The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

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 of the
air, but that it is in the air because of the outer surface of the
air which surrounds it; for if all the air were its place, the
place of a thing would not be equal to the thing-which it is
supposed to be, and