The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (126 page)

6
     ‘One’ means (1) that which is one by accident, (2) that which is one by its own nature. (1) Instances of the accidentally one are ‘Coriscus and what is musical’, and ‘musical Coriscus’ (for it is the same thing to say ‘Coriscus and what is musical’, and ‘musical Coriscus’), and ‘what is musical and what is just’, and ‘musical Coriscus and just Coriscus’. For all of these are called one by virtue of an accident,
(20)
‘what is just and what is musical’ because they are accidents of one substance, ‘what is musical and Coriscus’ because the one is an accident of the other; and similarly in a sense ‘musical Coriscus’ is one with ‘Coriscus’ because one of the parts of the phrase is an accident of the other,
(25)
i. e. ‘musical’ is an accident of Coriscus; and ‘musical Coriscus’ is one with ‘just Coriscus’ because one part of each is an accident of one and the same subject. The case is similar if the accident is predicated of a genus or of any universal name, e. g. if one says that man is the same as
‘musical man’; for this is either because ‘musical’ is an accident of man,
(30)
which is one substance, or because both are accidents of some individual, e. g. Coriscus. Both, however, do not belong to him in the same way, but one presumably as genus and included in his substance, the other as a state or affection of the substance.

The things,
(35)
then, that are called one in virtue of an accident, are called so in this way. (2) Of things that are called one in virtue of their own nature some (
a
) are so called because they are continuous, e. g. a bundle is made one by a band, and pieces of wood are made one by glue; and a line, even if it is bent, is called one if it is continuous, as each part of the body is, e. g. the leg or the arm.
[1016a]
Of these themselves, the continuous by nature are more one than the continuous by art.
(5)
A thing is called continuous which has by its own nature one movement and cannot have any other; and the movement is one when it is indivisible, and it is indivisible in respect of time. Those things are continuous by their own nature which are one not merely by contact; for if you put pieces of wood touching one another, you will not say these are one piece of wood or one body or one
continuum
of any other sort. Things, then, that are continuous in any way are called one,
(10)
even if they admit of being bent, and still more those which cannot be bent; e. g. the shin or the thigh is more one than the leg, because the movement of the leg need not be one. And the straight line is more one than the bent; but that which is bent and has an angle we call both one and not one, because its movement may be either simultaneous or not simultaneous; but that of the straight line is always simultaneous,
(15)
and no part of it which has magnitude rests while another moves, as in the bent line.

(
b
) (i) Things are called one in another sense because their substratum does not differ in kind; it does not differ in the case of things whose kind is indivisible to sense. The substratum meant is either the nearest to,
(20)
or the farthest from, the final state. For, on the one hand, wine is said to be one and water is said to be one,
qua
indivisible in kind; and, on the other hand,
all
juices, e. g. oil and wine, are said to be one, and so are all things that can be melted, because the ultimate substratum of all is the same; for all of these are water or air.

(ii) Those things also are called one whose genus is one though distinguished by opposite differentiae—these too are all called one because the genus which underlies the differentiae is one (e. g. horse,
(25)
man, and dog form a unity, because all are animals), and indeed in a way similar to that in which the matter is one. These are sometimes called one in this way, but sometimes it is the higher genus that is said to be the same (if they are
infimae species
of their genus)—the genus
above the proximate genera; e. g. the isosceles and the equilateral are one and the same
figure
because both are triangles; but they are not the same triangles.
(30)

(
c
) Two things are called one, when the definition which states the essence of one is indivisible from another definition which shows us the other (though
in itself
every definition is divisible).
(35)
Thus even that which has increased or is diminishing is one, because its definition is one, as, in the case of plane figures, is the definition of their form.
[1016b]
In general those things the thought of whose essence is indivisible, and cannot separate them either in time or in place or in definition, are most of all one, and of these especially those which are substances. For in general those things that do not admit of division are called one in so far as they do not admit of it; e. g. if two things are indistinguishable
qua
man,
(5)
they are one kind of man; if
qua
animal, one kind of animal; if
qua
magnitude, one kind of magnitude.—Now most things are called one because they either do or have or suffer or are related to something else that is one, but the things that are primarily called one are those whose substance is one—and one either in continuity or in form or in definition; for we count as more than one either things that are not continuous, or those whose form is not one,
(10)
or those whose definition is not one.

While in a sense we call anything one if it is a quantity and continuous, in a sense we do not unless it is a whole, i. e. unless it has unity of form; e. g. if we saw the parts of a shoe put together anyhow we should not call them one all the same (unless because of their continuity); we do this only if they are put together so as to be a shoe and to have already a certain single form.
(15)
This is why the circle is of all lines most truly one, because it is whole and complete.

(3) The
essence
of what is one is to be some kind of beginning of number; for the first measure is the beginning, since that by which we first know each class is the first measure of the class; the one, then,
(20)
is the beginning of the knowable regarding each class. But the one is not the same in all classes. For here it is a quarter-tone, and there it is the vowel or the consonant; and there is another unit of weight and another of movement. But everywhere the one is indivisible either in quantity or in kind. Now that which is indivisible in quantity is called a unit if it is not divisible in any dimension and is without position,
(25)
a point if it is not divisible in any dimension, and has position, a line if it is divisible in one dimension, a plane if in two, a body if divisible in quantity in all—i. e. in three—dimensions. And, reversing the order, that which is divisible in two dimensions is a plane, that which is divisible in one a line, that which is in no way divisible in quantity is a
point or a unit—that which has not position a unit,
(30)
that which has position a point.

Again, some things are one in number, others in species, others in genus, others by analogy; in number those whose matter is one, in species those whose definition is one, in genus those to which the same figure of predication applies,
³
by analogy those which are related as a third thing is to a fourth.
(35)
The latter kinds of unity are always found when the former are; e. g. things that are one in number are also one in species, while things that are one in species are not all one in number; but things that are one in species are all one in genus, while things that are so in genus are not all one in species but are all one by analogy; while things that are one by analogy are not all one in genus.
[1017a]

Evidently ‘many’ will have meanings opposite to those of ‘one’; some things are many because they are not continuous,
(5)
others because their matter—either the proximate matter or the ultimate—is divisible in kind, others because the definitions which state their essence are more than one.

7
     Things are said to ‘be’ (1) in an accidental sense, (2) by their own nature.

(I) In an accidental sense, e. g., we say ‘the righteous doer is musical’, and ‘the man is musical’, and ‘the musician is a man’,
(10)
just as we say ‘the musician builds’, because the builder happens to be musical or the musician to be a builder; for here ‘one thing is another’ means ‘one is an accident of another’. So in the cases we have mentioned; for when we say ‘the man is musical’ and ‘the musician is a man’,
(15)
or ‘he who is pale is musical’ or ‘the musician is pale’, the last two mean that both attributes are accidents of the same thing; the first that the attribute is an accident of that which
is
; while ‘the musical is a man’ means that ‘musical’ is an accident of a man. (In this sense, too, the not-pale is said to
be
, because that of which it is an accident
is
.) Thus when one thing is said in an accidental sense to be another,
(20)
this is either because both belong to the same thing, and this
is
, or because that to which the attribute belongs
is
, or because the subject which has as an attribute that of which it is itself predicated, itself
is
.

(2) The kinds of essential being are precisely those that are indicated by the figures of predication;
⁴
for the senses of ‘being’ are just as many as these figures.
(25)
Since, then, some predicates indicate what the subject is, others its quality, others quantity, others relation, others
activity or passivity, others its ‘where’, others its ‘when’, ‘being’ has a meaning answering to each of these. For there is no difference between ‘the man is recovering’ and ‘the man recovers’, nor between ‘the man is walking’ or ‘cutting’ and ‘the man walks’ or ‘cuts’; and similarly in all other cases.
(30)

(3) Again, ‘being’ and ‘is’ mean that a statement is true, ‘not being’ that it is not true but false—and this alike in the case of affirmation and of negation; e. g. ’Socrates
is
‘musical’ means that this is true, or ‘Socrates
is
not-pale’ means that this is true; but ‘the diagonal of the square
is not
commensurate with the side’ means that it is false to say it is.

(4) Again, ‘being’ and ‘that which is’ mean that some of the things we have mentioned ‘are’ potentially,
(35)
others in complete reality.
[1017b]
For we say both of that which sees potentially and of that which sees actually, that it is ‘seeing’, and both of that which can actualize its knowledge and of that which is actualizing it, that it knows,
(5)
and both of that to which rest is already present and of that which can rest, that it rests. And similarly in the case of substances; we say the Hermes is in the stone, and the half of the line is in the line, and we say of that which is not yet ripe that it is corn.
When
a thing is potential and when it is not yet potential must be explained elsewhere.
⁵

8
     We call ‘substance’ (1) the simple bodies,
(10)
i. e. earth and fire and water and everything of the sort, and in general bodies and the things composed of them, both animals and divine beings, and the parts of these. All these are called substance because they are not predicated of a subject but everything else is predicated of them.—(2) That which, being present in such things as are not predicated of a subject,
(15)
is the cause of their being, as the soul is of the being of an animal.—(3) The parts which are present in such things, limiting them and marking them as individuals, and by whose destruction the whole is destroyed, as the body is by the destruction of the plane, as some
⁶
say, and the plane by the destruction of the line; and in general number is thought by some
⁶
to be of this nature; for if it is destroyed,
(20)
they say, nothing exists, and it limits all things.—(4) The essence, the formula of which is a definition, is also called the substance of each thing.

It follows, then, that ‘substance’ has two senses, (
A
) the ultimate substratum, which is no longer predicated of anything else, and (
B
) that which, being a ‘this’, is also separable
⁷
—and of this nature is the shape or form of each thing.
(25)

9
     ‘The same’ means (1) that which is the same in an accidental sense, e. g. ‘the pale’ and ‘the musical’ are the same because they are accidents of the same thing, and ‘a man’ and ‘musical’ because the one is an accident of the other; and ‘the musical’ is ‘a man’ because it is an accident of the man.
(30)
(The complex entity is the same as either of the simple ones and each of these is the same as it; for both ‘the man’ and ‘the musical’ are said to be the same as ‘the musical man’, and this the same as they.) This is why all of these statements are made not universally; for it is not true to say that
every
man is the same as ‘the musical’ (for universal attributes belong to things in virtue of their own nature,
(35)
but accidents do not belong to them in virtue of their own nature); but of the individuals the statements are made without qualification.
[1018a]
For ‘Socrates’ and ‘musical Socrates’ are thought to be the same; but ‘Socrates’ is not predicable of more than one subject, and therefore we do not say ‘every Socrates’ as we say ‘every man’.

Some things are said to be the same in this sense,
(5)
others (2) are the same by their own nature, in as many senses as that which is one by its own nature is so; for both the things whose matter is one either in kind or in number, and those whose essence is one, are said to be the same. Clearly, therefore, sameness is a unity of the being either of more than one thing or of one thing when it is treated as more than one, i. e. when we say a thing is the same as itself; for we treat it as two.

Things are called ‘other’ if either their kinds or their matters or the definitions of their essence are more than one; and in general ‘other’ has meanings opposite to those of ‘the same’.
(10)

‘Different’ is applied (1) to those things which though other are the same in some respect, only not in number but either in species or in genus or by analogy; (2) to those whose genus is other, and to contraries, and to all things that have their otherness in their essence.

Those things are called ‘like’ which have the same attributes in every respect,
(15)
and those which have more attributes the same than different, and those whose quality is one; and that which shares with another thing the greater number or the more important of the attributes (each of them one of two contraries) in respect of which things are capable of altering, is like that other thing.
⁸
The senses of ‘unlike’ are opposite to those of ‘like’.