Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/355

general sense Pliny says: nec quaerenda in ulla parte naturae ratio, sed voluntas.^[1] Nor do we find Greek less fertile in instances. Aristotle, when explaining gravity, says: μικρὸν μὲν μόριον τῆς γῆς, ἐὰν μετεωρισθὲν ἀφεθῇ, φέρεται, καὶ μένειν οὐκ ἐθέλει (parva quaedam terrae pars, si elevata dimittitur, fertur, neque vult manere).^[2] And: Δεῖ δὲ ἕκαστον λέγειν τοιοῦτον εἶναι, ὃ φύσει βούλεται εἶναι, καὶ ὃ ὑπάρχει, ἀλλὰ μὴ ὃ βίᾳ καὶ παρὰ φύσιν (unumquodque autem tale dicere oportet, quale naturâ suâ esse vult, et quod est; sed non id quod violentiâ et præter naturam est).^[3] Of great and more than merely linguistic importance is what Aristotle says in his Ethica magna,^[4] where not only animals, but inanimate beings (fire striving upwards and earth downwards) are explicitly in question, and he asserts that they may be obliged to do something contrary to their nature or their will: παρὰ φύσιν τι, ἢ παρ' ἃ βούλονται ποιεῖν,^[5]—and therefore rightly places παρ' ἃ βούλονται as a paraphrase of παρὰ φύσιν.—Anacreon, in his 29th Ode, εἰς Βάθυλλον, in ordering the portrait of his lady-love, says of her hair: Eλικας δ' ἐλευθέρους μοι πλοκάμων, ἄτακτα συνθείς, ἄφες, ὡς θέλωσι, κεῖσθαι (capillorum cirros incomposite jungens, sine utut volunt jacere).^[6] In German, Bürger says: "hinab will der Bach, nicht hinan" (the brook will go downwards, not upwards). In daily life we constantly hear: "the water boils, it will run over,"—"the glass will break,"—"the ladder will not stand;"—"le feu ne veut pas brûler."—"La corde, une fois tordue, veut toujours se retordre."—In English, the verb "to will"

1. Plin. "Hist. nat." 37, 15.
   "Not reason, but will, is to be sought in any part of nature." (Wikisource contributor note)
2. Aristot. "De Coelo." ii. c. 13, "If a small particle of earth is lifted and let loose, it is carried away and will not rest." [Tr.'s add.]
3. Ibid. c. 14, "But each thing ought to be named as it wills to be and really is according to its nature, not as it is by force and contrary to its nature." [Tr.'s add.]
4. Aristot. "Ethica Mag." i. c. 14.
5. "To do something contrary to their nature or to what they will or want." (Wikisource contributor note)
6. "Let the freely curling locks fall unarranged as they will [like]." [Tr.'s add.]