[4] Exactness of citation is not always to be relied on among ancient commentators. Simplikius cites this very passage of the Timæus with more than one inaccuracy. — (ad Aristot. De Coelo, fol. 125.)
M. Martin attributes to Aristotle something more than improper citation. He says (Êtudes sur le Timée, vol. ii. p. 87), “Si Aristote citait l’opinion de la rotation de la terre comme un titre de gloire pour Platon, je dirais — il est probable que la vérité l’y a forcé. Mais Aristote, qui admettait l’immobilité complète de la terre, attribue à Platon l’opinion contraire, pour se donner le plaisir de la réfuter avec dédain.” A few lines before, M. Martin had said that the arguments whereby Aristotle combated this opinion ascribed to Plato were “very feeble.” I am at a loss to imagine in which of Aristotle’s phrases M. Martin finds any trace of disdain or contempt, either for the doctrine or for those who held it. For my part, I find none. The arguments of Aristotle against the doctrine, whatever be their probative force, are delivered in that brief, calm, dry manner which is usual with him, without a word of sentiment or rhetoric, or anything ἔξω τοῦ πράγματος. Indeed, among all philosophers who have written much, I know none who is less open to the reproach of mingling personal sentiment with argumentative debate than Aristotle. Plato indulges frequently in irony, or sneering, or rhetorical invective; Aristotle very rarely. Moreover, even apart from the question of contempt, the part which M. Martin here assumes Aristotle to be playing, is among the strangest anomalies in the history of philosophy. Aristotle holds, and is anxious to demonstrate, the doctrine of the earth’s immobility; he knows (so we are required to believe) that Plato not only holds the same doctrine, but has expressly affirmed it in the Timæus: he might have produced Plato as an authority in his favour, and the passage of the Timæus as an express declaration; yet he prefers to pervert, knowingly and deliberately, the meaning of this passage, and to cite Plato as a hostile instead of a friendly authority — simply “to give himself the pleasure of contemptuously refuting Plato’s opinion!” But this is not all. M. Martin tells us that the arguments which Aristotle produces against the doctrine are, after all, very feeble. But he farther tells us that there was one argument which might have been produced, and which, if Aristotle had produced it, would have convicted Plato of “an enormous contradiction” (p. 88) in affirming that the earth revolved round the cosmical axis. Aristotle might have said to Plato — “You have affirmed, and you assume perpetually throughout the Timæus, the diurnal revolution of the outer sidereal sphere; you now assert the diurnal revolution of the earth at the centre. Here is an enormous contradiction; the two cannot stand together.” — Yet Aristotle, having this triumphant argument in his hands, says not a word about it, but contents himself with various other arguments which M. Martin pronounces to be very feeble.
Perhaps M. Martin might say — “The contradiction exists; but Aristotle was not sharpsighted enough to perceive it; otherwise he would have advanced it.” I am quite of this opinion. If Aristotle had perceived the contradiction, he would have brought it forward as the strongest point in his controversy. His silence is to me a proof that he did not perceive it. But this is a part of my case against M. Martin. I believe that Plato admitted both the two contradictory doctrines without perceiving the contradiction; and it is a strong presumption in favour of this view that Aristotle equally failed to perceive it — though in a case where, according to M. Martin, he did not scruple to resort to dishonest artifice.
It appears to me that the difficulties and anomalies, in which we are involved from supposing that Aristotle either misunderstood or perverted the meaning of Plato — are far graver than those which would arise from admitting that Plato advanced a complicated theory involving two contradictory propositions, in the same dialogue, without perceiving the contradiction; more especially when the like failure of perception is indisputably ascribable to Aristotle — upon every view of the case.
M. Cousin maintains the same interpretation of the Platonic passage as Boeckh and Martin, and defends it by a note on his translation of the Timæus (p. 339). The five arguments which he produces are considered both by himself and by Martin to be unanswerable. As he puts them with great neatness and terseness, I here bestow upon them a separate examination.
1. “Platon a toujours été considéré dans l’antiquité comme partisan de l’immobilité absolue de la terre.” M. Cousin had before said, “Aristote se fonde sur ce passage pour établir que Platon a fait tourner la terre sur elle-même: mais Aristote est, dans l’antiquité, le seul qui soutienne cette opinion.”
My reply is, that Aristotle is himself a portion and member of antiquity, and that the various Platonists, whom he undertakes to refute, are portions of it also. If M. Cousin appeals to the authority of antiquity, it must be to antiquity, not merely minus Aristotle and these contemporary Platonists, but against them. Now these are just the witnesses who had the best means of knowledge. Besides which, Aristotle himself, adopting and anxious to demonstrate the immobility of the earth, had every motive to cite Plato as a supporter, if Plato was such — and every motive to avoid citing Plato as an opponent, unless the truth of the case compelled him to do so. I must here add, that M. Cousin represents Aristotle as ascribing to Plato the doctrine that “la terre tourne sur elle-même.” This is not strictly exact. Aristotle understands the Platonic Timæus as saying, “That the earth is packed and moved round the axis of the kosmos” — a different proposition.
2. “Dans plusieurs endroits de ses ouvrages où Platon parle de l’équilibre de la terre, il ne dit pas un mot de sa rotation.”
I know of only one such passage — Phædon, p. 108 — where undoubtedly Plato does not speak of the rotation of the earth; but neither does he speak of the rotation of the sidereal sphere and of the kosmos — nor of the axis of the kosmos. It is the figure and properties of the earth, considered in reference to mankind who inhabit it, that Plato sketches in the Phædon; he takes little notice of its cosmical relations, and gives no general theory about the kosmos. M. Cousin has not adverted to the tenth Book of the Republic, where Plato does propound a cosmical theory, expressly symbolising the axis of the kosmos with its rotatory functions.
3. “Si la terre suit le mouvement de l’axe du monde, le mouvement de la huitième sphère, qui est Le Même, devient nul par rapport à elle, et les étoiles fixes, qui appartiennent à elle, demeurent en apparence dans une immobilité absolue: ce qui est contraire à l’expérience et au sens commun, et à l’opinion de Platon, exprimée dans ce même passage.”