6.1 (42) On the Genera of Being 1

§6.1.1. Of the most ancient thinkers who also investigated how many beings¹ there are and which they are, some said one,² others, a limited number, and yet others, an unlimited number.³ And of those who say that being is one, some said one thing, others said other things; the same is true for those who say that beings are limited or unlimited in number. Since their beliefs have been sufficiently investigated by those who came after them,⁴ let us set them aside.5

These later thinkers placed the number of beings they discovered in definite genera: in these cases, we must investigate those who said that being was neither one, because they saw a plurality also among intelligible beings,⁵ nor unlimited because that was not possible,⁶ nor would scientific understanding then be possible.⁷

And we must look into those who posited a limited number of beings,10 because they thought it was wrong to say that the substrates are like elements; so, they spoke rather of genera, some of them making ten genera,⁸ and some of them fewer.⁹ Some indeed may have said more than ten.¹⁰ There are also differences in their genera. Some take the genera as principles,¹¹ others the beings themselves, which fall into just that number of genera.¹²

So, we must first grasp the doctrine which divides beings into ten.15 Should we take them to be saying there are ten genera having the common name ‘being’, or ten predicates?¹³ For they say, rightly, that ‘being’ is not univocal¹⁴ in all ten.

At all events, we must ask the following question first:¹⁵ whether the ten genera exist in the same way in intelligibles as in sensibles,20 or whether they all are in sensibles but only some of them are in intelligibles, while the others are not? For it certainly cannot be the other way round.¹⁶ We should, then, investigate which of the ten are in the intelligible world, too, and whether the things in the intelligible world are to be subsumed under one genus with the things here, or whether ‘Substance’ in the intelligible world and ‘substance’ in the sensible world are said equivocally. If this is so, then the genera are25 more than ten. If, though, ‘substance’ is univocal, it is absurd that ‘substance’ means the identical thing when used of prior Beings and posterior ones, without there being a common genus, which the prior Beings and the posterior beings belong to. But they do not speak about intelligibles in this division.¹⁷ Hence, they did not want to divide all beings; rather, they left those that are most of all Beings, the intelligibles,30 on one side.

§6.1.2. Again, then, are they to be considered to be genera? And in what way is substance one genus? In any case, one has to begin with substance. It has already been said¹⁸ that it is impossible for there to be a genus common to intelligible Substance and to sensible substance. And besides, it would be another genus prior to the intelligible5 and to the sensible, being another genus which is predicated of both which could not be either corporeal or incorporeal. For if it could, then, either body would be incorporeal or the incorporeal would be body.¹⁹

And indeed as for the substances in the sensible world, one must enquire what is common to matter and form, and to that which consists of both. For they²⁰ say all these are substances, and not to be related10 equally to substance when they say that form is more substance than matter.²¹ And rightly so. Other thinkers²² would say matter is substance to a greater degree.

What do the so-called primary substances have in common with the secondary substances,²³ if the secondary substances can be called ‘substances’ on the basis of the primary ones? It is not possible to say15 what substance is in general. For if someone gives its property, they do not have its definition, and perhaps not even ‘one in number and self-identical, being receptive of contraries’²⁴ fits all cases.

§6.1.3. But is substance a single predicate for those who group together intelligible substance, matter, form, and the concrete thing consisting of both matter and form? It would be as if someone were to say the genus of the Heraclids is one, not in the sense that there is something common to them all, but because they all derive from one thing.²⁵ Primarily, there is the intelligible substance and secondarily, and to a lesser extent, there5 are the others. What prevents them all from being one predicate? For all the others things are said to be with reference to substance.²⁶

In fact, they are mere states of substance, and substances succeed one another in a different way. In this way, we are not yet able to penetrate substance, nor to grasp its principal referent, so that we can see how10 everything else also derives from it.

Let all so-called substances actually be homogeneous in the above manner, namely, by possessing something distinct from the other genera. What, then, is this ‘something’ itself, this ‘this’,²⁷ the substrate, which is not imposed on another substrate, and which does not belong to another, in the way that pale is a quality belonging to a body, or as an15 amount belongs to a substance, and as time belongs to change, and change to the thing changing.²⁸

But secondary substance²⁹ is said of another thing.

In fact, it is said of another in another manner here, namely, as an inherent genus, that is, inhering as a part, that is, a part of the ‘what it is’ of that thing; by contrast, the pale belongs to another thing because it is in another thing.³⁰

These may be called the properties of substances relative to other20 things, and because of this they can be brought together into a unity and one may call them substances. But one would not call them one genus, nor would doing this clarify in any way the conception and nature of substance.

Let us leave these things here³¹ and move on to the nature of quantity.

§6.1.4. They actually call number the primary quantity and also all continuous magnitude, place, and time, and they reduce all else they call quantities to these;³² motion is a quantity because time is one, although, perhaps, conversely, time derives its continuity from motion.5 But if indeed they assert that the continuous insofar as it is continuous is a quantity, then anything discontinuous will not be a quantity. If, though, the continuous is accidentally a quantity, what will there be common to both that makes them quantities?

Let being quantities belong to numbers. But thereby they are merely said to be quantities, whereas the nature due to which they are said to be10 quantities has not yet been made clear. But line, surface, and body are not said to be quantities; they are said to be magnitudes, and not quantities, if indeed one does grasp in addition that they are each said to be a quantity when brought under a number, for example, two cubits or three cubits. For even a body when measured becomes a quantity, as15 does a place, accidentally, and not insofar as it is place.³³

We do not need to grasp what is accidentally a quantity, but rather what that is in itself, that is, quantity.³⁴ For three oxen are not a quantity either; rather, the quantity is the number applied to them. For ‘three oxen’ are already two predicates [ox and three]. Thus, in a line of such and such a size there are two predicates, and a surface of such and such a size is also20 two, and its quantity is a quantity, but why is the surface itself a quantity? It is only a quantity when limited, for example, by three or four lines.

What, then? Will we say that only numbers are quantities? But if we mean the Numbers in themselves, these are said to be Substances,³⁵25 especially by existing by themselves. But if we mean those numbers in things which participate in them, that is, those numbers by which we count,³⁶ not units, but, for example, ten horses and ten oxen, then, first, it will appear absurd if numbers in themselves are substances, whereas these numbers used for counting are not, too; and, next, if those numbers which measure substrates are present in them, and are not also outside them, in30 the way that rulers and measures serve to measure things.

But if numbers are taken to measure while being in themselves and not being in substrates, neither will the substrates be quantities, since they do not participate in quantity; and why will the numbers be quantities? For they are measures; and why do measures have quantities or why are they what quantity is itself?35

In fact, it is because, since numbers used for counting are among beings, and if they fit no other predicate, they will be that which they are said to be, and will fall under [the category of] quantity which is what they are said to be. For indeed their unit delimits one thing, then it proceeds to another one, and the number declares how many they are. Soul measures the multiplicity, here, too, making use of number.³⁷

In measuring, then, the soul does not measure what the thing is, for it40 says one and two, even when they are opposites, but not the disposition which the thing may have, for example, hot or beautiful, just how many there are. Number itself, therefore, whether considered in itself or in the things participating in number, and not the things participating in number, falls under a quantity. Thus, three cubits is not a quantity, but three is. So, why are magnitudes also regarded as quantities? Is it because they are near to a quantity, and we call quantities the things they45 come to be in, not because of the quantity properly speaking, but we call them big, because they partake of a large number, and small, because they partake of a small number? But big and small themselves are not judged to be quantities, but relatives. Still, they are said to be relative insofar as they are held to be quantities.³⁸

We must look at the matter more accurately. So, there will not be one50 single genus, just number alone, with the others being quantity in a secondary sense. So, quantity is not properly speaking one genus, but one predicate bringing together things that are close together, both primary and secondary quantity.

But we must investigate how Numbers in themselves are Substances or are themselves a quantity.³⁹ Whichever way they are, they will have nothing in common with quantities beyond the bare name.55

§6.1.5. How are [verbal] statement, time, and motion quantities? Let us first discuss statement, if you like. Well, statement is of such and such a quantity, for it is measured,⁴⁰ but as statement, it is not a quantity. For it is meaningful, like name and verb.⁴¹ The matter for it is air, just as it is5 for these; for it is composed of name and verb. The impact is rather the statement, though not simply the impact, but the occurrent impression, which, in a way, shapes the air. Thus, it is rather a production, indeed a production involving meaning. It is reasonable to take this motion actually to be a production, due to the impact, and the motion which answers to it as an affection, or each of them as a production of one10 thing, and the affection of another, that is, a production with regard to the substrate, but an affection in the substrate.

If, though, there is said to be a voice not only because of the blow, but also because of the air, there would be two predicates and not one arising from the meaningful voice, if the meaning⁴² belonged to one predicate, and the co-meaning to another predicate.⁴³15

As for time, if it is grasped according to its measuring function, one has to grasp what the measuring thing is, either soul or the now.⁴⁴ If it is grasped insofar as it is measured, then in respect of being however much it is, for example, a year long, then let it be a quantity; but it is another nature insofar as it is time. For being however much it is, it will be so because it is something else. For time is actually not quantity as such20 since Quantity as such is what is quantity principally, and it is attached to nothing else.⁴⁵ If one posited all that partakes of a quantity as being quantities, then substance, too, would be identical to a quantity.

‘Equal and unequal are to be grasped as the properties of the quantity in itself’,⁴⁶ not of the things that participate in it, or of these only25 accidentally, not as these things themselves, as someone who is three cubits tall is a quantity; the comprised quantity is not placed in one genus, but under one genus and one predicate.⁴⁷

§6.1.6. We should investigate the relative by asking if there is something present in it common to the whole genus, or if the genus is related in another way to one thing, and, above all, if the relation itself is a real existent, for example, right and left, the double and the half, or if it is a real existent in some cases but not in others, such that it is a real5 existent in those mentioned first but not in those mentioned later, or else nowhere at all.

What real existence is there indeed in double and half, or quite generally, in the exceeding and the exceeded, and again in disposition and state, bending, sitting, standing, and again in father and son, master and slave, and again in same and not same, equal and unequal, productive10 and passive, measure and measured? And we can add scientific understanding and sense-perception: the one is relative to the object of scientific understanding, the other to the sensible. For scientific understanding, when actualized, might contain real existence in relation to its object, and likewise sense-perception in relation to its object. So,15 too, that which is productive in relation to that which is passive, if it actively produces something, and that which measures in relation to the thing measured, if it produces the measurement.⁴⁸

But what kind of effect could that which is the same have in relation to that which is the same as it?

In fact, the sameness is not the effect of that which is the same as it, but merely present, that is, the identity in what is qualified as the same. But, besides that which is in each, no other quality is involved. Nor with20 equal things. For the identity in the quantity is present prior to the relation.

What is the relation other than our judgement when we compare what the things are in themselves, and say ‘this and that have the identical magnitude and the identical quality’, and ‘this has produced that, and this rules that’? What is sitting or standing besides the sitting25 and standing thing?⁴⁹ The state, in relation to the thing which possesses it, should rather mean possession;⁵⁰ and in relation to what is possessed, should mean rather a quality. And it is the same way with disposition. So, what is there besides these things in relation to one another if not ourselves thinking the comparison? In the case of exceeding, there is one30 thing of this magnitude and another thing of that magnitude: they are two different things and the comparison is ours, not in the things themselves.

The right hand in relation to the left, and front and back, are presumably positions, not relations; this is thus, and this is thus. We think the right hand and the left, and there is nothing in the things themselves. Before and after are two times, and we think the before and after in the same way.

§6.1.7. If, then, we are merely using empty phrases, but are deceived in what we say, there would be none of these things; the relation would be empty. But suppose we are saying something true, when we say ‘this is before that, and that is later’, in comparing two times, and saying that one of them is prior and is different from their substrates; and the same5 with right hand and left hand; and with magnitudes, the relation between them holds besides their quantity, insofar as the one exceeds and the other is exceeded.

Even when we do not say or think it is thus and so, for example, that this is double that, and this possesses, and this is possessed, even before we know it, equals stand in relation to one another independently of us,10 and in the case of things which are qualified, the relation consists in their identity relative to one another, and in the case of all things where we say they stand in relation to one another, there is a relation of the things to one another, which follows on the substrates, and we see that there is the relation, and this cognition is relative to the thing cognized – here, the real existent arising from the relation is indeed pretty clear. The search,15 then, as to whether there is a relation, may be brought to a stop.

But we should also note that in such cases, as long as the substrates remain as they are, even if they are apart from one another, the relation obtains, whereas in other cases even though they remain, the relation ceases, either entirely or becomes another one, for example, if something20 is on the right or near.

These are the considerations which give rise most of all to the suspicion that there is nothing to such cases. You must, then, investigate what is identical in all cases, once you have noted the above, and whether this is a genus, and not accidentally. Then, once one has found this identical thing, one must say what kind of real existence it has.

Something should actually be called a relative not if it simply belongs25 to another thing like a state of the soul or the body, nor if it is the soul of this person, or in another thing, but only in those cases in which the real existent arises solely out of the relation. The real existent is not that of the substrates, but that which is said relative to something,⁵¹ for example, the double being relative to the half, provides real existence neither30 to two cubits nor to two in general, nor to the thing of one cubit, nor to the one in general. Rather, given that there are these things because of a relation, then, in addition to being two, and to being one, the one of them can be, that is, can be said to be double, and the other can be said to be half. They bring about both from themselves, such that double and half are distinct, although they come about in relation to one another,35 and their existence is precisely that which holds through their relation to each other; for the double arises from exceeding the half, the half from being exceeded.

The result is that one of them is not prior, the other posterior; rather, they both come to exist simultaneously. Do they also remain simultaneous?

In fact, in the case of father and son and people closely resembling one another, when the father passes away, the son remains, and when40 one brother dies, the other brother remains. For we say ‘He is like the one who has died.’

§6.1.8. But we have digressed from the subject. At this point in the investigation, we must enquire why all these cases are not the same. Let these people⁵² say what common real existence this kind of being possesses which derives from [the relata] in their relations to one another.⁵³ This common element, then, cannot be a body. So, it remains that it is incorporeal, if indeed there is such an element at all; and it is5 either in the things themselves or comes from outside.

If it is the identical relation for all relatives, then [‘relation’] is univocal, but if not, that is, if it is a different relation for different relatives, then it is equivocal. For it is certainly not the case that because it is called a relation, it has to have the identical substantiality. Are relations, then, not to be divided as follows? Some relatives have, as we can observe, an inactive relation, lying there, in a way, and their real existence lies10 altogether in the simultaneity of the relata, while other relatives relate capacity and function.

In the latter kind, we can distinguish between two cases. In the first, the relata possess readiness always in respect of the relation, before any given point of time, and the relation comes to really exist from the union of the relata and by their activity. In the second lot of cases, one of the pair of relata is actively productive, while the other comes to really exist, and the real existent only gives its name to the other one of the relata, while the productive part provides real existence to the other part. Such15 is the case with father and son. Both the actively productive and the passive part have, in a way, life and activity.

Is relation, then, to be divided like that, that is, is it to be divided not as one identical thing, common in all the different cases? Does one relation, generally speaking, have a different nature in each of the two differentiated parts, and is it to be called equivocally the relation with20 one relatum actively doing both the producing and the undergoing the affection as if they were one, and in the other relation neither relata produce the relation, but rather something else in both relata actively produces it, as, for example, equality makes things equal? For they are equal because of equality and, in general, identical due to some kind of identity. There are big and small, the one due to the presence of greatness, the other due to the presence of smallness. And when one gets bigger, the other gets smaller, by participating, the larger by the activity25 of the greatness appearing in it, and the small by the activity of smallness.

§6.1.9. But in the cases mentioned before,⁵⁴ such as the active producer, and scientific knowledge, one must posit the relation as active – in respect of the activity – and define it corresponding to its activity; in the other cases, there is participation in the form and definition. For indeed if Beings had to be bodies, one would have to say that the relations that5 relatives indicate are nothing.⁵⁵

But if we give both incorporeals and expressed principles the principal position, saying that relations are expressed principles, and the participation in Forms are the causes, then the cause of the double is the Double itself, and the Half is cause in the half. Some things are what they are said to be due to the identical Form, others, due to opposing10 Forms. Then, the double approached this thing at the same time as the half approached another; and when magnitude approached this thing, then smallness approached that one. Or both are in each thing: both sameness and lack of sameness and, generally, identity and difference.15 For this reason, the identical thing is both the same and not the same, both identical and different.

How, then, can one human be ugly and someone else uglier by the participation in the identical Form?

In fact, if they are altogether ugly, they are on an equal footing by the absence of the identical Form. But if the one is more ugly, and in the other the less so, the less ugly one will participate in the Form, though the Form does not dominate over him, while in the uglier one, the Form20 will have even less dominance. Or, if one wishes to obtain the contrast between them by privation, that would be, in a way, the form in them.⁵⁶

Sense-perception is some sort of form arising from both [relata] and cognition is likewise a form consisting of both. Possession is relative to what is possessed, an activity, in a way, holding them together, like a certain active production. Measuring is an activity of the measuring thing, a proportion⁵⁷ relative to the thing measured.25

If, then, one were to posit the status of the relative generally as a form, there is, then, one genus and one real existent in the sense of one expressed principle everywhere [in the genus]. But if the expressed principles are opposed and have the differentiae which have just been mentioned, then it is presumably not one genus; rather, they would all be collected by a certain sameness that they have, that is, under one30 predicate.

But even if all the things mentioned can be gathered together under one genus, yet it is impossible to put everything that falls under the identical predicate with them to be placed in the identical genus. For the Peripatetics collect the negations under one genus, and the things which are so called after them are so called from them, like both the double and that which is double.⁵⁸ How, then, can they be in one genus, the thing35 itself and the negation, for example, double and not double, relative and not relative? It is as though you were to posit a genus animal and put not-animal in it. So, too, the double, and that which is double, and paleness and that which is pale, are not identical at all.

§6.1.10. As for quality, because of which someone is said to be qualified in some way, first, we must grasp what it is such that it makes things which are said to be qualified in some way to be such, and if it is one or self-identical [genus], corresponding to one common element which provides the species by means of the differentiae, or else, if qualities are said to be in many ways, then it would not be one genus.⁵⁹ What, then, is5 the common element in state, disposition,⁶⁰ passive quality,⁶¹ figure, and shape? And in thin, thick, lean? For if we say that the common element is a potency, which fits both states, dispositions, and physical capacities, by which the possessor can do what it can do, then, incapacities10 will not fit.⁶² And how are the figure and the shape of an individual capacities?

Next, being qua being will have no potency, but only when a qualification is added to it. The activities of the substances, that is, those things that are especially activities, activate what belongs to the qualification, because of the substances, and are activities of their proper15 capacities. But, then, are there capacities because of the substances in themselves? For example, the potency for boxing does not belong to the human being as such; only the rational potency does.⁶³ So, rationality in this sense is not a quality, only that rationality is which one possesses arising from one’s virtue. So, ‘rationality’ is equivocal. So, that quality would be a potency added to substances, once the substances themselves20 are qualified.⁶⁴ But the specific differentiae which distinguish substances from one another are [said to be] qualities equivocally, being rather activities, and definitions, rather than parts of expressed principles, no whit the less making clear what it is, even if they seem to say the substance is qualified in a certain way.

Qualities, properly speaking, because of which human beings are qualified in a certain way – which we do indeed call capacities⁶⁵ – have25 in common that they would be expressed principles and, in a way, shapes and [things like] beauty and ugliness in soul and body alike. But how are all qualities capacities? Let beauty be one potency, and both psychical and corporeal health, but then what do we do with ugliness and sickness and weakness, and incapacity quite generally?

In fact, are these capacities because people are said to be qualified in a certain way because of them? What, though, prevents people who are30 said to be qualified in a certain way from being said to be qualified equivocally and not because of one definition? And not only in four ways, but at least in two different ways for each of the four?⁶⁶

In fact, first, quality is not divided according to producing or being affected, such that what is able to produce is quality in one way, and being affected is quality in another.⁶⁷ Rather, we call health a quality35 insofar as it is a disposition and a state, and so, too, with disease, and strength and weakness. But if this is so, then potency is not the common element, so one has to look for some other common element. Nor are they all expressed principles; for how is disease, as a permanent state, the expressed principle? But, then, do some qualities consist in forms and capacities, while others are privations [like disease and weakness]? So,40 they do not form one genus, but are related to one common element, in the sense of one predicate, for example, scientific knowledge is a form and a potency, ignorance is a privation and an incapacity.

In fact, incapacity and disease are a sort of shape, and both disease and vice are both capable of many things and do many things, just badly. But if something misses the target, then how is it a potency?45

In fact, each of them exercises its own potency although they are not guided by what is correct. For one could not do something which one is incapable of. Beauty⁶⁸ has also a potency for something. Then, does a triangle, too?⁶⁹

In fact, one should not look to the potency at all, but rather to the way something is disposed.

So, quality is, in a way, shapes or characteristics, and the common50 element is the shape or the form which is an addition to the substance and posterior to it. But then again how are they capacities?

In fact, the naturally talented boxer is in possession of this talent by being disposed in some way.⁷⁰ And equally with the person with an incapacity for something or other.

Generally, a quality is a non-substantial characteristic, which nonetheless,55 as the identical characteristic, may be held to contribute to both substance and to non-substance, for example, heat and paleness and colour, in general. For when it belongs to the substance, it is different, like the substance’s activity, whereas the characteristic in a secondary sense is derived from the primary one, and is another thing in another thing, an image of that one and the same as it. But if there is a quality due to formation, characteristic, and expressed principle, how about those60 due to incapacity and ugliness?

In fact, they are to be called imperfect expressed principles, as in the ugly human being.

And how is the expressed principle in the disease?⁷¹

In fact, there is here an expressed principle of health that has been disturbed. And, in fact, it is the case that not all things consist in expressed principles; rather, it is sufficient if the common element in all quality, besides being disposed in a certain way, is outside substance, and anything that comes along additionally, after the substance is the65 quality of the substrate. The triangle is a quality of that in which it is, not a triangle unqualifiedly, but the triangle in this [substrate], and insofar as this has been shaped. But does humanity also bestow shape?

In fact, it bestows substance.

§6.1.11. But if things are like this, then why are there several species of quality and why do states and dispositions differ? For being permanent or not is not a differentia of quality, but a disposition suffices to provide some qualification.⁷² Permanence is an outside addition to the disposition; unless one were to say that dispositions are only imperfect like5 shapes, whereas states are perfect. But if dispositions are imperfect, then they are not yet qualities; if, though, they are already qualities, permanence is an addition.

And how are natural capacities another species of quality? For if they are qualities insofar as they are capacities, this aspect of potency will not10 fit all qualities, as has been said.⁷³ If we say that someone is a natural boxer,⁷⁴ that is, is qualified because of his disposition, the potency, when added, will do nothing, since the potency is already included in the states.

Next, how will the human being qualified by potency differ from the human being qualified by scientific understanding? And if they are qualified people, then the differentia will not be one that belongs to quality, if the one possesses his potency from training, and the other by15 nature; this distinction will be outside the quality. How can this distinction relate to the species [of quality] that boxing is in itself?

Nor is there a distinction in the quality, if some qualities arise from affection, and others do not; for quality is not distinguished depending on where the quality comes from. I mean here the variations and the differentiae of quality. One could enquire, if some qualities arose from affection, and some came about in another way, and did not belong to the identical subjects, how could they all fall under the identical species?20 And if some qualities lie in the substrates coming to be affected, and others in the substrates’ active production of the affection, then they would be [said to be] qualities equivocally.⁷⁵

What about the shape belonging to each individual?⁷⁶ For if it is insofar as each individual is form, then it is not a quality. If it is insofar as the individual is beautiful or ugly posterior to the form of the substrate, then it is reasonable for the shape to be a quality.

Is one not right to call rough, smooth, rarefied, dense qualities?⁷⁷25 The fine and the dense and the rough, do not actually consist in the distance or nearness of the parts to one another, and roughness does not arise everywhere from the irregularity and regularity of position. And even if they did consist in these, still nothing would prevent them from being qualities.

Light and heavy, when one knows what they are, will make clear where one should place them.⁷⁸ In the case of light, there might be30 equivocity, if it is not distinguished by means of the scales into more and less light, since it includes the lean and the fine, which fall under a species of quality different from the other four.⁷⁹

§6.1.12. But if one does not think it right to divide up quality in the way just described, how would one divide it? One should, then, investigate whether one should, given the division between qualities of body and qualities of the soul, partition those of the body according to the senses – apportioning these by sight, those by hearing or taste,5 yet others by smell or touch.⁸⁰

But then how do we divide the qualities of the soul? As belonging to the soul’s faculties of appetite, spiritedness, and calculative reasoning? Or rather by the differentiae of the activities which come to be due to the qualities, since these qualities produce these activities? Or are they to be distinguished by the beneficial and harmful? But one must distinguish the kinds of the beneficial and the harmful. They are the identical ones that make qualities different also in the case of the corporeal qualities.⁸¹10 For these are the distinctions belonging properly to quality.

In fact, benefit and harm appear to stem from quality and how something is qualified; otherwise, one should see how benefit and harm come about in another fashion. And one should investigate how something qualified by a quality is in the identical predicate as the quality. For there is actually not one genus of both. If the boxer is thus15 and so by being qualified, then why not the actively productive person? And if the productive person is so constituted, then so is the productive thing.

The result is that one should not place the actively productive or the passive among relatives, if the passive human being is someone qualified.⁸² And presumably the productive person is better placed here, if he is said to be such because of his potency, and the potency is the quality. But if the potency relates to substance or is a determinate20 potency, then it is neither relative nor yet a way of being qualified. For the productive thing is not like something larger because something larger has real existence, qua larger, only in relation to something smaller, but the productive thing is already productive by being qualified in such a way.

But perhaps, although it is qualified according to the sort of thing it is, it is called a relative insofar as it is able to be productive relative to another. Why, then, is the boxer, and indeed the boxing craft itself, not25 relative to something? For the boxing craft relates to another person generally. For there is no theoretical element⁸³ at all in this craft which does not relate to the opponent. So, equally, one should look into the other crafts, or most of them. Insofar as the crafts dispose the soul in a certain way, they are qualities, but insofar as they produce something, they are productive, and as such relative to another human being and to30 a thing, since they are relative to something in another way, insofar as they are called states.⁸⁴

Is there not, then, another real existent in respect of the productive thing, without the productive thing being different from being qualified in a certain way? For one could very well assume in the case of living beings and even more in the case of things with choice, because of their35 inclination to production, that there is also a special form of real existence in respect of being productive.

And in the case of inanimate capacities, which we say are qualities,⁸⁵ what could be the productive potency?

In fact, when one thing meets with another, it derives benefit from it, and changes through what the other thing possesses. So, if the identical thing is both productive relative to another and affected relative to the first, then how is it still the productive principle? For the greater thing,40 being, for example, three cubits in itself, is both greater and smaller in meeting with another thing. But one will say that the greater and the lesser arise by participating in Magnitude and Smallness.⁸⁶

In fact, in this case, too, it is by participating in the productive and the passive.

At this point, one must investigate whether the qualities in the sensible world and those in the intelligible world fall under one genus.45 This question is addressed to those who do posit qualities in the intelligible world, too.

In fact, even if someone does not admit Forms, and yet in speaking of Intellect, he calls it a state, there will, then, be something common to the state in the intelligible world, and the one in the sensible world. And wisdom is conceded by these thinkers to exist.

In fact, if ‘wisdom’ in the intelligible world is equivocal relative to that in the sensible world, then it will obviously not be numbered among these things here. But if it is univocal, then the qualified will be common50 to the sensible world and to the intelligible world unless one were to say that everything in the intelligible world belongs to Substance. So, Intellect would, too. But this is a problem common to all the other categories whether they are double, here and there, or whether both fall under one genus.

§6.1.13. This is how we should investigate the ‘when’; if yesterday, tomorrow, a year ago, and suchlike are parts of time, why are they not in the identical genus as is time?⁸⁷ For since ‘was’, ‘is’, and ‘will be’, are forms of time, it would be fair if they were ordered along with time.5 Time is said to belong to something quantified, so why do we need another predicate? But if they⁸⁸ say that time is not just ‘was’ and ‘will be’, but also ‘yesterday’ and ‘a year ago’ – for these must be subsumed under the ‘was’ – it is, then, not just time, but a certain time; still it will be primarily time, if it is a certain time.10

Next, if yesterday is past time, it will be something composite, if time and past are different. There will, then, be two categories, and it will not be simple. If they say that being in time is being sometime, but not time, if they say this thing is in time, for example, that Socrates was yesterday,15 Socrates will be something apart from time, and they are not saying one thing.

But in the case of Socrates or an action, what would they be other than in a part of time? If, because they say a part of time, and insofar as it is a part of time, they do not think that they are saying something is simply time, but a past part of time, then they produce several things,20 and furthermore grasp the part qua part as a relative being. And the past will in their view be a constituent of or identical with the ‘was’, which was defined as a form of time. If ‘was’ is defined by being indefinite, while ‘yesterday’ and ‘a year ago’ are definite, then, first where shall we place ‘was’?

Next, yesterday will be a ‘definite was’, so that yesterday will be25 a definite time. But this is a quantified time. So, if time is something quantified, each of these will be a definite quantity. But if when they say ‘yesterday’, and we understand this to assert that this occurred at this definite past time, then they will be speaking of even more things.

Next, if one has to add other categories by making one thing occur in30 another, as in the sensible world in time, we will find many other categories arising from making one thing in another.

We will speak more clearly about this in the account of the ‘where’, which now follows.

§6.1.14. The ‘where’, for example, in the Lyceum or in the Academy.⁸⁹ The Academy and the Lyceum are assuredly places, and parts of place, as up and down, and ‘here’ are forms or parts of place. The differentia lies in that the former are more determinately parts. So if up and down5 and the middle are places,⁹⁰ for example, Delphi is the middle, and what is beside the middle, such as Athens and the Lyceum and indeed the rest,⁹¹ what do we need to look for besides place, especially because we say these phrases indicate place?

If we say one thing is in another,⁹² then we do not say one thing, nor do we say anything simple.

Next, if we say that this is here, we generate a relation of this in this,10 and of the receiving thing to that which receives it. Why, then, is it not a relative, if something is generated from the relation between one and the other?

Next, how does ‘here’ differ from ‘in Athens’? But they say that the demonstrative ‘here’ indicates a place. So, too, with ‘in Athens’. So, ‘in15 Athens’ belongs to place.

Next, if ‘in Athens’ is ‘it is in Athens’, ‘it is’ is predicated in addition to place. But it should not be; just as the predicate is not ‘it is a quality’, but just ‘quality’ alone.

In addition, if being in time and being in place is something else20 besides time and place, why does Aristotle not make ‘being in a bucket’ another predicate, and being in matter another, and being in a substrate another, and the part being in the whole, and the whole in the parts, and the genus in the species, and the species in the genus? And so in this way, the predicates will be multiplied.

§6.1.15. One should investigate the following matters in what is called ‘that which produces’.⁹³ For it is said that, just as, since after substance, those things connected with substance were quantity and number, and the quantified was another genus, and, since there is quality, another genus connected with it is what is qualified in some way, so, too, since5 there is production, another genus is producing.

Is the genus producing or production, then, from which producing stems, just like quality, too, from which the qualified stems? Or should the act of production, the producing, and the producer be included in one genus or only the producing and the act of production? But it is rather producing that reveals the producer, not production.⁹⁴

And producing consists in some production, and this is actual. So, the10 predicate is rather an activity⁹⁵ which is said to be seen connected with substance, as was quality.

And if it is connected to substance-like motion, then motion is one genus of beings, too.⁹⁶ For quality is one of those things connected with substance, and quantity another one, and the relative another one15 through the relation of one thing to another. So, why will motion not also be one genus,⁹⁷ since it is also connected with substance?

§6.1.16. If someone were to say ‘motion is an incomplete activity’,⁹⁸ nothing would prevent him from making activity prior, and a motion a species, namely, one that is incomplete, predicating ‘activity’ of it, and adding ‘incomplete’.⁹⁹ ‘Incomplete’ is said of it, not because it is not an5 activity, but because, while it is an activity in the full sense, it comprises in itself iteration,¹⁰⁰ not so that it will arrive at activity – it is that already – but so that something distinct from it may be brought about after it.

And it is not the motion that is then completed, but the thing it was aiming at. For example, walking¹⁰¹ is walking from the outset. But if it is10 necessary to cover a stade, and when it has not yet been covered, what remains does not belong to the walking nor to the motion, but to a certain quantity of motion. Walking is already both some quantity and a motion. For the person moving already has moved, and the cutter already has cut. And as what is called activity needs no time, neither does15 motion,¹⁰² only that motion which extends a determinate length. And if activity is in the timeless, so, too, is motion when taken generally.¹⁰³ And even if motion generally acquires continuity in time, so, too, would uninterrupted seeing be continuous and in time.

Evidence for this [Peripatetic view] also comes from the analogy¹⁰⁴20 which states it is always possible to take some further arbitrary part of a motion, and that there is no starting point of time, in which and from which it starts, nor that there is a starting point of motion itself, but that it is always possible to divide it further.¹⁰⁵ It would then follow that the motion which has just now begun has been changing from unlimited time, and that it is unlimited in the direction of what starts it. This25 occurs because of separating activity from motion, and saying that the one begins to be in the timeless, and saying that the other needs time, not merely of such an amount; however, they are forced to say that, generally, its nature makes it so much although they admit themselves that quantity is present in it accidentally, for example, if the motion were30 half a day long, or of any particular amount of time.¹⁰⁶

Just as activity, then, takes place in the timeless, so, too, nothing prevents also motion from beginning in the timeless, and time is only present because the motion has come to be a certain amount. Changes also are agreed to come to be in the timeless, when Aristotle says that ‘as if change did not come to be all at once’.¹⁰⁷ If change, why not motion as35 well? Change is not grasped here as completed. For there was no need of change in that which has changed.

§6.1.17. If someone were to say that neither activity nor motion need a genus of their own, but that they reduce to the relative because it is activity of what is potentially capable of activity,¹⁰⁸ on the one hand, and because motion on the other is motion of that which moves or undergoes motion,¹⁰⁹ one must reply that the relation itself brings5 about the relatives, and not just because one thing is said relative to another.¹¹⁰

Whenever there is some real existent, even if it belongs to something else or is related to something else, it has acquired a nature prior to the relation. So, activity itself and motion and a state, despite belonging to something else, do not cease being something prior to the relation and10 do not cease to be conceived of in themselves; otherwise, everything would be relative. For, in general, anything has a relation to anything, as in the case of the soul.

And as for production itself and producing, why will they not be reduced to relatives? For they are in any event either motion or activity. If they reduce production to a relative, but make producing a genus on15 its own, why do they not put motion in the genus of the relatives, and yet make moving one genus,¹¹¹ and thus divide moving, as one thing, into the species of producing and being affected, instead of saying, as they now do, that one genus is the producing and the other the being affected?¹¹²

§6.1.18. Given that they will assert that, in the genus producing, some [species] are activities and some are motions, and given they call activities the ones that are all at once, and motions, those like cutting¹¹³ – for cutting is in time – one should investigate whether they are all motions or accompanied by motion,¹¹⁴ and whether all producings are relative to5 being affected or some are independent, such as walking and speaking, and whether all motions are relative to being affected, and the activities are separate or whether each fall into both genera. For indeed I think that they would say that walking, although it is independent, is a motion, and thinking, which has no affection, is itself an activity.10

Or is one to say that neither thinking nor walking is a producing? But if they are not in this genus, where should they be said to be? Perhaps, the act of thinking is relative to the intelligible, as is the faculty of thinking. For sense-perception is relative to the sensible. But if there, too, sense-perception is relative to the sensible, why is not the act of15 sense-perception itself relative to the sensible? And sense-perception, if it is relative to something else, has a relation to that thing, but it is something besides the relation, namely, either an activity or an affection. If, then, the affection is something besides belonging to something and being under the influence of something, so, too, is activity.20 Certainly, walking itself, being both of something, that is, the feet, and being caused by something, is a motion.¹¹⁵ Thinking, then, besides being a relative, is either a motion or an activity.

§6.1.19. One should investigate whether some activities are also held to be incomplete, taking no time in addition, with the result that they come to be identical to motions, for example, living and life. For the living of each human being lies in a complete time,¹¹⁶ and happiness is an activity which does not occur in something without parts; rather, it is such as5 they think motion is, too. The result is that both should be spoken of as motions, and motion is one thing, that is, one genus, because we observe in our theory besides the quantity in substance, both quality and motion applying to it.

And, if you like, call some corporeal, some psychical; and some derive from themselves, while others come about under the influence of other10 things working on them. Or say that some motions come from themselves, and other motions from other things, and some of those derived from themselves are productions, either directed towards other things or independent, while yet other motions are affections derived from other things.

The changes directed towards other things, however, are identical to those derived from other things. For example, cutting which is, on the one hand, in the one cutting, and which is, on the other hand, in the thing being cut, is one, but cutting and being cut are different. Perhaps15 cutting, that is, what originates in the one cutting and that in the thing being cut are not one thing; rather, it is possible for cutting arising from such and such an activity and motion to become another, dependent, motion in the thing cut.

Or perhaps the differentia does not relate to being cut itself, but rather to another supervening motion, like being in pain. For here, too,20 there is something being affected. But what, then, if something does not suffer pain? What else is there then apart from the activity of the one producing the cut which is in this other one?¹¹⁷ So, too, with producing, when it is spoken of in this way. And the producing is double in this way, the one aspect constituted not in something else, and the other in something else.

So, it is not the case that there is producing and being affected; rather,25 producing in another thing has brought it about that there are thought to be two things, producing and being affected, for example, in writing, too, although it is in another thing, requires nothing be affected, because it produces nothing further in the tablet besides the activity of the one writing, just like feeling pain.¹¹⁸ And if someone says he has written, then he does not mention being affected.

And in the case of walking, although there is the earth on which one30 walks, nothing has been affected. But whenever one walks on the body of an animal, he thinks of something being affected as well, taking into account the suffering which supervenes, and not only the walking; otherwise, he would have thought of it before.

So, too, in all cases, with reference to producing, one thing is to be said to be together with the thing said to be affected, that is, the35 opposite. What is said to be affected, is what comes to be afterwards, that is, not the opposite like burning and being burnt,¹¹⁹ but what comes from burning and being burnt – which are one – are what supervenes on these, like pain or something else like shrivelling up.

What, then, happens, if someone does something to give pain, is it not the case that one thing produces, and one thing is affected, even if40 these both come from the one activity?

In fact, one does produce, and one thing is affected. There would not be the wish to give pain in the activity; rather, he would produce something else, through which he gives pain but which, coming about in the one who is going to have the pain, and being the one identical thing, has produced another thing, having pain. Why, then, is the one thing coming about, before it even produces pain, or which does not produce45 pain in the patient, not an affection of the thing towards which the motion happens, like hearing?

In fact, hearing is not an affection, any more than is sense-perception in general, whereas having pain is to come to be affected, which is not opposite to producing.

§6.1.20. So, suppose it is not the opposite. Still, being different from producing, it is not in the identical genus as the production. Or, if both are motions, then they are in the identical genus, for example, ‘alteration is a motion in relation to quality’.¹²⁰

But, then, when the motion relative to quality goes from the producing5 person, is the alteration production, and does the producing belong to him, since he is unaffected?

In fact, if he is unaffected, it will be in the producing, but if he is active towards another, like someone delivering a blow, he is also affected, and he no longer produces.

In fact, nothing prevents the person producing from also being affected. If, then, being affected is relative to the identical thing, like rubbing, why does he produce rather than be affected?10

In fact, because he is rubbed in turn, he is affected as well. So, then, shall we say, because he is moved in turn, that there are also two motions relating to him? And in what way are they two? There is no way. So, then, there is one change.¹²¹

How, then, is the identical motion both production and affection?

In fact, it is like this: it is affection, because it derives from another thing, and the production acts on another thing. Shall we say it is another motion? But how does the motion, in altering the person15 being affected, arrange in a certain way something else, while the producing person is unaffected by it?¹²² How can he be affected by what he produces in another? Does, then, the motion in another thing produce the being affected, which then would not be affected relative to the producing thing?

But if the expressed principle of swan were to produce whiteness, and the swan, in coming to be, becomes white, will we say that it is affected when it acquires substantiality?¹²³ But if so, may it be white also later,20 when it has come to be? If one thing causes growth, and the other grows, is the growing thing affected? Or is affection only in quality?¹²⁴ And if one thing makes something else beautiful, and the other becomes beautiful, is the thing becoming beautiful affected? If, then, the thing becoming beautiful becomes worse or is destroyed, like tin, and the other thing becomes better, like copper, will we say the copper is affected, and the tin produces?

How will we say that the person learning is affected, when the activity of the agent¹²⁵ gets to him?

In fact, how would it be a process of affection, insofar as it is one process? No, in itself is it not a process of affection. But if the one who is learning is affected, where will the being affected come from? It is not at any rate by him not having been put in a state of activity. For learning is not like being hit, any more than is seeing, since it consists in apprehension and cognition.

§6.1.21. What, then, are we to grasp being affected by? Not, certainly, by activity derived from another thing, not if the person receiving the activity makes it his own in receiving it. But wherever there is no activity, is there just a process of affection? What, then, if something became better, would the activity have the property of being worse? Or if5 someone were active viciously, and ruled another licentiously?

In fact, nothing prevents an activity from being bad and a process of being affected from being good.

So, how are we to distinguish production and affection? Is it by the fact that the one involves the activity passing from the agent to another thing, while the affection is in another thing, and is derived from the other one?

What about the case, then, where the activity comes from oneself, and is not directed to another, as in thinking or believing? Or getting10 heated in oneself, when one thinks something or is angered on the grounds of a belief, when nothing from outside is added?

In fact, producing is a motion coming from oneself, whether in oneself or towards another.

What, then, about the appetite, and desire in general, if desire is moved by the object of desire?¹²⁶ That is, unless someone supposes that it is not moved by the object of desire because that desire is awakened15 after that object appears. How, then, does desire differ from being hit or being brought down by being pushed? Must we make distinctions among desires: some of them are productions, that is, those that follow reason, and some of them are affections, that is, those that are pullings?

Is being affected not distinguished by being derived from another thing rather than from oneself – for something might rot in itself – even if nothing is contributed from outside, whenever it endures alteration which does not lead to substantiality,¹²⁷ and which, therefore, diverts20 the thing to the worse or at any rate not to the better? Does such an alteration possess the property of affection, that is, of being affected?

But suppose heating up is to acquire heat, it would be possible for this to contribute towards the substantiality or not. It would follow that the25 identical thing will be both affected and not affected. And how can heating up not be double?

In fact, getting hot, when it contributes to substantiality, will also then contribute to the substantiality of the other thing that is affected, for example, when the bronze is heated, and so is affected, the being is the statue, which does not itself get hot except accidentally. If, then, the30 bronze is more beautiful due to being heated or in respect of being heated, nothing prevents us from saying that it is affected, on the one hand, in becoming worse, and on the other, in becoming better, or neither of the two.

§6.1.22. Being affected, then, comes to be through possessing motion in oneself, which is any alteration whatever. And producing is either possessing in oneself independent motion starting from oneself or that motion which is completed with reference to another from oneself, originating from the one who is said to produce. Furthermore,5 motion is in both, and the differentia distinguishing producing and being affected is that the motion preserves the producer as unaffected in the producing, as such, and affection consists in the thing being differently disposed from what it was before, while the substantiality of the thing affected acquires no addition towards its substantiality, on the grounds that it is something else that is affected, when10 a substance comes to be.¹²⁸

So, the identical motion is in one way producing, and in another, being affected. It will be a producing when considered in one way, although it is the identical motion, and in another way, an affection, because, in the latter case, the one concerned is disposed in such and such a way.

In this way, it looks as though both are relatives, in those cases in which the producing of something is relative to being affected. When looked at in one way, the identical thing is producing, and in another15 way, it is being affected. And each of the two is not being considered in itself, but only along with the other. This one moves, and this one is moved, and these are two predicates in each case. And this one gives to the other motion, while this one receives the motion, so that it is giving and receiving, that is, these are relative.20

In fact, if the receiver is said to have something, for example, a colour, why is it not said to have motion, too? And in the case of independent motion, such as that of walking, the subject has walking and has thinking.

But we should investigate whether forethought is producing, and whether coming to be the recipient of forethought is being affected. For forethought relates to another thing, and is about another thing.

In fact, forethought is not a producing, even if the thinking is about25 something else, nor is the object of thought being affected.

In fact, thinking is not producing – for the thinking does not occur in the object of thought, but is rather about it – nor is it production generally.¹²⁹

Nor should one call all activities productions or a kind of producing. For the production is accidental. What, then, are they? If the walking person makes footprints, do we not say that he has produced them? Yes,30 but that is because he is something else.¹³⁰

In fact, we say that he produces footprints accidentally, and the activity accidentally, because this is not what he was looking to do. For we say ‘produce’ also in the case of inanimate things, for example, fire heats, and the drug worked. But enough of this.

§6.1.23. On the subject of having, if having is said in many ways, why will not all the modes of having be reduced to this one predicate?¹³¹ Thus, with quantity, because it ‘has’ size, and quality, for example, because it ‘has’ colour, so, too, with father and suchlike, because he5 ‘has’ a son, and son, because he ‘has’ a father, and possessions in general.

And if there are other things in those predicates, weapons, sandals, and things to do with the body, one would enquire first why in possessing these things the subject produces another predicate, whereas in contrast, in burning or cutting or digging or losing them, he does not produce another predicate or predicates.¹³² But if the10 reason for there being a distinct predicate here is that the thing envelops the body, then when the cloak is lying on a couch, it will be another predicate as compared to when someone is wrapped in it. But if it is in respect of possession itself, that is, the having, evidently all those other things which are said in respect of having, will in turn be reduced to having, wherever the having might be. For it will not differ depending on what is had.

If, however, you should not say ‘have a quality’, for in this way quality15 would have been said of something, nor ‘having a quantity’ because quantity would have been said of something, nor ‘having parts’ because substance is thus being said of something, why may you say ‘having weapons’, since substance is mentioned there, namely, the one which they belong to? Just how is ‘this man has weapons’ simple and so belongs to one predicate? For this is what ‘being armed’ means.20

Next, does it apply only to a living person or also if it is a statue to whom they belong? For person and statue seem to have them in a different way, probably equivocally. For ‘he is standing’ is not identical in each case. And how is it reasonable that that which infrequently occurs should have a different general predicate?

§6.1.24. In the case of position which also only applies to few things, namely, when they are said to be reclining, being seated, and not simply a matter of being placed, but ‘how it is placed’,¹³³ or ‘is placed in such and such a posture’.¹³⁴ And the posture is something else; for what does being placed mean other than: ‘it is in place’? And since place and posture are5 mentioned, why does one need to combine two categories into one?

Next, if ‘he is seated’ means the activity, then it should be placed among the activities, but if the affection, then in the [genus] of ‘having been affected’ or of ‘being affected’. What else does ‘he is reclining’ mean other than lying propped up, and lying down, or lying between?10 Since ‘reclining on’ is a relative, why is the one reclining not also?¹³⁵ Since we place ‘right’ and ‘left’ among relatives, we also place the one who is on the right or left among relatives, too. So much, then, for these matters.

§6.1.25. There is much also to be said in reply to those¹³⁶ who posit four genera, and divide them into substrates, qualities, dispositions, and relative dispositions;¹³⁷ and who posit a common genus over them, including all things in one genus, because they postulate one common thing, that is, one genus in all cases, namely ‘something’. But their genus5 ‘something’ is unintelligible and irrational; it does not fit both incorporeals and bodies.¹³⁸ And they have left themselves no differentiae with which to divide the something.

The something, then, is either being or non-being. If, then, it is being, it is one of the species of being, and if it is non-being then10 being is non-being. And there are thousands of such objections.

Let us, then, leave them for the present, and investigate the division itself. Having put substrates first in the order, placing matter first before the other things, they rank what they take to be the first principle on a level with the things that, in their eyes, come after the principle.¹³⁹

And first of all, they bring together prior things with posterior ones,15 in one genus, but it is not possible for prior and posterior things to be in the identical genus.¹⁴⁰ For in those things among which there is a prior and a posterior, the posterior takes its existence from the prior, and in things falling under the identical genus, in respect of existence, each thing is equal, namely, in deriving its existence from the genus, if indeed20 a genus must be what is predicated of the species, and is in their essence. For they say, I think, that it is from matter that other things have their existence.

Next, in reckoning the substrate to be one, they have not counted all beings; rather, they are seeking the principles of beings. But it makes a difference if one says principles or things themselves. If they say that25 only matter is being, and all other things are states of matter, they should not have ranked one genus before being and the others.¹⁴¹ It would be better to say that one thing is substance,¹⁴² and the other things are states, which can then be distinguished. As for saying substrates on the one hand, and other things on the other, because the30 substrate is one and has no differentia, unless it is divided, like a mass into parts – though, in fact, substance is not divided because it is continuous – it would have been better to say ‘substrate’ in the singular.

§6.1.26. The most utterly absurd thing is, quite generally, to rank matter, which is in potency, before everything else, and not rank actuality before potency.¹⁴³ For it is not possible for that which is in potency ever to progress to actuality, if that which is potency occupies the place of principle among beings. For indeed it will not bring itself to actuality;5 instead, either something in actuality must exist before it, in which case it is no longer the principle, or, if they were to say they are simultaneous, they would place the principles among chance happenings.

Next, if they are simultaneous, why do they not rank actuality higher? And why is matter more being, and not actuality? And if actuality is posterior, then in what way? For matter does not actually10 generate form, that is to say, unqualified matter does not produce qualified matter, nor does actuality arise from that which is potency. For in that case, actuality would be present in matter, and matter would not be simple any longer.

And in their eyes god is secondary to matter.¹⁴⁴ For body consists of matter and form. And where does god’s form come from? For if he is a principle-like and an expressed principle, even without possessing matter, then god is incorporeal, and that which is able to produce is15 incorporeal. If, even without matter, he is composite in substance, inasmuch as he is body, they will be introducing another kind of matter, namely, god’s matter.

Next, how can matter be a principle, if it is body? For body is necessarily many. And all body consists of matter and quality. And if matter is body in another way, then they will be saying that it is body equivocally.20 If the common feature of body is three-dimensionality, they will be talking about mathematical body. If it is three-dimensionality together with resistance, then they will not be talking of one body.

Next, resistance is either a quality or accompanies a quality. But where does three-dimensionality come from; or who made it extended? For matter does not occur in the account of three-dimensionality, nor25 does three-dimensionality occur in the account of matter. So, in participating in magnitude matter will no longer be simple.

Next, where does its unification come from? For it is indeed not self-unifying, but unified by participation in unity. They actually should have worked out that it is not possible to rank mass before all else, but rather that which is without mass and is one, and that one should begin from that which30 is one and end with the many, moving from that which is without magnitude to magnitudes, assuming it is not possible for the many to be, if that which is one is not, nor for magnitude without that which has no magnitude, and assuming that magnitude is one not by being one itself, but by partaking of that which is one, and by combination.

So, what exists primarily and properly speaking must be prior to that which is by combination. And how does the combination occur? And we35 should enquire what manner of combination it is. For presumably, if they had, they would have found what is not accidentally one. By ‘accidentally’ I mean what is not one by itself, but has its unity from something else.

§6.1.27. What they should have done, preserving in a place of honour the principle of all things, is not to posit as principle the shapeless, nor the passive, nor something not partaking of life, without thought, dark, and indefinite, but rather to refer even substance back to this.¹⁴⁵ For god5 is introduced by them, for the sake of appearances, as possessing his existence from matter, as both composite¹⁴⁶ and posterior, in fact, as being matter in a certain state.

Next, if matter is the substrate, there must be something else which, being outside matter, acts on matter, and makes it into the substrate for those properties which it emits from itself into matter. If god is in10 matter, then he would be substrate, even when he has come to be in matter, and he would not make matter substrate, nor would he himself be substrate together with matter. For what would matter then be substrate to, when he is no longer there to provide the substrates themselves, since all substrates have been used up in what they call the substrate? For the substrate is relative, but not to the thing which is in it,15 but to that which actively affects it as it lies there.

And the substrate is substrate relative to what is not substrate. If so, then it is relative to something outside, with the result that this is what is received. If the substrate needed nothing from outside, it would itself be able to become all things by being formed, as in a dance a man makes20 himself into all things; then it is no longer substrate, but rather all things itself. For just as a dancer is not the substrate to the figures he makes – these are his actuality – so, too, what they call matter will not be substrate to all things, if the other things are derived from it. Indeed, it is rather the case that the other things will not exist at all, if the other25 things are matter disposed in a certain way, in the way that the figures are the dancer disposed in a certain way. If the other things do not exist, then matter itself is not, generally, substrate, and not the matter of beings. Indeed, if there is only matter, then by this fact itself, it is not matter. For matter is relative.

For the relative is relative to another thing, from the identical genus, like double and half, and not substance to double. How can a being30 relative to non-being be a relative, except accidentally? The one is being in itself, and matter is being relative to being. For if matter is potency, what is it going to be if the other principle is not substance? Matter, then, will not be the potency for substance.¹⁴⁷ So they, who accuse others of making substances out of non-substances, themselves make35 substance out of non-substance. For the cosmos, insofar as it is a cosmos, is not a substance. It is absurd to make matter the underlying substance, and not make bodies substances in a stronger sense, and not make the cosmos substance in a stronger sense than these, or only a substance insofar as matter is a part of the cosmos.¹⁴⁸

They say an animal does not have its substantiality from soul, but40 only from matter, and soul is a state of matter, and posterior. So, where does matter have its animation from, and, generally, where does the real existence of the soul come from? How does matter sometimes become bodies, while another bit of it becomes soul? And if the form comes from elsewhere, soul would never come to be when a quality enters matter,45 but only inanimate bodies. If something moulds it, and makes it into soul, the productive soul will be there before the soul that comes to be.

§6.1.28. Given that much has already been said against their hypothesis, let us pause here, lest we ourselves appear absurd in gloating over a victory against such an evident absurdity, having shown that they rank non-being as what is being most of all, that is, putting the last first.5

The explanation for their mistake is sense-perception, which they make their guide, and take as trustworthy in positing principles and other things. For they believe bodies to be beings;¹⁴⁹ next, viewing with apprehension the change of bodies into one another, they thought that what is stable under them is what being is, just as if someone believed place rather than bodies to be being, because they believed that place10 does not pass away. Yet even this is stable in their view, although they should not have believed something stable in just any way to be being; rather, one should first see what must belong to genuine being. For among these [genuine] beings, there also exists everlasting stability. For if a shadow is always stable, following something that is altering, then its being is still not more than that thing. The sensible along with that15 [supposedly stable underlying substrate], and many other things would be, if judged by amount, more the whole being than any one thing of those in it. For if the whole is actually non-being, how is that substrate the fundament?¹⁵⁰

The most amazing thing of all is for those who trust sense-perception in every respect to posit as being something that cannot be grasped by20 sense-perception. For it is not correct to grant matter resistance;¹⁵¹ for this is a quality. If they say they grasp it with intellect, this intellect is absurd in positing matter as prior to itself, granting it being, and not itself.¹⁵² If, then, there is no intellect in their view, how could it be trustworthy when speaking about those things more authoritative than itself, and without being akin to them in any way at all? But enough has25 been said about this nature and these subjects in other places.¹⁵³

§6.1.29. Qualities should be different from substrates in their view, and they claim they are. Otherwise, they would not rank them in second place. So, if they are different, they must be simple. And if they are simple, they are not composite. And if this is so, they do not have matter, insofar as they are qualities. Again, if this is so, they must be incorporeal5 and active. For it is matter that underlies the qualities, and is affected by them.

But if they are composites, then the division contrasting simples and composites is absurd, which first puts them into one genus, and next puts each of them in different species, as though someone were to divide scientific understanding, and call the one part scientific understanding10 of letters, and another part scientific understanding of letters along with something else. If they call qualities qualified matter, first, their formulae are enmattered but they do not make something composite when they come to be in matter; rather, they will be composite before the composite which they make out of matter and form.¹⁵⁴ They are, therefore, neither forms nor formulae.

If they say formulae are nothing but matter disposed in a certain way,15 they will clearly say that qualities are disposed in a certain way, and are to be ranked in the third genus. But if this is a different condition,¹⁵⁵ then what is the differentia making it distinct?

In fact, it is clear that the disposition here is rather a real existent. Yet if there is no real existent there, too, why do they reckon it as one genus or species? For being and non-being certainly cannot fall under the20 identical genus. But what is this thing in the case of matter that is disposed in a certain way? For it must be either being or non-being. And if it is being, then it is entirely incorporeal. And if it is not being, it is spoken of emptily, and it is matter only, and the quality is nothing; nor is the thing disposed in a certain way. For it is even more non-being; and this applies to the fourth genus they speak of in even greater measure.25

Matter, therefore, is alone being. Who, then, proclaims this? Not indeed the matter itself; unless it does, for intellect disposed in a certain way is matter. Yet ‘disposed in a certain way’ is an empty addition. Matter, therefore, says these things and understands them. And if matter speaks with understanding, it would be a wonder how it can think and perform the functions of soul,30 while possessing neither sense nor soul. But if it speaks without understanding, positing itself to be what it itself is not, and could not be, who should this lack of understanding be attributed to?

In fact, if matter speaks, then it should be attributed to matter. But, really, matter does not speak, even if a speaker speaks with many characteristics derived from matter, and belongs wholly to matter, if it has even a portion of soul, in ignorance of itself and of the potency to35 speak the truth about such things.

§6.1.30. As for things which are disposed in a certain way, it is probably absurd to place things disposed in a certain way third, or to place them in any rank at all, since all things disposed in a certain way relate to matter. But they say there is a differentia in the things disposed in a certain way, and that matter is disposed thus and so in one way, and in another among5 things disposed in a certain way, and that, furthermore, qualities are disposed in a certain way relative to matter, whereas things disposed in a certain way properly speaking relate to the qualities. But since the qualities themselves are nothing except matter disposed in a certain way, things disposed in a certain way go back to matter in their view, and will be related to matter.

How is the thing disposed in a certain way a single genus, if there are several differentiae in it? How do three cubits and pale fall under one10 genus, since one is a quantity and the other a quality? And the when and the where? And how is yesterday or last year being disposed in a certain way at all? And how is time disposed in a certain way at all? Neither time itself nor things in time itself, nor things in place nor place itself are15 disposed in a certain way. Nor is the person actively producing in a certain way disposed in a certain way, but rather producing in a certain way; indeed, not in a certain way at all, just simply producing. And the person who is affected in a certain way is not disposed in a certain way; rather, he is affected in a certain way, or, generally, affected in this way.¹⁵⁶ Probably, being disposed in a certain way only really suits things placed in a certain way, and having.¹⁵⁷20

As to the relative, if they did not place it in one genus along with the other things disposed in a certain way, another argument for those enquiring is, namely, whether they ascribe a real existence to such relations, given that they have oftentimes not done so.¹⁵⁸ Furthermore, it is absurd to place a thing which supervenes in the one identical genus with those things which are prior. For one and two must be there before one has half and double.

On those who posited beings or principles of beings in another way, whether unlimited or limited, whether corporeal or incorporeal, or also30 both, it is possible to investigate each group of them separately if one also grasps what ancient thinkers said in answer to their opinions.

¹ See Pl., Soph. 242C4–6; Ar., Meta. 7.1.1028b3–6; Phys. 1.2.184b22–24.

² Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus. See Ar., Meta. 1.3.983b18–21, 984a5–7.

³ Empedocles, on the one hand, Anaxagoras and Democritus on the other. See Ar., Meta. 1.3.984a8–13; Democritus, fr. 68 A 37 DK; Simplicius, In DC 295.1–2.

⁴ I.e., Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.

⁵ I.e., Plato.

⁶ See Ar., Phys. 1.4.187b34.

⁷ See Ar., Phys. 1.4.187b7–8, 6.189a13; Meta.1.2.994b28–29.

⁸ See Ar., Cat. 4.1b25–27; Top. 1.9.103b22–23.

⁹ Cf. infra §25. See e.g., SVF 2.369 (= Simplicius, In Cat. 66.33–67.2).

¹⁰ See Dexippus, In Cat. 1.37.32, 10.34.2 for references to Peripatetic discussions of Categories by Andronicus, Boethus, and their school.

¹¹ Cf. infra 25.24–25; 6.2.2.11. See Ar., Meta. 3.3 999a22–23, and some Stoics.

¹² Other Stoics. Cf. infra 25.1–3.

¹³ Κατηγορία is a predicate or form of predication.

¹⁴ Cf. infra l. 24. See Ar., Cat. 1.1a1–12; Meta. 4.2.1003b5–6; 5.7.1017a22–27; 7.1.1028a10–13.

¹⁵ Cf. 6.3.5.1–7.

¹⁶ I.e., it cannot be that all the genera are in the intelligible world but only some of them are in the sensible world.

¹⁷ See Ar., Meta. 3.3.996a6–7; EE 1.7.1218a1.

¹⁸ Cf. supra 1.26–27.

¹⁹ Plotinus is here alluding to the Stoic summum genus, τι, which is neither corporeal nor incorporeal. See SVF 2.329 (= Alex. Aphr., In Top. 4.301.19 Wallies), 331 (= Sext. Emp., M. 10.218), 332 (= Seneca, Ep. 28.12–18).

²⁰ The Peripatetics. Cf. 6.3.3.1–2, 4.1. See Ar., Meta. 8.3.1043b20–30.

²¹ See Ar., Meta. 7.3.1029a29–30.

²² See Ar., Meta. 7.3.1029a18–19; Stoics, SVF 2.316 (= D.L., 7.150). Epicureans are also included.

²³ Cf. 6.3.9.19–21. See Ar., Cat. 5.2a14–15.

²⁴ The essential property of substance given by Ar., Cat. 5.4a10–11.

²⁵ I.e., the family of the Heraclids all claimed descent from Heracles. See Ar., Meta. 5.28 1024a31–36 and 10.8 1058a24.

²⁶ See Ar., Meta. 4.2.1003b5–10.

²⁷ Aristotle characterizes substance as being ‘a this’ (τόδε τι); an alternative translation is ‘this something’, where ‘something’ (τι), stands for a determinate kind, that is, an individual of a determinate kind, which is the substrate of other things without itself having a substrate. See Cat. 5.b10, 12, 14; Meta. 7.3.1029a1–7.

²⁸ Cf. 3.7.7.19–20. See Ar., Phys. 4.11.219a10; DA 1.3.406b12–13.

²⁹ E.g., a genus such as animal, which is said of human, but in another sense from that in which human is said to be pale, as Plotinus goes on to explain. See Ar., Cat. 1b10, 2a30.

³⁰ See Ar., Cat. 5 2a31–32, 6.3.4.8.

³¹ Cf. 6.3.2–10.

³² I.e., the Peripatetics. See Ar., Cat. 6.4b23–24, 5a38–b1.

³³ Cf. 6.3.11.6–7.

³⁴ The word ποσότης is used for the nature of quantity or ‘quantitativeness’ or ‘quantity as such’, used here in opposition to the term τὸ ποσόν which is used throughout to refer to a particular quantity.

³⁵ Cf. 5.5.4.17; 6.6.9.

³⁶ Cf. 6.6.15.37–42.

³⁷ Cf. infra 5.15, 34; 3.7.9.17.

³⁸ Cf. 6.3.11.11–13. See Ar., Cat. 6.5b27–29, 6a8–11.

³⁹ Cf. 6.6.

⁴⁰ See Ar., Cat. 6.6b32–33 where he is speaking of verbal λόγος or ‘articulate speech’ measurable by long and short syllables.

⁴¹ Cf. 6.3.12.25–28, 19.8–9. See Ar., De int. 2.16a19, 3.16b6, 4.16b26.

⁴² Adopting Igal’s suggestion <τὸ σημαντικὸν ταύτης, τὸ δὲ>. See Simpl., In Cat. 6.131.8–10.

⁴³ The blow belongs to one category and the affection of the air to another.

⁴⁴ See Ar., Phys. 5.10.218a6, 14.223a21–28.

⁴⁵ Cf. 6.3.11.6–7.

⁴⁶ See Ar., Cat. 6.6a26–27.

⁴⁷ I.e., substance and three cubits.

⁴⁸ Cf. 6.3.28.10–11.

⁴⁹ See Ar., Cat. 7.6b11–12.

⁵⁰ This is a play on ἕξις, here ‘state’, which is etymologically related to ἔχειν ‘possess’ or ‘have’.

⁵¹ Cf. 6.3.21.15–21. See Ar., Cat. 7.7b15–21.

⁵² I.e., the Peripatetics.

⁵³ I.e., the existence peculiar to relatives, uniting this kind of being. Cf. supra 7.22–23.

⁵⁴ Cf. supra 8.10ff.

⁵⁵ The Stoic view.

⁵⁶ See Ar., Phys. 2.1.193b19.

⁵⁷ The meaning of λόγος here.

⁵⁸ See Ar., Cat. 1.1a12; 8.10a28–29; Dexippus, In Cat. 33.8–13.

⁵⁹ See Ar., Cat. 8.8b25–9.11b1.

⁶⁰ See Ar., Cat. 8.8b36–9a13.

⁶¹ See Ar., Cat. 8.9a28–10a10.

⁶² See Ar., Cat. 8.9a16.

⁶³ See Ar., Cat. 8.9a19–21.

⁶⁴ Cf. 2.6.1.15–29, 2.1–5; 6.2.14.14–23; 6.3.15.15–18, 17.8–10.

⁶⁵ Cf. supra 1.8

⁶⁶ Actually and potentially, relating to the four kinds of quality. Cf. infra 11.8–22.

⁶⁷ Eliminating the interrogative punctuation in HS².

⁶⁸ Reading τὸ κάλλος with the mss.

⁶⁹ See Ar., Cat. 8.10a14.

⁷⁰ See Ar., Cat. 8.9a19–20.

⁷¹ See Ar., Cat. 8.8b36–38.

⁷² See Ar., Cat. 8.8b26.

⁷³ Cf. supra 10.8–11.

⁷⁴ See Ar., Cat. 8.9a14–16.

⁷⁵ See Ar., Cat. 8.9a35–b11.

⁷⁶ See Ar., Cat. 8.10a11–12.

⁷⁷ See Ar., Cat. 8.10a16–22.

⁷⁸ Cf. 6.3.9, 11.

⁷⁹ See Ar., Cat. 8.10a25; Andronicus apud Simplicius, In Cat. 8.263.19–22.

⁸⁰ Cf. 6.6.3.17.1–5.

⁸¹ Omitting from l. 10 the words τῷ ὠφελίμῳ καὶ βλαβερῷ which are a repetition of the words in l. 8.

⁸² See Andronicus apud Simplicius, In Cat. 8.258.18–22.

⁸³ The word is θεώρημα.

⁸⁴ Cf. supra 6.26–28. See Ar., Cat. 7.6b2.

⁸⁵ Cf. supra 10.8–9.

⁸⁶ See Pl., Phd. 100E5–6.

⁸⁷ See Pl., Tim. 37A3–5; Ar., Cat. 4.2a2–4.

⁸⁸ The Peripatetics.

⁸⁹ See Ar., Cat. 4.2a1–2.

⁹⁰ See Ar., Cat. 6.6a12–14.

⁹¹ Delphi was for the Greeks the ὀμφαλός or ‘navel’ of the earth. See, e.g., Pindar, Pythian 4.74; Pl., Rep. 427C3–4.

⁹² Cf. 6.2.16.4. See Ar., Phys. 4.5.212b13–16. The implication is that this is then not a distinct category if it is not something simple. See Ar., Cat. 2.1a16–19 and Cat. 4.

⁹³ See Ar., Cat. 4.1b27, 9.11b1.

⁹⁴ The participial form ποιῶν (‘producing’) makes apparent that there must be a subject, i.e., a being, that produces, which the nominal form ποίησις (‘production’) does not. See Ar., Meta. 7. 1.1028a22–29.

⁹⁵ See Ar., Meta. 9. 3. 1047a32; 12.5 1071a1–2.

⁹⁶ See Pl., Soph. 254D4–5.

⁹⁷ Cf. 6.3.21.1.

⁹⁸ See Ar., Phys. 3.2.201b31–32; Meta. 11.9.1066a20–21.

⁹⁹ See SVF 2.498 (= Simplicius, In Cat. 9.307.1–6).

¹⁰⁰ See Ar., Phys. 5.4.227b15–17.

¹⁰¹ The examples here, and seeing in l. 18 are traditional. See Ar. Meta. 9.6.1048b29, 33.

¹⁰² Plotinus is here contradicting Ar., Phys. 6.2.232b20.

¹⁰³ See Pl., Parm. 156E1, referring to the ‘instant’ (τὸ ἐξαίφνης); κίνησις νοῦ (‘motion of intellect’) would be another example of motion not in time.

¹⁰⁴ Reading ἀναλογία with the mss.

¹⁰⁵ See Ar., Phys. 6.4.235a18–25.

¹⁰⁶ See Theophrastus apud Simplicius, In. Cat. 9.304.32–33.

¹⁰⁷ See Ar., Phys. 1.3.186a15–16; Meta. 8.6.1048b28–35.

¹⁰⁸ Cf. 6.3.21.9. See Simplicius, In Cat. 6.63.9–11.

¹⁰⁹ See Ar., Phys. 3.1.200b30–31; 8.1.251a9–10.

¹¹⁰ Cf. supra 8.7–8; 6.3.21.15–17.

¹¹¹ Cf. infra 20.12–13; 22.5–11; 6.3.21.6–9.

¹¹² See Pl., Tht. 156A5–7, 157A4–6; Boethus apud Simplicius, In Cat. 9.302.15–17.

¹¹³ See Ar., Cat. 4.2a3–4.

¹¹⁴ Cf. supra 16.25–35.

¹¹⁵ See Ar., DA 1.3.406a9.

¹¹⁶ See Ar., EN 1.11.1101a11–13.

¹¹⁷ See Ar., Phys. 3.3.202a13–b29 on where motion is.

¹¹⁸ See Sosigenes apud Dexippus, In Cat. 9.2.

¹¹⁹ See Ar., Cat. 4.2a4.

¹²⁰ See Ar., Phys. 5.3.226a26.

¹²¹ Cf. supra 17.15–17.

¹²² See Ps.-Archytas apud Simplicius, In Cat. 9.314.16–18 (= p. 28.27–28 Thesleff).

¹²³ Cf. infra 21.21, 26; 22.9. For the phrase εἰς οὐσίαν (‘into substantiality’) see Pl., Soph. 219B4–5 and Ar., DA 2.5.417b10 where it is equivalent to εἰς ἐντελέχειαν.

¹²⁴ See Ar., Meta. 5.21.1022b15.

¹²⁵ I.e., the teacher.

¹²⁶ See Ar., DA 3.10.433a28–29.

¹²⁷ Cf. supra 20.20 and infra l. 24; 6.6.3.22.21.

¹²⁸ Cf. 6.3.21.6–9, 22.23–25.

¹²⁹ See Sext. Emp., M. 8.406–407.

¹³⁰ I.e., the person produces the footprints, not the walking.

¹³¹ See Ar., Cat. 4.1b27, 15.15b17; Meta. 5.23.1023a8.

¹³² See Ar., Cat. 15.15b19–22.

¹³³ See Ar., Cat. 4.2a2–3.

¹³⁴ The meaning of σχήμα here.

¹³⁵ See Ar., Cat. 7.6b11–12.

¹³⁶ I.e., the Stoics.

¹³⁷ See SVF 2.369 (= Simplicius, In Cat. 4.66.33–67.2).

¹³⁸ See SVF 2.329 (= Alex. Aphr., In Top. 4.301.19 Wallies), 330 (= Sext. Emp., M. 1.17), 334 (= Philo, Leg. alleg. 151.28).

¹³⁹ See SVF 1.85 (= D.L., 7.134), 87 (= Stob., Ecl. 132.26), 2.316 (= D.L., 7.150).

¹⁴⁰ See Ar., Meta. 3.3.999a6–7.

¹⁴¹ Cf. 2.4.1.6–11. See Ar., Meta. 1.3.983b9–11.

¹⁴² Using the Peripatetic terminology in the criticism of Stoicism.

¹⁴³ See Ar., Meta. 9.8.1049b5.

¹⁴⁴ See SVF 2.313 (= Plutarch, De com. not. 1085b–c), 323 (= Galen, De qual. incor. 19.476.4–477.7).

¹⁴⁵ Cf. 4.4.7.4.16–17. See SVF 2.1047 (= Alex. Aphr., De mixt. 226.10–19).

¹⁴⁶ Cf. supra 6.26.16.

¹⁴⁷ Cf. 6.3.8.30–31.

¹⁴⁸ See SVF 2.323 (= Galen, De qual. incor. 19.476.4–477.7).

¹⁴⁹ See SVF 2.329 (= Alex. Aphr., In Top. 4.301.19 Wallies).

¹⁵⁰ Cf. 6.3.4.3. See Pl., Tim. 52B1.

¹⁵¹ See SVF 2.381 (= Galen, De qual. incor. 19.483.8–484.5).

¹⁵² On the supposition that intellect cannot be grasped with the senses.

¹⁵³ Cf. 2.4.6–16; 3.6.6–19.

¹⁵⁴ See Alex. Aphr., De an. 17.15–18.10.

¹⁵⁵ The meaning of σχέσις here.

¹⁵⁶ See Dexippus, In Cat. 38.34.19–24.

¹⁵⁷ Πὼς ἔχων (‘being disposed in a certain way’) here is equated to ἔχων (‘having’ or ‘possessing’). See SVF 2.401 (= Boethus of Sidon apud Simplicius, In Cat. 337.7–8).

¹⁵⁸ See Sext. Emp., M. 8.453.