Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass. 1970, 1973 with a translation by W.S. Hett). There is also a complete translation in the Bollingen Series (LXXI.2): The Complete Works of Aristotle, edited by Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, 1984). I have sought to translate the selections presented here into intelligible English while retaining something of the rebarbative character of their literary style.

Why did our ancestors establish prizes for contests of physical strength but not for wisdom? Is it because, if the contest were to be fair, the judges would have to be the equals or the superiors of the competitors? And if those who were outstanding in wisdom were to compete, who would there be to judge them? But in a sporting contest, anyone can be a judge simply by using his eyes. What is more, our ancestors did not wish to establish among the Greeks a contest which would inevitably lead to violent disagreements and hatreds. For when one is beaten, or wins a prize in an athletic contest, there is no feeling of hatred or grievance towards the judges, but the indignation and anger felt against those who decide the relative wisdom of people is very great indeed. This is not good. What is more, the prize should be better than the competition. In athletic contests, this is so. But what prize could there be that is better than wisdom itself?

Why is it that man, of all creatures, is best endowed with practical wisdom? Is it because he has the smallest head relative to the size of his body, or is it because certain of his parts are abnormally small? For his head is small – and those with small heads have more practical wisdom than those with larger ones.

Why is it that we say that a general, or a businessman, or an orator is clever, but do not say this of a flute player or an actor? Is it because the first three aim at some advantage, while the last two are motivated not by any sense of advantage, but by pleasure? A good speaker, general or businessman is someone able to win an advantage, and cleverness inheres, for the most part, in getting the better of someone else.

Why is it that actors are usually of bad character? Is it because they have only a small share in reason and wisdom? Much of their lives are spent in the practice of arts which pander to their own needs, and since most of their time is spent in moral incontinence, or even deprivation, they inevitably proceed towards criminality.

Why is it that we feel no pleasure in reflecting on, or anticipating the fact that the interior angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles (or upon similar geometrical problems), beyond the enjoyment we derive from speculation (this would be so even if these angles were equal to three right angles or more), while we do feel pleasure when we remember or anticipate, say, an Olympic victory, or the sea battle at Salamis? Is it because we take pleasure in such events having happened, or being about to happen, but consider that what comes about in the natural order of things provides only the pleasure of contemplation. Actions give rise to the pleasures caused by their results. And because there are many different kinds of actions, their results are sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful and we choose what to pursue and what to avoid in accordance with this.

Why is it that people may think one thing and do something different? Is it because knowledge can be implicated in its own opposites? Or is it because the intelligence has many goals, while desire has only one? Man on the whole lives by his intelligence, while animals live by their appetites, passions and desires.

Why do all men, barbarians as well as Greek, count by tens, and not by any other number? Why, for instance, do they not count 1,2,3,4,5 and start again, saying one-five, two-five, instead of eleven (one-ten) and twelve (two-ten)? Why do they not stop at some other number past ten, and start again from there? For each number is composed of one, or two and so on, along with a number which has come before it, making a new number. Yet when we count, we always do so in tens. Clearly enough, this is not so by chance – that which is always the case, is never the result of chance, but rather it is in the nature of things. So is it because ten is a perfect number? It has within it every type of number, odd, even, square, cube, prime and composite, and describes length and surface. Or again is it because ten is the archetypal number, since one plus two plus three plus four equals ten? Or is it because there are nine planets (in addition to the earth)? Or is it because all of us have ten fingers and proceed to count things using the quantities proper to mankind? There is a race of men in Thrace in which all the people count in fours, because their memory – like that of children – cannot go further than that, and they do not have to manipulate larger quantities.

Why are Ethiopians and Egyptians bandy-legged? Is it because the bodies of living creatures are misshapen by the action of heat much as are logs of wood when they are dried out? The state of the hair of these people also bears out this suggestion – for it is more wavy than that of other people, and waviness is, in a sense, misshaping of the hair.

Why is it that, even though we do not imitate the action of a man if we see him stretch out a hand or foot, or any other such part, we yawn if we see another yawn? Or is this not always the case? Does it only happen when the body is in such a state that the moisture in it becomes heated? In this case, the cause of the impulse lies in recollection, as it is also in the case of sexual desire and hunger. For the origin of the recollection is also the origin of the stimulus which produces the effect we see in the other person.

Why is it that when we see anyone cut or burned or tortured, or suffer any other pain, we share in his pain? Is it because we all have a common nature, and this is how we share in the pain of the sufferer when we see him suffer – through our natural affinity? Or is it because the sight receives emanations from painful and pleasant things alike, just as do our noses and ears?

Why do we listen with more pleasure to those who are singing to music which we know, than to music with which we are not familiar? Is it because it is easier to judge that the performer is successful in his performance when one already knows what is being performed, and this is a pleasant state? Or is it because learning itself is not congenial? The reason for this might be that in one case the listener is learning something new, and in the other, employing the recognition of it. For what is familiar is always more pleasant than what is unfamiliar.

Why is it that people frequently spend their lives in lowly pursuits which they have chosen for themselves rather than in more serious ones? Why should it be, for example, that a man should choose to be a juggler or an actor or a musician rather than an astronomer or a politician? Is it because some men would actually prefer the more honourable professions but do not pursue them because they lack confidence of success in them? Or is it because each man chooses the profession in which he believes he can be outstanding, applying all his attention to it, so that he might improve his practice in it? Once someone has selected a lowly profession, he quickly gets used to it and his mind is so distorted by the bad judgement that he can no longer discriminate between the better and the worse.

Why do we shiver at the last emission of urine, or after sneezing? Is it because both of these involve emptying of the veins, and once they are empty, cool air enters them, causing the shivering?

Why is it that no animal has a pleasant odour except the panther? (For the panther is pleasing even to other animals, and they say that creatures sniff it with pleasure.) And why are animals unpleasant to smell when they decay, whilst plants grow more and more pleasant to smell as they wither? Is it because the origin of the foul odour lies in an undigested excretion? For the sweat of some people can be foul, even when it is naturally not so, as a result of disease. Similarly, the farts and burps of those in a state of indigestion are not pleasant. Foul smells from the flesh, and what is analogous to flesh in some animals, must have a like cause – for in this case too there is an undigested excretion. When this rots, it gives rise to an evil stench in both living and dead creatures. This is also why fat, bone and hair give off no evil odour; fat and bone are already digested, and hair contains no moisture. Plants, on the other hand, do not excrete. Or perhaps they do, but because they are dry by nature, and hot, what moisture they do contain is readily digested, and not thick. Take, for instance, the soil. In hot places like Syria and Arabia, the soil smells good. Plants from these regions are also sweet-smelling since they are dry and hot. Plants such as these do not easily rot. Animals, though, are not dry and hot and their excretions are undigested and foul-smelling.

Why is it more tiring to lie down on a flat surface than a concave one? Is the reason similar to that which underlies the fact that it is more tiring to lie on a convex surface than a flat one? When the weight of the body is concentrated in one place in either a seated or lying position, the pressure causes pain. There is more of this pressure when we lie on a convex surface than a flat one, and more on a flat surface than a concave one. For the lines of our body are curved rather than straight and the concave surface offers it more points of contact that the flat surface. This is also the reason why seats and couches which fit the contours of our bodies are less tiring to use than those which do not do so.

Why are horse riders not likely to fall? Is it because their fear of falling makes them careful?

Why is it that sitting down makes some people fat, and others thin? Is it because the constitution of the body differs, some being by nature warm, and others cool? People who are hot by nature tend to be fat (since the heat in their body prevails over what they eat), while those who are cold are not able to digest their food when they are not moving, because their body needs to absorb heat from outside, and this heat has its origin in motion. Or is it because those who are by nature hot are filled with waste products, and need exercise to expel them, whilst this is not the case with the cold?

Why is it that one goes to sleep more easily on the right side than on the left? Is it because our constitutions when we are asleep and when we are awake are the opposite of each other? And because we lie on the left side when we are awake, the opposite will naturally happen when the opposite constitution is in play. Or is it because sleep is a lack of motion? Those parts of the body which are moved most when we are awake are at rest when we sleep, and the most active parts of the body are those on the right.

Why is it that those who are very drunk indeed do not behave badly, while those who are only tipsy very often do. Is it because those who are tipsy have not consumed so little that they behave like those who are sober, nor so much that they become legless like those who have drunk a great deal. Moreover, sober men are capable of making balanced judgements, while those who are completely drunk do not even attempt to judge things. But those who are tipsy do try and make judgements because they are not terribly drunk, and they do not make them well, because they are not sober. They are quick to belittle others, and believe that others are insulting them. This was the case with Satyrus of Clazomenae, a man given to slander. Whenever he was defending a case in court, he would block his ears so that he might not hear what was being said and begin to be abusive as a consequence. He would unblock his ears just as his opponent had finished his speech. Even then, after hearing only a few words he could not desist, but would begin to abuse the man because he could sense what was happening, but was incapable of judgement.

Why is it that children, who are warm by nature, do not enjoy wine, while Scythians and brave men do enjoy it? It is because Scythians and brave men are hot and dry (for man is naturally like this), while children are not only hot, but moist as well? The love of drinking wine is a desire for moisture, and the natural moisture in children stops them becoming drinkers. For a desire is in some sense a lack.

Why is it that single objects sometimes appear to be many to those who are drunk? Is it because the sight is set in motion, and the same focus of vision cannot remain on the one spot for any length of time. Something which is seen in a different manner at the same time seems to have been seen later. Whatever we see, we see individually by visual contact and it is impossible to have visual contact with several objects at the same time. Yet the time between the perception of one object and the next is imperceptible, so the time in which visual contact was made, and the time in which the sense of sight passed on to the next object seems to be one. Consequently, when more than one glance is directed at the same object at the same time, the objects seem to be more than one since they are not being apprehended in the same way.

Why is it that people who take their drink from large containers become less drunk than those who do not? Is it always for the same reason – that is to say the holding back of heat around the surface of the body? For drunkenness has its focus in the area around the head.

Why is it that men do not become drunkards through addiction to sweet wine, which is more pleasant than dry wine? Is it because sweet wine has a flavour which is not of the wine itself, but related to something else. Consequently, the man who loves sweet wine loves what is sweet, rather than the wine.

Why is it that the tongue of those who are drunk trips over its words? Is it because the tongue staggers and falls about, unable to make its movements clear, just as the whole body does when it is drunk? Or is it because the flesh of the tongue is like a sponge? When it becomes soaked, it swells and thus becomes harder to move because of the thickness which follows upon its increased size. Thus it cannot move properly. Or is it because we cannot speak when we take fluid into the mouth, for the same reason as we cannot speak under water, for lack of air?

Why is it that those who are young tend to wet their beds more often when they are drunk, than those who are old? Is it because they are hot and moist? The excretion which gathers in them then is copious and because the body cannot consume the excretion itself, it overflows. As people become older, the body soaks up the extra moisture because of its own dryness. Or is it because the young are more given to sleep than the old? As a result, urine flows out without their knowledge and while they are asleep, before they are able to wake up. The old, on the other hand, are aware of the flow of urine, just as in general they are more sensitive to external motion than the young. Evidence of this may be found in the fact that the young tend to wet their beds most often when they are in a very deep sleep.

Why is it that those who wish to indulge in sexual intercourse are ashamed to admit to it, while they do not feel any shame about confessing to a need for food or drink, or any other such thing? Is it because the desire for most things is necessary, and failure to satisfy such desire can lead to death; sexual desire, on the other hand, is not necessary in the same way.

Why does the man who is having sexual intercourse, and the man who is dying, cast his eyes upwards, but when sleeping, downwards? Is it because the eyes are cast upwards as the heat moves out in that direction, while during sleep heat gathers in the lower parts of the body, and moves the eyes downwards? The eyes themselves close when there is no moisture left in them.

Why is it that the eyes and buttocks are very obviously sunken in those who have frequent resort to sexual intercourse, even though the eyes are far away from, and the buttocks near the sexual organs? Is it because both these parts of the body are prominently involved in the act of intercourse, and contract when the semen is emitted? For any easily liquefied nourishment which is found in these parts, is forced out by the pressure. Or is it because the eyes and buttocks are especially heated, moved and wasted away (for sexual intercourse operates through heat) during the act of coition? It is clear that the eyes and the buttocks are involved in coition – it is not possible to emit semen without pulling the buttocks together and closing the eyes – and the buttocks through their contraction force out the semen much as liquid can be expelled from the bladder by pressure from the hand, while the act of closing the eyelids forces moisture from the brain. Evidence that the eyes, and the area around them is involved in procreation may be had from the fact that both childless and fruitful women often try anointing the eyes, in the belief that strength will thus pass into the semen. Both the buttocks and the eyes are always full of fat, and as they are involved in the act of intercourse, they have a share in the heat which it generates and are thus made thin. Much of their substance is excreted in the semen. For if heat is to melt a part of the body, that part must be fat. And a part which is fat but not involved in the act of coition will not be melted, as is the case with the stomach.

Why is it that both those who have sexual intercourse and eunuchs do not have sharp vision? Is it because the first, because of their desire, and the second, because of their mutilation, are drier in the upper parts of the body than is natural. This state is particularly noticeable in the case of the eyes, which are very delicate organs. When moisture is drawn downwards the upper parts are dried, and it is clear that this is what happens during sexual intercourse. In the case of eunuchs, the legs swell, and the bowels are loosened – further evidence that the moisture has moved downwards.

Why are bare feet bad for sexual intercourse? Is it because the body which is about to indulge in coition should be both warm and moist. This is a state achieved during sleep rather than wakefulness; this is why the emission of semen comes about readily and easily during sleep, but requires special effort for those who are awake. When the body is moist and warm, the feet are especially so. This can be seen from the fact that the feet of those who are asleep are warm, sharing this state with the insides of their body. Keeping the feet bare, though, has the effect of causing dryness and coldness. And because it is hard, if not impossible, to have sexual intercourse without warm feet, it is clear that the bareness of the feet must hinder the conduct of coition.

Why is it that those who often ride horses are more inclined to sexual intercourse? Is it because the heat and motion [of riding] puts them in the same condition as one is in during coition? As age increases, and with it the size of the sexual organs, they find themselves constantly in a state of motion, and their pores become open. This state brings with it a tendency to coition.

Why is it that the eyelashes of lustful people fall out? Does it happen for the same reason which explains the loss of hair in the bald? The eyelashes, and the hair of the head are basically similar, and all the hair with which we are born, which does not continue to grow with a man’s age, falls out because of lustfulness. We are born with the hair on our head, eyebrows and eyelashes; sometimes the hair on the brows grows thicker with age but the hair falls from the head and lashes for the same reason – that is, because lust cools the upper portions of the body, lacking in blood, with the result that these parts no longer digest nutriment. In the absence of nutriment, the hair falls out.

Why do some animals cough, while others do not? Man, for example, coughs, but an ox does not. Is it because in most animals the superfluity is turned to some other part of the body, but in man it is expressed here (i.e. in coughing)? Or is it because the brain in man is very large and very moist, and the cough has its origin in phlegm flowing down from the brain?

Why is it that we choose to represent the face in portraits? Is it because the character of a person is to be seen most clearly in the face? Or is it simply because this is how we recognize someone most easily?

Why is man alone among animals in that his nose bleeds? Is it because the brain in man is very large and very moist. The veins which emanate from here are filled with superfluity, and send a stream through the nasal passages. It is a stream of peccant blood – that is to say, blood which is mixed with evacuations of the brain – not as thin as pure blood, but rather like lymph.

Why do animals have an even number of feet? Is it because whenever anything is in motion, something must of necessity be at rest? If the number of feet were odd, this would be impossible; movement is made possible by the paired arrangement of the feet.

Why is it that some creatures move their heads, and others do not? Is it because some lack necks, and are therefore unable to move their heads?

Why don’t eunuchs go bald? Is it because they have large brains? This happens because they do not have sexual relations. For semen travels from the brain down through the spine. It is because of this that castrated bulls grow large horns once they have been castrated. This also seems to be the reason why women and children are not bald.

Why are bubbles hemispherical? Is it because their radii extend equally in every upward direction, and thus produce a hemisphere of necessity? The corresponding hemisphere beneath is cut off by the surface of the water, in the plane of which the centre of the bubble is located.

Why do people say: ‘do not plant or eat mint when there is a war on’? Is it because mint chills the body, as its effect on semen shows. Thus it is contrary in its nature to courage and high spiritedness.

It is said that trees upon which the rainbow falls assume a pleasant scent. Is this true or false? And if it is true, what can be the cause of this? Obviously enough, it is not always true – rainbows are often seen without any effect on the trees. But when it does happen (and it does, for this is why the saying occurs), the effect is not the same in the case of every kind of wood. This must be an accidental occurrence – particularly if one believes that the rainbow does not really occur in nature, but is merely an effect produced within the eye by refraction. The occurrence of this phenomenon is also dependent on the type of wood involved. Shepherds say that the sweet smell after the rainbow and the rain is present not in green or dry wood but rather in wood which has been burned, in regions where thorny bushes and brambles grow, and in trees which have sweet-smelling flowers.